October 15, 2058 –
Prime Guardians Compound Rooftop, Downtown Chicago
Rain lashes the rooftop access door. Wind howls through the city canyons below, drowning the distant L rumble.
Elijah kicks the lock. Shadows pour into the stairwell, muffling alarms before they scream.
They move fast: six adults, forty kids waiting in the sewer below.
Maya's light guides them down—dim golden orbs floating like fireflies. Jonah loops the cams from his wrist rig. Aisha scouts ahead, a blur of purple.
Kenji and Kayden bring up the rear, earth rumbling faintly under their feet, illusions cloaking the group in blind spots.
Malik Washington's cell is Level 3, isolation wing.
They find it: glass walls, collar humming around the boy's neck. Fifteen, Black, gravity powers flickering weak against the Purity serum. He sits on the bunk, eyes hollow, staring at nothing.
Elijah signals. Shadows shatter the glass—silent, surgical.
Aisha snips the collar. Sparks fly. Malik slumps forward.
"Easy," Maya whispers, her warmth seeping into him, flushing the serum haze.
Malik blinks. "You... real?"
Jonah hacks the med panel. "Serum's half-life is six hours. He'll fly soon."
Kenji presses a hand to the floor. Concrete softens, forming a ramp down the shaft.
They're halfway when Kayden freezes.
"Illusion's cracking," he mutters. "They see us."
Red lights pulse. Doors slam. Boots thunder.
Iron Patriot crashes through the ceiling—alloy fist punching concrete like paper.
"End of the line, Pulse Baby."
Elijah's shadows lash out. Patriot absorbs them, kinetic backlash exploding outward. Shrapnel rakes Kenji's arm—skin tears open, muscle glistening red, blood sheeting down to the floor.
Kenji grunts, earth surging to block the next punch. Bone cracks audibly in his forearm.
Maya flares bright, hope-fire searing Patriot's cape to ash. He roars, backhand sending her into the wall—ribs snapping with wet pops, blood flecking her lips.
Aisha blurs, tackling him. Alloy fist catches her mid-stride—prosthetic leg buckles, carbon fiber splintering, exposing mangled stump beneath, blood pulsing from torn flesh.
Jonah screams in their minds—telepathic overload, Patriot's trauma flooding back: war dead, medals stained, VA letters unread.
Elijah drags Malik toward the shaft. Shadows coil around his team's wounds, staunching blood, but the gore sticks—Kenji's arm flayed to bone, Maya coughing crimson, Aisha's leg a ruin of meat and metal.
Kayden stands frozen, illusion shattered.
Patriot advances, grinning through bloodied teeth. "Sign the NDA, kid. Or watch your family bleed out."
Malik's gravity surges—raw, serum-fading. Patriot lifts off the floor, armor creaking, joints popping under invisible weight.
Elijah pulls his team into the shadows.
They drop into the sewer—six bleeding, one boy free.
Patriot crashes through the ceiling above, too late.
In the dark tunnels below, Malik floats the wounded: Kenji's arm wrapped in rags, Maya's ribs bound tight, Aisha's leg stanched with shadows.
Elijah kneels in ankle-deep filth, hands slick with their blood.
"We got him out."
Maya coughs, gold flickering weak. "At what cost?"
Kayden stares at his hands, illusions gone.
Fault lines run deeper than shadows.