The sewer vault beneath the Ashford Drainage Line was no longer abandoned.
Water dripped in uneven rhythm. Somewhere, a rusted pipe groaned. Faint light flickered from a single blue flame suspended mid-air—held in place by a thread of condensed gravity.
Cairne Volst knelt beside the flame, his eyes catching the reflection of the crude map drawn into the dirt. A city sector. Three weak points. One message.
He was lean, but not frail—every movement was measured, like he didn't want to waste a single muscle. His coat, ragged at the ends, bore no insignia. Only the metal clasp at his neck marked who he once was.
He slid a single obsidian pin into the map, directly onto the southern marker. Then another.
"There," he muttered, more to the silence than to himself. "One explosion to draw them. One to break them. One to show them who they forgot."
Volst's hands, wrapped in banded cloth, flexed open—and gravity twisted.
A section of stone floor folded inward without cracking, the mass compressing into a sphere no larger than a coin. Volst held it between two fingers, admiring its unnatural weight.
He didn't control minds. He controlled momentum.
Objects he touched could be anchored, made impossibly heavy—or stripped of force entirely. A knife could pass through a ribcage without slowing down. A body could be frozen mid-fall, never reaching the ground.
It wasn't flashy.
But it was fatal.
Behind him, one of his crew stirred.
"You really think they'll care you're back?" the woman asked. Her voice was dry, half-amused. "They buried your file in a vault. No one remembers a ghost."
Volst didn't look up.
"They will," he said, calmly. "After tonight… even the dead will remember."
----
[Scene Shift – Training Grounds]
----
Thunder cracked through the open field, rippling through the sky above the southern yard.
Liane stood at the center of the clearing, palm raised, arc lightning spiraling between her fingers in perfect symmetry. Three warded dummies lay scattered behind her—blackened, smoking, and split at the core.
Ren flinched at the last strike and ducked behind a training barrier.
Kael stood a few paces back, arms crossed, watching.
"She's not holding back today," Ren muttered, peeking around the barrier. "I think those dummies died three times each."
Kael's expression barely changed. "Looks like she's warming up."
Ren gave him a look. "You say that like it's not terrifying."
He stepped out and joined Kael, brushing dust off his sleeves. "So… this next match. You think we've got a chance?"
Kael shrugged. "Depends on how the others move."
Ren nodded, then paused.
"They said the match-up is against a Custom Division squad, right?"
Kael nodded once.
"Do we know what they can do?"
"No."
Ren groaned. "Fantastic. I love surprises. Especially when they punch me in the face."
Kael glanced at him, something faintly amused flickering behind his eyes. "You'll adapt."
Ren squinted. "Since when do you say encouraging stuff like that?"
Kael didn't answer. He just kept watching the field.
Ren leaned in a bit, playful now. "You've been… kinda different lately. I mean, not weird-different. Just… talking more. Looser."
Kael gave a small shrug. "I guess I'm getting used to things."
"Huh." Ren tilted his head. "Not gonna lie, I like this version. Still mysterious, just with better customer service."
Kael let out the ghost of a chuckle. "Don't get used to it."
Liane walked over, calm and steady, faint static still fading from her hands.
Kael didn't shift. His expression stayed unreadable as she stopped in front of them.
Ren straightened. "So! Good news. You're terrifying. Bad news, we're out of dummies."
Liane ignored his comment.
"We'll need tighter spacing. Stay within range of each other,"she said.
Kael gave a short reply. "Understood."
Ren glanced between the two of them. "Wow. Actual words. We're evolving."
Neither of them reacted.
He scratched the back of his head. "Not complaining, just… nice to not be a team of ghosts anymore."
Liane looked past him, toward the training field. "Don't lose focus. These matches don't go easy."
"Trust me," Ren said, already feeling sweat forming, "I'm planning to stay alive through sheer panic and prayer."
Kael looked ahead again, silent.
They were ready.
Or as ready as anyone could be without knowing what was coming.
Ren walked between Kael and Liane, still rambling about tactics he didn't understand.
Liane listened in silence.
----
Evening crept over the Research Division HQ like a slow cloak.
The stone corridors dimmed as lanterns sparked to life, their glow casting long shadows along the narrow halls. The scent of hot stew and burned bread clung to the air as the recruits filtered into the dining hall.
Ren and Liane sat across from Kael.
No one spoke.
Spoons scraped. Boots scuffed against the ground.
Kael didn't touch his bowl.
He stood up quietly. "Not hungry."
He didn't wait for a response. His steps were quiet, deliberate.
Too deliberate to be casual.
Ren looked up, halfway through chewing, but didn't speak. Liane barely glanced at him.
Kael walked out—unnoticed, unchallenged.
---
The moment he stepped beyond the last torch-lit corridor, his presence bent.
No shimmer. No spell-flare.
Just... gone.
Wards couldn't hold onto him. Patrol glyphs flickered without alarm.
He moved through the outer wing, silent as breath, until he found the maintenance shaft behind the archive vault—a dead zone in the detection web. He dropped three levels, scaled a forgotten drainage tunnel, and emerged into the abandoned southern fringe of the city.
Above him: the stars.
Before him: silence.
---
He stepped up onto a broken stone wall, the ruins of an old gatehouse still clinging to the cliff's edge.
There, he paused. Then slowly pulled the mask over his face.
Half-covered.
Just enough to provoke fear, not hide.
The cloak flowed around his shoulders—black with veins of red threading through it like quiet lightning.
This wasn't Kael anymore.
This was design. Intention.
Noctis.
---
He took one slow breath.
Then another.
He was about to leap down, just to test movement—when a shockwave rolled through the air.
BOOM.
A deep-throated boom cracked through the night like thunder dragged through stone.
A plume of fire tore into the sky just a few blocks away—at the edge of the southern district. Rubble scattered. Flames surged.
Kael didn't flinch. His red eyes narrowed behind the mask.
"That wasn't random."
The fire crackled.
"Maybe I'll test the magic too."
---
He rose.
The wind moved with him—not beneath him, but around him. Like it recognized him.
It didn't howl. It whispered. Twisted.
Carried his presence outward like a warning.
The black cloak rippled behind him in long, fluid waves, alive in the air. Not flapping—slicing through the currents like it had its own mind. Threads of crimson shimmered like veins pulsing beneath the surface.
Noctis hovered, high above the fractured rooftops, lit by the broken orange glow of fire and ash.
He didn't speak.
He didn't move.
He just was.
Below, amid the crumbled district and still-burning trap, a lone figure turned his head.
Volst.
He squinted against the firelight. What he saw above him wasn't a soldier. Not a rogue. Not an assassin.
Something else.
A presence carved from shadow and silence—half-covered face, red eyes glowing like coals behind glass.
For a moment, the air itself seemed to hesitate.
The cloak curled in the wind like smoke under pressure.
Volst's expression shifted—not fear. Something colder. Sharper.
Recognition of a variable he hadn't accounted for.
He straightened, slow, deliberate.
Two figures. Two forces. Neither backing away.
Noctis didn't descend. He stayed there—watching, hovering just outside the reach of light, like a god staring down at a world he might unmake.
Volst let one hand drift toward his belt. No sudden moves. Just weight.
The trap had been meant for chaos.
Instead… he had summoned a phantom.