"Vengeance, retaliation, retribution, revenge are deceitful brothers—vile, beguiling demons promising justifiable compensation to a pained soul for his losses. Yet in truth they craftily fester away all else of worth remaining." - Richelle E. Goodrich (The Tarishe Curse)

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The second level of Pandemonium Bar was cloaked in silence, but it wasn't peaceful.

No, it was the sort of silence that stretched taut with the weight of what had come before, and what was about to come. Outside the windows, rain traced thin lines down the glass, a quiet rhythm against the storm that brewed far louder inside their hearts.

Sera stood beside the window, her arms crossed, her eyes focused beyond the glass, toward a city that had long since given up pretending to be whole. The streetlights of Zalfari flickered in the gloom, reflections bouncing off puddles forming along the old cobblestone paths.

The scent of petrichor clung to the air. Behind her, a low fireplace burned in the corner of the room, casting the meeting space in dim, flickering light. The flames painted moving shadows across the faces of those gathered—worn, tired, but unyielding.

"It's raining again," Sera murmured, her voice quiet but steady, her fingers twitching against her sleeve. "Just like that night."

None of them asked which night. They didn't need to.

Zest sat sprawled casually on the couch beside her, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle, but his eyes were alert. The purple glint in his raven-black hair caught the firelight. His hoodie was zipped up halfway, flame patterns licking the edges like silent reminders of the fire in him that never fully dimmed. Though he leaned back with a posture of ease, one hand drummed absently against his knee in a rhythm only he understood.

Alisa sat to the left of Leroy, her posture tense, ocean-blue eyes filled with an unease she hadn't let show in months. She looked older than her years—not physically, but in the eyes, in the way she spoke less and worried more. Her jet-black hair was tied back in a rough ponytail. She leaned forward now, hands clasped between her knees as she asked the question that had sat on all their minds.

"…Think Lleucu will come? Or if he's still alive?"

The silence that followed wasn't from doubt. It was grief that hadn't healed, and fear they dared not voice.

"He's alive," Zest said without hesitation. "I've been hearing whispers for over a year now. Raids on outposts, freed prisoners, and even ghost kills. All surgical. Precise. I thought it was Jamie at first, until I realised it wasn't bloody enough to be him. This? This was too clean. Too quiet. It had Lleucu written all over it."

Leroy, silent beside Alisa, exhaled slowly. He stared at the thick, battered folder in front of him—a file filled with scouted locations, reports of missing Gifted, hunter facility movements, and red circles inked in places that used to be safe.

He had put feelers out, sent out the old Blade codes hidden in phrases that no one else would understand. It was a risk—using the old signals. But Jamie had reached out first. That meant something.

His gaze flickered to Sera, then to the others. No one said it, but their eyes shared the thought: If both Jamie and Lleucu were alive… Then the old team—the upper echelons of the true Blade, was almost whole again.

The soft creak of the office door swinging open broke through the storm's lull.

All eyes turned toward it. There, framed in the dim lighting from the hallway beyond, stood two figures. For a moment, time froze.

The first—tall, sharp-edged, and wrapped in black, stepped in with a casual ease that was too calculated to be truly relaxed. Jamison Fletcher. His black tee clung to his lean frame, a jacket tied loosely around his waist. His dark hair, messily tousled, now had a clean white streak running through the fringe that fell slightly across his grey eyes. And there, as if daring the world to challenge his return, was the small dagger tattoo inked on the side of his neck. The mark of Blade—something every member has on their bodies.

Beside him stood Lleucu.

He had grown taller since any of them had last seen him—more lean, more ghostlike. His pale skin seemed even paler under the dim light, raven-black hair framing a face that had long since lost any trace of innocence. Grey eyes scanned the room in silence. His coat, black and trimmed with dark fur, billowed slightly with the movement of air behind him.

For a moment, the room forgot to breathe.

Zest was the first to break the silence. "Well, well," he said, a grin spreading slowly across his face. "Jamison Fletcher. Blade's Hidden Shadow. And Lleucu in the flesh." He pushed off the couch and strode forward, arms out, exchanging fist bumps with both. "Great to see you, bro. Both of you."

Jamie grinned. "You too. All of you."

Just like that, the tension in the air shifted—nostalgia slipping in with the scent of rain and firewood, the ghosts of the past fading in the face of the present.

"I ran into Jamie downstairs," Lleucu added, jerking a thumb toward his old comrade. He moved further into the room, glancing around at each face, lingering slightly on Sera and Alisa before sitting down beside Zest. "I suspected, but I could never be sure he was still alive."

