The hideout's alarms screamed to life without warning, a jagged shriek that tore through the stale air of Sector 23.
Kai jerked upright from the workbench, his Conduit slipping from his fingers.
That wasn't right—Lucent's return shouldn't have triggered the perimeter sensors.
Karen had just gotten his message. He was supposed to be—
A single set of boots crunched across the debris outside.
Too heavy to be Lucent's.
Too deliberate.
The steel door exploded inward before Kai could shout a warning.
A wall of flame roared through the entrance, searing the air with a heat that blistered paint and sent tools clattering from their racks.
Kai barely managed to throw himself backward, rolling across the floor as the fire licked at his heels.
The stench of burning insulation filled his nose, choking and thick.
Vey moved before the smoke even cleared.
The Talon demolition leader was a blur of scarred muscle and augments, his shotgun already unslung and barking three rapid shots into the haze beyond the doorway.
The muzzle flashes painted his ruined face in strobes of orange and shadow, the melted flesh along his jawline twisting into something monstrous with each recoil.
"NAIL! PEN! COVERING FIRE!" Vey's voice was a gravel-grind over the alarms. "Cale—with me. We push NOW."
The smoke writhed like a living thing, making it impossible to see more than silhouettes.
Something moved beyond the flames—tall, unhurried.
A shape that walked through fire like it was nothing more than morning mist.
Kai scrambled for his Conduit, his fingers fumbling the activation sequence.
His ears rang from the gunfire, his eyes stung from the smoke.
Somewhere in the chaos, he heard Karen dragging Tink and Jessa toward the back exit, the kids's coughing fading into the noise.
Vey didn't wait.
He charged forward, Cale at his flank, their boots kicking up embers as they breached the doorway.
The last thing Kai saw before the smoke swallowed them whole was the faintest glint of something metallic in the flames—
—a tattoo, maybe.
Or a brand.
Dancing.
Always dancing.
Vey burst into the street, his shotgun sweeping the carnage.
The air here was barely cooler, the pavement radiating heat like an open furnace.
Then he saw him.
Blaze.
The name lodged in Vey's throat like a bullet.
Impossible.
Nex had put a shotgun blast through the man's chest at point-blank range—Vey had seen the blood, the scorched hole in his ribs, the way he'd crumpled like a puppet with cut strings.
Yet here he stood, wreathed in fire, his coat flapping in the heatwaves like the wings of some hell-born bird.
Cale emerged beside him, pistol raised.
His pistol trembling slightly. "…Blaze?"
The pyro maniac's grin widened, embers dancing in his teeth. "If it isn't fucking Vey."
His voice crackled like burning timber, layered with the hiss of superheated air. "Heard your boss already ascended to the afterlife. I was quite disappointed, you know?"
A flick of his wrist sent flames licking up a nearby storefront, the glass exploding inward with a scream. "I owed him a slow death."
Vey's augments whirred as he tightened his grip on the shotgun.
The heat distortion made Blaze's outline waver—no visible wound, no scar where Nex's shot should've left a crater.
Just smooth, unmarked skin beneath the open collar of his coat.
"But anyway," Blaze tilted his head, the firelight catching the scars along his jaw, "what are you doing here? Thought the Talons only sent real fighters to play with me."
Behind them, the hideout's alarms still wailed.
Somewhere in the smoke, Kai coughed.
And Vey realized with dawning horror:
Blaze hadn't come for the hideout.
Had he come for revenge?
Vey's finger hovered over the shotgun's trigger, his augments humming with tension. "What about you?"
His voice was gravel ground between teeth. "I watched you die. Saw Boss put a round through your ribs that should've turned your spine to paste. So how the fuck are you still breathing?"
He adjusted his stance instinctively—close enough to ensure the spread would shred flesh, far enough to avoid the kiss of those flames.
Nail and Pen emerged from the smoke like wraiths, circling Blaze with predatory precision.
Nail's knuckle-dusters crackled with charge, while Pen's monofilament wire glinted between her fingers.
A classic Talon pincer maneuver—one they'd used to gut whole squads of Red Dogs.
Blaze didn't even turn to look at them.
His smile never wavered as the firelight danced across his sharp features. "The audience loses interest if the magician reveals his tricks too soon," he mused, spreading his arms as if addressing an invisible crowd.
His coat sleeves fell back, revealing the intricate flame tattoos that seemed to move in the flickering light. "But I'll give you a hint—"
A wet cough cut through the tension.
Kai staggered to his knees, his ears still ringing from the blast.
