————————
Clara's feet hurt from walking, but she kept going, sandwiched between Boris and Maria as they hurried toward the Furnace Core elevator. Around them, the Underworld moved like a river of exhausted bodies—mothers clutching children, elderly men leaning on makeshift canes, miners with bloodied hands still wrapped in torn cloth. The crowd pressed forward in near-silence, broken only by whispered prayers and the occasional sob.
Overhead, Dan Heng's azure dragon roared, its massive form coiling through the cavern as it smashed aside another chunk of falling ceiling. Debris clattered against the stone, sending dust cascading down. Clara flinched, squeezing her eyes shut.
A tremor rolled through the ground.
Maria's grip on Clara's left hand tightened until it hurt. Boris grabbed her right shoulder, pulling her close as the floor bucked beneath them. Screams erupted around them. Someone's lantern shattered, spilling oil across the path.
Clara yanked the broken watch from her pocket, clutching it against her chest with both hands. The cold metal bit into her palms. Her lips moved, forming words meant for someone who couldn't hear them.
Please be safe. Please win. Please protect us!
She thought of his smile when he'd given it to her, how he'd promised to come back no matter what.
The tremor intensified.
Then—warmth.
It bloomed in her chest like a flame catching tinder, spreading outward through her limbs. The scent of lime cut through the dust and blood and fear, sharp and clean and alive. Clara's eyes snapped open.
Golden embers rose from the ground.
Not falling—rising. Hundreds of them, thousands, drifting upward like fireflies drunk on summer air. They spiraled around the refugees, around the broken buildings, around Dan Heng's dragon, painting the darkness in shades of amber and gold. The warmth intensified, driving back the bitter cold that had seeped into Clara's bones.
Around her, people stopped walking. Stopped crying. They stared, faces upturned, as the embers danced higher, brighter, defiant against the crushing dark above them.
Maria's hand loosened on hers. Boris exhaled, long and shaky.
Clara pressed the watch tighter against her heart and smiled, tears streaming down her cheeks.
He was still fighting.
————————
March blinked.
The void dissolved. She knelt on frozen ground at Everwinter Hill, hands pressed against the ice dome she'd built over Xander's body. Except the dome was gone, melted to mist.
Rising from the earth came embers—not falling like ash, but ascending like prayers given form. Thousands spiraled upward through the bitter air, gold and amber and warm as summer skin. The temperature shifted. The freeze that had clawed at her lungs eased. Wind gentled to a whisper.
Light broke across the horizon.
The sun pierced through storm clouds for the first time in what felt like years, spilling across the frozen tundra in rivers of orange and rose. The Ice Age landscape transformed—jagged formations caught fire at their peaks, shadows stretched long and soft, the whole killing field painted in shades of dusk and hope.
She heard footsteps behind her before she could see him.
A hand covered hers from behind, warm and solid and real. An arm then circled her shoulders, pulling her back against a bare chest that radiated heat like banked coals. The scent of lime wrapped around them both.
Her mouth trembled. A knot formed in her throat, swelling until she couldn't breathe.
She felt a kiss press against the top of her head, gentle as snowfall.
The tears came in a rush.
"I thought you were dead," she choked out. "Gone."
"How could I ever leave you alone, March? My heart would break."
His voice carried the rasp of someone who'd walked through fire and learned its language. She twisted in his arms to look up.
No burns marked his skin. The Heavenly Flare's devastation had been swept away as if it never existed. His chest bore new scars—thin silver lines that caught the golden light—and one prominent mark sat just right of his heart, a starburst of tissue raised and pale.
His eyes blazed like molten gold behind glass, alive with something beyond human certainty. His hair had turned white as fresh snow, pure and unmarred, falling across his brow in soft waves that caught amber in the sunset. It transformed him—made him look gallant, like some ancient champion from the folk songs the Underworlders sang.
He smiled down at her. Tired. Grateful. Unbroken.
"Will you help me?" he asked.
March nodded, unable to speak past the knot, her hands coming up to grip his arm as if anchoring him to the world.
————————
Alexander rose to his feet. March's hands slipped from his arm as he stepped forward, and the Lance of Preservation materialized in his remaining hand—no longer corrupted ice but pure geomarrow, cooled to deep crimson and burning with amber light at its core. The weapon thrummed with ancient power, restored to the glory it held when Alisa Rand first wielded it against the Legion.
He lifted the Lance skyward.
