[KAISER -- POV]
The water ran cold against my face, washing away sweat and tension and the lingering ghost of another nightmare I couldn't quite remember. Steam clung to the bathroom mirror in patches, obscuring and revealing my reflection in alternating moments—like reality couldn't decide whether it wanted me to see what I'd become.
I wiped the condensation away with one hand, the other keeping the towel secured around my waist, and stared at the face looking back.
Golden eyes that had seen too much. Scars that told stories I didn't want to remember. And there, running along my left collarbone—faint now, nearly faded, but still visible if you knew to look for it—the jagged line where Ryzen's blade had opened me to the bone five years ago.
The night everything ended. The night everything began.
My fingers traced the old wound without conscious thought, and suddenly I wasn't standing in a safehouse bathroom. I was in the Spire, surrounded by collapsing architecture and betrayal made manifest.
"Tyler!" Kane's voice, raw with fury and desperation. "Get down!"
The explosion lit up the night like a second sun—Kane's newly awakened Unbeatable trait going nuclear, radiating enough energy to level city blocks. But before the blast wave hit, before the building came down around us, I saw him.
Ryzen.
No—not Ryzen anymore. Something wearing Ryzen's face but moving with Valmont's certainty, speaking with a voice that echoed across frequencies that hurt to hear.
"Did you really think," the thing that used to be my brother asked, his blade dripping with my blood, "that I'd let sentimentality interfere with evolution? You and Kane—you were useful stepping stones. But the summit requires sacrifices, Tyler. And you've always been so good at dying for causes."
The blade moved again, impossibly fast, and I felt it—that moment of absolute clarity when you realize death has finally caught up with all your borrowed time.
Then the world turned to fire and rubble and darkness.
"Kaiser?"
The voice pulled me back to the present like a lifeline thrown into drowning water. The bathroom mirror showed my reflection again—older now, harder, with golden eyes that had belonged to Tyler Wayland once but were Kaiser's now, fully and completely.
I turned to find Hawk standing in the doorway, still wearing the tactical gear from today's planning session. Her Oracle-Eye flickered with concern as it scanned my vitals, probably picking up the elevated heart rate and stress hormones that came with traumatic flashbacks.
"I'm fine," I said automatically, because that's what you said when you weren't fine but needed to pretend otherwise.
"Bullshit." She crossed the distance between us in three strides, arms wrapping around me from behind, her cheek pressed against my bare shoulder blade. "Your hands are shaking, your breathing's irregular, and you've been staring at that mirror for the past five minutes like it's showing you ghosts."
I could feel her warmth against my back, solid and real and anchoring me to the present moment. Her heartbeat pressed against my spine—steady, certain, alive.
"Just old memories," I said, trying for casual and probably missing by miles. "The scar sometimes... reminds me. Of before."
"Ryzen?"
"Yeah." The admission came easier than expected. "Five years ago. Right before the Spire fell. He gave me this—" I gestured at the collarbone scar. "—as a parting gift before Kane's awakening brought the whole building down on our heads."
Hawk's arms tightened fractionally, a silent gesture of support that said more than words could manage.
"You want to talk about it?" she asked quietly.
"Not particularly." I turned in her embrace, meeting those mismatched eyes—one natural, one Oracle enhancement—that had become as familiar as my own reflection. "But I probably should, given that we're about to walk into another scenario where everything could go catastrophically wrong."
She studied my face with that particular intensity that meant Oracle-Eye was running analysis patterns, reading micro-expressions, calculating emotional states with mechanical precision. Then she reached up and pulled my head down to rest against her shoulder, fingers threading through my still-damp hair.
"Then talk," she said simply. "I'm listening."
So I did.
Told her about the Trinity—three young men who'd genuinely believed they could change the world through force and conviction. About the missions that had gone right and the ones that had gone wrong. About Ryzen's slow descent into something else, the way Nameless had gradually eaten away at his identity until there was nothing left but hunger and ambition wearing a familiar face.
About Kane, loyal to the end, whose awakening had saved my life by complete accident while condemning him to years serving Scourge as payment for rescue.
About dying in that rubble, bleeding out alone while my brothers scattered to opposite ends of the power spectrum, and the moment Jerry had found me—pulled me back from the edge and given me reason to keep breathing when every instinct said to just let go.
"And now," I finished, voice rough with remembered pain, "I'm about to walk into another kingpin's fortress with another elaborate plan that requires perfect timing and more luck than any sane person would bet on. History doesn't exactly repeat, but it fucking rhymes."
