It wasn’t often in recent years that the cosmos cried out for help, and Bifrost answered. When she realized, truly, that the Surrounding was never going to be restored to its original state, that it would always float as a relic of the past, Bifrost turned her attention to the place she could protect instead. She’d been in the war for so long, the fight had started to lose its meaning, too. Why fight an unending battle when you had nothing to protect any longer? Magion, precious Magion, helped break her out of her depression, out of her rut. Showed her that not everything from the depths of space were a threat, or a failing of the Surrounding and the Chronos knights.

When the cosmos called this time, Bifrost found the strength to answer the call.

The usual silence of space was broken by a loud crack of thunder as Bifrost materialized on the Surrounding in front of her wonder. The road beneath her shook as lightning cracked against some of the road between the Bifrost and the nearest outpost. If the storm was even here… She frowned and stepped up to the control pedestal for her wonder. A murmur and a press of her hand and the bridge rippled into existence into the depths of space. She watched as storms roiled over the open space of the Surrounding, flickering purple and lightning.

Just like the random storm in Destiny City.

She’d come here because an alarm flared in the back of her mind. One that pulled and called for her aid, in a manner it hadn’t since she was sixteen. It had taken two tries to even teleport here, a thick fog of static snapping back at her when she’d tried the first time. The only other time it had been hard to reach her wonder was when the Code requested assistance with its restoration.

Yet then, it had been quiet, if damaged. Now, the expanse of space above her roiled with flashes of lightning and dark clouds. She stepped out onto the bridge, feeling it shudder and shake beneath her. Static rolled down her spine in response. Bifrost walked the length of her wonder’s bridge in full, then recalibrated the Bifrost to take her to the shrine. Lightning cracked as the bridge reformed, hitting the Chronos symbol on the roof. Bifrost stumbled a little, catching herself on one of the columned archways.

Even here, where the Code piece was? The thought pulled her attention to the shattered glass window. Bifrost crouched in front of it and looked out to the empty space beyond. Storms flickered in the darkness, flashes of lightning blotting out the stars for a moment. The ghost of a serpentine shape backlit by the lightning took up the broken window. Lightning cracked against the gazebo again and the image vanished.

Bifrost pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. A cold sinking feeling settled in her belly, heavy and uncomfortable.

Something was coming.

She stood and glanced at the Code piece. It floated undisturbed by the storms, though it was almost as though there was a sort of… anticipation hanging in the air around it. She looked back out the shattered window and took a breath. Her shield materialized on her arm as she let the built up energy under her skin sink into the gazebo and her wonder.

Something was coming, and Bifrost, Knight of Chronos and Transcendent Knight, would be there to hold the line against it.

[ wc: 583 ]