"Even gods must grieve what they outlive." - The Shape That Thought Itself Closed.
Once the last crate was secured and the perimeter swept clean, the team left the warehouse site behind, the hum of hover engines echoing into the early afternoon haze. The mood was quiet in the cruiser, tense with residual adrenaline and unanswered questions. No one spoke much on the ride back, just the sound of sirens in the distance and the occasional flicker of police-band chatter over the comms.
They arrived at Central Headquarters before long. The building loomed like a monolith of black glass and alloy, its upper levels reflecting the amber hues of a city trying to pretend nothing sinister had just been uncovered in its veins. Inside, everything smelled of recycled air and machine oil. Automated drones buzzed by with stacks of datapads and flash drives, while operatives and analysts moved like chess pieces across a constantly shifting board of operations.
Kali led the team up a narrow elevator shaft to the Division Seven strategy wing. Their briefing room was tucked away at the end of a long corridor, windowless and quiet—small, but just large enough to fit the four of them comfortably. A single rectangular table dominated the space, surrounded by fold-out tactical seats. At the far wall was a wide digital whiteboard already active, its surface filled with photographs, surveillance stills, biometric scans, and a spiderweb of scribbled notes and red indicators.
"Get comfortable," Kali said, gesturing to the seats around the table as he remained standing, arms crossed. His voice was calm, but carried the kind of authority that silenced any lingering sarcasm in the room. "We're going to be working closely, possibly for a long time, so let's be clear from the start."
The team settled in. John, casual but alert, leaned back with his fingers laced behind his head. Thomas sat forward, hands clasped, always ready for war even in a briefing. Liv perched straight-backed, eyes sharp despite her nervous energy.
"I've gone through your files," Kali continued, stepping toward the board. "I know your service records, your disciplinary marks, the exact day each of you took your genome doses. I know what the reports say about your abilities—Delta-class, controlled mutations, no signs of instability." He looked at each of them in turn, letting the silence sharpen. "But paper only tells part of the story."
He turned and tapped a red-marked photo pinned to the center of the board, where the teethlike symbol of Willow Teeth was drawn shabbily in plain marker.
"The deputy chief has assigned us a single directive: dismantle the Willow Teeth. Completely. That means no leaks, no excuses. And to do that, I need more than numbers and ranks. I need to know you have my back as I have yours."
John raised an eyebrow. "So, what… this is some kind of trust exercise?"
Kali ignored the comment. "This isn't about trust. It's about competence. When bullets are flying and something ten feet tall and half-feral is sprinting straight at us, I need to know you're not going to freeze, flinch, or fall apart."
The three of them nodded, expressions sharpening with focus, and Kali continued, his tone shifting to something colder. "Good. Our core objective is the capture of Willow Teeth's inner circle. We've identified four confirmed operators beneath the leader—who, for now, remains completely off the grid. No name, no face, no known origin. A ghost."
He tapped on the board again, and four grainy images appeared, three partially obscured by shadow, and one a still from a street cam, the figure heavily distorted.
"The four confirmed lieutenants go by codenames: Evangelist, Reaper, Snake, and Colt. Real identities are still a mystery, but we've managed to build partial profiles from sightings, intercepted transmissions, and battlefield residue."
He nodded to Thomas, who stood, moving to the board with a practiced ease. "Let's break it down."
Thomas tapped the image labeled Reaper. It flickered to a brief combat feed, blurred movements, a target collapsing mid-air.
"Reaper is confirmed Friction-Awakened. Known for his katana and expert swordplay. Every report linked to him involves sudden environmental collapse, victims are almost always split in half. He's not subtle, but he doesn't need to be."
Next, he moved to Snake. The image was clearer, someone tall, gaunt, with elongated limbs, and skin with a faint, scale-like texture. "Snake is Delta-class, possibly enhanced through black-market genome potions. Venom-based abilities, fast reflexes, and adaptive musculature. Prefers close quarters. The last squad that tried to bring Snake in didn't last sixty seconds."
