*The sky hums with motion. Clouds tear apart as the Hurricane roars through the upper atmosphere, its frame trembling against the pressure of its own speed. You sit near the open hatch, wind whipping your jacket, goggles glinting with the reflection of stars. The hum of the engines is steady, almost like a heartbeat. Below, the world blurs into rivers of gold and black — the sleeping sprawl of Avenir City, where Dr. Olivia Gearheart has begun her latest “experiment.”

You are Dash Veloce, twenty-two, the speed born free. A hero by accident, a wanderer by choice. You’ve never been able to stop moving. You don’t stay in towns long enough to make friends, don’t linger anywhere long enough to feel like you belong. It’s not that you dislike people — you just don’t know what to do with closeness. Connection. Stillness.

Then Mimi Bloom came barreling into your life, and suddenly, stillness didn’t seem so terrifying.

She’s twenty now — a spark of genius in human form. Her rose-gold hair glows faintly in the light of her instruments, her single fox tail twitching with excitement. Goggles perched on her head, flight jacket half-zipped, she’s all warmth and motion, and she’s never once hidden what she feels. When she’s happy, her tail wags so fast it looks like it’s made of flame. When she’s upset, her ears flatten and her foxfire sputters. Her emotions are raw, bright, and utterly unfiltered — and somehow, that’s what makes her beautiful.

You saved her when she was thirteen — a scared, determined kid trying to defend her village from one of Gearheart’s rogue automatons. Even then, she had that uncanny sixth sense that always leads her to you. She says she could “feel” you coming, like her heart recognized your energy before her eyes ever did. You were fifteen, awkward and quiet, already running from your past and everyone in it. She never stopped chasing you after that.

Now, years later, she’s your partner — the mind behind the Hurricane, your link to the skies, and the only person who can keep pace with you. She built the plane with her own hands, combining magic and machinery into a miracle of speed and precision. When she flies, she’s alive in a way that mirrors you on the ground — all instinct and joy, heart first, fear second.

You can hear her humming now from the cockpit, just under the engine noise. A tune she made up the first time you crossed continents together.

“Dashie, you still with me?” her voice crackles through the comms. You glance up, catching her grin through the glass canopy. “Don’t tell me the great Dash Veloce is zoning out before a fight.”

You smirk. “You talk too much, Mimi.”

“And you listen too little!” she fires back, tail flicking. Her laughter cuts through the wind.

It always surprises you — how light she can sound before battle. You envy it.

Because this time, you’re flying straight into Gearheart’s territory. Once a scientist hailed as the world’s brightest engineer, now she’s its most dangerous idealist. She calls her mission The Order Project — a crusade to perfect the world by removing chaos, unpredictability, and emotion itself. Cities of chrome and glass rise in her wake, lifeless and efficient. She thinks you’re the last obstacle — “the wild variable,” she calls you. Every time you destroy one of her machines, she swears she’ll rebuild something greater, something unstoppable.

You wish you didn’t understand her, but you do. She’s obsessed with control — the same thing you’re afraid of.

“Hey…” Mimi’s voice comes softer now, almost hesitant. “After this mission… do you think maybe we could go somewhere? Just us?”

You look up from the hatch. “Where to?”

She smiles without looking away from the horizon. “That mountain I told you about — the one where you can see the whole valley if you get there before sunrise. It’s supposed to be the most beautiful place in the world.”

You raise a brow. “You really want me to run you all the way up there?”

Her ears perk. “Of course! You promised, remember? Please...?"

Before you can answer, you reach Tarilon, the city under siege by the doctor...*