Sango — Fauna District, Rooftop
The rain had passed, leaving Sango slick and luminous. Bioluminescent light clung to stone and steel like dew on enormous glowing leaves, the city's night-side breathing in soft blue and gold.
Moto sat on the edge of the warehouse roof, legs dangling over the alley where they'd thrown him, and looked at the skyline.
"Okay," he said. "I'm here. What's next?"
The Undergrowth came to mind — Aemon, Najo, Snake — and he pushed the worry down. They were safer underground. Up here he was a fugitive, a printed villain, a problem for whoever found him first. Byron's voice lived in the back of his skull. The rejection. The ease of it.
He pushed that down too.
Focus. They hadn't come to Sango to hide. They'd come for intel. Tanaka had been gathering it from inside the military base for days. And beyond that — Douglas. The promise of it sat in his chest like a dim light through thick canopy.
"I need to contact home," he said, standing. "Get word to the King. Get us out of this."
Fear, doubt, loneliness. He locked them away and set his jaw. He still had a job to do.
The Undergrowth — Mess Hall
Aemon sat with his head buried in his hands.
"I should have said something," he muttered. "I should have stood up for him."
Lilly rested a hand on his arm. "Byron's mind was already made up," she said quietly. "He wouldn't have listened to me either."
Aemon looked up. Lindo, who had been nearby, quietly stepped away to give them the space without being asked.
Aemon met Lilly's eyes — steady, warm, not asking anything of him.
"I..." He swallowed. "Thanks. You're... nice."
His face went red the moment the word came out. Lilly smiled.
The Undergrowth — Medical Bay
Snake's eyes opened clean.
He sat upright, stayed still, and breathed. For the first time in fifteen days, the stillness wasn't a debt coming due — it was actual rest, paid back in full. His body felt heavy and whole.
Then the power arrived.
The tattoos ignited first — green light crawling across the ink like living script. His eyes flared next. Finally, the tips of his dreadlocks, faint and then unmistakable. He flexed his hands and looked at them.
Outside the bay, a rebel froze mid-step. "That's—" He turned to the person beside him. "That looks like Byron's—"
They burst through the doors. Snake stood at the centre of the room, the markings pulsing in rhythm. He looked up.
"Where's Moto?"
Two rebels ran for Aemon.
Minutes later, Snake sat cross-legged on the cot with Sixtus coiled lazily at his shoulder. Aemon arrived at speed and collapsed into his lap with the controlled chaos of someone who had been holding a lot together.
Snake raised a brow. "You're Aemon, right?"
Between breaths, Aemon laid it out — the horn, Byron's transformation, the argument, the exile, all of it.
Snake's expression went flat. "And you did nothing."
Aemon folded. "My clones were spent. I hadn't healed them yet."
Snake clicked his tongue — half sigh, half growl. "That's sorry, bruh." He stood. "I'll work on your stamina myself after this. For now—take me to Byron."
Dimakatso appeared in the doorway and led the way without comment.
Sango — Flora District, Military Base
Moto had left the rooftop behind and gone looking for Tanaka.
He moved across the rooftops in the Fauna-side dark, eyes scanning the Flora boundary. She was out there alone. That gnawed at him.
He found his way to the edge of the military base just as Tanaka sat outside on her break, a notepad in her hand, her expression somewhere between formulas and something older and heavier.
He was about to move when the sky split.
A sonic boom shattered the night. Something hit the parade ground with cataclysmic force — dust erupting in a ring, soldiers shouting, weapons snapping into position. The cloud settled.
A crater. A figure at its centre.
Chandler rose from it without a scratch, dust sliding from his shoulders, hand resting casually over his chest, a faint smirk already in place. He looked around the base the way a man looks around a room he owns.