Luther didn’t knock.

  He didn’t announce himself to the outer gates, didn’t request entry through the proper channels, didn’t play the polite game of “who are you” and “state your business.” The fortress at Dunsom’s seat was built to keep armies out—thick stone, steel-laced walls, watchtowers with spotlights that swept the desert like slow blades.

  Luther walked through it like a man stepping through rain.

  The guards at the main doors didn’t even shout before they staggered back, suddenly unsure of their own hands, their own breath. One blinked and found his spear lowered without remembering lowering it.

  Luther’s sword hung at his side, sheathed, quiet.

  It didn’t need to be drawn to make a point.

  He crossed the main hall—echoing, cold, lined with banners of campaigns old enough to be legend—and entered the inner chamber.

  Dunsom sat on a raised platform behind a long table of black wood. He wasn’t draped in jewels or ridiculous robes like a storybook tyrant. He wore simple armor polished to a dull shine, the kind you slept in if you expected trouble and didn’t want fabric catching on you when it arrived. His eyes were sharp and tired in a way that suggested he’d outlived most things that frightened people.

  Two guards stood at his sides, hands on weapons, jaws tight.

  Dunsom didn’t rise. He looked at Luther, measured him, and asked the only question that mattered first.

  “How did you get past my guards?”

  Luther’s mouth twitched. Then he laughed—softly, genuinely, like Dunsom had asked him why water was wet.

  Dunsom’s gaze narrowed a fraction, but he didn’t show anger. He only leaned forward slightly.

  “That answer,” Dunsom said, “is not comforting.”

  Luther’s laughter faded. “You didn’t call me here to comfort you.”

  Dunsom’s eyes held. “No.”

  Luther stepped closer, stopping at a respectful distance from the table. “There’s an organization moving on the medians,” he said. “It’s coordinated. Cells. Discipline. They’re gathering asteroid fragments and people—recruiting, coercing, experimenting. I watched them arrive at a fresh impact. They killed officers who came to investigate. They left punk mededians bleeding in the road like trash.”

  Dunsom’s fingers tapped once on the table, slow and thoughtful.

  Luther continued, voice steady. “They aren’t collecting stones. They’re collecting outcomes—fear, chaos, leverage.”

  Dunsom didn’t interrupt, but something in his eyes tightened at the words, as if he’d been stacking similar reports in his mind and Luther’s was the stone that made the pile lean dangerously.

  When Luther finished, Dunsom exhaled slowly.

  “This is not the first troubling account I’ve received,” Dunsom said. “But it’s the first from someone who can walk through a fortress like it’s a curtain.”

  Luther shrugged faintly. “Your doors aren’t the threat.”

  “No,” Dunsom agreed, and the way he said it made the word feel like a weight being set down. “They’re not.”

  He sat back and folded his hands. “You did well to bring this to me.”

  Luther’s eyes stayed steady. “Gratitude doesn’t stop them.”

  Dunsom’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “No. But it helps me place the weight correctly.”

  Luther angled his head. “Then place it.”

  Dunsom’s gaze went distant for a moment, as if looking past the chamber walls toward a horizon filled with moving pieces.

  “I will,” he said. “And I thank you, Luther.”

  Luther nodded once, then turned to leave.

  As he walked out, the guards finally found their voices again, but none of them dared challenge him. The Sword of Life rested at his side, and the air itself seemed to behave differently around him.

  Behind him, Dunsom stared at the table, tapping a finger once more—counting invisible threats like a man counting bullets.

  Mino hated waiting.

  It made her think.

  It made her remember.

  So when Zach told her she’d be doing a supervised solo engagement, Mino agreed too quickly. Marten had signed off with the same tone he used for approving repairs: necessary, controlled, and never sentimental.

  They stood at the edge of an industrial lot behind a closed construction site. The wind smelled like dust and old metal. Orange cones lay scattered like abandoned warnings. In the center of the lot, a man in a patched jacket paced in circles, palms pressed to the ground.

  The asphalt trembled under his hands.

  Earth medein.

  He looked young—late teens maybe—but his eyes had the frantic shine of someone who’d been running from something inside his own skull for too long. Every time he exhaled, the ground answered with a twitch.

  Zach stayed several yards behind Mino, arms folded, posture relaxed in the way that meant he was ready to move in a heartbeat.

  “Don’t get cocky,” he said.

  Mino didn’t look back. “I won’t.”

  “You’re already doing it,” Zach muttered.

  Mino swallowed her irritation and focused on the medein. “Hey!” she called. “You’re damaging property.”

  The boy spun, eyes widening when he saw her ears. His jaw clenched, like the sight had tripped a reflex he hated having.

  “Don’t come closer,” he snapped. “I’m not going back.”

  Mino took a careful step anyway, hands open. “Nobody’s trying to hurt you.”

  He laughed—sharp and ugly. “That’s what they always say right before they cage you.”

  Mino felt the ember inside her stir—annoyed, impatient. She ignored it.

  “Look,” Mino said, voice steady, “I know what it’s like when your power shows up and the world decides you’re a problem.”

  His eyes flickered, just for a second, like the sentence landed somewhere soft.

