"When the rain falls upward, time itself holds its breath. The wise find shelter, but the Unbound walk out to listen." — Field Report 228: Temporal Phenomena, Atlas Fringe
ARCHIVE ENTRY: FACILITY STANDARD ERA // 3163 FSE
Source: Central Core Historical Codex
Classification: Open Access – Cadet Level Clearance
The New Facility existed within a faint corner of the universe, a surviving fragment of the Galaxy of Cornelius. Half of that galaxy remained under the Facility's protection, while the rest had been consumed by the Vortex Frontier, the shifting dangerous environment that swallowed stars and left behind silence. Within the remaining half, twenty-two systems formed the Facility's structure, divided among four branches.
At the center stands the VFP Core, the command hub and research cradle of the Vortex Frontier Program. The Cadet Academy was also located on one of its planets. Around it orbit the great sectors: the Eve Sanctum, the Rithm Fabrication Belt, and the Atlas Fringe Colonies, each bound to their own rulers and histories. Together, they formed the last thread of organized existence that humanity still called home.
After the first Vortex Incident, time itself fractured. Directions lost meaning, stars no longer held their place, and the measure of a second stretched and folded depending on one's distance from the rift fields... or sudden unnatural interferences in rare cases. To restore order, the Triarch Council established the Facility Standard Chronometric Grid, the network that anchored local temporal stability across every sector. Its creation marked the dawn of the Facility Standard Era, or FSE.
What humans called "3163 FSE" marked the 3,163rd calibration cycle since that grid began. Though still called "Year 3163", a single cycle measured neither day nor year, but the stable pulse of the grid's quantum resonance, the artificial rhythm by which life still kept count. True time is gone, yet the Facility endured by holding to this pattern... the only one left.
But the years of calm never lasted long. The vortex storms kept returning, warping space, distorting sound, and swallowing entire sectors without warning. Temporal distortions swept through systems like waves of unmaking. Entire colonies vanished into silence, and others resurfaced decades later, unchanged, as if time had skipped over them. The Facility learned to survive inside this constant uncertainty, adapting, recalibrating, and pretending that order still existed.
Now, in the 3,163rd cycle, the temporal grid trembled again. Fluctuations spread from the outer belts toward the VFP Core, of which elites from the Factions had been suppressing. Anomalies had begun to synchronize, as if responding to a signal. And among them, one phenomenon stood apart... A rain that falls without season or origin, bending gravity and rewriting motion. The rain drops... or whatever they were, didn't seem to affect matter and space, but their impact could cause commotions.
It has appeared before, always briefly, always unexplained. But this time, it lasted longer, and spread wider.
This event has a subordinate name, known as August Visitor.
-----
The red light above the Facility kept burning, trembling against the dark clouds that twisted like wounded metal. The vortex pulsed again, slow and heavy, each throb pushing a vibration through the courtyard floor until it climbed Bale's legs and settled deep in his chest. The air carried weight, thick and cold, filled with the metallic taste of ozone and iron.
Cadets were spilling into the courtyard from the main wings, their boots clattering against the steel tiles as confusion spread through, from Unfits to Pilots. Voices overlapped in panic while the alarms rose and fell like a living thing. Someone shouted for command. Another called it a temporal storm.
Then an intercom crackled above them, breaking through the chaos with a stuttering voice.
"All divisions remain in quarters. This is not a drill. Repeat, not a drill."
... Well, the sky seemed to answer first. It shifted.
A pulse of red washed over the entire plaza, painting every wall, every face, in feverish color.
Bale's neural band flared. He stumbled a step back, gripping his wrist as pain surged through it.
'Argh!'
The glow wasn't fading,... it was breathing.
It was beating in rhythm with the vortex that was tearing the sky apart. He felt the pulse echo in his skull, soft at first, then louder until it filled his head with a sound that wasn't sound at all.
Synchronization confirmed.
The words came, not spoken but heard. They were not his.
He froze. The words kept repeating, overlapping in his mind like a whisper heard underwater.
Tora's voice cut through the storm. "Bale!"
He turned toward her. She was running across the courtyard, her jacket half open, and her hair swept by the cold wind. "You feel that too?"
He nodded. The words came out rough. "Yeah."
"Your band—"
"I know."
The sky shifted again. Only this time, the spiral opened wider, its center no longer light but something darker, bending space around it like liquid glass. The air shimmered, and every metal surface in sight began to vibrate with a low hum that crawled under the skin.
