The abandoned textile mill in Sector 9 of the Ash-Dregs smelled of wet fur, ancient ozone, and the distinct, coppery tang of absolute fear.
It was a "Processing Center"—a polite, bureaucratic corporate term for an illegal slave auction. Here, ruthless Flesh-Brokers sold desperate, unregistered souls to the Syndicates for dangerous alchemical experiments, hazardous deep-mine labor, or worse. The building was a massive, hollowed-out brick shell, completely filled with rusted iron cages suspended from heavy chains three stories high.
The Giants crouched silently on a precarious, rusted iron catwalk high above the main factory floor. Below them, a dozen hardened mercenaries wearing heavy iron breastplates and carrying loaded blunderbusses patrolled the perimeter. In the center of the room, a steam-driven conveyor belt moved slowly, carrying small cages toward a loading bay where an unmarked, armored carriage waited.
"There," Luna whispered, pointing a shaking, brass-plated finger downward.
In a small, rusted cage near the front of the line, Tess was huddled in a corner, hugging her knees tightly to her chest. She wasn't crying. She looked completely numb, staring blankly at the brick floor.
"Guards," Rowan counted efficiently, peering through the telescopic brass sight of his scavenged lever-action rifle. "Twelve men. Plus, two decommissioned Ironclad Golems standing by the doors. The big ones. Model-K. Heavily armored."
"We can't stealth our way through that," Jack whispered, racking the cylinder of his heavy revolver. His face was a mask of cold fury. "We hit them hard, we hit them fast, and we don't stop until Tess is out. Luca, Luna, drop the Golems. Rowan, suppress the snipers on the far wall. Ivy, kill the gas-lines to the lights."
"On my mark," Dorothy said. Her voice was steady, but her hands, gripping her repeating rifle, were clenched so tight her knuckles were stark white.
"Now!"
Ivy pulled a heavy lever on a junction box they had bypassed. The gas-lamps throughout the warehouse instantly sputtered and died, plunging the massive mill into disorienting darkness.
Chaos erupted.
The Giants dropped from the catwalk. Luca and Luna landed squarely on the shoulders of the massive Ironclad Golems with a sickening, metallic CRUNCH. Their pneumatic gauntlets hissed, driving heavy steel pistons directly into the automatons' delicate sensory arrays, blinding them instantly. Rowan opened fire from the shadows, the loud cracks of his rifle echoing off the brick, his shots sparking violently against the mercenaries' iron armor.
Dorothy didn't shoot. She sprinted.
She moved through the chaotic firefight like a ghost, weaving expertly between the flash of musket fire and the swinging clubs of the guards. She reached the conveyor belt.
"Tess!" Dorothy shouted, grabbing the rusted iron bars of the cage.
"Dot!" Tess screamed, snapping out of her shock and scrambling forward. "Get me out! Please!"
Dorothy grabbed the heavy iron padlock securing the door. She didn't have a key. She raised her heavy rifle, intending to shoot the mechanism at point-blank range.
CLICK.
A misfire. The damp air had ruined the powder in the chamber.
"Damn it!" Dorothy cursed, slamming the useless, heavy brass weapon against the bars in frustration.
"Behind you!" Ivy's voice screamed over the earpiece.
Dorothy spun around.
The leader of the Flesh-Brokers—a massive, scarred man with a crude cybernetic jaw and a heavy, shoulder-mounted blunderbuss—was standing ten feet away. He had flanked them in the dark while they were focused on the Golems.
"Stupid rats," the Broker grinned, his mechanical jaw grinding as his single, glowing red eye cut through the gloom.
He didn't aim at Dorothy. He aimed his massive weapon upward.
He pulled the trigger.
The deafening roar of the blunderbuss filled the room. The heavy, indiscriminate spray of lead shrapnel didn't hit flesh. It chewed aggressively through the rusted iron support struts of the catwalk directly above where the rest of the team was fighting.
"Jack! Move!" Dorothy screamed.
It was too late.
The massive steel structure groaned in agony, the rivets popping like gunshots. Tons of iron grating and support beams rained down, crashing onto the factory floor with a sound like the end of the world. A massive cloud of brick dust and soot billowed outward, choking the air.
"Jack?" Dorothy whispered, coughing. "Rowan? Luna?"
Silence.
Then, a low groan of pain. As the dust slowly settled, she saw them. They were completely trapped beneath a twisted cage of heavy iron beams. Jack was pinned to the floor, blood running freely down the side of his face. Luca was straining with all his mighty strength to lift a massive girder off Luna's legs, but his pneumatic gauntlet was shattered, leaking steam. They were entirely helpless.
The Broker laughed cruelly. He signaled to his surviving men. Five heavily armed mercenaries stepped out of the shadows, leveling their rifles directly at the trapped Giants.
"Kill the rats," the Broker ordered casually. "And load the child onto the carriage."
Something inside Dorothy snapped.
It wasn't a conscious, logical decision. It was an ancient dam breaking wide open. The terrified voice of her caretaker, Nana Rose, echoing in her head for years—Hide it, hide it, hide it, or they will kill you—was suddenly drowned out by a single, overwhelming scream in her blood.
