The raid alert had come in sharp and sudden, cutting through the low hum of the Kings Gambit's central hall like a knife. Violet barely had time to process the messenger's words before Silvester was already moving, rifle slung, grin feral.
"Sector nine again? Fuckin' persistent bastards," he muttered, cracking his neck. "Let's go paint the walls purple and red, Vi."
She nodded once, mist already curling at her ankles. The king's silent gesture still lingered in her mind, palm up, acceptance, but there was no time to dwell. They ran.
The tunnels leading to sector nine were narrow, choked with emergency lighting strips that flickered like dying stars. Silvester led, boots pounding metal grates. Violet kept pace, teleporting in short bursts to scout ahead, reappearing with breathless reports.
"Ten raiders visible. Heavy plating. Nexus-grade rifles. They've got a breacher drone chewing through the secondary seal."
"Beautiful," Silvester said. "Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a drone with teeth."
They emerged onto a wide maintenance ledge overlooking a cavernous chamber that had once been part of an old orbital elevator shaft. Now it was a warzone.
Raiders, thirty, maybe forty, swarmed the lower levels, orange hazard suits glowing under floodlights they'd rigged. Explosive charges popped in rhythmic bursts, showering sparks. Nexus mercs mixed among them, black tactical gear, visors reflecting muzzle flash.
But the raiders weren't winning.
In the center of the chaos stood a single figure.
He moved with violence.
Gold armour caught every stray beam of light—plate mail that looked ancient yet impossibly articulated, gleaming without a single scratch. A heavy sword, easily five feet long, rested in his grip as though it weighed nothing. The blade was plain, unadorned, but when it swung it carved clean arcs through armour and bone alike.
He didn't shout. Didn't roar. Didn't speak at all.
He simply killed.
A raider leveled a rifle. The golden warrior stepped inside the shot, sword rising in a single, brutal upward cut. The barrel split. The man behind it split. Blood sprayed in a perfect fan.
Another charged from the side, vibro-knife humming. The warrior pivoted without looking, caught the wrist mid-swing, twisted. Bone snapped. The knife clattered. Then the sword came down once—clean through collarbone to hip.
Violet stared.
Silvester whistled low. "Holy shit. That's The First Unknown. Guess The Seconds back at the castle."
She'd heard the name whispered in the Gambit halls. One of the seven hells. Silent. Masked in plain steel. No flashy powers. Just skill so obscene it felt supernatural. Gold armour. Golden sword. A walking execution.
And he was losing ground—slightly.
Three raiders had flanked him, plasma lances spitting blue fire. He parried one, deflected another, but the third grazed his shoulder, scorching gold slightly. He staggered half a step.
Silvester laughed—loud, delighted. "Time to crash the party!"
He vaulted the railing, boots slamming onto a catwalk below, aiming his gun Spinning is riffle in his hand as his eyes began to glow white, vibrating. Violet followed in mist, reappearing beside him.
The First Unknown glanced their way, once, then returned to slaughter.
Silvester opened fire immediately, rifle barking controlled bursts. Impossible shots, not a single miss. Raiders dropped, clutching throats or chests. "God I'm amazing."
Violet teleported in flashes—behind a merc, knife to kidney, gone; beside another, mist choking his visor, gone. She moved skilfully.
The golden warrior noticed.
He shifted stance, sword sweeping in a wide arc that forced raiders back. Then he charged straight through the gap he'd made—straight toward the breacher drone.
The machine was massive, tracked legs grinding concrete, maw of spinning diamond teeth screaming against the seal. Two raiders guarded it, heavy repeaters chattering.
The First Unknown didn't slow.
He leaped, impossibly high for someone in full plate, sword overhead. When he landed the blade came down like judgment. The drone's housing split. Sparks erupted. One raider screamed as molten metal sprayed across his faceplate.
The other turned to run.
Violet appeared in his path. Purple mist exploded outward, coiling around his legs like vines. He tripped. She drove her elbow into his throat. He gurgled and fell.
Silvester whooped from across the chamber. "That's my girl! Teleport murder, five stars!"
The First Unknown straightened. Blood dripped from his sword tip. He turned slowly toward the remaining raiders.
They broke.
Panic rippled through their lines. Shouts. Scrambling boots. Some tried to shoot on the run. Most just ran.
The golden warrior pursued—methodical, relentless. Each swing economical. Each body left still.
Violet teleported to a higher catwalk for vantage. Silvester joined her, breathing hard, grinning through sweat.