Jamie just shrugged. "That's the point."

He moved to lean against the wall by the fireplace, eyes flickering over each of them with silent calculation and the faintest trace of affection.

"Even after we were all forced to scatter," Jamie continued, "I kept an eye on all of you. Made sure you were safe. Alive. Though for a while…" He turned to Zest. "I was worried about you."

Zest raised an eyebrow.

"You were so badly hurt that even Reina wasn't sure you were going to make it. Coma. Nearly two years."

Zest offered a shrug, but the corners of his mouth twitched. "Guess I'm hard to kill."

"Insane security you've got around Zalfari, by the way," Jamie added, turning his attention to Leroy. "Armed men at every entry point. Passwords. Face checks. Even the waters and the airspace are monitored. It's locked down tighter than the Abyss."

"That's the point," Leroy said, his voice low. His chestnut-brown eyes flickered toward the window as lightning briefly illuminated the sky beyond. "We've already had multiple attacks. They weren't all coordinated—some were just frenzied mobs drunk on the hunters' lies, but they're getting more aggressive. We can't afford to let our guard down. Most of those in Zalfari aren't Gifted, but considering what we can do, we're probably as good as in the eyes of the hunters."

"Frenzied assholes," Alisa muttered. "The newer generation of hunters, their collaborators, or just civilians high on hate. They don't even see the Gifted as human anymore. Just…threats. Freaks. They want us—them wiped out."

Her voice caught at the end, raw with exhaustion and bitter anger. No one corrected her. Because it was true.

Nicolosi and the current hunters had fanned the flames of hatred with every broadcast, every speech, every execution aired for public consumption. They poisoned minds with slogans: "Purge the Unnatural. Cleanse Eldario."

The country was fraying at the edges, the middle, and everything in between.

"I even had Sera and Zest test the new security," Leroy added, trying to steer them back. "If even they had problems sneaking in, then my job's done."

Jamie gave a low chuckle. "Yeah, even I had to walk through the front gates. Haven't done that in a while." He gave Sera and Zest a knowing look. Something mischievous sparked in his grey eyes. They aren't acting anything out of the norm for them, but they're sitting a little closer than normal, and with the look that Zest gave Sera and vice versa, it's very telling. "And about damn time you two got together," he said. "We were all getting tired of waiting."

Sera groaned, rubbing her face with one hand while Zest smirked slightly. "You've been back five minutes, and you're already annoying."

"Some things don't change," Jamie said brightly.

Alisa snorted. "No, they really don't."

A beat of silence passed.

Then Sera leaned forward, her fingers curled together, her expression serious again. Her mismatched eyes swept across the room, settling on Jamie. "So?" she asked, her voice steady. "What's going on?"

And just like that, the storm outside was nothing compared to the one that now loomed inside this room. And for a while, no one said a word.

It wasn't silence born of awkwardness. It was the stillness of tension wound too tight to speak. The weight of truths left unsaid pressed in like a thundercloud about to break.

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Finally, Lleucu sighed and leaned forward, his raven hair falling to the sides of his pale face as he met Sera's gaze directly. "Before we start on that," he murmured, his voice quiet but firm, "I want to hear from Sera just what you found in Veridale."

Sera's eyes flickered to him, and for a moment, her expression remained unreadable. But something flickered there: exhaustion…and grief.

"I might be a little out of the loop," Lleucu continued, "but even I've been hearing the rumours. Aegis—that's your crew, isn't it? I heard as much from Ethan. Then there's Veridale's destruction. Even the civilians and the ESA, and most of the lower-ranked hunters, were shocked about the existence of some random 'research' facility being wiped off the map." He leaned back. "But knowing the hunters… There's more to it than just research, isn't there?"

Jamie's voice came next, low and grim. "And the rumours of Blue Pandora." He exhaled heavily, raking a hand through his dark hair. "Only the upper echelons of the Abyss and some street gangs knew about it at this point. Apart from the Premier and her Enforcers. But there have been whispers. And I've been going around to every hunter base I could break into, trying to find more information. The witch hunts, the mass hysteria, the abductions…" He looked at Sera now, his grey eyes sharp as blades. "It's a goddamn civil war at this point. Whether anyone's said it out loud or not."

Leroy scoffed bitterly and sank into the seat beside Alisa. "Yeah. Thought it might be you responsible."

Jamie tilted his head. "For?"

"The murders of prominent hunters. And even some of their equally depraved supporters."

Jamie grinned with zero shame and wiggled his fingers. "You're most welcome."