"Temporal flux buildup," a voice shouted from the command tower. "Containment grid online."
Beams of white light shot upward, forming a cage around the vortex. For a moment, the hum lessened. However, the grid cracked apart, and the shockwave hit like a wall, crashing into whatever was doomed to be on its path.
Caught in the shockwave, Bale hit the ground, sliding across the tiles. His neural band was screaming with red light, burning hot. The taste of copper was felt on his tongue.
Tora was shouting his name again, her voice barely cutting through the ringing in his ears.
When he looked up, the vortex had changed shape. The light folded inward, condensing into a figure suspended above the courtyard. Its body flickered between human and machine, animal and shadow, its form never staying the same for more than a heartbeat.
Bale couldn't move. His band pulsed with the same rhythm as the thing above, a shared heartbeat that felt wrong but connected.
Tora stepped closer. "Bale, your band's reacting to that."
"I think it's the other way around," he said quietly.
Her eyes snapped to him. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He didn't answer. His gaze stayed fixed on the creature that wasn't a creature, its attention locked on him. Even without eyes, he felt it watching, studying, remembering him from somewhere deep within the storm.
Then suddenly, the noise died away. The shouts and alarms vanished. Everything hung still, as if the world had stopped breathing.
Sync confirmed
Resonant pattern recognized
The whisper came again, but softer this time, buried beneath the silence.
Bale stepped backward, his pulse racing. "It's talking to me."
Tora frowned. "What is?"
"The vortex."
"What?"
Just then, the light burst from the center of the sky. When Bale blinked, the figure was already gone, leaving only a spiral of smoke curling back into itself.
Then everywhere became silent.
The alarms cut out, the hum disappeared, and for a few moments, there was nothing. The cadets slowly stood, exchanging hollow glances at each other as if unsure whether they had survived something or missed it completely.
The intercom came back online. "Temporal disturbance neutralized. All divisions return to quarters." The voice was calm again, unnaturally calm.
Bale didn't move. His neural band still glowed faint red, the warmth turning into a sharp sting under his skin. He looked at Tora. "Did you hear it too?"
She shook her head. "Hear what?"
He hesitated. "Never mind."
She looked at him, worried. "You don't look good. Let's go to medbay."
He nodded. He pretending to agree, because his thoughts were spinning too fast to focus.
As they walked through the corridor, Bale noticed the lights flickering in rhythm with his band. Every pulse dimmed the hallway for a heartbeat before the glow returned. The air felt heavier the further they walked, filled with a quiet vibration that seemed to follow them.
When they reached the elevator, Bale caught his reflection in the mirrored door and froze. His eyes glowed faint red, only for a second, then dimmed as if nothing had happened.
Tora didn't seem to notice. She was looking somewhere else.
The elevator doors opened, and they stepped inside.
As the elevator hummed, they descended down.
But halfway down, something happened again. All around Bale, the walls rippled and the air seemed to stretch. For a heartbeat, everything skipped, as if reality missed a frame... and Bale saw something move in the reflection beside him. Though, he didn't actually see it, because it was somehow outside his vision's periphery. But he could swear something was there.
Just then, his eyes caught it. It was not his face, and not Tora's.
It was an eye. It emanated an ominous aura as it was staring back at him through the mirrored surface.
The eye was vast, ominous and dark, emanating dark smokes of death and torment. Its pupil was darker than the darkness he ever knew of. That was Bale's impression about it. It was like the eye of the Hell guardian.
In that instant, his heart involuntarily seized.
'What the...'
Swallowing his saliva, his face dripped with sweat.
'I bet I'm doomed..'
Blinking his eyes, everything went back to normal.
The elevator beeped softly.
"Dorm level," the AI said.
Opening her eyes, Tora yawned. "Let's crash before the next check-in." She seemed to be unaware of Bale's reaction in the elevator.
"Yeah," Bale murmured as he stepped out after her.
As the doors closed, the reflection shimmered again. For one quiet second, the faint outline of the same eye appeared again, lingering against the steel, before fading back into nothing.
Moments later, outside the Cadet Academy walls and far into the atmosphere, the space around began to form ripples, until it tore apart. Human figures surged out, their oppressive aura arresting the hearts of the very few left outside who watched.
"The Unbounds!"