The Spark in the Dark
Deep beneath the prison, the freezing water was a death sentence.
Najo's lungs burned, vision darkening at the edges as Eel's electricity coursed through the pool and into him. He refused to use the lightning — completely submerged, it would finish what Eel had started. He refused to die here either.
He reached out with his earth manipulation, feeling the dense rocks lining the bottom of the pool. One final surge of willpower. He found two massive boulders, ripped them apart, and slammed the halves together.
The electrical currents stopped. Eel's grip went slack.
Najo was out of air.
His eyes closed. He was sinking.
Then — a faint orange light pierced the black water, and a hand closed around his.
Tanaka. The rebels had lit a fire on the surface to illuminate the cavern, and she had gone straight in after him. She felt his pulse — too faint, going wrong — and panic seized her chest. She gripped him tight and kicked upward, but the weight of the water and the weight of his body were too much. She kept pushing. She pushed until her lungs burned and her legs had nothing left.
The resistance of the water vanished.
She was still moving upward — but she wasn't swimming.
From the edge of the cavern, the two rebels stared. "Ms. Tanaka—"
She was hovering directly above the water. Her Denga genes, dormant until now, had chosen this moment.
The shock broke her concentration and she plummeted, crashing hard onto the stone floor beside the pool. She didn't feel it. She scrambled to Najo's body and started compressions, her hands shaking.
"Come on," she whispered. She tilted his head back and breathed into him.
Najo coughed violently, expelling the last of the water from his lungs, and his eyes shot open. He looked up, gasping, and found Tanaka leaning over him — hair dripping, face drained of all colour.
He reached up. His fingers caught the back of her neck, and his thumb found her cheek. He felt the faint, raised texture of the scars on her palms — the marks from when she had taken his lightning to save him. He remembered the glowing flower from the crater.
He pulled her down.
The frantic clinical rhythm of the resuscitation dissolved. The kiss tasted of salt and cold water and smoke, and for a few seconds the stone floor beneath them felt like the only solid ground in a world that had finally stopped moving.
A massive explosion boomed from the courtyard above.
Najo broke the kiss, reality crashing back in. He looked at the rebels watching them. His ears went pink. He scrambled to his feet, shifting focus. "We — we need to find Moto. Now."
Tanaka let out a breath. A small, fond smile touched her lips as she watched him run off, flustered. She got to her feet and followed him into the fray.
Cores and Spawns
Up in the suffocating hallway, Lilly's fight with the grotesque duo was escalating.
Tomato swung his katana in a lethal arc. Lilly parried with the Glitch Blade and used the momentum to spin, driving a side-slash that cleaved through Onion's torso and revealed the glowing red core buried inside him.
She knocked Tomato's blade back with a heavy swing. The spirit in the Glitch Blade moved with her, creating a parallel slash that tore through Tomato's chest. Thick green insides spilled across the floor — and Lilly saw it: a central core packed with dozens of seeds, exactly like a tomato's cross-section.
The seeds hit the stone and sprouted immediately. Dozens of tiny, vicious Tomamo spawns screeched and flung themselves into the fight. Onion shed his bisected layers, growing smaller, sleeker, and significantly faster.
Lilly focused. Fur rippled down her arms, a long agile tail extending from her spine as she shifted into her half-monkey form — speed and reflexes climbing sharply.
Aemon snapped back from his near-death calm. Lilly was holding the main threats; the numbers were the problem. He surged to his feet and spawned his clones in a burst, the duplicates launching themselves directly at the swarming Tomamo to keep them occupied.
With the spawns handled, the real Aemon didn't waste another second. He turned and sprinted for Byron's cell.
Lilly handled the rest herself — raw strength combined with the Glitch Blade's unpredictable strikes, her eyes locked entirely on Onion's exposed core.
The Slap Strategy
Out in the courtyard, Moto wiped the blood from his mouth and thought.
Bizure could transfer kinetic force, but the earlier moments proved he still registered surface-level pain. It just didn't damage him.
