The war room stank of ozone and cold metal.

Dr. Grimm stood at the head of the tactical table, fingers twitching across a cracked tablet. The table's surface flickered – a patchwork of satellite scans, heat signatures, and distorted psychic fields resolving into a single, frozen image.

Prague.

Or at least… something that looked like it.

He swiped again. A slow scroll through surveillance captures – rows of buildings too intact, trees too green. Pedestrians crossing cobbled streets without fear. Streetlights worked. Electric trams still ran on schedule. A café served something steaming in real porcelain.

It was wrong.

"Chloe," Grimm said, not looking up, "Walk them through it."

She didn't hesitate. From her spot near the edge of the room, still half in shadow, Chloe stepped forward. Her voice was steady, clipped.

"I entered through the northern border three nights ago. Avoided the main checkpoint. No sign of demon constructs or mask-children. Just… people. Talking. Shopping. Laughing." She paused, then tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "But their smiles didn't change. Not even when the sky turned red for two minutes."

A silence settled. Grimm didn't fill it.

She continued. "I trailed a patrol. Not demons— humans. Contractors, I think. Branded, not bonded. They were calm. Efficient. Not scanning for outsiders. Just… maintaining order."

She trailed off again. Her brow furrowed. "It felt like walking through a set. Like the city knew it was being watched and wanted to impress."

Ying crossed her arms from her spot opposite the table. "It's not just the people. There are patterns in the street layout that weren't there before. It feels… rehearsed. As if the shadows have been instructed where to fall."

Grimm's lips tightened.

"Contractors running patrols means someone's paying them," Ying went on. "Apostles, at minimum. Maybe a full Demon Lord. But I didn't see sigils – no signs of Moloch's fire or Zagan's entropy. Whoever's in charge is subtle."

"Which is worse," Chloe added. "Because subtle means deliberate."

Grimm flicked the hologram forward again. A new image hovered above the table – an aerial capture of the city centre, its cathedral spires gleaming like surgical tools.

He turned to Liz. "Do not destroy the city. Not yet."

Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she said nothing.

Grimm straightened his coat. The light from the projector stuttered as a wind gust howled against the window slats above.

"We treat this like an occupied zone under psychological warfare conditions. No heroics. No brute force. Infiltrate without triggering defences."

He tapped the screen. Four glowing markers spread across the map – points of interest: a theatre, a water plant, a library, and a sealed underground station.

"Our goals are threefold. First, discover why Prague still stands while the rest of Europe burns. Second, identify who holds power. Is it Moloch? One of his Apostles? Or a new threat entirely?"

He let the question linger, then dropped his hand to the edge of the table.

"And third—" his voice dropped, a cold edge bleeding in "—locate Max. Extract him. Alive."

No one moved.

Then Grimm leaned forward, both palms on the table.

"If Moloch is there," he said quietly, "we do not engage. We vanish. Understood?"

A few nods. Victor's jaw flexed. Alyssa muttered something under her breath. Liz didn't move at all.

Grimm's eyes swept the room one last time.

"This city is a lie," he said. "And lies always demand sacrifice."

The lights dimmed as if in agreement. And the silence that followed felt like a held breath, just before the blade dropped.

…………………

The maps flickered, reforming into grids of blue and red overlays. Grimm's fingers swept across the interface, dragging new nodes into place. Prague shrank, segmented, dissected into tactical blocks. A schematic of survival.

The team stood around him now. Silent. Focused. The air crackled – not with electricity, but the pressure of people bracing for something they couldn't yet name.

"Assignments," Grimm said, his voice even. "This isn't a standard assault. This is precision work. One wrong move and we burn everything."

The light dimmed again as a new layer of the holo-map appeared—marked circles, projected routes, pulse lines indicating surveillance fields.

He turned to Ying first.

"You're field commander. Tactical lead. Final say in all decisions."

Ying gave a small nod, arms folded. No surprise. But the set of her jaw hardened.

"Liz," Grimm said, turning.

Her red halo flickered faintly, like a suppressed flame behind her eyes.

"You're combat support. Psychic suppression. Shield the team from mental intrusion, disrupt any ambient charmwork, but—" he held up a finger "—you do not lead."

