The fabric of reality twisted and howled as the portal closed behind them.
X and Evelyn tumbled through the void, weightless, surrounded by a shifting chaos of colors and impossible shapes. This wasn't space. This wasn't even time.
It was something beyond.
Evelyn's breath caught in her throat. She could feel her mind stretching, unraveling, as if her consciousness couldn't comprehend the sheer magnitude of where they were.
"Where are we?" she gasped, struggling against the overwhelming force pressing on her very soul.
X's form flickered, his body shifting between solidity and translucence. His new existence wasn't bound by physics anymore—he was something different.
Something beyond human.
He turned to Evelyn, his gaze calm but unreadable. "We're between worlds."
"Between—?"
A sudden pull.
A titanic force yanked them forward, dragging them through an unseen current. The colors and shapes collapsed inward, twisting into an endless tunnel of shifting fractals.
And then—
They fell.
---
UNKNOWN LOCATION – THE OTHER SIDE
Evelyn hit the ground hard, the impact knocking the air from her lungs.
Dirt.
She was on solid ground.
Her fingers dug into the soil as she pushed herself up, her head still spinning from the transition. The sky above was a deep, unnatural shade of violet, streaked with shifting auroras that pulsed and swayed like living things.
A cold wind swept through the landscape, carrying with it whispers—soft, unintelligible voices murmuring just beyond her understanding.
X stood a few feet away, perfectly still, his gaze fixed on the horizon.
Evelyn followed his line of sight—
And froze.
In the distance stood a city.
Not a human city.
The structures defied logic, their shapes twisting in impossible geometries, rising and shifting as if the buildings were alive. Some hovered suspended in midair, while others extended into the sky at unnatural angles, constantly reforming before her eyes.
The architecture was ancient yet advanced, glowing with faint blue veins of energy running through the stone-like material.
Evelyn swallowed hard. "What is this place?"
X's voice was calm but distant. "A world that shouldn't exist."
---
THE HUNT BEGINS – AREA 51 HEADQUARTERS
Far beneath the Nevada desert, inside Level Omega, the director sat in front of a massive display screen, his fingers steepled in thought.
On the screen, anomaly detection reports scrolled rapidly, charting energy fluctuations from the moment X escaped.
A scientist stood nearby, his voice uneasy. "Sir, the readings indicate they didn't just teleport… They crossed dimensions."
The director's expression remained unreadable. "Can we track them?"
The scientist hesitated. "We're trying. But whatever method he used—it's rewriting the laws of physics as we know them."
A silence settled over the room.
Then the director spoke, his voice razor-sharp. "Send the retrieval teams."
The scientist paled. "Sir? You're talking about the Phantom Division. They've never been deployed on a mission like this before. If we send them across dimensions, there's no guarantee they can even—"
The director cut him off with a glare. **"X is the most dangerous anomaly we've ever encountered. I don't care if they have to burn a thousand worlds to the ground—find him."
---
THE CITY OF ECHOES
Evelyn and X moved carefully through the outskirts of the alien city.
Despite its ancient appearance, the city felt unnervingly alive. The buildings shifted subtly when they weren't looking, corridors stretched longer or shorter, and in the distance, the faint echoes of voices whispered through the empty streets.
Evelyn shivered. "Are we alone here?"
X didn't answer immediately. His gaze scanned the area, his perception now operating on levels far beyond human.
And then—he stopped.
Something was watching them.
In the darkness of an alleyway, a figure stirred.
Not human.
It stepped forward, its form tall and slender, wrapped in a flowing dark-blue robe. Its face was obscured, but its eyes—glowing silver spheres—pierced through the void.
It spoke.
But the voice didn't come from its mouth.
It came from everywhere.
"You do not belong here."
Evelyn's heart pounded.
X stepped forward. "Neither do you."
The being tilted its head slightly. "Yet here we stand."
A tense silence.
Then the being's voice grew darker. "You brought the hunters."
Evelyn frowned. "Hunters?"
The being's gaze shifted toward the sky—
And then the world trembled.
---
THE ARRIVAL OF THE PHANTOM DIVISION
A rupture split the air above the city.
Reality itself tore open, and from the wound in existence, they emerged.
Soldiers clad in black exo-suits, their visors glowing with a pulsing red light. Their movements were silent, unnervingly precise, their weapons humming with otherworldly energy.
The Phantom Division.
Evelyn's breath hitched. "They found us."
X narrowed his eyes. "No. They followed us."
The lead Phantom agent raised a hand signal, and the squad dispersed instantly, moving like shadows through the alien terrain.
Then the agent's voice echoed through his helmet.
"Target acquired. Engage."
A split-second later—
Gunfire erupted.
---
THE BATTLE BEGINS
X reacted instantly.
A wave of invisible force exploded outward from his body, distorting the air itself. The first wave of bullets never reached him—they were simply erased from existence.
The Phantoms adapted fast.
Two of them activated spatial disruptors, creating shifting gravity pockets to distort X's movements. Another deployed a temporal anchor, attempting to lock him in a frozen time-loop.
Evelyn barely had time to react before one of the Phantoms lunged at her.
A combat knife sliced through the air—
She dodged just in time, rolling across the ground as the soldier's blade embedded itself into the stone beside her.
Her mind raced. She was a scientist, not a soldier—how the hell was she supposed to survive this?
Another Phantom rushed her.
Before she could react—
A flash of silver.
The robed being moved with impossible speed, intercepting the Phantom. With a single motion, it raised a hand—
And the Phantom collapsed.
Not dead.
Simply gone.
Erased from existence.
Evelyn's stomach twisted. What are these beings?
The robed figure turned to X. "This is your war now."
X nodded. "Then let's end it."
He raised his hand—
And the city itself responded.
Buildings shifted, streets reshaped, an entire storm of reality-bending force surged outward as X unleashed his power.
The Phantoms weren't prepared for this.
Their weapons malfunctioned. Their suits glitched.
The laws of cause and effect began to break.
Evelyn watched in awe.
X wasn't fighting them.
He was rewriting reality around them.
The battle had only just begun.
And the war for existence itself was about to unfold.