"Look at him go," he said. "Fucker fights like he's pissed at gravity itself, if his brother was here, holy fuck I might have even felt bad for these dicks..."
Then she saw it.
A lone figure stood apart from the fleeing raiders, someone else had been fighting them. Tall, cloaked in tattered black, a metal mask gleaming under the floodlights. The cloak billowed as he moved, revealing glimpses of scarred leather and tactical webbing beneath. In his hands: twin blades, edges catching light like crescent moons, a dark cold metallic blue.
He wasn't running.
He was advancing.
Toward The First Unknown.
The masked man met the golden warrior in the centre of the chamber. Blades clashed against sword—once, twice, a blur of silver and gold. Sparks flew. The sound echoed like struck bells.
The First Unknown pressed. His sword was heavier, slower, but unstoppable. The masked man danced—light, precise, always half a step ahead. A blade nicked gold at the shoulder. Another scored across a leg.
Then the masked man spun low, cloak flaring, and drove both blades toward the warrior's midsection.
The First Unknown caught one blade on his gauntlet. The other he parried with the flat of his sword. Metal screamed.
They separated.
The masked man tilted his head, assessing, perhaps even respect.
The First Unknown lowered his sword slightly. Not surrender. Invitation.
Violet felt her pulse in her throat.
Silvester leaned over the railing. "Oi! Goldie! Need a hand or you just enjoying the foreplay?"
The First Unknown didn't respond.
The masked man lunged again.
This time Violet acted.
Mist erupted. She appeared between them—arms out, purple smoke thickening into a barrier.
"Enough!"
Both froze.
The masked man's head tilted toward her. Something shifted behind the metal slits of his mask—recognition?
The First Unknown lowered his sword completely. Turned. Walked away—straight past the bodies, past the smoking drone, toward the far tunnel that led back to the Gambit core, dragging his blade behind him.
Silvester jumped down beside Violet. "What the hell, Vi? Let 'em dance! I was loving the combos."
She ignored him.
The masked man stared at her a long moment. Then, slowly, he reached up.
Fingers hooked under the edge of the metal mask. The alloy melting down off his face onto his hand like a glove.
It came away with a soft metallic click.
Jet black hair, longer now, streaked with ash, mud, blood and all, framed a face she hadn't seen in nine years.
Older. Harder. Scar along the left cheek down his neck. But the eyes—those quiet, steady eyes—were the same.
Alexander Wyvern.
He smiled—small, real, heartbreakingly familiar.
"Evening Miss Violet."
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
"Alex…"
Silvester blinked. Looked between them. Then laughed—loud, obscene.
"No fuckin' way. You know this kid? You're shitting me." He slapped Wyvern's armoured chest. "Mate! You just carved through half a platoon like it was butter and went toe to toe with a guy even I shit myself over! Join the goddamn team! The Seven Hells needs to fill out at least two more slots, especially more silent badasses who swing swords like they hate breathing, moves like that and the sleepy king may even speak and make ya the leader.. Come on, say yes. Fuck. Please say yes."
Wyvern's gaze never left Violet.
He inclined his head once—small, polite—then turned and walked away, cloak trailing like smoke.
Silvester stared after him.
"...Rude."
Violet couldn't speak.
Her chest felt too full.
***
Months passed in a blur of missions.
Wyvern appeared when needed.
Never announced. Never asked for credit. Simply a helping hand.
He arrived, tattered cloak, sword melting into his hands, metal bending to his will, and fought beside them.
A raid on an underground bank robbery: he cut through the lead transport like paper; bought them the seconds they needed to teleport the crates out back into the safes.
A deep-underground cult summoning something with too many eyes: he stood at the choke point, sword a dark blue blur, bodies piling until the thing fled back to whatever hell it crawled from.
A rooftop chase across burning sector spires: he leaped impossible gaps, cloak snapping, blades flashing when guns ran dry.
He rarely spoke.
When he did, it was quiet. Measured. Usually to Violet.
"You're faster now."
"You remembered the blind spot on their left flank."
Once, after a long night, sitting on a ruined balcony overlooking black water: "Thank you. For back then."
She'd looked at him—really looked.
The boy who never spoke was gone.
The man who chose silence remained.
And every time he appeared, her heart stuttered the same way.
***
The next mission went wrong fast.
One of the 7 sins had fielded gunships, stolen of course from Nexus—sleek, black, rotor blades like scythes. They'd ambushed the team mid-extraction over a ruined skybridge that once connected one of the four major kingdoms to the sky kingdom.