She tensed. But didn't argue. Not yet.

Grimm's gaze lingered. "If we lose focus, we lose him. This mission is not your vengeance. It's his rescue. Understood?"

Liz blinked once. Then nodded.

"Chloe," he continued, shifting to the figure leaning half in shadow. "You're infiltration and egress. Shadow pathfinding. You go in first, clear the corridors, mark retreat paths. Quiet as ghosts."

Chloe gave a two-finger salute, dry as ash. "I'll leave the lights on."

He didn't smile.

"Victor. Alyssa." He didn't need to point – both were already looming close to the table, impatient in different ways.

"You're the wall. You move when told, strike when ordered, and only when necessary. Prague must not know we're there. Defence only. No destruction. No indulgence. That means you, Alyssa."

She shrugged, cracking her knuckles. "Fine. But if someone breathes wrong, I'm swinging."

Victor just grunted. It could've meant anything. Grimm didn't ask.

"Dan," he said, finally. "Support and healing. Keep to the middle of the formation. Use your light barriers to keep them alive. You're the fallback."

Dan nodded quietly, expression unreadable.

Grimm stepped back from the table. The holograms pulsed, marking each name in sequence. The board was set.

"This is a surgical entry. No glory. No heroics. Just results."

No one spoke. The weight of it pressed into the gaps between their breaths.

Then Grimm added, softer but no less firm:

"Come back alive. All of you."

Grimm didn't speak further. But his knuckles whitened against the table's edge.

The room didn't relax. But something shifted. Resolve, maybe. Or the realisation that the next time they gathered, someone might not return.

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Grimm shut down the map. The lights dimmed one final time.

The pieces had moved.

Now the game began.

…………………

The war table dimmed, the last lines of Prague flickering into shadow. One by one, the team began to shift back from the glow – muscles tense, eyes unreadable. Not from doubt. From the sharp clarity that came before violence.

But Liz didn't move.

She stood, slowly, her hands planted lightly on the edge of the steel.

Everyone looked at her.

Not because she outranked them. Not because Grimm gave her leave. But because they knew why they were here. And none of them could say it aloud until she did.

Her voice cracked when she started. Too soft, too tight.

"I know I'm not in command."

She paused. Her fingers flexed against the metal. The halo above her flared briefly – then stilled.

"I don't need to be."

Her eyes lifted, meeting each of theirs in turn.

"But I do need you. All of you."

Silence. But not the empty kind. The listening kind.

"To Chloe," she said, turning toward the girl half-hidden in the low light, "thank you. For finding him. You found the trail no one else could. For walking alone through something that… should've broken you."

Chloe didn't speak. Just looked away, eyes glittering with reflection.

"To Victor," Liz continued, voice firmer now, "for surviving the guilt I've only glimpsed. For still choosing to fight."

Victor's jaw flexed. But he didn't interrupt.

"To Alyssa. For never backing down, even when it meant breaking yourself to keep others standing."

Alyssa glanced sideways. Said nothing. But her hands clenched.

"To Dan," Liz said, her voice hitching just slightly, "for holding my family together when I couldn't."

Dan's smile was faint. Pain behind it.

Then her gaze turned to Ying.

"And to you. For leading when I couldn't. For keeping us moving. I know I'm not easy to manage."

Ying arched a single brow. "Understatement."

A ripple of dry air passed through the room. Almost a laugh. Almost.

Liz looked down for a breath, then straightened.

"I'm not here to give a speech. I'm just…" She exhaled. "I need you to know what this means. What he means."

She stepped back from the table, halo pulsing red now – low and steady.

"I will not come back without my father."

The words were a blade. Quiet. Sharp.

Her shoulders squared.

"So if you see me hesitate – remind me why we're doing this. Remind me who we're saving. And if I fall…"

She swallowed.

"Don't stop. Get him out."

The stillness that followed wasn't shock. It was agreement. Wordless. Shared.

Even Alyssa looked away, jaw tight.

And then, from the shadows—

Chloe's voice. Barely a whisper.

"We won't let you fall."

The room didn't break. Didn't collapse into sentiment.

But something hard settled into place. Something sacred.

