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#Post#: 20439--------------------------------------------------
RIFTS Earth Story: Act II – Fort Purity
By: Raven Tepes Date: October 16, 2025, 11:47 pm
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“Silence is the sharpest weapon. Sound is its echo.” – Feling
Tigress
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The storm began an hour after midnight.
Blue ley lightning forked across the sky, striking the broken
husks of skyscrapers and turning the night into flashes of
violent brilliance. The air hummed with static and magic—a
perfect cover for ghosts.
And tonight, the ghosts wore tiger stripes.
Feling Tigress and her small squad crept through the industrial
graveyard north of Fort Purity. Rain fell in metallic sheets,
sizzling where it struck old rebar. Their hovertrucks sat
camouflaged under tattered tarps a kilometer back, silent
sentinels waiting for a signal that might never come.
Ahead, Fort Purity loomed like a steel scar on the land.
A towering wall of armor plating, reinforced with vibro-concrete
and warding sigils carved by captive mages. Turrets scanned the
horizon, each one armed with railguns capable of slicing through
a Glitter Boy suit. The Coalition’s skull insignia glowed pale
white on the fortress gates—an omen of death.
Feling crouched at the mouth of the old pipeline access, her fur
slicked with rain. The tunnel entrance yawned before her like
the throat of some ancient beast.
Behind her, Dax checked the charges on his pack and grinned.
“Always wanted to crawl into a sewage line under a fascist death
fortress. Livin’ the dream.”
Ryn, her eyes aglow with ley energy, traced sigils along the
tunnel rim. “I’ve dampened the sound around us. Even the
psi-hounds won’t hear us move.”
Feling nodded once, her ears flicking. “Stay close. We move fast
and quiet.”
“Quiet,” Dax muttered, “she says, right before she breaks the
sound barrier.”
Tarn, the psi-stalker, bared his teeth in amusement. “Pray she
doesn’t break you, Dax.”
The half-borg raised his hands. “Fair point.”
The tunnel was half-flooded, reeking of rust and decay. Every
step sent ripples through the stagnant water, but Ryn’s spell
absorbed even that sound. Bioluminescent fungi clung to the
walls, painting everything in an eerie blue light.
Feling led the way, claws extended, each finger morphing
subtly—half metal, half muscle. Her body was alive with
low-frequency vibrations that pulsed in rhythm with her
heartbeat. She could feel the layout of the tunnel, the
breathing of her teammates, even the distant thrum of Fort
Purity’s generators through the concrete.
After twenty minutes, they reached the junction chamber. Dax
knelt beside a rusted grate and began planting explosives.
“Charges set to blow outward. Give us a nice, loud welcome.”
Feling crouched beside him. “No loud until I say.”
Dax blinked. “You? Asking for quiet?”
She smiled faintly. “Tigers stalk before they strike.”
They emerged inside the lower maintenance wing of Fort Purity.
The walls were spotless steel, humming with power conduits.
Through the grated floors, the base’s reactor core glowed with
dangerous beauty.
Feling raised a hand and the team froze.
Her ears twitched. Footsteps. Two guards. Dog Boys.
She motioned silently—two fingers forward. Tarn melted into
shadow.
The guards rounded the corner, their canine senses sniffing the
air. “Something’s off,” one growled. “Power’s flickering again.”
Before he could finish, Tarn lunged. His psi-blades ignited with
psychic flame, and in one fluid motion he slashed through both
helmets. The bodies dropped soundlessly.
Feling nodded her approval. “Drag them out of sight.”
Ryn’s runes flared briefly as she sealed the air vents with
silence. “Ley surge in three minutes,” she whispered. “That’s
our window.”
“Then we move,” Feling ordered.
The corridors of Fort Purity were a maze of polished
oppression—skull emblems, propaganda holoscreens, and rows of
containment cells. Through reinforced glass, Feling saw
prisoners: D-Bees, mutants, even children. Some barely clung to
life.
Her claws flexed. “Ryn, unlock them.”
