The week passed in a blur of motion and adrenaline, as if time itself had stepped back, watching silently as Kali and Priene prepared for what he privately called his final act on Theraxis. Sleep came in broken fragments. Meals were scarce and forgettable. Every waking moment was spent gathering intelligence, arming themselves, and rehearsing every conceivable outcome.
A representative from Alenra, anonymous, surgically polite, and likely spliced with more surveillance tech than skin, had handed them a sealed data chip containing the bunker's blueprints. Along with it came a brief, cold debrief: "Expect resistance. Expect death." There had been no promises, no reassurances. Just facts.
Kali studied the layout of the bunker obsessively. Concrete corridors. Reinforced kill-zones. Multiple fallback routes. It was a fortress built to outlast revolutions. He memorized every entry and exit point, every security checkpoint, and every ventilation shaft that could be leveraged.
When it came to firepower, he went all in.
Two compact automatic rifles, one for close quarters, the other with a smart-linked scope for mid-range engagement. Three handguns, each modded with magnetic stabilizers. He stocked up on both kinetic slugs and heat-resistant armor-piercing rounds, enough to punch through most combat-grade suits. Alongside the weapons came tactical gloves, field kits, a breaching charge, and enough ammo to ignite a small war.
He was like a man bred for war and nothing else.
Priene, by contrast, packed light. She carried only her well-worn machete, its blade oiled and sharpened until it gleamed like moonlight, and a single heavy-frame handgun. She didn't need anything else. There was a violence in her stillness that even Kali respected. While he prepared to shoot his way through hell, she planned to cut through it.
In the days leading up to the strike, they scouted the compound's perimeter under the guise of vagrants and displaced civilians. They mapped out surveillance blind spots, memorized patrol rhythms, and took note of emergency entrances disguised as maintenance ports.
Priene said little during these stakeouts. Kali spoke only when necessary. There was nothing more to say. They had come to the edge of something, and whatever happened next would define them both.
As they returned to the safehouse the night before the assault, the city's dying glow shimmered across broken glass and metal husks. Kali paused for a moment on the steps, looking up at the stars barely visible through the smoke-washed skies.
"Last night on this planet," he muttered.
She had smiled at him, like a friend saying goodbye, it had told him all he needed to know.
"You know we might not make it out tomorrow," she said.
"I know."
She rested her head on his shoulder. Just for a second. A small, human thing in a world that had forgotten softness.
"You're an idiot," she whispered.
"I know."
And they stayed like that for a long while, two tired souls, armed to the teeth, watching the world end together one heartbeat at a time.
Dawn bled slowly over the horizon, painting the crumbling skyline of Theraxis in bruised shades of violet and rust. The city groaned in its sleep, sirens in the distance, the occasional crack of gunfire, the metallic churn of patrol drones skimming rooftops like vultures.
Kali and Priene moved like shadows.
The governor's bunker was buried beneath an old research facility in the south districts, once a biotech center, now gutted and repurposed with reinforced walls, turreted defense nodes, and biometric seals. The compound was cloaked in denial, no public records, no official routes. Just the whispers of a map, pried from SynSpec hands.
They approached from the aqueduct tunnels, submerged beneath the city's skin. The water was stale and ankle-deep, carrying the sour stink of metal, mold, and burnt chemicals. Rats scattered ahead of them, their red eyes flashing in the dim light of Priene's low-beam torch.
"Seal up," Kali said, voice muffled by the mask. They both pulled on filtered breathers, above the facility, gases leaked from fractured pipes, and some of them still carried lethal doses of halogen dust.
They reached a maintenance grate under the facility's southern wing. Kali knelt, pried it open, and slipped inside first. The air changed immediately, cold, dry, sterile. Fluorescent strips buzzed faintly overhead in the tight crawlspace.
They moved wordlessly through the ventilation shafts. Kali's heart thudded steadily, not with fear, but focus. Every twist of metal, every vibration in the ductwork, he read like a language. Two turns left, one up. Count the footsteps above. Map the pattern.
They dropped into the interior at Level B, landing behind a decommissioned reactor shield. From there, it was careful movement: between exposed pipes, behind crates of old weapon prototypes. Priene moved like a phantom, silent, machete sheathed at her back, handgun in hand.
They spotted the first guard at a junction hallway. Standard armor, not elie, Kali thought. He turned, nodded once.
Priene sprang forward, a blur in the low light.
The man barely managed a grunt before her blade opened his throat, clean and efficient. She caught him as he fell, easing the body down in silence.
