Chapter 2: Echoes of the Broken Core
The Ghost Charge
The miner's ghost screamed —
a sound that tore at the mind more than the ears.
It flickered and stuttered, body half-phasing through reality,
ash swirling around it like storm wings.
Zaraya braced herself — cosmic pulse crackling across her fists —
ready to meet the charge with force.
But Kael moved first.
He stepped between them, blade raised not to strike —
but to block.
"Wait!" he barked, voice cutting through the chaos.
Zaraya faltered, confusion flashing across her face.
Kael's sword glowed faintly, shadows flickering along the edge.
His eyes — that deep violet — burned with grim certainty.
"They're not just echoes," he said coldly. "They're souls.
Trapped here. Twisting. Hurting."
The ghost stumbled at the barrier Kael made —
its form flickering with broken sobs.
Jax swore under his breath.
"Great. Haunted zombie miners. Exactly what I signed up for."
Plo paled, tapping frantically at her data-slate.
"The fracture's energy signature — it's like… a net.
It's catching them. Binding them. They can't move on."
Iselyra stepped closer, Frostbrand humming softly with frozen resonance.
"Can they be freed?" she asked quietly.
Kaelen's mouth tightened.
"Maybe. But not by killing them."
The Battle of Mercy
The ghost shrieked again —
not in rage this time, but in pain —
lashing out blindly with multiversal backlash energy.
Time rippled around them —
the walls shifted —
gravity spasmed.
Another ghost appeared —
then another —
a whole wave of miners, their bodies twisted, faces half-recognizable.
"We need to disable them!" Zaraya snapped. "Non-lethal! Trip them, bind them, knock them down — but don't destroy their cores!"
Jax grimaced but holstered his blaster for stun rounds.
Iselyra gripped Frostbrand tighter —
she would use the flat of the blade, not the edge.
Plo, wide-eyed but determined, unleashed a series of energy dampeners Drex had stored in his saddle.
The Dawnbreakers fought like a unit —
their first real test of mercy under fire.
Zaraya slammed ghost-miners into walls with kinetic bursts — stunning, not shattering.
Kael weaved through the battlefield, shadow-barriers shielding the souls.
Jax moved quickly, tagging stunned ghosts with null-clamps to prevent further phasing.
Iselyra used cold blasts to freeze but