Disappointing. But survivable. The Association would review the footage and find exactly what they were supposed to find: New Dawn's veterans engaging monsters in the vicinity of a rookie team during an active competition event. Aggressive, perhaps. Reckless, certainly. But the attacks were aimed at creatures, and if Kaiden's team happened to be nearby, that was the nature of a shared competition zone.
Plausible deniability. The entire plan was built on it.
Then Vespera had arrived.
A week of silence. Seven days without a word, without a presence, without the faintest indication of where she'd gone or what she was doing.
The Shadow Monarch had appeared on a mountain ridge in front of millions of viewers and beaten her own children until Selena's bones gave and the twins couldn't breathe. The image of that was circulating now.
