Not Important

Jethro brushed past the masked man and carefully took the gloves from the nurse's hands.

They were worse than he feared: there was barely anything left of it; the leather was burnt and brittle, skeletal outlines of the stitching jutting outside. The repulsors fizzed and sparked, and with fingers damaged, there were no sensors to activate the beams.

Still, Jethro put them on. The damaged leather snagged, his fingers protruded awkwardly from the burnt holes, and his palms were exposed through scorched patches. They felt fragile, alien, yet he felt better once they were on.

Like he'd gotten a warm hug from home.

The masked man watched him curiously until Jethro finished. Then he asked, "May we proceed?"

Jethro looked back at him, his earlier defiance banked but not extinguished. "Lead the way, sir."

He waited for the man to walk past him, then fell into step behind his huge figure as they exited the health post together. Once they were outside, Jethro did a quick scan of his surroundings.

It was clearly the hallway of a high-ranking facility. He could tell from the slick floor that pulsed briefly each time a foot stepped on it. Boots that belonged to the numerous Beastcorp officials roaming about.

Nurses, Troopers, and random workers daddled here and there, going about their duties. Some looked at his direction, noticing him before speaking to one another in whispers. Jethro averted his gaze and quickened his steps, seeing he was lagging behind the masked man.

He caught glimpses of rooms they passed. He saw other patients in clinic beds, mechbeasts inside cybernetic chambers, professors experimenting on vials of aether and mechanical devices.

In some rooms, some patients argued with nurses, professors and their apprentices hurried to pull mechbeasts out of contraptions after failed experiments. In one particular room, he had seen someone grow a third arm as he yelled in pain. The scientist inside, catching Jethro's stare, walked to the door and snapped the privacy screen closed.

Jethro's frown stretched. 'What is this damn place?'

The masked man was quiet for all of the journey, leading him through turn after turn, elevating to higher floors using ascenders, until they arrived at a thick silver-plated door. Unlike the others, it had no keypad or scanner. It simply opened with a hiss as they approached, like it had been waiting.

Inside was a room Jethro could swear he'd seen once before in some sci-fi movie.

It was wide but spartan. The walls were metal smooth, and that was purely it. There was no design or decoration for the room. Apart from the single long table of dark crystal in the center and the holoprojectors at the left corner, there was barely anything in the room.

But there was someone.

Jethro instantly recognized the President of Beastcorp Academy. He remembered seeing her in the New tamer's Wing right after he had hatched his Gutterling, and she had barely changed since then.

She still wore the same clothing: a porcelain dress with high collars, a cloak falling down to the metal floor, the halo floating behind her and the single-horned headgear. When he came in, her purple eyes scanned him intensely, as if she was trying to find the answers to all the questions she could have in that one gaze.

"Jethro Merrick," she said, her voice smoother than he remembered from her academy address. "Welcome."

Jethro refused to move for a moment, feeling unease with how silent and empty the room was, especially when the door hissed shut behind him, sealing him in. But he knew if they wanted to harm him, they could have done it a long time ago.

He fought against the tension, squaring his shoulders. "You're the President. We met at the Hatching Ceremony."

Velara tilted her head, uncertain. "Met?"

"Yes. We locked eyes when you were giving your speech. You must have thought that it was odd for—" He paused, reading the room and the absolute lack of recognition in her impassive, flawless features. "It's not important."

What was he even thinking? A woman like the President wouldn't remember something as insignificant as that.

Velara didn't say anything, she only kept looking at him. Her expression was as engineered as the room— metallic, impassive and flawless. She gestured to the seat opposite her, across the crystal table. "Sit."

Jethro walked to the chair slowly while the masked man stepped aside and stood silent by the wall. Velara noticed him. "Orlance?" she called. "Hope all went smoothly?"

The masked man stepped forward and bowed once. "Yes, President. The boy was cooperative."

Jethro glanced at the man, committing his name to memory as he pulled the chair back, sat down, and leaned back like someone trying to look relaxed while being strapped to a lie detector.

President Velara allowed him a moment to gather himself before she began.

"Alongside six other new tamers and an escort, you were allocated to Rift 23, located at the derelict mechhouse in Sector Four's northeastern quadrant. The Rift that, confirmed to be Grey Rank ended up leading to the Darc Throne Depths— a zone only accessible through Black Rank Rifts. Can you tell me how this was possible?"

Jethro thought about it for a moment.

It made sense why they would ask this question. Beastcorp's priority was clear: preventable tamer deaths were a liability, especially caused by Rift misclassification. If they could find the cause of this incident, they could stop it from happening in the future.

But when he thought about it, it wasn't necessarily the Rift that had just thrown them into the Darc Throne Depths.

It was that ominous fork they ran into.

"Two routes appeared as we walked down the Outer Mire," Jethro replied. "The escort assured us that it was normal for something like this to happen. So, we chose to go through the passage leading right, which ended up being the one that led to the Darc Throne Depths."

Velara's face showed some slight surprise and familiarity, like she knew what had happened, though surprised by it.

"You know what it is," Jethro said, catching her quick reaction.

Velara looked at him. "I have no problem telling you if you're so curious."

Jethro waited.

"It's a Divergent Rift," she said. "Have you not heard of one before?"

"I've heard rumors," Jethro replied instantly. "Didn't think it'll be true."

Velara inclined her head, a minuscule movement. "Rifts are supposed to anchor to one specific zone of Darcworld, creating a stable 'mission shard.' However, in extremely rare cases, the compressed space within a Rift can fracture under magical tension, forming a Divergent Rift. A Rift that lead to two separate Zones."

Jethro's eyes narrowed in thought. "You said it's rare. How rare are we talking?"

"Approximately one occurrence per five thousand Rift activations," Velara stated, her voice devoid of inflection. "And even then, no Divergent Rift has led to the Darc Throne Depths."

An exhale of disbelief left Jethro. "What an insane amount of bad luck."

"Bad luck?" Velara said, raising one cold, curious brow. "You survived facing Decterion Darc and you call that bad luck?"

Jethro looked at her, rethinking his words before shrugging and folding his arms. "It doesn't feel like luck when you watch so many people die. It feels like you cheated. I mean, I don't wish that I had died with them, but they didn't all have to die for me to feel lucky."

Velara's head tilted at his use of the word 'all.' "All?" she echoed, causing him to pull away from his bleak thoughts and look at her.

"What?" he asked.

"You think that you all died? She said, her voice dangerously calm. "There was one more survivor or did you not know?"

Jethro's eyes widened. "Who else survived?"

Velara waited a moment before responding, "Padva Darlstarc. The Princess of Sector Twelve."

"She too survived."

A surge of excitement, relief and shock washed through Jethro that very moment.