My first real rift opened under a shopping plaza two days later.
A rift is not a neat portal. It is a wound. The air tears open, light spills out, and monsters crawl through like the world behind the world wants rent money. This one opened beneath a luxury electronics store, which meant half the city ignored the danger and started filming, because nothing says survival like getting a good angle.
A team of flashy raiders arrived first. They wore matching jackets, carried expensive weapons, and laughed when Harper pushed me forward. One of them asked if the phone charger was here to help.
I looked at the electronics store behind him. Rows of televisions, security cameras, display phones, speakers, electric shutters, drones, and glass cases, charging cables everywhere. I almost thanked him for choosing the battlefield.
The monsters came out as black dogs made of smoke and bone, with teeth that flashed like broken glass. The raider team charged in with practiced confidence. They lasted nineteen seconds before one got bitten, one dropped his weapon, and one ran behind a perfume kiosk.
People screamed. I stepped forward.
The nearest monster lunged. I raised my hand, and every television in the store turned on at once, blasting white light into its eyes. The creature twisted midair. I used the magnetic coil inside a display speaker to yank a metal shelf across the floor, clipped the monster in the ribs, then fired a needle-thin bolt through its skull. It exploded into smoke and a crystal core.
The crowd went quiet. Then the rest of the pack rushed me.
That was when things got ridiculous. I ripped open the store shutters without touching them. Display phones shot from their stands, circling me like glowing cards. Each one flashed, beeped, and projected decoy versions of me across the plaza. Monsters attacked the illusions, biting empty light while I danced between them with lightning wrapped around my feet.
I did not even run. I slid. Every step created a blue ring on the wet floor. I snapped my wrist, and charging cables whipped out like electric snakes, tying monster legs together. I kicked one through a coffee sign. I blasted another into a fountain, then turned the fountain into a sparkling death trap.
A huge beast leaped from the rift with three jaws, and I threw a whole row of drones at it. The drones spun around its head, flashed like a nightclub, and annoyed it so badly that it charged straight at me without noticing the metal sculpture behind it. I magnetized the sculpture. The beast slammed into it, stuck there, and looked personally offended. Then I hit it with enough lightning to turn the fountain water into steam.
When the smoke cleared, crystal cores glittered across the plaza. The raiders who had mocked me stared at the pile like their souls had left their bodies. I picked up one core, tossed it to Harper, and said, "How much is dog smoke worth?"
That video spread faster than a rumor in a high school cafeteria. By morning, everyone in Aster had seen the weak spark from the training yard turn a rift pack into a light show. Half the comments said I was a fraud using hidden gear. Half said I was dangerous. A very loud group insisted I was still weak and got lucky.
That last group was my favorite. Lucky people get challenged. Powerful people get avoided. I needed challenges.
Crystal cores sold for good money, but money alone was not enough. I had died broke once. I refused to become some rich idiot with a bigger apartment and the same fear inside his chest. I wanted control. I wanted height. I wanted to stand so far above the people who laughed that they had to hurt their necks looking up.
So I made another plan.
Aster had an underground racing scene where raiders tested enchanted vehicles in abandoned highway loops. The prizes were huge. The danger was worse. The champion was Riley, a woman who drove like she had made a personal enemy out of physics. Harper said no beginner should go near that place, because the racers cheated, crashed, and sometimes disappeared into rifts that opened on the road.
That sounded profitable.
We arrived at midnight. The highway loop was glowing with illegal lights. Cars floated on magnetic tires. Bikes growled with crystal engines. Spectators stood behind energy barriers shouting bets. The air smelled like rain, ozone, and terrible decisions.
Riley noticed me before anyone else did. She leaned against a silver car with one hand in her jacket pocket, cool as a knife in winter. She asked if I was lost.
I said I was looking for a ride.
She looked at my torn shoes and laughed. Not cruelly, honestly. Like the idea of me racing was the funniest thing the universe had offered her all week.
The other drivers were not as charming. They called me alley trash, spark boy, and noodle thief. One even offered me a children's scooter.
I thanked him, took the scooter, and asked Harper if she could remove the speed limiter.
Harper stared at me. The crowd stared at me. Riley laughed again, harder this time.
Five minutes later, I was at the starting line on a tiny electric scooter with a cracked headlight, surrounded by vehicles worth more than my old apartment building. The announcer started the countdown. I put one foot on the scooter and one foot on the road.
The moment the race began, every driver exploded forward in a roar of engines. I did not move. The crowd booed.
Then I touched the road.
The entire highway loop had magnetic guidance rails buried under the asphalt. Every fancy car used them for stability at high speeds. Every racer trusted those rails. Every one of those rails belonged to me now.
I launched. The scooter became a blue comet. My body flattened against the wind. The cracked headlight turned into a lightning crown. The little wheels screamed in a way no wheels should scream. I shot past the first car so fast the driver spilled his drink on his own face.
The crowd stopped booing. They started making the sound people make when their brain drops something heavy.
The highway bent upward into a loop between skyscrapers. Riley was ahead, drifting with perfect control, her silver car cutting through the rain like a blade. I could have passed her with raw speed, but that was boring. Instead, I rode the scooter along the wall, then the ceiling, sparks falling upward from my tires. Riley glanced up through her windshield and actually blinked.
That was worth the entry fee.
Then the cheating started. Two drivers behind me fired stun nets. One released a smoke drone. Another tried to overload the guidance rail under my lane. They thought they were attacking a poor beginner on a toy. They were actually donating weapons.
I caught the stun nets with magnetism, twisted them into glowing hoops, and sent them spinning around my scooter like rings around a planet. The smoke drone became my camera assistant. The overloaded rail fed my speed until the scooter's plastic frame began to melt.
That was a problem, so I jumped.
The scooter exploded beneath me in a burst of sparks, and for one insane second, I was flying over the highway with nothing under my feet.