03:25 P.M. – Sector 20, Tenn's Laboratory
The sterile, aether-charged air of the lab, previously humming only with the thrum of the cryo-tank and the whisper of holoscreens, was pierced by the sharp, sequential beep from the security monitor.
Arden and Tenn's heads snapped toward the screen in unison.
The feed was grainy, but the figures in the empty hallway beyond the reinforced door were unmistakable.
There was no forced entry, no blaring alarm.
They had simply… appeared.
As if the shadows in the corridor had congealed into two terrible forms.
One was a picture of predatory grace, a slick, smiling nightmare in a pristine suit, the front of which was obscured by a frilly, blood-stained apron.
The other was a storm of pure, focused irritation, her hand already resting on the stock of her beloved rifle.
Ash and Cinder.
They had arrived.
Arden's blood ran cold, a sensation entirely separate from the aether-chill of the lab.
His strategist's mind, which had been frantically calculating angles of survival, screeched to a halt. This was off-script.
This was wrong.
"...Why are they here?" he murmured, the words barely a breath.
His gaze remained locked on the monitor, on Cinder's impatient tap of her boot, on Ash's head tilting as if sniffing the air for their scent.
Tenn stood frozen by her console, her own confusion a stark contrast to her usual sharp-edged competence.
Out of all the Scorchers, only Blaze had ever deigned to visit her lab, and those visits were rare, momentous, and terrifying events.
You could count them on one hand. Ash and Cinder didn't deal in logistics or engineering; they were the end result, the fire and the silence that followed.
Their presence in her sanctum felt like a violation, a portent of something terminal.
Arden's instincts, honed by a lifetime of navigating the Junkyard's treacheries, screamed a single, silent alarm.
This wasn't a social call.
This wasn't a status update.
The air itself grew heavy, pressing down on him with a physical weight. Something was about to go absolutely wrong.
He finally tore his eyes from the screen and looked at Tenn, his voice low and tight. "Do you know why they are here?"
Tenn just shook her head, a short, jerky motion.
Her hands gripped the edge of the console. "No," she whispered. "I have no idea."
The confirmation solidified the dread in his gut.
This was unknown.
This was a variable he hadn't accounted for.
His mind raced, discarding possibilities.
There was no time.
With a soft, frustrated click of his tongue, Arden made a decision.
His hand moved to his belt, his fingers closing around his comm unit.
Without looking, his thumb found the power switch, turning it on.
He didn't raise it to his lips.
He didn't speak a word.
Instead, with a subtle shift of his body, he slipped the activated unit into his back pocket, the open channel now a silent, desperate witness to whatever was about to happen.
The heavy, mechanical clunk of the door's lock disengaging echoed through the lab like a gunshot.
The heavy door swung inward with a sigh of pressurized hydraulics, revealing the two figures framed in the hallway's gloom.
Ash led the way, his entrance a deliberate, mocking imitation of Blaze's own theatrical flair.
He swept into the lab with a predator's loose-limbed grace, a wide, unnerving grin plastered across his face.
It was a smile that didn't touch his eyes, which remained as cold and dark as polished stone.
The frilly, blood-stained apron was a grotesque parody of domesticity over his fine suit.
"Hello-hello," he chimed, his voice a syrupy singsong that dripped with false cheer.
"Sorry for intruding." The apology was a hollow formality, stripped of all meaning.
He wasn't sorry; he was relishing the disruption.
A step behind him, Cinder followed like a silent, irritable shadow.
She didn't bother with theatrics.
Her rifle, a well-loved and brutal piece of machinery, rested casually on her shoulder, her grip relaxed but ready.
Her sharp eyes, however, were everywhere.
They scanned the room with a sniper's methodical precision—darting over the humming cryo-tank, the schematics on Tenn's screens, the tools scattered on the workbench—before finally landing on Arden and Tenn.
She offered no greeting, her silence somehow more threatening than Ash's performative charm.
The lab, once a sanctuary of cluttered intellect, now felt like a cage.
The sterile air grew thick, charged with a sudden, dangerous tension.
Arden forced his posture to remain neutral, his hands loose at his sides, though every instinct told him to reach for a weapon he didn't have.
He met Ash's gaze, his own expression carefully blank, a mask of polite inquiry over the cold dread coiling in his stomach.
"...Can I help you?" Arden asked, his voice even and controlled.
The question was a probe, a carefully baited hook cast into the dark waters of their intent.