Hawk was quiet for a long moment, her fingers still moving through my hair in soothing patterns.
she said "this isn't the Spire. You've got backup this time real backup, people who know the stakes and have chosen to stand with you anyway. Kane, Jerry, me. Even Scourge, in his own terrifying way."
"And Tara," I added quietly, feeling the weight of that decision settle in my chest like lead. "Eight years old and about to face apex-tier warlords because I'm allowing it. Because her theory makes tactical sense and we need every advantage we can get."
My hands clenched into fists against Hawk's back.
"What if I'm wrong?" The words came out barely above a whisper. "What if the calculations are off, the plan fails, and she gets hurt—or worse—because I was too focused on the mission to protect her properly? What if I'm just repeating Ryzen's mistakes, sacrificing people I care about for some grand vision that ends in ashes and regret?"
"Hey." Hawk pulled back enough to frame my face with her hands, forcing me to meet her eyes. "Look at me. Really look."
I did, seeing my own uncertainty reflected back in red-tinted analysis overlays.
"You're having second thoughts about bringing Tara," she said. Not a question—a statement of observed fact. "Even though the tactical assessment supports her involvement, even though she volunteered, even though Clara verified her capabilities. You're scared you're making the wrong choice."
"Terrified," I admitted. "She looks at me like I'm some kind of hero, Hawk. Like I saved her from the monsters and everything's going to be okay now. And I'm about to take that child into a maximum-security prison to face warlords who specialize in creative murder. What kind of hero does that?"
"The kind who's trying to build a world where children like Tara never end up in cages to begin with," Hawk replied firmly. "The kind who understands that overprotection is just another form of cage, and that she needs to grow—to become strong enough to protect herself when you're not there."
Her thumbs brushed away moisture I hadn't realized was gathering in my eyes.
"You're not Ryzen," she continued. "Ryzen used people as tools, as stepping stones, as sacrifices for his vision. You're giving Tara a choice—the same choice you wish someone had given you before everything went to hell. The difference matters, Kaiser. It matters more than you probably realize."
"And if she gets hurt? If the plan goes wrong and I have to watch another person I care about suffer because of my decisions?"
"Then we adapt, we extract, and we deal with the consequences together," Hawk said. "But you can't protect her from everything, Kaiser. You can only give her the tools to protect herself and trust that she's stronger than her trauma. Just like you had to become stronger than yours."
The words hit harder than any physical blow, cutting through rationalizations and fear to the core truth I'd been avoiding.
"When did you get so wise?" I asked, managing a weak smile.
"Probably around the same time I decided to trust a trait-thieving madman who breaks into kingpin territories for fun," Hawk replied, matching my smile with one of her own. "We all make questionable life choices."
The tension broke like overstressed glass, shattering into something lighter. I pulled her closer, feeling some of the anxiety bleed away into the comfort of human contact.
"Thank you," I murmured against her hair. "For listening. For not telling me I'm a complete idiot for having doubts."
"Oh, you're definitely an idiot," Hawk said easily. "Just not for the reasons you think."
"Ouch. Here I am, having a vulnerable emotional moment, and you choose violence."
"Emotional violence is still my specialty." Her arms tightened around me. "But seriously—you're allowed to be scared, Kaiser. You're allowed to have doubts. It means you still give a shit, which is more than most people in our position can claim."
We stood like that for a while, wrapped in each other and comfortable silence, letting the weight of tomorrow's insanity fade into the background noise of Now.
[HAWK -- POV]
Feeling Kaiser's heartbeat against my ear, steady despite the emotional turbulence, I found myself thinking about trajectories.
I'd spent three years convinced that Sophia Grace had died in Nexus Industries' Project Mindbridge facility—that the girl with hope and dreams had been systematically dismantled and rebuilt as Hawk, the perfect weapon without attachments or weaknesses. Three years accepting that love was a vulnerability I couldn't afford, that connection meant leverage someone could use against me.
And then this absolute disaster of a man had crashed into my life—literally tracking me for years, studying my patterns, approaching me with ulterior motives—and somehow managed to make me feel human again.
The irony wasn't lost on me.
"You're thinking too loud," Kaiser murmured, his voice rumbling through his chest. "I can practically hear the gears turning."
"Just reflecting on poor life choices and questionable decision-making," I replied. "You know—the usual."
"Care to elaborate, or are we playing the cryptic assassin game?"
I pulled back slightly, studying his face—the scars, the golden eyes, the expression that managed to mix cocky confidence with genuine vulnerability in ways that shouldn't work but somehow did.
