245 GET A DNA TEST
Kail and Liorea arrived at the mecha facility, but the building was under heavy bombardment from warships above. Only the shimmering force field kept it from being reduced to rubble.
"What should we do now?" Liorea asked, her voice tense.
"I'm glad you asked me," Kail replied with a smirk. "I assumed you were always the one with the answers."
Liorea was the most cunning girl in the city—clever, resourceful, usually the one solving problems before anyone else.
But this… this was different.
Real combat. Tactical decisions that mattered. She had no experience here.
"I'm the mastermind, not the operative," she admitted. "I don't know…"
Kail's grin widened. "Don't worry, sis. I'll get you home safe."
"Sis? Did you just call me sis?" Liorea asked, surprised.
"I call Big brother and Eryn, sis… that's not a problem for you, is it?" Kail asked casually.
For a moment, Liorea froze. "For a second, I thought you were my brother… Vance."
Vance Shearak was her missing brother.
She hadn't had news of him in years. She didn't dare hope for a reunion—but hearing Kail call her "sis" had triggered something buried deep in her memory.
"Your brother Vance? I'm not your brother… we've checked before with your tracking device," Kail reminded her.
"Right… the device from Coracle, it doesn't work," Liorea muttered, fishing it out from her special space.
The device beeped urgently—faster and faster, as if it had finally picked up a signal.
"See? I told you it's broken," she said.
Kail didn't want to see her disappointed. "Maybe… he's around the city."
Liorea's eyes lit up. "Really? Where?"
Kail paused, thinking. "If he's here, he'd have to be inside the facility. There's nothing else for miles. If he's around, he's in there."
Liorea grinned, a spark of mischief in her eyes. "Alright. Let's go inside and find my brother."
-----
Kail and Liorea slipped into the mecha facility through a concealed tunnel entrance.
When they emerged inside, Lieutenant Kalmer was already waiting for them, tension etched across his face.
"Thank goodness you're here," Kalmer said. "We don't know what to do—the city's under full-scale attack."
"Relax," Kail replied calmly. "The facility's force field is specially reinforced. Breaching it won't be easy. And once Big Brother arrives, he'll know exactly what to do."
Kalmer nodded. "Damen's already fighting?"
"As always," Liorea added quietly.
"That's… reassuring," Kalmer said with a weak smile. "I'll check the final calibrations on Hermes. It should finally be operational again."
He turned and hurried off toward the hangar.
Liorea's device began to beep again.
"Kail," she said softly. "Can you help me find my brother?"
"Of course."
At his gesture, dozens of holographic screens bloomed into existence, filling the air with data streams. Every employee and individual inside the facility was scanned, indexed, and filtered in seconds.
The result came back immediately.
"There's no one here matching Vance's age," Kail said.
Liorea leaned closer, scanning the projections herself. "Are you sure?"
"By the way," Kail asked, glancing at her, "how old is your brother?"
"Fifteen," she answered.
Kail blinked. "Seriously? That's… my age."
Liorea froze. "What? I thought you were the same age as Damen."
Kail smiled faintly. "No. I'm about two years younger than Big Brother. I only look older because of the transformation procedure—it altered my appearance so I could hide from the Zetheris Corporation."
Liorea stared at him. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"I didn't think it mattered," Kail said gently. "And Big Brother didn't want my past discussed. It's too dangerous if the wrong people found out."
Liorea took a shaky breath, then looked at him with sudden intensity.
"Kail… what if—what if you're my brother?"
He frowned. "Me?"
"Yes," she said firmly. "The Coracle device reacted every time you were near me. I ignored it before, but I shouldn't have. I won't leave any clue unexplored."
Kail hesitated only a moment. "Then there's an easy way to settle this. A DNA test. We'll know immediately."
"Do it," Liorea said without hesitation.
Kail summoned one of the facility's android nurses. Within moments, samples were taken and processed. The machine hummed softly.
One minute later, the result appeared.
99.9999% genetic match.
Kail stared at the display in disbelief before handing it to Liorea.
She looked at it once—then broke down.
Tears streamed down her face as she clutched the result, sobbing silently for a long moment.
When she finally calmed, Kail gently took her hands.
"Tell me," he said softly. "What happened to us?"
Liorea began to speak—of their childhood, moving between orphanages and community centers. Of being separated. Of being sent to a foster family at eight. Of returning years later to search for Vance…
only to find he was gone.
"I remember a fire," Kail said slowly. "At my orphanage. I was about six. It destroyed everything—records, names, histories. After that, I was moved again and again. I was too young to remember who I was. Eventually, they gave me a name."
He swallowed.
"Ethan Lace. I became him."
Liorea stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him.
"I finally found you," she sobbed. "My brother."
Kail hugged her back, tears falling freely.
"I never knew I had a sister," he whispered. "I thought I was alone in this world… but now I know I'm not."
Kail was too young to remember when he lost his sister. His reunion with Liorea would give him comfort and confidence in the days ahead… he was not alone anymore.
And for the first time amid the war, something precious was restored.
-----
Damen tracked Kail and Liorea's positions through his mining app's locator feed. Their signals were moving steadily toward the secret mech facility.
"Good," Damen muttered. "They'll be safe there."
He rose into the air, his gaze hardening as he switched to another tracking signal.
"Sorrow… here I come."
Damen shot forward, tearing through the sky toward Sorrow's location. The signal led upward—back to a warship hovering above Silver City.
No doubt Sorrow had retreated there to recover from his wounds.
"I must kill Sorrow once and for all," Damen vowed.
The warships didn't frighten him. Neither did Silver City's armies.
There was only one true threat left—the Super Soldier known as Sorrow.
Silver lines spiraled across Damen's chest as electricity surged through his core, condensing, transforming—until it burned white-hot into plasma.
A beam erupted from him.
The plasma strike slammed into the warship's engine, detonating in a blinding flash.
WEE WOO. WEE WOO.
Alarms screamed as the warship recognized its attacker.
Black Halo.
Hatches burst open. Hundreds—then thousands—of drones and meta soldiers poured into the sky, swarming toward Damen.
He laughed.
"Is that all you've got?" Damen called out. "Come out, Sorrow—and face death!"
The Echo Core activated.
Plasma surged from Damen in relentless waves, carving through the air like a storm of annihilation. Androids, machines, meta-humans, and soldiers were torn apart mid-charge.
Hundreds fell.
Then thousands.
The sky burned.
Moments later, two more warships arrived, their shadows swallowing the battlefield. Doors opened, releasing legions of powerful meta-heroes and elite soldiers.
Damen's smile widened.
"Good…" he said softly.
"This is a good day to die."
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