"I'M YOUR SYSTEM."
The voice was high, melodic, and annoyingly smug.
Evo landed lightly on a jagged rock beside her, wings fluttering like silk curtains in a phantom breeze. Faint dots of light shimmered around them, providing an unexpected flair to the tiny creature.
Hayden's brow twitched. "What the hell is a system?"
Evo blinked, tilting their head, slightly confused. Then - laughter. "Oh. Oh! You're from a different Earth. No wonder!"
With a snap of their fingers, darkness poured from Evo's hand like an inkfall. It spread across the ground, swallowing trees, grass, and sky until the world around her was an abyss. Stars flared overhead, rearranging themselves into a system she didn't recognise.
The sun glowed in the centre - but the planets orbiting it weren't hers.
"I am a system created by the UAPA," Evo began, voice echoing in the void. "We identify and reform villains who destabilise worlds. Reforming. Rehabilitation. Elimination. Whatever preserves universal order." They clapped once, sparks scattering. "And you, Hayden, are contracted to us for the next fifteen years."
Before Hayden could reply, the star map shifted. One planet swelled into view - deep purple oceans and jagged continents turning beneath its clouds.
"This is Freya," Evo said. "We're operating under its jurisdiction. Right now we're on Kendo - one of its sixteen continents, and I've calculated we have a thirty-five percent chance of success starting here, in the city of Salair."
Hayden snorted. "And if I don't?"
The sparkle in Evo's eyes went crazy. "Then we reclaim what we've given."
Hayden eyes narrowed, crossing her arms. "Which is…?"
The void shrank back into Evo's fingers, and the forest returned.
"Your life," Evo said simply. "According to our database, your adoptive family was destined to die the night you signed with us. You were meant to die in that forest at age five. We changed that. We saved you."
Hayden's voice dropped to a razor edge. "What?"
Evo rose into the air, wings spreading. "We defied your fate. Now you will help others defy theirs."
She stared, silent.
Evo's smile widened, bright as it was venomous. "Or we send you to the lowest level of hell for three thousand years - along with every soul tied to your contract. Your biological mother. Your adoptive family. Your lover. All of them."
They twirled lazily in the air, as if describing a vacation. "You'll burn, you'll be whipped, you'll be enslaved. You'll be tortured. And they'll be right besides you. Because of you, they will suffer again. You get the gist, right?"
Hayden blinked once, a knot forming in her throat. The words flew over her head.
Her mind was burning.
"Fun, isn't it?" Evo beamed.
Hayden tilted her head back, now ignoring the little thing, curling her fist. She dryly laughed, "I'm dreaming, aren't I?"
She inhaled deeply, then shouted into the air a name she hadn't spoken in years. "Genevieve! If this is some twisted game, I'll cut your other hand off this time!"
Evo pouted, but their smile snapped back like a rubber band. "Even if you don't believe me, you will soon."
Hayden didn't answer. Her eyes tracked the dirt path ahead, where the trail vanished into the treeline, shadows sliding under dusty sunlight. Without a glance back, she strode past the hovering creature.
Her mind sifted the last few minutes piece by piece. If this was Genevieve's latest illusion, fine - she'd carve through it like last time.
Step one: find the core. Break it.
She walked. Past moss-slick rocks. Past twisted trees. Past a narrow creek whose ripples carried no sound.
Silence pressed in.
A glance over her shoulder showed Evo still drifting along behind her, wings whispering against the unmoving air, eyes unreadable.
Could Genevieve have evolved enough to make intelligent constructs?
Hayden slowed, bare feet pressing into the stones, sun burning against her bare shoulders.
Or was this a hallucination?
Her thoughts turned sharp. To create self-aware illusions, Genevieve would have had to consume others like her — a move the Force would have noticed immediately. No one at that level roamed free without surveillance.
Unless… it wasn't Genevieve.
A demonae? No - too arrogant to waste their power on lush, breathing worlds.
Another illusionist? Someone outside the system? A rival state?
Had the Force finally discovered her identity and sent an inquisitor?
Was its her fathers minions? But they-
Her temples throbbed. She massaged her head.
Then it hit her - Evo had mentioned her family.
Her lover.
Her mother.
No one alive should know of them. She had made sure of that. Bella, her ex-therapist, had been the last loose end.
Unless… a mind mage.
But mind mages couldn't craft illusions. And they'd never work with illusionists - they had been mortal enemies with them for the past fifty years. Revolutionists like Genevieve despised those who worshipped the old world.
It was like fire and water.
Still… however unlikely, a partnership between the two could explain this.
Whatever this was, where-ever she was, she couldn't think of another reasonable explanation.
Which meant Evo wasn't just a piece of the illusion. Evo could be the core.
Hayden stopped walking and slowly turned.
Evo - the self-proclaimed 'Villain Reformation System' - a name she found insultingly stupid - froze mid-air.
Hayden's mouth curled.
"Got you," she said.
And lunged.