The assassination of Valerius was a turning point.
The act was so brazen, so reckless, that it finally forced General Tarik's hand.
He could no longer afford to let his 'partners' operate without a leash.
He summoned Kiera, Ryu, and Joric to his primary war room, a chamber humming with the quiet, deadly efficiency of a military machine at its peak.
The atmosphere was not one of alliance; it was one of judgment.
"You have gone too far," Tarik began, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.
He gestured to a holographic display showing the political firestorm they had created.
"You were supposed to be an intelligence asset. Instead, you have become an agent of chaos. You have provoked a civil war within the Vanguard, yes, but you have also destabilized the entire political structure of this city. Your manipulation of Vex, your orchestration of the young Valerius's death... these are the actions of terrorists, not soldiers." He leaned forward, his massive hands resting on the holographic table.
"I have half a mind to turn you over to the Azure Dragon council myself. Your actions have given the traitor, Elder Valerius, a new platform. He is now painting his son as a martyr, a hero who was trying to expose corruption and was silenced for it. You have made him a sympathetic figure." "He is also more isolated than ever," Kiera countered, her voice steady, betraying none of the fear she felt.
"Vex has proven he cannot be trusted. Elder Valerius's position within his own clan is weakening. This is the moment to strike. A decisive blow." "A blow against whom?" Tarik shot back.
"Vex? Valerius? The two are now inextricably linked. An attack on one is an attack on both, and will be seen as an act of war by the Azure Dragons." The situation was a tangled knot of their own making.
Their 'victory' had been so complete that it had backed them into a corner.
Then, Ryu spoke. He had been silent throughout the meeting, his eyes closed, his senses extended further than ever before, sifting through the torrent of data that was the city.
"There is another player," he said quietly.
"One we haven't accounted for." He focused, and on the holographic display, a new thread of data appeared, a connection they had never seen before.
It was a series of encrypted, untraceable financial transactions, flowing not from the Vanguard to the clans, but from a clan to the Vanguard.
Specifically, from a series of shell corporations controlled by the Onyx Serpents...
to Charon's faction.
A stunned silence filled the room. The Quartermaster had told them of the rivalry between Vex and Charon, but they had assumed it was a purely internal affair.
This was something else. This was collusion.
"The Serpents," Joric breathed, his mind racing.
"They're not just victims of the Vanguard's infiltration. They're clients." It was a conspiracy within a conspiracy.
The Onyx Serpents, the clan most vocal about the threat of the Sunstone Jaguars and the Azure Dragons, had been secretly funding Charon's faction.
Their goal was simple: to use the Vanguard's more subtle, surgical methods to weaken their rivals, to gain an advantage in the inter-clan power struggle, never realizing the true, world-ending scope of the organization they were in bed with.
Charon was not just a spymaster in a civil war; he was a mercenary, playing all sides against each other.
General Tarik stared at the data, his face a mask of stone. His entire world view, his entire strategy, had been built on the foundation of the Onyx Serpents as his primary, conventional enemy.
The truth was far more terrifying. The enemy was everywhere, wearing every face.
"So," Tarik finally said, his voice a low, dangerous whisper.
"It seems we have a choice. The devil we know... or the devil we don't." His gaze fell on their frozen prisoner, the spymaster Charon, still locked in his cryogenic restraints.
The key to unraveling the entire conspiracy was not Vex, the loud, public face of the Vanguard. It was the silent, frozen serpent in their own basement.