They moved like wraiths through the concrete arteries of the facility, silent and precise. No words passed between them, only hand signals and the synchronized rhythm of practiced killers. Every corner, every breath was measured. The guards never saw them coming. One by one, they dropped, cut throats, silenced pistols, quick strangulations in the dark. No alarms. No mercy.
When they reached the control room, the last two officers barely had time to reach for their comms. Kali double-tapped one in the sternum, the other tried to run. Priene ended him with a machete slash across the back of the neck.
"Clear," Kali muttered, stepping over the corpses.
They approached the main terminal. Monitors flickered to life, revealing a labyrinth of security feeds, hallways soaked in red emergency lighting, blown-open bulkheads, trails of blood. But the camera on last Sub-Level was pure static.
Kali leaned in. "He should be there."
They descended into it.
The elevator hissed open, and they stepped into a hallway that could've belonged in any quiet suburbia. Soft yellow lights glowed from shaded sconces. The air smelled faintly of cinnamon. Walls were painted a warm cream, adorned with tasteful abstract art. A fake sunbeam spilled across faux hardwood floors from a ceiling projector.
Kali scanned the place, rifle raised. "This is insane," he whispered.
Priene didn't answer, her body was taut, coiled.
They moved cautiously, clearing each room: a sitting area with a fireplace looping the same animation, a home office with a globe and antique books, a dining space set for two.
Finally, they reached the kitchen.
There he was. The governor, casual in a beige cardigan and slacks, sat on a cushioned stool at the marble island. A steaming mug of coffee in hand. Earphones in, humming faintly to a classical tune. He stirred sugar into his drink, utterly unaware of the blood-soaked war unfolding just a few levels above.
Priene approached first, gun raised, feet ghosting over the floor. She pressed the muzzle to the back of his skull with mechanical precision.
The governor froze mid-sip. His body tensed. Slowly, he turned on the stool to face them, eyes registering confusion.
That's when Priene punched him. Her fist landed cleanly across his jaw, snapping his head sideways with a sharp crack. The mug shattered on the floor as he collapsed, groaning, blood trickling from his lip.
The governor coughed blood, propping himself up on one elbow, face bruised and swelling. His eyes found Kali's, and something flickered there, recognition curdled with contempt.
"You," he spat. "Darius' mutt. I should've had you buried with the rest of Willow Teeth." His voice rasped like gravel in a rusted pipe. "Whoever's bought your soul, I'll pay double."
Before Kali could respond, Priene stepped forward and drove her fist into the governor's cheek again. The crack of bone echoed through the mock-kitchen like a gavel striking judgment. He slumped sideways, groaning.
Kali remained still, but a knot twisted deep in his stomach. It was too easy. No guards on the final level. No alarms. No failsafes. No resistance. The ease of it felt like a coffin lid swinging shut.
"Kill him," Kali said coldly.
Priene raised her handgun, leveling it at the broken man. "This is for my uncle," she whispered.
The governor sneered, lips curling into a last defiant grin. "Who the fuck is yo—"
The shot cracked through the air.
His body jerked once, and then he slumped, blood pooling quickly beneath his skull. The smell of coffee and cordite mingled in the stillness.
A scream shattered it.
They turned sharp. Kali first, then Priene, toward the hallway behind them.
Elira. She stood barefoot in the doorway, wearing a pale robe stained with soot and ash. Her eyes, wide and glistening with tears, locked on her father's lifeless form. Her mouth trembled. Her entire frame shook, not just with grief, but something else.
Rage.
"Elira?" Kali breathed, stunned. She was on the ladder. Liv had told him that. No one survived that. Not even John, a delta class mutant.
But she had. And then, her fingers twitched.
The couch behind them groaned, lifting violently off the floor and hurtling toward Kali like a battering ram. He dove sideways just in time, the couch smashing into the island and splintering into chunks of synthetic wood and foam.
"She's a telekinetic mutant," Kali shouted as he rolled behind cover. "Gamma class, at least!"
Priene was already moving, taking cover behind a support beam. "That's how she survived the collapse," she said through gritted teeth.
"And why her father risked it," Kali added, breath ragged. "He knew she could survive."
Elira stepped forward, eyes glowing faintly violet, tears streaking her cheeks. Her voice cracked as she screamed, "You murdered him!"
A table lifted. A knife block spun.
The room trembled as the air itself thickened with the tension of raw psychic force, and it considered them enemies.