Darian shoved through the ruins, lungs burning, boots crunching over shattered steel. The Black Spire's interior yawned ahead—split open and bleeding tracer fire into the night.
He tapped his comm. "Ravion. Zeri."
Static.
There should have been a voice answering first. Coordinates. Angles. Timing. Instead, there was only dead air.
A warhead shrieked down the corridor. Too fast. Darian froze—half a second late.
A massive silhouette eclipsed him. The explosion deafened the hall, but the giant stood firm, armored arm glowing slag-red where it had swatted the missile aside. Another figure emerged through the smoke. Cybernetic arms, black shades.
"Darian," the instructor said, voice flat as a blade. "Halden is engaging Vance above. Move." He didn't wait for acknowledgment. "Squad Five—clear the path."
Shadows swarmed. Razor-insects and whirling disc-blades shredded the remaining gunners with surgical, terrifying synchronization. The way opened.
Darian ran.
He threw himself into the elevator. Ascent. Metal shrieked. Impacts rattled through the ceiling—heavy, rhythmic. Not random.
"Patterned." Silas would have noticed the tempo.
The doors tore open. Captain Halden struck the corridor wall with a sickening crunch. She slid down, armor fractured, a cybernetic arm spitting sparks.
"Help them," she rasped.
Darian stepped over the threshold.
The executive office was an open wound exposing the night sky. In the center stood Kerro Vance. Augmentations had swallowed the man whole—pistons firing beneath split skin, furnace-red light pulsing through his seams. He hammered a massive fist against Zeri's violet energy shield. It buckled, lashing erratic arcs of plasma.
"Left flank—" Zeri shouted.
She stopped. No one answered. Her eyes flicked to the empty space where the third voice should have been.
Ravion blurred past Darian. His spear carved a brilliant arc aimed at Vance's spine. It should have landed in sync with a stagger.
But there was no stagger. It wasn't built.
Vance turned, immovable, and backhanded Ravion out of the air. The impact shattered stone. Ravion coughed blood, forcing himself up.
They weren't layering strikes. They were colliding.
Zeri's shield flared wide, bleeding reckless heat. Darian hit the deck as slag rained down.
"Watch it!" Ravion snarled. "Then move!" she snapped back.
No one was counting. Ravion lunged again, blind with urgency. Vance caught him by the throat and hurled him like scrap metal. The massive body smashed into Darian.
The world spun. They tangled across the ruined floor, Darian's head cracking against tile. White flared in his vision. Zeri slid in beside them, her shield flickering like a dying sun over the three of them.
Over the ringing in Darian's ears, she locked eyes with him. She looked past his shoulder.
"Where's Silas?"
No accusation. Just confusion.
"He was with you. Where is he?"
The subway flashed in Darian's mind. Blood in Silas's eyes. The horn.
Darian couldn't speak. He just shook his head. Once.
Zeri went still. "…Oh."
Her shield faltered. Then, her posture snapped rigid. Not despair. Rage.
The barrier violently expanded, blasting debris away as her hoverboard snapped beneath her boots. Shoulder cannons spun into position, glowing blinding white.
"Fine!" she screamed, her voice cracking. "Then I'll end it!"
She overcharged. A reckless, unmeasured torrent of plasma tore the room apart, forcing Ravion to dive out of his own attack path to avoid incineration.
"Control yourself!" Ravion roared. "Shut up!"
They weren't fighting Vance anymore. They were fighting the hole Silas left.
Untouched, Vance stepped through the plasma storm. He brought both fists down on Zeri's shield. The violet glass shattered. The shockwave threw her backward into the rubble.
Ravion abandoned technique, driving his spear forward in a flurry of raw, ugly violence. Vance caught the shaft, broke it, and buried a knee into Ravion's ribs.
Darian pushed off the ground.
"If we move together—"
But there was no 'together.' He charged anyway—a desperate sprint born of panic, noise, and the hollow need to matter. He swung his blade.
Vance didn't even look. The backhand was casual.
Darian felt the world compress. Bone cracked. Breath vanished.
As he flew through the air, the chaotic fragments of the fight locked into a single, terrifying clarity.
"We were never a team.Silas just made us look like one."
Then the wall met him, and the dark took the rest.