SYSTEM NOTICE: COMPATIBLE UNITS. PLEASE STOP ARGUING. COOPERATE
✧ Chapter 3 — First Clash
The mission zone wasn’t just unstable.
It was collapsing.
Sirens screamed somewhere deep in the structure, warped and broken, echoing through corridors that no longer fully existed. The floor beneath them shuddered in uneven pulses, like the entire place was tearing itself apart piece by piece.
Crystallia stopped the second they crossed the threshold.
Everything was wrong. Load-bearing beams fractured. Pressure points uneven. Energy readings spiking and dropping unpredictably. One wrong move and the whole sector would come down.
Behind her—
A blur shot past.
Sideswipe didn’t slow, didn’t scan, didn’t even hesitate—he sprinted straight into the unstable corridor like the warning signs didn’t exist.
Crystallia’s head snapped up. “Are you out of your mind—”
A beam above him cracked.
Loud. Violent.
He ducked under it at the last second as it tore free, slamming into the ground behind him hard enough to shake the entire structure.
He didn’t stop.
“You’re going to bring the whole place down!” she shouted, already moving after him.
“You’re going to stand there and watch it happen?” he shot back.
The floor dipped under his next step.
Crystallia felt it—every fracture shifting, every stress point snapping closer to failure.
“Stop moving!”
“I’m not stopping!”
Another crack—this one sharper.
The ceiling above them split open.
Debris rained down.
Crystallia threw up her hand, energy flaring—catching a collapsing section just long enough to shove it aside instead of letting it crush them both. The force of it slammed through her systems, unstable, unrefined—but it held.
For a second.
Sideswipe used that second to push forward again.
“You just made it worse!” she snapped, dropping the energy as the structure settled into a new, even more dangerous angle.
“I made it faster!”
“You’re destabilizing everything!”
“And you’re slowing everything down!”
The corridor ahead buckled.
The objective marker flickered somewhere beyond a fractured drop, half-buried under shifting debris.
Crystallia slowed automatically—calculating the safest path, the least pressure points, the only way through without triggering a full collapse—
Sideswipe didn’t.
He jumped.
The moment his weight hit the other side—
The ground gave.
Not a crack. Not a shift.
It dropped.
The section beneath him collapsed inward with a violent snap, metal tearing apart as he barely caught himself on the edge, one hand locking onto jagged plating as the rest of the floor fell away into darkness below.
For half a second, everything went still.
Then the structure screamed.
Crystallia’s spark slammed against her chest. She moved instantly, dropping low at the edge, scanning the stress points—everything was failing, every second making it worse.
“Don’t move,” she said, sharp, controlled.
“I’m not planning to,” he snapped back, grip tightening as the metal under his hand bent further.
“You are moving.”
“I’m holding on.”
“You’re shifting the load.”
“And you’re talking instead of helping.”
Her eyes flashed. “Because if I move wrong, you fall.”
“And if you don’t move, I fall anyway.”
Another section broke loose.
The metal under him bent sharply—too sharply.
Crystallia’s focus snapped into place.
“Look at me.”
“I don’t need—”
“Look. At. Me.”
Something in her tone cut through.
He did.
For the first time since they started arguing—he actually focused.
She adjusted her stance, one hand bracing against a stable point, the other reaching out—not to grab him, not yet—just aligning the angle, the pressure, the timing.
“On three,” she said.
He frowned. “What—”
“One.”
The structure shifted again.
“Two.”
His grip slipped a fraction.
“Three—move.”
He didn’t hesitate this time.
He pushed up hard, shifting his weight forward—
At the exact same moment, Crystallia redirected the pressure point, forcing the edge to hold just long enough for him to clear it.
He hit the ground beside her, sliding back as the entire section they’d been on collapsed fully into the darkness below with a deafening crash.
The shockwave knocked them both off balance.
Dust filled the air.
Silence followed.
Short. Sharp. Heavy.
They both pushed themselves up at the same time.
For a second—
Nothing.
Then—
“You don’t think,” she said, voice cutting.
He turned on her instantly. “You don’t move.”
“I just kept you from falling.”
“You took too long.”
“You ignored every warning.”
“You hesitated.”
“You rushed.”
“At least I did something.”
“At least I didn’t almost get us both killed.”
They were standing too close now, tension snapping tight between them, the collapse still echoing behind them like a reminder of how close it had been.
Neither backed down.
Neither acknowledged it.
Not the timing. Not the coordination. Not the fact that they had moved together for exactly one second—
Perfectly.
Crystallia turned away first, sharp and final. “Next time, try thinking.”
He scoffed, stepping past her. “Next time, try keeping up.”
The structure groaned again around them, still unstable, still dangerous—
And they walked straight back into it.
Still arguing. Still clashing.
Still absolutely refusing to work together.
