Andy knew they were moving at first light.

  The Wayfarer’s systems were already cycling toward departure readiness, Ghost Route settling into that quiet, predatory calm they wore before motion. He should have been resting. He should have been reviewing data, letting Hale run more checks, letting the numbness finish whatever work it had started.

  But Terra wasn’t there.

  He noticed it the way you notice a missing tooth with your tongue—absent, irritating, impossible to ignore.

  He asked at first casually. A scrub near a supply crate. A Knight pulling off scorched gauntlets.

  “Seen Terra?”

  The answers came too quickly.

  Too uniformly.

  “Not since the outer push.”

  “She checked in earlier.”

  “Probably with her unit.”

  Andy felt it like pressure against his skin.

  He tried again. A logistics officer. A junior priest who had been staring at him like he was a holy text made flesh.

  No one had seen her.

  Or no one wanted to say they had.

  That was worse.

  Andy turned away from the Wayfarer without telling anyone where he was going.

  No one stopped him.

  Bastion swallowed him again.

  Night had settled fully now, the city lit by scattered floodlights and distant fires still being stamped out. The air was colder, sharper. The ruins felt different after what he’d done—less hostile, more… attentive.

  He didn’t need Elyra to guide him.

  His feet knew where to go.

  He crossed streets he’d already walked, passed memories he didn’t linger in this time. His focus narrowed, tunneled toward a single point. Toward a place that had survived far longer than it had any right to.

  The warehouse.

  It loomed at the edge of a half-collapsed industrial block, its broad roofline still intact, its walls scarred but standing. Once, it had been full of crates and machinery. Later, it had been empty enough for children to claim.

  Andy slowed as he approached.

  There—on the roof.

  A silhouette sat at the edge, legs dangling over open air.

  Terra.

  She didn’t turn when he climbed the interior stairs. Didn’t look back when his boots scraped against rusted metal as he joined her on the roof. The city stretched out below them, broken and quiet, lights flickering like dying stars.

  For a while, they just sat.

  “You’re bad at hiding,” Andy said eventually.

  Terra snorted softly. “You’re bad at pretending not to look for people.”

  She glanced sideways at him then, her face lit by firelight from somewhere far below. There was blood still dried in her hair. Scratches she hadn’t bothered to treat. Her armor lay discarded behind her, blades resting within reach.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  Andy considered the question.

  “I’m… here,” he said.

  She nodded. “Fair.”

  The wind tugged at them, carrying the distant clatter of recovery crews and the muted voices of the living trying to make sense of survival.

  “I saw it,” Terra said quietly. “What you did.”

  Andy’s jaw tightened. “I know.”

  She didn’t look at him as she spoke next. “When the storm stopped, I thought I’d gone deaf. Everything just… ended.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She finally turned fully toward him, eyes sharp. “Don’t do that. Don’t apologize for saving people.”

  He held her gaze. “I’m not apologizing for that.”

  Terra studied him for a long moment, then sighed and looked back out over the city.

  “This place,” she said. “Do you remember when we climbed up here the first time?”

  Andy smiled despite himself. “You said it was our fortress.”

  “And you said it was stupid,” she replied, smirking faintly. “But you still helped me haul up those old crates.”

  They fell quiet again, memories threading between them without being named. The games. The arguments. The day everything changed.

  “I didn’t come back down after the fighting,” Terra said finally. “Couldn’t.” She flexed her hands slowly. “Everyone was looking at me like I was supposed to say something. Like I had answers.”

  Andy nodded. “They’ve been doing that to me too.”

  She glanced at him sideways. “Yeah. I noticed.”

  Another pause.

  “Are you still you?” she asked.

  The question was simple. Direct. Terrifying.

  Andy looked down at his hands. At the faint glow that sometimes lingered beneath his skin now if he focused too hard.

  “I think so,” he said honestly. “But it’s quieter.”

  Terra frowned. “Quieter how?”

  “Like the world turned the volume down,” he replied. “Or like I did.”

  She absorbed that, then reached out and punched his shoulder—light, familiar.

  “Well,” she said, “you’re still annoying. That’s something.”

  He laughed quietly, the sound surprising them both.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Terra’s expression softened then, just a little.

  “You didn’t leave,” she said. “When everything went bad. You didn’t disappear.”

  “Neither did you,” Andy replied.

  They sat together at the edge of the warehouse, feet dangling over the same drop they’d once pretended was bottomless, watching the broken city breathe.

  Whatever Andy was becoming.

  Whatever Terra had endured.

  For this moment, at least, they were just two kids from Bastion who had survived long enough to sit together again.

  And that mattered more than either of them said.

  Terra broke the silence first.

