The first explosion didn't come with fire.
It came with sound.
A sharp, concussive crack that punched through the turbine hall and rattled Roy's teeth. The floor shuddered beneath their feet, dust erupting from the ceiling in choking clouds as something structural gave way somewhere deep inside the plant.
Roy skidded around a corner, boots scraping concrete, already rethinking a way to exit. The bomb wasn't going to go off all at once. It was staged with secondary charges, stress points, and controlled collapse. Whoever planted it wanted the place to fold in on itself.
Which meant time.
Not much of it.
Kieran vaulted a fallen pipe behind him and landed cleanly, laughter breathless but real. "You know," he said, dodging a swinging cable, "this would be way more stressful if it wasn't kind of fun."
Roy shot him a look without slowing. "Focus."
"Oh, I am." Kieran grinned, eyes bright beneath his hood. "I just thought, since we're running anyway…"
Another tremor rolled through the plant. A section of catwalk above them tore free and crashed down behind them in a shower of sparks.
Kieran leapt over the debris and matched Roy's pace easily. "No prana."
Roy's jaw tightened. "Now?"
"Come on," Kieran said, ducking under a collapsing beam. "No enhancements. No cheating. Like old times before. First one out wins."
"Wins what?" Roy asked.
Kieran didn't hesitate. "If I win, you become my slave for a day, but if you win, I will buy all the food you want."
Roy scoffed. "Say no more; just ready up your wallet, as it's going to get empty fast."
Kieran flashed him a sideways grin. "Nice to know my slave is getting excited."
Another blast echoed, closer this time. The walls groaned, metal screaming as supports warped under heat and pressure.
Roy exhaled sharply.
They split.
Not in opposite directions, but parallel paths. Two routes through the same collapsing nightmare.
Roy took the left corridor, boots pounding concrete as the lights overhead flickered and died. Emergency reds kicked in, bathing the hall in pulsing crimson. He vaulted a broken console, slid under a half-collapsed door, and hit the ground rolling without breaking stride.
No prana meant no margin.
Every jump mattered. Every misstep would hurt.
He felt alive in the worst, best way.
Behind him, something detonated hard enough to knock him off balance. Roy caught himself on a railing, muscles screaming as he swung around and launched himself toward a ladder just as the floor behind him caved in.
He climbed three rungs at a time, ignoring the burn in his arms, then leapt sideways onto a moving catwalk as it tilted downward. He ran with the collapse, timing his steps to the falling angle before kicking off and clearing the gap to solid ground.
He didn't look back.
He didn't need to. Somewhere to his right, he heard Kieran whoop.
"Too slow, Roy!"
Roy gritted his teeth and pushed harder.
He took a vertical shaft next and used the wall, ran three steps up it, grabbed a dangling cable, and swung across just as fire licked through the space he'd been standing in a second earlier. He landed hard, shoulder screaming, but stayed upright.
No prana meant pain was honest.
The final stretch opened into the plant's outer maintenance hall. A long, broken space leading straight to daylight through a blown-out wall.
Kieran burst in from the opposite side at the same time, skidding across debris, coat torn, grin feral.
They locked eyes.
No words.
They sprinted.
The bomb reached its crescendo behind them. A rising scream of pressure and inevitability. The kind of sound that meant now or never.
Roy vaulted a generator. Kieran slid under it.
Roy took the stairs two at a time. Kieran jumped the railing entirely.
The exit rushed toward them.
The artefact detonated.
Heat slammed into Roy's back as he dove forward, hitting dirt and rolling hard down the embankment outside the plant. The shockwave threw him further than he expected and knocked the air clean out of his lungs.
He came to a stop on his side, coughing, ears ringing.
A second body hit the ground nearby.
Kieran lay sprawled in the dirt, laughing like he'd just won the lottery.
Roy rolled onto his back, staring up at the smoke and fire climbing into the night sky. The plant collapsed inward, a controlled catastrophe unravelling into chaos.
Silence followed. Broken only by crackling flames and distant alarms.
Kieran turned his head. "I won."
Roy didn't answer immediately.
He lay there, chest rising and falling, heart pounding not with fear but with something lighter. Something reckless.
"You tripped on the stairs," Roy said finally.
Kieran gasped in mock offence. "Slander, bro. Slander."
Roy closed his eyes. "…It was close."
Kieran grinned wider. "That's an admission that you lost. Ha."
They lay there for a moment longer, watching smoke blur the stars.
No artefact. No mission success. No prana.
But it felt alive in that moment.
Roy pushed himself up onto his elbows. "Next time." He said, "We're not doing this."
Kieran laughed. "Yeah," he said easily. "Sure."
The stars didn't care who won.
But for once, Roy did.