Golden barriers erupted from the frozen ground, hexagonal shields that interlocked and expanded outward in concentric rings. Warmth flooded through them—not the oppressive heat of fire but the gentle certainty of hearth-light, of hands cupped around dying embers to coax them back to life. The shields found Natasha first, then Gepard, Serval's broken body, Bronya bleeding on the ice, Seele with her severed leg. March. Each person touched by that warmth exhaled clouds of frost as the freeze released its grip on their lungs.
Only Cocolia remained outside the protection.
She convulsed on the ground twenty meters away, golden blood pouring from her mouth as the Stellaron inside her thrashed and screamed. The crystalline corruption spread across her skin like cracks in breaking glass.
"Natasha." His voice carried despite the wind. "Maintain your healing on Serval, Bronya, and Seele. Don't stop."
The doctor's hands were already glowing with soft green light. She nodded without looking up from Bronya's stomach wound.
Alexander turned toward March and Gepard. "Walk with me."
March scrambled upright, frost crunching beneath her boots. Gepard stirred from where he knelt beside his sister, face haggard and streaked with ash. Both fell into step behind Alexander as he crossed the ice toward Cocolia's writhing form.
Each footfall echoed in the sudden quiet.
The Lance burned in his grip. Not hot enough to scar his palm, but present—a weight that pulled at his shoulder, grounded him to the earth. His bare feet left no prints in the snow. The sunset painted long shadows ahead of them, three figures moving through gold and amber toward the darkness that contracted and expanded with each of Cocolia's ragged gasps.
Ten meters.
Alexander stopped.
"It's over," he said.
His tone held no triumph. No rage. Just the flat certainty of a diagnosis delivered by someone who'd spent too long studying the patient's chart.
Cocolia's head snapped up. The Stellaron glared at him through eyes that had turned entirely gold, rimmed with burning red. Her mouth opened, but the voice that emerged belonged to something older and crueler than the woman who'd ruled Belobog.
"Over? You presume much, abomination."
"Cocolia's body can't withstand much longer." Alexander planted the Lance's base in the frozen ground. "The constant use of Chronosurge damaged her beyond repair. Tissue breakdown. Cellular degradation. Her heart's rhythm is irregular—maybe thirty more minutes before critical failure."
He met the Stellaron's burning gaze without flinching.
"You failed. We won."
The thing wearing Cocolia's face screamed.
Ice erupted from the earth—spears and lances and jagged formations that bristled outward like the quills of some enormous beast. Projectiles formed in the air above her, hundreds of them, each one honed to a killing edge. Frost spread in waves, turning the ground to glass beneath their feet.
Alexander blinked.
Slowly, almost lazily, he shifted the Lance into a reverse cross-guard position—blade pointed down, haft raised high. His expression never changed.
The first wave of ice struck.
Hexagonal walls materialized between them and the barrage, shimmering barriers of orange light threaded through with dancing flames. The projectiles shattered on impact, exploding into harmless powder that drifted away on the wind. Another volley followed. Then another. The Stellaron screamed and hurled everything it had—massive spears the size of tree trunks, razor-thin needles, blocks of compressed ice that could crush stone.
Nothing penetrated.
Not a scratch marred the barriers. Not a single dent appeared in their perfect geometric surfaces. Alexander stood motionless behind them, his white hair lifting gently in the breeze, his expression serene as morning light.
The Stellaron shrieked in wordless fury.
Cocolia's body levitated from the ground, rising higher with each passing second. Her arms spread wide. Darkness gathered in her palms—not the absence of light but something deeper, a void that swallowed color and warmth and hope. Gold energy crackled around the edges of that emptiness, violent and unstable.
The air pressure dropped.
March grabbed Alexander's shoulder. "What is that?"
He glanced up. His throat tightened.
From the earth itself came a grinding roar. The ground split open kilometers away, and something rose—massive beyond comprehension, a jagged formation of rock and frozen earth torn wholesale from Jarilo-VI's crust. It climbed into the sky like a second mountain, blotting out the sunset, its shadow swallowing Everwinter Hill and the plains beyond. Boulders the size of buildings tumbled from its surface. Ice formations jutted from its peaks like fangs.
The Last Choir of Genesis.
An asteroid's worth of mass, suspended above their heads by nothing but the Stellaron's will and Cocolia's disintegrating body.
"If that hits," Gepard breathed, "Belobog won't survive."
Alexander's jaw worked. His grip shifted on the Lance.
"March. Gepard." He spoke without looking at them. "Join me. Raise your shields."
