The war room looked less like an office and more like the command deck of a ship mid-battle.
Dozens of screens pulsed with jagged lines of red, graphs collapsing into the abyss. Market tickers scrolled like desperate cries, red percentages stabbing across the glass walls. Staff sat hunched at their stations, sweat soaking through collars, the clatter of keyboards frantic and uneven. The air buzzed with electricity—servers humming too hot, paper shredders spitting confetti, and the bitter stink of coffee burned down to tar.
Somewhere near the corner, a printer coughed itself into a jam, half-spitting a chart of losses before crumpling. No one stopped to fix it. Everyone knew the only numbers that mattered were the ones plummeting live on the screens.
And at the center of it all stood Arkellin.
He didn't shout. He didn't pace. He simply existed in stillness, and the chaos bent around him. The black suit he wore had not wrinkled, his tie loosened just enough to suggest the long day behind him, not the collapse of an empire. The white streak in his hair caught the stormlight flashing through the high windows, giving him the aura of a man both anchored in this world and somehow beyond it.
His commands cut clean through the noise:
"Shift liquidity out of East Asia. They're baiting the floor price."
"Kill the auto-traders. I want no panic codes triggering on their clock."
"Hold positions. Do not chase the drop. We bleed them, not us."
Analysts scrambled, not from fear, but from the magnetic precision in his voice. He didn't bark like a tyrant; he directed like a general who knew exactly how the battle would unfold.
To his right stood Mira.
She looked like she had been carved from steel and midnight. Navy blazer, hair pinned in a severe twist, heels like blades clicking faintly against the marble floor. But the mask of control was a thin lacquer stretched over exhaustion. Her eyes flicked constantly between her tablet, glowing with urgent emails, and the giant screen where the company's stock plunged in brutal red.
Her phone buzzed again, another reporter demanding a comment, another regulator pressing for answers. She dismissed each one with a crisp swipe, jaw locked tight. Every once in a while, though, her gaze slid sideways—to Arkellin, to the steadiness radiating from him. And in those fleeting glances, the cracks in her mask softened for the briefest moment.
Then the doors opened.
Myra entered like she owned the storm.
Where Mira was blade and armor, Myra was silk and velvet. She wore a pale ivory blouse that clung to her figure and a skirt slit high enough to scandalize in this fortress of collapsing numbers. Her hair tumbled loose over her shoulders, glimmering under the cold blue light of the monitors. The air shifted as she moved, her perfume—spiced vanilla—cutting through the stink of caffeine and panic.
"Well," she drawled, her voice languid but cutting through the hum, "so this is the battlefield."
Heads turned despite themselves. Some staff straightened; others ducked into their screens, pretending not to watch.
Her gaze swept the war room—screens bleeding red, staff hunched like soldiers in the trenches—before landing on Arkellin. Her lips curved into a slow, knowing smile. "And here I thought you only fought with fists. Turns out you sweat for money too."
The words drew a ripple of awkward silence. A few analysts exchanged glances. Mira's pen stilled mid-note, the tiniest pause betraying her.
Arkellin didn't look at Myra. His fingers continued across the keyboard, blue code slicing over the red chaos on the screen. His voice, cool as ice water, broke the silence.
"Markets don't sweat." His eyes never left the data. "They bleed."
The room seemed to hold its breath.
Myra tilted her head, clearly amused, clearly unfazed. She drifted closer, her heels whispering against marble, and leaned against the edge of the console beside him. The screen's glow painted her blouse translucent, her silhouette sharper than shadows should allow. She rested her chin lightly against her hand, eyes locked on him.
"Still," she purred, "you make it look… intoxicating."
Mira's eyes snapped up, sharp as glass. Her voice sliced through the air, cold and precise. "This is a war room, not a playground."
Myra's smile widened, lazy and dangerous. "Oh, I know. That's what makes it fun."
Arkellin's hands didn't falter, his eyes fixed on the unraveling data, the storm beyond the glass. But for a brief second, the faintest curve tugged at his lips—not warmth, not invitation, but the acknowledgment of a game being played on two fronts.
Lightning flashed, the glass walls rattled faintly, and the room returned to the rhythm of war.
Only now, the battle wasn't just against the Council in the markets. It was also Mira and Myra, circling closer, their rivalry sparking hotter than the screens bleeding red.
Arkellin broke the silence first. His fingers struck the keyboard, blue lines of code stitching across the glass wall like a surgeon closing a wound. Where before the screens screamed panic, now a new interface layered over them—clean, precise, an algorithm born from Kindrake's inheritance.
Staff froze, watching as red charts halted mid-fall. The plunges slowed. Small rebounds spiked, seemingly random, but Arkellin's expression told a different story.
"They've scattered their fire," he murmured. "Shorting in coordinated waves across multiple exchanges. Offshore accounts, shell funds. Every burst is timed, every drop engineered." His eyes narrowed as his fingers darted over the keys. "They think they're invisible."
Mira stepped forward, her heels a crisp rhythm against the marble. She leaned closer to the glowing glass, her breath fogging faintly against it. "And?"
Arkellin leaned back, the faintest smile tugging his lips. "They forget. I've seen a thousand years of markets."
With a single command, his algorithm executed. Buy orders fired into the system, perfectly timed between Council's coordinated shorts. The trades stacked, invisible hands catching the falling knives. Prices jolted upward, small but sharp, halting the freefall.
Gasps rippled through the staff. Some clutched at their headsets, whispering into phones: "It's working—stabilizing!"
Mira exhaled, not relief but sharpened focus. "Good. Then we take it to the public."
