The rotors were loud enough to make conversation pointless, which suited both of them fine.
Amelia sat in the jump seat working through her revolver cylinder by cylinder under the dim red tactical lighting. Across the aisle, Gura was curled against the hull with her knees pulled up, watching the world outside the porthole like it owed her an explanation.
It probably did.
Below them, the storm had finally cleared. A coastal city stretched to the horizon — highways, towers, ten million lit windows stacked on top of each other. Amelia had stopped seeing cities a long time ago. Just grids. Logistics.
For Gura, it was something else entirely. Atlantis had been bioluminescence and crystalline spires and light that moved the way water does. This was neon and concrete and noise, and every light down there belonged to someone who had never heard of her people and never would.
Beautiful. Completely alien. And completely, undeniably empty of anyone she knew.
Amelia snapped the cylinder shut and reached into her duffel. She pulled out a bundle of blue fabric and tossed it across the aisle.
It landed on Gura's lap. She looked down at it — an oversized hoodie, shark face on the hood, white trim on the cuffs.
"Put it on. We land in ten."
Gura touched the fabric. Soft. Warm. "What's it for?"
"Camouflage." Amelia holstered the revolver. "Where we're going, people in lab coats will dissect anything that looks mythological. You walk in with a tail and glowing hair, you're a specimen. You put the hood up and keep your head down, you're a traumatized civilian. One of those is significantly better for you."
Gura pulled it over her head. It swallowed her — sleeves past her fingertips, hem down to her knees — but the weight of it was oddly grounding. She pulled the hood up.
"Better," Amelia said. "Now listen. We're landing at Headquarters. C.O.V.E.R. — Classified Operations for Vigilance against Extraordinary Rifts. They're the only organized force between humanity and whatever crawls out of the dark. They took me in when I had nothing, and they fund my work." A pause. "They're also ruthless. So let me do the talking."
Gura hugged her knees under the fabric. "Are they going to lock me up?"
"Not if I have anything to say about it. You're my asset." Amelia's tone didn't leave room for debate. "The Void is escalating and command is scared. Scared people make bad decisions. Just stay close and stay quiet."
The rotors changed pitch. Outside the porthole, the gleaming city slid away, replaced by something harder — a brutalist steel fortress driven directly into the face of a coastal cliff, lit by floodlights that made it look like it was daring the ocean to try something.
The ramp came down into cold salt air and rotor wash.
Amelia went first. Gura followed, hood down, eyes on the ground, trying to look like someone who belonged anywhere near this place.
The landing pad was organized chaos — tactical teams, hazmat suits, people moving with the specific urgency of an organization that had recently received very bad news. They parted for Amelia without being asked.
"Agent Watson."
The woman waiting at the entrance looked like she'd been assembled to project authority. Sharp suit, short black hair, square frames, a data tablet glowing in one hand. Expression: unreadable. The kind of unreadable that was itself a choice.
"Director Enma." Amelia gave her a two-finger salute that was technically respectful.
"You put a hole through the deck of a multi-million dollar research vessel," Enma said. Her eyes moved to Gura with the detached precision of someone running a quick assessment. "And came back with an unregistered anomalous entity."
"The entity saved my crew's lives. And she's not an entity." Amelia stepped slightly in front of Gura. "She's a primary component of the Omega prophecy. We need her."
Enma held the look for a moment longer than was comfortable, then turned on her heel. The steel doors slid open.
"War room. We have a situation that makes the property damage irrelevant."
The corridors went deep into the cliff. Containment cells glowing behind reinforced glass. Labs where people moved too fast and didn't look up. The hum of the Trident at Gura's chest shifted, uneasy, like a compass needle near something it didn't recognize.
She kept her eyes on Amelia's coat and followed.
The war room was circular, dominated by a holographic globe that threw blue light across every surface. Enma went straight to the console.
"Two hours ago, the Void-Seeker ran coordinated strikes. Your ship was one of several targets."
The globe rotated north. A red circle pulsed over a mountain range.
"Ignis. The forge-city. Satellites recorded a drop to absolute zero followed by an astronomical thermal detonation — a pillar of golden fire that punched through the cloud cover. Heat signature wasn't nuclear." Enma paused. "Our analysts are calling it conceptual. It burned the atmospheric corruption away."
"A second Pillar," Amelia said.
"There's more." The globe spun east, zooming to a coastal metropolis. "Spiritual division flagged a massive blackout in Sector 4. Not the power grid. The souls. The Void isn't killing people there — it's erasing them. Turning human spirits into static."
Gura went still under her hood.
"An hour ago," Enma continued, "sensors picked up a surge of Underworld energy in the same area. Something crossed over from the other side into the physical realm. It's been hunting Void creatures since."
Amelia's arms crossed slowly. "They're waking up. All of them."
"The Void-Seeker knows that. If it reaches them before they can unite, the seal falls." Enma turned from the console. "C.O.V.E.R. can't field an army against something that attacks the meaning of existence. But a smaller operation, moving fast—"
"Might actually do something," Amelia finished. She didn't sound thrilled about it.
"Directive Omega is active. You find the other Pillars. Bring them in, or get alongside them. Whatever the situation requires." Enma's gaze settled on her. "Whatever it takes."
Amelia pulled the pocket watch from her coat. Flipped it open. The hands moved with complete indifference to how she felt about any of this.
"I'm a detective, Enma. Not a babysitter for a mythological strike team."
"You're whatever the world needs you to be."
Amelia snapped the watch shut.
She looked back at Gura, who was standing in the blue light of the holographic globe — small, hooded, staring at the spinning map of a world she'd woken up into without asking. The weight of it was visible even from across the room.
Amelia pocketed the watch.
"Alright." She turned back toward the door. "Pack light. We're going hunting."