The tunnel exploded into motion.
The Gloom-Ticks surged forward like a tidal wave of fangs and oil. They were the size of cats but moved like spiders, scampering wetly across the floors, walls, and ceiling in a chittering mass.
"Jude! High guard!" Greta barked.
She didn't let go of Fernando. Instead, she pivoted, using her momentum to swing the screaming boy off the ground.
"Think fast!"
"Wait, what are you—AAAAHH!"
She hurled Fernando directly into the center of the oncoming swarm.
"Greta!" Jude screamed.
It worked, though. Fernando hit the mass of monsters like a bowling ball, knocking a dozen aside and disrupting their charge. The swarm faltered for a split second, confused by the sudden offering of a screaming nerd in a cable-knit sweater.
"Don't look at him, look at them!" Greta roared.
She leaped over Jude, the Wyrmmaker igniting with a violent neon-green crackle. She slammed the axe head into the concrete, sending a shockwave of chaotic energy that fried the first row of ticks instantly.
Jude snapped out of it. He drew his bow, three arrows of blue light materializing between his fingers.
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.
He fired with machine-gun speed. The arrows detonated on impact, turning shadows into puffs of holy dust.
"Left flank!" Jude called out, spotting a cluster of ticks scurrying along the wall toward Greta's blind spot.
Greta didn't even look. She trusted the call. She swung the handle of her axe backward without turning, crushing three ticks against the brickwork with a sickening crunch.
"DIE!" she shouted, spinning to decapitate another.
They were moving in sync for the first time. No stumbling over each other, no getting in each other's way. Jude was the eyes and the range; Greta was the wall and the hammer. It was violent, messy, and working.
But there were too many.
The swarm began to coalesce. Smaller ticks climbed over each other, merging into a writhing, towering mound of legs and mandibles; a singular massive entity blocking the tunnel like a nightmare made of nightmares.
It screeched, a sound that vibrated in Jude's teeth. It reared back, ready to crush them both.
"It's too big!" Jude yelled, nocking his last arrow. "I can't get a clean shot at the core!"
"I can't get close enough without getting eaten!" Greta growled, backing up.
The massive tick-monster lunged.
And then the tunnel turned white.
BWOOM.
A torrent of roaring orange flame erupted from the floor where Fernando had been thrown.
It wasn't a flicker. It was a blast furnace. The fire spiraled outward in a controlled explosion of heat that slammed into the tick-monster with the force of a freight truck.
SCREEEE!
The monster shrieked as fire engulfed it, boiling its body and stunning it mid-lunge. The heat was intense enough to dry the damp tunnel instantly and singe Jude's eyebrows from twenty feet away.
Fernando stood in the center of the flames.
He wasn't screaming anymore. He stood with his legs braced, hands thrust forward, glasses reflecting the inferno. For a moment, he didn't look like a nervous nerd who rambled about the Dewey Decimal System. He looked dangerous.
"Now, Jude!" Fernando yelled, his voice cracking but loud. "Hit the core!"
Jude didn't hesitate.
He drew the string back until it hummed, pouring every ounce of focus into the arrow. The blue light intensified until it was blinding.
"Goodbye," Jude whispered.
THWANG.
The arrow flew through the parting flames, straight into the gaping maw of the stunned monster.
A moment of silence.
Then the monster exploded from the inside out. A burst of blue light shattered the darkness, vaporizing the Gloom-Ticks into harmless gray ash that rained down like snow.
Silence returned to the tunnel.
Jude lowered his bow, panting. The adrenaline was fading, replaced by shock.
He looked at the pile of ash. Then at Fernando.
The fire around Fernando's hands died down, flickering out like a spent match. He stood there with his chest heaving, sweater scorched, pushing his glasses back up his nose with trembling fingers.
"Oh my," Fernando breathed, staring at his hands. "That was… quite loud."
CLICK.
The neon-pink blade of the Wyrmmaker came to rest directly under Fernando's chin.
