Shore woke slowly. For several seconds, he simply stared upward at the apartment ceiling while his mind clawed its way back toward full awareness.
Soft morning light filtered through the curtains.
The faint hum of Mountain Glenn traffic drifted in through the window alongside distant voices from pedestrians several floors below.
Shore blinked in confusion.
His body felt... good.
Not sore or exhausted and mentally frayed from sleepless nights and constant surveillance work.
Actually...
He felt relatively well rested. That realization alone immediately made him suspicious. Shore pushed himself upright carefully and sat on the edge of the bed. His hand moved instinctively toward his neck.
The bruising from the chokehold remained faintly tender beneath his fingers. Not serious, but enough to remind him exactly how badly last night's encounter had gone.
He clicked his tongue quietly.
"That was embarrassing."
His voice sounded rough from sleep. Shore rolled his shoulders before glancing downward.
He was wearing pants, plain black lounge pants that belonged to him.
His Multi Function Gauntlet still rested securely around his wrist. Shore immediately activated a quick diagnostic scan through the device interface.
No tampering, tracking or foreign access attempts.
Interesting.
Shore stood afterward and stretched lightly. His spine cracked softly while lingering stiffness left his muscles. A glance toward the clock showed the current time.
10:03 AM.
So he had been unconscious for hours. Or rather, the unconsciousness had transformed into sleep. That thought alone irritated him all over again. Shore rarely lost control of situations so thoroughly.
Last night had been a very humbling experience. His eyes drifted across the apartment carefully afterward.
Everything appeared normal.
Mostly.
The damaged floorboards and cracked wall from their fight remained visible. Wood splinters still littered sections of the living room floor while one of the kitchen chairs had been partially broken during the struggle.
Shore sighed quietly.
Then he noticed the note resting beside the bed. He picked it up carefully.
I'll meet you at Emerald Street at the bakery/coffee parlor called Presso at 12 AM.
No signature, threatening message or hidden code.
Just a meeting place and a time.
Shore rubbed lightly at his neck again while rereading the note. It appeared the mysterious blonde woman had not only spared him...
But dressed him afterward too. That was an oddly intimate detail considering she had nearly decapitated him several hours earlier.
Shore wasn't entirely sure how to process that.
He had been thoroughly beaten. That much was undeniable.
Technically speaking, he still held the advantage in combat fundamentals. His hand to hand technique, tactical decision making and operational discipline all surpassed hers.
But skill only mattered so much when your opponent could casually overpower you physically.
And that woman...
She was definitely superhuman.
But not at the level of an awakened.
At least not fully.
In any case, it was clear that something about her strength and speed clearly exceeded natural human limits. Which brought Shore back toward the most concerning detail from last night.
Different versions of Aetherion.
V1.
That terminology bothered him immensely.
LUCID had only identified and categorized the current street version within recent months. Yet according to her, multiple iterations already existed.
That implied ongoing refinement and that the organization behind Aetherion was larger and more organized than LUCID initially suspected.
Shore leaned back slightly against the kitchen counter while thinking. Part of him considered reporting everything immediately.
But another part of him hesitated. Because he still lacked context. And more importantly... he still did not understand the mysterious woman's role in any of this.
Ally?
Defector?
Enhanced test subject?
Independent infiltrator?
Shore hated incomplete intelligence.
Eventually he exhaled slowly.
"I'll hear her out first."
The decision settled naturally afterward. If she wanted him dead, she already had multiple opportunities. Which meant her goals likely aligned against the manufacturers at least partially.
That alone made her valuable.
Shore spent the next half hour carefully sweeping the apartment for hidden surveillance devices. Every vent, electrical outlet and piece of furniture was checked thoroughly.
Nothing.
No bugs, trackers or hidden optics. Either she genuinely had not planted anything... or she was skilled enough that even Shore could not detect it.
He honestly wasn't sure which possibility annoyed him more.
Eventually Shore cleaned the apartment damage as best he could. Broken wood was swept aside and cracked debris discarded quietly into trash bags.
