Lily and Theo sat on the soft grass at the edge of the clearing, their shoulders touching, their laughter quiet in the night air. He had just told her a story about Chad's men trying to catch a mutated rabbit and accidentally setting their own supplies on fire, and she was still giggling, her hand pressed to her mouth.
"You're making that up," she accused.
"I swear on my life," Theo grinned. "The rabbit escaped. Obviously. And Chad made them eat charred rations for a week as punishment."
Lily shook her head, still smiling. "I can't believe—"
She stopped.
Theo followed her gaze. Fifty yards away, near a cluster of rocks, a blue light was flickering. It pulsed once, twice, then stabilized into a steady glow that illuminated the surrounding trees in eerie cyan.
"What is that?" Lily whispered.
Theo stood, pulling her gently behind him. "Stay close."
The light intensified.
And then Prime 10 stepped out of it.
She was unmistakable—the dark grey mask, the commanding presence, the absolute stillness that preceded violence. The teleportation device on her wrist sparked once, then went dark.
Lily's blood turned to ice.
"LILY! THEO! RUN!"
Wolfen's voice cracked through the night like a whip. He was already moving, already crossing the distance between them, his golden eyes blazing with something she'd never seen before—fear. Actual fear.
Lily grabbed Theo's hand and ran.
Behind them, the world exploded.
"DOMINANCE SPHERE!"
Fire erupted from the ground in a perfect circle, surrounding Prime 10 in a cage of Wolfen's making. The flames roared higher, hotter, consuming everything within their reach. Wolfen didn't stop—he gathered massive fireballs in both hands, each one large enough to vaporize a building, and hurled them at the dark grey figure.
They hit.
The explosions were blinding, a cascade of white-hot destruction that should have ended any fight before it began.
Prime 10 emerged from the flames.
Her armor was scorched. Her mask was cracked. But she was still standing, still moving, still coming.
Wolfen didn't hesitate. Umbralite flowed over his body like water, hardening into armor that would have made a medieval knight weep with envy. It covered him from neck to toe, a shell of absolute black that drank the light and promised death.
Prime 10's punch landed on his stomach.
It did almost nothing.
Wolfen answered with a strike of his own—a devastating blow that sent her staggering back, her cracked mask finally breaking, a thin line of blood appearing at her lip.
She smiled.
On her forefinger, a tiny ball of energy formed—smaller than a marble, almost invisible in the chaos. Wolfen saw it, recognized it, tried to block.
Too late.
The ball expanded.
It wasn't fire. It wasn't plasma. It was something worse—a compression of reality itself, a point where the laws of physics folded in on themselves. It hit Wolfen's armor and shattered it, sending black shards flying in every direction.
The Dominance Sphere died.
Wolfen lay on the ground, his body a ruin.
His left arm was gone—just gone, severed at the shoulder, the wound cauterized by whatever force had taken it. His chest was a mess of broken armor and broken flesh, ribs visible through torn skin. Half his face was simply... missing, the bone beneath exposed to the night air.
But he was alive.
Barely.
The Rough Pulse—untrained, uncontrolled, desperate—was working through him, knitting flesh, sealing wounds, rebuilding what had been destroyed. It was slow. Painfully slow. But it was happening.
Prime 10 ignored him.
She walked past his broken body, past the smoldering ground, straight toward Lily.
Theo tried.
He stepped in front of her, his young face set in determined lines, his hands raised in a pathetic approximation of a fighting stance. He didn't have powers. He didn't have weapons. He just had love, and the desperate need to protect.
Prime 10 backhanded him without breaking stride.
He flew into a tree and crumpled, unconscious or worse.
Lily screamed. She tried to run, but Prime 10 was already there, her hand closing around Lily's arm with a grip that couldn't be broken.
"NO!" The scream tore from somewhere deep, from the child who had already lost so much, from the girl who was about to lose everything again.
Prime 10 looked down at her, and behind the cracked mask, something flickered. Not pity. Not cruelty. Just... purpose.
"You're coming with me," she said quietly.
Her wrist device activated. Blue light enveloped them both.
The last thing Lily saw was Theo's crumpled body, and Wolfen's ruined face, and the fire still burning around them.
Then she was gone.
---
Theo woke to hands pulling at him, voices shouting, the world swimming in and out of focus.
"—he's alive—"
"—get him inside—"
"—where's Lily? Where's Lily?!"
He tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn't work. His body wouldn't work. All he could do was watch as Chad's men carried him toward the cave, as Maya's face appeared above him, as Eva—
Eva.
She stood at the cave entrance, frozen, staring at the place where the blue light had been. Her face was white. Her hands were shaking.
Behind her, Wolfen was being carried in by two of Chad's men. His condition was beyond belief—arm gone, face destroyed, chest a ruin. But his eyes were open. His eyes were fixed on Eva.
And in them was something worse than pain.
Guilt.
Eva looked at him. At the monster who had trained them, fought for them, become one of them. At the man who had promised to protect them all.
Then she looked at the empty space where her sister had been.
And the night became very, very cold.