An unspoken vow.

…………………

The war room emptied like a tide pulling back before the crash.

Boots on stone. A shuffle of gear. Quiet nods. No laughter. No small talk. Just the sound of people retreating into their own edges.

Ying didn't follow.

She waited until the last one left – until even Grimm had stepped out, muttering something clipped into his comms – and only then did she move. Down the hall. Alone. The echo of her steps matching her heartbeat in slow syncopation.

Her mind didn't stop.

Chloe had disappeared first. Into the shadows, like always. No questions, no complaints – just the shape of a ghost in motion. Useful. Efficient. Unseen.

But fragile.

Ying had worked with ghosts before. Operatives who became smoke when you needed a hand to hold. Who slipped through walls, through lives, through grief – and never came back the same. Chloe never asked for anything. That was what worried Ying. People who didn't ask had usually already decided no one would answer.

Chloe did her job. Perfectly. But perfection was a brittle thing.

One wrong noise, one flash too loud, one memory too close, and she might just vanish. Not into the mission – but from it. From them. From herself.

She'd seen it before. Operatives who became their own exits. Chloe was too good at disappearing. And too good at pretending it wasn't a problem.

Ying made a mental note to keep her close. Not to watch her tactics. To watch her silence.

Victor... he worried her the most.

Not because of his strength. But because of where it came from.

Power like that didn't emerge clean. It was born in pain, sculpted by loss, and tempered in self-hate. Every step Victor took crackled with restraint – not discipline, restraint. He moved like someone always one breath away from a scream.

Ying trusted him to protect Liz. She didn't trust him not to break something in the process.

His guilt ran too deep. His loyalty cut too sharp. He didn't just carry trauma – he wore it, in bone and fang and claws that never fully retracted. And now with Max on the line… it wasn't duty driving him. It was atonement.

That scared her.

Because men like Victor didn't die in war. They offered themselves to it.

And Ying couldn't afford to lose him. Not just because of his power. Because Liz needed someone who'd bleed for her without asking questions. But Ying needed someone who could survive doing it.

Victor had the strength to fight an army. But did he have the will to walk away from the battlefield?

She wasn't sure.

And that meant someone had to make sure he didn't become a casualty of his own redemption.

Alyssa would fight even if it killed her. Maybe especially if it did. Some people wore pain like armour. Alyssa had hammered hers into a blade. Every movement, every punch, every reckless charge – she was trying to outrun something. Guilt, probably. Grief she hadn't named yet.

But her weakness was Dan.

Not because he made her soft. But because he reminded her she was.

When he looked at her, he didn't see the monster she feared becoming. He saw the girl who'd survived anyway. And Alyssa didn't know what to do with that. His faith in her was dangerous – made her hesitate when she should strike, made her reckless when he was in danger. She fought like she could protect him from the world, and that kind of thinking got people killed.

If Dan fell, Alyssa would shatter.

And if she shattered… Ying didn't know who would survive the fallout.

Dan was kind. Too kind.

Ying didn't say that with disdain. She said it like a prayer already grieving its answer.

They needed him – his shields, his healing, the golden light he carried like a torch through hell. But the world they were walking into didn't bend to light. It broke it. Bent it sideways, turned it into something cruel. And Dan, for all his strength, still believed light could fix things.

He was too soft on Alyssa. Too protective of Liz. Too forgiving, even when he shouldn't be. He held onto people like they were lifelines – never realising they were the ones drowning.

Dan had too many weaknesses. But he was also the only one who gave them a fighting chance.

Because when Alyssa spun out, when Liz burned too hot, when Victor fractured, when Chloe vanished into herself – Dan stayed. He didn't flinch. He stood. Even when it hurt. Especially when it hurt.

Ying just hoped he remembered one thing before it was too late: You can't shield the world with your heart.

Because if Dan fell, they'd all feel it. And she wasn't sure they could afford to.

And Liz... Liz was the core. The soul of the mission. But also its fracture line.

Desperation clung to her like heat off a fire – intense, relentless, impossible to ignore. She glowed with purpose. And purpose burned.

