The abandoned warehouse became an abattoir in less than a second.
Heavy lead musket balls rained from the shattered glass skylights like lethal hail, chewing up the concrete floor and the wooden crates of champagne. The Gaslight-Phantoms, moving with the unnatural, twitching speed of clockwork-enhanced reflexes, cut through the confused, celebrating rebels with spring-steel blades that hummed like angry hornets.
"Ash-Runners! On me!" Axle roared, swinging his massive iron sledgehammer. He caught a Phantom squarely in the chest, crumpling the assassin's stealth suit and ribs with a sickening crunch, but three more Phantoms were on him instantly, their blades flashing in the strobe lights of the gunfire.
"Get down!" Rowan screamed, tackling Ivy to the ground behind the massive, iron-banded wheel of the fake Titan just as the cobblestones where she had been standing were pulverized by repeating rifle fire.
In the center of the room, amidst the slaughter, Zero raised his heavy flintlock pistol. He aimed directly at Cipher's brass-masked head.
Cipher stood perfectly motionless. He didn't draw a blade. He didn't run. He just watched the traitorous droid with the unblinking, glass eyes of his mask.
"It's nothing personal, Cipher," Zero droned, his mechanical finger tightening on the heavy brass trigger. "It's simply a matter of economics. My analytical engines indicate the Rebellion has a zero percent chance of success."
"Is that so?" Cipher asked calmly.
Zero pulled the trigger.
BANG.
The high-caliber lead ball slammed directly into Cipher's head.
There was no blood. No impact. No stagger.
The bullet passed straight through Cipher's head and sparked violently against the iron bulkhead behind him.
Cipher flickered. His image distorted like a bad magic-lantern projection, dissolving into a haze of blue light before stabilizing again.
"You are a fool, Zero," Cipher's voice didn't come from the figure standing in front of the gun. It came from every brass speaker and gramophone horn in the warehouse, loud enough to shake the rust from the rafters.
"A phantasm projection?" Zero hissed, his optical sensors whirring as he lowered his gun.
"I do not stand in rooms with traitors," the holographic Cipher said, his voice cold and vibrating with rage. "You sold your revolution for a seat at a table that will be reduced to kindling by morning. Enjoy your gold sovereigns. They will melt along with the rest of this city."
The hologram raised a glowing hand.
SNAP.
A series of alchemical shaped charges, planted days ago by Cipher's true loyalists as a contingency for this exact scenario, detonated simultaneously along the east wall of the hangar.
BOOM.
The explosion blew a massive, jagged hole in the thick brick side of the building, creating a billowing cloud of red brick dust and smoke that temporarily blinded the Syndicate Enforcers on the catwalks above.
"Exit!" Jack screamed, firing his revolver blindly at the Phantoms to suppress them. "Go! Go! Go!"
The Giants ran for the gaping hole.
But the path was instantly blocked. A squad of heavy Syndicate Enforcers dropped from the catwalks, their massive iron riot shields locking together with heavy clanks to form an impenetrable, curved wall of steel between the rebels and freedom.
"We're trapped!" Luca yelled, pulling Luna back as a crackling galvanic stun-baton swung through the smoke, missing her head by an inch.
Rowan looked around frantically. The Ash-Runners were being decimated. Axle was down on one knee, bleeding heavily from a dozen shallow cuts, swinging his hammer with slowing strength. The freelance rebels were already dead or dropping their weapons in surrender.
"We need a hole!" Rowan shouted over the din, looking at the iron shield wall. "We can't break that!"
Dorothy stepped forward.
She wasn't hiding anymore. She didn't care about the clicking clockwork cameras, the flying drones, or the eyes of the Syndicate. She saw young Asher, terrified and huddled behind a crate. She saw Jack, bleeding from a grazing shot to the arm. She saw her family about to be slaughtered.
"Get behind me," Dorothy commanded.
She thrust her bare hands forward.
It wasn't a precision strike this time. It was a scream of raw, ancient power.
Golden light, thick and viscous like molten brass, erupted from her palms. It slammed into the center of the Syndicate shield wall.
The heavy iron shields didn't just break; they evaporated. The Enforcers behind them were thrown backward as if hit by a speeding train, their armor glowing cherry-red from the sheer, impossible heat. The entire center section of the wall disintegrated, leaving a gaping, glowing exit leading out into the rainy, muddy night.
"Move!" Dorothy screamed, the physical effort making her vision swim with dark spots.
The Giants scrambled through the glowing breach, coughing in the thick smoke.
But the Phantoms were fast. Unnaturally fast.
Aria, the cloaked assassin who had raced Rowan, materialized out of thin air right next to the exit. She reached out and grabbed Asher by the collar of her coat as the little girl tried to run past.
"No you don't," Aria hissed, raising a razor-sharp, spring-steel blade directly to Asher's throat. "One step and the street-rat bleeds."
The Giants froze in their tracks.
"Asher!" Dorothy spun around, her eyes wide.
She didn't have time to cast another spell. She threw herself entirely at Aria.
Dorothy tackled the assassin, knocking the blade away from Asher's neck. They rolled violently into the deep, freezing mud outside the warehouse. Aria was a trained killer, faster and more lethal, but Dorothy was fighting with the terrifying strength of a desperation Aria couldn't possibly understand.
Dorothy kicked Aria hard in the chest, sending the assassin skidding backward through the muck.
"Run, Asher!" Dorothy yelled, scrambling to her feet, her hands igniting with golden sparks.
Asher hesitated, tears streaming down her soot-stained face. "Dot! Come with us!"
"I can't!" Dorothy screamed as three more Phantoms emerged from the smoke of the warehouse, their blades drawn, surrounding her in a deadly semi-circle. "I have to hold them off! Go!"
Jack grabbed Asher's arm. His face was a mask of pure agony. "We have to go, kid! She's buying us time!"
He dragged the sobbing girl into the deep darkness of the scrapyard.
Rowan, Ivy, and the Twins scattered in the opposite direction just as a massive, steam-powered CorpSec dirigible roared overhead, its blinding searchlight sweeping the muddy ground where they had just been.
Dorothy stood entirely alone in the mud. The freezing rain hissed as it hit the golden aura flaring around her hands.
She looked at the dark alleyways where her family had vanished. They were safe.
She turned slowly to face the oncoming squad of Phantoms and the massive, ironclad Syndicate automatons stomping out of the ruined warehouse.
"Come on then," Dorothy whispered, her eyes burning like twin suns in the fog. "Let's dance."