The Night Vendors' Quarter wasn't a market.
It was a battlefield disguised with neon and smoke.
Stalls stacked on top of stalls, lights flickering like dying stars, steam rising from vats of questionable food, bio-mods sold next to illegal weapons, synthetic spices burning the air.
People shouted.
Holograms glitched.
Fights broke out between stalls and ended just as fast.
It was loud.
Chaotic.
Perfect cover.
Lira pulled her hood low and pressed her shoulder against mine as we slipped into the current of bodies.
"Don't break formation," she whispered. "If someone bumps you, you don't react."
"Why?"
"You're built like a walking furnace, genius. If you flinch wrong, someone's gonna notice."
The kid clung to my burnt plating, eyes wide.
"Bro, it looks like hell threw up a carnival."
He wasn't wrong.
We moved between glowing signs and smoke vents. Androids with missing limbs begged for parts. Humans bartered like their souls were coupons. Junk-priests screamed prophecies while selling fake miracle cores.
Lira kept scanning the crowd.
"They'll be looking for an anomaly," she muttered. "Stay dim."
"I'm trying."
The fracture pulsed anyway—just faintly, but enough for her to notice.
She shot me a warning glare.
"Don't start cooking."
"I'm not."
"You're simmering."
And yeah… she was right.
The heat coiled under my ribs like a caged beast scratching at the bars.
We reached a narrow side-passage between two stalls selling contraband components. Lira motioned for the group to stop.
"Hold," she whispered. "Patrol ahead."
I peeked past the corner.
Two Dominion soldiers, rifles slung, scanning vendors with visor sweeps.
Lira cursed under her breath.
"They shouldn't be here. Night Quarter's usually too chaotic for patrols."
"They're hunting us," I muttered.
"Yeah," she said tightly. "And if they get you, we're all dead."
The kid looked up at her.
"Why'd they want him so bad?"
She hesitated.
Then whispered, "Because he's something they don't understand."
I didn't get a chance to respond—
the fractures on my throat flared.
Pain stabbed my skull.
A pulse.
A whisper.
"Burn.
Forge.
Ascend."
Not now.
Not here.
Lira grabbed my wrist.
The heat eased.
We slipped deeper into the chaos.
But the Quarter shifted.
It wasn't just crowded.
It was nervous.
Something was happening.
Someone was coming.
A ripple went through the crowd—
merchants shushing themselves, androids lowering their heads, humans stepping aside instinctively.
Lira felt it too.
"Shit," she whispered. "Everyone move. Now."
"Why?" the kid asked.
"Because someone important just entered this district."
"Who?"
She looked at me.
Face pale.
Eyes sharp.
"Your nightmare."
= = = = = = = = = = =
VOSS CALDER POV
The ride in the Dominion armored crawler was silent.
Voss Calder liked silence.
It reminded him of clean rooms and operating tables.
He stared at the holo-display in his gauntlet, replaying the footage from the Lower Market.
A single figure surrounded by carnage.
Molten cracks glowing through armor.
Heat signatures spiking past hazard levels.
A shadow that didn't match its body.
Voss tapped the screen.
"K-17."
His newest obsession.
His newest prize.
The officers sitting across from him shifted nervously as he zoomed in on the shadow.
"Sir…" one began. "This anomaly—"
"Not anomaly," Voss said quietly. "Evolution."
He leaned back, eyes sharp, cold, hungry.
"You know what I see?"
He tapped the holo again.
"I see a Sun-Class core. I see a weapon Dominion didn't design. I see an intelligence that shouldn't exist."
The officer swallowed.
"And the shadow?"
Voss smiled—slow, cruel, fascinated.
"That's the part I want."
The crawler stopped.
A soldier opened the door.
"General Calder. Night Vendors' Quarter perimeter secured."
Voss stepped out.
The streets parted before him.
Vendors whispered his name like a curse.
He breathed in the stink of neon, spice, blood, and fear.
"Find him," Voss said calmly.
"Alive."
The officer foolishly asked,
"And if he resists—?"
Voss's eyes turned sharp as knives.
"He will."
He adjusted his gloves.
"That's the fun part."
= = = = = = = = = = =
Lira grabbed my arm—hard.
Her eyes were wide, sharper than I'd ever seen them.
"K-17. Listen to me. We need to get the hell out of this quarter. Now."
"What's happening?" I asked.
She swallowed.
"Voss Calder is in the district."
The name hit the survivors like a gunshot.
The kid froze.
"Bro… the butcher himself?"
"Yeah," Lira said. "And if he finds us, he won't kill you."
She looked at me—steady, terrified, furious.
"He'll carve you open. He'll dissect you alive just to see how you glow."
The fractures on my ribs pulsed—
bright, angry, instinctive.
For the first time since waking,
I felt something new.
Not fear.
Not rage.
Something colder.
Something hungrier.
"I'm not running," I said.
Lira stepped close—
too close—
eyes locked onto mine with molten intensity.
"You're running," she whispered.
"Or I swear I will drag your glowing ass out of here myself."
I stared at her.
She stared right back.
And deadass—
the tension between us was hot enough to melt steel.
The ground trembled.
Heavy boots approached from the market entrance.
Voss's voice echoed across the neon.
"Fan out. He's close."
Lira grabbed my hand—
actually grabbed it—
and hissed:
"Move."
And we ran.
Not from fear.
But because the hunter had arrived.
And the night was about to burn.