The ley line walker nodded, touching her staff to the control
panel. Blue light raced along the circuits, overriding the
Coalition encryption. The cell doors hissed open one by one.
A reptilian D-Bee with broken scales stepped out, blinking in
disbelief. “Who… who are you?”
Feling met his gaze. “Someone who remembers what it means to be
free.”
Cheers and whispers rippled through the prisoners, but Feling
raised a hand for silence. “There are more to save. Get to the
tunnel. Follow the light markers. Ryn will lead you once we
breach the upper level.”
Alarms blared before they reached the reactor shaft.
Inquisitor Marrek—Coalition’s “specialist”—appeared on a
holo-screen above them. His face was half-metal, half-righteous
fury. “You think we don’t see you, beast? Project Felidae.
Property of Akira. Escaped experiment. Return to containment or
be exterminated.”
Feling’s ears flattened, her voice a low growl. “You can’t
contain what was born to roar.”
Marrek sneered. “Then die like the animal you are.”
The floor shook as containment doors slammed down. Armored
soldiers poured in, rifles raised. Dog Boys howled.
Feling turned to Dax. “Light it.”
“Gladly.”
The charges detonated. The shockwave tore open the reactor
corridor, bathing the soldiers in smoke and debris. Feling
vanished into the chaos—a streak of white lightning moving
faster than thought. Her claws transformed into twin
vibro-blades as she carved through armor and steel alike.
Gunfire filled the air, but she was untouchable. Sound bent
around her, each footstep a sonic distortion that deflected
bullets and shredded visors.
Ryn lifted her staff and unleashed a surge of ley energy,
binding the enemy in tendrils of blue fire. Tarn leapt from
shadow to shadow, cutting down psi-hounds before they could
focus.
It was over in seconds.
But the victory was short-lived.
From the reactor pit rose a hulking figure in black power
armor—Marrek himself, descending like a demon of metal and
flame. His armor was twice the size of a SAMAS suit, powered by
a psionic feedback core. The Coalition emblem on his chest
pulsed with crimson light.
He pointed a gauntleted hand at Feling. “You should have stayed
in your cage.”
Feling crouched low, her tail flicking. “You should have stayed
in yours.”
He fired first—a beam of psionic energy that cr@cked the floor
where she’d stood. Feling blurred sideways, the sonic boom
rattling the walls. She retaliated with a focused roar, a
shockwave that dented his armor and hurled debris across the
chamber.
Marrek recovered, advancing through the storm. “Impressive, but
I was built to hunt your kind.”
Feling’s eyes glowed bright green. “Then let’s see if your kind
can bleed.”
They collided in a burst of light and sound—claws against
vibro-blade, plasma against sonic resonance. Every strike echoed
like thunder. Dax’s sensors overloaded trying to track them. Ryn
shielded the team as shockwaves cr@cked the walls.
Feling’s limbs shifted mid-fight—arms morphing into sonic
cannons that pulsed with blue-white light. She fired point-blank
into Marrek’s chest, the soundwave liquefying armor plating and
tearing open his psionic core.
He staggered back, sparks flying. “You think… you’ve won?”
Feling stood tall amid the smoke, her fur scorched, eyes
blazing. “I don’t think. I know.”
Her final roar shattered his armor completely—his body
disintegrating into ash and echo.
The alarms died. The prisoners had escaped. The reactor was
under their control.
Feling turned to her team, chest heaving but triumphant. “Plant
the charges. We’re bringing Purity down.”
Ryn smiled through exhaustion. “You mean up in smoke.”
Dax whooped. “Music to my ears.”
Tarn just nodded. “You’ve earned your roar tonight, boss.”
Feling looked to the fortress ceiling, where the Coalition flag
hung above them. She raised one claw, transformed it into a
blade, and sliced it clean in half.
As the banner fell into the reactor fires, she whispered:
“Let them hear us.”
The explosion that followed could be heard for miles—rolling
thunder over the Great Lakes. And within that thunder was the
unmistakable echo of a tiger’s roar.
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