  Then the ground bucked.

  A ridge of asphalt rose in front of him like a wave cresting. It snapped forward toward Mino, breaking into jagged chunks.

  Mino raised her hands and pushed—controlled, directional.

  The flying debris veered off, slamming into a steel container with a deafening clang.

  Zach didn’t move, but his gaze sharpened slightly, tracking her control.

  Mino exhaled. Scared. Focused. Choosing.

  She advanced again.

  The earth medein snarled and stomped. The ground split in a line toward her, a crack racing like lightning.

  Mino didn’t jump back. She stepped to the side and fired a narrow beam—thin, precise—enough to kill the crack’s momentum without turning the lot into a crater.

  The fissure halted mid-run. The asphalt shuddered and slumped, re-knitting awkwardly, like it had forgotten what it was supposed to be.

  The boy blinked, surprised.

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  Mino used the opening to close distance.

  He threw another wave.

  Mino shaped her energy into a tight push and slammed it downward, compressing the wave into the ground before it could lift.

  The boy staggered as if she’d punched him in the chest.

  Mino didn’t hesitate. She rushed in, grabbed his wrist, and snapped a dampener cuff onto him—one Zach had handed her before they stepped onto the lot.

  The moment the cuff clicked, the tremor under their feet faded.

  The boy’s shoulders sagged like a puppet with cut strings. He stared at the cuff in horror, then looked up at her, breathing hard.

  “…I didn’t kill anyone,” he whispered.

  Mino’s throat tightened. “Good.”

  The boy’s eyes went wet with shame. “I almost did.”

  Mino swallowed, remembering the street full of bodies after her shockwave.

  “Then you’re still in time,” she said quietly.

  Zach approached at last, calm as if he’d been watching someone pass a driving test instead of stopping a local quake. He looked at the cuff, checked the boy’s pulse with two fingers, then glanced at Mino.

  “Good job,” Zach said.

  Mino’s chest warmed.

  Zach continued immediately, because he never let praise sit alone. “But you stepped into his range twice when you didn’t need to. You got lucky he panicked instead of thinking.”

  Mino grimaced. “I wasn’t lucky. I—”

  Zach raised an eyebrow.

  Mino exhaled. “Okay. I was a little lucky.”

  Zach nodded once, satisfied. “That’s called learning.”

  They handed the boy off to the local containment team—gentle, professional, tired—and started back toward HQ on foot.

  Halfway there, Zach stopped at a corner and nodded toward a small restaurant with warm light spilling out the windows.

  “You eat?” he asked.

  Mino blinked. “Like… now?”

  Zach shrugged. “You did a hard thing without exploding. That’s worth noodles.”

  Mino’s face warmed unexpectedly. “Is that… a date?”

  Zach choked on a laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s food.”

  Mino’s ears twitched. “So… not a date.”

  Zach’s mouth twitched. “Don’t make it weird.”

  Mino grinned despite herself. “Too late.”

  Inside, they took a small booth. The restaurant smelled like garlic and frying oil and normal life. Mino found herself relaxing in spite of the tension she carried everywhere now. Zach talked more than he usually did—small stories, dry jokes, the occasional quiet check-in about how she was holding up. His eyes stayed alert, but his shoulders loosened.

  It was intimate, not romantic so much as safe. Two people who’d seen the worst trying, stubbornly, to keep something human alive between missions.

  On the walk back, the night air cool on their faces, Mino felt the ember inside her settle—less agitated than usual, as if even it liked the illusion of peace.

  Then a figure stepped out from the edge of a streetlight and the illusion shattered.

  Garth.

  He looked better than the last time Mino had seen him—still bruised, still wrapped, but standing straight. And when he saw Zach, his expression tightened like he’d walked into a conversation he didn’t want to interrupt but couldn’t avoid.

  Mino’s heart kicked. “Garth! You’re—”

  “Alive,” Garth finished, dry. His gaze flicked to Zach. “Marten wants to meet. All of us.”

  Zach’s posture shifted instantly, alert again. “Now?”

  Garth nodded once. “Now.”

  Mino glanced up at the HQ building in the distance, suddenly feeling the walls less as shelter and more as a target.

  Again.

  Marten didn’t waste time.

  He stood in the briefing chamber with the map projected over the table, red points scattered like a rash across regions. Several were new. Several were closer than Mino liked.

  Garth stood at one side of the room, arms folded, jaw tight. Zach stood near the door, posture guarded. Mino hovered a little behind them, trying not to feel like a kid in a room full of adults making decisions that decided who died.

  Marten’s eyes moved over them, then he spoke.

  “The government believes a strong cell of medians has organized,” he said.

  Mino felt her stomach tighten.

  Marten tapped the table. The map zoomed out, showing patterns—incidents connected by travel routes, repeated signatures, consistent methods. This wasn’t chaos. It was repeatable.

  “They’ve struck multiple sites,” Marten continued. “They’re gathering asteroid fragments, targeting local agents, and probing headquarters locations.” His gaze flicked—briefly—to Zach, acknowledging the earlier intrusion without naming it.

  Zach’s jaw tightened.

