[Brakus]
They were like ghosts drifting through a skeletal city. Every abandoned warehouse was a false hope; every flickering streetlight was a taunt.
Brakus walked in a trance of suppressed fury, his hands shoved deep into his denim jacket pockets. He was a teenager built of glass and gasoline, waiting for a spark. Beside him, Daniel moved with a heavy, restless energy, his breathing jagged and loud in the silence of the slums. Bringing up the rear was Haru, his grey-streaked hair matted with sweat as he kept a hand on his holster, his seasoned eyes scanning every rooftop with the practiced caution of a man who had lived through too many bad nights.
"We're blind, Brakus," Haru said, his voice gravelly with exhaustion as he leaned against a rusted chain-link fence. "We have no way to find him. We don't have their tech, we don't have their sensors... we're just three men playing detective in a war zone, and I'm too old for hide-and-seek."
Brakus spun around, the concrete beneath his boots spider-webbing as his frustration leaked out in a physical surge. "I don't care! We keep moving! We check every block, every—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
Daniel had fallen to his knees. A low, guttural sound escaped his throat, and his hands flew to his temples. The abyssal red in his eyes began to strobe, pulsing in time with a vibration that only he could feel.
"Daniel? Hey, talk to me!" Brakus scrambled toward him, his youthful panic breaking through his hardened facade.
"I... I have him," Daniel whispered, his voice sounding hollow, as if he were speaking from the bottom of a well. He looked up, his gaze snapping toward the jagged silhouette of the industrial docks to the East. "The static just broke. It's like a bell ringing in the middle of a graveyard. I can feel a pulse. It's him. It's Brock."
Haru squinted toward the docks, his hand shielding his eyes. "That place has been a dead zone for years. Why would they be there?"
"It's a tether," Daniel gasped, standing up with an unnerving, fluid grace. "A frequency... it's pulling on my very blood. He's at the secondary docks. I can hear him breathing, Brakus. He's right there."
Brakus didn't question the miracle. He didn't have the experience to suspect a trap, and Haru, despite his years, was too desperate for a lead to argue. To a brother, a miracle didn't need a map.
"Then we stop looking," Brakus said, his eyes burning with a raw focus. "And we start breaking. Haru, get the car."
They didn't see the reality of the signal. Miles away, atop a shipping crane overlooking the desolate docks, Glint sat with her legs dangling over the edge. She wasn't holding a device or a transmitter. Instead, her long, dark purple hair writhed like a nest of disturbed vipers, and her eyes hummed with a faint, arcane glow.
She held her fingers in a delicate, clawed arc, weaving a strand of shimmering, violet energy between her palms. She was whispering into the wind, casting a supernatural lure—a psychic mimicry of Brock's lifeforce designed specifically to hijack the altered cells in Daniel's body.
"They've taken the bait," Glint purred, her sharpened teeth glinting in the moonlight. She felt the tug on her magical tether and looked back at Argon and Blitz, who waited in the shadows of the crane's engine room.
Blitz stepped forward, the silk of his robes snapping in the wind. He looked toward the city, his predatory eyes tracking the distant headlights of a lone car speeding toward them. "I'm surprised the Zerone-X actually worked," he remarked, his voice smooth and cold. "To think a grizzled old man like that really created something so powerful... Eris talked about the serum as if it were a god-maker, but to see it actually knit a dead man back together and then respond to a magical resonance? It's unsettling."
Argon let out a low, gravelly grunt, his massive, scarred chest barely moving. "I don't care about the science. If the serum made the friend strong, I want to see what it does to the boy. I'm tired of testing glass. I want to see if this 'Royal' blood can actually hold its own against a real strike."
"Eris is a dreamer, Argon. She sees a King where there's just a terrified child," Glint said, her lip curling in a dismissive sneer. She closed her hand, snapping the violet thread and watching the light fade from her palms. "I don't care what his bloodline says. I've seen 'chosen ones' scream just as loud as the peasants when their skin starts to peel. He's just a boy playing with a power he doesn't understand."
She hopped down from the crane, her boots hitting the steel with a silent, feline grace.
"The General wants a test, so we'll give him one. But don't be surprised if this 'miracle' breaks the moment you put your hands on it."
She stepped to the edge of the crane, her purple hair snapping upward as if caught in an updraft that didn't exist. She spread her arms wide, and the air began to scream with the sound of grinding metal and shrieking rivets. Below them, the surrounding warehouses didn't just collapse; they began to bleed together. Steel beams twisted like soft wax, and corrugated iron folded into intricate, needle-like spires.
In a matter of seconds, the industrial landscape had been rewritten. The rusted docks were gone, replaced by a towering, shadow-drenched gothic colosseum. High above the center of the arena, Glint wove the last of the violet light into a cruel illusion: an image of Brock, suspended in mid-air by glowing, jagged chains, his head hanging low in a fake display of agony.
"This should draw them in," Glint sneered, landing softly on the new stone floor of the arena.
"Hmph," Argon grunted, crossing his massive arms and barely glancing at the architectural nightmare she had just birthed.
Blitz adjusted his robes, looking bored as he kicked a piece of loose rubble. "Hmph," he echoed, equally unimpressed by the theatrical display.