Both hesitated.
"I'll boost your power." He glanced back, and his eyes were molten gold behind glass. "The Preservation is on our side."
March summoned her bow. The familiar weight settled in her hands as pink light gathered around her fingers, crystallizing into barriers that shimmered like stained glass. Gepard stepped forward, shield materializing on his arm—smaller than Earthwork had been, conjured from pure will and the memory of protection.
"I don't know if I can—" March started.
"Close your eyes," Alexander said.
She blinked at him.
"Both of you. Close your eyes and concentrate with all your might on a single, very happy memory."
Gepard frowned. "What does that—"
"Think of it clearly. Hold it in your mind." Alexander's voice gentled, took on the cadence of instruction. "Focus on using that memory to strengthen your shields. You're not just protecting yourselves or each other. You're protecting what that memory represents."
He turned to face the rising asteroid, the Lance held loosely at his side.
"Hope," he said. "Happiness. The desire to survive and see another sunrise. Every child's laughter. Every meal shared with friends. Every moment of beauty you've witnessed in this frozen world—the way ice catches light, the songs sung around failing hearths, the stubborn resilience of flowers pushing through permafrost."
His voice carried across the frozen field.
"The Preservation isn't just walls to hide behind. It's the choosing of what matters enough to defend. It's the cook who rises before dawn to knead bread. The mother who shields her child with her body. The soldier who holds the line knowing reinforcements won't come. It's every small act of defiance against the void that would swallow everything we love."
Above them, the Last Choir of Genesis continued its terrible ascent.
"You're not defending stone or metal or territory." Alexander's breath misted in the cold. "You're defending the possibility that tomorrow might be different. That suffering isn't forever. That even in the longest winter, spring waits beneath the frozen ground."
March's eyes glistened.
"So hold that memory," Alexander finished. "Hold it like you'd hold someone you love. And don't let go."
He closed his own eyes.
The transformation began at his core—a pulse of heat that spread outward through muscle and bone. His skin darkened first, taking on the deep bronze of forged metal heated to near-melting. The scars across his chest began to glow, molten gold seeping up through the silver tissue until they blazed like veins of magma through cooling rock. His hair brightened from white to platinum, threaded through with strands of pure light. His eyes, when they opened, had become twin furnaces.
Dark formations emerged from his skin—not armor exactly, but dense accretions of mineral and alloy that grew from his shoulders, his ribs, the backs of his hands. They looked like volcanic glass, obsidian threaded through with amber inclusions that pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. The Lance in his grip burned brighter, its glow reflecting off the formations until he seemed to be carved from living fire.
He raised his remaining arm.
Power flooded through the connection—not his own, but something older, drawn from depths he couldn't name. It poured into March first, and she gasped as her shield expanded, pink crystalline structures multiplying and interlocking until a wall rose before her, twenty meters high and blazing with inner light. Gepard's barrier erupted next, golden and solid, reinforced by every oath he'd ever sworn and every person he'd ever protected.
The three stood in a line.
Behind them, Belobog's silhouette became visible through the barriers—the damaged towers, the broken walls, the thousands of lives sheltering in darkness beneath the earth. A city holding its breath.
Cocolia screamed.
Her voice had become inhuman, layered with harmonics that didn't belong in human throats. She hurled the Last Choir of Genesis downward with all the force of a falling star.
The asteroid slammed into their combined shields.
The sound obliterated thought. It was every mountain collapsing at once, every glacier calving into the sea, every explosion that had ever torn the sky. The dark formations across Alexander's body flared brilliant orange as they absorbed the kinetic force, channeled it, redistributed it through pathways that shouldn't exist in human anatomy.
March screamed beside him—not in pain but in effort, her entire body shaking as she poured everything into maintaining the barrier. Gepard's face twisted in concentration, sweat freezing on his brow even as flames licked across his shield's surface.
The asteroid pressed down.
Cracks appeared in the rock. The shields beneath it didn't buckle.
Alexander breathed through clenched teeth and pushed harder.
The barriers expanded.
Not outward, but upward—growing taller, wider, until their geometric patterns stretched across the sky like cathedral windows. The outline of Belobog became visible through the translucent surfaces, the city's profile rendered in gold and amber and rose. Every tower. Every dwelling. Every life worth protecting.
The asteroid groaned.
Fissures spread across its surface, branching like lightning through stone. Chunks broke away, pulverized to dust before they could fall. The whole impossible mass began to crumble, eaten away by the relentless expansion of the shields beneath it. Smaller pieces fell first, then larger sections, all of them disintegrating into harmless powder that drifted away on wind currents.
