The helicopter came in low over the Port Grande estate, its rotors chopping the night into hard, rhythmic segments as the searchlight swept across ground that did not answer the way defended ground should.
The beam slid over bodies laid out in patterns that suggested intention rather than chaos, over broken positions that had not been overrun so much as taken apart piece by piece, and the crew at the open side door leaned into their harnesses trying to find the shape of the threat that had done it.
One of them spoke into a satellite channel that crackled with interference, reporting fragments that did not assemble into anything useful before the connection dropped mid-sentence and registered somewhere far away as another anomaly in a week that had too many. The light kept moving. The estate did not move back.
Something came through the open side door.
They had time to see the shape of it as it crossed the threshold, a small dark cylinder turning once in the air as if considering its audience, and then the realization chased it by a fraction of a second that did not matter.
The explosion filled the helicopter from the inside out.
Amber watched the fireball climb, one arm still extended in the easy follow-through of a throw she had already judged and accepted, her head tilted just enough to track the arc she had known would land.
The heat rolled across her fur in a soft, satisfying wave, catching the pink tuft along the ridge of her mane so it glowed against the dark grey of her back and the white of her chest, and she let herself enjoy the shape of it for a second longer than necessary because it was genuinely good work.
Okay. That was—
she had to be honest with herself.
That was an incredible throw. I could have gone pro in baseball if I really wanted to.
The wreckage began to fall in pieces that trailed smoke and small, persistent flames, and she lowered her arm with a contented little huff that might have been a laugh if it had not come out of a throat built for other sounds. The estate perimeter around her stayed quiet in the particular way it did after something had been cleared thoroughly, and she tapped her comms with a claw that clicked lightly against the casing.
"They're sending everything now," she said, voice warm and bright despite the shape of her mouth. "Perimeter worked. Backup's inbound. We're good to move."
Abi's voice came back clean and simple in her ear. "Have fun."
Amber's entire posture lifted at that, a delighted, almost involuntary sound escaping her as she shifted her weight and turned toward the distant engines she could already hear approaching.
"Oh I know I will," she said, the words spilling out with a grin she did not bother to hide, and then she was moving, the dark grey of her back slipping between shadows as easily as it had through men, white underside flashing in quick, fluid glimpses as she accelerated toward the next wave with the eager certainty of someone who had just been told the night was not done with her yet.
Abigail nodded once, a small, efficient motion that Anissa mirrored without looking at her, and then they moved into the estate as a unit that immediately split along the lines they had already decided.
The interior received them with the compressed geometry of a place built to be held, corridors narrowing the flow of movement, corners set at angles that forced exposure, defensive positions carved into the architecture with a precision that spoke to planning rather than improvisation. The men inside were not the ones who had died outside.
They were better armed, better placed, and they used the building as it had been intended, turning walls into cover and doors into choke points.
Abigail did not slow down to read any of that as information. She had already read it as a problem, and the solution was something her body executed before her mind bothered to narrate it.
She entered her corridor with the same steady pace she would have used if it had been empty, and the first man she encountered became an adjustment in her path rather than an obstacle, her claw catching his weapon at the moment it came up and redirecting it past her shoulder while her other claw closed the distance and ended the question he had not finished asking.
She did not look at him as he fell. She was already stepping through the space he had occupied, her movement bending around the next point of resistance as if the corridor itself had decided to let her pass.
The second and third came together, a staggered line that tried to cross her with intersecting fire, and she shifted the angle of her approach by a fraction that turned their geometry against them, one body blocking the other for just long enough that she could break the line and move through it.
Her footwork was quiet, efficient, each placement chosen not for speed alone but for what it would allow her to do next, and the corridor began to feel less like a place she was in and more like a shape she was moving through.
There was no pause between engagements, no moment where she registered a kill as a discrete event. Each action bled into the next until the entire sequence became a single, continuous motion that carried her forward.
Anissa entered her corridor at a pace that matched Abigail's and then pushed past it by degrees that would not have been noticeable to anyone who was not moving at the same speed. The first man dropped with a clean, decisive motion that she did not need to think about, and the number rose in her head before his body hit the ground.
One.
The second came from a side room, stepping into the corridor with a shout that cut off as she closed the distance, and she adjusted her grip mid-stride, letting momentum do most of the work as she redirected his movement into the wall and finished it there.
Five. Keep it clean. Don't waste time.
She moved faster than the corridor strictly required, her path taking sharper angles, her entries into each engagement more aggressive than they needed to be for pure efficiency.
It worked because she was good enough to make it work, because her timing held and her reads were accurate, but there was a margin she was spending that she did not need to spend.
I'm at twelve. Abi has to be at nine, ten maybe. Move faster.
A man tried to fall back and call it in, his hand going to his comms as he pivoted, and Anissa cut the distance before the word formed, her strike landing with a precision that felt satisfying in a way she did not examine.
Thirteen. Don't slow down.
The corridor narrowed ahead, a bend that would limit sightlines and force close contact, and she took it at speed, trusting her ability to read whatever came through it in the moment.
It paid off in the way it always had, her body adjusting without conscious input, her hands finding the right places at the right times, her movement threading through resistance with a confidence that bordered on inevitability.
When it ended, it ended without ceremony. The last body in her corridor fell into a silence that felt too large for the space, and she exhaled through teeth that had been clenched without her noticing, her head turning automatically toward the central junction where their paths would meet. The number sat in her chest, held there with a tension that had been building alongside it.
Abigail stepped into the central corridor from the opposite side at the same moment, her breathing steady, her posture unchanged, as if she had walked from one room to another without interruption. For a second, they just looked at each other, the space between them filled with the aftermath of two separate paths that had arrived at the same point.
"Fourteen," Anissa said, the word coming out in a controlled release that carried the weight she had been holding, her voice even, almost casual, but with an undercurrent that made it clear the number mattered.
Abigail's gaze rested on her for a beat that was neither long nor short, simply sufficient. "I wasn't competing," she said, the words flat, not dismissive, just factual, her attention already shifting past Anissa to the corridor beyond.
She heard her.
"If I had been," Abigail continued, the same tone, the same lack of emphasis, "seventeen."
The number landed without flourish, without the need for it. It existed as a statement of reality, and the difference between them hung in the air with a clarity that did not invite argument.