Afterward he cleaned his operative gear thoroughly.
The sewer smell from last night still lingered faintly across sections of the fabric and Shore refused to walk into public smelling like industrial death water.
Once finished, he changed clothes.
The lightweight tactical bodysuit remained underneath as usual but this time he layered more civilian clothing over it. Jacket and casual boots.
His mask remained tucked away inside a pouch. The gauntlet disappeared beneath his sleeve afterward.
By the time Shore finally left the apartment, he looked mostly normal again.
Mostly.
The drive toward Emerald Street remained uneventful.
Mountain Glenn's midday traffic flowed steadily beneath cloudy skies while neon advertisements flickered endlessly on buildings overhead.
Presso turned out to be smaller than Shore expected.
A hybrid bakery and coffee parlor was tucked between a bookstore and an old electronic repair shop.
Warm yellow lighting spilled through large glass windows while the scent of baked bread and coffee drifted faintly onto the sidewalk.
Shore did not enter immediately. Instead he spent several minutes scouting the surrounding streets carefully.
Entrances, exit routes, roof access points and possible sniper angles.
These were all old habits.
By the time he finally entered the café, he still had fifteen minutes remaining before the arranged meeting time.
A small bell chimed overhead as he stepped inside and the atmosphere was quiet. Soft music played through hidden speakers while several civilians chatted idly over drinks near the front windows.
Shore immediately selected a booth near the back corner. Good visibility of the entire café. Minimal blind spots.
He ordered hot tea first then sat down carefully while allowing his gaze to drift casually across the room.
There was no blonde woman, suspicious movement or obvious surveillance.
Still...
Shore remained cautious. He lifted the tea slowly and took a sip. Then a voice suddenly spoke directly across from him.
"Glad you could make it."
Shore nearly reacted on instinct to throw the hot tea at the sound. His muscles tensed immediately while his eyes snapped upward.
Someone sat across from him now.
The mysterious woman.
Blonde, beautiful and very real.
Shore stared for half a second because he knew with absolute certainty the seat had been empty moments ago.
She held a warm coffee cup casually between both hands while sipping from it calmly. She didn't have any combat gear this time or tactical clothing nor was she wearing a mask
Instead she wore a dark sweater beneath a light jacket and fitted jeans. Simple civilian clothing that allowed her to blend naturally into the café atmosphere.
Her katana was also nowhere visible. Which somehow made her feel even more dangerous.
Shore's eyes narrowed slightly.
Invisibility?
Or something extremely close to it? Suddenly several things clicked together all at once.
The tailing and infiltration.
How she moved through his surveillance blind spots so easily. Shore leaned back slowly.
"That's..." he started carefully.
"Surprising?" she offered.
"Indeed."
A faint smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. "Fair."
Shore studied her openly now that he could actually see her face properly. She had sharp red eyes and fair skin with a confident posture.
She was young, probably around his age in her early twenties. Though, maybe she was slightly older.
She was... definitely attractive. But unfortunately, Shore's current trust level toward her remained somewhere beneath sewer bacteria.
Before he could speak again, the blonde woman rested her drink down gently.
"Earlier today, our introductions could have gone better."
"That's one way to describe that fiasco. Why did you choose to break into my apartment? If your skills at infiltration were as refined as this, you could have waited longer before making sure I was someone you could trust, rather than confronting me straight away."
She paused thoughtfully.
"…I could have, but... I'm running out of time. There are certain reasons in which I had to rush my plans."
Then she extended one hand slightly across the table.
"But... before all that. My name is Raye," she said.
Shore stared at her for a second. A brief pause followed. Then for the first time since meeting her... some of the coldness left her expression.
"And, I need your help."
Shore studied her quietly for another moment before finally reaching forward. His fingers lightly grasped her palm.
"Shore," he said simply. "Now tell me as much as you can."
Raye nodded once and slowly withdrew her hand back toward her cup. "It's a little difficult to explain properly. A lot of this started before I even knew what Aetherion was."
Shore leaned back slightly against the booth.
"Start from the beginning then."
