The dim glow of lumen strips flickered in Karen's makeshift workshop, casting jagged shadows across the cluttered workbench.
The air smelled of scorched metal and solvent, thick enough to taste.
Karen wiped grease from her brow with the back of her wrist, leaving a smudge across her temple.
Her prosthetic fingers twitched around the vial of Q-Serin, its eerie blue liquid sloshing as she turned it absently in the light.
"I was going to use this as leverage," she admitted, voice rough with exhaustion. "Back in the labs. A bargaining chip to make sure you didn't leave me behind." A dry laugh escaped her. "Turns out, I didn't need it."
Lucent stood motionless by the door, his usual sharp edges softened in the dim light.
The admission settled between them like a weight.
He had always assumed Karen's loyalty was pragmatic—survival, not something as fragile as trust.
The realization cut deeper than he expected.
"...I'm sorry." The words were quiet, almost swallowed by the hum of the ventilation system.
Karen blinked, caught off guard.
The great Lucent Argyr, apologizing?
She smirked, the urge to tease him bubbling up—Oh, so the ice king does thaw—but she bit it back.
One wrong jab, and he'd shut down again, maybe even refuse the Q-Serin outright.
Instead, she tossed him the welder. "So, come on. Help me with this."
Lucent caught it on reflex, his fingers tightening around the grip.
He stared at the half-assembled pulse rifle on the table, its aether core pulsing faintly like a trapped heartbeat.
"You know," he said slowly, "I could modify this in half the time without the welder. Just activating some glyphs to the couplings directly."
Karen froze.
Then, very deliberately, she set down the plasma cutter. "...Are you telling me I've been sweating over this piece of shit for an hour when you could've just do that?"
Lucent had the decency to look mildly guilty. "Basically, yeah."
Karen exhaled through her nose, shaking her head. "You're really ruthless." But there was no heat in it.
Just tired amusement.
A beat passed.
The ghost of a smile tugged at Lucent's lips—small, fleeting, but there.
"Show me, then," Karen said, nudging the rifle toward him. "Before I change my mind about sharing my stash."
Lucent rolled up his sleeves, the scars along his forearms catching the light.
For the first time in weeks, the workshop didn't feel like a battlefield.
Then he paused, his fingers hovering over the rifle's exposed wiring.
"About the job you gave me," he said, voice low. "The mole problem in your gang."
Karen leaned back against the workbench, arms crossed. "Hoh. And what's the verdict?"
Lucent recounted the events at Sel's shop—Gary's betrayal, the Myriad conduits, the way the guards had been compromised.
Karen's expression darkened with each detail.
"So you're telling me," she said slowly, "there's an even bigger problem than Blaze running around setting shit on fire?"
"Yeah." Lucent's thumb brushed the pulse rifle's overheating vent. "But I don't think the corpos will move yet."
Karen's eyebrow arched. "What makes you so sure?"
"Just a hunch."
The words hung in the air, thin as smoke.
Lucent could almost see the gears turning behind Karen's eyes—weighing his track record against the sheer absurdity of trusting a gut feeling in a world where gut feelings got people killed.
He knew how it sounded.
But the pieces fit too neatly: Blaze's sudden resurgence, the Scorchers' targeted aggression, the way the Red Dogs had suddenly become bold enough to hit Talon territory.
This wasn't just revenge.
It was a catalyst.
Let the gangs tear each other apart.
Then sweep in and claim what's left.
The only question that gnawed at him—the one he couldn't voice—was why he mattered in all of this.
Why the Scorchers had his name on their lips.
Karen scoffed. "Are you expecting me to just believe in your hunch?"
Lucent met her gaze.
"No." He tapped the pulse rifle's housing. "But I am expecting you to trust that I know how corpos think. They don't rush. They wait for the right moment to strike."
A beat. "And right now? We're the ones lighting the fuse for them."
A flicker of unease crossed Karen's face.
She pushed off the workbench, pacing a short, tight circle. "So what? We're supposed to fight a gang war and a shadow war with some corpo black ops team?"
"We focus on Blaze first," Lucent said. "The rest can wait."
Silence settled between them, heavy with unspoken tensions.
Karen exhaled sharply and pushed off the bench. "Fine. But if your 'hunch' gets us all killed, I'm haunting your ass first. And—"
Finally, Karen sighed and tossed him the Q-Serin vial. "Just fix the damn rifle."
