The "Deep Gut" of Sector 9 was where the city's light went to die. Here, the R-nex skyscrapers were just distant, glowing needles, and the ground was a graveyard of rusted machinery and bio-waste.
"She's in the 'Foundry,'" Silver-Tongue had warned. "But don't expect a conversation. She doesn't talk. She just feeds."
Kai, Mina, and Silver-Tongue moved through a massive, hollowed-out cooling tower. The air was thick with the smell of copper and rot. Suddenly, the temperature plunged. The faint neon from their gadgets didn't just dim—it was sucked away, pulled toward the center of the room.
"Something's wrong," Mina whispered, her hand sparking as she tried to conjure a light-bow. The light flickered and died instantly, as if the very air was hungry.
From the rafters above, a body hit the floor with a wet thud.
It was an R-nex "Collector"—an elite bounty hunter. His high-tech carbon-fiber armor was peeled open like a tin can. His chest was a hollow cavity, his ribs snapped outward. There was no blood on the floor; it was as if the liquid had been erased before it could even spill.
"Who's there?" Kai shouted, his hand erupting in a violent, unstable Null-Void aura.
"You bring the light of the Academy here," a voice hissed. It didn't come from one direction; it vibrated out of the shadows themselves. "You bring the smell of the Sun-Man. It makes me... ravenous."
A girl stepped out of the darkness. She was wrapped in bandages that seemed to be made of living smoke. Her skin was a translucent, deathly pale, and where her eyes should have been, there were only two pits of absolute, light-consuming black. This was Vantablack.
But she wasn't alone. Six more R-nex Collectors dropped from the shadows, their gravity-rifles aimed at her.
"Target sighted!" the lead hunter roared. "Deploy the Solar-Grenades! Burn the shadow out!"
"NO!" Mina cried, finally forcing a shard of light to manifest.
The hunters ignored her. They tossed three spheres that ignited with the intensity of a miniature star. For a second, the room was blinded. The "Gore" followed immediately.
Vantablack didn't scream; she expanded.
The shadows beneath the hunters turned into jagged, obsidian spikes. One hunter was impaled through the jaw, the spike erupting from the top of his helmet in a spray of grey matter and shattered glass. Another was grabbed by a shadow-hand that didn't just crush his arm—it folded the space around it, snapping bone into a dozen jagged angles with a sound like dry wood breaking.
"She's losing control!" Silver-Tongue yelled, diving behind a rusted turbine. "The solar light is driving her Graft into a frenzy!"
Kai saw a hunter aiming a high-frequency blade at Vantablack's throat. He didn't think. He lunged.
Kai grabbed the hunter's arm, his Null-Void instantly draining the man's kinetic enhancement Graft. As the hunter went limp, Kai didn't stop. He felt the raw, agonizing heat of the Solar-Grenades. He reached out and swallowed the miniature suns.
The power was too much. Kai's skin began to crack, white light leaking through his pores. He felt like his blood was boiling.
"Mina! Shield her!" Kai roared, his voice distorted by the energy.
Mina stepped forward. For the first time, she didn't use her light for a weapon. She projected a shimmering, translucent barrier—not to fight, but to protect the girl in the bandages.
"We aren't them!" Mina screamed at Vantablack, her face streaked with tears and soot. "We saw the truth! We saw the North Sector! We're the mistakes, just like you!"
Vantablack paused. The shadow-tendrils that were busy disemboweling the last hunter slowed. She looked at Mina, then at Kai, who was vibrating with the stolen light of the grenades.
Kai took the solar energy he was holding—the very thing that defined the "Heroes"—and he did the unthinkable. He didn't blast the hunters. He turned his hands toward the ground and vented the energy into the shadows.
"Eat it!" Kai choked out. "Take it all!"
Vantablack lunged at him. She didn't bite; she touched his chest. The absolute blackness of her Graft collided with the stolen sun in Kai's veins.
The explosion was silent. A shockwave of "nothingness" rippled through the foundry. The remaining hunters weren't killed—they were erased. Their armor, their weapons, and their bodies simply ceased to exist, leaving nothing but the smell of ozone.
When the dust settled, Kai was on his knees, coughing up dark, metallic fluid. Vantablack stood over him, her bandages tattered. For the first time, the pits of her eyes showed a flicker of human violet.
"You gave me the sun," she whispered, her voice like grinding stones. "Why?"
"Because a real hero..." Kai gasped, looking up at her with a bloody, defiant grin, "...doesn't decide who is 'marketable' enough to save. A hero saves the ones the world wants to forget."
Mina knelt beside them, her hands glowing with a soft, healing warmth. She looked at the carnage—the broken bodies of the hunters and the raw power of the two "monsters" beside her.
"The truth is coming out," Mina said, her voice finally losing its fear and replacing it with a cold, sharp passion. "Even if we have to burn every R-nex building to the ground to light the way."
Vantablack looked at the flash drive in Kai's hand. She reached out a shadowy hand and touched it.
"The Sun-Man... Malice... I want his heart," she hissed. "I want to see what color it turns when the light goes out."