Greta stepped out of the smoke. She wasn't smiling. She looked more terrifying than the monster they'd just killed.
"Give me one reason," Greta whispered, her voice shaking with rage. "One good reason why I shouldn't take your head off right now."
Fernando gulped, raising his hands slowly. "I… I helped?"
"You played us." Greta pressed the blade closer. "You stalked Jude. You lied to him. You know who we are. And now you've got powers too?"
She stepped forward, forcing Fernando back against the sooty wall.
"Who do you work for, Fire-Boy? P.I.T.? The cops? Talk fast, or I swear to god I'll finish what the ticks started."
Jude stepped up beside her. He didn't raise his bow, but he didn't stop her either. He just stared at Fernando, the betrayal stinging worse than the smoke in his lungs.
"You said you hated heroes," Jude said quietly. "You said they were bullies. What is this, Fernando? What are you?"
Fernando looked between the glowing axe and Jude's cold stare. The fight drained out of him, and he slumped against the wall.
"I don't work for P.I.T.," Fernando whispered, closing his eyes. "I work for the Vypers."
"The Vypers?" Greta's eyebrows shot up. "You work for those bandana-wearing fuckheads in Kensington?"
"We are a community defense initiative!" Fernando squeaked, flinching when the axe hummed closer. "But… yes. Technically."
He swallowed hard, looking at Jude with wide, pleading eyes.
"My boss sent me to find you. He saw footage of you two fighting in North Philly and thought you were P.I.T. agents trying to muscle in on our territory. That's why I was following you, Jude. I had to confirm who you were."
Jude stared at him. The betrayal still sat heavy in his chest, but confusion was mixing in. "So you were just… scouting us?"
"Yes! And I told him!" Fernando insisted, hands trembling. "I told him you weren't P.I.T.! I told him you were nice. You helped me up when I fell. You listened to my economics rant. P.I.T. agents don't do that. They don't have souls."
He took a shaky breath, looking between them.
"He just wants to talk, I promise. He thinks you're enemies. If you come with me—if you just explain that you're independent—he'll call off the hunt. He'll leave you alone. We'll never bother you again."
Greta scoffed, a harsh barking sound. "Yeah, right. We walk into a gang hideout and just 'talk it out'? You think we're fucking stupid?"
"It's the only way!" Fernando pleaded. "If you don't clear your names, the Vypers will keep coming. And they won't send me next time. They'll send the heavy hitters. They'll send Brick. They'll send Spikes."
He looked at Jude again, expression desperate.
"Please. I know I lied. I know I used you. And I am so, so sorry. But Kraz respects strength. If you show him you aren't enemies, he will respect that. Just one meeting. Then it's over."
Silence fell over the tunnel. The only sounds were the sizzle of demon ash and Fernando's ragged breathing.
Greta didn't move. She kept the axe pressed to his throat, but her eyes flicked sideways.
She was waiting for the call.
Jude looked at Fernando. He saw the fear. The desperate hope. And the trap.
Walking into the Vyper base was insane. It was suicide.
But if they didn't go, they'd be looking over their shoulders forever. And Jude was tired of running from things.
Another cage, the voice whispered. Another choice that isn't really a choice.
He took a deep breath. He nodded once.
Greta didn't argue. Didn't hesitate.
She reached out with her free hand and grabbed Fernando by the back of his scorched neck, hauling him away from the wall.
"Alright, Poindexter." She shoved him toward the dark exit. "Lead the way."
She deactivated the energy blade, letting the axe return to its dormant heavy-metal state, but kept her grip on Fernando tight enough to bruise.
"But if this is an ambush," she whispered into his ear, "I'm not killing them first. I'm killing you."
Fernando nodded frantically, glasses slipping down his nose. "Understood! Perfectly understood! No ambush! Just conversation!"
"Move," Jude said, stepping up behind them.
Fernando scrambled forward into the dark, with Greta and Jude following close behind, marching straight toward the heart of Kensington.
They emerged from the subway maintenance hatch into the open air.
