The sky was falling.
That was the first thing Aira noticed the sky itself had cracked open. Burning fragments of the orbital rings crashed through the clouds, leaving trails of molten light that rained down on the dying city below. The ground trembled with every impact, buildings screamed as their steel bones twisted and gave away collapsing into inferno.
Aira staggered through the ruins, her boots crunching over shattered glass and bones. Her breath came in sharp gasps, steam rising from her lips as if her very soul were burning out. The white of her hair was streaked with soot and her right arm once sleek and mechanical was torn open flickering with sparks and dying circuits.
"Command..." she rasped into her comm. "This is Aira Kael, Unit Seven Requesting evac-"
Only static came through the cooms but then a voice faint and broken.
"-Aira... fall back! Dominion forces-Crowe's-no survivors-"
The transmission cut off with a shriek of interference. Aira let the device drop from her ear its tiny red light flickering out, she stared into the firestorm that had once been her home. The Dominion had won, everything she'd fought for the rebellion, the promise, the future they were nothing but ashes now and crowe the name burned deeper than the flames.
Her old Commander the one who betrayed them all.
Aira gritted her teeth forcing herself to move, her boots splashed through shallow puddles of blood and rain, her sword dragging beside her with a hollow rasp. Lighting danced across the metal horizon illuminating the silhouettes of approaching soldiers with black armor, red visors and rifles gleaming with the Dominion's sigil.
The same sigil etched into her own cybernetic wrist.
She almost laughed "Guess it's fitting killed by the system that made me." she muttered to herself.
The air grew colder as the soldiers closed in. She lifted her sword, the blade whining as its energy core flared to life one last time, her body screamed with pain system failing one after another, but she refused to kneel.
Not yet.
"Come on then" she whispered, yellow eyes narrowing. "Let's finish this."
The first shot struck her shoulder spinning her sideways the second pierced her abdomen. Still she kept fighting slashing, bocking, moving like a ghost warrior she once was, the world blurred in flashes of gunfire and rain with steel and blood.
And then one sound broke through the chaos.
A soft rising hum from deep within her chest.
The Ghost Circuit.
Her forbidden weapon built to rewrite her very biology it pulsed once, twice then burst into light.
Aira dropped her sword, falling to her knees as the energy consumed her tearing through her body and mind alike. The last thing she saw was the ground splitting open, the world folding in on itself and her own reflection staring back from the pool of blood her eyes glowing like molted gold.
Then nothing just pure silence.
She had no idea how long it's been but when she woke up there was no pain. No sound of gunfire. No taste of iron on her tongue nothing at all.
Only peacefulness.
She lays on soft grass beneath her and the sky was too blue to be real. The light was gentle and warm the air tinged with the scent of wildflowers and rain fresh air. Aira blinked against the brightness her vision struggling to adjust her hand brushed over the ground clean skin no metal. Her arm was whole again and all her wounds were gone too.
But her body... it wasn't hers.
Her reflection shimmered in a nearby pond but the face looking back wasn't quite her own either. Her hair flicked between white and silver, her eyes shifting in hue gold, blue, then violet but before settling into a soft amber the longer she stared the more her features rippled like her flesh was clay and her soul couldn't remember what shape to take.
She staggered to her feet heart pounding. "What... what is this place?" she muttered while looking at her surroundings.
The horizon stretched endlessly floating islands drifted lazily across the sky, waterfalls pouring from their edges into glowing rivers below. Towering crystal spires jutted from the ground like the bones of ancient gods. Creatures with translucent wings soared between them singing in tones she should feel more than hear.
Far in the distance something called out to her a pulse, deep and fimiliar, resonating with
her very core.
Then a voice.
"You don't look like you belong here."
Aira spun around. Standing atop a nearby rock was a young woman draped in deep blue, her cloaked embroidered with silver runes that shimmered in rhythm with the wind, her hair was short and the color of twilight, her eyes a piercing ocean blue that seemed to see through every secret Aira carried.
"Who are you?" Aira asked, gripping the hilt of her blade though too had changed it was no longer steel but a weapon of light, translucent and alive, humming like a heartbeat in her palm.
The stranger smiled faintly tilting her head. "That's a better question for you, isn't it?"
"What?" Aira looked at the stranger with a confused look.
"You're... unfinished, your form is unstable. Your essence fluid. You're not bound to one shape anymore." the woman said softly stepping closer which Aira put her guard up.
Aira took a step back.
"Speak plainly."
"I'am you've been remade. Reborn whatever you were before... it's now gone" The woman's tone was calm almost gentle.
Aira clenched her jaw "I don't believe in rebirth."
"Belief has nothing to do with it" the woman said.
The woman lifted her hand a circle of glowing symbols spun to life above her palm casting rippling light across Aira's face. The magic shimmered like liquid starlight and for a heartbeat Aira saw herself reflected in it. Hundreds of versions of herself with different faces, bodies even species all flickering in and out of existence.
The woman's eyes softened "You're a shapeshifter now, Aira Kael. An Immortal one."
Aira's breath caught "How do you know my name and what doe you mean shapeshifter?"
The woman only smiled "I'm the one that brought here."
Wind swept across the field scattering petals like tiny shards of glass. The world shimmered bending slightly as if reality itself bowed to the woman's presence.
"Welcome to Ethersong" She said her voice a soft melody of power and mystery. "A world that reshapes itself as easily as you do. You'll need to learn fast or it'll consume you whole."
The light flared again swallowing the horizon in gold.
And as s Aira shielded her eyes one thought echoed in her mind cold yet fragile and terrifyingly real.
Death didn't end me. It remade me.
Then everything went dark again.