Colt's voice trembled, barely rising above the hum of the emergency lights. His eyes stayed fixed on the ground.
"She told us… she told us she was going to rescue Suki."
Colt's words struck the room like a thunderclap, but the name dropped into the silence like a stone into still water.
Benny rubbed his head, stunned. "Suki? Who's Suki? There's no one here by that name."
Marco interjected quickly. "It's Faye's teddy bear."
"...A teddy bear?" Benny repeated.
The truth hit harder than expected. Its weight fell over the room. Faye's shoulders quivered. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes. She clung to Marco's shirt like it was the only thing keeping her from falling apart.
"I told her it was okay…" she whispered. "That I didn't need Suki anymore. But she wouldn't listen…"
Colt's fists clenched at his sides. His voice cracked with frustration.
"...I... I told her not to go."
Marco knelt in front of them, collected and quiet. He gently touched Colt's head—no lecture, no blame, just something firm to hold onto.
"It's not your fault," Marco said. "We all know how stubborn Mera is."
Colt nodded, but the guilt still clung to his face.
Then—
BOOM.
A thunderous explosion tore through the Iron Fortress. The floor jumped. Steel groaned overhead. Somewhere in the dark corridors, growls echoed—snarling, hungry.
"Benny, please—save my daughter!"
The mother's voice cracked like glass under pressure. Her pleas echoed in the silence—ragged and desperate, bouncing off the walls like ghosts without answers.
But the room didn't move. No one spoke. The weight of Mera's absence pressed down on them like smoke.
Dense. Suffocating.
Dawn stood frozen, her arms wrapped tight around her sleeves, nails digging into the fabric. Her heart pounded against her ribs—loud, fast, panicked.
A warning drum in her chest.
Mera's name circled in her mind. Once, twice. Then louder. Sharper. Refusing to be ignored.
She went back for a teddy bear…
The absurdity of it made something twist inside her. It didn't make sense. It wasn't fair.
A child—barely old enough to tie her shoes—had stepped willingly into the jaws of death for someone else's comfort.
Not her own.
Not for glory. Not for survival.
Just something that belonged to a friend. Something soft and small that the world hadn't bled all over.
And now she was out there—alone—in a fortress crawling with monsters.
Dawn's chest tightened.
She remembered nights alone back home. She remembered the quiet kind of fear. The type of fear that lived in the corners of her room.
When the lights were off.
When the world outside the window felt too big to fight.
She remembered holding a blanket like it could protect her. When she'd buried her face into her pillow and prayed, someone would come if she ever screamed.
If I were her… If I were trapped.
Small. Alone. Too afraid to even cry out...
Would anyone come for me?
That's when her feet started moving. She didn't remember telling them to, but they did anyway.
"I'll go."
Gasps followed her words. Every head turned. All eyes fell on her.
Theo pushed forward from the crowd. "What!? Dawn, no! You saw what those things can do—we barely made it out alive!"
But Theo's words did not stop her. Dawn kept walking. Toward Isabella. Toward Benny. Toward the decision that had already been made in her heart.
"I remember her," she said. "She was with the children Theo and I helped earlier. I know the way she went."
Marco stepped forward quickly. "Then let me go. You stay here. You've done enough."
Dawn shook her head. "You're leading the evac. They need you. That's your job."
She turned, scanning the children clinging to their parents. Her eyes found Faye—small, tear-streaked, silent. Her gaze was wide, fragile, full of questions no one had answers for.
"This one... this one's mine."
Isabella's gaze was steady. "Dawn... are you sure about this?"
Dawn nodded. "Yes. I'm sure."
"But why?"
Dawn didn't answer right away. She looked past the crowd, past the walls. It was as if she could see Mera waiting in the dark.
Alone.
"Because..."
Dawn's voice dropped, almost too soft to hear.
"If I were her... I'd want someone to come looking for me too."
The air in the room stilled. Even the emergency lights seemed to pause in their flicker.
Theo spoke, his voice raw and tight with emotion. "Then I'm going with you."
Dawn turned to face him. Her eyes softened, but there was no room for compromise. "No offense, Theo… but you'd slow me down."
Her words weren't cruel—just truth. Her tone held no malice, only clarity.
Theo's jaw clenched. "Damn it, Dawn... then take David at least. I'm not letting you go alone."
She smiled. "I'm faster than both of you. I'll be fine. I promise."
She wasn't sure she believed that, and Theo didn't either. But there wasn't time to argue, and Dawn was already set on her decision.
"Recruits!" Isabella's voice rang across the room like a command across a battlefield. "It's time. Fall in."
The hall exploded into movement.
Benny's crew dragged out the Dyna-resistant shields, each etched with glowing runes that shimmered under the red emergency lights.
The recruits—Theo, David, Curtis, Bryce, Arthur—lined up, eyes hard, nerves bracing. A few older workers joined them, shields clutched tight in trembling hands.
Isabella approached Dawn, her expression composed.
"Once you find her, head to the main entrance. We'll clear the way."
Benny stepped up beside them. He pulled a compact blade from a pouch at his side—sleek, narrow, deadly—and offered it to her hilt first.
"Take this," he said. "It's not much, and I'm unsure if you know how to wield it. But it's better than going out there unarmed."
Dawn accepted it silently, her fingers tightening around the grip.
David pushed his glasses higher on his nose, studying her closely. "We'll be waiting for you," he said warmly.
"Waiting for me? Not if I beat you there," Dawn replied with a wink.
Dawn's joke masked the fear of clawing at her chest, but it didn't quite reach Theo when their gazes locked.
"You'll be waiting too," she said, softer. "Won't you?"
