——When Guardians Fall and Shadows Rise
The feather pulsed in Shawn's hand, its filaments stirring with faint, unnatural currents in the sealed alley.
Whether the Wind Core had chosen him or simply resonated with the Thunder Core no longer mattered.
It was part of him now—its presence whispering in shifts of pressure, in warnings carried on phantom winds.
Lindsay's grip tightened on her sidearm as they moved through the gutted industrial sector.
Abandoned factories loomed like husks. The air carried the tang of scorched metal and old ash.
Clink.
A shattered drone lens rolled to Shawn's boot—still warm. The rest of the chassis lay scattered across the cracked concrete.
"Gary was here," Lindsay muttered, her voice taut. "He knows we're after the Cores. He won't wait."
The dragon scale in Shawn's pocket turned ice-cold, the chill bleeding through fabric to his skin.
The Thunder Core thrummed in warning.
The feather twitched.
Then—
Screeeee.
Metal tore somewhere inside the foundry—belching heat. Air shimmered.
Not collapse. Deliberate.
"Localized 2000°F," Lindsay whispered, checking her flickering wrist display. "No fuel. "
Shawn's vision doubled—the Thunder Core showing him what sensors couldn't.
The furnace wasn't just hot.
It was alive.
Flames behind its doors beat in rhythm with his pulse.
Then the stench—burned circuits, melted plastic.
A Revolutionary Guard android lay ruined near the furnace, its metal shell split from the inside.
"Mark IV infiltration unit,"Lindsay said, nudging the wreckage with her boot. The android's chest plating was torn outward like an opened can. "Covert ops model. Phased out after the embassy massacre in Taiwan."
The furnace blew.
Lindsay dragged Shawn behind a crucible as fire tore through the air. Molten slag hissed through steel like acid.
At the center: the Fire Core. No bigger than a coin. Spinning in its own storm.
Then—flames gathered, folding into Lara's form—eyes like molten metal, voice cracked like fire through dry wood:
"You're not the one who caged me."
She raised her hand—not to strike, but to show—
Memory Fragment — 50 Years Earlier,February 1967.
A young Revolutionary Guard captain stands before the roaring furnace, sealing it shut with grim resolve. His uniform is scorched, insignia barely visible beneath layers of soot and ash. The heat licks at his face, but he doesn't flinch. This was no routine duty—it was a burial.
Present Day
Lara's flames flickered low as Shawn gasped back to reality.
"Who was he?"
Before Lara could answer, the Wind Core's feather suddenly stood rigid in Shawn's grip—pointing toward the ceiling.
The shadow was back.
Perched on the foundry's highest gantry, it unfolded to its full height—taller than any human, its limbs elongated like stretched rubber. Then it leaped, plummeting thirty feet to land in a crouch that shook the floor.
Lindsay emptied her clip. The bullets passed through its torso like smoke.
The figure straightened, revealing a face that wasn't a face—just a smooth oval where features should be, reflecting the Fire Core's glow like polished obsidian.
The Fire Core turned blue-white with terror.
Lindsay's voice caught. "No… it can't be—That's Captain Darius Vale."
She hesitated, as if the truth itself was too heavy to say aloud.
"He killed CP-HUB's second-in-command during the Purge. He should've been executed… or at least retired. But they didn't decommission him. They bound him to the Core."
The shadow moved.
Faster than Shawn could register, he was already on Lara, his hands plunging deep into her burning chest.
She screamed—her voice a raw flame—as her essence was drained, the Fire Core dimming while the shadow feeding on her began to harden, gain form…
Become him.
Darius.
Real. Physical. Returned.
Shawn's Thunder Core flared instinctively.
A crack of lightning split the gloom, searing across the chamber and latching onto Darius's body. The impact staggered him—he hissed, the first sound he had made—as Lara's collapsed form curled into a fading ember at Shawn's feet.
"Take… it…"
Her voice was nothing more than a flicker now, like fire dying in the rain.
But Darius recovered too quickly.
His arms twisted with a sickening snap into blade-like extensions, raking through the steel around him as he advanced without hesitation.
Lindsay didn't wait. She seized the Fire Core with a gloved hand. "Move!"
They made it out just as the foundry gave in, collapsing into a tide of sparks and smoke.
Darius didn't follow.
He only stood amidst the inferno, watching—his new face echoing Lara's features like a cruel reflection.
The Fire Core lay between them on a rusted bench, no longer alive with flame—only a faint, angry pulse.
Shawn stared at the burns on his hands. The pain wasn't from heat. It was from whatever Darius had become when he touched Lara.
Lindsay didn't look up as she poured antiseptic over the raw wounds.
"Mark IV androids were never phased out either," she said flatly. "They were upgraded—fused with living tissue."
She met his eyes then, her voice like ice.
"Gary's not just collecting Cores. He's turning their guardians into weapons."
Shawn stared at the dragon scale, now blackened along one edge.
"That thing in the foundry wasn't fully Superpower Warrior. It knew the binding runes—the same ones from your vision."
A knock at the door.
Both froze.
Three precise raps, then two. Quinn's old signal.
Lindsay mouthed: Trap, as Shawn stepped forward, Thunder Core already humming beneath his skin.
The door slid open—not Quinn, but a Revolutionary Guard courier droid.
Its chest cavity had been hollowed out to display a single playing card:
The Ace of Spades.
Gary's calling card.
The droid's voice box crackled to life.
"Round Three begins at dawn."
Then it self-destructed in a burst of sparks, filling the room with the stench of scorched wiring—and one unmistakable message:
The next Core wouldn't be found.
It would be fought.