Lucent caught it, the cool glass pressing into his palm. "Noted."
The unspoken agreement settled between them—heavy, but not unbearable.
***
Golden sunlight cut through the grimy window, painting stripes across Kai's face.
He groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes—when had he fallen asleep?
The mattress beneath him was thin, the sheets stiff with starch and gunpowder residue.
Not his bed.
Not his room.
Memory crashed over him like cold water.
Blaze.
The explosions.
The Skybreaker glyph tearing through Sector 23.
He bolted upright, head spinning as his Conduit clattered to the floor.
Snatching it up, the cracked screen glared back:
6:57 A.M.
Shit.
Karen's voice echoed in his skull—"Regroup at 7 AM. No arguments."
He was late.
Kai stumbled out of bed, his boots catching on the rumpled sheets.
He barely registered the room—bare walls, a rusted locker, the lingering scent of solvent and sweat—before wrenching the door open and nearly colliding with Pen.
The Talon scout sidestepped with practiced ease, her monofilament wires glinting in the hallway's flickering lumen-strips.
"Oh!" Pen's grin was all teeth.
"If it isn't Pretty Boy Kai. It seems you're pretty exhausted." She eyed his wrinkled shirt and sleep-mussed hair. "You've got time. Cafeteria's still serving if you eat fast."
A pause. "Meeting'll probably start in… ten minutes."
Kai exhaled sharply, his pulse slowing.
Right.
Not the Spire.
No disciplinary hearings for tardiness here, no calculating stares from professors.
Just the casual rhythm of people who'd spent their lives operating on close enough time.
"Thought I was totally late," he muttered, raking a hand through his hair.
Pen snorted. "Only late if you miss the bullets."
She jerked her thumb down the corridor. "Cafeteria's southside. But—"
Her smirk widened as she flicked a finger at his head. "Fix that disaster first. Unless you want the whole sector knowing you slept like a corpse."
Kai's cheeks burned.
He could already imagine the leering comments from Cale's crew—"Spire boy's got bedhead like a back-alley brawl"—but before he could retort, Pen was already walking away, her boots silent on the metal grating.
"Ten minutes, Kai!" she called over her shoulder. "Don't be late!"
Kai waved a dismissive hand at Pen's retreating back, already striding down the corridor.
The metal floorplates clanged underfoot, vibrating with the distant hum of generators.
Lucent wasn't even in the room when I woke up.
The thought needled him.
After everything—after Sector 23 burned, after Blaze's ultimatum—you'd think the man could've at least shaken him awake.
Kai gritted his teeth.
Not like it mattered.
He wasn't some kid who needed hand-holding.
The cafeteria air hit him like a wall—grease, synthetic coffee, and the underlying tang of disinfectant.
A handful of Talons still lingered at scattered tables, nursing mugs or shoveling down last bites.
Vey's ruined face split into a grin when he spotted Kai.
"Well, well!" The demolitionist's voice boomed across the room, making two junior Talons flinch. "Look what the glow-rats dragged in! Spire boy finally decided to join the living!"
Kai gave a curt nod, already scanning the food line.
Behind the counter, trays of protein mash and reconstituted eggs congealed under heat lamps.
His stomach turned.
"Over here, kid," Vey called, jerking a thumb toward the serving station. "Unless you're too fancy for slop now."
Kai lined up.
And after a few minutes of waiting, he was halfway through debating which grayish lump looked least hazardous when a voice spoke directly behind him:
"Just give him the damn sandwiches."
Kai nearly elbowed Cale in the ribs.
"Christ—!" He whirled to find the veteran mercenary looming over his shoulder, arms crossed. "Do you practice sneaking up on people?"
Cale's grin was all teeth.
"Wasn't sneaking. You were just staring at that slop like it's gonna bite you." He leaned past Kai to address the server. "Two synth-bread sandwiches. Extra protein paste."
Kai opened his mouth to protest, but Cale was already checking his Conduit.
"7:10," he announced, shoving the device in Kai's face as if he might've forgotten how to read a clock. "Pen give you the 'ten minutes' speech? Yeah, that was fifteen minutes ago."
Before Kai could argue, Cale snatched the wrapped sandwiches from the counter and clamped a hand on his shoulder.
"Move those scrawny legs," he muttered, steering Kai toward the exit. "Boss doesn't like waiting—and neither does your stomach."
The sandwiches thumped against Kai's chest.
They were warm.
Somehow, that made it worse.