Liz was the most powerful of them all – psychically, emotionally, spiritually. There was no ceiling to her potential. But there was no floor, either. If she fell, she'd keep falling until something shattered.

She was just like her father. A risk-taker. A fighter. The kind of person who didn't just walk into danger – she dared it to stop her.

That terrified Ying.

Because Liz wouldn't hesitate. Not to throw herself into the fire. Not to detonate her own soul if it meant dragging Max back from the dark. She would sacrifice anything.

Even herself. Even them.

That was the cost of love that deep – it didn't know how to draw boundaries.

So Ying watched her like you watch a bomb wired to a heartbeat. Not with fear. With clarity.

Liz was the soul of this mission. And the blade hovering over it.

Ying just had to make sure she struck the right target.

Ying exhaled hard. Slowed her pace.

"This isn't a team," she muttered. "It's a storm. And I'm holding the lightning rod."

She reached the outer balcony – cold wind cutting up from the mountainside – and leaned against the railing. Her eyes didn't lift to the stars. They scanned the terrain.

Three possible entry vectors into Prague. Four fallback routes. Six dead drop points. Two hidden safehouses Grimm's agents had stashed over the years. If one failed, she had the others. If they all failed – then adaptation would be her only asset.

No plan survives first contact.

She let the wind sting her cheeks.

But I'll be damned if they don't survive the contact itself.

She straightened. Rolled her shoulders back. The weight of command didn't settle easily. But it settled.

"This is on me now," she murmured.

She looked east. Toward the darkness where Prague waited, too clean, too silent.

"Prague won't break them," she whispered.

Her jaw set.

"I won't let it."

…………………

The leather strap creaked as Victor tightened it across his chest. His hands moved with mechanical precision, but his gaze lingered on the small fang amulet tucked into the folds of his harness – Kabe's tooth, carved and bound with black twine. It pressed cool against his skin, grounding him.

He bowed his head. "Max… I'm coming."

A breath. His claws flexed once beneath his gloves. The quiet resolve in his chest felt sharper than any blade.

Nearby, Alyssa rolled her shoulders and tightened the gauntlets on her wrists. They hissed as the seals engaged, metal against skin. Her eyes locked onto the pulsing red light of Prague's coordinates on the tactical display. She didn't speak. Just stared, jaw tense, as the wind kicked dust against her boots.

A shadow moved by the loading ramp – and then it was gone.

Chloe had already boarded. No words. No announcement. Just the shape of her coat vanishing into smoke, the faint shimmer of her passage tripping one of the drone's motion sensors. Inside, unseen, she whispered a mantra into the dark: "One clean entry. One clean exit." It wasn't hope. It was a rule.

Dan lingered behind the others, hands folded loosely in front of him. The gold halo above his head flickered, faint as a dying flame, but steady. He touched his sternum, right over the place where he kept his pendant, and whispered a soft invocation – not to a god, but to the idea of mercy.

"Please let me keep them safe."

His eyes drifted to Liz. And stayed there.

She stood still, a few paces from the nearest drone. Her eyes were shut, her silver-white hair blowing around her like threads of flame. The world moved around her – blades buckled, weapons sheathed, boots on steel – and she didn't react.

She wasn't listening to Grimm's orders or Ying's checklists. She wasn't thinking of tactics.

She was listening.

And for a moment – just the briefest break between rotor beats – she thought she heard it. A sound no one else could.

"Liz…"

Her eyes opened. No doubt. No fear. Only fire.

Ying watched them all from the edge of the launch pad, her arms crossed against the wind. She saw the scars beneath their armour, the stories behind their silence. She saw the storm they carried.

And she knew: this team wasn't made of balance. It was made of fracture. But fracture could cut deeper than steel.

She raised her hand.

"Move out."

Engines roared as the drones lifted, turbines screaming against the wind. Dust exploded from the pad. Shadows lengthened and vanished.

And far across the horizon – beyond the ruined cities and dead fields – Prague shimmered in the mist.

Beautiful. Untouched. And wrong.

Not peaceful. Just quiet.

The kind of quiet that comes from fear well-trained.

A city polished like a mask – flawless on the surface, hollow beneath.

Where no one screamed. Because someone had taught them not to.

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