He needed to know what they wanted.
He needed to understand the rules of this new, unexpected game.
Ash's wide, theatrical grin didn't just fade—it vanished, wiped away as if by a switch.
His face settled into a petulant frown, his head tilting to the side in a pantomime of hurt feelings.
The sudden shift was more unsettling than his smile had been.
"Can't we freely visit our friends here?" he asked, his voice dropping into a tone of mock injury.
The words hung in the ozone-charged air, simple and utterly terrifying.
A cold trickle of sweat traced a path down Arden's spine, soaking into the fabric of his shirt.
His mouth went dry.
He had been probing for a mission objective, a task, a demand.
Instead, Ash had reframed the entire encounter with a single, insidious sentence.
Friends.
The word was a cage.
It wasn't an offer of camaraderie; it was a claim of ownership.
It meant they weren't here for a specific item or a piece of intel.
They were the objective.
He and Tenn were the reason for this visit.
His eyes darted to Cinder, who remained silent by the door, her rifle still resting on her shoulder.
Her presence was no longer just a guard; it was a blockades.
She wasn't there to watch their backs from outside threats.
She was there to ensure the "friends" didn't leave the playdate.
The sterile, climate-controlled air of the lab suddenly felt suffocating, too thin to breathe.
The hum of the cryo-tank now sounded like a countdown.
Ash's question hadn't been an answer.
It had been a verdict.
A forced, brittle smile stretched Arden's lips, a stark contrast to the cold fear in his eyes.
"No, no," he said, raising both hands in a placating gesture that felt as fragile as glass.
He took a careful half-step forward, deliberately putting himself more squarely between the Scorchers and Tenn. "After all, we're friends, right?"
The word tasted like ash.
He let the statement hang for a beat too long, the silence screaming the lie they were all meant to pretend was true.
His mind was a frantic engine, gears spinning, searching for any lever, any wedge to buy seconds, minutes—anything.
He gestured vaguely towards a cluttered corner of the lab where a few dusty stools were pushed under a workbench.
"Would you like to sit down?" he offered, his voice straining for a hospitality he did not feel.
"We can prepare some drink for you. It's not much, but…" His words trailed off, the feeble offer hanging in the air like a shield made of paper.
Behind him, Tenn had not moved a muscle, but a fine, uncontrollable tremor had begun to work its way up her legs.
Her breath was shallow, her knuckles bone-white where she gripped the edge of her console.
While Arden played his dangerous game of host, her right hand had slowly, imperceptibly drifted down to a secondary control panel.
Her fingers now rested on a large, prominent lever—the manual override and emergency dispersal trigger for the cryo-generator.
It was a desperate move, a bluff of catastrophic proportions, but it was the only weapon she had within reach.
Her wide, terrified eyes were fixed on the backs of the two intruders, waiting for the slightest wrong move.
Cinder's voice cut through Arden's feeble offer like a sharp, dangerous knife.
"Save your courtesy for someone else." Her gaze, flat and utterly uninterested, remained fixed on him, making it clear his performance was both transparent and pathetic.
She let the dismissal hang in the air for a cruel second before adding, "Or maybe not." The implication was clear: there would be no one else left to offer it to.
Then, without even a glance in his direction, she spoke to Ash, her tone as casual as if she were asking about the weather. "So, was that tank supposed to be their ace?"
The question landed not like a rock, but a depth charge.
Arden felt the air leave his lungs.
His carefully constructed facade of calm shattered.
His head snapped towards Tenn, his eyes wide with a silent, frantic question: How? How could they possibly know?
He found his answer in her face.
All the color had drained from Tenn's features, leaving a mask of pure, unadulterated terror.
Her gaze met his, and it was no longer just fear of their presence—it was the dizzying horror of a breached secret.
Her lips parted slightly, but no sound came out.
The unspoken question screamed between them, echoing his own: How do they know about the tank?
The lab's sterile environment now felt like a vacuum, all sound sucked away except for the frantic thumping of his own heart.
Their one desperate hope, their hidden trump card, wasn't hidden at all.
It had been on the corner of the room from the moment these two walked in, and they had just casually, contemptuously, pointed to it.
Ash's lips curled into a dismissive sneer.
"Supposed to be?" he echoed, his voice dripping with contempt.
He gave the massive cryo-tank a lazy, scornful glance.
"Anyway, it's much more disappointing than I thought it would be." His gaze, cold and predatory, then slid back to Tenn. "Hey, was that all the 'present' your bunch was going to give us?"
