A few weeks passed, the rhythm of training now threaded with a new, restless energy. The knowledge Wolfen had given them was a map, and every day they spent in the mountain monastery felt like a delay. Eva finally cornered him by the woodpile.
"When do we move? When do we start looking for our sisters?"
Wolfen didn't look up from splitting a log with his bare hands. "Today. I found a lab. Hidden in the forest. We're leaving right now."
The announcement was so abrupt it left them speechless. There was no grand plan, no strategy session. Just an order.
They geared up in silence, the nervous energy palpable. As they stood at the tree line, Leo cracked his knuckles, the sound overly loud. "So, what's the play? Stealth? Assault? Distraction?"
Wolfen glanced back, a faint, unnerving smile on his lips. "If you guys survive this, I'll tell you a story that might interest you."
"What story?" Derek asked.
"Didn't I just say if you survive? Pay attention." Wolfen turned and plunged into the dense, primordial forest.
They followed, the familiar woods quickly becoming a labyrinth of identical pines, glowing moss, and thick undergrowth. An hour in, they passed a distinctive, triple-trunked pine for the third time.
Eva sighed, a sound of profound exasperation. "We're lost, aren't we?"
"What? No," Wolfen said, squinting at a mossy boulder. "I just forgot the direction."
"That means lost, you idiot," Maya snapped, her newly unified voice laced with a familiar, prickly impatience.
"Hmm, let me remember…" Wolfen mused, scratching his chin. "There was supposed to be an odd tree here."
Leo pointed at a nearby oak that had grown in a perfect, unnatural spiral. "That's an odd tree."
Wolfen looked. "Ah. We're on top of it. Well, get to work, Maya."
Maya blinked. "What?"
"The entrance is under us. Make a door."
She didn't question it further. She stepped forward, focused, and drove her fist into the soft, loamy forest floor.
The result was far more dramatic than anyone expected. It wasn't a punch; it was a localized seismic event. The ground didn't just crack—it caved in with a thunderous roar, collapsing in a twenty-foot wide sinkhole. Dirt, roots, and shattered concrete rained down. From the dark hole below came the faint, choked-off screams of what were undoubtedly unfortunate Architects stationed directly underneath.
"Oops," Maya said, looking at the vast, gaping maw she'd created.
"Subtle," Jordan observed, his newly humanized voice dry.
Wolfen just shrugged and jumped in. They followed, dropping into a service tunnel now half-filled with debris and several very dead white-masked Architects.
Alarms began a muted, electronic wail further down the dimly lit corridor.
"Do we even have a plan?" Derek hissed, his senses overwhelmed by the sterile, chemical smell.
"Yes," Wolfen said, already moving. "LOL."
They stared at his retreating back.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Leo yelled after him.
"It means," Wolfen's voice echoed back, "Look Out and Loot. Find anything useful. Weapons, data, snacks."
They split into pre-arranged teams: Maya and Jordan, a terrifying blend of brute force and cold calculation. Leo and Derek, the brawler and the shield. Wolfen and Eva, the flame and the forge.
The lab was a confusing snarl of corridors and sterile rooms. They met resistance—squads of white-masked technicians with stun-batons, grey-masked Superiors with energy sidearms. The fights were short, brutal, and efficient. They were no longer victims reacting; they were predators clearing their territory. Maya's controlled, powerful strikes shattered armor. Jordan's Umbralite katana moved with silent, lethal grace. Leo's electrified blows short-circuited systems. Derek's hardened form deflected fire. Eva and Wolfen were a blur of white plasma and crimson flame.
They fought their way to the heart of the facility, a large, circular chamber humming with server stacks and holographic data-streams. A data core.
In the center, a single Architect stood over the body of another. The live one wore a white mask. Its hand, holding a smoking energy scalpel, was trembling. It had just killed its companion.
Before the figure could react, Eva was across the room, her fist wrapped in fire, aimed at the center of the white mask.
"Wait!" Wolfen's voice cracked like a whip. His hand shot out, grabbing Eva's wrist an inch from impact.
"What are you doing?" Eva snarled, trying to pull free.
The white-masked Architect stumbled backward, falling onto the console before scrambling to its feet, hands raised in surrender. A female voice, young and laced with panic, came from behind the mask. "Wait! Don't kill me! I know why you're here! And I know where your sisters are! I work for A09!"
The name meant nothing to the others. But Wolfen went perfectly still. "Hmm," he murmured, his grip on Eva's wrist loosening. "So you work for her."
"Who is A09?" Eva demanded, her fire dying down to embers around her knuckles.
"She was the Assistant Architect to Absolute-Five," the woman said quickly, her words tumbling out. "She… she carries on his work. In secret."
"So," Wolfen said, taking a slow step closer. "What do you have to say?"
The Architect fumbled at her belt, pulling out a sleek, black wristwatch and a small, crystalline data-chip. She thrust them forward. "The watch shows you all active and decommissioned lab signatures within a thousand-mile radius. The device is a secure, encrypted comms link. To me."
She turned to Eva, her masked head tilting. "Eva Rostova. Your sister, Lily, is in Lab B3. In Vietnam." She then looked at Wolfen, and her voice dropped, filled with a genuine, professional confusion. "Wolfen Welfric… your sister is a ghost. She is not in our central records. She vanished. The last known location was Lab 3R. In the Congo."
She turned back to Eva, urgency returning. "And when you go to Lab B3… go to Room 4. There is something there you should know about, Eva. About you."
Down the corridor, the shouts of guards and the clatter of armored boots grew louder.
"Better leave," Wolfen said, snatching the watch and the chip.
"Wait!" the Architect said. She extended her left arm. "Cut it. Deeply. Or they'll think I helped you."
"Do it, or this is all for nothing!" she insisted, her voice breaking.
"Okay," Wolfen said. A sliver of Umbralite formed along his fingertip. With a clinical flick, he sliced a deep, bloody gash across her forearm. She screamed, a raw sound of real pain, and clutched the wound, stagging back against the console.
"What's your number?" Wolfen asked.
"328," she gasped through the pain.
"Okay. We're leaving."
They fled the data core, regrouping in a side corridor and fighting their way back to the giant sinkhole, vanishing into the forest as the alarm wails faded behind them.
Back at a safe distance, panting in the cool forest air, they explained everything to Leo, Derek, and Jordan.
"A white mask helped us?" Leo said, incredulous. "A grunt?"
"Not a grunt," Wolfen said, examining the black watch as it lit up, displaying dozens of tiny, pulsing red dots on a topographical map. "A spy. An asset of A09. Planted deep." He looked at Eva, his golden eyes reflecting the glow of the screen. "We have a destination. Vietnam. And we have a mystery. Congo."
He tossed the watch to Eva. "Your sister first. And we'll see what's waiting in Room 4."
The mountain was no longer their home. It had been a training ground. Now, with coordinates on a screen and the name of a ghost in the air, their real war had finally, truly begun.