A faint chuckle broke through Alisa's lips, though the humour never reached her eyes. "Then do you guys know about…?" She glanced at Sera and Zest.

Lleucu exhaled and nodded slowly. "Earl and Karl? Yeah. I do. I was right outside Earl's apartment when he passed. I was worried you and Leroy would detect me."

Alisa didn't answer. She didn't have to.

"Yeah," Jamie said softly. "I heard, too. I'm sorry."

Sera didn't speak right away. Instead, she exchanged a look with Zest—one heavy with silent understanding. His crimson eyes flickered to hers, narrowing ever so slightly. A brief, imperceptible nod passed between them.

Then, with a weary breath, Sera reached into her coat pocket and withdrew a data card.

Wordlessly, she handed it to Leroy, who took it with a furrowed brow. He leaned forward, slotting it into the interface embedded in the center of the table. With a few taps, several soft beeps echoed, and then holographic screens rose gently into the air.

What unfolded before them made time seem to stop.

There were documents—scanned reports, security logs, and even internal communications stamped with the hunter insignia. And then, the images began to scroll.

Photos of emaciated Gifted. Faces that were pale and empty. Children and adults alike strapped to beds. Limbs missing. Faces mutilated. Some with mechanical appendages half-fused to charred skin. Others missing eyes, spines exposed, tongues severed. Many were dead. Some had screamed moments before the images were taken.

The silence was suffocating.

Alisa clapped a hand to her mouth. Zest's jaw was rigid, a quiet storm in his eyes. Jamie had gone utterly still, his knuckles white as they curled into fists. Lleucu looked away, his jaw clenched tightly.

Sera's voice, when it finally came, was low and hoarse. "When this madness began," she said, "I was already worried that the hunters might have gotten their hands on the Gifted Registration List." Leroy's gaze turned sharply toward her. "There are plenty of Gifted who never registered, of course. Off-grid. Underground. But with what's happening now… It's only a matter of time before they're hunted, too."

Sera's voice hardened. "Hayder, under Larissa's orders, asked me and Aegis to dismantle Veridale. At the time, we didn't know what it truly was. Only that the disappearances—Gifted vanishing off the streets, were somehow tied to it. We didn't know how bad it really was until we got inside." She inhaled. "Veridale wasn't just a research facility. It was a slaughterhouse. A weapon factory. A place to erase us from existence. Letha, Lucie, and Claudia went deeper into the second level. They encountered war hounds."

Lleucu's head snapped toward her. "Letha? From Whirlwind?"

Sera nodded. "She's alive. Raul, too. They're with me."

But Jamie wasn't distracted. He was still staring at the holographic screens. "War hounds." His voice was a quiet storm. "I shouldn't be surprised. The hunters never let their old tricks die. Outlawed or not. I bet they've made them even more dangerous now." He finally looked up at her, the edge in his tone razor-sharp. "And Blue Pandora?"

Sera nodded gravely. "We found a batch. Hidden away. Letha's group also discovered classified files on its redevelopment. The formula's been altered. The pills are red now."

Leroy tapped a key, and one of the holograms changed—an image of a crimson capsule glinting coldly under fluorescent light. Jamie's jaw clenched.

"And Karl…" Sera's voice broke. She looked down, her fingers curling tightly into her lap. "Before he died, he told us how it was made."

The words barely left her lips.

Lleucu and Jamie sat straighter, the blood draining from their faces. "What are you saying?" Lleucu asked, already fearing the answer.

"The reason they've been taking Gifted?" Zest spoke now, his voice flat and lifeless. "Even Normals who supported the Gifted?" He glanced around, then looked directly at Jamie. "Blue Pandora is made using the essence of the Gifted. Their life force. Their blood. Their agony."

A beat of silence. No one breathed.

Jamie's voice came, brittle and lethal.

"Excuse me?!"

Sera looked at him, something ancient and shattered behind her mismatched eyes. "We saw the rooms," she whispered. "Where they drained them. Where they hooked Gifted up to machines and bled them dry. Some didn't even have names. Just numbers. And the red formula? That's what it means. The process is complete now. Refined. Perfected."

"And you're telling me the entire upper hunter command is complicit?" Jamie asked, quietly horrified.

"Not just complicit," Leroy muttered. "They orchestrated it. Nicolosi has influence embedded deep into the ESA. We've confirmed that the Veridale funding went through masked government channels. Some ESA agents were in on it. Probably even R&D. The Council too, probably."

Jamie looked like he might break the table with his bare hands. "So that's it. The witch hunts. The fear mongering. They're not just cleansing. They're harvesting."

