The magnetic boots hit the ground with a heavy, muffled crack, and wet soil sprayed out from the impact in a wide arc. Nolan dropped from the transport's cabin like a solid piece of falling metal, the Warscythe already in both hands, green light running along its edge.
He swept the helmet's eyepiece across the treeline in a slow arc. Nothing moved.
He raised one vibranium hand and signalled the Thunderhawk circling overhead.
The response came immediately. One after another, the Scyllax Guardian Automata dropped from the aircraft like artillery shells, each impact shaking the ground, their mechanical tentacles steadying beneath them as they absorbed the fall. The chain swords locked in their grips hummed in the cold air. Their skulls, metal and expressionless, rotated as David assumed direct control of each unit simultaneously.
"My lord." David's voice came through the helmet's internal feed without delay. "Approximately five kilometers ahead, there was a brief smoke signature not long ago. Accounting for the absence of mountaineers or locals in the area, the probability that this is our target is high."
"Understood," Nolan said, already moving. "Send the Scyllax forward to clear the path. Report immediately if they find anything."
"As you command."
The five Scyllax Guardian Automata split apart across the slope without hesitation, moving into the dim forest like things designed for exactly this terrain, fast and low and quiet between the trees. Nolan followed in the power armor's longer stride, and as he moved he activated his Transparent Man ability, smoothing away every sound and trace the armor produced until there was nothing behind him in the forest to notice.
"My lord." David's voice, several minutes later, measured and unhurried. "Two kilometers ahead. The location where the target made fire and ate."
Nolan pushed the pace.
He found the Scyllax already positioned around the site when he arrived, their optical sensors sweeping the immediate area. The fire was still smoldering, thin curls of greenish smoke drifting upward through the canopy. Gnawed bones from small animals were scattered near the stones that had ringed the flame. Wild fruit remains, a few stripped clean. Whoever had been here had left quickly and without preparation.
Not far from the fire, the rock face dropped away into a natural shelf, and at its base a mountain spring opened into a deep, still pool, fed by a stream threading down from higher in the forest.
Nolan had been looking at it since he arrived.
"My lord, the target left no clear escape route. Continued tracking should not be difficult."
"David." Nolan's voice was quiet. "Have you heard the expression: the light is brightest beneath the lamp?"
A brief pause from the other end.
"An internet celebrity turned superhero," Nolan continued, his eyes still on the spring, "even one who has deliberately tried to change their habits, will still carry patterns they don't think to question." He moved toward the water's edge. "And my sense of smell is telling me something. Sweat, blood, and underneath it, a residue of perfume. That trail leads directly to the mouth of this spring and stops there. That is not a coincidence. That is a very clear direction."
He had not finished the sentence before the Scyllax units were already converging on the spring's edge, chain swords spinning up to full speed, their sound rolling out through the dark trees like a warning.
The water erupted.
A tall woman launched herself from the depths of the spring in a single motion, water streaming from her skin. Her complexion was a deep brown, and across every exposed surface of her body ran patterns of blue energy shaped like dragon scales, shifting and alive. In her hands she carried a two-meter spear, nine-jointed, its tip already trailing crescent blades of compressed blue light as she cleared the water and hit the apex of her jump.
The blades swept outward in a rapid arc the instant she landed.
The Scyllax Guardian Automata took the hits across their metal frames and rolled hard across the forest floor, thrown back with significant force. Then the blue energy was moving again, faster, threading itself between the mechanical snake-bodies of each unit and pulling tight, locking every joint, pinning all five of them in place.
Nolan watched through the eyepiece.
"That entrance had a certain quality to it," he said, and released the Transparent Man. The power armor came into full view in front of her.
Captain Seiryu's expression shifted sharply in the second she registered him. The crescent blades were already in motion, directed at the vibranium shell, three of them connecting in rapid succession.
They accomplished nothing.
The vibranium shell absorbed the energy without comment, and the blue spread that tried to thread itself into the armor's joints found no purchase and dissolved. Nolan rolled his neck once and let the Heart of the Furnace drop back to its holster. He took the Warscythe in one hand and, with the other, reached up and removed his helmet.
Seiryu's face changed again. Something between recognition and disbelief moved across it. Her grip on the spear tightened.
Nolan did not let the moment extend.
Shadow Step.
The world dropped and snapped back. He was behind her before her body had finished processing that he had moved, boots landing solid on the forest floor. She was already turning, the spear coming around.
He did not raise the Warscythe.
Both arms came forward instead, closing around her frame, locking her arms against her sides with the full weight of the vibranium shell behind it. The spear was useless at this range. She was strong, her body lit with energy, and she drove her heel back against his shin hard enough that the impact registered even through the armor.
It was not enough.
Nolan opened his mouth. The fangs caught what little light reached the forest floor. He brought his head down to the side of her neck, and bit.
The flesh gave. The blood came.
And with it, memory.
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