The taunt was the final confirmation.
They knew everything.
The plan, the tank, their betrayal—it was all laid bare.
There was no more time for deception, only for action.
As Ash spoke, Arden's hand, hidden by the fold of his jacket, closed around the cold, familiar shape of his conduit.
His thumb found the activation glyph, the interface flaring to life against his palm.
He didn't look at Tenn.
He didn't need to.
There was only one path left.
"TENN, NOW!" he roared, the command tearing from his throat.
In the fractured second that followed, understanding flashed in Tenn's eyes.
There was no hesitation, only a leap of faith.
Her hand, already resting on the control, slammed the override lever down.
A deafening, high-pitched HISSSSS erupted as the lab's sprinkler system burst to life, not with water, but with a torrent of super-cooled aether mist.
The air itself seemed to crystallize, the temperature plummeting instantly.
Frost bloomed across every surface in a violent, white wave.
Simultaneously, Arden's mind screamed two commands through his conduit.
A shimmering, semi-opaque wall of hardened air—a Rank 2 – Solid Barrier—sprang into existence between them and the Scorchers, the freezing mist slamming against it and instantly coating it in a thick layer of ice.
But it was his second spell that was their true ticket out.
He wasn't aiming at Ash or Cinder.
He focused his will on the compromised wall behind them, the one still scarred from Tenn's earlier installations.
Rank 2 – Flash Detonate
The world dissolved into white noise and blinding light.
The spell wasn't a focused blast, but a concussive storm of sound and force designed to disorient and shatter.
It hit the weakened wall with explosive fury.
Concrete and reinforcing mesh erupted inward, but the main force blew outward, into the hallway beyond, tearing a ragged, smoking hole into the darkness.
The barrier held for a precious heartbeat against the cryo-blast, then shattered under the dual strain, but it had done its job.
They were not flash-frozen.
The path was open.
"GO!" Arden screamed, grabbing Tenn's arm and shoving her toward the new-made exit, the acrid smell of aether and shattered concrete filling the frozen, chaotic air.
It wasn't a victory.
It was a chance.
***
The oppressive, grim reality of the briefing room had bled out into the wider rally point, leaving behind an eerie, focused silence.
The theoretical threat of corporate drones was now a hard, cold reality, and it demanded a change in tools.
Nail stared down at his own hands, flexing them slowly.
The brass knuckles, his favorite and most trusted weapons, felt suddenly useless in his grip.
They were an extension of his will, perfect for the brutal, intimate work of cracking jaws and breaking bones.
But you couldn't punch a drone out of the sky.
The memory of the grainy footage—the sleek alloy casing, the repulsor hum, the blinding flash—replayed in his mind.
His knuckles wouldn't stop a concentrated energy bolt.
They wouldn't even get him close.
A low grunt of frustration escaped him.
It felt like abandoning a part of himself, but survival had a brutal calculus all its own.
With a final, almost reluctant clench of his fist, he turned and began moving with single-minded purpose towards the armory.
It was time to find a weapon that could hit back at the things that were hunting them.
A few paces behind him, Carlos fell into step, his own expression a mirror of grim practicality.
The big man didn't need to ask; they'd fought together long enough to read the shift in posture, the new determination in a comrade's stride.
His rifle was a comfort, but against a swarm, one rifle was a single note in a symphony of destruction.
He needed more ammunition, more grenades, something with more punch.
Their shared, unspoken understanding hung between them: the old ways of fighting were over.
The war had just been upgraded.
The corridor leading to the armory was clogged, not with panic, but with a grim, orderly queue.
It seemed every Talon who had attended the briefing had arrived at the same, grim conclusion.
The usual quiet hum of the base was replaced by the low murmur of tense voices and the scuff of boots on concrete.
The line was a silent testament to their new reality.
Nail spotted a familiar sharp-edged silhouette ahead.
Pen stood with her arms crossed, her gaze distant and calculating as she stared at the armory door, not really seeing it.
"Pen," Nail said, falling in beside her. "Getting more wires?"
She shook her head slowly, not looking at him.
"Not really." Her voice was low, stripped of its usual sharp humor.
"I'm thinking of a way to fight those damn drones." She paused, her eyes narrowing as she replayed the engagement in her mind. "Last time we dealt with them, guns weren't as effective as they should be. I saw it—they were deflecting bullets with some kind of localized shield. Like hitting water."
