The Enclave's command center buzzed with quiet urgency, glowing screens reflecting off steel walls and silent tension. Asher stood at the center of the strategic room, flanked by Mira and Rafe, while Wren brought up a 3D hologram of the Ancient Tech facility.
"Zara's here," Wren said, pointing to the rotating structure. "Lower levels. They're keeping her in a suspended state—some kind of containment unit powered by old-world tech. If we're not careful, pulling her out could fry her completely."
"Then we won't pull," Asher said, eyes dark. "We'll break the damn thing open."
Silas leaned against the wall, loading rounds into his rifle. "Fast and clean. In and out."
Echo grunted beside him, slamming one seismic gauntlet onto his arm, titanium knuckles gleaming under the fluorescents. The brute-forcer was ready for carnage.
Rafe nodded. "Talon thinks he's won. He took the Essence. He has no idea we've tracked him this far."
"No mistakes this time," Mira said. "We get Zara. We cripple their operation."
Operation Nightfall.
The crew split into three teams:
Team Alpha — Asher, Silas, and Echo — would breach from the north using the old rail line.
Team Bravo — Mira, Rafe, and Wren — would disable the surveillance grid and trigger a blackout.
Enclave Sentinels would monitor all feeds from topside and provide diversionary interference to keep reinforcements from responding quickly.
At 03:16 Underground Time, the first charge went off beneath the compound. Dust and debris cloaked the air as Echo pounded through reinforced steel like it was wet clay. Silas provided overwatch from a blown-out catwalk while Asher darted in, his Judgment flare already active, scanning for life signatures.
Zara's containment pod was in a sub-basement, suspended above a pool of liquid stasis fluid. Two Ancient Tech guards flanked it, armed with relic rifles — old-world pulse weapons that could atomize bone.
Asher didn't hesitate.
He dropped in from above, a pulse of shadow wrapping around his frame as he activated Void Mirror, a counter-ability generated from a previous Judgment. One guard's blast rebounded off the mirror, disintegrating his comrade. Asher launched a blade of light directly through the other's chest.
Echo barreled through the vault door seconds later, and together they hoisted the pod onto a hover dolly.
"Her vitals are weak," Mira said through the comms. "The tech's suppressing her energy. You've got five minutes before it starts to deteriorate her mind permanently."
Wren patched in the override codes she'd stolen from Talon's files. A blue shimmer flickered across the pod as it powered down.
Zara's eyes fluttered.
"Asher?" she whispered.
"I'm here," he said, gripping her hand. "I've got you."
The compound's alarm blared. Reinforcements.
Mira and Rafe sealed the upper tunnel with a planted charge while Echo ripped a hole through the adjacent corridor. The crew flew through collapsing rubble and panicked defenders, Zara cradled between them.
They emerged into the slums of Sector 9, an Enclave shuttle already cloaked and waiting.
Once inside, Zara slowly sat up, blinking against the shuttle lights.
"Did we get it?" she asked weakly.
"No," Asher replied. "Talon got the Essence. He played us."
Her face hardened. "Then we end this. We take back what's ours."
Silas nodded from across the shuttle. "Time for reckoning."
As the skyline of the Undercity shimmered in the distance, Asher looked at the crew around him — bruised, tired, but alive.
And with Zara back, the fire in his chest burned anew.
The Shatterborn had been scattered. Betrayed.
But now… they were about to rise.
***
The hideout was quieter than usual. Not the silence of peace — no, this was the silence before a storm. The kind of stillness that knew violence was just around the corner. Everyone felt it. The tension had settled into the bones of the crew like ash after a fire. They had Zara back, but the war was far from over.
Asher stood before a holo-map of the city projected on the wall of their base in the abandoned freight station. The undercity shimmered in blood-red hues, while key nodes blinked like dying stars — Talon's territories, supply lines, data servers, and labs. Wren's handiwork.
Zara leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, eyes sharp. Her wounds were healing, but her rage had only grown colder and more focused. She didn't speak much since they got her out, but Asher could feel her fire burning through every glance. Talon had crossed a line. One that could never be uncrossed.
"Alright," Wren said, tapping through the map, her voice steady despite the tension. "Here's what we've got. Talon's core operation runs through three nodes — the relay station at Cradle Spine, the lab at Sector Nine, and the command hub he built beneath the old cathedral. We take these out, we gut his influence."
Mira leaned over the table, her fingers tracing invisible lines across the map. "Taking one will alert the others. We need simultaneous strikes."
Silas nodded from the corner where he was cleaning his rifle. "I'll hit the Cradle. I know its vantage points better than anyone."
"I'll take the lab," Echo signed with quick, deliberate motions. Wren translated out loud. "He says he's been itching to bring it down since the day they tested suppression collars there."
"Then I'll lead the cathedral hit," Asher said.
"No," Zara interrupted.
Everyone turned to her.
"You're not going alone," she added. "He'll be expecting you."
"I won't be alone," Asher said. "You're coming with me."
It wasn't a question. It was something heavier — something that had been brewing since the moment they found each other again in the dark, sterile hell of the Ancient Tech prison. A silent vow. They started this war together. They would end it together.
Zara gave a small, solemn nod.
Wren flicked a command into her pad and three holoprojections expanded — detailed layouts of the targets, their guards, their defense systems, and the possible escape routes.
"We strike at night," she said. "Forty-two hours from now. I'll synchronize the countdowns. We move as one, or we don't move at all."
Mira cracked her knuckles. "What's the backup plan?"
"We don't have one," Asher replied. "We don't get a second chance at this."
Echo signed again: Then we don't miss.
They broke into pairs after that, each group moving to different parts of the hideout to finalize strategy and rest. Zara lingered, watching Asher as he stood before the map, as if he could will Talon into appearing with sheer intensity.
"You still feel it, don't you?" she asked quietly.
Asher didn't answer right away. "The vault. What he did there. What he took…"
"And what he tried to take," she finished for him.
Asher's hand clenched. "I let him use me."
"You gave him what he wanted because he promised me," she said. "We both would've done the same."
"But he betrayed us anyway."
Zara stepped closer. "Then let's make sure he regrets it."
There was something about the way she said it — not just vengeance, not just fury — but a vow laced with something deeper. The connection that had survived every fire, every separation, every lie.
They were Shatterborn. Marked by power, hunted by systems, broken by war.
But they were also still people.
People who had lost too much.
And had just enough left to burn the world down if they had to.
As the city lights above the undercity flickered to life, casting fractured reflections through the rusted steel beams, Asher pulled out the old coin Talon once gave him — the one he had flipped the night they first met. He stared at it for a moment, then tossed it into the dark.
"Next time," he muttered, "I won't hesitate."