"They're done pretending," Sera said bitterly. "They've nearly achieved what they wanted, and now, they're letting the chaos consume everything. The ESA has been compromised. The Council is divided. Even the media's been muzzled. Everything they're doing now—it's no longer hidden. They want the Gifted to be hated. Feared. Exterminated."

"No," Jamie breathed, grey eyes wide with horror. "They want the world to demand their extermination. So they can justify using them. Draining them. Powering their armies with the lives of the Gifted."

No one denied it. Lleucu slumped slightly, as if the weight of it had hit him all at once. Zest leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his voice hollow. "It's not war anymore. It's genocide."

And then silence again. Crushing, all-consuming silence.

Leroy leaned back, rubbing a hand over his face, his eyes narrowed. "Well," he muttered. "Now I really want to burn something down."

Jamie gave a dry, bitter laugh. "Glad to know some things never change."

But Sera didn't laugh. Her voice came, soft and deadly serious. "But that's not all. The red pills… They mean one thing. The project's done. They've perfected the drug. The incident years ago when we first learnt about the existence of Blue Pandora? Those were just test runs. Testing the effects of the drug on Gifted and Normals alike. But now? They no longer need to test it. They're ready to deploy it."

Jamie met her gaze, understanding fully. "They completed Blue Pandora."

Every single one of them felt the shift in the air. A slow, dreadful realisation seeping in like poison.

"The witch hunts," Jamie said slowly. "The hysteria. The disappearances. The murders. The threats. The manipulation of the ESA…" He looked around the room, his voice a quiet thunder. "We're approaching their endgame. Nicolosi's stopped pretending. And the only question that matters now…" He turned back to them. "What is he planning?"

No one could answer.

The silence stretched again. And then Leroy straightened. "And by the fact you contacted us…" he said slowly, eyeing Jamie. "I got a feeling you're about to bring us some earth-shattering news."

Jamie exhaled. "Not quite earth-shattering," he said. "But yeah. You're not going to like it." He paused, voice low. "Brace yourselves."

Everyone watched Jamie.

The white streak in his hair caught the light every time he shifted, like a scar bleeding through ink. Rain pattered against the tall windows behind him, and the only other sound was the faint hum of the music from the bar one floor below.

No one dared speak first.

Finally, Jamie exhaled, rubbing his forehead like he was trying to press back a headache. "So," he began softly. "A few days ago… I infiltrated the main hunters' headquarters."

The silence didn't break so much as fracture.

Sera sat up slowly. Zest stilled mid-sip of his drink, lowering the glass without taking his eyes off Jamie. Alisa blinked. Leroy's head turned sharply, and Lleucu leaned forward slightly, tension written across his pale features.

"At Blackpool," Jamie added.

That shattered it.

"You did what?" Alisa breathed, half-standing before sinking back down.

"It took me weeks to stake the place out," Jamie continued, his voice steady but quiet. "I waited, watched their patrols, monitored their routines. I mapped every inch of that fortress—inside and out, until I knew it better than the back of my own hand. I waited until the storm systems were bad enough to knock out sections of their long-range surveillance. And I made sure Nicolosi and his…personal unit were away."

Alisa scoffed, her voice rising. "You went into Blackpool. Alone. You're lucky you're standing here, Jamie."

Jamie gave her a tired smile. "It's me. I have a habit of walking into death traps and walking back out again. Not always in one piece, but…"

"That's not something to brag about," Leroy muttered, running a hand through his reddish-orange hair.

Jamie stepped forward, producing a slim data card from his pocket. "I made it to the main terminal. Their actual central core. I don't think even Raul could've cracked their systems remotely."

Zest blinked. "Wait… The terminal?"

Jamie nodded. "I copied everything I could."

Sera and Zest both straightened. Leroy's eyes widened. Lleucu leaned closer, disbelief on his face.

"I mean everything," Jamie continued, handing the card to Sera. "All hunter personnel files. Experiment logs. Facility locations—official and not. Financial transactions. Command chain protocols. Surveillance paths. Logs of operations. Active and archived footage. Their experiments and the results. Names of their researchers. Even future plans. Everything they ever stored on the terminal, I got it all. Even their damned family trees."

Sera's fingers closed slowly around the card. It looked so small in her hand—so utterly unassuming for something that could burn the entire hunter order to the ground.

Zest let out a low whistle. "Even Raul wouldn't touch the Blackpool core. Said it was suicide."

"Raul told Neil that the terminal's encrypted with legacy code straight from the Council's black archive systems," Sera murmured, still staring at the card. "He said one wrong ping would flag every system from here to Zhane City."

