Private Welcome back to the fire Pt.2

[Kaelon Virex]

Facility Outskirts – 47 Minutes Later

The relay tower pulsed weakly from the rock face of a hidden canyon ridge. Camouflaged. Old-world design. Meant to be forgotten.

Kael crouched in the brush with Arq, scanning the exterior.

No guards. No traffic. Just one door. But heat signatures pulsed beneath the ground.

 

[Arq*]

"There's a whole lab under that cliff," Arq whispered. "Buried like a parasite."

 

[Kaelon Virex]

Kael's eyes narrowed.

"Then we cut it out."

 

[Sommer Dai]

Within Sommer's Mind – External Interface Level

:: Neural bridge active.
:: Cognitive suppression protocol: FAILED.
:: Subject resisting.
:: Override required. ::

Pain wasn't just physical.

It was identity-deep.

It clawed through every memory Sommer had as her mind tried to tear itself free from the digital net now crawling through her neurons.

She felt heat. Cold. A vibration in her skull that didn't match any physical sensation — a humming just behind her name.

But she held on.

Because someone was trying to steal her.

Her arms didn't move — not physically — but in this space, in this strange internal realm, she stood in a familiar alley on Nar Shaddaa, the one where she once collapsed after three days of running, drunk, scared, and 16.

The buildings around her were flickering, stuttering like glitched code.
The air hissed like a broken vent.
And someone was knocking on the door of her soul.

"Initiate false environment," Elizabeth's voice snapped from the observation bay.
"She won't release her identity. Give her something to drown in."

 

[Sommer Dai]

The alley disappeared.


And suddenly, Sommer stood on a beach.


Tython.


She was wearing a bikini, barefoot in black sand, a warm wind caressing her skin.


In the distance, a quiet villa shimmered in sunlight — white stone, blue glass, vines growing over the archways.

And there, on the veranda…

Andrew.

He smiled at her, shirt open, drink in hand.

"Somm," he called, voice soft and sweet. "Come sit. You need rest."

Part of her almost walked forward.

Because gods, she was tired.

Because this life looked perfect.

Because for a second, she wanted to believe.

But something in her heart twisted.

Andrew never called her "Somm."
And he never let his guard down like that in public.
And he never drank green liquor — he hated it.

This wasn't real.

This wasn't him.

And this wasn't her.

 

[Sommer Dai]

Sommer turned around.


The beach twisted. The sky blinked static. The villa began to fall apart.


"NO," Elizabeth's voice echoed into the artificial dream. "Push her under again!"


But Sommer was already running — barefoot through the false world as it shattered behind her — until she found the mirror.


It stood in the middle of nowhere, unsupported.


Her reflection stared back — eyes dark with fury.


"I'm not your shell," Sommer whispered. "I'm not your vessel."


She gritted her teeth and slammed her fist into the glass.


CRACK.


The whole dream-world fractured.

"Vital spikes! Mind firewall holding! She's destabilizing the whole construct!" one of the techs shouted.


Elizabeth leaned in toward the interface, voice cold as obsidian.

"Full neural override. Fry everything that isn't compatible. Give her a world she'll never want to leave."

"But the strain—"


"Do it!"

Back inside…


Sommer gasped.


The beach was gone.


And now she stood inside the Gilded Veil — the club alive, brilliant, loud — everyone cheering her name. Credits falling from the sky. Andrew at one side. Jakob at the other. Arq raising a glass. Kael leaning on the railing.


All of them smiling.


And yet…


No one moved.


They just smiled.

"No," she whispered.

One of the dancers repeated the same phrase three times.

"No."

Sommer stepped back.


This wasn't paradise.


This was a cage built from memory.

"I am SOMMER F—ING DAI," she roared.
"You want my body? You better kill me first!!!!

And with that, her entire mental image exploded in firelight — her own creation, her own weapon.


She burned the false world down from the inside.

:: ALERT: Neural break. Integrity breach.
:: Host identity reasserted.
:: Transfer failed.
:: Subject regaining cognitive dominance. ::

Elizabeth cursed, slamming her fist into the console.

"She's going to fight it the whole way," she hissed. "Fine. Let's see how long she lasts without sedation."

The lights flickered.

And inside the chamber, Sommer's fingers twitched.

 

[Sommer Dai]

Elizabeth stood over the console, knuckles pale as the neuro-chart pulsed red with warning symbols. Sommer Dai's resistance had exceeded every prediction — the override failed, mental barriers reinforced, cognitive sanctums rebuilt in real time.

It was impossible. Human minds didn't evolve that fast.

Unless, of course, something else was helping her.

Elizabeth stepped away from the console, breath shaky, about to authorize one last protocol when—

The world went silent.

Not around her — but inside her.

 

[Zori Galea]

A voice bloomed in the cage of her mind, low and crystalline:

"Leave the room."

Elizabeth stiffened. Her throat constricted involuntarily.


Zori Galea.


Even from across the galaxy, Zori didn't need a commlink. When she spoke to her servants, it was within them.

"Now."

Elizabeth's hands moved before she even processed the thought. She stepped away from the command desk. The droid turned, confused, but did nothing.


The doors slid open with a whisper.


And there, haloed in cold light — as if the room had been waiting for her all along — ZORI Stood.


Her robes flowed like shadow-dyed silk. Her lips carried no color but cruelty. A faint symbol — a red spiral — burned beneath the skin at her throat.


The door shut behind her without sound.

 

[Zori Galea]

Inside, Sommer twitched on the table — not yet fully conscious. The drugs and data feeds kept her body quiet, but her mind?

Still spinning. Still burning.

Zori stepped beside her.

And then she whispered, in a language the medical droid could not understand:

"Azis, Devourer of Masks…
Patron of Hunger…
Breaker of the Mirror...
Hear me."

She extended her palm.

The air grew dense, like gravity had thickened.

Zori's eyes rolled white, and the lights above dimmed.

"This one fights.
This one claws.
So show her joy.
Show her the world she dares not leave."

A soft pulse rang through the Force — felt only by those attuned to deeper truths.

"Give her bliss…
And take the soul beneath it."