Moto rushed forward, feinting a heavy punch. Bizure braced to absorb it.
Moto slapped him.
Smack.
Bizure blinked. Stunned.
Moto slapped him again. Then again — a flurry of stinging backhands, humiliating, completely bypassing the force-transfer, each one landing clean.
Bizure's smirk evaporated. "You little brat—"
Before Moto could land another, Bizure's hand shot out and caught his wrist. He hoisted Moto into the air and drove a punch into his chest that sent him through the prison wall.
Time stretched. As Moto flew, something below instinct engaged — his core muscles locked into an iron brace, absorbing just enough of the shockwave to keep his organs from rupturing.
He hit the rubble of the interior room, coughed blood, and waddled backward trying to find his feet. A moment later, Bizure smashed through the hole in the wall and walked toward him.
Moto flooded the enclosed room with smoke and prepared to ignite the cloud.
A massive hand erupted through the grey and closed around his entire face.
Moto's spark ignited anyway. The room detonated — and because Bizure was holding him, the full devastating force of the explosion came straight back through Bizure's grip and into Moto's own head.
Najo and Tanaka came sprinting around the corner and stopped.
The dust settled. Bizure stood over a battered, limp Moto, holding him by the head before tossing him to the ground.
Najo took in the destruction. Took in the General. If he can do that to Moto, the thought arrived cold and complete, he's a monster.
The Gorilla Awakens
Outside the prison walls, the battle was turning.
The elite guards had gained the upper hand, recapturing rebels, cutting off exits. Cries moved across the battlefield. The momentum was gone.
Then the hairs on the backs of their necks stood up. A tremor moved through the earth — not an explosion. Something deeper. More deliberate.
Byron had been freed.
Inside his cell, Byron stood at full height in his awakened gorilla form, red fur bristling around massive limbs. He had rehearsed this in his mind since the moment Aemon used the herb on him. He raised his fists above his head and slammed them into the floor.
He channelled his shockwaves through his enhanced gorilla strength. The combined force hit the foundation like a dropped planet. The stone walls groaned, fractured, and began to collapse inward.
Outside, the rebels looked up as the fortress came apart around them.
Bizure clicked his tongue. "The people are not going to be happy about this."
The Descent
As the building tore itself apart, Thando moved with quiet urgency. He had overheard Cicada contacting the palace. The Queen herself is coming. As a double agent whose cover was blown, information was the only weapon he had left. He summoned as many ink birds as he could and scattered them through the collapsing windows in every direction.
High above, Snake and Hawk watched the destruction from the roof.
"I have to get down there," Snake said. "I have to help a friend."
Hawk was quiet for a moment. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out his black and green kimono.
Snake stared at it. "Why do you—"
"Don't ask," she said. "Just take it."
He pulled it on. They positioned themselves opposite each other in the air. With a coordinated thrust, Snake used Hawk's feet as a launchpad and rocketed downward, the kimono catching the air around him as he fell toward the collapsing prison.
The Lesson
On the ground, Najo grabbed Moto's arm and hauled upward. "Let's go!"
Moto wrenched his arm away and collapsed back to his knees.
"What is he doing?" Najo yelled over the noise, unable to read his lips from that angle.
Tanaka translated. "He won't run."
"He can barely stand!" Najo turned back to him. "Don't be stupid!"
Moto forced himself upright until he was kneeling, eyes locked on Bizure.
Bizure sighed at the wreckage of his prison and bent down to retrieve his baton from the rubble. He turned toward Byron's cell.
"Hey!" Moto's voice was ragged. "Come back!"
Bizure stopped. He turned slowly, taking in the three of them.
"I gotta hand it to you, kid," he said, his voice dropping into something quieter and more dangerous. "Your tenacity reminds me of that idiot who just destroyed my property." He raised the baton, his expression settling into something grim. "But let me teach you the same lesson. Blind stubbornness doesn't cost you. It costs the people who trust you."
He flicked his wrist.
The baton left his hand — not at Moto.
At Tanaka.
"NOOOOO!"