Darian shoved through the debris, lungs burning, boots crunching over shattered steel and broken glass. The Black Spire's interior yawned ahead—split open, bleeding smoke and tracer fire into the night. The tower groaned like something wounded.
He tapped his comm.
"Ravion. Zeri."
Static.
He swallowed.
There should have been another voice answering first.
Coordinates. Angles. Timing.
There was only dead air.
"Comms fried in the subway… damn it."
A missile screamed down the corridor.
Too fast.
Darian froze—half a second too slow.
A massive silhouette stepped into its path. The warhead detonated in a thunderclap, flame bursting outward in a shockwave that rattled steel beams and nearly tore Darian off his feet.
When the smoke thinned, the giant still stood—arm cannon glowing red where it had swatted the rocket aside.
Another figure emerged through haze. Square jaw. Black shades. Cybernetic arms gleaming like forged pillars.
"Darian," the instructor said, voice flat as a blade. "Captain Halden and your squad are engaging Vance. Move. We'll clear the lower floors."
He didn't wait for acknowledgment.
"Squad Five—open the path."
The corridor shifted.
A girl's voice rose—soft, almost gentle. Insects poured from the shadows in a black ribbon, swallowing a gunner mid-scream. Wings beat the air as metallic birds dove in coordinated bursts, rifles clattering from enemy hands. From the rafters, a disc-blade whirled in a lethal spiral, carving weapons apart with surgical precision.
The way opened.
"Go."
Darian ran.
Elevator doors screamed apart. He threw himself inside. The giant who had saved him stood in the threshold for a moment, filling the doorway like a gatekeeper. A single nod.
The doors slammed shut.
Ascent.
Metal shrieked around him. Each passing floor vibrated with distant impacts—heavy, rhythmic. Not random.
Patterned.
Silas would've said something about that.
The elevator jolted to a stop.
The doors tore open.
Captain Halden's body flew past the threshold and struck the corridor wall with a sickening crack. She slid down, armor fractured, one cybernetic arm spitting sparks.
"Go," she rasped. "Help them."
For a heartbeat, Darian didn't move.
He was tired.
He was still shaking from the subway.
There was no one to say three seconds.
No one to say now.
He forced himself forward.
The office was devastation made architectural. Walls punched through to open sky. Conduits bled sparks. Smoke hung thick and greasy.
At its center stood Kerro Vance.
Augmentation had swallowed the man whole. Pistons flexed beneath split fabric. Red light pulsed through seams in his flesh like furnace glow. Each step dented the floor.
He hammered a piston-like fist against a barrier of unstable violet energy.
Zeri stood behind it—hoverboard shattered nearby, gauntlets blazing. Her shield wasn't clean. It buckled with every impact, arcs snapping outward in violent lashes.
"Left flank—" she shouted—
She stopped.
There was no response.
Her eyes flicked—just once—toward the space where a third voice should've been.
"…Fine."
A blur crossed Darian's vision.
Ravion.
He lunged for Vance's exposed back—spear carving a brilliant arc. It should have landed in sync with a distraction.
It didn't.
Vance turned—not fast, just inevitable. His backhand caught Ravion mid-strike and sent him crashing into the far wall. Stone fractured. Ravion hit hard, coughed blood, and forced himself upright again without a word.
They weren't layered.
They were colliding.
Vance laughed—a grinding, metallic distortion.
Zeri's shield flared too bright, too wide. Plasma bled outward in a reckless sweep.
Darian dove flat as heat sheared across the room, slagging steel where he'd stood.
"Watch it!" Ravion barked.
"Then move!" she shot back.
They spoke over each other.
No one was counting.
Ravion charged again—too soon. His thrust drove Vance half a step back, but the opening wasn't there. It wasn't built.
It was supposed to be built.
Vance seized Ravion by the gorget and hurled him aside like scrap.
The massive body smashed through debris—
—and into Darian.
Impact.
The world spun.
They crashed together across the ruined floor in a tangle of limbs and armor. Darian's head struck tile. White burst behind his eyes.
Zeri dropped beside them, sliding on one knee, shield flickering weakly around them like a dying sun.
For half a second—just half—they were close enough to hear each other over the ringing.
Her eyes locked onto him.
She blinked once, scanning past his shoulder.
"Where's Silas?"
It wasn't accusation.
It was confusion.
Her gaze flicked left. Right. Back to him.
"Why are you here?" she pressed, breath uneven. "He was with you. You don't split up. So where is he?"
Darian opened his mouth.
The subway flashed in his mind—blood in Silas's eyes. The horn. The smile.
He couldn't make the word come out.
He just shook his head.
Once.
Small.
Zeri stared at him.
The flicker in her shield faltered.
"…Oh."
It wasn't loud.
Her hand trembled once before she clenched it into a fist. Her eyes burned—not crying, not yet—but bright and furious.
Something in her posture shifted.
Not collapse.
Armor.
Rage.
The barrier around them surged violently outward as she shoved herself to her feet, hoverboard snapping up beneath her boots, holographic cannons spinning into position over her shoulders.
"Fine," she whispered—voice shaking despite her best effort to steady it.
Then she screamed, raw and breaking as her cannons flared to blinding white.
"Then I'll end it!"
She overcharged.
Too fast.
Too much.
The blast she unleashed wasn't measured—it was fury. Plasma tore across the office in a wide arc, ripping apart columns, forcing Ravion to break stride or be incinerated.
"Control yourself!" Ravion snarled, deflecting debris with the shaft of his spear.
"Shut up!" she shot back.
They weren't fighting Vance anymore.
They were fighting the hole Silas left.
Vance stepped through the storm of light untouched, armor smoking.
His fists pounded Zeri's barrier again. Again. Again.
Spiderweb fractures raced across violet light.
"Hold it—" Zeri hissed.
Her voice wavered.
For a split second—just one—fear cracked through her mask.
The barrier detonated.
The blast threw her backward in a burst of white.
Ravion roared and drove forward in raw fury, spearwork abandoning finesse for violence. It was clean technique fueled by something uglier now.
Vance absorbed it. Broke it. Overpowered it.
Darian pushed off the rubble.
This was the moment.
If they moved together—
They didn't.
He ran anyway.
A stupid charge born of panic and noise and the desperate need to matter.
He swung.
Vance didn't even look at him.
The counterstrike was casual.
Darian felt the world compress to a single impact. Bone screamed. Air vanished from his lungs. He flew.
For a fleeting, distant instant—
He understood.
We were never a team.
He made us look like one.
Then the wall met him.
Darkness swallowed the thought.