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#Post#: 20438--------------------------------------------------
RIFTS Earth Story: Act I – Echoes in the Wasteland
By: Raven Tepes Date: October 16, 2025, 1:48 am
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The Great Lakes region had long since been claimed by ruin and
ley energy.
Once the cradle of industry, Detroit was now a skeletal city
draped in vines of blue lightning and broken steel. The
Coalition had renamed it Fort Purity, declaring it a stronghold
of “human order.” But in the shattered suburbs and rusted
shipyards beyond its walls, chaos thrived — and from that chaos
rose rebellion.
Feling Tigress crouched atop the carcass of an ancient
skyscraper, her striped fur catching the shimmer of leyline glow
from the horizon. Her feline eyes adjusted effortlessly to the
neon twilight. Every breath carried the hum of distant machinery
— patrol bots, plasma generators, and the rhythmic stomp of
Coalition boots.
She listened, processing each vibration through the bio-sonic
glands in her chest, translating sound into a perfect 3D map of
her surroundings.
Below her, a rebel convoy crept along the cr@cked expressway —
two hovertrucks covered in scavenged armor plating, their
engines barely audible thanks to psi-tech dampeners. The
insignia painted on their hulls wasn’t one of a nation or a god
— it was a tiger’s eye surrounded by concentric soundwaves.
Her symbol.
Feling leapt from the skyscraper, the air cracking in a low boom
as she landed beside the trucks. The rear doors slid open and
her team greeted her with weary smiles and nervous awe.
“Nice of you to drop in,” grinned Dax Harrow, a half-borg
demolition expert with one cybernetic arm and a personality loud
enough to rival her roars. “Scared half my sensors when you
broke the sound barrier again.”
Feling smirked, her tail flicking. “Maybe your sensors need
recalibration.”
“Or maybe you just like making an entrance,” chimed Ryn, a young
ley line walker with silver tattoos that glowed faintly under
her robes. Her eyes shimmered blue, reflecting the living energy
around them. “The base at Fort Purity’s been cycling power. Big
shipment inbound — could be new SAMAS units.”
Feling’s claws extended halfway, morphing into sleek metal edges
before retracting. “Then we take them before they’re deployed.”
“Boss,” came a gravelly voice from the driver’s cabin. Tarn, the
team’s psi-stalker, turned his scarred face toward her. The
black marks across his eyes glowed faintly in the ley light.
“Intel says Fort Purity’s got a new commander. Some skull in
Chi-Town sent a ‘specialist’—an Inquisitor. Means more dog boys,
more psi-hounds.”
Feling’s ears flattened slightly. The memory of being hunted,
caged, and labeled inhuman never left her. “Let them come
sniffing,” she growled. “I’ll teach them fear.”
The rebels exchanged glances. They’d followed her long enough to
know that tone meant something was about to explode — literally
or otherwise.
Ryn unrolled a digital map. “We’ve got three access routes: the
north drainage tunnels, the collapsed monorail trench, and an
old factory pipeline that feeds into the base’s power grid.”
Dax cr@cked his metal knuckles. “Pipeline’s my kind of party.
Explosives, confined spaces, zero visibility.”
Feling nodded. “We’ll move under the ley surge tonight. Their
sensors will be blinded for six minutes when the energy spikes.
That’s our window.”
“Six minutes?” Dax scoffed. “We’ll be lucky to plant half the
charges.”
“That’s why I’m going in first.” Her voice was calm, final. “I
move faster than sound. I’ll clear the path.”
Tarn leaned forward, his tone low and respectful. “You keep
risking yourself, boss. We need you alive more than we need
another crater.”
Feling turned, her gaze hard but not unkind. “You don’t win wars
by hiding behind walls. You win them by shattering what they’re
built on.”
A silence fell — the kind of silence born of loyalty, not fear.
Ryn broke it gently. “I’ll handle the ley synchronization. When
you hit the grid, I’ll cloak you in a resonance field. They
won’t hear you coming.”
Feling smiled, showing a flash of sharp teeth. “They’ll hear me
when I want them to.”
That night, under the eerie shimmer of the ley storm, the rebels
prepared for the assault. Dax calibrated his explosives,
whispering to them like old friends. Tarn checked his psi-blades
and whispered a hunter’s prayer. Ryn meditated in the truck bed,
drawing glowing runes in the air with her fingertips.
Feling stood apart from them, gazing toward the distant towers
of Fort Purity. The Coalition banners rippled in the electric
wind. She could almost hear the screams of those imprisoned
within — mutants, D-Bees, and captured mages being purged for
the crime of existing.
She placed one pawed hand over her chest. The sonic core within
her thrummed like a heartbeat.
Kaede’s voice, long lost to memory, echoed in her mind:
> “Run far, my Tigress. The world will fear you—but some will
need you.”
She whispered into the storm. “I’m done running.”
The wind howled in response — as if the ley lines themselves
answered her call.
Feling Tigress lifted her head and roared. The sound shook dust
from the ruins for miles, rippling through air and steel, a
defiant song that echoed across the wasteland.
Every rebel nearby felt it in their bones — the signal.
It was time.
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