The cold spot wasn't a monster.
It was a memory.
Jinx, ever the pragmatist, had investigated with a heavy-duty flashlight and a healthy dose of suspicion.
Behind a pile of rusted, forgotten machinery, she found it.
A faint, shimmering distortion in the air. A scar left behind by a Gate that had closed decades ago.
"It's dead," she had announced, her voice echoing in the cavernous space. "Just a residual energy signature. Like a ghost's fart."
The tension broke.
Jax had immediately declared it their new "haunted corner" and started sketching plans for a motion-activated ghost projection system to scare off intruders.
Or, more likely, to scare Chloe.
The weeks that followed were a blur of organized chaos.
Their new, terrible home began to transform.
Under Chloe's crisp, logical direction, the dump slowly, miraculously, started to look like a headquarters.
Jax, in his element, built them a new power grid, cannibalizing parts from a dozen abandoned factories in the district.
