“It was this dichotomy of one’s perspective towards a child that could drive a parent insane.” - Marie Montine (Arising Son: Part One)

  * * * *

  The command room was too quiet for a battlefield.

  Dim emergency lights flickered across the ceiling, the harsh fluorescents above sputtering in a weak strobe, casting the wide, metal-panelled chamber in alternating pulses of red and shadow.

  Glass from shattered consoles glittered on the floor like frozen blood. The scent of copper clung to the walls, thick and metallic, laced with the sharp sting of ozone and smoke. The air buzzed faintly from the hum of half-destroyed surveillance screens, several of them still functional, though splattered in blood.

  At the center of it all stood a woman dressed in the black and silver uniform of the hunters—one that bore the insignia of a commander’s rank. Her long dark coat was streaked with crimson, the front of it soaked through with blood that was not her own. In her gloved hand, she held a curved sabre now dulled from use, its blade smeared with viscera.

  She moved with a strange calm, her expression unreadable as she slowly, methodically wiped the blade clean with a torn strip of her sleeve.

  Rowena Vallen, Albert Nicolosi’s second-in-command. And a woman with as terrifying a reputation as Nicolosi.

  Now, she was the last commander left standing within headquarters.

  Her breath misted faintly despite the heat. Her grey eyes, once sharp with authority, were dim now, dulled with something far more haunting than despair.

  “Report,” she said aloud to no one in particular.

  The room’s audio system continued to stream frantic comms from the field. Screams bled through the speakers, each one tinny, distant, almost unreal. Static garbled the voices—names called out in desperation, pleas for backup, the gurgling horror of those dying over open comms.

  One voice, a young male, shouted about the east wall being overrun before his scream was cut off by a wet crunch. Another followed, the speaker sobbing as he whispered, “They’re everywhere… Aegis… Abyss… The street gangs…”

  Rowena said nothing.

  Her gaze flickered to the largest monitor on the wall. The screen showed aerial surveillance footage of the battle outside: chaos had bloomed across Blackpool like a rot finally exposed to sunlight.

  Aegis members—terrifying and resolute, moved in deadly precision. The Abyss’s insurgents tore through fortified lines like shadows given form. Ashenridge fighters, armed and unyielding, cleared sectors one by one. The remnants of Blaze and the street gangs cut down anyone in their path.

  And then there were the Gifted civilians. Street rats. Former gang members. Teenagers. The very dregs the hunters had sought to eliminate. They fought too. With power and fury and something more dangerous than either. Conviction.

  Townspeople who’d sided with the hunters had turned feral in their desperation. Some took up arms. Some still screamed slurs and curses as they tried to beat back what they couldn’t understand.

  Many lay dead in the streets already, their blood indistinguishable from that of the hunters they had supported.

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  “This is what we deserve,” Rowena whispered, her voice barely audible.

  She turned toward another screen. Her eyes narrowed.

  There they were, advancing through the ruins of the inner compound. Rowena recognised them immediately from the files that the hunters have on their greatest threats.

  Sera, Zest, Raul, Larissa, and Hayder. Five figures carved from vengeance itself. Five figures that not even Blue Pandora’s wrath could match.

  On another monitor, a separate team advanced toward the heart of the compound. Leroy, Alisa, Lleucu, Jamie, and Wes. The inner circle of Blade. Each name etched in hunter files with warnings: Do not engage unless prepared to die.

  And they had come here to kill Albert Nicolosi.

  Rowena turned away from the screens as the command room doors hissed open with a low hydraulic groan.

  The scent of blood hit them first.

  Leroy stepped through first, his dark eyes narrowing, one hand moving instinctively to the hilt of his weapon. Behind him, Alisa’s eyes widened as she took in the corpses strewn across the floor.

  The bodies of their enemies. Hunters. Executed cleanly. Some had their throats slit, while others were run through. Not a single one had been spared.

  Wes stepped in with his usual quiet grace, Lleucu just behind, his grey eyes narrowing with subtle suspicion. Jamie’s expression was unreadable, but the tension in his shoulders said enough.

  They all stopped at once when they saw Rowena.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, her tone strangely casual, as though she were merely announcing the arrival of old acquaintances at a dinner party, not in the middle of a bloodstained war room.

  “Where are the rest of the hunters?” Lleucu asked slowly, his eyes scanning every corner of the chamber, watching for an ambush.

