The hangar was a storm of controlled chaos.
Six full squadrons in full battle kit filled the space: armor clanking, weapons humming, voices overlapping in a dozen languages. Werewolves checked blades. Fae wove last-minute wards over their squads. Shifters rolled shoulders and cracked necks. Vampires stood perfectly still, eyes glowing faintly in the half-light. Human intelligence officers darted between groups with data-pads, looking small and frantic next to all that lethal grace.
Ideal chatter filled the air: jokes, boasts, last-minute bets on who would take the most heads. The energy was electric, the kind that came right before everything went to hell.
Then Tobias and Seraphine walked in.
Side by side. Shoulders brushing. Her hand resting lightly on his, possessive and unapologetic.
The hangar went quiet in ripples.
Eyes flicked up, registered the marks on Tobias's throat (still healing, still visible), registered Seraphine's calm, satisfied expression, and immediately looked anywhere else.
No one wanted to meet the vampire's gaze today.
Kael, however, had never been smart.
He jogged over, hands raised in surrender, grin sheepish.
"Look, Seraphine," he started, voice carrying just enough for half the hangar to hear. "I'm sorry. Truly. It was my fault. He was moping around like a kicked puppy ever since you left, worried sick, and I was drunk off my ass and thought, hey, I know how to cheer up my brother. And well… the rest was peak stupidity. I'm really, really sorry."
Seraphine stopped. Turned slowly. Looked at Kael.
Then at Tobias.
"Is that true?" she asked, voice dangerously soft.
Kael froze, mouth open mid-apology.
Tobias rubbed the back of his neck. "I was asking where you were. A lot. Since we got back from the Veilwood."
Kael jumped in, desperate. "He looked so sad walking around all gloomy! I just wanted to cheer him up! See? Mission accomplished. You're welcome?"
Seraphine stared at them both for a long, terrifying second.
Then the corner of her mouth twitched.
A tiny, reluctant curve.
She was embarrassed. And pleased.
"Fine," she said at last, voice low. "But I think you and everyone else in this hangar now understand what happens if it ever happens again."
Kael swallowed hard. "Never. Ever. Cross my heart and hope to get staked."
Seraphine's gaze swept the room (every operative suddenly very interested in their boots or weapons).
"Good," she said.
Then she turned back to Tobias, reached up, and straightened his collar with deliberate care.
"Ready?" she asked, soft enough for only him.
He met her eyes, the heat inside him calm and certain.
"Ready."
Kael exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for days.
The hangar lights flared as the transport ramps lowered.
Haven-7 waited.
And for the first time, Tobias walked into war with someone at his side who would burn the world down before letting anyone take him again.
The monster was ready.
Mid-flight, the transport cabin vibrated with the low growl of engines and barely contained tension.
Commander Thalos stood at the holo-table, face grim, voice cutting through the rumble like a blade.
"Update from ground assets. Hostiles have fortified Haven-7 beyond initial projections. Barricades on every approach. Anti-magic wards layered three deep. Snipers on the water towers. They've executed two staff already. Broadcast it live to the city."
A low growl rippled through the cabin, werewolf, vampire, fae, shifter, human, all of it the same sound.
Kael's knuckles went white on his rifle. "They're baiting us."
"They're desperate," Thalos corrected. "Which makes them dangerous. Intel confirms at least two hundred combatants. Mixed races. Heavy weapons. Most certainly magical support."
Elyndra's voice was ice. "Children are still inside?"
"Affirmative. Dormitories, cafeteria, and the old chapel. They're using them as shields."
Seraphine's fangs flashed. "Then we don't give them time to change their minds."
Garron checked the chamber of his sidearm with a sound like judgment. "One shot. No hesitation."
The pilot's voice crackled over comms. "Five minutes to drop zone."
Thalos looked at every operative in turn. "This is Haven-7. Our ground. Our kids. We take it back clean, or we don't come back at all."
Silence answered him, thick with purpose.
Kael leaned toward Tobias, voice low. "Whatever happens down there, brother, we're getting those kids out. Then we kill the ones who touched them."
Tobias nodded once. The heat inside him was quiet, coiled, ready.
Seraphine's hand found his under the bench, fingers threading tight.
Five minutes felt like a lifetime and no time at all.
The transport banked hard.
Red lights flared.
Bay doors yawned open.
Sunlight and smoke poured in.
"GO GO GO GO!" Thalos roared.
They moved.
Boots hit the ramp in perfect sync, sixty operatives pouring out like a single weapon unsheathed. Armor gleamed. Magic flared. Rifles rose.
