The first thing Briar felt was the cold.
Not the kind that numbs — the kind that burns, that seeps into the bones and stays there. The kind that says something inside you broke too far to ever heal right again.
He opened his eyes to a sky carved in half — green-blue auroras clashing with the deep violet glow of ion storms. The ridge was gone. The world was glass.
Steam hissed from blackened snow. His chest ached with every breath. When he looked down, the inhibitor was there — or what was left of it. The device had melted into his skin, fused along his ribs in warped metal veins.
Blue-white light pulsed beneath it, soft at first, then violent. His pulse fought back against the broken machine.
Every beat made the world shudder.
He staggered to his feet. Smoke curled from his gloves. His breath came out in glowing wisps. The air tasted like copper and ozone.
"Lyra…"
Her name barely left his mouth before he saw her — half-buried, shield shattered, armor cracked. Her light aura flickered like a dying candle.
He fell to his knees beside her. "Come on, come on…"
Her pulse was there. Weak. Real. That was enough.
He dragged her clear of the debris, the inhibitor flaring with every movement. Energy leaked from him in bursts, cutting lines into the snow. Each one hurt more than the last.
When the sky started to hum, he looked up, ready for another attack — but the sound wasn't ion. It was human.
A recovery craft broke through the clouds, blue thrusters blazing. A voice cut through the wind:
"Contact located. Genesis signal unstable. Prepare containment."
Briar barely had time to curse before his legs gave out. The last thing he saw was the broken inhibitor sparking across his chest — and the faint glow of a drone's scanner hovering over him.
He woke to white light.
A faint hum. A pulse monitor. The sterile scent of synthetic air.
He wasn't in Haven-9 anymore. The ceiling above him was smooth, curved metal — reinforced, old-world engineering.
"You're awake."
Dr. Solis stood behind reinforced glass, hands clasped behind his back. His face was gaunt, his eyes shadowed.
"Welcome to Askustrad Base," he said. "Off-grid. Classified. Built to contain the kind of power you've become."
Briar's throat was sandpaper. "Where's Lyra?"
"Alive. Resting. You're the one we weren't sure would make it."
He looked down. The inhibitor was fused to his chest, the cracks pulsing faintly like veins of molten light. "You're not getting that out, are you?"
Solis shook his head. "It's not technology anymore. It's part of you."
Briar forced a weak laugh. "So I'm broken metal now."
"No," Solis said quietly. "You're something else."
He stepped closer to the glass. "When the inhibitor overloaded, its nanites didn't shut down — they rewrote themselves. You're no longer rejecting the Genesis. You're becoming it."
Briar clenched his fists. "Then what happens when it burns through me?"
Solis pressed a button. A holographic diagram appeared — Briar's body, veins alight with moving blue. "You're destabilizing. You can't hold that much energy. You need a regulator, not a prison."
He gestured to the table beside the bed. A small, silver device rested there — smooth, humming faintly.
"What's that?"
"Something that grew out of you."
Solis tapped the hologram. "The inhibitor left residual nanite colonies in your system. When we stabilized you, they began repairing themselves — building toward something new. We only guided the process."
He lifted the device — part machine, part living metal. It rippled faintly under the light, syncing with Briar's heartbeat through the glass.
"This is the stabilizer," Solis said. "It's not a replacement. It's the inhibitor's evolution."
Briar stared at it, voice low. "So the thing that almost killed me wants to help now?"
Solis gave a half-smile. "Life's complicated like that."
Later, when the containment field dropped, Briar stood on trembling legs. His reflection in the glass showed faint veins of blue light crawling under his skin, the metal around his chest now more organic than mechanical.
Solis approached, holding the stabilizer. "It's bonded to you. You don't control it — you negotiate with it."
"How long do I have?"
"Thirty seconds," Solis said. "At full release, before the stabilizer shuts you down to prevent self-destruction. After that, it'll force a cooldown cycle."
Briar took it. The metal rippled to life, folding over his forearm like liquid steel. The moment it locked in place, the inhibitor on his chest stopped sparking — the two devices humming together like two halves of the same heartbeat.
For the first time since the ridge, the pain dulled. The pulse steadied.
Briar looked at Solis. "Thirty seconds."
"Make them count."
That night, Lyra found him by the observation window. The sea outside was frozen black, the auroras bleeding red at the edges.
"You shouldn't be out of bed," she said.
"I don't sleep well," he answered.
She stood beside him in silence, the storm reflected in her eyes. "Solis says your body's adapting. That stabilizer's the only thing keeping you alive."
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Feels like I traded one cage for another."
"Maybe," she said. "But this one has a door."
He glanced at her, the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Outside, lightning rippled across the clouds — violet and alive. The ions were moving again.
Briar's hand tightened around the stabilizer. Its pulse matched his.
"Next time," he whispered, "I'm ready.