Glint's eyes flashed with irritation as she caught them looking away. As she turned her back to prepare for the arrival, Blitz rolled his eyes.
"Psst... show off," he scoffed, mumbling it just loud enough for Argon to hear.
The sound of a straining engine echoed in the distance. A pair of headlights cut through the fog, heading straight for the mouth of the colosseum. The boy had arrived.
[Brakus, A few moments earlier]
The battered sedan roared down the coastal highway, the engine whining as Haru pushed it to its limit. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of acrid tobacco and nervous electricity. Haru gripped the wheel with one hand, a half-burned cigar clenched between his teeth, his eyes narrowed against the smoke.
"Five minutes out," Haru grunted, the embers of his cigar glowing bright. "Check your gear. If this goes south, we don't have a plan B."
"We won't need one," Brakus said, leaning forward between the seats. He was vibrating with a manic, youthful energy, his eyes wide and searching the dark horizon. "Did you hear him, Daniel? You said the signal was getting stronger. We're actually going to get him back. I'm gonna grab him and we're out of here. We can go back to that spot by the river—the one with the rope swing. He's been asking to go all summer."
Daniel didn't answer immediately. He was pressed against the window, his hand leaving a frost-pattern on the glass. The abyssal red in his eyes was no longer flickering; it was a steady, drowning glow. "He's there, Brakus. But... something's wrong. The 'beat' of the signal. It's changing."
"It's just the distance," Brakus insisted, a desperate smile tugging at his lips. "He probably knows we're close. He can feel us."
Matthew, sitting in the back with Daniel, checked the weight of a heavy wrench in his hand, his face pale. "I hope you're right, kid. Because the air out there is starting to taste like copper."
Suddenly, the skyline ahead began to warp.
"What the hell is that?" Haru spat, the cigar nearly falling from his mouth.
As they rounded the final bend toward the docks, the industrial silhouette of the city was replaced by something impossible. They watched in stunned silence as the metal of the warehouses groaned and folded upward, rising into the sky like the ribs of a dying beast. Stone and steel fused together, growing into jagged spires and high, arched galleries. A massive, gothic colosseum now sat where the shipping yards had been, glowing with a sickly, violet aura.
"Stop the car," Daniel whispered, his voice trembling. "Brakus, don't. The energy coming off that place... it's not human. It's cold. It's like a void."
"I don't care!" Brakus shouted, pointing toward the center of the rising structure.
"Look!"
High above the arena, illuminated by a cruel, purple light, was the silhouette of a boy. Brock was suspended in the air, his small frame held up by thick, jagged chains that seemed to bite into his skin. He looked broken, his head slumped against his chest, swaying slightly in the wind.
"BROCK!"
"Brakus, wait—!" Haru barked, slamming on the brakes.
The car screeched to a violent halt, the tires smoking as they skidded into the mouth of the arena. The doors flew open before the car had even stopped vibrating.
Brakus tumbled out, his boots hitting the cold, unnatural stone. He stared up at the image of his brother strung up like cattle for slaughter, and the desperate, excited teen from the car disappeared. His face contorted into a mask of raw, agonizing horror. The air around him didn't just shimmer anymore; it began to crackle and pop, the ground beneath his feet spider-webbing as his
"Royal" blood responded to the sight of his brother in chains.
"You... you bastards," Brakus wheezed, his voice breaking as the invisible pressure in the arena began to rise. "Give him back!"
From the shadows of the spires, three figures stepped into the light.
High up in the shadows of a jagged, needle-like spire, Glint leaned over the railing of the gallery. She looked down at the trembling teenager with a wide, mocking grin that showed too many teeth.
"Oh, look at that," she cooed, her voice amplified by the unnatural acoustics of the stone. "Is the little baby gonna cry? Is he gonna wet his pants for his brother?" She began to rub her fists against her eyes, making exaggerated, high-pitched sobbing noises that echoed through the arena like a taunt from a nightmare.
The grief in Brakus's chest snapped, replaced instantly by a white-hot, blinding fury. His eyes didn't just glow; they burned with a light that made the air around him ripple like a heat haze.
"Screw you!" Brakus screamed, his voice cracking but carrying the weight of a physical blow. "Give him back now or I'll kill you! ALL of you!"
He began to march forward, the ground beneath his boots groaning and cracking with every step. He didn't have a plan, and he didn't care about the odds. He was a force of nature focused on a single point.
He didn't see the blur of movement from the shadows.
With a thunderous crack that sounded like a falling tree, Argon plummeted from the heights, landing directly in Brakus's path. The impact sent a shockwave of dust and grit outward, stopping the boy's momentum instantly.
"Woah, woah," Argon rumbled, his voice a deep, tectonic rasp. Before Brakus could raise a fist, Argon's massive, tree-trunk arms shot forward. He didn't strike; he simply caught Brakus in a bear-like grasp, his hands wrapping around the boy's biceps and squeezing. "No need for all of that. You'll ruin the meat before we even get to the carving."
Brakus let out a strangled yelp as he felt his bones begin to complain under the impossible pressure of Argon's grip.
In the blink of an eye, the air behind Argon ignited.