The meeting chamber was quieter than usual.
The walls, once polished to sterile perfection, were now fractured in places. Exposed wires curled like veins above flickering lamps. A fine crack stretched down from the top-left panel of the central screen, and though the room remained functional, its heart beat slower now. Even the console lighting dimmed intermittently, as if exhaling in exhaustion.
Kal'tsit stood by the head table, arms crossed, one foot tapping silently against the floor. The usual sharpness in her eyes hadn't dulled, but it had worn thinner—like a scalpel used once too often. Beside her, Amiya sat with her hands folded over her lap, ears drooping just slightly. The usual warmth in her gaze had been smothered by calculation.
Around them, four more shadows bore witness.
Silence, fingers laced tightly in front of her, nodded with slow, clinical control. Warfarin leaned back against the wall, her expression unreadable save for a faint furrow of the brows. Ptilopsis was still, quietly observing the data scroll across her tablet with methodical calm. And Provence, arms crossed and tail flicking slightly, stood furthest from the table—watching, but not speaking.
The main screen displayed a pulsing schematic of the Rhodes Island landship, half-lit in red. The forward stabilizers had gone dark. Magnetic readings spiked erratically along the base.
"—They're calling it a static bloom," Kal'tsit stated, voice cutting through the stale air. "But it's more precise than that. Black Roots deployed it knowing exactly where we'd settle. The systems were stunned the moment we got close."
Amiya's gaze dropped to her clasped hands. "Then we can't drop down."
"No," Kal'tsit replied flatly. "And we can't risk sending any of the usual elite squads. Blaze is pinned in the northwest corridor. Saria is holding the eastern wall, but that won't last."
Silence finally spoke. "Even if we freed up a unit, their movement would be tracked. Interception is nearly guaranteed."
Ptilopsis added, "Signal interference detected. External communications are unstable within the radius of the suppression field. Return protocols cannot be initialized."
"…Then," Amiya spoke softly, her voice almost lost beneath the quiet hum of the screens, "can we at least recall our forward operators? Ask them to regroup, even if they're far?"
Kal'tsit didn't answer at first.
She stepped toward the console, fingers grazing the input panel like one would a page of a ruined book.
"They're grounded too," she said at last. "Whatever this signal is, it's blanketing every forward relay we have. We're cut off."
The silence returned.
Thicker this time. Heavier.
Even the ventilation seemed to pause, as if the room knew what came next.
Amiya's lips barely moved when she spoke.
"Then… our only hope is the Doctor."
The shift in the room was immediate.
Warfarin inhaled slowly, expression unreadable.
Ptilopsis blinked once and said nothing.
Silence looked down.
And Provence—Provence's jaw tightened.
Kal'tsit, however, remained still.
"…Before him," she said quietly, "we have to hope that they answer our call."
Provence's tail lashed behind her.
"You're seriously suggesting we put our faith in them? Rogue operators with no loyalty to Rhodes Island? We don't even know what they want and where they are—"
"They're exactly where they need to be," Kal'tsit cut in, not unkindly, but unshaken. "And they're not rogues."
She turned, green eyes meeting Provence's directly.
"I prefer to address them as…"
A pause.
"…Unplayable cards."
She didn't smile.
But the weight in her words was final.
The temple stood alone at the edge of the world.
Built atop the broken lip of a great canyon—where the ocean had not receded, but parted—where tides refused to return. The sea stretched to either side like two leviathans held back by ancient hands, and between them yawned the Fold, a bottomless abyss carved through space and time.
The structure itself was crude. Stone stacked by hand, smoothed not by tools but by wind. The temple had no name for it needed none.
A breeze moved through the open hall, salt carried on its breath, rustling the lone prayer flags hanging from the fractured arch above.
Footsteps echoed up the stairs.
A boy—no, not quite a boy—marched forward with uneven grace, mechanical joints barely hissing beneath his long coat. His mismatched horns sparked faintly in the wind, and a pair of tinted goggles pushed to his forehead bobbed with each step.
He looked back once at the figure trailing behind him.
A Rhodes Island operator, cloak still bearing field dust, walked with practiced care. The air here made people cautious.
"You sure about this?" the operator muttered, scanning the temple's ragged silhouette.
"No," the boy—Burngear—said bluntly, shrugging. "But this is where you have to go, so here we are."
The operator raised a brow, but said nothing else.
The two made it to the central platform, where the stone had been leveled smooth. In the very center, beneath the open sky, sat a man robed in grey—hair tied back, posture relaxed but perfectly still, like a statue pretending to breathe. Before him, a brush swayed in rhythm.
Kharon stood nearby, sweeping dust into the wind, back hunched in rhythm with the breeze.
"Hey, old man," The boy called, voice carrying with a casual drawl, "a visitor's asking for you."
Kharon's broom didn't stop—but its rhythm slowed.
The operator didn't waste time.
"Kal'tsit has sent for aid. Immediate deployment."
The air shifted.
John stiffened. Barely. His fingers twitched at his side.
"…Sister Sit is asking for help?" he muttered, glancing toward Fang.
The man in robes did not move. He simply remained seated.
The operator nodded once. "It's urgent. The Doctor has been found. She requests for you to retrieve him."
They hadn't even finished the sentence before John's head snapped up.
His irises, once calm hues of blue and yellow, flared scarlet. His voice cracked like breaking metal.
"Why the hell would we save that motherfucker?"
The words echoed.
Even the waves behind seemed to hush.
John stepped forward, fists clenched. "After everything he's done? After Babel? After her—!?"
The last word caught.
He didn't finish it.
Kharon sighed—low, tired—and began putting the broom away.
John whirled. "We should let him rot! Let him feel what he made the rest of us carry—what we still carry!"
The tension hung like a knife.
Then—
"…Fate has begun to move."
The voice was soft.
John stopped. The red bled from his eyes, slowly, like a fire choking on ash. Blue returned. Dull. Regretful.
He turned.
Fang's eyes were still closed.
Then—without fanfare, without weight—
He opened them.
Calm. Measured. Watching something far beyond the present.
"It's time for us to move," he whispered.