The night cloaked the world in velvet shadow, and beneath it, six figures ghosted through the crumbling outskirts of the cult's subterranean compound.
No torches. No chatter. No visible heat signatures. Just movement—precise, surgical.
"Comm check," Echo's voice crackled softly through the earpiece. "Phase one begins now."
They were already splitting.
A blurred silhouette peeled off toward the right corridor, Kael's signature coat flowing like a flag. The decoy.
Echo watched it from above, crouched in a shadowed ventilation shaft like a reaper biding time. His white hair barely caught the light. His reflection didn't follow him—it watched instead, hovering silently in the broken shard embedded in his glove.
The real Kael stayed behind, body tense beside Noelle as they moved quietly along the maintenance tunnels. He kept a hand over his reflection, wrapped tightly beneath bandages. She glanced at him, gave a curt nod.
"Three minutes till breach," Renji whispered from the comm. His voice was calm, detached, tapping away on his portable mirror interface. From his hidden alcove, he looped the surveillance footage, blanked biometric sensors, and masked Kael's presence with ghost echoes. "Their entire system's running on last night's data. We're invisible."
Ziv and Juno split off next, crawling through a shattered hallway laced with hanging mirrors. Juno left a faint shimmer of illusion in their wake, bending the light and shadow. Ziv folded space around himself, slipping past a laser grid without even activating it.
Then came Mara.
She didn't sneak.
Mara marched.
Her boots slammed into the compound's east corridor like war drums. Her braid whipped behind her as she tore through the entrance, eyes already glowing faintly violet. One step inside, and the mirror sensors lit up like fireworks.
"Alert triggered. Mara is on-site," Echo's voice came coldly. "That's our signal."
Cultists scrambled from side halls, cloaks flaring. One shouted. Another cast a glyph across the floor—but Mara was already airborne.
"Sorry," she snarled mid-air. "I don't do quiet."
Her heel crashed into a reflective sigil, shattering it. Glass rained down like snow.
The cultists surrounded her—but she smiled. That wide, reckless grin that scared even Echo sometimes.
Then she vanished.
A second passed—then screams.
Mara reappeared behind a robed man, hand slicing through the blind spot behind his shoulder. He collapsed. Another tried to cast a tracking flare. She dove beneath it, pivoted, twisted, kicked the edge of the mirror and launched herself sideways.
"Hold her in place!" a voice bellowed from the crowd. "She's manipulating blind angles!"
"Then don't blink," someone muttered.
Then he arrived.
Mara froze for a half-second, instincts flaring.
Her opponent wasn't like the others.
He didn't charge.
He moved like water—steady, calculated. Wrapped in flowing black cloth, bare feet sliding across the ground. His eyes were shut.
And somehow, he was tracking her perfectly.
Mara frowned. "Well, that's cheating."
He tilted his head. "Pressure. Vibrations. Air flow. Sight is a crutch."
Before she could speak, he struck.
His movements were nearly invisible—each limb slipping around her defenses like he'd fought her a hundred times. She flipped, twisted into a blind spot—and he met her there.
"You shouldn't be able to—"
He struck again. This time, she staggered.
She wasn't used to people finding her once she vanished. Her ability let her erase herself from direct perception—step into the invisible corners of space where sight failed.
But this guy? This monk-like assassin?
He fought with no eyes—and saw everything.
Mara growled. "You're really pissing me off."
His response was a swift palm to her chest—sending her flying into a mirror panel. She crashed through it, glass cracking against her ribs.
She coughed, wiping blood from her mouth.
Then she laughed.
"Okay," she hissed. "Round two, freak."
As she leapt again, dancing through the shattered remains of reflections, her mind spiraled—not out of fear, but focus.
Kael.
That weird, awkward boy who could barely hold a thought together without some sarcastic quip. She remembered when he first arrived—confused, scared, fragile. The kind of guy who tripped on his own shadow.
And now?
Now cultists were calling him Messiah.
Now Echo—the coldest, sharpest among them—was protecting him like sacred flame.
Mara didn't believe in saviors. She believed in strategy. Pain. Rage. Real things.
But something about Kael made her stay. Made her fight. Even now, in this blood-slicked corridor.
The monk lunged again—and this time, he drove a blade into her thigh.
Pain exploded through her leg.
She screamed, stumbling into a shattered console. Blood soaked her combat suit. Her hand trembled as she pulled the blade free, vision blurring.
But her grin never left.
"I'm not done yet," she spat. "Not even close."
She ducked under his next strike, flipped him over her shoulder, and sent her elbow crashing into his temple. He staggered.
Her breath came in ragged gasps. Her body screamed to collapse.
But she kept moving.
Because Kael needed time.
Because this plan needed to work.
Because she refused to let that boy die—not today.
She activated her comm with shaking fingers. "East side clear. Target delayed. I'm still buying time."
" I might not be the best not the most sane person around and kael is most definitely an asshole,he is still my friend and I would gladly fight for him " she thought
And she sprinted forward—wounded, furious, unbreakable.
Straight into the next wave.