A Talon from Rook's squad nodded grimly from behind them. "You can say that again," he chimed in, his voice rough with exhaustion. "It's not just armor. Each of those drones is a conduit of its own. Fast, smart, and packing more glyph-tech than our entire squad."
The words landed like a physical blow.
A conduit of its own.
Nail's mind, which had been wrestling with the simple problem of range, was suddenly flooded with a much more terrifying image.
He saw the footage again—not just as a single drone, but as a vast, interconnected swarm.
Not just hundreds of machines, but hundreds of spell-casters, each a flickering, shielded, deadly node in a single, monstrous intelligence.
His hope of simply trading his knuckles for a rifle withered.
They weren't just outgunned; they were outspelled on a scale he could barely comprehend.
The scale of what they were facing settled over the armory queue like a physical weight.
It was one thing to fight gangsters or rival militias.
It was another to stare down a corporate war machine, a seemingly endless swarm of thinking, killing machines.
The reality was a cold stone in the gut of every soldier present.
Pen knew it better than most.
She had seen the efficiency of those drones firsthand.
Rook, to his credit, had not sugarcoated it.
Before the briefing, he had stood before them all, his voice a low rumble that brooked no argument yet offered a stark choice.
He'd told them the fight ahead was against an enemy of a different magnitude.
That any Talon who wanted to walk away, to try their luck in the ruins rather than face this, could do so.
No shame, no reprisal.
Pen had been surprised.
Not that the offer was made, but by the result.
Only a handful had left, their footsteps echoing with a hollow finality as they disappeared down the corridor.
She recognized their faces—mostly the new blood, the ones who hadn't yet weathered a full year in the Talons.
They hadn't built a life here; they hadn't yet forged the bonds that turned a squad into a family, a base into a home.
Watching them go, Pen felt no contempt, only a grim understanding.
Her own choice had been made in the silence of her own heart the moment Rook finished speaking.
If she ran, where would she go?
Back to scavenging?
Back to looking over her shoulder for every gang and corporate patrol?
The Steel Talons were more than just a faction to her.
They were the first thing she had ever truly fought for, not just against.
If she didn't stand here, now, with these people, then the Scorchers and their corporate masters would burn it all to ash.
And there would be nothing left of her world, nothing left of her, but cinders and memories.
So she stayed in line, her jaw set, waiting for a weapon that felt too small, because walking away was a death sentence of a different, slower kind.
But every thought of drones, of corporate backing, of personal resolve, was violently erased by the world itself tearing apart.
A deafening explosion roared from outside, a sound so immense it felt like a physical blow.
The armory shook violently, dust and rust raining from the ceiling girders.
Small crates of ammunition toppled from shelves, their contents scattering across the floor with a loud clatter.
In the stunned silence that followed the initial shock, a new sound emerged—a chorus of frantic, synchronized chirps.
Every single comm unit in the room, from the one on the quartermaster's desk to the devices on every Talon's belt, lit up at once, blaring the same priority-one transmission, a raw shout digitized into a scream:
<
The orderly queue shattered into a storm of controlled chaos.
There was no more waiting, no more deliberation. Instinct and training took over.
Those who were armed slammed fresh magazines home.
Those who weren't grabbed the nearest weapon from an open crate.
As one, a tide of black and gray uniforms surged toward the exits, a single organism reacting to a mortal threat.
Pen and Nail were carried in the human current, bursting out of the armory and into the chaotic main yard.
The air, once still, was now thick with dust and the acrid smell of explosives.
And there, just beyond the main gate—which was now a twisted, smoking ruin—stood their nightmare made flesh.
Blaze stood at the forefront, a wide, manic grin splitting his face, his posture relaxed as if he were enjoying a pleasant afternoon.
But it was the figure behind him that stole the breath from every Talon.
Hovering a few feet off the ground was a person encased in a suit of exo-armor of a design none of them recognized.
It was sleek, almost organic, and covered from head to toe in a seamless, unbroken shell of dark, polished alloy, offering no glimpse of the pilot within.
It was less a machine and more a statue of an alien god, humming with a low, threatening energy.
Pen's training kicked in a heartbeat after the shock.
She slapped a hand to her comm unit, her voice cutting through the chaos on a direct line to their commander.
"Karen! The rally point—they're here! The Scorchers are attacking!"
The message was no longer a warning.
It was a confirmation that the fire had finally reached their doorstep.