The Observer's medbay had the kind of silence that made you want to check if everyone was still breathing. Not the peaceful quiet you got after a job well done, but the heavy, suffocating kind that settled over people who'd watched their friend dissolve into digital static while trying to save their asses.
Emma sat on one of the diagnostic beds, staring at readings that kept fluctuating between "enhanced human" and "what the hell is this thing." Her enhancement matrix felt like it had been through a blender, then asked to file a performance report while everything was still on fire. Which was probably accurate, considering she'd just caught a chunk of corrupted matter that weighed more than most cities.
Aisha was across the room with her remaining eye fixed on absolutely nothing. The patch over her missing eye looked almost absurd, like trying to fix a dam breach with a band-aid. She hadn't said a word since they'd gotten aboard, just sat there while her Techsynth arm occasionally twitched through damaged system diagnostics.
Chloe held Markus's data chip like it might crumble if she breathed wrong. Tears streamed down her face in steady, silent tracks, but she didn't make any sound. Just stared at the little piece of tech that contained everything left of their friend. Her enhanced strength, which could punch through reinforced steel without breaking a sweat, was completely fucking useless against the kind of damage that couldn't be beaten into submission.
Emma wanted to say something. Had to say something. But what do you tell someone whose best friend got unmade by cosmic forces while saving your life? Thanks felt pathetic. Sorry was empty noise. And the whole "his sacrifice mattered" speech was the kind of bullshit people said when they were trying to make themselves feel better about things that couldn't be fixed.
Lucas stood by the viewport, his back to everyone else. His Kineticvance kept firing in little unconscious bursts, making debris outside shift randomly before drifting back when his focus slipped. It was the kind of nervous power leakage that happened when enhanced humans were running on autopilot while their brains tried to process trauma that didn't fit into any normal categories.
The silence stretched between them like something physical, heavy and wrong and full of all the words nobody could figure out how to say. Emma had been exhausted before, injured, running on fumes and spite. But this was different. This felt broken in ways that went deeper than battle fatigue.
She tried thinking of something useful. Some joke or observation that might cut through the grief and remind them they were still alive, still had work to do. But her mind felt scraped clean, like someone had taken sandpaper to the inside of her skull and removed anything that might have resembled optimism.
The worst part was how isolated everything felt. These people were her team, her family, the closest thing to normal human connection she'd had since her abilities manifested. But right now they might as well have been strangers trapped in separate bubbles of private hell.
Auren kept trying to run social interaction protocols, feeding her suggestions about meaningful conversation and emotional support for teammates experiencing psychological distress. But the AI's advice felt mechanical, like reading instructions written by someone who'd never actually lost anyone.
Emma stood and headed for the bridge, leaving her friends to their grief. Maybe Gray would have tactical updates or repair status or literally anything that might give her something to focus on besides the hollow ache where victory was supposed to feel satisfying.
The bridge looked like someone had reassembled it using blueprints written in crayon by a drunk engineer. Control panels flickered with readings that changed every few seconds, status displays showing information that probably meant something important if you spoke whatever language the ship's designers had been using.
Gray hunched over the central console, his enhanced intellect processing data streams at speeds that left fresh blood trailing down his cheeks. He looked up when she entered, and the exhaustion in his eyes went way beyond simple physical fatigue.
"How bad?" Emma asked, though she wasn't sure she wanted the answer.
Gray wiped blood from his nose, leaving a red smear across his knuckles. "Ship's functional, barely. Life support's holding, engines at sixty percent, navigation systems stopped asking us to prove we exist. So that's progress."
Emma waited. His tone suggested there was more, and none of it would improve anyone's day.
"But you're not asking about the ship," Gray continued, his voice carrying that careful neutrality he used when about to deliver information that would make everyone's situation significantly worse. "You want to know about Titan Chaos. What we actually faced back there."
Emma settled into one of the bridge chairs, which had apparently been designed for beings with completely different skeletal structures than humans. "Sylvara mentioned a forty percent wielder. What does that mean?"
Gray's expression shifted, his enhanced intellect processing implications that made his hands shake. "I've been running calculations based on the energy signatures we encountered, cross-referencing with data from previous Titan-enhanced entities. The results are..." He paused, searching for words adequate to describe whatever his abilities had concluded.
