The Undergrowth — Central Cavern
The Undergrowth was not one space. It was a network of hollowed stone veins running beneath Sango's skin — water channels, fire lamps, suspended walkways connecting levels that dropped further down than anyone had mapped completely. Voices ricocheted everywhere. Laughter and arguments and the smell of food cooking from somewhere below.
It was alive.
Everything Sango's prisons were not.
Aemon spotted Lilly near the mess hall and told himself this was the moment. He'd been carrying the crush since the tournament — since those golden eyes had found his from across the arena floor — and he'd spent days talking himself out of talking to her. Now she was right there.
He walked up.
"Hey, Lilly," he said, and his voice cracked slightly on the second word. "I just wanted to say—"
His mind went completely white.
POP.
Joy burst out of his chest in a flash of brilliant white, arms flung wide.
"—THAT YOU ARE AWESOME!" Joy shouted. "Seriously — that whip-sword? The timing of that rescue? Chef's kiss."
"No — Joy — get back in—"
POP.
Love materialised beside Joy in a warm red glow, hands clasped at his chest.
"And thank you for saving us," Love added, his voice trembling with genuine feeling. "We were so frightened we'd never see sunlight again. You're our hero."
POP.
Trust stepped forward, blue and composed, and gave Lilly a calm, respectful nod. "Your intervention was precise and decisive. We are in your debt."
POP.
Joy and Love turned and physically dragged Fear into view. He was purple, wide-eyed, and vibrating.
"Come on!" Joy urged. "Just say hello!"
Fear produced a single, tiny squeak and immediately hid behind Aemon's leg.
Aemon looked at the ceiling. He had survived an internal war. He had conquered his own Envy. He had thrown a Terror off a cliff.
And here he was, undone in thirty seconds by his own feelings in front of the girl he liked.
He shooed frantically at his clones with both hands.
Lilly laughed — bright and unrestrained, the sound ringing off the cavern walls and coming back different. Warmer.
"You're welcome," she said.
She gave Aemon a wink and headed off. Joy and Love immediately began swaying to imaginary music from somewhere deep in his mental plane. He refused to acknowledge them.
The Undergrowth — Training Pits
Later, Lilly dropped onto a crate beside Moto, who was staring at the cavern wall.
"Pyromaniac," she said. "Still brooding?"
He managed a weak smile. "Just thinking."
"Stop. You'll hurt yourself." She studied him for a moment. "I wanted to thank you. For the finals."
He frowned. "I threw the match."
"Exactly." Something lit up in her face. "You forced me to go all out. The real sword. The transformation. Everything." She leaned forward. "The guard who controls access to the Hwange impact site was in the stands. He was impressed enough to offer me entry tonight — no fee."
She grinned. "I'm finally getting my birthright."
Moto nodded slowly. "I'm glad. That's — that's good, Lilly."
But his mind was already elsewhere. Fugitives. International criminals. Every shadow in the cavern felt like it had eyes. The unease crawled under his skin and wouldn't settle.
He stood abruptly. "I need to train."
He didn't wait for a response.
The Undergrowth — Medical Bay
Snake lay motionless in the medical bay, his chest rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm. His green tattoos pulsed faintly in the dim light.
Several young rebel women had gathered near the entrance, whispering.
Sixtus, coiled on Snake's chest, opened one emerald eye.
He hissed once.
They scattered.
The Undergrowth — Central Cavern
A horn blast moved through the underground.
Thousands gathered beneath the colossal stalactite that served as the Undergrowth's podium. The speaker stepped forward and announced that Commander Byron's return from the surface had been delayed — preparations in the ancient ruins were still ongoing. A murmur of disappointment went around.
The speaker held up a Sango newspaper.
"Our surface operative has sent word. This is from Thando's latest edition."
Moto went still. Thando — the journalist who had helped destroy their reputations, sitting in his office surrounded by ink birds. A rebel spy. The propaganda was real; the coded messages inside it were something else entirely. He filed it away.
The speaker continued. "We have new guests among us. Including Najo, grandson of Ginimbi. If reports are accurate, he is heir to the greatest fortune in Nyika."
Heads turned. Offers followed — better quarters, better food, a particular quality of deference that had nothing to do with the person and everything to do with the name.
Najo accepted all of it with complete detachment. He knew exactly what they valued. It wasn't him.
Sango — Flora Military Base
The recruiter looked at Tanaka's file. Looked at her. Laughed.
"Combat division? With those physical stats? You'd be dead in a week."
Her papers were stamped and handed back before she'd finished breathing.
MEDICAL DIVISION.
She entered the sterile infirmary with fury simmering quietly under her skin.
"New recruit?" a calm voice asked from behind.
An older woman was watching her with the focused, assessing look of someone who has been evaluating people for a long time.
"Specialty?" the woman asked.
"I'm studying the Hwange," Tanaka said.
"That's all?"
Tanaka bristled. "Are you insulting my intelligence?"
"Yes," the woman said. "One of your sisters is the finest medic in the nation. Another holds high military rank. Even Alicia, by all accounts, runs a successful operation of her own." She paused. "I expected more from one of Chandler's daughters."
