District D, even in the pale morning light, was a place where decay wore the crown. Smoke lazily drifted from crumbling tenements.
The streets smelled of oil, rot, and desperation. Kay's team threaded through the alleys, their boots silent against broken stone and scattered trash.
After the brief encounter with the strange, chain-smoking woman who returned to her battered bus without much fanfare, the group pushed deeper into the slums.
"Area's denser up ahead," Volt reported, scanning the pulse-reader strapped to her gauntlet. "Movement clusters, tight formation. Locals setting up morning markets, maybe."
"Keep moving. Blend in," Kay murmured. His voice was steady, calm, but with that easygoing, chill undercurrent that seemed to follow him everywhere.
No unnecessary tension. Just purpose.
Bright wandered a few steps ahead, spinning his silver bracelet around his fingers like a child would twirl a toy.
Occasionally, he pointed it toward random creatures, a rat with half a tail, a cracked crow perched on a busted streetlamp, and slipped into them, his real body freezing for brief moments.
He used these borrowed bodies to scout alleys and rooftops with lazy amusement.
"I just saw a guy selling 'miracle water' that glows in the dark," Bright chuckled through the comms after snapping back into himself. "District D is peak entertainment."
Clef ambled alongside him, lazily plucking at the strings of a dented guitar he'd picked up earlier. "Maybe we should invest. Open a franchise. Miracle piss. Make millions. Funding the foundation's branching progress"
Cain, ever the polite giant among them, stayed a few paces behind.
He moved with careful precision, avoiding weeds and patches of moss like landmines.
Despite the heavy atmosphere of the slums, locals barely spared him a glance, perhaps recognizing a predator they had no business challenging.
At the serious end of the column, Volt, Pyre, and Kay kept the mission ticking forward.
Their conversation stayed clipped, professional.
"District D Branch Site Alpha: needs to be hidden, but close enough to active zones for quick response," Pyre said, eyes flicking over a battered holographic map projected from Volt's gauntlet.
"Need a place abandoned enough that we don't draw too much heat," Volt added. "Locals won't rat us out if they don't even know we're there."
Kay considered the map for a few seconds, then pointed. "Here. Old warehouse sector. Low traffic. Plenty of blind spots. Good place to vanish."
Volt gave a short nod, impressed as always by Kay's sharp, almost instinctive sense for these things. "I'll start setting up preliminary comms when we get there. Pyre, help me string powerlines through the old grid."
"You got it," Pyre said, flexing his scorched fingers. "Electricity, fire, patchwork miracles. Right up our alley."
They pushed on, ducking through another narrow street where scavengers picked through heaps of twisted metal.
Bright occasionally wandered off the main path, chatting up locals with absurdly carefree questions.
"Say, you ever seen a giant cleaning crew come through?" Bright asked an old woman selling roasted meat on sticks.
She grunted. "Sweepers? Stay away from 'em. They don't sweep. They scrub."
"Charming," Bright said, flipping her a couple coins and stealing a skewer.
Clef strummed a soft, sarcastic melody in response.
Kay let them roam loosely, he knew the value of appearing casual, especially in a place where strength drew bullets faster than money.
Still, he never let the group stray too far.
Updates from the Foundation buzzed quietly through their earpieces. Most were coded phrases.
BRANCH PROJECT: INITIATED
SUPPLY DROP: INBOUND - 2 HOURS
"Head's got eyes everywhere," Volt muttered under her breath. "We'll need counter-surveillance rigs if we want to hold this place."
"I can rig some with local scrap," Pyre said. "Jury-rigging's half the fun."
As the early morning wore into true daylight, they finally spotted the warehouse sector: a cluster of half-collapsed metal structures girdled by rusted chain-link fences and weeds tall enough to hide a man.
Kay halted the group with a silent gesture. His masked face turned toward the rooftops, scanning. Nothing obvious. Still, his instincts hummed.
"Secure perimeter," he ordered. "Fast and quiet."
Cain moved to stand watch by the entrance, his presence alone enough to deter anyone curious.
Bright and Clef peeled off to check nearby structures, joking and laughing all the way.
Volt and Pyre, all business, pulled out portable scanners and toolkits, prepping the area for fast occupation.
Kay himself moved like a ghost, checking blind corners, noting sniper angles, and potential fallback routes.
They worked quickly, efficiently, an unspoken rhythm between them all.
Professionals, each in their own way.
When they finally regrouped by the largest warehouse, Volt leaned against the battered steel wall, grinning.
"Home sweet home."
Bright plopped down on an overturned crate, chewing the last of his mystery meat skewer. "Could use some drapes."
Clef strummed a few ominous chords. "And maybe some landmines."
Pyre looked at Kay, eyebrows raised. "Orders?"
Kay cracked his knuckles, a rare, casual gesture. "We build. We hold. We wait for the next orders."
And beneath his calm words, the unspoken truth: in this new world of broken cities and ruthless syndicates, the Foundation's reach was extending.
Quietly. Steadily.
No matter how deep into hell they had to go.
The sun finally pushed through the fog, casting long, jagged shadows over the warehouse ruins.
District D never truly brightened, even at noon, it looked half-dead, but now, the twisted metal gleamed like broken teeth.
Kay's team got to work immediately.
Volt knelt by a shattered fuse box near the warehouse's entrance, her gauntlet clicking as she rerouted dead circuits.
Sparks jumped from her fingertips as she breathed life back into a few old security lights, setting them to pulse once every few seconds like the heartbeat of a sleeping beast.
"Lights give the illusion of authority," Volt muttered to herself, grinning as she worked.