"...No," he replied. "I'm not waiting. I'm coming back for you."
Dawn smiled sadly. "Didn't you hear me? I'm beating you all out of here."
Before the moment could stretch further, Isabella's arm shot into the air. "Let's move!"
The heavy door groaned open—and a storm rushed in to greet them. A surge of heat met the group the moment they entered the corridor.
The Devils were waiting. Sensed life and responded in kind with a howl. Flames exploded from the darkness down the hallway.
"Shields up!" Benny roared.
The front line locked shields, forming a wall of glinting steel and glowing runes. Fire slammed into it like a tidal wave. Sparks burst across the hall, and the air pulsed with heat.
The air grew hotter with every passing second. Isabella stepped into the front, her water whip already drawn.
The liquid lashed out in a spiraling arc with a single flourish, cleaving through the air—and the Devils beyond it. Water spiraled from her hand, crashing into the flame—a hiss of steam cutting through the fire.
"Now's your chance!" Isabella shouted.
Dawn didn't hesitate.
She sprinted forward, body low, blade tucked tight. Her boots thudded against the shields as she vaulted over the wall of shields, twisting mid-air, and landed in a full sprint.
In seconds, she vanished up the staircase—leaving only the sound of her footfalls in her wake.
Behind her, the fortress erupted in war.
"Charge!" Isabella's voice echoed like thunder.
The shield wall advanced, slow and heavy at first—but then with fury. The corridor turned into a battlefield. Flames collided with steel, claws scraped against them, yet the men pushed forward.
"Hold the line!" Benny bellowed, rallying the second wave behind them.
"Take cover!" another voice rang out just before a fresh wave of flame barreled toward them.
The frontlines crouched, shields angled down as the fire slammed against their defenses.
"It's hot," Bryce grunted, his hands blistering beneath the shield straps.
"Don't you dare drop it!" Arthur shouted, holding firm as sweat poured down his forehead. "You drop it, we die!"
Through the inferno, Isabella's water whip cracked again—steam hissing, another path clearing.
Curtis saw it.
"We're clear!" he shouted, bolting through the opening.
The recruits and others surged after him, feet pounding against the ground, lungs burning from heat and smoke.
They saw it now—the front entrance.
Freedom.
But between them and the exit—
A group of Devils blocked the path.
"Don't stop!" Isabella commanded, her voice a blade of its own.
"You heard her! Push through!" Benny added, charging at full speed.
"Get ready!" Curtis barked.
The line smashed into the Devils like a battering ram. Shields collided with claws. Bodies crashed into one another.
The Devils reeled, staggered—some flung through the ironbound doors and out into the open.
Fresh air hit them like a slap.
Moonlight. Cool wind. The world outside.
But they had no time to enjoy it.
"Above us!" David shouted.
Heads snapped up.
From above, boulders. Dozens of them. Launched high into the air, silhouettes against the night sky.
And then—
They fell like meteors, like divine punishment from the gods.
And the world screamed again.
Back inside the Iron Fortress—
Dawn sprinted through the collapsing corridors.
Smoke clung to the walls like breathless shadows. Beams sagged and groaned overhead, fire licked through cracked ceilings, and every step crushed glass under her boots.
"Mera!" she screamed, echoing through the crumbling maze.
No answer.
Only the moaning bones of the dying fortress.
She kept moving. Heart racing. Blade tight in hand. Eyes cutting through the haze, scanning every doorway.
Then she turned a corner—
And froze.
Bathed in the flickering red pulse of an emergency beacon, Mera stood in the middle of the corridor. Small. Still. Arms wrapped tight around a soot-streaked teddy bear.
Suki.
Her cheeks were tear-streaked, but she didn't cry. Her jaw was clenched. Her voice, though shaky, rang out into the corridor.
"I—I'm not afraid of you…!"
The Devil loomed above her.
Massive. Hunched. Swaying with a feral rhythm.
Its fur was slick with heat and sweat, and its claws twitched at its sides. Saliva poured from its jaw in slow, thick ropes, sizzling into the floor where it fell.
Dawn couldn't move.
Her body locked. The scene burned into her mind like a nightmare she couldn't wake from.
Move.
Move...
Move, damn it...
But she was frozen.
Paralyzed.
Then—
A memory surged.
A sunlit field. Wildflowers swaying in the breeze. A wooden sword cracked against hers.
A man's voice—stern, patient, relentless.
Hesitation isn't what I taught you, Dawn. I taught you how to—
"Fight!" she yelled aloud, eyes blazing.
The hesitation shattered with her shout, and she lunged, her blade a steak of silver lightning.
In one clean, fluid motion, she slashed downward—her blade slicing through the Devil's arm just as it reached for Mera.
The limb hit the floor with a thud, hissing as the acid ate through the ground.
The Devil reeled back, but Dawn didn't wait. She grabbed Mera by the hand, yanking her away from the danger.
"Run!"
Mera clutched Suki in one arm, Dawn's hand in the other, her legs struggling to keep pace as the ruined hallway blurred past them.
But the Devil wasn't finished.
It growled and stomped forward. The floor trembled, and cracks spiderwebbed out beneath it. Then, the flooring gave out.
With a deafening CRACK, the floor beneath their feet crumbled into a black abyss.
"Mera!" Dawn screamed, her body lurching as gravity tore her downward.
She twisted mid-fall—reaching—Mera's tiny hand caught hers.
Their fingers locked.
Rubble cascaded around them. Chunks of stone and rebar tumbled like rain.
The Devil howled above as the world shattered around them.
Together, Dawn and Mera plunged into the darkness, swallowed whole by the Iron Fortress.