"Don't associate me with him," Tanaka said. "If I could have chosen my parents, I would have chosen differently."
"You're a waste of divine blood," the woman said. "But we'll fix that."
Tanaka stepped forward. "You're naïve for someone your age. I'm here because I want my friends out of your prisons. After that, I'm gone. As for my sisters — if they've dedicated their lives to earning the approval of a man who abandoned them, that's their business. I want nothing to do with it."
If I show them Grace Inversion, Tanaka thought, I never leave.
The woman's eyes narrowed. "Don't let your sisters hear that. They've given everything for the chance to be seen by him."
"Naivety must run in the water here," Tanaka said.
The woman exhaled hard. "Get out of my sight. Kunaka and Makanaka are at the next medical shed. Find them."
The Undergrowth — Training Pits
Aemon found Moto already working and offered to join him.
They clashed.
Joy darted in fast, unpredictable. Rage struck heavy and direct. Trust read angles and closed exits. Moto ducked, countered, pushed through — flames licking his fists, the exertion burning the dread away.
Eventually the clones lay scattered across the pit floor. Aemon stood bent over his knees, breathing hard.
"Damn," he managed. "You're strong."
Moto wiped sweat from his face. "The battle royale helped. Tracking multiple opponents simultaneously — it's easier now."
Aemon chuckled weakly. "Will I ever get there?"
"Your clones are weak because you are," Moto said.
Aemon groaned. "Great."
"Relax." Moto gestured. "You have the potential to be better than me in close combat. The clones need to train separately. Joy always strikes high — he needs to mix in low attacks, keep opponents guessing. Rage hits hard but could hit harder with better technique. Love and Trust are basic right now, but if they develop individually, when they work together they'll be something else."
He met Aemon's eyes.
"And you need to work harder."
Aemon smiled tiredly. "Yeah. I know."
Zen — Royal Palace
Andzani returned from Nirvana in good spirits.
He walked in already talking. "Hey, big brother. You won't believe who I ran into up there — Asher and Sheu. He's been training her and she's barely recognisable. Asher's strong as ever."
Khosa hummed. His gaze stayed on the floor.
Andzani frowned. "What's wrong with you?"
The room's spirits answered before Khosa could.
Your brother knows you'll be disappointed. Or act rashly.
Andzani's hand moved toward his blade without thought.
"Just say it," he said.
The King of Denga came and took our Hwange. And Khosa did nothing.
Trinity came from the kitchen carrying a plate. "That's not fair," she said quietly. "There was nothing he could do without losing lives. He chose his people."
Andzani's frustration had nowhere to go except upward.
"Again?" His voice climbed. "You keep letting people take from us. You let him walk away with the most powerful gift in this kingdom."
Khosa wiped one eye and said nothing.
Andzani took a breath. "Trinity. Is the ability transfer ready?"
"Three more weeks," she said. "And even then — it wouldn't be right for you to take the king's ability."
Khosa still said nothing.
"Fine," Andzani said.
He turned toward the door.
"Where are you going?" Khosa asked.
"To get our Hwange back." He pulled the door open. "And since you keep letting people take things from you — I'm coming for that throne next."
The door shut. The room absorbed the silence.
Khosa sat alone in it.
Hwange Impact Site — Kariba Forest
The forest was restricted — elite guards, rotating scientist shifts, perimeter sensors. Under cover of darkness, Lilly and Lindo slipped through on the strength of a bribe and a corrupt guard's word.
The air changed immediately. Heavier. Charged with something old. The trees here grew wrong, bent subtly toward the crater's centre as if they'd been doing so for centuries.
Lilly spotted six-leaf herb along a glowing root and paused to pluck it carefully, tucking it into her pouch.
For Aemon, she thought, and moved on.
They reached the crater's heart.
The Glitch Blade was not a finished sword. It was a jagged shard of dark, iridescent metal embedded in scorched earth like something that had arrived and decided to stay. Reality around it shimmered — rendered incorrectly, existence itself struggling to maintain consensus in the blade's proximity.
"Ten minutes," Jax muttered, the guard's accomplice, scanning the darkness. "Night scientists are on their way."
Lilly approached slowly. Her heartbeat was in her throat.
She placed one hand near the rough hilt. The other halfway down the blade. She stayed very still.
Stories of severed limbs. Knights who had bled out before they understood why. Champions who had left without hands.
If it rejects me, she told herself, I'll forge it right here. I'm not leaving without it.
She grabbed the blade.
No pain.
A cold vibration hummed through her hands and up into her bones — not hostile, not welcoming. Just present. Like something that had been waiting and had not yet decided.
She pulled.
The blade held.
"Pull it out," Jax hissed.
Lilly inhaled. She shifted — fur pushing through her arms, muscles swelling, her half-monkey form coming in full. She planted her foot in the scorched earth and pulled with everything she had.
The ground groaned. Cracks spread from the impact site in a ring.
With a sound like tearing metal and something deeper than metal, the blade came free.
"She actually did it," Lindo whispered.
Lilly held it up.
It was lighter than she'd expected. It hummed in her hands with the specific energy of something unfinished — not broken, just incomplete. Waiting.
After all these years.
Her ancestor's work, interrupted.
In her hands now.