  “Because of this, we are recalling all field agents. Effective immediately. Local missions only. No deep routes. No solo long-range deployments.”

  Garth’s eyes narrowed. “We pull back, we give them ground.”

  Marten’s voice stayed calm. “We pull back, we stop losing people in places we can’t reinforce.”

  The map shifted again. A column of names appeared—agents currently in the field, with return routes marked.

  “HQ will receive about ten agents back within the week,” Marten said. “However—” he tapped another marker, and a few names dimmed, “—several local agents have died.”

  Silence tightened the room.

  Mino’s throat went dry.

  Marten exhaled. “We will be receiving a new agent transfer from a lower-risk area. Her name is Taco.”

  Mino blinked. Taco? She’d heard the name only once before—in passing, from Garth’s debrief, as someone who’d watched the staff break and almost joined. Someone with a serving dish as a weapon. Someone who didn’t sound like she belonged in a briefing room.

  Zach’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Taco.”

  Garth’s expression didn’t change, but something in him shifted—like a radar pinged and didn’t like what it heard.

  Marten watched him. “You feel something.”

  Garth’s jaw flexed. “I feel… major evil moving in.”

  Mino’s skin prickled at the phrase. It didn’t sound like a metaphor. It sounded like a pressure change before a storm.

  Marten’s gaze sharpened. “Define ‘major.’”

  Garth looked at the map, then past it, as if the real thing wasn’t on any screen. “Bigger than Heroko. Bigger than opportunists. Like… like the horizon itself is leaning closer.”

  Zach’s hands tightened into fists briefly.

  Marten’s voice stayed steady. “Then we prepare. We consolidate. We tighten security. And we stop playing the enemy’s game on open ground.”

  Mino swallowed hard. “What about the people out there?”

  Marten’s gaze softened slightly—not kind, but acknowledging the question. “We protect what we can reach. We stop what we can see. And we don’t throw our last defenders into the dark chasing ghosts.”

  Garth didn’t look satisfied.

  Neither did Mino.

  But nobody argued.

  Not because they agreed.

  Because the map didn’t care what they wanted.

  Taco hated goodbyes.

  They always felt like promises you couldn’t guarantee.

  She stood at the edge of the Union-adjacent staging area with her bladed bow slung across her back and a travel bag at her feet. Her wolfhound—massive, scarred, calm—sat beside her like a living anchor. He wore a simple harness with a tag plate stamped with an ID number and the word SERVICE in block letters.

  Tarderes stood in front of her, arms crossed, expression like stone.

  “You’re leaving,” he said, like it was an accusation.

  Taco shrugged. “Transfer.”

  Tarderes grunted. “You trust HQ?”

  Taco’s mouth twisted. “I trust that doing this alone is stupid.”

  Tarderes stared at her for a long moment, then reached out and knocked two fingers against her bladed bow—testing the metal.

  “Don’t die,” he said.

  Taco blinked. “That’s your goodbye?”

  Tarderes’s mouth twitched. “You want a hug?”

  Taco snorted. “Absolutely not.”

  A distant rumble drew Taco’s attention. She turned toward the outer yard.

  Vehicles were arriving—unmarked transports, matte black, doors opening with controlled precision. People stepped out in groups. Not government soldiers. Not Union. Just medians in enough numbers that the labels started to feel flimsy.

  They moved like they had a schedule.

  Taco’s stomach tightened.

  Tarderes followed her gaze. His jaw clenched. “You seeing that?”

  “Yeah,” Taco said quietly. “That’s not normal.”

  A handler approached Taco with a sealed package—a hard case wrapped in official tape. “Agent Taco? This is for you. Do not open until you arrive.”

  Taco took it. The weight sat wrong in her hands—too deliberate, too symbolic.

  She looked back once more at the incoming transports, then at Tarderes.

  “This is getting worse,” she said.

  Tarderes grunted. “It’s already worse. People are just catching up.”

  Taco nodded once, then clipped the case to her bag strap.

  “Come on,” she told her wolfhound.

  He rose immediately, tail low, steady, loyal.

  At the airport, Taco got stares. Not for her—she’d learned to ignore stares—but for the wolfhound. She’d bought him his own seat because she refused to cram him into cargo like luggage. The airline didn’t love it. The handler didn’t love it. Taco didn’t care.

  They boarded.

  She strapped the case under the seat in front of her, then buckled her wolfhound into the adjacent seat like he was a tired soldier. He sat with dignified patience, eyes scanning the cabin.

  As the plane lifted, Taco stared out the window at the shrinking lights and the dark, spreading land.

  LA waited ahead.

  A headquarters that had already been attacked once.

  A team she didn’t trust yet.

  And a horizon that, according to Garth, was leaning closer.

  Taco’s fingers tightened around the armrest.

  “Alright,” she muttered to herself. “Let’s see what ‘good’ looks like up close.”

  Her wolfhound huffed softly, as if agreeing.

  Far away, beyond maps and meetings, the organized cell kept moving—quiet, deliberate—gathering stones, gathering people, gathering the world toward something it hadn’t agreed to.

  Something that was no longer just coming.

  It was arriving.