-8 YEARS

The acrid stench of burnt flesh and scorched mana permeated the field hospital. Alarms blared as another wave of casualties poured through the medical bay doors, carried on hover-stretchers guided by harried orderlies. Blood and other fluids left dark trails across the pristine white floors, marking their passage through organized chaos.

CMO Helena Reeves wiped blood from her eyes and wished, not for the first time today, that the shield generators weren't quite so prone to catastrophic failure. The latest mortar strike had taken out the northern array, showering the operating theater with crystalline shards that glittered like deadly snow.

"Status!" she barked, pressing fresh gauze against Private Jensen's chest wound. The boy stirred, mumbling something about his mother.

"Three minutes until complete shield collapse, Chief!" Technician Morris called from his station. "The resonance matrix is destabilizing faster than we can patch it!"

Another explosion rocked the prefab hospital walls. Someone screamed from the recovery ward—probably that fresh-faced nurse who'd transferred in yesterday. What was her name? Carter? No time to remember.

"Get the critical patients prepped for emergency evac," Reeves ordered, her hands steady as she finished suturing Jensen's wound. Twenty years of battlefield medicine had taught her to work through anything. "Priority One cases first. Leave anyone stable enough to survive transport by ground."

The rhythmic thud of enemy artillery grew closer. Through the transparent portions of the walls—currently polarized to maximum opacity—Reeves could see the flash of detonations. The Raxians were pushing hard, determined to eliminate the medical facility. Bastards never did respect the conventions of warfare.

A young medic—González—rushed past, arms full of plasma packs. "Chief! The last transport's gone! We're stuck here!"

Reeves cursed. Of course they were. Because this day wasn't already perfect enough.

"How many patients?" she demanded.

"Forty-three critical, another sixty-eight stable but non-ambulatory," González reported. "We can't move them fast enough, not without—"

The ceiling exploded.

Reeves threw herself over Jensen's unconscious form as debris rained down. A massive section of the roof peeled away, revealing the smoke-filled sky above. Through the gap, she could see the distinctive silhouettes of Raxian assault craft, their weapon ports glowing with charged energy.

This was it. After two decades of patching soldiers back together, she was about to die in—

Something dropped from above. No, not something. Someone.

A figure in sleek armor plummeted through the gap, trailing streams of silvery light. They hit the ground in a three-point landing that sent ripples of force across the floor—but instead of destruction, those ripples crystallized into geometric patterns of pure energy. The patterns spread rapidly, racing up the walls and across what remained of the ceiling.

The figure straightened, and Reeves felt her breath catch. The armor was unmistakable: sweeping lines of argentite alloy integrated with translucent crystal matrices that pulsed with power. The Bastion. Prince Vylaas himself.

He raised his hands, and reality warped.

The air itself seemed to congeal, forming layers of overlapping barriers that sealed the breach. Not simple force fields—these were complex geometric constructions of space and energy, each layer moving independently yet working in concert. Beautiful, if you had time to admire them.

A Raxian blast struck the new shields. Instead of absorbing the impact, the barriers redirected it, causing the energy to spiral through the layered geometry before being scattered harmlessly into the air.

"Chief Medical Officer," the prince's voice was calm, almost gentle. "Your facility is now under my protection. Please continue your work."

Another series of explosions buffeted the shields. The prince didn't flinch. His hands moved in precise patterns, and new layers of protection manifested. These were different—instead of deflecting energy, they seemed to drink it in, converting the destructive force into more power for the defensive grid.

"The Bastion," someone whispered. "They sent us the Bastion!"

"Less gawking, more working!" Reeves snapped, though she couldn't entirely suppress her own relief. "We've still got patients that need attention!"

Through the translucent portions of the wall, Reeves could see the enemy forces advancing: mechanized infantry backed by heavy assault platforms. They opened fire with everything they had, filling the air with a storm of energy bolts and kinetic projectiles.

Prince Vylaas stepped forward. His left hand maintained the facility's defenses while his right traced a complex sigil in the air. Space distorted, and suddenly the area in front of the advancing forces was filled with floating geometric shapes—perfect cubes, spheres, and pyramids of solid light.

The Raxian troops hesitated, clearly unsure what to make of this display. Then the shapes began to move, expanding and contracting, rotating and sliding through each other in an intricate dance. Soldiers who got too close found themselves caught in localized gravity fields, lifted off their feet and held harmlessly in the air.