"Titan Chaos isn't enhanced entropy," Gray finally said. "It's the conceptual opposite of existence itself. Every other Titan power we've seen reshapes reality, imposes new patterns on the fundamental forces governing how the universe operates. But Chaos doesn't reshape anything. It questions whether reality has any business existing in the first place."
Something cold settled in Emma's stomach. "And a forty percent wielder?"
"Wouldn't be a person," Gray said, barely above a whisper. "It would be a living black hole for reality itself. Something that could unmake star systems just by existing in the same general area. Makes what we just fought look like a minor inconvenience."
[Lore Database Updated: Titan Chaos - Prime Level Threat. Threat Level OMEGA Confirmed. Current Objective: Seek Small Gods (Urgency: MAXIMUM).]
Auren's update hit like a punch to the gut. Emma had been thinking their recent battle was the culmination, the final confrontation that would determine whether reality continued existing. Apparently it had just been a preview, a small taste of forces operating on scales she couldn't comprehend.
"How do we fight something like that?" Emma asked, suspecting she already knew.
"We don't," Gray replied. "We find the Small Gods and hope they know something we don't. Because if a forty percent Chaos wielder manifests anywhere in this reality, our options become very limited very quickly."
Emma left the bridge feeling worse than when she'd arrived. The observation deck was empty, which suited her perfectly. She settled into one of the acceleration couches and stared out at stars that looked different now.
Before Korrath, she'd found comfort in the universe's vastness, the reminder that infinite possibilities existed on countless worlds where people lived without worrying about cosmic threats or enhanced abilities. But now the darkness between stars felt hostile, full of things wanting to convince the universe that existence was a mistake needing correction.
[Emma - Recommend Rest Protocol. Dopamine levels: Low. Cortisol: High. Psychological stress indicators suggest immediate intervention required.]
Auren's concern felt genuine, but Emma ignored it. Rest wouldn't fix what was wrong. Neither would therapy or meditation or any standard trauma treatments. Because the problem wasn't just what she'd experienced. It was what she'd done.
When she'd killed Korrath, when grief and fury pushed her abilities beyond every limit, she'd felt something that terrified her more than any external threat. For just a moment, in the space between her determination to destroy the void sorcerer and actually ripping his throat out, she'd understood Titan Negation's appeal.
The power to simply end things. Stop the constant struggle, the endless cycle of fighting and losing people and watching reality tear itself apart. To question whether consciousness and meaning and everything she'd been fighting to preserve were really just elaborate self-deceptions causing more pain than they prevented.
It would be so easy to let go. Stop insisting that existence mattered and Emma Forrest flying through space made logical sense. Embrace the philosophical certainty that nothing had ever been real and fighting back just prolonged an inevitable conclusion.
That thought scared her more than anything she'd faced. Not because it was alien or incomprehensible, but because it felt familiar. Like something that had always lurked in her mind's back corners, waiting for the right moment to suggest giving up was the sensible option.
Emma stared at the stars and wondered if using her abilities was slowly converting her into the kind of threat they'd just finished fighting. Whether every time she pushed her enhancement matrix beyond safety limits, she took another step toward becoming something the next generation of enhanced humans would need to stop.
The possibility that she might be the forty percent wielder Gray described made her stomach clench with dread transcending normal fear. Not because she wanted to destroy reality, but because she could imagine circumstances where it might seem merciful.
Gray's voice cut through the ship's comm system, carrying panic that made Emma's enhanced hearing ache.
"Emma! Something's out there! Not Titan! Not WoodDust! It's... watching us. High Outerversal reading... It's aware."
Emma's enhancement matrix surged back to life, abilities operating on backup power suddenly flooding with adrenaline and tactical focus. Whatever was out there, whatever had found them in the emptiness between stars, it was something new. Something operating on scales that made their recent battles look like children playing with toys.
She ran toward the bridge, flight capabilities carrying her through corridors that suddenly felt too small and exposed. Behind her, the observation deck's viewports showed only stars and darkness, but Emma could feel something vast and incomprehensible turning its attention toward their damaged ship.
The hunt was about to begin again.