The new Phoenix insignia hadn't been painted on the briefing wall yet — the old one, blackened by smoke from Echo's last strike, still loomed like a scar no one wanted to clean.
Ash stood before it anyway, dressed not in fighter's gear but in black tactical fatigues with no insignia — no badge, no symbol, just her name stitched in crimson thread across the chest.
ASH.
It felt strange to see it worn with purpose instead of shame.
This wasn't a command she asked for.
But it was one she now owned.
"They won't all follow you," Haru said softly, walking up beside her.
Ash didn't look at him yet. "I don't need all of them. I need the right ones."
Jin leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "They're waiting in the war room."
She inhaled once.
Then turned.
Time to see who still believed in her — and who only came to watch her fall.
Phoenix HQ's war room was half-shadowed, most of the bulbs long since shattered in the last siege. The light flickered off the tense expressions of the fighters gathered around the table.
Not as soldiers.
As skeptics.
Ash walked in without flinching.
Cassel was there too, a silent witness now. No longer the one giving orders.
She stood at the head of the table and began.
"You know who I am. You know what I was. I'm not here to rewrite that. I'm here to burn it down — with you or without you."
She paused, scanning the room. "But I'd rather not burn alone."
One of the younger Phoenix operatives — an ex-intel runner named Lysa — stood up first.
"I've lost two siblings to Echo. If you've seen what they hide… I'm in."
Next came Veyr, the muscle of the group. Towering, silent, with eyes that had seen too much war and too little reason. He said nothing. Just nodded once.
Then Jin. Then Haru.
A few others followed.
Eight in total.
Eight people willing to walk into the lion's mouth with her.
It wasn't an army.
It was enough.
Ash outlined the plan.
"We go underground. Echo has a secondary research base in Sector 12. We believe it's where they're running their newest neurological weaponization trials."
She tapped the screen. A schematic appeared — fuzzy, incomplete.
"It's dirty data. Jin scraped it from an abandoned relay. But if it's real, they're using former Seraph units."
Everyone turned toward her at that.
"People like me," Ash said.
Jin cut in. "People they didn't destroy when they erased the Project."
A heavy silence settled.
Haru's jaw tightened. "If they're still alive…"
Ash looked up. "Then we get them out. Or we end it before they're turned loose on the world."
As the meeting broke, Ash remained behind, alone at the screen.
She stared at the static-filled map of Sector 12, where ghosts waited — either victims or weapons. Maybe both.
She didn't hear the door until it clicked softly.
Cassel.
He didn't speak right away. Just looked at her the way generals look at fallen banners — with weary respect, and deeper caution.
"You're not afraid," he said finally.
Ash tilted her head. "Of dying?"
"No. Of being what they made you."
She didn't answer right away.
When she did, her voice was quiet.
"I think I'm afraid of liking it."
She sat in the barracks later that night, half-armored and fully wired.
Haru sat across from her, undoing the wrappings on his hands from earlier drills.
He glanced up. "You're shaking."
She looked down. Her fingers trembled against the clasps of her vest.
"I'm about to lead people into the heart of a lab that made me forget who I was."
She met his gaze. "I don't get to be afraid."
Haru walked over and knelt in front of her, his hands wrapping over hers.
"You do," he said. "You just don't get to let it stop you."
For a long moment, she let herself exist in the quiet of that truth.
No fire. No orders. Just warmth.
She leaned forward, pressed her forehead to his.
"Stay close tomorrow."
"Always."
Then, quietly, he added, "Even if the others don't come back. I'm walking out with you."
She smiled — not soft, but sharp. The way blades smile.
"Good," she whispered. "Because I'm not leaving any of us behind."
But what neither of them saw—
Was the figure in the lower hallway, masked, slipping into the restricted comms room just before midnight.
A private line was activated.
Coordinates were sent.
And across the blackened city, an Echo operative received the ping.
Phoenix was coming.
And this time, Echo was ready.