The city had fractured. Smoke clawed at the skyline, fire reflected in puddles along cobblestone streets, and factions tore through the surface with the kind of precision and recklessness only desperation could inspire. I watched it all from the Veins, the underground arteries thrumming beneath me like a heartbeat magnified a thousand times.
Drip… hum… distant clatter…
From above, the chaos looked almost beautiful. Civilians scrambled, hiding behind overturned carts, glancing nervously at makeshift barricades. Carrow's forces collided with Lyric's predictable in patterns, chaotic in detail. And through it all, I traced micro-moments, cataloging hesitation, impulse, and instinct.
I pressed my hand to a metal conduit, feeling the vibration pulse through my palm. The city wasn't just alive; it was aware. The Veins responded to the surges above, feeding panic into fear, fear into opportunity. Every tremor, every metallic clang, every shouted order had a feedback loop I could sense.
Clank… shuffle… far-off scream…
I had orchestrated pieces of this, yes. Breadcrumbs of misinformation, a few well-placed accidents, a ledger or two mis-indexed. But now… now it had outgrown me. Patterns were forming without my input. Trust fractured on its own. Obedience evaporated in the heat of raw chaos.
And I could only stand above it, watching, calculating, smirking.
"So this is what happens when you give a city too many matches," I muttered under my breath. "They start lighting the walls instead of the candles."
Eyes flicking across the streets, I noted a child ducking behind a barrel, a factional soldier faltering mid-advance, the rhythm of a fire consuming more than it should. Every movement was a variable, every reaction a line of code in a simulation that had gone rogue.
Soft hiss… metallic scrape… distant crash…
I cataloged everything. Every tremor in the Veins, every tremor in the crowd. This rebellion wasn't mine anymore. It belonged to the city, to the people, to the chaos itself. And yet… every unpredictable outcome was an opportunity. Patterns would emerge, even from this. I just had to be ready to read them.
I allowed myself a smirk, watching smoke curl around shattered windows and flicker across burning alleyways. "Control," I muttered, "is such an overrated party trick."
Above and below, the city moved in waves, and I moved with it, invisible, patient, prepared. The rebellion had ignited, and the fire didn't care who had struck the first match. But me? I was already thinking about how to make the sparks work in my favor.