***
The meeting room hummed with low conversation as Kai stepped inside, the heavy door clicking shut behind him.
The air smelled of aether and gun oil, thick with the static charge of too many augments in one space.
His eyes immediately found Lucent near the front, deep in conversation with a man Kai didn't recognize—a mountain of muscle and metal with hydraulic arms that hissed faintly with every movement.
The stranger's ocular implant glowed a dull red, its lens rotating as Kai entered, while the other eye remained hidden behind a weathered black patch.
At the center of the room, a long steel table dominated the space.
Mags sat motionless at what Kai assumed was the "back" of the room, her dark eyes tracking him without comment.
Beside her, a woman with cropped silver hair tapped a combat knife against the tabletop in a slow, rhythmic pattern—tink, tink, tink—her augmented right arm whirring softly with each movement.
Kai barely had time to process the scene before the door swung open behind him, nearly clipping his shoulder.
"Hey kid," Vey boomed, clapping a heavy hand between Kai's shoulder blades hard enough to make him stumble forward. "What're you doing, playing doorman? Don't tell me you're shy now."
Before Kai could protest, Vey hooked an arm around his neck and dragged him toward the augmented stranger.
"Rook, this is Kai," Vey announced, as if introducing a prize hog at a fair. "Be nice—he's Spire-bred, so don't bite."
Rook's face cycled through several expressions—confusion, amusement, resignation—before settling on awkward neutrality.
He extended a massive hand, the hydraulic joints in his fingers flexing quietly.
"Rook," he said simply.
Kai gripped his hand, acutely aware of how easily those mechanical fingers could crush his own. "Kai."
"Another friend for the collection!" Vey crowed, already steering Kai away before the handshake could linger.
This time, he propelled him toward the knife-tapping woman.
"Echo," Vey said, grinning. "Meet Pretty Boy Kai."
Echo didn't look up.
The knife continued its steady rhythm until, without warning, she flipped it into the air, caught it by the blade, and drove the point into the table with a sharp thunk.
"Vey," she said, finally turning her gaze on them. Her voice was flat, edged with something colder than steel. "What's this emergency meeting about?"
Kai stiffened.
For a long moment, it seemed like she hadn't even registered his presence.
Then—
"Is he the reason?" She jabbed the knife in Kai's direction, the blade still quivering from the impact.
Vey laughed, though it sounded more like a warning. "Easy, Echo. No need to get grumpy. Kid's just caught up in it."
He jerked his thumb toward the front of the room, where Karen was now sorting through a stack of holoscreens. "Karen will explain. So sit tight."
Echo's gaze lingered on Kai for a heartbeat longer—assessing, dissecting—before she yanked her knife free and resumed tapping.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
Kai exhaled.
Somehow, he got the feeling breakfast would have to wait.
Karen rapped her knuckles against the steel table, the sharp clang cutting through the murmurs.
"Alright," she said, voice slicing through the room like a blade. "Let's start."
Chairs scraped as those still standing found seats.
Lucent moved to sit beside Kai, his movements precise, controlled.
The moment he settled, Kai leaned in, voice a hushed whisper.
"Hey—why didn't you wake me up earlier?"
Lucent didn't turn his head.
"I was up at 5:30," he said flatly. "You wanted me to drag you out of bed then?"
Before Kai could retort, Karen tapped a command into her Conduit.
A holographic screen flickered to life above the table, displaying grainy footage of last night's chaos—Blaze standing amidst the flames, untouched, unhurried, as Vey, Cale, and Kai scrambled like rats in a burning maze.
"Courtesy of Pen," Karen said dryly.
The room went still.
Rook was the first to react. His hydraulic arms tensed with a quiet hiss, his red ocular implant whirring as it zoomed in on the footage. "Is that... Blaze?"
Karen didn't blink. "That's right."
Echo's knife thunked into the table again, this time hard enough to leave a dent. "You're joking," she snarled. "Nex put a fucking shotgun blast through that bastard's ribs. I saw the body. How the hell is he walking around?"
Kai, wisely, said nothing.
He unwrapped his sandwich and took a slow, deliberate bite.
The bread was dry, the protein paste inside tasting vaguely of salt and disappointment.
He chewed mechanically, eyes fixed on the hologram—on Blaze's smirk, on the way the flames bent around him like worshippers at an altar.
Vey leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. "Resurrection's a bitch, huh?"