The world came back in fragments—the stench of burning plastic, the heat pressing against his skin like a living thing, and the figure at the center of it all.
Blaze's gaze snapped to him. "Ah. The Spire boy."
His voice dripped with mock delight. "Tell me, where's your scarred friend hiding?"
The question hung in the air like smoke.
Vey's grip tightened on his shotgun.
And Blaze laughed—a sound like kindling catching fire.
Vey's mind raced.
Why Lucent?
If Blaze had crawled back from the grave, then this wasn't just about revenge—it was about different business.
And if the Scorchers were involved, then Nex's death might not have been the end of their war.
Just a changing of the target.
Kai blinked up through the smoke, his ears still ringing.
"W-what?" He barely caught the tail end of Blaze's words, the world still muffled as if underwater.
Blaze's smirk twisted into something darker.
"Ugh. Deaf too?" He raised his hand, fingers curling as a fireball bloomed to life in his palm—not aimed at Kai, but at the ground beneath him.
Vey didn't hesitate.
His shotgun roared, the recoil vibrating through his augments.
Three armor-piercing rounds streaked toward Blaze's chest—
—and shattered mid-air, sparking against an invisible barrier like glass hitting a wall.
The ricochets whined off into the ruins.
Blaze didn't even flinch.
The fireball in his hand pulsed brighter, casting shadows across his face.
"Cute," he said, voice dripping with mock pity. "You really think bullets work on me now?"
Behind him, Nail and Pen froze—their weapons suddenly useless.
Kai scrambled backward, his palms scraping against broken concrete.
The heat from the gathering flames seared his lungs with every breath.
Vey's jaw tightened.
He'd seen Blaze take hits before, but never this.
Never untouchable.
The pyro's grin widened. "Tell me where this Lucent is," he said, almost conversational, "or I'll cook the boy medium-rare."
The fireball dripped embers onto the pavement, the asphalt bubbling where they landed.
Vey's mind raced.
If Blaze wanted Lucent, this wasn't just about the past.
This was about something different.
"Cale!" Vey barked. "Get Kai out of here!"
Cale lunged, grabbing Kai's collar.
Blaze's eyes narrowed. "You're making this difficult."
Nail and Pen struck then—their Conduits flaring as they unleashed a barrage of Rank 2—Kinetic Blast glyphs.
The air rippled with force, kicking up debris in a swirling storm.
Blaze moved.
Not to dodge.
To catch.
The fireball in his palm swallowed the kinetic energy whole, swelling until it lit the entire street in corpse-light.
Vey's augments shrieked in protest as he hauled Kai backward, the hydraulic pistons in his arms overheating from strain.
The boy's weight—all Spire-brat lankiness and panic—nearly tore his shoulder from its socket.
"RETREAT!"
The word wasn't a suggestion.
It was an order.
Vey's left hand moved on muscle memory alone, plucking the flash grenade from his belt and hurling it toward Blaze in the same motion.
The pyro didn't flinch—just watched the grenade arc toward him with amused disinterest, as if it were a child's toy.
Then the world split.
White light erupted in a silent supernova, bleaching the street into a negative of itself.
Even through clenched eyelids, the afterimage burned: Blaze's silhouette frozen mid-step, his coat flaring like a specter's wings.
The grenade's secondary effect kicked in half a heartbeat later—a subsonic pulse that made the asphalt ripple like water and sent trash cans skittering like startled animals.
"GO!" Vey roared, shoving Kai into Cale's waiting grip.
Pen and Nail were already moving—not in panic, but in practiced sync.
Pen's monofilament wire lashed out, slicing through a rusted fire escape ladder.
It crashed down in a screech of metal, blocking the alley behind them as she and Nail bolted west, toward Sector 18's maze of collapsed overpasses.
A feint.
A distraction.
Vey didn't look back to see if Blaze took the bait.
He seized Kai's wrist and yanked, dragging him east toward Sector 19's coolant tunnels.
Cale brought up the rear, his pistol snapping off suppression shots—not at Blaze, but at the neon signs overhead.
Glass rained down in shiny shards, creating a glittering kill zone for anyone foolish enough to follow.
Kai stumbled, his lungs searing from smoke and sprinting. "W-wait—Jessa and Tink—"
"Alive," Vey snarled. "They had a thirty-second head start. Now move."
The lie tasted like ash. He hadn't seen the kids since the initial blast.
A roar of flames erupted behind them, followed by a sound Vey hadn't heard in five years—Blaze laughing as he burned.
The flash grenade hadn't stunned him.
It had entertained him.