If Center City was the shiny, polished veneer of Philadelphia, Kensington was the rotting wood beneath it. The streetlights flickered like they were dying. The sidewalks were a graveyard of empty wrappers, used needles, and people who'd been forgotten by everyone with the power to help.
Jude kept his head on a swivel, hand hovering near his hip.
He saw a man slumped over a fire hydrant, defying gravity in a drug-induced stance. A woman pushing a shopping cart full of copper wire, her feet wrapped in plastic bags. A group of teenagers on a corner, not playing games but watching the street with eyes too old for their faces.
No P.I.T. patrols here. No Ironclad billboards. No shiny Titan merchandise.
"You see?" Fernando whispered. Greta's hand was still clamped on the back of his neck, forcing him to walk hunched over. "This is why the Vypers exist. The heroes don't come here. They don't look at this. We're the only ones who clean up the mess."
Jude looked at a boarded-up row home with WE ARE HUMAN spray-painted on the plywood.
Something twisted in his gut. In the library, Fernando's anti-hero rant had sounded like edgy teenager talk. Out here, surrounded by everything the billboards pretended didn't exist, it looked like the truth.
P.I.T. saved the banks. They let the neighborhoods rot.
And Heaven? Jude thought. Where's Heaven in all this? Seraphile didn't send you here. She sent you to kill demons. The people suffering right in front of you aren't on the quota sheet.
"We're on the same side," Fernando wheezed, stumbling as Greta shoved him forward. "We want to fix—"
THWACK.
Greta swept her leg out without breaking stride, kicking Fernando hard in the shin.
"Ow!" He yelped, hopping on one foot.
"Shut up." Her voice was flat. "You don't get to preach. You stalked us. You followed us into a demon nest. You lose speaking privileges until we see the boss."
"Understood," Fernando whimpered, limping forward. "Message received."
They reached the end of the block. The massive factory loomed against the night sky, a fortress of old brick and rusted steel. The windows were shattered, jagged teeth against the dark.
They stopped at the heavy chain-link gate.
"Do it," Greta commanded, shoving Fernando toward the intercom.
Fernando straightened his glasses and pressed the buzzer.
BZZZZT.
The sound echoed through the empty street.
They waited.
Nothing. No crackle of static. No gravelly voice asking for a password. Just wind whistling through the razor wire.
"Weird," Fernando muttered. He looked nervous. "Rico's usually on the door. Rico never sleeps. He drinks four ValorColas a night."
He pressed the buzzer again.
BZZZZT.
Silence.
Greta shifted her grip on the axe. The heavy metal head rested on the ground, but her knuckles were white. "If you're stalling for backup, nerd…"
"I'm not!" Fernando insisted, panic rising. "This is irregular! Maybe the intercom is broken?"
He reached out to knock on the steel frame.
CREEEEAAAAK.
Before his fist made contact, the heavy gate began to move.
It wasn't an electric slide. It drifted open slowly, swinging inward on rusted hinges, as if it had been unlatched the entire time.
The gap widened, revealing the factory courtyard.
Pitch black inside. The barrel fires that usually lit the compound were out. No punk-rock militia members sharpening machetes. No music. No movement.
Just a gaping dark maw where a building used to be.
"That…" Fernando swallowed, taking a step back. "That's never open. Never."
Jude felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The demon-sense wasn't tingling, but every survival instinct he had was screaming.
"It's a trap," Jude whispered.
He didn't wait. He snapped his wrist, and the Celestial Bow materialized in his grip, glowing with sharp golden light that cut through the gloom. He drew the string back, a blue arrow forming instantly, aimed into the darkness.
"Get behind me," Jude told Greta.
"Fuck that," Greta hissed, hoisting her axe. "If they jump us, I'm killing all of them."
She grabbed Fernando by the collar again, using him as a human shield.
"Hello?" Fernando called out, voice trembling. "Mr. Kraz? Brick? Spikes? It's me! Fernando! I brought guests!"
His voice echoed off the factory walls.
Nobody answered.