36. The Borrowed Moon

The forest was silent but tense, a breath held beneath the ash-coated canopy. Mira crouched low, her exoskeleton whirring softly as she scanned the motionless undergrowth. Sparks flickered faintly from the nearby ruins—residue of ancient battles long buried in the soil. Caleb stood beside her, the faint pull of gravity coiling in the air like a storm waiting to unfurl.

A shriek broke the quiet—a Wanderer leapt from the shadows, its semi-mechanical limbs flailing like a corrupted marionette. Without hesitation, Caleb shifted the gravity around it, slamming it to the ground midair with brutal precision. Mira lunged forward, a flash of golden energy pulsing from her palm as she struck. The creature let out a distorted screech before collapsing into dust and metal fragments.

"One down," she said, reaching into the heap to extract a glowing protocore. She tossed it into her pouch, already half-filled and humming with unstable energy.

The silence didn't last. More emerged from the decaying terrain. The forest erupted in chaos as Wanderers swarmed them—glitching, grotesque things that pulsed with corrupted code, wires jutting from flesh, their movements disjointed and furious. Mira's body moved on instinct, ducking, weaving, releasing bursts of controlled Destructio that cracked the air like thunder and seared deep craters into the earth. Caleb stood like a pillar at her side, his control over gravity twisting the battlefield—foes crushed mid-leap, bent sideways into trees, or held helpless in midair before being annihilated.

By the time the last one dissolved into silence, the clearing was littered with scorched ground and broken remnants. Their pouches brimmed with protocores, glowing with eerie light, their heat radiating like the breath of something alive.

Midnight settled over the wasteland. Instead of turning back, they wandered further, driven by instinct and a quiet need neither voiced. Eventually, the trees opened up to reveal a nameless lake at the far edges of Lingshir's outskirts. The air was thick with humidity, clinging to their skin. The lake, still and glasslike, mirrored the moonlight with haunting clarity. Not a single ripple marred its surface, as though time itself had paused to watch.

Caleb sat down first, stretching his limbs, gaze drawn to the artificial moon overhead—bright and strange, suspended in the black velvet of the night sky.

"I saw this before in the lab's system logs," he said quietly. "Philosians missed the moonlight of their homeland, so they built an artificial satellite to mimic it. They couldn't bear a sky without it."

Mira knelt by the shore, dipping her fingers into the lake. The water curled around them, smooth and cool, pulses of energy rippling out where her touch met the surface. It was a relief against the heat pouring from her transfer port, still faintly glowing from battle.

"When we finally see the moonlight on our homeland," Caleb murmured, "we'll remember this night."

Mira's voice was distant, a whisper caught in the breeze. "It's so far away."

"Yes," Caleb replied. "Anything could happen. We might not even make it."

She pushed her hand deeper into the water, the surface tension parting around her wrist. The ripples widened and traveled across the lake, scattering stars across its mirrored surface. "It doesn't matter, so long as we're together."

He looked at her then, eyes reflecting the false moonlight, and tilted his head upward. "No matter what happens, we'll always have the memory of tonight to hold close to our hearts. Even if everything else fades, this won't."

He raised his hand. A tiny, spinning black hole shimmered into existence above his palm. The gravity it emitted tugged at the surface of the lake. Ripples turned to waves, drawn upward, swirling into the air. The water responded to his will, gathering and lifting, forming a massive, transparent sphere that hovered above the lake, glowing with reflected moonlight and glinting like crystal.

"On that planet," Caleb said, his eyes on the sphere, "there's something called a crystal ball. They're often given as gifts. A way to capture a memory."

"Are they also made out of water?" Mira asked, her voice filled with quiet awe.

He shook his head gently. "No. The ones there are smaller. Sometimes they have tiny items inside to create scenes—tiny houses, trees, snow. They're meant to feel like a world in your hands."

He stood and extended his hand toward her, the lake-light casting shadows across his features. "This one only belongs to us. No one else can see it but us."

She took it, her fingers sliding into his. The sphere shimmered overhead, fragile and beautiful—a memory suspended in gravity and light. It refracted the sky above them, catching fragments of starlight and moonlight, painting them both in colors that didn't quite exist.

And for a moment, they weren't weapons or failed experiments. Just two souls beneath a borrowed moon, dreaming of a world that waited in the stars. The moment stretched, eternal and quiet, held between heartbeat and silence, between one breath and the next.