  “So,” she said, swinging one boot idly over the edge, metal scraping softly against concrete. “You’re a Ranger now?”

  Andy snorted under his breath. “Something like that.”

  She tilted her head, studying him from the corner of her eye. “What’s it like?”

  He thought about Ghost Route—the way they moved, the way they watched him without staring, the way no one pretended this work was noble. Just necessary.

  “It’s… quieter,” he said. “Not like before. No speeches. No banners. Just people who expect things to go wrong and plan around it.”

  Terra smirked. “Sounds depressing.”

  “It is,” Andy replied. Then, after a beat, “But they’re honest about it.”

  She nodded slowly. “Must be nice.”

  The wind shifted, carrying distant echoes of machinery and voices below. Terra let out a breath that sounded more tired than she probably wanted it to.

  “Funny thing,” she said. “All this time I thought I had the cool secret assignment.” She glanced at him now, eyebrow raised. “Turns out I was a distraction.”

  Andy winced. “Terra—”

  She waved him off. “I know. I know. ‘Strategic necessity.’ ‘Operational reality.’ I’ve heard it all before.” Her jaw tightened slightly. “Doesn’t make it feel great knowing we were bait.”

  “You weren’t expendable,” Andy said immediately. “They needed you visible. Strong. Drawing attention. That’s not the same thing.”

  She laughed softly, without humor. “It is when you’re the one taking the hits.”

  Andy leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “You kept them busy. You kept people alive. Without that, we don’t get underground. Without underground, we don’t learn what we learned.”

  She looked at him for a long moment. “You sound like them.”

  He grimaced. “Yeah. I noticed that too.”

  Another silence fell, heavier this time.

  “You know,” Terra said quietly, “when the storm stopped… I thought maybe I’d died. That this was some kind of after-image. The noise just—cut. All at once.” She flexed her hands again, as if checking they were still real. “I’ve never felt anything like that.”

  Andy swallowed. “Neither had I.”

  She turned to face him fully now. “That thing you did—don’t dodge this—did it scare you?”

  “Yes,” Andy said. No hesitation.

  That seemed to surprise her more than any denial would have.

  “Good,” she said softly. “I was worried you’d say no.”

  He met her gaze. “I don’t want to be something that isn’t afraid anymore.”

  Terra nodded, once. “Then you’re still you.”

  She leaned back on her hands, staring up at the sky. “Guess that makes us even. You get pulled into some shadow-war with Rangers and thrones. I get to be the shiny Knight drawing fire.”

  “You always liked being dramatic,” Andy said.

  She scoffed. “Someone had to be.”

  They sat there, shoulders nearly touching, the city stretched out beneath them like a map of scars and memories.

  “So what now?” Terra asked.

  Andy exhaled slowly. “Now we leave Bastion. Chase answers we’re not sure we want. Hope the world doesn’t notice too fast.”

  She glanced at him, eyes sharp again. “And when it does?”

  Andy looked out over the ruins—the warehouse roof, the broken streets, the places where they’d once been children instead of survivors.

  “Then we deal with it,” he said. “Like we always have.”

  Terra smiled faintly at that.

  “Figures,” she said. “You always did have a talent for ending up in the middle of things.”

  Below them, Bastion hummed with quiet.

  Above them, the sky watched.

  And for a little while longer, neither of them moved.

  Terra was quiet for a long moment.

  Then she lifted a hand and brushed her fingers across her forehead, pushing her hair aside.

  Andy’s breath caught despite himself.

  The scar was old—thin, pale, nearly hidden unless you knew where to look. He’d seen it a thousand times.

  “You know why I came up here?” she asked.

  Andy nodded slowly. “I think so.”

  She let out a small, crooked laugh. “First time I nearly died. It stuck with me.”

  She tapped the scar lightly.

  “My first scar.”

  Andy closed his eyes for half a second.

  “I remember,” he said.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “Of course you do.”

  The memory rose up around them, uninvited.

  They were younger—too young to understand what gravity really meant. Bastion hadn’t been broken yet. The warehouse roof had still been intact, the gaps between buildings narrower but no less terrifying.

  Terra had stood at the edge, eyes bright, fearless in the way only children could be.

  I can make it, she’d said.

  Andy had told her not to.

  She’d jumped anyway.

  “I misjudged it,” Terra said softly now. “Just by a little. Caught the edge wrong. Slipped.”

  Andy swallowed.

  “I remember your face,” she continued. “When you realized I wasn’t going to make it.”

  “I caught you,” Andy said quietly.

  She smiled at that, genuine and warm. “You did. Barely.”

  He could still feel it—the jolt through his arms, the scrape of skin on concrete, the sound her head made when it clipped the ledge before he pulled her back. The blood. Her stunned silence.

