Dust trailed behind the lead truck as it careened around a sharp bend, tires screeching against the stone. The cliffs echoed with gunfire and the hum of Arcana surges. Kaas, hunched in the passenger seat, stared into a flickering containment case filled with glowing Arcana cores—unstable, dangerous, alive.
"They're close," the driver said, panting.
Kaas didn't answer. His fingers danced across a gauntlet on his arm, inputting something too fast for human eyes to follow. Sparks licked the interior walls. The Arcana cores pulsed harder.
"Let them come," he murmured. "Let them see what I've built."
Pursuit
The Resonance Twins leapt between cliff ledges, moving like two parts of a single thought. The girl twin spoke first.
"He's going to blow the cargo."
"He doesn't care if he lives."
From Kael's comm:
"Target accelerating. Moving to intercept," said Edith. "Kael. Luna. Cut him off on the lower path. James, hold rear. No one gets past."
Kael and Luna split off down a gravel-strewn incline. The sound of rushing water echoed below. Luna took point, guiding them through the natural terrain like she'd trained for it all her life.
They burst out of the brush just as the lead truck started to swerve—
"Now!"
Luna slammed her spear into the ground, sending a geyser of water upward. It struck the front axle—icy and unrelenting—freezing it solid mid-spin.
The truck jackknifed and slammed into a boulder with a deafening CRASH.
Containment
Kael didn't wait.
He sprinted through steam and smoke toward the wreck, his hands blazing with firelight. The back doors of the lead truck exploded outward—not from impact, but from Kaas himself.
He stood in the clearing, gauntlet crackling, a halo of malfunctioning Arcana floating behind him. His robes were torn, eyes wild with fervor.
"You think you're here to stop me?" Kaas shouted, laughing. "You're already part of it. All of you."
Kael raised a hand. "Don't make this harder."
"Hard? What's hard is building something from ashes. Something no one can take again."
He fired.
The Arcana gauntlet blasted unstable energy—shards of fire and static light. Kael dodged left, barely avoiding a bolt that turned a tree trunk into molten slag.
Luna circled wide, keeping her spear low, waiting for a clean angle.
Kael launched himself forward—feinting left, striking right. His palm connected with the gauntlet, and flames surged down Kaas's arm. The gauntlet sparked—then fizzled.
Kaas screamed, backing away.
"You don't understand! I had no choice!"
Kael stood still, breathing heavy.
"Neither did I... two years ago."
Kaas blinked, disoriented. "Wait—your eyes... I know that look."
But before Kaas could speak again, the Resonance Twins tackled him from behind in perfect sync, pinning him to the earth.
Captured
The convoy was secure. Kaas was bound and sedated. The stolen Arcana tech was loaded into containment crates. Edith arrived moments later via zipline, landing near the crash site with barely a sound.
"Nice work," she said to Team B. "Cleanup crew en route. Extraction in ten."
Kael stood over the flickering gauntlet on the ground. Something about the design nagged at him. The curvature of the core... the binding runes...
It wasn't Kaas's work. At least, not just his.
"Edith," he said slowly. "Where'd Kaas get this?"
She glanced over. Then frowned.
"We don't know. Yet."
Behind them, Kaas stirred in his restraints. His voice rasped.
"It's not over. The past always catches up…"
Kael froze.
It was the same phrase.
The same words his father had spoken in the dream.
The same warning.