The ruined skyline of Haven-7 waited below, smoke curling from the dormitories Tobias once called home.
They thought they were ready.
They had no idea what was actually waiting.
Haven-7 was hell made manifest.
Gunfire cracked through the air like thunder without rain, bullets zipping in wild arcs that chewed through wood and flesh alike. Magic spiraled everywhere; fae bolts of starlight exploding into blinding bursts, shifter claws ripping through armor, werewolf howls carrying raw terror that froze rebels mid-step. Bodies littered the ground: Accord soldiers slumped against barricades, rebels twisted in unnatural poses from spells that had boiled their blood or shattered their bones.
Shouts echoed from every direction. "Flank left! Flank left!" "Suppress that mage!" "Hold the line, don't let them through!"
Kael moved like liquid chaos, rifle barking as he dropped a rebel sniper with a headshot mid-leap. Another charged him, blade raised; Kael shifted to mist, reformed behind, and drove his knife into the man's spine. The rebel crumpled, gurgling. Kael didn't pause; spun, fired twice more, catching a fae rebel in the chest and a human in the throat. Blood sprayed in twin arcs as they fell.
Seraphine was a blur of fangs and shadow. She materialized behind a werewolf rebel, sank her teeth into his neck, and drained him dry in three savage pulls. He dropped like a puppet with cut strings. A shifter lunged next, claws extended; Seraphine caught her mid-air, twisted, and hurled her into a wall with bone-shattering force. The shifter slid down, neck snapped. Seraphine licked the blood from her lips, eyes crimson, and vanished again reappearing to rip the throat out of a fae caster mid-spell, his magic fizzling out in a pathetic spark as he died choking.
Tobias was destruction incarnate. A human rebel fired at him point-blank; Tobias caught the bullet in his palm, the metal melting on contact, and flung it back molten-hot into the man's eye. The rebel screamed, clawing at his face as he collapsed. A werewolf barreled in next, jaws wide; Tobias met him with a fist to the muzzle that caved in bone and sent the beast flying ten feet into a burning fence. It didn't rise. Tobias's skin glowed faintly gold, the heat inside him humming with approval.
Garron was a storm of brute force. He grabbed a two shifter rebels by the throat and crushed it like paper, the bodies going limp mid-shift. Another fae hurled a kinetic blast; Garron took it full to the chest without flinching, then charged, shoulder slamming the fae into the ground hard enough to crater dirt. The fae's ribs caved, breath wheezing out in a final gasp. Garron didn't stop; ripped a rifle from a dying human's hands and fired point-blank into a vampire rebel's face, the head exploding in a spray of ash and gore.
Elyndra was precision death. She flung a hand forward, ice spears impaling a rebel through the chest mid-run. The body froze solid before it hit the ground. A werewolf leaped at her; she whispered a word, and the air around him ignited in blue flame, burning him from the inside out until he collapsed in charred ruins. Another fae caster tried a counter-spell; Elyndra met it with a wave of starlight that unraveled the magic and the man together, his body dissolving into glittering dust.
They turned the final corner.
The farm he grew up in sprawled before them.
Pure destruction.
The swing set where Tobias had once played as a child was a twisted skeleton of flame, chains glowing red-hot. Bodies of staff lay sprawled in the dirt; faces he remembered from boyhood, eyes vacant, throats slit in clean lines that screamed execution. Smoke billowed from the dormitories, the chapel a bonfire of splintered wood and shattered stained glass.
A jolt of gunfire cracked from the ruins.
They dove for cover behind overturned carts, shattered walls, anything that could take a bullet.
Seraphine pulled Tobias down beside her, fangs bared. "They knew we were coming."
Kael fired back blindly. "Or they just hate uninvited guests."
The battlefield roared back to life around them, rebels pouring from the burning buildings like rats from a sinking ship.
And in the center of it all, the Truthbound banner snapped in the wind, its broken-circle eye staring down like judgment.
Haven-7 was a slaughterhouse.
And they were walking straight into the blade.
They pushed forward, relentless, the rebels falling back like wheat before a scythe.
Gunfire cracked and whined, magic flared in bursts of starlight and shadow, but the Accord's advance was a tide that wouldn't be stopped. Rebels screamed orders that dissolved into panic as Garron tore through their front line like living thunder, bodies crumpling under his fists. Seraphine moved beside him, a blur of fangs and fury, ripping throats and snapping limbs with vicious efficiency. Elyndra flung walls of ice and kinetic force to shield their flanks, while Kael picked off snipers with precise, deadly shots.
