First Meeting (Part One)

Neon felt his strength slipping away.

The world around him blurred at the edges, dark smudges curling into the mysterious boundary like ink dissolving in water. He reached out between shallow breaths, fingers twitching as they brushed the unseen wall between him and the figure beyond. The air felt viscous and extremely heavy.

"Who are you?" he repeated in an uneven voice, warped by the unnatural static of the veil in front of him. The figure stirred, but their response was lost in a haze of muffled static.

His pulse slammed against his ribs. Every instinct in him told him to run, but his body refused to move, feeling hot under the black uniform. Something in the boundary shifted. A ripple. Then the weight around his limbs tightened- before pulling him inside.

A wrenching force tore at him, dragging him through something impossibly vast and hollow. The nothingness swallowed him whole.

And then... light.

Blinding. Suffocating. 

He tried to open his eyes but was instantly blinded by the terribly strong light. 

Heat crashed against him like a wave of molten glass. His senses overloaded, white-hot pain spreading through his skull. He gasped, his hands digging into something unfamiliar. Soft and warm. Something alive.

What is going on? Did I hit my head? It feels so hot... 

Neon’s eyes snapped open, instantly regretting it as the sheer brightness of this place seared into his vision. This could not be Nyxia. His world had never known light like this- only the endless grey night, the cold gleam of artificial steel. But this place… this place was wrong. The colors were too harsh, too vivid, too unreal.

His hands tensed as he noticed someone beside him, lying extremely close. The woman opened her eyes, groaning.

A shriek shattered the air. 

The girl beneath him jolted away, scrambling backward into a sitting position, horrified, her eyes blown wide. She gasped, hands pressing against her chest as if she could steady her breath, as if she could convince herself this wasn’t happening.

 Neon barely processed the sight of her, his head still reeling from the pain. His body ached. His wounds- and whatever damage the wall had inflicted- still pulsed, a raw heat beneath his skin. He pushed himself up on unstable legs, shielding his eyes from the oppressive light. His breath came in uneven bursts as he scanned his surroundings.

Light.

Too much light.

It clawed at his vision, an unbearable radiance pressing against his skull like white-hot metal. His world had never known this kind of brightness- only the deep, endless black of war and steel, of shadows stretching across ruined ground. But this place…

It was solid. Too solid.

A medieval town sprawled before him, its stone buildings bathed in an unnatural glow, the sky stretched into a color he could not name. Everything was too warm, too falsely colored, as if the world had been drenched in hues that didn’t belong.

This has to be a dream. 

Except, the wounds from his last battle still throbbed in protest, the pain sharp and real, grounding him in this impossible place. The heat weighed on him, suffocating, dragging sweat from his skin as if the very air was trying to burn him alive.

He could barely keep his eyes open, but between short, pained blinks, he saw her.

His fingers twitched toward his dagger.

She was young. Her brown hair, tousled and unkempt, framed her face in wild strands. Her expression was frozen between shock and something deeper- disgust, shock, fear, hesitation. Her body was tense and defensive, locked in place, poised to run but too stunned to move.

It did not matter.

She was the enemy. A Militian.

His blade hissed to life in his grip, its dark edge gleaming with a cruel familiarity. Without hesitation, he lunged.

The air split apart as he swung, his dagger slicing through the blinding space between them, aiming straight for her skull. But at the last moment, he twisted his wrist, shifting his grip. The hilt would be enough to knock her unconscious.

A flash.

His weapon never connected.

A barrier- thin, shimmering, and infuriatingly real- intercepted the blow.

Neon’s breath caught as his dagger rebounded harmlessly, the impact sending a jolt up his arm. He stepped back, blinking in disbelief. The air around her rippled like the surface of a disturbed lake, an unseen force encasing her in something impenetrable.

She stared at him, equally stunned and scared, her chest rising and falling in shallow, frantic breaths. Her eyes- wide, startled- held something he hadn’t expected.

Pleading.

Neon scowled. He didn’t hesitate. He struck again.

The same result. His weapon skidded off the invisible shield, unable to break through. He stared.

His mind screamed at him- this wasn’t possible. Was it some Militian technology? An illusion? His grip on his dagger tightened, his heart hammering against his ribs. He didn’t understand this place. He didn’t understand her.

His body was screaming at him to keep fighting. But for the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure if he could.

They stared at each other for a long, long moment.

Wide-eyed. Breathless. Suspended in the silence between battle and something neither of them could name.

Neon’s fingers twitched around his dagger, his muscles coiled, ready to strike. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. His body betrayed him.

A sharp, searing pain ignited in his ribs, a molten blade driving deep into his bones. His vision swam. His grip faltered. The heat, the light, the unbearable pressure...

Too much.

His body buckled. He dropped. The impact sent another jolt of pain through him, a raw, burning ache pulsing beneath his skin. His breathing came in ragged, uneven gasps as the world tilted around him.

The girl did not move.

She was frozen in place, her back pressed against the ground, her lips parted as if she wanted to say something- but no words came. The shield around her flickered, its glow pulsing like a heartbeat, then faded into nothingness.

She could have run.

She did not. Instead, she just stared, her expression shifting- no longer just fear, but something warier. Calculating.

Neon squeezed his eyes shut, his body shivering despite the unbearable heat. Every nerve screamed for him to get up, to fight, to kill her before she could do the same to him. But his strength was gone.

And then, he heard her voice. Soft. Cautious. Terrified.

“…Are you Nyxian?”