"Fascinating application of spatial manipulation," Morris muttered, his fingers flying over his diagnostic panel. "He's creating localized pockets of altered space-time, using them as both crowd control and defensive matrices."

"Don't waste time watching the light show," Reeves ordered, though she found herself stealing glances at the ongoing display.

The prince was in constant motion now, his movements precise and elegant. Each gesture spawned new defensive constructs or modified existing ones. A squad of Raxian shock troops tried to flank the building—they found their path blocked by a wall of interlocking hexagons that caught and held them like insects in amber.

Heavy weapons fire from the assault platforms splashed against the prince's barriers. Instead of deflecting or absorbing the attacks, the shields seemed to catch them, transforming the energy into swirling vortexes that spun faster and faster before suddenly reversing direction. The platforms' own energy was redirected into precise strikes that disabled their weapon systems without harming the crews.

"Chief!" González called out. "Incoming friendlies!"

About damn time. Reeves turned her attention back to her patients, knowing the prince had the defense well in hand. Still, she couldn't help but notice the way he fought. There was something almost mathematical about it, as if he'd reduced combat to a series of complex equations and solved for the variable of "victory without casualties."

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A massive explosion lit up the battlefield. The Raxians had deployed some kind of exotic weapon—a swirling vortex of purple-black energy that began eating through the outer layers of the prince's defenses.

Vylaas's response was immediate and decisive. His hands swept up, fingers spread wide, and the very fabric of space seemed to fold. The vortex weapon found itself trapped in a bubble of twisted geometry; its destructive power turned in upon itself until it collapsed with a sound like reality hiccupping.

"Did he just... create a localized space-time implosion?" Morris whispered.

"Did he just save our lives?" Reeves countered. "Because that's the only part I care about."

The prince was moving again, his attention diverted to a new threat. A Raxian heavy carrier had arrived, disgorging elite troops equipped with personal shield generators and anti-barrier weapons. They moved with practiced precision, coordinating their fire to probe the prince's defenses for weaknesses.

They found none.

Vylaas raised both hands, and the air between him and the elite squad crystallized. Not into barriers this time, but into a complex three-dimensional maze of transparent surfaces. The Raxians found themselves separated, their carefully planned formation split apart by walls they couldn't see and couldn't pass through.

Then those walls began to move.

Each section shifted and rotated independently, herding the confused soldiers into smaller and smaller groups. Their shots rebounded wildly off of the transparent surfaces—so the Prince wasn't a pure pacifist, Reeves noted.

Soon the entire squad was neatly contained, separated into individual cells that floated gently off the ground. They could move within their prisons but couldn't coordinate or combine their fire effectively.

The sound of Imperial engines filled the air. Three Thunderhawk gunships roared overhead, their weapons already engaging the remaining Raxian forces. On the ground, two companies of Imperial heavy infantry double-timed it toward the hospital's position, their heavy weapons forcing the enemy into retreat.

Only then did Prince Vylaas relax slightly. His defensive grid remained in place, but he turned to survey the medical facility's interior. His helm retracted, revealing a face much younger than Reeves had expected. There was concern in his eyes as he took in the wounded.

"Chief Medical Officer," he said, his voice carrying clearly despite its soft tone. "Your facility is secure. How else can I assist?"

Reeves straightened, absently noting that her surgical gown was more red than white. "Unless that so-called Chimera of yours is hiding a fully staffed trauma center, Your Highness, I wouldn't deign to take more of your time."

The prince's lips quirked slightly.

Silver tendrils extended from his armor, interfacing with nearby medical displays. Data streamed across them faster than human eyes could process. Helena noticed how the other staff stared, some with awe, others with barely concealed unease. The stories didn't do justice to how otherworldly the Bastion's presence was. How could one man have done so much on such a scale so quickly?

"Chief Medical Officer Reeves." His voice was surprisingly gentle. "I've reviewed your casualty reports. Show me your most critical cases."

She started. "So what they say is true, then? You're a healer as well?"

"I wouldn't go so far as that, ma'am," the Prince demurred. "Sister Myra of the Lycos taught me much about medicine, enough to earn a basic profession, and I've since managed to evolve it into [Triage Specialist]. I can't promise miracles, but I'm happy to be an additional set of hands."