The Last Choir of Genesis sang its final note and fell silent.
Dust rained down like snow. The barriers remained.
Cocolia's body plummeted from the sky.
She hit the ice with a wet crack. Golden light leaked from her mouth, her eyes, the spaces between her fingers. Her chest heaved. The crystalline corruption that had transformed her receded like tide from shore, revealing bruised and broken flesh beneath.
Alexander lowered his arm. The dark formations crumbled away from his skin, falling to powder at his feet. His coloration faded—bronze to tan, platinum to white, furnace-glow to merely human gold. Only his eyes retained that otherworldly light as he crossed the distance to where she lay.
March called after him. "Xander, wait—"
He didn't stop.
Gepard moved to follow, but March caught his arm and shook her head.
Alexander knelt in the frost beside Cocolia's convulsing form. She coughed, and more golden blood spattered across the ice. The Stellaron inside her thrashed like a dying animal, desperate and cornered. Fractures spread across her skin—not ice this time, but something worse. Cellular breakdown. The body rejecting the parasite even as the parasite refused to release its grip.
Light built behind her sternum.
"Chain reaction," she rasped in her own voice, fragile and cracked. "Won't... take much longer. Explosion will—"
"I know." Alexander extended his remaining hand and placed it gently over her heart.
Her fingers twitched toward his wrist but lacked the strength to push him away.
"What are you—"
Light erupted between them.
March shielded her eyes. Gepard raised his arm against the glare. But Alexander didn't flinch, didn't pull back, just kept his palm pressed flat against Cocolia's chest as streams of gold and black energy flowed into his arm. The Stellaron shrieked—audible now, no longer filtered through a human throat—as it realized what was happening.
"No! Vessel cannot contain—cannot hold—"
Alexander's arm blackened from the fingertips backward. His skin warped, twisted, veins bulging to grotesque prominence as they struggled to channel energy never meant for mortal flesh. The pain must have been extraordinary. His jaw locked. His eyes squeezed shut. But he didn't move, didn't release his grip, just held perfectly still as the Stellaron fought and raged and finally, inevitably, began to flow.
The monstrous corruption drained from Cocolia's body like poison sucked from a wound. It poured into Alexander's arm—darkness and light intertwined, destruction made manifest—and he swallowed it all. His left arm transformed into something alien, black as volcanic glass from fingertips to bicep, veins standing out in ridges that pulsed with trapped lightning.
The Stellaron's voice grew fainter.
"You cannot—this will—"
Silence.
Alexander's eyes opened. The last wisps of golden energy vanished into his palm. He released a shaking breath and pulled his hand back, revealing unblemished skin beneath—pale, scarred, but human. The crystalline horror that had consumed Cocolia was gone.
She lay on the ice, frail and mortal.
He knelt beside her, reached for her hand with his blackened fingers. She lacked the strength to pull away. Her skin felt paper-thin against his distorted flesh, fragile as autumn leaves.
"Why?" Her voice barely carried. "What reason... could you possibly have?"
He said nothing.
Her eyes, faded to dull gray, searched his face. "If you expect gratitude, you're mistaken. You've condemned Belobog to continue its suffering. The Stellaron promised a new world, and you—"
His expression remained neutral.
She coughed. Blood flecked her lips. "Say something!"
Silence pressed down between them.
"Curse you, Alexander Salvatore." The words came hoarse and broken. "Curse you to carry the burden of every guardian who came before. Every architect who failed. Every citizen of Belobog who looks to you now, expecting salvation you cannot provide. The Stellaron will be the least of your worries. The weight of their hope will crush you."
He took it without protest. Let her spend the rage and grief that had nowhere else to go. When her breathing turned ragged and she had no strength left for cursing, he leaned down and whispered something against her ear.
Her eyes filled with tears.
He squeezed her hand one final time, then rose and stepped back.
Bronya broke free from Natasha's support. She stumbled forward on legs that barely held her weight, fell to her knees beside her mother's body. Cocolia's breathing had grown shallow, barely lifting her chest. Bronya gathered her mother in her arms and pressed her face against Cocolia's neck, sobs wrenching from her throat in raw, ugly sounds.
Alexander turned away.
He crossed to where Seele sat propped against a broken pillar, her severed leg bound with March's hastily applied tourniquet. Blood soaked through the makeshift bandage. Her face had gone pale beneath the grime and ash, but her eyes tracked his approach with dark humor.
