"There's something that doesn't add up," Huey called out, his voice cutting through the chaos. He stepped up partially from cover, ignoring Josephine's sharp intake of breath. "Why go through all this trouble just to kill a bunch of college kids.?"
Snake's rifle focused on him, but the shot didn't come immediately. Good, he had the sniper's attention.
"I mean, think about it," Huey continued, his passive skills working overtime as jazz fed him the data. "A professional assassin, a secluded area, time and energy. We honestly aren't worth the trouble and you know it.
"Smart boy," Snake's distorted voice carried across the battlefield.
"So what's the real objective?" Huey pressed. "What did you actually come here for?"
The silence stretched too long. Through the use of his passive skill "see through", Huey had caught her micro-expressions, positioning and the way Riva's been coordinating with Snake all along.
"You're working together," Huey said aloud, the pieces clicking into place. "Riva's been feeding us right to you."
This isn't an ambush. it's an execution."
A spatial portal opened beside Snake, and Riva stepped through, no longer pretending to coordinate the students. Her red eyes were cold as they were professional.
"why don't we Bring the whole gang together," she said, opening multiple portals simultaneously.
Before the scattered students could react, they found themselves transported to a central clearing, disoriented and grouped together like cattle for slaughter.
DiLorenzo and Marlo materialized near Josephine and Luan. Willy appeared beside a bloodied Layla, Wheeler hovering just around them. Jonas and his shard construct Chirp were deposited with Khadija and a few other logistics students.
30 students had started this exercise. Huey counted 18 present at the moment.
"Much better," Riva said, surveying her handiwork. "I do apologize for the deception, but operational security demanded it.
You see, I've been working with Kaiser for quite some time now, feeding them intelligence of high-value."
Snake kept his rifle trailed on the group while she spoke, his scarred face visible now beneath those dark shades.
"The traps, the isolated kill zones, even separating Miss Veltman from the group, all carefully orchestrated. You performed admirably, but this field day was never meant to have survivors, well except me of course."
"Why?" DiLorenzo demanded, energy crackling around his wounded form.
"The university's master security key, of course," Riva tapped the pocket of her crisp black arcanum suit.
"Professor Giacomo was so helpful in blabbing about its capabilities. With this, Kaiser gains access to Virelia's entire network. student records, faculty communications, research data, control of defences, weapons, everything."
She smiled coldly. "The story will be tragic but simple: an unexpected ambush during routine field work. I'll be the sole survivor, traumatized but heroic in my attempts to save you all."
"Except," Huey said quietly, his mind racing, "I don't think Snake here is planning to let you be the sole survivor."
Snake's rifle shifted slightly toward Riva. "huh??... ."
"Think about it," Huey continued, addressing Snake directly. "She's been playing both sides this whole time. What makes you think she's not planning to double-cross Kaiser too?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Riva snapped, but her hand moved instinctively toward the key device. "I'm following orders exactly as… "
"Are you?" Huey pressed. "Because if I were in your position, I'd keep the real key for myself and sell it to the highest bidder later. Much more profitable than being Kaiser's errand girl."
The tension stretched like a wire.
"Show me the key," he said finally.
"I don't need to prove anything to—"
"Show. Me. The. Key."
Riva's composure cracked. With shaking hands, she pulled the device from her breast pocket and held it up. The small electronic device gleamed in the afternoon light.
Except it wasn't an electronic device.
It was a set of house keys.
The silence was deafening. Snake stared at the keys, then at Riva, then back at the keys.
"Argh, Are you f**king with me… " His voice was a growl of pure rage.
"Wait! I can explain!" Riva backed away, panic replacing her professional demeanor. "Someone must have switched it!, they must have… "
Snake's first punch sent her sprawling. The sheer strength from being a high end level 3 crest bearer enhanced every blow as he easily dismantled her defenses, her spatial portals useless as she struggled to maintain concentration under the assault.
"do you know how long it took me to set those traps," he snarled between strikes. "4 dead students. All for a set of house keys."
Riva tried to crawl away, blood streaming from her nose. "Please! I can still deliver them! I have information, the omega-level gir…. lKaiser will pay….."
"Kaiser doesn't pay for failure." Snake stood over her battered frame, but he didn't deliver the killing blow. "I should end you right here, but you're not worth the ammunition."
He turned toward his extraction point. "you can do what you want with your traitor supervisor. I have no reason to stay."
"Wait!" DiLorenzo called out, energy surrounding his hands. "You can't just leave after….. "
Snake fired a single kinetically enhanced round into the ground between them. The explosion created a massive smoke cloud that blanketed the entire clearing. By the time it cleared, he was gone.
Riva struggled to her feet, wiping blood from her mouth. Her red eyes blazed with fury and desperation.
"Fine," she snarled, raising her hands. "If I can't get what I want, at least there can't be any witnesses."
A massive spatial portal opened above them, leading to another location, one that glowed with hellish red light and searing heat.