"I'm thinking," I said carefully, "that despite everything—the lies, the manipulation, the fact that you tracked me for three years like some kind of creepy stalker with trait-stealing abilities—you might actually be the best thing that's ever happened to me."
Kaiser blinked, clearly not expecting that particular confession. "That's... either incredibly romantic or deeply concerning, and I genuinely can't tell which."
"Probably both," I admitted. "My therapist would have a field day if I still had a therapist who wasn't either dead or trying to kill me."
"So what you're saying is that I've set the bar so low that 'not actively trying to kill you' qualifies as relationship goals?"
"More like you've shown me that I can be something other than a weapon," I corrected, choosing honesty over deflection for once. "That Sophia Grace might be buried, but she's not dead. That maybe—just maybe—I can have connection without it becoming a cage."
Something shifted in Kaiser's expression, softening around the edges.
"Hawk—"
"Let me finish," I interrupted, needing to get this out before courage failed. "I spent years convinced that feeling anything was weakness. That attachment meant vulnerability. That the only way to survive was to cut away everything that made me human until nothing remained but function and purpose."
My hands moved to his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart beneath scarred skin.
"And then you show up with your elaborate plans and your terrible jokes and your absolute refusal to let me hide behind walls. You see the weapon, acknowledge it, and then look past it to the person underneath. You make me want to be more than just Hawk—to reclaim pieces of Sophia that I thought were lost forever."
"Is this the part where I make an inappropriate joke about reclaiming your pieces, because I can—"
"Kaiser."
"Right. Serious moment. Continue."
Despite myself, I smiled. The fact that he could make me laugh even in the middle of emotional vulnerability was part of his strange charm.
"What I'm trying to say," I continued, "is that you're an idiot and a disaster and probably going to get us all killed with your increasingly insane plans. But you're my idiot disaster, and I..."
The words caught in my throat, too big and too frightening to release into reality.
"You?" Kaiser prompted gently, golden eyes reflecting something that might have been hope.
"I think I might be falling in love with you," I admitted finally, the confession feeling like stepping off a cliff with no certainty about what waited at the bottom. "Or already have fallen. Oracle-Eye isn't great with emotional analysis, but the physiological markers are pretty conclusive."
"Romantic," Kaiser observed. "Nothing says 'I love you' quite like citing physiological markers."
"Shut up."
"You want me to shut up, or you want me to respond to the part where you just admitted to falling in love with me?"
"Both. Neither. I don't know—this whole emotional honesty thing is new territory and I'm not convinced I'm doing it right."
Kaiser's smile was soft, genuine, without the usual sharp edges. "For what it's worth, you're doing it perfectly. And for what it's worth—" He leaned down, forehead resting against mine. "—I think I fell in love with you somewhere between the market raid and watching you eviscerate those traffickers. Possibly before. Timeline's a bit fuzzy on account of trying not to die and also dealing with the whole 'oh shit, this stopped being manipulation and became real' crisis."
"So we're both idiots," I summarized.
"Apparently. But at least we're idiots together."
"That's the worst romantic declaration I've ever heard."
"You want me to try again? I can do better—give me a second to workshop something about your eyes or your deadly grace or how watching you fight makes me feel things that are probably inappropriate given the combat context—"
I kissed him to shut him up, which had been my intention, but the contact sparked something else entirely. What started as a simple gesture to halt his rambling deepened into something urgent and hungry—three years of walls crumbling, pretense burning away, leaving nothing but want and need and the desperate acknowledgment that tomorrow we might die.
When we finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Kaiser's expression had shifted into something darker and decidedly less romantic.
"You know," he said, voice dropping to that particular register that made my pulse spike, "we have approximately twelve hours before the operation begins. Seems wasteful to spend them sleeping."
"Is this your attempt at seduction?"
"Do I need to seduce you at this point, or can we skip directly to the part where I make you forget your own name?"
Heat coiled low in my belly, Oracle-Eye registering increased blood flow and elevated hormones in ways that were decidedly unscientific.
"Bold words from a man wearing nothing but a towel," I observed.
"Bold words from a woman who's about to lose significantly more clothing than a towel," Kaiser countered, hands already working at the fastenings of my tactical vest.
"That's assuming you can back up the talk."
"Oh, I can back it up." His smile was sharp as a blade and twice as dangerous. "Question is whether you can handle what comes next without waking the entire safehouse."
"I don't make noise."
"Challenge accepted."