"It almost did," Jamie said. "But I rewired their detection node. Used some of their own countermeasures against them. They won't even know I was there."

"Dumb luck," Alisa muttered, trying to hide the trembling in her fingers.

There was a pause. Everyone's eyes were still on the data card, until Lleucu spoke again, his voice barely above a whisper. "There's more, isn't there?"

He knows his old partner. Jamie has another reason why he called them all here, and it isn't just because he got the data that they've all been itching to get their hands on for years now.

Jamie stilled. Then, slowly, he nodded. "Yes." He looked up, and for the first time since he walked into that room, there was something in his grey eyes that cracked beneath the surface. Not fear. Not even anger.

Grief.

"I stumbled onto a live surveillance feed," Jamie said. "I wasn't looking for it. It was buried. A single feed from their containment cell. The experimental sector. One subject in containment. It's been years, but I… I recognised him." He looked straight at Lleucu. "Wes is alive."

It was as if time stopped.

Lleucu didn't move. He didn't breathe. The colour drained from his already pale face.

Alisa stood so fast that she almost knocked the couch over. "No. No, that's impossible. He was… He was caught in the Purge—!"

"But we never found his body," Leroy said quietly, his voice low with memory. "None of us did. Only fragments. We buried what we could. Same with a few of the others. Some of their bodies were so obliterated that we barely found anything large enough of them to bury."

"I saw him," Jamie said. "I spoke to him. They've kept him alive all these years. Torturing him. Breaking him down. Trying to…do something to him. But he's still him. Still Wes. Still stubborn."

No one spoke.

Lleucu's voice cracked. "He's been alive this whole time…?"

Jamie nodded. "Yes."

The other man dropped his head into his hands, his shoulders shaking.

"…Four years," Sera whispered, her eyes glassy. "Almost five. We left him. We thought he died. But they… They took him."

Alisa sat back down, trembling. "They must've known who he was. That he was with us. That he was—"

"One of the strongest," Zest finished, his voice dark.

A silence stretched, filled only by the rain and the weight of a memory long thought buried.

Jamie broke it. "That's why I called you all here. I need your help. I want to get him out."

The statement hit like a hammer.

Leroy was the first to react. He dragged a hand down his face, groaning like he'd just been told the sun would be outlawed. "One does not just walk into Blackpool and waltz back out. That wasn't even what you did. You infiltrated, hid, and extracted. You want to go back in? Again?"

Jamie met his gaze unflinchingly. "Yes."

"That place is the beating heart of their regime," Alisa snapped. "Even their lowest rank hunters are killers. That's not a facility. That's a fortress. And the ones running it? They don't see us as people. Not the Gifted. Not the underground. They treat us like we're diseased animals to be dissected." She slammed her hand on the table. "It's suicide, Jamie."

"Then what do we do?" Jamie snapped back. "Leave him there? Let Nicolosi keep carving into his mind until there's nothing left?"

A shadow passed across Zest's face. His hands curled into fists.

Sera looked up. "I'm with Jamie." Everyone turned to her. "We left him once," she said softly. "We don't do it again."

Lleucu wiped his eyes and nodded. "He's my brother. I want to see him again. I need to."

"…We'll need help," Leroy started to say, but Zest cut in.

"No. No outsiders. No Aegis. No Abyss. Not even Ashenridge. Not for this." Zest's red eyes were cold. "If this fails, Eldario will burn. And not just from the hunters. From the civilians who support them. From the politicians who fund them. This war's already close to boiling. One misstep now and it's a massacre. It'll be a complete bloodbath if things goes south. The hunters feared Blade for a reason. That's half the reason they targeted us."

"This isn't about starting a war," Jamie said. "It's about getting one of us home."

Leroy rubbed his eyes. "Fine. No outside help. But we're barely half of what we used to be. And we need a damn plan. A diversion. We're going to need Ethan's help as an informant, at least."

A silence. Then Sera spoke. "…Kald."

Everyone looked up.

"Kald?" Zest echoed.

"Every year, the hunters hold a conference there," Sera explained. "Top hunters from all over Eldario attend. They trade information, present findings, and even share new methods for dealing with the Gifted."

"Hunting techniques," Zest said bitterly.

"Exactly. It'll pull the majority of their elites out of Blackpool. Skeleton crew left behind. Just enough to keep the place running."

Jamie's eyes narrowed. "That's our opening."

Zest counted in his head. "The conference starts in one week."

Leroy leaned back, a smirk curling the corner of his mouth. "Looks like it's time for Blade to rise again."

No one smiled.

But the spark lit.

And it burned.

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