Raye exhaled softly through her nose before speaking.
"I used to work contract jobs," she said. "Construction work, deliveries, warehouse hauling, equipment transport. Stuff like that."
Her fingers tapped lightly against the side of her coffee cup. "My parents had me young. They passed away a few years later."
Shore said nothing and simply listened.
"There wasn't exactly some secret inheritance waiting for me afterward, so I worked."
A faint smile crossed her lips.
"Turns out surviving is expensive."
Shore took another sip of tea.
"That it is."
Raye continued.
"I got into university for a while but eventually I couldn't keep up with the costs anymore. Rent, food, transportation. I dropped out."
There was no self pity in her voice, just facts.
About a year ago, I got offered a special transport contract."
Shore's attention sharpened slightly.
"It paid well?"
"Very well, actually and at the time I was behind on rent."
Fair enough.
Raye leaned back slightly before continuing. "The deliveries went to a facility in Ironview. A bioengineering company called Eclipse Industries."
That name immediately registered in Shore's mind.
Eclipse Industries. He knew the company. Not intimately, but enough.
They were a moderately powerful conglomerate operating throughout Vale. Pharmaceutical research, biological engineering, synthetic materials and medical technology.
On paper, they were clean.
But apparently, they might have been too clean. At least, according to this girl, Raye. Shore quietly stored the information away.
Raye continued speaking.
"At first the work seemed normal. Sealed cargo containers, scheduled delivery routes and private loading bays. I kept doing deliveries for about a month then eventually I realized the shipments weren't products. They were people."
Shore's eyes narrowed.
"Homeless people mostly and drifters too. The kind nobody notices disappearing."
The café suddenly felt colder despite the warm lighting around them. Shore rested his tea down quietly.
"How did you find that out?"
Raye looked toward the café window for a moment before answering. "The subjects were usually sedated before transport," she explained. "Drugged heavily."
Her expression darkened slightly. "But one of them resisted it somehow. He started making noise inside the truck during transport. Banging around and yelling."
A pause followed.
"Usually I never checked the cargo personally. Somebody else always handled unloading."
"But this time you did?"
Raye nodded.
"When I arrived at the facility, I heard the noise again from the trailer. I thought maybe somebody had been sealed inside accidentally."
Her jaw tightened faintly.
"So I opened it."
Shore already knew where this was going. "There were people inside, cuffed, sedated and terrified. One of them, the one who was making noise begged me for help."
The booth went silent briefly. Shore watched her expression carefully.
Not performative anger or dramatics. Just old disgust buried deep.
"I called the police immediately afterward," she continued.
"And?"
Raye laughed softly but there was absolutely no humor in it. "The guards restrained me before the police even arrived."
"And the police?"
"One of the facility managers talked to them privately. Then suddenly the whole thing disappeared."
Shore already knew the answer before she said it.
"Covered up?"
"Completely."
Raye looked down at the coffee briefly.
"Apparently Eclipse Industries owned enough people in Ironview that nobody cared about missing homeless civilians."
Shore's expression remained calm externally but internally his thoughts had become significantly darker. Corporate influence over local enforcement was unfortunately nothing new.
Still...
Human experimentation. That crossed into territory LUCID would absolutely erase people over. Especially when it came into the purview of Grimm.
"They decided I knew too much, however, instead of killing me, they used me as a test subject instead." Raye explained. "They took me deeper into the facility and... that place wasn't normal, Shore."
Something about the way she said that made the hairs on the back of his neck rise slightly.
"I saw things there."
"What kind of things?"
Raye stared at him carefully for a second before answering.
"Monsters. Creatures covered in black fur. Some looked like bipedal wolves... or werewolves except twisted and dark."
Her expression tightened.
"They had bone plating growing from their bodies."
'Grimm.' Shore thought. 'There must have been an amalgamation that they controlled to produce the creatures of grimm.'
Very problematic.
Raye continued.
"There were others too. Bear-like things and some smaller ones moving on walls. All inside their own separate testing chambers.
A faint shudder passed through her shoulders.