"Oleg will have something rigged for me before I can even raise my voice," she said. "Man's efficient like that."
Alexander knelt and wrapped his arms around her without warning.
She stiffened, surprised, then relaxed fractionally into the embrace. "Hey. You don't have to—"
"Hold on." He shifted, positioning himself so she could wrap her arms around his neck. Then he stood, lifting her carefully onto his back. Her weight settled against his spine.
"Really, I can wait for—"
He shook his head once.
She huffed but didn't argue further, just tightened her grip as he began walking toward where March and Gepard waited. Each step sent fresh pain lancing through his blackened arm, but he kept his pace steady.
Gepard knelt beside Serval's unconscious form, one hand cradling her face. Burns marked her neck and chest where Cocolia had used Serval's own guitar against her. Her breathing remained shallow, but present. Alive.
March crouched beside them both, her hands glowing with weak pink light as she tried to share what little energy remained in her reserves.
She looked up as Alexander approached. Her face was streaked with tears, but her jaw set with determination.
Behind them, the sun finished its descent below the horizon. Darkness claimed Everwinter Hill, broken only by the fading embers that still rose from the frozen earth like prayers answered and sent skyward with gratitude.
————————
The monitor resumed its steady rhythm.
Dr. Chen stumbled backward, chest heaving. "That's—that's not possible."
Leon's small chest rose. Fell. Rose again with the gentle cadence of someone merely sleeping.
"Vitals stabilizing," Nurse Torvik whispered, awe creeping into her professional tone. "Heart rate normal. Oxygen levels climbing."
"A miracle." Martinez crossed himself. "That's the only explanation."
Leon's golden eyes cracked open. The fluorescent lights burned. Everything hurt—a deep, bone-crushing ache that radiated from his chest outward through both arms. His right arm especially, where phantom ice seemed to pierce clean through.
Jeesh. He blinked against the brightness, trying to focus past the pain. What had Dad done this time?
The memories flooded back in fragments. March's aquamarine eyes wide with fear. Evernight's darker presence, protective and fierce. Their conversation in that strange space between consciousness. Hopefully it had ended well. March deserved answers, even if the truth about the Garden was complicated.
"—remarkable recovery—"
"—completely inexplicable—"
Leon turned his head slightly. The medical team clustered around his bed, faces painted with relief and confusion in equal measure. Dr. Chen leaned closer, her expression torn between professional concern and something approaching wonder.
"Can you hear me?" she asked gently.
Leon managed a small nod. His throat felt raw.
"Your heart stopped." The doctor's voice carried the weight of someone delivering news that should be impossible. "Multiple times today. We thought—"
"I know." The words came out softer than intended. Leon shifted on the bed, ignoring the protest from his ribs. "Please don't worry."
Dr. Chen's eyebrows climbed. "Don't worry? You've died and come back twelve times in—"
"I apologize." Leon pushed himself upright despite Nurse Torvik's gentle restraining hand. "In advance. On behalf of my family." He met each of their eyes in turn, old sorrow flickering behind his young features. "They weren't supposed to bring me here."
Silence descended. The monitors beeped their steady confirmation of life, but the medical staff had gone still.
"What do you mean?" Martinez finally asked.
Leon opened his mouth to answer when the first scream tore through the corridor outside.
Metal crashing against tile. A wet crunch. Someone shouting orders in a language Leon recognized—the formal cadence Memosnatchers used when coordinating hunts.
No. Not here. Not now.
"You've become a target," Leon said simply, sliding his legs off the bed. His bare feet touched cold linoleum. "The Garden of Recollection. They're after me."
"The Garden?" Dr. Chen's face paled. "But that's—those are just stories about—"
The door exploded inward.
Three figures in flowing robes burst through, their features obscured by ceremonial masks depicting weeping eyes. They moved with inhuman grace, hands already extended toward Leon.
"The child," one hissed. "Secure the—"
They never finished.
The hallway behind them erupted in flame. A towering suit of mechanized armor shouldered through the doorframe, emergency lighting gleaming off burnished metal plating. The SAM unit's optical sensors blazed crimson as it assessed the threat, massive gauntlets already rising.
Leon recognized SAM's stance—Firefly had dropped all pretense of disguise.
The first Memosnatcher turned. SAM's fist caught them mid-motion, the impact lifting the robed figure clean off their feet and slamming them into the far wall hard enough to crack plaster. The second lunged with impossible speed, ceremonial blade materializing from thin air.
