The evening air at the mansion was thick with the sweetness of sea salt and, unexpectedly, the rich aroma of caramelizing sugar. Alex burst through the front door, floating a few inches off the floor as she meticulously balanced a tiered carrier filled with what she proudly called "Sun-Blessed Soufflés."
"They didn't collapse!" Alex announced, her golden halo spinning like a celebratory disco ball. "Sienna says I have a 'divine touch' for pastry. Which is technically true, but still!"
She skidded toward the kitchen, her momentum halting abruptly in mid-air.
Chase was sitting at the breakfast bar, but he wasn't buried in spreadsheets or lore files. He was staring intensely at a matte-black tactical tablet pulsing with the crimson logo of the Aegis Group. Beside him stood a man who looked like he had been forged in a furnace of shadows and tempered steel.
Blood Eye didn't flinch as Alex entered. He merely shifted his mechanical eye—the crimson glow whirring softly as it scanned her divine signature, cataloging the light she emitted.
"Chase?" Alex asked, her excitement cooling into a wary curiosity. "Who is the scary man with the glowing eye? And why is there a bounty hunter contract on the counter? I saw the header. I can read 'Aegis' in three different languages, you know."
Chase looked up, his expression softening as he reached out to steady one of the wobbling soufflés. "Alex, this is an old friend. His name is Blood Eye. He's... an associate from my time in the Marches."
"He smells like old copper and cold wind," Alex noted, landing on her feet and squinting at the legendary assassin. "And you didn't answer the other part. Rixsa was mumbling something about 'fieldwork' and 'Void-steel' when I walked past the garage."
Rixsa stepped into the kitchen, already adjusting a new Aegis-issue comms earpiece. "Your big brother got a promotion, kiddo. He's a bounty hunter now. A 'Peacekeeper for the Elite,' or whatever Vora is calling it this week."
Alex's eyes went wide. In the games she played, bounty hunters were usually the cool anti-heroes or the ruthless villains who dragged people away in chains. "A bounty hunter? Like... you're going to hunt people? Chase, we talked about this! No more being the 'Alpha's Dog'!"
Chase stood up, walking over to her and placing a hand on her shoulder. "It's not like that, Alex. In this world, there are people who defected from our old home—people with power who think the laws of the Lattice don't apply to them. If they aren't contained, they'll break the peace we're trying to build here. I'm not a dog, and I'm not a hitman. I'm a Marshal. My job isn't to kill for the elite; it's to quickly capture and detain people who are planning something catastrophic. I'm hunting the ones who are too smart for their own good."
Alex looked at the tablet, then back at Chase. Her halo pulsed with a deep, contemplative gold. "Will you have to hurt them? The souls in this world... they're fragile, Chase. Even the ones from our home. If you break them, they don't just come back."
"The goal is containment, not execution," Blood Eye spoke for the first time, his voice a gravelly rasp. "The Surgeon knows where to cut so the patient lives. That's why I'm here. I'm the cage; he's the lock."
Alex walked up to Blood Eye, completely unafraid of the man who had once assassinated kings. She reached up and tapped his mechanical eye-patch. "It's a very sad light, Mr. Blood Eye. But I think I trust Chase." She turned back to her brother, her expression serious. "Just promise me one thing. If you find someone who is just scared instead of 'dangerous,' you bring them here instead of giving them to the Grave-Witch."
Chase felt a pang of guilt, but he nodded firmly. "That's a deal, Alex."
The tension broke when Vincent and Kaelen walked in, still smelling of the ocean and looking suspiciously well-rested from their picnic. Vincent stopped dead, his posture shifting instantly into a combat-ready stance as his eyes locked onto Blood Eye.
"You," Vincent growled, his hand instinctively moving to the small of his back where he usually kept a concealed blade.
"Commander," Blood Eye replied with a curt, respectful nod. "I see you've traded your plate armor for a trench coat. It suits retirement."
"And I see you're in that form again," Vincent said with a knowing, razor-edged smile. "Do you enjoy being a scary man so much?"
"It's not about being scary," Blood Eye countered calmly. "The other form is currently... occupied. I have to use this one. Besides, this is the face everyone recognizes."
"Is that so?" Vincent stepped closer, his eyes narrowed. "Or are you too scared to use the other? Because she has a mind of her own now and you can't control her? Judging by your look, I'd say you were killed and your soul was sent to this world. Is that a body the Witch made for you?"
Blood Eye's mechanical eye whirred. "Yes. It's a new body. Losing the old one was a devastating blow. But as you can see, the Corpse Stealer modified this new vessel so it was still fit for work and resembled my former self. Managing a single body now is... challenging. But it will do for the hunt."
"Finding her won't be so easy with those eyes of yours," Vincent remarked, hinting at a past Blood Eye clearly wasn't ready to discuss.
"Enough," Kaelen stepped between them, her eyes lingering on the glowing soufflés Alex had brought. "If we are to be a house of 'Bounty Hunters' and 'Marshals,' we shall at least be a well-fed one. Alex, show us what you and Sienna created."
As the group gathered around the table to eat the literal "light" of Alex's baking, the reality of their new life began to set in. They were no longer just refugees; they were becoming the hidden gears of the world's shadow government.