He gestured to Colt. This image showed only a silhouette at dusk, long coat flaring in the wind, rifle slung over a shoulder. "Colt's the wildcard. We've got very little, some sharpshooter kill records, a few witness sketches. But every confirmed appearance includes high-value assassinations. One bullet, one kill. We're working on the theory that Colt serves as the syndicate's primary enforcer."
Then he pointed to Evangelist. The image was a broken still frame, a blur of light, as though the figure distorted the air around them. "And then there's the Evangelist," Thomas said, his tone more cautious now. "We don't know what he is. His modus operandi is unlike the rest—no team, no followers, no patterns. He's... newer to the circle, or maybe just finally active. Either way, he's different. And dangerous."
Thomas stepped back and nodded to Kali. "That's what we've got."
Kali let the silence hang for a beat, then spoke again. "Our job is to find them, isolate them, and take them down—one by one. Quietly, efficiently, and without drawing attention from SynSpec or the proxy governor's office. This isn't just a cleanup. It's a war in the dark."
He scanned their faces once more. "Still in?"
John was the first to speak, crossing his arms with a low grunt. "Hell yes, I'm in," he said, a grin creeping across his face. "About time we stopped playing clean-up and started cutting at the roots. Reaper sounds like my kind of problem."
Beside him, Thomas gave a single nod.
"I'll do my best," Liv replied, eyes determined.
"Right," Kali said with a curt nod, then retrieved two slim files from under his coat and tossed them onto the table with a soft slap. "The bust today didn't happen out of thin air. We had a whistleblower, someone inside Willow Teeth who fed us the location. These are the decrypted records of the transmission. Signal was routed through three layers of interference, which means they were careful."
He leaned over the table, tapping a sequence of time-stamped notes. "Our job now is to find them. Whoever this is, they've seen the inside workings of the syndicate—and if we can get to them before the Teeth do…" His eyes swept across the team one last time, locking briefly with each of theirs.
With that, Kali turned and exited the briefing room, the hum of fluorescent lights and low chatter fading behind him. He moved fast, cutting through the corridors of Central, boots echoing with quiet precision. Out on the street, a cool breeze rolled through the towers of Medri's core, brushing past chrome signs and old stone facades. He flagged a cab with a flick of his wrist, the vehicle descending smoothly in response.
"Core sector. Halvion complex," he told the driver.
As the cab rose over the traffic lanes, Kali leaned back and let the lights of the city wash over him. One year had passed since Harlow, since everything—and everyone—had burned. Now, the game was changing. And so was he.
For the first three months, Kali had drifted like ash in the wind, working as a mercenary for hire, bouncing between lawless outposts and neutral zones. He took jobs that paid well and asked few questions, earning a reputation as efficient, silent, and somewhat spectral. It suited him. He needed time to mend. But all of that changed eight months ago, when Darius contacted him out of the blue.
The wiry man, always five steps ahead of everyone else and never short on secrets, wanted Kali to infiltrate Willow Teeth. A double agent. And Kali hadn't hesitated.
Then came the strange twist.
The order hadn't come from Darius this time. It had come from the upper echelons of Willow Teeth. Directly from the boss, whom no one had seen, who spoke only through layers of encrypted proxies. Kali was to assume the position of Senior Inspector in Division Seven of the CIB. It was the most counterintuitive directive Kali had ever received, an embedded agent of the syndicate, now embedded again within the CIB.
A triple agent.
Somehow, he had ascended to a place no one else stood. The Evangelist of Willow Teeth. The Senior Inspector of CIB Division Seven. And a ghost on Darius's personal chessboard.
From within the quiet of his mind, a voice broke the silence. "You're playing a dangerous game," Rizen murmured, calm and calculating as always.
Kali sighed and stared at the city lights through the car window. "Everyone is," he thought back. "I'm just better at losing slowly."