The sky outside was the colour of ash.

No stars. No sun. Just a smear of steel and smoke as the jet carved its path above Eastern China. Max sat in his seat near the middle of the cabin, head tilted back, eyes half-lidded. His body was finally still, but his mind wouldn't stop pacing.

There was peace in the hum of the engines. Too much of it.

Alyssa sat by Liz's pod, earbuds in but not playing anything. Chloe was half-asleep beside her, nose buried in Ferron's notebook. Dan leaned back in his seat near the rear, humming quietly, a golden thread of healing energy flickering through his fingers – reflex, not thought.

Victor sat across from Max, fidgeting with a combat knife, pretending not to glance at the emergency exit every ten seconds.

Ferron was already asleep – arms crossed, chin tucked down. Breathing slow. Measured.

Nothing's on fire, Max told himself. So why does it feel like it is?

Then the lights flickered.

Just for a second. Just enough to make Max's stomach drop.

He looked up – saw Ferron's eyes snap open at the same moment—

BOOM.

The sound didn't come from outside.

It came from the inside of the plane.

The ceiling cracked. The rear hull imploded, a screech of shearing metal followed by a violent gust of decompression.

Chloe vanished – phased on instinct as a gash tore through the ceiling.

Dan was ripped sideways, one arm catching a seat rail. Max reached for him but the air was already gone.

Alarms screamed. The jet pitched hard, a steep rightward tilt that slammed everyone sideways.

Alyssa grabbed the stasis pod with both arms and slammed gravity downward. The pod locked to the deck like an anchor. Her hair whipped around her face, but she didn't let go.

"Hold on!" Max yelled but no one could hear him.

The air was roaring. The walls were howling. The world was falling.

Ferron was upright now, chanting something—his voice rising beneath the noise. Glyphs flickered across his knuckles, feeding into the soulfield barrier beneath the cabin. Cracks spread across the floor like spiderwebs.

Victor pulled Dan back toward the aisle, one arm around his ribs.

"I've got him—"

The jet lurched.

Max stumbled forward, barely catching himself. Soulfire ignited across his spine, unbidden. His skin blistered with the strain of holding it back. He couldn't release it here. Not with everyone inside.

The rear of the plane tore open.

Oxygen masks dropped like corpses.

Through the breach, Max saw the sky blur - no blue, no white. Just dark figures above them, falling fast.

Not a missile. Not a mechanical failure. This was precision.

This was intent.

The jet's nose dipped, engines screaming. Chloe reappeared midair and slammed into a bulkhead with a cry. Dan hit the floor beside her, already bleeding. Ferron was holding the soulfield together by inches. Alyssa's face was locked in a grimace as the pod began to lift again – her gravity field struggling to hold.

"We're going down!" Victor shouted.

Max grabbed a handhold as the walls shook apart.

Through the breach – he saw them.

Six black shapes, silhouetted against the sky.

They weren't falling.

They were descending.

…………………

Alyssa couldn't breathe.

It wasn't the air – there was still some of that, somewhere.

It was the weight. The pressure. The shriek of metal bending around her.

Buried again.

Something had collapsed over her – chairs, a storage rack, maybe part of the floor itself. It pinned her back against the stasis pod like a coffin lid, and the plane was still falling, still twisting, still breaking.

Her gravity field pulsed reflexively. The debris tried to crush her, but her body was suddenly denser than steel. The air bent. The weight shifted. The wreckage shuddered and peeled away from her spine like it was being peeled from the planet.

She gasped, her face slick with sweat.

Not again. I'm not dying under rubble again.

Her fingers curled tighter around the edge of the pod. It was still intact – thank God. Chloe was crumpled on the other side of it, blinking groggily, blood running from her temple.

"Chloe!" Alyssa shouted, pushing through the panic. "Stay down! Don't move!"

The jet hit turbulence – or what felt like a punch from God – and the pod slammed against the wall. Chloe screamed, but Alyssa held the pod in place with everything she had. Her hands burned. Her core trembled.

She wasn't sure if her bones were breaking or if she was just being pulled through herself. She grit her teeth. Grit turned into a scream.

Then she did something new.

She reversed it.

Instead of dragging everything downward, she focused inward – inverted the gravity well. Made herself lighter. Then Chloe. Then the pod. Then the plane. The weight lessened.

The debris shuddered and lifted an inch. Her hands tingled. The air changed.

Everything around her became less dense.

The pod stopped vibrating. The crash slowed in her perception. Her mind fractured into focus.

Holy shit – I'm doing it. I'm flipping it.

For half a second – just long enough to taste hope – she thought:

I need to explore this. If I survive.

The wall snapped backward. A secondary impact jolted the pod again. Chloe yelped, curling into Alyssa's arm. Her powers strained – stretching, flickering, but holding.

Then the pressure dropped.

A flash of gold blurred past her peripheral vision.

The pressure dropped.

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The wind stopped.

Time stuttered.

Dan felt like his soul was tearing in half.

He had planted his feet at the centre of the cabin and thrown his arms wide, just like before – like when he rebuilt Hawthorne's arm from raw tendon and bone and faith.