"I didn't even know monsters like that existed."
Shore stayed silent. Because explaining Grimm to civilians was... complicated. Especially civilians who had apparently survived human experimentation involving them.
"They injected me afterward, with something called Aetherion V3."
Shore immediately focused again. The implication was that there was Aetherion V1 and V2, now. "And the other test subjects? What happened to them?"
Her eyes lowered slightly.
"They died. All of them except me."
The café noise continued softly around them while Shore processed that information.
"One of the researchers, the leader involved in the research, called me a masterpiece afterward."
Shore frowned slightly.
"The lead scientist? Male or Female."
"Male, but I don't think he was just the lead scientist. I think he was the leader of the entire Aetherion project or something."
Shore filed that information away for later. "What was him name?"
Raye shook her head.
"I never learned it fully. But I heard one of the researchers call him Doctor M."
Doctor M.
Another piece added to the growing nightmare puzzle. Shore gestured lightly for her to continue.
"I was only inside the facility for around two weeks," she explained. "But after the injection... things changed quickly."
"How so?"
"My body became stronger almost immediately."
Her red eyes lifted toward his.
"Faster too and the day after the injection, I was able to escape, with my invisibility... and several other abilities."
Shore leaned slightly forward.
"Explain them."
"My strength, speed, reflexes and proprioception are enhanced beyond normal human limits," she said. "My durability improved too."
That much he had already experienced personally against his living room floor.
"I can also sense nearby humans."
Interesting, just like grimm.
"And invisibility?"
Raye nodded once.
"I can sort of bend light around myself. Works on thermal vision and other such forms of vision based technology as well."
Shore immediately began mentally categorizing possibilities.
Aetherion essentially transferred Grimm characteristics into human hosts through unstable biological integration. Which meant her abilities likely originated from a specific Grimm type.
Versepellis.
A chameleon-type Grimm species capable of camouflage and ambush predation, native to Vacuoo. At Rank 0 they were manageable but at Rank 1 and beyond, they became horrific to fight against.
Shore filed the thought away silently.
"I escaped Ironview afterward and eventually I made it to Vale City."
"And you never contacted authorities again?"
Raye gave him a look.
"I watched police officers cover up human trafficking."
Fair point.
"So instead, I disappeared." Her voice hardened slightly. "I trained myself. Learned infiltration, surveillance and combat."
Shore believed that immediately. "Then eventually I infiltrated Eclipse Industries again."
That surprised him slightly.
"You went back?"
"I wanted answers."
Madness. But understandable madness.
"And?"
Raye's eyes narrowed faintly. "I discovered they planned to begin large scale distribution of V1 Aetherion here in Mountain Glenn."
Hence why she came.
"But there's another problem," she said quietly afterward.
Shore already suspected it.
"My body is getting worse."
There it was.
"These abilities are degenerating me slowly," she admitted. "I found research logs mentioning instability progression of the other successful subjects of V3."
Her fingers curled lightly against the table.
"Eventually... I'll become one of those monsters."
Shore remained silent. Not because he lacked sympathy. But because he genuinely did not know what to say.
"I found references to V4," she continued. "Apparently it's more stable."
"And you think it can save you?"
"I don't know," Raye admitted honestly. "But it's the only lead I have."
Shore thought quietly for several moments.
Then finally:
"You said it's being manufactured here."
Raye nodded.
"Yes."
"But you haven't located the facility?"
"No."
Interesting. Very interesting. Shore folded his arms afterward.
"What does Thomas Baldwin have to do with all this?"
Raye answered immediately.
"He's one of the major distributors for V1 throughout Mountain Glenn."
"So he's higher than the sewer supplier."
"Much higher."
Shore asked several more questions afterward regarding Thomas's routines, contacts and movements.
Raye answered everything she knew. Eventually silence settled briefly between them. Then Shore exhaled quietly and finished the last of his tea.
"Alright," he said calmly, "then it looks like we're going shopping."
Raye raised an eyebrow slightly.
"The Bazaar?"
Shore nodded once.
"It's time we found the source."