"A volcano," Luan breathed.
"I'm sorry it has to end this way," Riva said, not sounding sorry at all. "But my safety demands no survivors."
The portal began pulling them upward with inexorable force. Students grabbed onto each other, onto debris, onto anything that might anchor them against the dimensional suction.
That's when the temperature plummeted.
Ice erupted from the collapsed storage facility. Mira emerged from the rubble, her purple-gray braids now completely white with frost, those pitch black eyes layered with silver fire.
She looked at the portal for a moment, tilted her head curiously, then reached out with one hand.
The dimensional tear froze solid.
Not just the edges but the entire portal became crystalline ice, the magma chamber beyond trapped in supernatural frost. Riva stared in disbelief as her most powerful technique became museum art.
"How?" she whispered.
"Omega-level users don't follow normal rules," Mira said simply, then encased Riva in a perfect sphere of ice. "but you could learn a few."
The students finally allowed themselves to breathe. They'd survived. Barely, but they'd survived.
"A lot of good people didn't make it," Jonas said quietly, Chirp perched sadly on his shoulder. "We should…."
"Take cover!" DiLorenzo shouted, his crest allowing him to detect the incoming projectile a split second before impact.
The kinetic round shattered Riva's ice prison and everything inside it. Frozen fragments scattered across the clearing, leaving nothing but crimson stains on crystalline shards.
"He wanted her dead from the start," Huey said, scanning the treeline where Snake had positioned himself for the final shot. "Can't let her spill about her kaiser."
This time, when the silence fell, it felt for real
The Luce Nera helicarriers descended, their searchlights cutting through the gathering dusk. Medical teams immediately began tending to the wounded while combat operatives secured the perimeter.
Hailee Cross dropped from the lead carrier, her silver braids whipping in the rotor wash as she surveyed the scene. Her eyes found Huey among the survivors, and relief washed over her pale finely shaped face.
"Status report," she called out, but the students were already talking over each other.
"well we got lucky…. "said Huey, but before he could finish.
"screw that, Huey figured it out," Jonas said, throwing an arm around his neck in exhausted camaraderie. "If he hadn't realized Riva was working with the assassin, we'd all be dead."
"He saved our lives," Josephine added, though she looked haunted by the day's events.
"The deductions, the way he turned them against each other," Luan spoke with quiet respect. "It was... Really impressive."
Huey tried to shrink away from the attention, but Willy wasn't having it. "Bro's been holding out you guys. He is my cousin, and bestfriend after all, always knew he had it in him?"
As the medical teams worked and the sun painted the sky in shades of gold and crimson, the survivors were finally able to process what they'd endured. Some went to help free students from Riva's remaining traps. Others assisted in the grim task of recovering bodies.
They'd won, but the victory felt hollow.
Eventually, as the operations wound down and the other students were transported back to campus, Huey found himself alone with Hailee on a small rise overlooking the rift site.
"Thank you," she said simply.
"For what? Getting people killed…." said a dejected Huey as he curled his hand into a fist.
"Felt like I could have done more to help If I didn't have to hide my crest"
"For exposing a traitor who would have killed more if left unchecked." Hailee's voice was gentle but firm. "How did you pull it off?"
Huey leaned against a twisted metal beam, exhaustion finally catching up with him. "Started with the echo I released in the dorms. I used it to hack the assignment database, made sure Riva got assigned as our supervisor."
"And the key switch?"
"Hermione's work. She replaced the security key with house keys before we got here. He shrugged. "Well, you saw how that went."
"Dad would be so proud," Hailee said softly. "You proved that you don't need a crest to change the tide of battle. Intelligence, strategy, understanding people….. Works too."
Huey touched the gold cross at his throat, thinking about Atticus Cross lying motionless in his hospital bed. "I just wish I could use it to help him."
"Maybe you can. This Snake character, you recognized him, didn't you?"
The scarred face flashed through Huey's memory, along with those of Marcus Chen's final moments in that underground lab. "He's connected to Kaiser's illegal experiments. The same operation where..." He paused, not sure how to explain his connection to Marcus Chen's death. "Where I first encountered their work."
"Then he might have answers about what happened to Dad."
"That's what I'm counting on." Huey looked at his sister, a decision materializing in his mind. "I need a favor, Hailee. Can you help me gather intelligence on this Kaiser assassin. Everything you can find."
"Official or unofficial method?" said Hailee with a smirk
"Whatever it takes. This case I've been working; the missing students, the illegal experiments, whatever happened to Dad. it's all connected. And I feel that Snake guy is somehow connected to it all."
"Well we should head back, come on I'll….."
"don't worry. I'll go myself, still wanna stay a little"
As the last Luce Nera carrier departed and stars began appearing in the darkening sky, Huey realized that Marcus Chen's death had given him more than just a new life.
It had given him the tools to fight back against the shadows that had destroyed both their worlds