SAM caught the wrist. Twisted. Bone snapped with a sound like dry kindling. The Memosnatcher's scream cut short when an armored knee drove into their solar plexus with pile-driver force.
The third tried to retreat. SAM's other hand seized them by the throat, lifting them until their feet kicked uselessly at air.
"I need to go." Leon turned to the medical team. They'd pressed themselves against the far wall, eyes wide with terror at the violence unfolding in their recovery ward. "Thank you. All of you. Truly."
He raised his small hand. Golden embers sparked between his fingers, swirling upward like fireflies rising from summer grass. The air grew thick with the scent of lime and old stone temples. Heat radiated outward, but it didn't burn—it wrapped around each doctor and nurse like a protective embrace.
Preservation shields bloomed into existence around them, translucent barriers that shimmered with inner light. The power of Qlipoth, filtered through a five-year-old's desperate need to protect those who'd tried to save him.
"This will keep you safe," Leon promised. His voice held certainty beyond his years. "No matter what happens next, they can't hurt you through this."
Dr. Chen pressed against the barrier. It held firm, unyielding as amber.
Leon's other hand rose. Mirrors materialized in the air around him—not reflective surfaces but fragments of causality itself, reality bent and shaped by paths Leon barely understood. His golden eyes reflected in their facets, multiplying endlessly.
"I'm sorry." He truly was. "But for your protection, I have to erase your memories of this. Of me. All of it."
"Wait—" Dr. Chen stepped forward despite the barrier. Her hand pressed against the translucent surface. "At least tell us your name. Just that. Even if we won't remember why we saved you, I want to know—" Her voice cracked. "I want to know the miracle child who came back from death again and again."
Leon's expression softened. He understood the need for that small piece of meaning, the way people tried to hold onto fragments of significance even as the vast universe ground most moments into dust.
"My name is Leon." He smiled, genuine warmth breaking through despite everything. "But I go by Caelus these days. Secret identity and all that. To cover my whereabouts and origins."
"Leon," Dr. Chen whispered. She committed it to memory, knowing it would be stolen from her in moments. "Thank you for letting me save you."
The mirrors flared brilliant white.
Every doctor, every nurse, their eyes rolled back as consciousness fled. They slumped against the Preservation barriers, which lowered them gently to the floor. Not harmed—simply sleeping, minds scrubbed clean of the past twenty-four hours.
Leon didn't wait. He burst through the shattered doorway, feet pounding against tile as he sprinted into the corridor.
SAM stood amid carnage. Three Memosnatchers lay scattered across the hallway, their bodies twisted at angles that spoke of devastating kinetic force. The armor's optical sensors tracked Leon's movement.
Two more Memosnatchers struggled to rise from where SAM had thrown them. One clutched broken ribs. The other's mask had cracked, revealing a young woman's terrified face beneath.
Leon's hand came up without thinking.
A Preservation shield erupted around the nearest Memosnatcher just as SAM's fist descended. The armored gauntlet struck the barrier and stopped dead, the impact sending shockwaves rippling outward through the translucent surface.
SAM's entire posture shifted—surprise evident even through mechanized body language. The optical sensors focused on Leon with something approaching confusion.
Leon summoned another mirror. It spun between his fingers with practiced ease, then flared outward. Light washed over both struggling Memosnatchers.
They collapsed. Unconscious. Minds wiped of the past hour, the confrontation, the violence—everything that had brought them to this hospital corridor in pursuit of a five-year-old child.
"I've erased their memories." Leon's voice carried the weight of authority despite his small frame. "That's enough, SAM."
The armor froze. Then plates began retracting, folding away into impossible spaces. Within seconds, the towering mechanized form had dissolved, revealing Firefly beneath. She stood in civilian disguise—unremarkable clothes, plain coat, platinum-blonde hair falling around features twisted with fear and relief in equal measure.
She crossed the distance in three strides and dropped to her knees, pulling Leon into a crushing embrace. Her whole body trembled.
"It's okay." Leon wrapped his small arms around her shoulders, patting her back with the awkward comfort of a child trying to soothe an adult. "It's okay. You shouldn't have brought me here. You know the risk it poses!"
Firefly pulled back enough to look at him. Tears streaked her face, cutting through the careful makeup she'd applied to blend into normal society. Her eyes—usually so controlled, so measured—held nothing back now. Pure, raw terror at how close she'd come to losing him.