She turned on her heel, striding toward the cameras that had been hastily assembled in the adjoining press bay. A dozen reporters already waited, mics poised, their voices a low buzz ready to explode.
The lights flared hot as she stepped onto the small stage, her navy blazer catching the white glare. She stood tall, expression carved from marble, every gesture controlled.
"Clock Corporation is not collapsing," Mira declared, her voice steady as stone. "We are evolving. What you see today is not failure—it is transition. And we will emerge stronger than before."
Flashes erupted. Questions shouted. Her hand cut the air once, silencing them. In that moment, she was every inch the heiress, commanding the storm with nothing but words.
But behind her, in the crowd of flashing cameras and live feeds, a shadow moved.
Myra.
She slid into the frame as though she belonged there, silk blouse gleaming under the lights. Her hand rested lightly on Arkellin's arm where he stood just off-stage, as though the contact was casual. But her body angled toward the cameras, her smile languid and knowing.
"Smile for them," she whispered against his ear, just loud enough for Mira to catch the words through the microphone's hum.
The flashbulbs caught everything.
Arkellin's calm profile beside her.
Myra's hand, her eyes glinting with mischief.
And Mira, holding her mask harder than ever as her sister's provocation burned at the edges of her composure.
In the war room, the numbers steadied.
But in the press room, another battle had just ignited.
The war room hummed with a different kind of energy now. Not relief—no one dared exhale that far—but the jagged edge of panic had dulled. The screens no longer screamed red freefall. Green flickers appeared, small rebounds punctuating the chaos.
Staff whispered to each other in clipped disbelief.
"He caught the timing—look at the curve."
"Stabilized… I didn't think it was possible."
"It's like he saw them coming."
Directors who had gathered along the back wall, faces pale with sleepless nights, shifted forward. Some wore cautious admiration, others distrust sharpened by jealousy. Arkellin hadn't been in this company more than a handful of weeks, and already he'd bent the market storm with nothing more than code and cold precision.
Arkellin himself didn't bask in it. He stood at the center console, hands steady on the edge of the desk, eyes scanning every tick of data. The glow from the screens carved his features into stone, unreadable.
Mira stepped back into the war room, the echoes of the press conference still clinging to her. She carried herself tall, mask firmly in place, though her eyes betrayed fatigue around the edges. She didn't need to ask if it had worked—the atmosphere told her.
But Myra was already there, perched on the arm of a chair like it was a throne, one leg crossed high, silk blouse catching the monitor light. She watched Arkellin with a smile that was half-mischief, half-challenge.
"Well," Myra said, her voice lilting, loud enough for everyone to hear, "it seems the board should be grateful my sister found someone useful."
The words landed like stones thrown into glass. Staff froze mid-keystroke, directors glanced sharply at each other. Mira's hand stilled on her tablet.
Arkellin didn't flinch. His gaze stayed locked on the numbers, not granting the provocation even a flicker of reaction.
But Mira's head turned, slow, deliberate. Her eyes locked onto her sister's, steel glinting beneath composure. "Grateful?" she repeated, voice low and razor-sharp. She took a step closer, heels striking against marble. "This isn't about gratitude. This is about survival."
Myra's smile widened, as if every barb only sweetened her game. "Survival, then. And he seems very good at keeping you… alive."
A ripple of uneasy laughter passed among the staff—too nervous to commit, too scandalized to ignore.
Mira's jaw clenched, but she didn't give the satisfaction of rising further. She turned back toward the screens, spine straight, voice clipped. "Stay focused. This fight isn't over."
Arkellin finally looked up, just for a moment. His eyes slid between the two sisters, calculating, cool. He said nothing. But in the silence that followed, the storm outside cracked with thunder, as if reminding them all—the real enemy wasn't in this room.
Not yet.
He turned back to the console, hands steady, finalizing the counter-trading cycles. Lines of blue code streamed across the wall of glass, intersecting with the crimson logs of sabotage. For a heartbeat, it almost looked like balance: two forces colliding, but not one overwhelming the other.
"Stabilization holding at three percent," one analyst whispered, voice trembling with cautious hope. "If it keeps like this—"
The lights flickered.
Not the overheads, not the storm's work. The monitors. All of them.
The data streams shivered, distorted, graphs jittering as though seized by invisible hands. Staff gasped, leaning back from their stations. Mira stiffened, tablet clutched tight, while Myra leaned forward in anticipation, lips curling as if the chaos itself entertained her.
Then, one by one, the screens went black.
The war room dropped into silence but for the hum of the servers. For a few terrible seconds, only the storm outside lit the space, lightning flashing faint against glass.
Then a single line of white text scrawled across the largest screen. No data, no graphs, no numbers—just words, sharp and deliberate.
"You can't outplay us."
Another line followed, slower, almost taunting.
"This is only the opening move."
And then, finally:
"— Council."
The words pulsed once, as though stamped into the system itself, then vanished, leaving only the reflection of the stunned war room on black glass.
A wave of unease rippled through the staff. One director muttered a curse under his breath. Mira's lips parted, just slightly, the first crack in her mask showing. Myra exhaled a low, delighted laugh, eyes fixed on Arkellin. "At least they noticed you."
Arkellin stood still, hands resting on the console. He didn't look shaken. He didn't look angry. He only stared at the black screen, eyes narrowing, the white streak in his hair catching the dim glow.
"So," he said, his voice calm, almost quiet. "They've shown themselves."
Outside, thunder rolled deep across Aurelia's skyline. The rain battered the glass harder, like a thousand fists demanding entry.
Inside, the war room braced in silence.
And Arkellin's faintest smile cut through the dark. Not of victory. Not of relief.
But of a man who had just been invited into a bigger war.
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