Cale's breath came in ragged bursts as they rounded a corner. "Sector 19's a warzone. Red Dogs patrol the—"
"I know." Vey kicked open a rusted service hatch, revealing a dripping stairwell that reeked of mildew and stale chemicals. "That's why we're going under them."
Kai balked at the darkness below. "You expect me to—"
Vey didn't argue.
He grabbed the kid by the collar and threw him down the stairs.
***
The explosion tore through the hideout's steel door like it was made of wet paper.
Karen moved before the shockwave even finished rolling through the room—her prosthetic hand locking around Jessa's wrist, her other arm hooking under Tink's armpits as she hauled them both backward.
The kids' feet barely touched the ground as she yanked them toward the back exit, their wide eyes reflecting the fireball blooming behind them.
"Move. Now."
Her voice wasn't a shout.
It was a blade—cold, sharp, leaving no room for hesitation.
Jessa reacted first, twisting in Karen's grip to shove Tink ahead of her.
The boy stumbled, his bandages snagging on a jagged pipe, but Karen didn't slow.
She ripped him free, the fabric tearing with a sound like a gunshot.
Behind them, the hideout groaned as the flames chewed through its bones, the air thickening with the stench of melting insulation and scorched metal.
Tink coughed, his face smeared with soot and panic. "K-Kai—"
"Vey's got him." Karen kicked open the back exit, revealing the maze of Sector 23's service alleys.
The lie came easily.
She hadn't seen Vey since the blast, but the kids didn't need to know that. "Stay close. Step where I step."
Whoever had just blown the door off its hinges wasn't a Red Dog—those cowards preferred bullets and numbers.
She'd seen that brand of madness before.
But that man was dead. Nex had made sure of it.
Jessa's fingers dug into Karen's forearm, her other hand clutching the knife she'd stolen from Kai's workbench. "Who the hell was that?"
"Doesn't matter." Karen racked the slide on her pistol. "Keep moving."
The screams of panicked civilians folded into the thunderclap of another explosion—this one deeper, wetter, like the city itself had ruptured a vein.
Karen didn't look back.
Tink clung to her back, his bandaged arms locked around her neck in a chokehold grip.
The kid was lighter than he should've been—all bones and frayed nerves—but his weight still dragged at her augments with every stride.
Behind them, Jessa's footsteps were a metronome of controlled terror, her knife clutched white-knuckled in one hand, the other yanking at Karen's sleeve whenever the girl risked falling behind.
Jessa kept pace at her flank, knife drawn, her breaths coming in sharp bursts. "Which way?!"
Karen's plan had been simple: To meet at the arterial road.
But plans in the Junkyard were just pretty lies you told yourself before the bullets flew.
They rounded a corner—
—and the sky moved.
A shadow detached from the rooftops, too fluid for human momentum, too precise for a drone.
It landed in a crouch before them, boots striking pavement without sound.
"Friends of Lucent, I presume?"
The woman uncoiled slowly, her dark skin gleaming under the sector's sickly neon.
Ember's orange tattoos slithered up her arms like living coals, pulsing in time with her breath.
Karen's prosthetic hand twitched toward her sidearm before her brain caught up—Scorcher insignia.
Tink whimpered against Karen's spine. Jessa's knife rose on instinct, the blade trembling.
Ember's smile was all teeth. "Saw you slip out the back. Smart."
Her gaze flicked to the smoke pluming behind them. "Shame about the hideout. Blaze does love his…dramatics."
Karen exhaled through her nose.
The kids didn't need to know who they were dealing with.
"Move." Single syllable.
No room for debate.
Ember didn't flinch. "He just wants to talk to Lucent."
A lie so obvious it was almost insulting. "We can make the exchange…civil."
Jessa's knife didn't waver. "Fuck you."
The Scorcher's tattoos flared brighter—
—and Karen fired.
Not at Ember.
At the corroded gas line running along the alley wall.
The explosion kicked them backward, the heat searing Karen's eyebrows off as she twisted to shield Tink.
Ember vanished in the fireball, but Karen wasn't stupid enough to think it would hold her.
"Run. Now." She hauled Tink to Jessa, shoving her toward the highway's skeletal overpass. "Don't stop. Don't look back."
Behind them, the flames curled unnaturally, forming a tunnel through the inferno.
Ember stepped through unharmed, her tattoos now incandescent.
"Wrong choice," she called after them, voice sing-song over the roar of the blaze.
Karen didn't waste breath replying.
She counted paces instead—three blocks to the highway, two if they cut through the smelter yard—and prayed Lucent's car was faster than whatever hell the Scorchers rode in on.