She didn't answer. Couldn't, apparently. Just stared at Leon like he might vanish if she blinked.
Leon felt something crack in his chest. Not physical pain this time—something deeper. He reached up and gently wiped the tears from her cheeks with his small thumbs.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "Where's everyone else?"
Firefly swallowed hard. When she spoke, her voice came out rough. "Silver Wolf and Blade. Causing... commotion in Pier Point. Had to ensure we had a window. Time to spare." She drew a shuddering breath. "You were in bad condition, Leon. Your heart kept stopping. This seemed like our best option to stabilize—"
"It's all good." Leon took her hand, tugging her toward the stairwell at the corridor's end. She rose automatically, following his lead. "My heart's behavior can be truly painful, but I've learned to live with it."
They began jogging up the stairs. Leon's bare feet slapped against concrete. The building shook slightly—explosions in the distance, or maybe just the chaos spreading through the city.
"The power of Preservation." Firefly kept pace easily despite her longer stride. "It took me by surprise. Does that mean...?"
"The Amber Lord lent their strength to Dad, yes." Leon gripped the railing as they rounded a landing. His chest still ached with phantom ice wounds, but he pushed through. "It's connected. When he draws on it, I can too. Sort of. It's complicated."
They burst through the rooftop access door.
Night had fallen while Leon was unconscious. The sky above glowed orange and red with distant fires. Smoke billowed from multiple points across the cityscape, thick columns rising to merge with low-hanging clouds. High-tech vehicles illuminated the streets below—emergency response units, probably, or maybe IPC security sweeping for threats.
The city lay in absolute chaos.
Leon's breath caught. He'd seen destruction before, felt it through his connection to his father. But witnessing it directly, the scope of devastation laid out beneath a burning sky—
"Over there." Firefly's hand on his shoulder guided him forward.
A figure stood near the rooftop's far edge, silhouetted against the inferno backdrop. Dark coat billowing in the wind. Phone pressed to her ear, free hand gesturing sharply as she spoke in clipped, controlled tones.
"—don't care about your calculations, Elio. We made a choice—"
Leon recognized the voice immediately.
More voices became clear as they approached. Not just the woman's side of the conversation—Elio's responses filtered through the phone's speaker, tinny but audible in the rooftop's relative quiet.
"This wasn't in the script," Elio said, frustration bleeding through his usually measured delivery. "You've created massive complications. The Garden's attention is now—"
"The Garden can wait." Kafka's voice held steel underneath the silk. "His life couldn't."
"Your attachment compromises—"
"My attachment," Kafka interrupted coldly, "has got nothing to do here. We got him to safety. That's what matters."
Bodies littered the rooftop. Leon's gaze swept across them, counting automatically. Seven. No—eight. All wearing the ceremonial robes of Memosnatchers. Clearly dead, killed with surgical precision. The woman's work, undoubtedly.
Leon's chest tightened. Not with pain this time. With sorrow.
He approached the nearest body. A young man, maybe twenty-five. The Memosnatcher's mask had fallen away, revealing features frozen in surprise. Empty eyes stared at nothing.
Leon knelt beside the corpse. His small hand reached out, fingers trembling slightly as they found the dead man's eyelids.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, pulling them closed with gentle pressure. "You didn't deserve this. None of you did."
Rain began to fall.
Soft at first—scattered drops that kissed Leon's upturned face, mixed with the ash and smoke drifting from the burning city. Then heavier, a steady patter that washed across the rooftop, turning dust to mud.
Leon became aware of boots. Black leather, expensive. Standing directly in front of him, just beyond the body he'd been praying over.
He raised his eyes slowly.
Kafka stood there, phone lowered and forgotten at her side. The wind caught her dark coat, making it billow dramatically. Rain streaked down her face, plastering wine-colored hair against her cheeks.
But it was her eyes that stopped Leon's breath.
Longing. Sadness. And underneath both—surprise. Raw, unfiltered surprise, as if she were seeing a ghost. As if her son kneeling in the rain beside a corpse was the last thing she'd expected to witness tonight.
Leon felt many things crash together in his chest. Hurt, because she'd left him with guardians while she and Dad disappeared on missions he barely understood. Regret, because he knew his existence complicated their work, made them vulnerable in ways Stellaron Hunters couldn't afford. Anger—yes, anger at her for lying to dad, at his father for not being strong enough to stay, at every single one of his family members for the choices that led to here, to now, to a five-year-old child closing dead men's eyes on a burning rooftop.