Tobias moved in the center, heat building in his chest with every rebel that fell. The air tasted of blood and smoke, the ground slick with it, and with each step the screams grew louder, the magic thicker, the chaos more suffocating. His squad's breaths came in ragged gasps; his own felt like fire in his lungs.
The rebels were breaking. Falling back toward the farmhouse at the heart of Haven-7.
Desperate.
Cornered.
Tobias's pulse hammered, the world narrowing to the path ahead. The farmhouse loomed, flames licking its edges, smoke billowing like a funeral pyre.
They rounded the final bend.
Tobias stopped dead.
The sight hit him like a gut punch. His chest locked tight, breath trapped in his throat.
Kael, right behind him, slammed into his back and bounced off, landing hard on his ass. "Ouch, dude, what the hell? Why did you…"
Then Kael saw it too.
His words died.
Elyndra caught up, skidding to a halt. "HEY, what's going on!"
She took one look and froze, hand flying to her mouth.
Garron and Seraphine, still fighting rebels a 50 yards behind, didn't notice at first. Garron ripped a man in half with bare hands; Seraphine drained another dry in seconds.
Then a pulse ripped through the air.
Pure energy, raw and golden and black, exploding from Tobias like a shockwave. Kael stumbled back, barely catching himself. The air hummed with it, thick and heavy, pressing against skin like judgment.
A second pulse hit, stronger, cracking the ground beneath Tobias's feet.
Garron spun, mid-kill. "What…"
Seraphine's head snapped up, eyes wide. "Tobias!"
Elyndra took a step forward. "No no no…"
But Tobias was already gone.
A yell tore from his throat, not human, a sound from the depths of hell itself; raw, broken, furious.
The three ran to join Kael.
And that's when they saw it.
What had pushed Tobias over the edge.
What would break any sane person.
There, in a massive burning pile at the farmhouse's edge, lay the men, women, and children of Haven-7.
Bodies twisted in agony, charred and broken, stacked like discarded wood. Faces he knew from childhood, eyes vacant, mouths open in silent screams. The flames licked higher, consuming what little remained of the only home Tobias had ever known.
The sight hit like a physical blow, stealing breath, freezing time.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
The rebels were forgotten.
Because nothing could prepare them for this.
The forest became a blur of green and fire.
Tobias ran.
Not like a man. Like vengeance given flesh.
He dropped the rifle without breaking stride. The weight was meaningless. The knife followed, spinning into the underbrush. Useless toys for a fight that had already ended in the burning pile of children.
Forty rebels ahead. At least.
They crashed through the trees, panic driving them, boots pounding, spells flaring behind them like desperate fireworks. Bullets whipped past his ears, close enough to singe hair. Magic cracked against his back, ice, lightning, raw kinetic force. None of it landed. None of it could.
Fear made their aim wild. His speed made him a ghost.
The heat inside him was judgment.
He wanted justice. Not just for the bodies on the pyre. For the boy who had survived Haven-7 once, only to watch it die screaming.
They reached the old processing plant, an abandoned Accord facility half swallowed by the forest. Concrete walls scarred by old runes, windows long shattered. They poured inside, forty strong, thinking stone and wards would save them.
They were wrong.
Tobias hit the doorway at full speed.
The first rebel turned, rifle rising.
Tobias's hand closed around the barrel and crushed it like tin. The second fired point-blank into his chest. The bullet flattened against his skin and fell away, smoking.
He kept moving.
Gunfire became a storm. Magic detonated in blinding bursts. Nothing worked.
Bullets struck and bounced. Fire washed over him and parted. A fae spell slammed into his shoulder and shattered like glass.
He walked through it all.
One by one they fell. Some he broke with his hands. Some he simply looked at until the heat in his eyes made their hearts stop.
The last rebel, a shifter with terror in his eyes, tried to run deeper into the plant.
Tobias caught him by the throat and lifted him until his feet kicked air.
"For the children," he said, voice calm, terrible.
Then crushed.
Silence.
Only the crackle of distant fire and the wet drip of blood on concrete.
He stood in the center of the carnage, chest heaving, gold fading from his eyes, the heat inside him finally quiet.
Sated.
Then the ceiling groaned.
The weight of the world fell on him.
Not metaphor. Actual tons of stone and steel, wards collapsing, the old facility giving up.
He roared, arms raising, trying to hold the sky.
But the strength that had carried him here was spent.
A final boot, a rebel he hadn't seen, still alive, still hateful, connected with the back of his skull.
The world went black.
And the monster, for one terrible moment, slept.