  “I thought you were going to cry,” she teased gently.

  “I almost did,” he admitted.

  She laughed, soft and fond. “I know.”

  Terra leaned back on her hands, staring up at the dark sky.

  “I was so embarrassed,” she said. “Didn’t even feel brave anymore. Just stupid. Everyone kept staring at the cut like it was proof I’d messed up.”

  Andy glanced at her. “That’s not how I saw it.”

  She turned toward him. “I know.”

  He smiled faintly. “I didn’t want you hiding it. Didn’t want you thinking it made you weak.”

  “So you named me,” she said.

  “So I named you,” he agreed.

  “Stargirl,” she said, rolling her eyes affectionately. “Because you said the scar looked like a shooting star.”

  “It did,” Andy insisted. “Still does.”

  She laughed again, quieter this time. “You really thought it was cool.”

  “I did,” he said simply. “And I didn’t want you being self-conscious about something that meant you were still alive.”

  Terra was quiet after that.

  The wind moved around them, carrying the distant sounds of Bastion settling into uneasy rest.

  “That was the first time I realized you’d always catch me,” she said at last. “Even when I did something stupid.”

  Andy looked out over the city. “I didn’t always catch you.”

  “But you tried,” she replied. “Every time.”

  She nudged him lightly with her shoulder. “Guess I’ve been riding that confidence ever since.”

  He huffed a soft laugh. “You never needed my help being reckless.”

  “True,” she said. “But it helped knowing someone had my back.”

  She touched the scar once more—not self-conscious now. Just thoughtful.

  “Funny,” Terra added. “Back then, it was just a kid falling off a roof. Now scars mean something else.”

  Andy nodded. “They do.”

  She looked at him, eyes steady. “But this one?” She tapped her forehead again. “This one still means I survived.”

  “So does the rest of you,” Andy said.

  She smiled at that—small, sincere.

  They sat together at the edge of the warehouse, older now, heavier with memory and consequence—but still the same two kids who’d once believed the city would always be there to catch them.

  They stayed on the roof longer than either of them meant to.

  Not talking much at first—just letting the wind move around them, letting the city sit between them without needing to be explained. When they did speak again, it was quieter things. Small things.

  Terra complained about the grit that somehow got everywhere no matter how sealed your armor was. Andy admitted the Ranger rations were somehow worse than standard Vanguard issue, which she found deeply satisfying.

  Eventually, the cold crept in.

  Terra stood first, stretching her arms over her head. “We should head back. If Rodrick notices I’ve gone missing again, he’ll assume I’m bleeding somewhere.”

  Andy pushed himself up beside her. “Fair assessment.”

  They climbed down through the warehouse interior, boots echoing through hollow space. Outside, Bastion’s recovery lights cast long, uneven shadows. The Vanguard encampment was visible now—tents, portable barricades, generators humming steadily. Order pressing itself back into a wounded place.

  As they walked, Terra slowed.

  Just a little.

  Andy noticed.

  “You good?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said quickly. Then, after a beat, more honestly, “I just… don’t like this part.”

  “The part where we go back to pretending things are normal?” he asked.

  She glanced at him. “The part where you leave.”

  Andy stopped.

  They stood just outside the perimeter of the Vanguard tent line, the glow from inside spilling across the ground. Voices carried faintly—logistics, reports, people already turning their attention forward.

  Terra hesitated, then looked at him properly, like she was committing something to memory.

  “It’s not like you’re disappearing,” she said. “I know that.”

  “I know,” Andy replied. “We’re all headed to the same place.”

  She nodded, but didn’t move.

  He softened his voice. “I’ll see you back in Aurelia. Same city. Same stupid routines.”

  A corner of her mouth lifted. “Same bench?”

  Andy smiled. “The one by the park. The one that’s always slightly broken.”

  She exhaled, the tension easing just a fraction. “Yeah. That one.”

  “I’ll see you there,” he said.

  Terra held his gaze for a moment longer, then nodded once, sharp and decisive—soldier again.

  “I’ll see you there,” she echoed.

  She turned and headed into the tent, pausing just once to glance back before disappearing inside.

  Andy watched the flap fall shut.

  Then he turned toward the Wayfarer, toward Ghost Route, toward the road that kept pulling him forward whether he was ready or not.

  Behind him, Bastion breathed—scarred, stubborn, alive.

  Ahead of him, the night waited.

  And somewhere in the future, a broken bench waited too.

  That was enough to keep him moving.

  Echoes actually started in Bastion. When I began putting the rough draft together, I realized that nearly half of the first book would just be an introduction to the world—and that it wouldn’t end with a satisfying conclusion. So the story shifted, and the opening changed into what it is now.