But even with all that swirling through him, Leon managed to smile.
Broken. Fragile. But genuine.
"I'm back, Mom."
————————
Clara walked through the Overworld plaza, clutching Alexander's broken watch against her chest. Boris and Maria flanked her, their footsteps echoing against wet cobblestone.
The crowd parted. Conversations died mid-sentence. A woman pressed her hand to her mouth. A child pointed.
Clara's gaze lifted.
He stood near the fountain, back turned. Silver-white hair caught the morning light. His right sleeve hung empty—the prosthetic gone. When he turned, scars mapped his visible skin like fracture lines through ice. The golden cross-pendant shone visibly atop his chest.
Clara ran.
Her feet barely touched the ground. The watch slipped from her grasp. She didn't care.
Alexander crouched as she collided with him, his remaining arm wrapping tight around her small frame. Heat radiated from his chest—forge-fire warmth that chased away the lingering cold. The scent of lime and hot metal clung to his skin. Through his tattered shirt, she felt the raised ridge of a scar crossing his chest.
"I'm back, sunshine."
Clara buried her face against his shoulder. "Welcome back, da—"
The word caught in her throat. Wrong. She'd almost—
"I'm sorry—"
"Sshhhh." His voice cracked. "It's okay."
Something wet touched her shoulder.
Clara pulled back enough to see his face. Tears cut tracks through the ash still clinging to his cheeks.
"Why are you crying, mister?"
Alexander's golden eyes searched hers. His jaw worked. Finally, he whispered:
"... I don't know."
————————
Ruan Mei descended three sub-levels past the maintenance corridors. The air tasted sterile. Recycled. Her heels clicked against metal grating.
The bio-containment lab waited at corridor's end—a chamber she'd requisitioned from Herta without her knowledge or authorization. The door recognized her biometrics. Pneumatic seals hissed.
Red emergency lighting bathed the interior. Perfect. Standard white spectrum interfered with observation.
Holographic data streams surrounded the central containment pod—protein synthesis rates, cellular division patterns, energy consumption metrics. The numbers scrolled past in amber columns. Ruan Mei's eyes tracked them without focusing, committing each value to memory.
She approached the reinforced glass barrier.
Behind it, suspended in nutrient gel, the egg sac pulsed.
Three meters tall. Translucent membrane stretched taut over the form within. Veins of golden light threaded through the organic lattice, pulsing in rhythm with something that wasn't quite a heartbeat. The gel fluoresced where it touched the membrane's surface.
Ruan Mei tilted her head.
The silhouette inside shifted. Limbs—insectoid configuration, though the proportions deviated from standard parameters. Through the membrane's semi-transparency, she could only see glimpses of what laid within.
She withdrew her embroidery scissors from her coat pocket. Turned them over in her palm. The metal caught the red light.
The form inside the sac turned toward her voice.
Ruan Mei's lips curved. Barely. A ghost of expression.
She placed her palm against the glass. The barrier hummed with contained energy.
She checked her terminal. Growth progression: 87.4%. Estimated time to emergence: forty-three hours, sixteen minutes.
"I wonder," she whispered, "what you'll become."
————————
A Note from the Author:
To everyone who has taken the time to read Railroaded—thank you.
From the bottom of my heart, truly, thank you.
To those of you in the Discord server who have been with me through every chapter, every late-night writing session, every moment of doubt and triumph: you mean more to me than I can properly articulate. Your theories, your discussions, your memes, your excitement, your patience when updates were delayed—all of it has kept me going when the blank page felt insurmountable.
To everyone who has left a review, whether you loved the story or had criticisms to share: thank you for caring enough to put your thoughts into words. Every single review matters. The ones that praised what worked helped me understand what to lean into. The ones that pointed out issues helped me grow as a writer. Both are gifts, and I'm grateful for each one.
But most of all, I want to thank you for simply reading.
In a world overflowing with content, where your time and attention are precious and finite, you chose to spend some of that time with my story. You sat down—maybe on your commute, maybe before bed, maybe during a lunch break—and gave these characters and this world a piece of your day. That act alone, regardless of whether you ultimately loved it or not, means the world to me.
Writing can be lonely. You spend hours, days, weeks crafting scenes in isolation, never quite sure if anyone will connect with what you're trying to build. But then someone reads it. Someone cares enough to read it. And suddenly, it's not lonely anymore.
So thank you. For reading. For caring. For being here.
You've made this journey worth every word.
With all my gratitude,
Solbook.