But this wasn't precision healing. This was wall-building under fire.

"Hold—just—HOLD—!"

His aura pulsed gold and thick, a bubble of living pressure that wrapped around Alyssa, Chloe, the pod, Max, Ferron, even Victor's groaning body across the aisle.

He was shaking. Blood trickled from his ears. Something inside him was giving way, and he wasn't sure if it was his heart or his threshold.

Then something clicked.

Not a snap.

Not a break.

A click.

Like a key turning.

And suddenly the aura thickened.

It stopped flickering. It stopped bleeding.

It became solid.

The sound dropped. The light dimmed.

For a moment, there was only gold – radiating from his chest like the sun remembering itself.

I'm not weak anymore. I'm not late this time.

Victor felt the shift too.

His body had already begun to change before the final descent – his instincts tugging at the Chimera inside him, begging to unleash the rage.

But this time, he refused the rage.

He reached deeper.

Pulled slower.

Let the power unfold instead of explode.

His muscles didn't tear or bulk up – they compressed. His bones felt heavier, grounded, like he was made of coiled stone and braided sinew. His skin roughened into something just shy of armour, but it was still his. Not the beast's.

This isn't just about fighting, he thought.

There's more to it. More than claws. More than blood.

He turned – and saw Max.

Still curled near the wall. Shoulders trembling. Soulfire licking at his ribs like it was trying to eat its way out. Gold – not blue.

Victor crossed the aisle and covered him with his body, arms braced wide, chestplate-hard. Max didn't protest. Didn't speak.

He just stayed uncharacteristically small.

And then—

The sky fell.

The ground rose to meet them.

The plane screamed.

Victor closed his eyes, then bellowed: "Oh shit – brace yourselves, kids!"

The plane met the ground. The world collapsed into sound. Everything went black.

…………………

Max woke to silence.

Not peace. Not sleep. Just silence – the kind that followed violence, like the air had been wrung out of the world and hadn't come back yet.

He was slumped against a warped seat frame, shoulders half-pinned by a ceiling panel that no longer belonged to the ceiling. A sharp scent filled his nose: burned rubber, hydraulic fluid, scorched steel, and blood.

He moved.

Pain answered.

But he was alive.

Slowly, Max sat up and took it all in.

The cabin was gutted. Windows gone. Roof half-torn. But it hadn't exploded. It hadn't shattered into flaming shrapnel like it should have.

The crash had been… contained.

And then he saw why.

Liz's pod lay across from him – upright, unscratched, a soft glow still humming from its soulfield. Chloe was collapsed beside it, breathing shallowly. Her body flickered at the edges, phasing in and out. She must have phased the entire pod, turned it intangible at the point of impact.

Nearby, Alyssa knelt on one knee, eyes shut tight, one hand still pressed to the metal floor. Around her, the wreckage was warped – lightened, as if gravity itself had misfired. The deck had crushed inward, but only slightly – like the weight of the crash had missed her.

She reversed her power, Max realized. She made everything lighter.

He was awestruck. That wasn't just control – it was evolution.

To her left, Dan was slumped against a wall, his golden aura still flickering – not faint, but thick. Like a shell. A second skin.

The entire cabin had a strange density to it, like the air had turned viscous at the moment of impact. Dan had shielded them all.

Max's chest tightened. Not from pain but from something else.

Pride.

He turned – and saw Victor.

The man was crouched low, braced between Max and the wall, arms spread wide like a shield. His skin was darker, rougher, plated – not the chaotic chimera rage Max had seen before, but something controlled. Hardened. Chosen.

Victor noticed him stirring.

"Hey," he rasped, voice raw. "Still breathing?"

Max nodded.

Victor let out a breath and collapsed to one side. "Good. You owe me another drink."

Max sat fully upright. His hands were trembling.

He closed his eyes.

Tried to summon it – Hellfire. The blue flame that had torn Mammon open, that had burned a path through gods and monsters.

But nothing came.

Only heat.

Pain.

His skin blistered. His ribs twisted. The fire tried to crawl up his throat but died in agony halfway.

All he could summon was Soulfire – the golden flame, hot and noble, but less.

I've lost it, he realized. Since Mammon… something's broken.

He clenched his jaw.

Hellfire wasn't gone – it was dormant, buried, burning him from the inside out. Like a power that needed feeding. Like a beast that had tasted too much.

He'd need to fight again. To kill again. Feed the Soul Prison. Take strength from the things he destroyed.

I need demons, he thought, bitterly. I need enemies to feel whole again.

And then—

He felt them.

First as heat.

Then as presence.

Max looked toward the opening of the wreckage – a corridor of broken light and trailing smoke.

Six figures walked through the flames.

Inhumanly calm.

Their uniforms didn't carry flags. Their steps made no sound. One carried corpses. One flickered through time. One whispered scripture. One watched him with unblinking eyes.

And Max— Max just knew.

They're not here to help.

He staggered to his feet.

Behind him, Victor was already standing again.

Chloe stirred. Alyssa rose to full height, her eyes glowing faintly. Dan dragged himself upright, teeth gritted, golden light crackling faintly along his arms.