[KAISER -- POV]
Later—much later—
We lay tangled in sheets that had been significantly abused during the past few hours, both of us pleasantly exhausted and riding the kind of endorphin high that made tomorrow's danger feel distant and manageable.
Hawk was draped across my chest, tracing idle patterns on my skin while her breathing slowly returned to normal. I could feel her Oracle-Eye occasionally flickering—probably running post-activity analysis because apparently even her cybernetics couldn't turn off completely.
"So," I said, breaking the comfortable silence. "On a scale of one to ten, how badly did I disrupt your tactical sleep schedule?"
"Completely demolished it," Hawk replied without heat. "I'm going to be operating on approximately three hours of sleep and sexual satisfaction in place of actual rest."
"And you're complaining?"
"Not even a little bit." She pressed a kiss to my collarbone, right over the faded scar from Ryzen's blade. "Although for the record—you're absolutely insufferable when you're right about things."
"What things specifically?"
"The part where you said you'd make me forget my own name. I'm pretty sure I called you 'Mark' at one point, which is mortifying and we're never speaking of it again."
I burst out laughing, the sound echoing through the room. "Oh god, you did. I was trying to be polite and ignore it, but since you brought it up—"
"I hate you."
"No you don't. You love me. You said so earlier with physiological markers and everything."
"I'm retroactively taking that back."
"Too late. No takesies-backsies on love confessions. It's in the rules."
Hawk propped herself up on one elbow, looking down at me with an expression that mixed affection with exasperation. "What rules?"
"The official rules of emotional vulnerability and relationship dynamics," I replied seriously. "Article seven, subsection three clearly states that once you've admitted to falling in love with someone, you can't take it back just because they made you accidentally call them by the wrong name during intimacy."
"You're making this up."
"Completely. But it sounds official, which is the important part."
She shook her head, but I caught the smile she was trying to hide. "How are you like this? We're literally about to infiltrate a maximum-security prison, face apex-tier warlords, and attempt a rescue mission with a traumatized eight-year-old as backup. And you're making jokes about relationship rules."
"Gallows humor is how I cope with existential terror," I said, pulling her back down against me. "Also, making you smile is literally one of my favorite things, so it's win-win."
"Your favorite things include trait-stealing, elaborate cons, and making me smile?"
"In that order, yes. Although the order shifts depending on context and how recently you've tried to kill me."
"I haven't tried to kill you in at least forty-eight hours."
"See? Growth. We're practically a functional couple now."
Hawk was quiet for a moment, her fingers still tracing patterns on my chest—mapping scars, cataloguing damage, memorizing the geography of violence written on my skin.
"Can I tell you something?" she asked quietly.
"Always."
"I'm scared," she admitted. "Not of the mission—missions I can handle. I'm scared that this is going to work. That we're actually going to pull this off, recruit Morgana, and keep building toward your insane goal of overthrowing the entire kingpin system."
"That's an odd thing to be scared of," I observed.
"Is it?" She looked up, meeting my eyes. "Because if we succeed, if this actually works, then I have to confront the possibility that maybe the world can be better. That maybe there's something worth building beyond survival and revenge. And that's terrifying, Kaiser. Hope is terrifying when you've spent years learning to live without it."
I understood completely—the fear of success, the terror of actually mattering, the weight of believing that your actions could reshape reality instead of just surviving it.
"We don't have to change the world today," I said gently. "We just have to get through tomorrow. Rescue one time-manipulator, avoid getting killed by warlords, make it home alive. Everything else is future problems for future versions of us who have hopefully gained more brain cells and survival instinct."
"Future us sounds fictional."
"Future us sounds optimistic, which is even worse."
That pulled a genuine laugh from her—quiet and warm and precious.
We lay there in comfortable silence for a while longer, both of us aware that tomorrow would bring chaos and danger and very real possibilities of death, but choosing to exist in this moment instead.
Eventually, Hawk spoke again.
"Tell me a story," she said. "Something from before. When you were Tyler Wayland and the world was different."
So I did.
Told her about the Trinity's early days—before the betrayal, before everything went wrong. About the time Kane had gotten drunk and tried to fight an entire bar because someone had insulted his favorite pre-war movie. About Ryzen's terrible cooking that somehow always ended with fire alarms and evacuations. About the small moments of brotherhood and hope that had existed before Nameless had consumed everything.
Told her about my sister Ellie, briefly, carefully, because that wound still ached. But also because Hawk deserved to know all of me—the broken pieces and the memories that had shaped them.