"Well then," Helena said, gesturing behind her. "This way, Your High-"

"Vylaas," he corrected. "Or Bastion. Titles waste time we don't have."

As they walked, Helena noticed how equipment seemed to move out of his path without anyone touching it. Carts and monitors slid aside with subtle precision, clearing an efficient route through the crowded space. Force manipulation, she realized.

They reached the first critical patient—a young soldier with severe plasma burns and failing cybernetics. Standard regeneration treatments weren't taking hold. Helena started to explain the case, but Vylaas was already moving.

His armor rippled, extending diagnostic tendrils that interfaced directly with the patient's damaged systems. The soldier's vitals appeared in the air above him, rendered in crystalline detail Helena had never seen before. Traditional medical scanners showed the body's current state—this showed past, present, and projected future status simultaneously.

"Systemic cascade failure," Vylaas murmured. "The cybernetics are rejecting emergency protocols." His hands moved with practiced grace, Chimera extending and morphing to form precise medical instruments exactly as needed. "We'll have to run a bypass and flush his channels, then we…"

Over the next 20 minutes, the soldier's vitals stabilized. The miraculous predictive diagnosis that the Bastion displayed showed he'd return to near full function within weeks. Helena watched in fascination as Vylaas's abilities seemed to rewrite the rules of what was possible. He wasn't just treating symptoms—he was interfacing directly with both organic and mechanical systems, coaxing them back into harmony. It spoke to a potentially terrifying combination of biomancy, technomancy, and a mind capable of stretching both disciplines to their limits.

"Remarkable," she breathed. "I've never seen anything like-"

An alarm blared, cutting her off. "Multiple trauma incoming! Hover transport crash, eight critical!"

Vylaas's head snapped up. His helmet reformed around his face, displays lighting up with tactical data. "Where?"

"Bay three, but we're already at capacity-"

He was moving before she finished speaking. Helena hurried to keep up, watching as Chimera's liquid metal form flowed and adapted. Additional medical appendages emerged from his armor, each one precisely crafted for maximum efficiency. They reached bay three just as the casualties arrived.

The scene was chaos—multiple stretchers bearing broken bodies, medics shouting vital signs and triage codes. But Vylaas moved through it all with impossible grace. Force manipulation cleared paths between patients while Chimera's diagnostic tendrils extended to multiple victims simultaneously.

"Systemic hemorrhage, patient one," he called out. "Implementing stasis field." A shimmer of energy enveloped the first soldier, slowing their bleeding to a crawl. "Patient two, spinal trauma. Initiating neural bridge." More tendrils extended, creating a temporary connection across the damaged nerve tissue.

Helena watched in awe as he coordinated multiple complex procedures simultaneously. Chimera's presence amplified everything—standard medical techniques enhanced by biotechnology she'd never imagined possible. Where traditional methods would require entire teams and hours of delicate work, Vylaas stabilized critical patients in minutes.

But it wasn't just mechanical efficiency. Despite the speed and precision, his movements were gentle. He spoke softly to conscious patients, and his touch remained careful and reassuring. This wasn't a machine processing solutions to problems—this was a healer who happened to have extraordinary tools at his disposal.

Hours passed in a blur of procedures and emergencies. Helena lost count of how many lives Vylaas saved and how many "impossible" cases he turned around. His stamina seemed endless, and Chimera adapted and supported him through each new challenge. But she noticed how he studied their protocols and asked questions about their procedures between cases. He wasn't here simply to show off his superior methods—he was learning, integrating, and looking for ways to improve the entire system.

Finally, there was a lull in the incoming casualties. Helena found Vylaas in the recovery ward, checking on his earlier patients. His armor had shifted to a more subdued configuration, though Chimera's presence was still visible in the subtle movements across its surface.

"Your reputation doesn't do you justice," she said quietly.

"It does me too much, actually," he responded, sounding exhausted. He turned, and his helmet retracted again. There was definite fatigue in his eyes now, but also something else—frustration? "The power of privilege is that I've got a dozen mana reservoirs integrated into this Chimeric armor. I'm not super-human, Mrs. Reeves; I'm just playing around with the mana capacity of more than a dozen normal men."

"It's Ms. Reeves, actually," Helena found herself correcting the prince. She caught herself too late, blushing and turning away from the young man's gaze. "And… Still, what you did here today is incredible."

"And yet, I feel like I could be doing so much more."