Liz's pod pulsed. Still safe. Still whole.

Max exhaled once.

Then said, quietly:

"They're here for us."

…………………

From three kilometres up, the wreckage looked like a torn artery – smoke pulsing into the sky with every heartbeat of flame.

She hadn't blinked in seven minutes.

Agent 714 – Ying – knelt on the steel lip of the drone's observation platform, her body folded into stillness, armour black as oil. No insignia. No flag. Just sleek plating fitted to kill without friction.

Her visor shimmered with mirrored light, reflecting the ground's thermal bloom. The heads-up display flickered as new heat signatures entered the frame: six figures, moving through fire in perfect formation.

They were not Chinese.

They were not registered military.

They moved like ghosts trained to never leave bodies behind.

The satellite comms flickered.

"Theta Unit has breached our airspace," Ying said into the silence. Her voice was calm, clipped. "Targets located. Max Jaeger alive. Asset pod intact. Americans are moving to intercept."

A pause.

Then the reply – General Wang, voice gravel-thick and emotionless:

"Do not reveal yourself 714. Do not interfere. Observe and record. Intervention is not authorized unless the asset is compromised."

Agent 714's gaze tracked downward. Her visor zoomed in.

She saw the anomaly – Max – staggering to his feet. Soulfire flickering at his fingertips, his movements sluggish. He looked… human. Broken.

Two girls – one glowing faintly, the other flickering like glass.

A young man – head bleeding – lifting a golden shield over the wreck.

The pod.

Still sealed.

And six American shadows walking toward them like they were collecting property.

Agent 714's jaw tightened.

She touched the side of her helmet, switching to optical-only.

No feed. No recording. Just her eyes.

Because she wanted to see it for herself.

The Americans moved without hesitation. Not containment. Not rescue. Extraction.

She had seen wars start slower.

Agent 714 didn't speak. She didn't nod. But her hand drifted to her rifle, slung low along her back.

Her fingers tapped once on the grip.

Not drawn. Not aimed.

But ready.

They think this is still quiet. They think this is controlled.

She breathed in.

They're wrong.

…………………

The smoke parted like it had been taught to obey.

Sergeant Axel Carrigan – Reverb – stepped through first, boots crunching over broken glass and hot steel. His rosary swayed gently against his chest, dog tags ticking like a metronome. The air tasted like blood, metal, and unfinished judgment.

He stopped just beyond the wreckage line and raised his right hand.

Behind him, the Chamber halted – five figures fanned in a loose combat arc, their spacing drilled to instinct.

Splice flanked left, dragging two zipped black bags across the ground. Her puppets. One bag twitched.

Rewind flickered once – three afterimages shifting like echoes of violence. He adjusted his grip on a collapsible baton that hadn't been invented yet.

Crux whispered scripture, knuckles cracking in rhythm. Blood already stained his sleeves. He smiled like he'd been waiting his whole life for this moment.

Stonewall walked through the wreckage without slowing. Fire licked up her boots and died.

Gallows prowled the outer perimeter, back hunched, skin crawling with slow, unnatural transformation. His breath fogged in the heat. His eyes reflected gold.

Reverb lowered his hand.

His visor scanned the ruin: collapsed fuselage, torn panels, black smoke. Then—shapes.

Six survivors in front of him.

Two girls. One golden healer. One chimera. One anomaly.

The other girl – the Asset – was still in the pod. Untouched.

The others were… standing.

Too many of them were standing.

He tapped the comm bead behind his ear.

"Chamber Theta. Visual contact confirmed. Anomaly and Asset located. Survivors resisting atmospheric conditions. Commencing engagement."

Crux chuckled.

"About damn time."

Reverb drew his revolver.

The click echoed like a sentence.

Down the slope, through the wreckage—

Max Jaeger saw them.

He knew immediately.

Not demon. Not human.

Something worse.

Dan stepped beside him, breath steady but heavy. His hands glowed gold.

Alyssa and Chloe flanked Liz's pod, feet planted. Chloe was pale. Alyssa wasn't blinking.

Victor stepped forward. His skin was already shifting. The plates had returned.

Max whispered, voice hoarse:

"Stay behind me."

Reverb raised his weapon. Crux smiled like a priest at the pulpit. Splice's puppets began to rise.

And from the treeline behind the Contractors—

Agent 714 watched.

Finger hovering on the trigger.

Then—

Reverb turned the revolver on himself.

No hesitation.

He pressed the muzzle to his temple, bowed his head like a man in prayer.

"Saint Michael... make me your hammer."

Bang.

The shot rang out like the sky tearing in half.

His body didn't fall.

The bullet stopped mid-skull – frozen, suspended in place, quivering with energy. Then it reversed – not in motion, but in intent – and the kinetic force rippled outward from his bones, distorting the air like a scream with no sound.

The ground beneath him cracked.

The trees bent.

Max staggered backward as the air itself seemed to recoil.

What the hell—?

Alyssa's eyes widened.

Dan gasped.

Victor braced.

And Reverb lifted his head.

Unscarred. Unshaken.

Smiling.

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