SAVE THEM.
Dorothy screamed.
It wasn't a human scream of fear. It was a terrifying, harmonic resonance that vibrated at a frequency that shattered every remaining glass bulb and window pane in the entire warehouse.
She threw her bare hands out in front of her.
Blinding, impossible golden light erupted from her body. It was raw, organic, and terrifyingly bright—like a miniature sun had just been born in the darkness of the Ash-Dregs. It surged forward not as a spell, but as a tidal wave of solid, kinetic force.
The Broker didn't even have time to register surprise. The golden wave hit him square in the chest, crumpling his heavy iron armor like cheap tin foil and throwing his massive body through a solid brick wall fifty feet away.
The mercenaries fired in sheer panic. The heavy musket balls hit the glowing air around Dorothy and instantly melted, disintegrating into harmless drops of liquid slag before they could even touch her clothes.
She turned toward the fallen, tangled catwalk. She didn't touch the iron. She didn't use a lever. She simply lifted her glowing hand.
RISE.
The ten tons of twisted steel debris groaned loudly. Then, completely defying gravity and all known laws of physics, the massive pile of iron floated smoothly into the air. Dorothy casually tossed the wreckage aside as if it were made of crumpled paper, freeing her friends.
She turned back to Tess's cage. She glared at the heavy iron padlock. The hardened metal didn't break; it unraveled, twisting and melting away like wet clay in a kiln until the cage door swung open.
Absolute silence fell over the ruined warehouse.
The surviving mercenaries dropped their weapons with loud clatters. They looked at the girl standing in the center of the room, glowing with the terrifying light of a forgotten, mythical age. They didn't see a rebel. They didn't see a mechanic. They saw a monster from the old tales.
They turned and ran into the night.
Dorothy stood alone in the center of the ruin, her chest heaving, the air around her smelling of ozone and melted iron. Her eyes were no longer their normal blue; they were glowing, swirling pools of molten gold.
Slowly, the blinding light began to fade. The warehouse returned to the dim, oppressive shadows.
Dorothy looked down at her hands. They were trembling violently. She slowly looked up.
The Giants were staring at her.
Rowan's mouth was hanging open. Jack looked like he had just seen a ghost, his hand covering his bleeding forehead. Even Luna, who feared absolutely nothing in this world, looked profoundly frightened.
"Dot?" Tess whispered, stepping tentatively out of the open cage, clinging to the bars. "What... what was that?"
Dorothy lowered her hands. The massive, dangerous secret she had kept buried for eighteen years lay completely exposed in the brick dust.
"Magic," Jack whispered, standing up shakily, using a broken pipe for support. "Real, ancient magic. You're a Source."
"I'm sorry," Dorothy choked out, hot tears instantly filling her eyes and tracking through the soot on her face. "I didn't mean to... I couldn't let them kill you."
"You saved us," Luca said quietly, rubbing his heavily bruised arm.
"I doomed you," Dorothy said, her voice hollow and entirely devoid of hope.
She looked at the massive, smoking hole in the brick wall where the mercenaries had fled. "They got away. They'll tell the Constabulary. The Syndicate will know. Victor Velox will send the Hunter-Killers. They will burn the entire Ash-Dregs to the ground just to find me."
Jack limped over. He put a hand on her shoulder. He flinched slightly, as if subconsciously expecting her skin to be burning hot, but he held on tight.
"Then we fight them," Jack said fiercely, his eyes hardening. "We protect our own."
"No," Dorothy pulled away from his grip, stepping backward. "You can't protect me from this. And I refuse to let you die trying."
She grabbed a heavy canvas supply pack from the floor—one dropped by a fleeing guard.
"I have to go," Dorothy said, her voice cracking. "I have to draw the heat away from the orphanage. If they track me, they won't look at St. Gear."
"Dorothy, wait!" Rowan stepped forward, reaching out. "Where will you go? You can't survive the upper tiers alone!"
She looked at them—her ragged, broken, fiercely loyal, beautiful family.
She turned and ran out the door, disappearing into the toxic, yellow fog of the city before anyone could stop her.
Two hours later, in a secure, mahogany-paneled communications room at the top of the Synapse Spire.
A mercenary, battered, bruised, and bleeding heavily from his ears, sat shivering in a leather chair. A man in a pristine gray suit stood over him, his reflection caught in the polished brass of a telegraph machine.
"Repeat that," the suit demanded softly.
"Gold," the mercenary wheezed, his eyes wide with lingering terror. "It was pure gold light, sir. She melted the guns in mid-air. She lifted a building off the ground with her mind."
The suit turned to a large, complex optical projector. A slightly static, blue holographic face appeared—Victor Velox.
"Report," Victor said, swirling a glass of wine.
"We found an anomaly in Sector 9, sir," the suit said, his voice trembling with barely contained excitement. "A Pure Source. Unregistered. Ancient class."
Victor paused, lowering his glass. He adjusted his silk tie.
"A witch hiding in the Ash-Dregs," Victor smiled, a cold, avaricious expression. "How incredibly valuable. Dispatch the elite retrieval units immediately. I want her brought to the Spire. Alive."