Pyre roamed the area with a heavy backpack, placing down small, black metal orbs: portable flame mines.
He activated each with a whispered code phrase, and the surface shimmered faintly with heat.
"Perimeter's gonna be a bonfire if they step wrong," Pyre said, clearly satisfied with himself.
Cain moved fallen beams and twisted vehicles with almost supernatural ease, stacking them into makeshift barricades.
His every movement was deliberate, careful, ensuring not even a stray weed brushed against him.
Bright and Clef scavenged nearby wreckage for usable materials.
They found old steel panels, broken plasma conduits, and abandoned, half-functional terminals.
Clef rigged the parts together into early-warning tripwires, while Bright jury-rigged a semi-functional drone out of scrap and a rat skull.
"Say hello to Little Bastard Mark I," Bright announced proudly, tossing the drone into the air. It wobbled drunkenly but stabilized, the tiny propellers whining.
Kay oversaw it all, moving silently, adjusting placements, offering advice when needed but never micromanaging.
His mere presence kept things smooth.
He didn't shout, didn't posture.
Everyone just... worked better when he was around.
And then came the rumble.
As the smoke cleared from the brief skirmish, new portals shimmered again along the cracked asphalt, not the cold, militarized ovals of Hammer Down or White Rabbits this time.
These were smaller, tighter. Efficient.
Mobile Task Force Pi-1
"City Slickers"
Unlike the heavy armor and battlefield gear of Nu-7, Pi-1 moved like urban predators: sleek, low-profile uniforms blending tactical functionality with a civilian look.
Soft body armor under streetwear jackets, lightweight SMGs slung low, faces half-obscured by masks and augmented-reality visors.
They looked more like special agents than soldiers, and that's exactly what they were.
Specialists in operating inside dense urban environments, handling anomalous threats hidden among skyscrapers, subways, and sewers.
At their head was a lean man in a dark windbreaker, a black baseball cap tugged low over his eyes.
He barked rapid commands, and his team dispersed into nearby buildings like smoke slipping through cracks.
Silent. Coordinated. Professional.
Behind Pi-1 came a smaller group: researchers, engineers, support personnel.
White lab coats flapped in the dusty breeze, some of them already stained from transit.
They hauled cases of equipment, mobile analyzers, portable reality anchors, scrambler nodes, setting them down with a practiced urgency.
Portable command centers unfolded like origami shelters, antennae snapping up into the grey sky.
Bright nudged Clef with his elbow, smirking. "Hey, nerd squad's here."
"Good," Clef muttered. "Means we might not have to duct tape everything together ourselves."
Cain simply watched, serene, his hands folded neatly in front of him. Even with all the chaos, not a blade of grass dared sprout near him.
Kay took a slow breath, shifting his weight slightly.
This was good.
Pi-1 meant the Foundation wasn't treating this like a military occupation anymore, it was treating it like a permanent installation.
They were here to stay.
Volt strode over, crackling slightly with residual static, and tossed him a data-slate. "Got the latest update.
We're approved for Phase Two.
We hold this section of District D, set up a forward branch."
Kay scanned the information quickly. Supplies inbound. Construction teams coming in stages. Clear the surrounding three blocks.
Establish local dominance without provoking major syndicates yet. Soft power first. Hard power later if needed.
"Alright," he said, tucking the slate under one arm. "Time to start building."
Pyre grinned, flexing one flaming hand and then tamping it down. "Hope they don't mind a little urban renewal."
"Just don't set the water supply on fire," Bright said dryly.
As the various teams got to work, Pi-1 slipping into the urban maze to map and monitor, the scientists setting up secure zones inside the warehouse, Kay's core team spread out to supervise.
Bright wandered, tossing his rat-drone back and forth like a football.
Clef set up a makeshift comms station, his guitar slung lazily over his shoulder.
Cain moved heavy crates like a living forklift, careful and wordless.
Volt coordinated the generator installations, her laughter bright and crackling over the radio.
Pyre helped the construction team weld structural braces, fire coiling harmlessly through the seams.
And Kay walked the perimeter.
Quiet. Watchful. Always thinking two moves ahead.
As he rounded the northeast corner of the warehouse lot, a shadow detached itself from an alley.
Another small-time gang, a different one from earlier, had come to investigate the newcomers.
Seven men and women.
Scrappy.
Armed with knives, broken pistols, and raw desperation.
Kay didn't draw his weapon.
He just stared at them.
One by one, the gang members dropped their gazes.
Without a word, they turned and melted back into the alleyways.
The foundation didn't need to announce itself with gunfire today.
It had already planted its flag.
An hour later, the area looked different.
Foundation-issued barriers now blocked every entrance to the block.
Mobile camo netting disguised sniper nests.
Surveillance drones patrolled lazy arcs overhead.
Makeshift walls rose from the rubble like jagged teeth.
The first outpost of the Foundation in District D was born.
Still rough. Still temporary.
But it was theirs.
Kay stood with his team on the roof of the fortified warehouse, watching the horizon fade into choking mist and broken towers.
Somewhere in that sprawl, Fixers, Syndicates, and horrors unknown waited for them.
Beside him, Bright fiddled with his bracelet, idly commanding a pigeon to dance on the powerline.
Clef plucked a lazy tune on his guitar, humming under his breath.
Cain simply stood, motionless as a statue.
Volt and Pyre bantered back and forth through comms about whether electric grenades or firebombs were better for "introducing themselves" to the locals.
Kay smiled slightly under his mask, the faint expression hidden from the world.
It was going to be a long mission unlike in portal 1.
But they were ready.