  Rowena gestured with a gloved hand toward the dead. “Gone. They’re all dead. I killed them.”

  Alisa stiffened, taking half a step forward. “Why? Aren’t you one of them? I recognise you. You’re his second-in-command. You followed him. Fought for him.”

  “I did,” Rowena said simply. She lowered her weapon to the floor and let it clatter there, metal striking metal. “And that was my greatest mistake.”

  “You’re not going to fight us?” Leroy asked.

  She shook her head. “No. That’s not why I stayed behind.”

  There was a long silence.

  “I once believed in Nicolosi,” Rowena continued. “I thought… He could save this nation. Unite it. Give it purpose again. The Gifted terrified people. I understand that. What I didn’t understand, at first, was that Albert didn’t just want control. He wanted extermination. He didn’t want to save Eldario. He wanted to cleanse it. He saw the Gifted as less than human. Vermin. Mistakes.”

  “And you stayed,” Jamie said quietly.

  “I did,” she admitted, her voice cracking ever so slightly. “I watched as Project Nona unfolded behind closed doors. I watched as they tested Blue Pandora on children. I watched as they harvested Gifted blood like it was currency. And I told myself I had no choice. That it was for the greater good. I stayed…because I was too afraid to leave.”

  She stared down at her shaking hand. “I can still think clearly. Barely. Blue Pandora hasn’t taken me completely. But it’s always there… Whispering. Kill the Gifted. Kill them all. That voice doesn’t stop. Rather than become Eldario’s salvation, we’ve became Eldario’s doom.”

  “Why does he hate the Gifted so much?” Wes wanted to know. “What did they do to him?”

  Rowena shrugged. “No one really knows anymore. Not even I do. But whatever it is, there is no reason good enough to warrant all his actions. A long time ago, when Albert first wrestled control from the previous head of the organisation, he wanted to make things better. He wanted to save humanity itself.” She let out a bitter chuckle. “But what Albert never understood is that humanity’s greatest threat is humanity itself. The Gifted were never a disease. They were people. People with abilities. But still people. He never understood that. Neither did the hunters. Blue Pandora… Red Pandora… It was not a miracle. Not our salvation. It’s our destruction. The moment Albert started making that, I already knew that it’s the beginning of the end.”

  Alisa’s lips pressed into a thin line.

  “Then why now?” Wes asked. “Why help us now, when it’s already too late?”

  Rowena looked back at the screens. “Because Nicolosi is beyond stopping. Beyond saving. But maybe… Maybe you still can do something. The Death Reaper and Zexter are heading for him now. He won’t survive. Not in the state he’s in. But even if he dies… This hatred won’t end. The rot’s too deep. The people who believed him? They’ll become the next poison. Even if you kill every single hunter here today, you can’t stop it. The true cancer is the country itself now. The belief.”

  “We know,” Leroy said grimly. “But we’ll do what we must. What’s left of this country deserves at least that much.”

  “I agree,” Rowena whispered.

  There was a pause. A silence like the edge of a blade.

  Then, she reached into her coat and withdrew a sleek, black sidearm. The muzzle gleamed faintly under the red lights. The Blade remnants tensed, but none of them moved. There was no fear in the room. Only understanding.

  “I’m not asking for forgiveness,” Rowena murmured. “I don’t want it. I don’t deserve it. But if I can ask one thing… Let me go like this. Let me take one small piece of control back. Before this madness takes everything from me.”

  Wes inclined his head. “We won’t stop you.”

  Lleucu’s grey eyes flickered away. Jamie swallowed, his jaw tightening. Alisa turned her face, her eyes shimmering faintly. Leroy met Rowena’s gaze. “We’ll stop him,” he said. “You have our word.”

  “That’s all I wanted to hear,” Rowena breathed. “I don’t hope for the Goddess’s embrace. But maybe… Just maybe… If there’s a Hell waiting for people like me, I can finally rest.”

  And before any of them could speak another word, Rowena pulled the trigger.

  The sound of the gunshot echoed like thunder in the command room.

  Then silence.

  She crumpled to the floor, her blood joining the rest, her face turned skyward, strangely at peace.

  Leroy closed his eyes for a long moment.

  “Let’s go,” he said softly. “We have a war to finish.”

  And without another word, the Blade remnants turned and stepped through the blood-soaked doors, toward the storm that waited above.