Cale snorted. "Or someone's playing with corpo tech they shouldn't be."
Karen's gaze flicked to Lucent, just for a second.
A silent question.
Kai swallowed his bite, the sandwich suddenly like ash in his mouth.
Nobody answered Echo.
Echo's knife scraped against the table as she leaned forward, her augmented fingers twitching. "So is he out for revenge then?"
Vey rubbed the scarred side of his face. "About that... it doesn't seem so."
He paused, his gaze shifting to Lucent. "Blaze knew Nex was dead. But when we fought him? He wasn't there for us. He was asking for Lucent."
Then he crossed his arms. "Care to explain why you're at the top of a dead man's hit list?"
The room's attention snapped to Lucent.
Kai watched him carefully, expecting the usual deflection—a half-truth wrapped in sarcasm, or complete silence.
But instead, Lucent exhaled sharply through his nose and pulled out his Conduit.
"Karen," he said, his voice flat, "I'm sending you something. Put it on screen."
The holographic display flickered, then resolved into grainy, static-laced footage from the Old Myriad Labs.
The timestamp in the corner read [REDACTED], and the image quality was poor, but three figures were unmistakable: Lucent in the lead, his posture tense; Karen with her pistol drawn; and Kai bringing up the rear, his Conduit glowing faintly.
They moved through the ruined corridors like ghosts, their faces half-obscured by the flickering emergency lights.
Lucent's voice cut through the uneasy silence. "A reliable source told me someone's been hunting everyone in this footage."
Karen's fist clenched around the edge of the table, the metal groaning under her augmented grip.
"Why the hell didn't you say something sooner?" Then she scoffed, shaking her head. "No—scratch that. Even if I'd known, it wouldn't have changed anything. I wouldn't have guessed that fire-obsessed bastard would come back from the grave for it."
Vey's eyes focused as he studied the footage.
"Hold up. Blaze was only asking for Lucent. Didn't mention you—" he nodded at Karen, "—or the kid."
He jerked his thumb at Kai. "Hell, Kai was right there fighting him, and Blaze didn't give a shit."
Kai's fingers tightened around his half-eaten sandwich.
The realization settled over him like a shroud: They don't know about me yet.
Lucent's jaw worked silently for a moment before he spoke again, quieter this time. "Doesn't matter. If they're digging into Myriad's ruins, they'll connect the dots eventually."
Echo's knife thunked into the table again. "So what's in those labs that's worth burning half the sector over?"
Karen's gaze slid to Lucent, who gave her a barely perceptible nod—permission to lay their cards on the table.
She exhaled sharply through her nose before speaking.
"Deep in Sub-Level 7," Karen began, her voice cutting through the murmurs, "we found rows of containment pods filled with Hollowed specimens in cryostasis. Not the feral kind you see in the tunnels—these were... different. Preserved. Waiting."
The room fell deathly silent as she detailed their discoveries:
The "Project Cradle" logs detailing neural integration experiments
Attempts to "repurpose" Hollowed into controllable weapons
The facility's designation as a "womb for the next evolution"
Then came the part about Zero.
Karen's fingers twitched toward her pistol as she described the impossible man—how he'd walked through killing cold like it was nothing, neutralized rawcasting with a touch, called the abomination his "friend."
Her voice grew taut as she recounted how he'd absorbed the aether corruption that should have killed Lucent, then tore reality apart like wet paper to escape.
Echo's face twisted in disbelief. "What the hell kind of conspiracy theory bullshit is this?"
Rook's massive hydraulic arms tensed with a hiss of compressed air. "Karen... this isn't the time for ghost stories."
Vey and Mags remained eerily still—Vey's ruined face unreadable, Mags' dark eyes fixed on Karen with unsettling intensity.
Around them, whispers erupted:
"Controllable Hollowed?"
"That's corpo deathwish talk..."
"Nobody just 'tears reality'—"
Karen slammed her fist on the table, the impact silencing the room.
"I'm not joking!" The veins in her neck stood out. "You think we'd be dealing with resurrected pyromaniacs if this was some fucking joke?"
A heavy silence fell.
The truth hung in the air like smoke—too strange to believe, too dangerous to ignore.
Lucent finally spoke, his voice gravel-low: "Believe what you want." His scarred fingers tapped the table once. "We're only telling you all what we've seen."
The knife in Echo's hand trembled slightly.
For the first time since the meeting began, no one had a sarcastic remark ready.