And she listened, Oracle-Eye flickering occasionally but her focus entirely on the stories, the history, the person I'd been before becoming Kaiser.
When I finally wound down, she was quiet for a long moment.
"Thank you," she said simply. "For trusting me with that."
"Always," I replied. "We're partners, remember? Equal voice, shared risk, no more secrets."
"No more secrets," she agreed.
We drifted into companionable silence after that, both of us aware that sleep should happen but reluctant to surrender consciousness when consciousness meant being together like this—vulnerable and honest and choosing to believe that tomorrow would come.
Eventually, exhaustion won.
I fell asleep with Hawk wrapped around me, her heartbeat steady against my ribs, and for once the nightmares stayed away.
[KAISER -- POV]
Twelve hours later
The prison transport rattled through Iron Fang territory like a coffin on wheels, every bump in the deteriorated road sending jolts through suppression cuffs that were doing an excellent job of making my traits feel distant and muffled.
Scourge sat across from me in the cramped space, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. Tara was squeezed between us, her small form tense but determined, the adaptive weave dress hidden under deliberately shabby clothing that made her look like any other unfortunate prisoner being transferred.
"You look good in chains," Scourge observed conversationally. "Very authentic suffering prisoner aesthetic. Rex is going to eat this up."
"Remind me again why we thought this was a good plan?" I asked, shifting to test the cuffs and finding them professionally secured. Tight enough to be convincing, loose enough that I could break them when the time came—assuming the suppression fields didn't make that significantly harder.
"Because all the other plans involved higher body counts and less dramatic flair," Scourge replied. "And you do love your dramatic flair."
Through our neural link, Clara's voice whispered reassurance. Vital signs stable. Suppression fields are affecting standard traits but mythic-tier capabilities remain minimally impacted. Tara's teleportation should function at approximately seventy percent efficiency within Tartarus's wards.
Good, I thought back. Keep monitoring her. At the first sign of danger we can't handle, I want her out.
Understood.
Tara looked up at me with those mismatched eyes, and I saw my own anxiety reflected back. But also determination. Trust. The absolute certainty that this was going to work because I'd said it would, and in her world, I was someone who didn't fail.
No pressure.
"Remember the plan," I said quietly, just for her. "You stay close, you follow Clara's guidance, and if things go bad—"
"I port out immediately," Tara recited. "No heroics, no trying to save everyone, just immediate extraction to the rendezvous point where Hawk and the others are waiting."
"Good girl."
The transport lurched to a stop, and through the reinforced walls I could hear voices—sharp, authoritative, running through security verification protocols.
"Showtime," Scourge said, and something predatory flickered across his expression. "Remember—you're beaten, defeated, utterly at my mercy. Maybe cry a little if you can manage it. Really sell the helpless prisoner angle."
"I don't do helpless," I replied.
"Then fake it. You're literally a professional liar—use those skills."
The transport doors opened with a metallic groan, revealing Iron Fang territory in all its dystopian glory. And there, waiting with an expression of pure triumph, stood Rex the 3rd himself.
Smaller than I'd expected. More refined. But the eyes—the eyes held the kind of cold calculation that came from decades spent turning people into property and calling it good business.
"Kaiser," Rex said, my name emerging like a prize won. "The infamous trait-thief. I've been hearing such interesting stories about your recent activities. Baron Varn sends his regards from his very comfortable cell."
"Tell him I'll send flowers," I replied, putting just enough defiance into the words to sound beaten but not broken.
Rex smiled—a serpent's expression, all teeth and no warmth. "Scourge, my old friend. I must say, I'm impressed. Capturing this one is no small feat."
"He was distracted," Scourge replied, playing his role perfectly. "Caught him during a moment of weakness. Even the great Kaiser has vulnerabilities if you know where to look."
"Indeed." Rex approached, studying me with the interest of a collector examining a rare specimen. "Welcome to Tartarus, Kaiser. I think you'll find the accommodations very... secure."
Behind him, I caught glimpses of what waited inside—guards bristling with weapons, suppression fields humming with malevolent energy, and in the shadows, two figures that radiated danger even standing still.
Rambo and Irene.
The warlords who'd never missed a prey after the ruckus i created once.
Here we go, I thought, feeling adrenaline start to sharpen focus despite the suppression cuffs. Let's see if insanity and improvisation can beat overwhelming force one more time.
Beside me, Tara's hand found mine—small, warm, trusting—and squeezed once.
The plan had begun. Feels good to be back
END OF CHAPTER 25