Silvester cursed from the pilot seat of their stolen transport they had used to escape. "Fuck fuck fuck—two on our six! Vi, get us out! Preferably to a coffee shop."
Violet tried. Mist flared—wild, desperate—but she was already at her limit for the time being, she needed rest. Her jumps stuttered, half-formed. Pain lanced through her skull each time she forced it.
Wyvern stood at the open ramp.
Wind tore at his cloak.
He looked back once—eyes finding hers.
Then he leaped.
No hesitation.
The metal bottoms of his boots he used to propel himself across the sky caught the searchlights as he fell toward the lead gunship. Sword raised.
He landed on the canopy—boots cracking glass.
The pilot panicked. The ship banked hard.
Wyvern drove the blade down—through cockpit, through pilot, through floor. The gunship spiralled, trailing smoke.
The second ship opened fire.
Tracers stitched the air.
He simply raised his hand and the bullets stopped mid-air, "Did you really think to fight me with metal, I'm a bit disappointed in your intelligence at this point."
Wyvern kicked free—pushed off the dying craft—and launched himself toward the second.
Mid-air collision.
He hit the nose. Sword punched through armour plating. Engine screamed. Fire bloomed.
The gunship bucked like a wounded animal.
Wyvern held on, barely, then shoved away as it detonated.
He fell.
Violet screamed his name.
Mist exploded around her,
pain surged through every fiber of her being as her eyes glowed slightly purple and her hair seemed to float against gravity.
Silvester grinned, "NO FUCKING WAY!"
She teleported—once, twice—catching fragments of memory: his hand in hers by the village fire, snow on his shoulders, the way he'd looked at her when she brought him fruits.
She appeared beneath him.
Arms out.
He crashed into her.
They tumbled—spinning, wind howling.
The transport below veered wildly—Silvester fighting controls.
They hit the deck hard, rolling across cargo netting.
Violet's breath came in ragged gasps.
Wyvern lay half across her, arm bleeding and bent, cloak scorched, blood trickling from a gash above his eye.
Alive.
She cupped his face—shaking.
"Alex…"
He opened his eyes.
Smiled—tired, soft.
"You saved me again."
Tears burned her vision.
"I've always saved you, I always will," she whispered.
Silvester's voice crackled over comms. "You two lovebirds done? 'Cause we're still falling, and fucking fast, I think I see heaven down there, looks a bit dark though"
The transport levelled—barely as Wyvern gripped the edge of the metal beast and lifted parts of it into the air making it lighter..
They lay there—tangled, breathing each other's air—as the skybridge ruins slid past below.
Violet swallowed.
"I love you."
The words fell out—quiet, certain.
"I've loved you since the forest path. Since the snow. Since you followed the old man without looking back. Every mission. Every time you appeared without warning. Every time you looked at me like I was still the girl in the birthday dress who dragged you somewhere safe."
His smile faltered.
He reached up—slow—brushed a tear from her cheek with liquid metal dripping down his thumb.
"Violet…"
She pressed on—voice cracking.
"I know you don't talk much. I know something broke inside you. But I needed to say it. Out loud. Before I lose the chance."
He exhaled—long, shaky.
"I can't."
Her heart clenched.
But she didn't flinch.
"My mind…" He tapped his temple once. "The old man pulled me out of something dark. Years ago. A mission went wrong. Too much power. Too much feedback. Pieces of me… burned away."
He looked at her—really looked.
"I feel loyalty. Duty. Gratitude. To him. To you. But love? The way you mean it? That part… it's quiet now. Silent. Like the rest of me."
Violet nodded slowly.
Tears fell anyway.
"Okay."
He blinked—surprised.
She smiled—small, watery, but real.
"I'm not heartbroken. I'm… content. I said it. You heard it. That's enough."
She leaned forward—pressed her forehead to his.
"If I can't have you like that, then I'll protect you like this. Fight beside you. Catch you when you fall. That's my truth too."
He closed his eyes.
"Thank you."
They stayed like that—wind whipping through the open ramp, transport engines thrumming—as the underground sky slowly lightened toward false dawn.
Silvester's voice broke the quiet—shouted from the cockpit.
"Oi! If you're done being tragically romantic back there, we've got incoming drinks and I'm buying! Mostly 'cause I'm stealing the tab, but still!"
Violet laughed, soft, broken, alive.