"What do you mean disappeared?"
Terry shouted, his voice sharp, anger carved deep into his face. He refused to believe what he just heard.
"We can't get anything, sir. It's all gone," one of the sector units said, still frantically working the console, his fingers tapping across the glowing screen in desperation, hoping he might still catch a signal.
"So, you're telling me the Void somehow vanished?"
"It's possible. We still don't even know what this thing really is."
Terry set his hands on his waist and tilted his head back, exhaling through his mouth. The Council would never take this lightly, the Void had disappeared. Again.
He wasn't just a threat now, he was on par with the Peacemakers themselves, maybe even worse. And that explosion… what caused it? No one knew.
"This can't be right,"
Terry muttered before leaving the sector unit room. He walked down the hallway, the silence of his boots echoing until it opened into a wide glass-domed atrium.
From inside, the whole city stretched beyond the dome, while workers and soldiers moved about their business below him. His smartwatch buzzed repeatedly on his wrist.
He glanced down, Deborah. Without hesitation, he ducked into a quiet corridor and flipped the watch open.
Her hologram appeared above it.
"You're not going to believe this. Are you guys seeing this from up there?" Deborah's voice carried urgency.
"The satellites couldn't get a visual on the place. We still don't know what happened. So, what's over there? Any sighting of the Void yet?" Terry asked, leaning in.
"I don't see anything here. The explosion was insane. If you said the Void was here… wouldn't that mean maybe he was destroyed in it?"
"Our radar kept up with his energy for twenty minutes after the blast. Then gone. Just gone. I'm not buying the idea he was simply obliterated,"
Terry answered, doubt thick in his voice. The Void was slippery, always had been. If he had vanished again, there was no telling when he'd show up next.
"Oh… what in the world…"
Deborah's voice shifted, shock, disbelief. Terry frowned at her tone. She stood on the blackened ground where the explosion had scorched everything, her gaze fixed on something in the distance.
A massive frost spire rose out of the ruin, towering and impossible to miss.
She stepped carefully over the blistered earth, the ash and molten patches still smoldering. Her feet, rimmed with ice, froze the ground beneath her with each step, making it possible for her to cross the charred field.
She reached the heart of the battlefield: jagged walls of ice still alive with faint energy, craters punched deep into the earth. She knew instantly, there had been a fight. Just like the one she'd seen before, when Belle and the others had faced off against impossible odds.
She pulled the handheld survey device from her belt and powered it on. A thin blue light scanned across the ruin, and numbers began to spike on the display.
Her breath caught as the readings poured in. Multiple cosmic energy signatures… overwhelming in strength. Four in total. Three matched known profiles. One… unknown.
Deborah narrowed her eyes and drew the device closer. The Void had been here. And,no, impossible- those kids had fought him. She had assumed they were dead after the explosion. But this… this said otherwise.
"This doesn't make any sense," Deborah whispered, brushing her hand across the frozen spire, feeling the raw energy still humming through it.
"What was that? Doesn't make sense, right?" Terry replied, his voice faint through the watch.
"That's not what I'm saying, Terry. The kids. They were here."
"What do you mean they were there?" he asked, his curiosity sharp.
"The tracker also logs the time when the energy signatures peak. Terry… this was just about an hour ago. That's the same time the explosion happened. You got an explanation for that?"
Terry froze, his thoughts a storm. He could blame it on a faulty reading but he knew better. Did they actually fight the Void? Or just survive being caught in his path? Either way, it left the same chilling question in his mind.
"Terry… they fought this thing. I don't know how they survived the blast, but they did. We're looking at the next generation of monsters."
"It's starting to make sense now," Terry admitted grimly. "The Void may have come specifically for them."
"Why do you say that?" Deborah pressed.
"The Void could have been after Sofia. The girl who stayed in her mother's womb for three years."
Sofia's case was well known. During her mother's pregnancy, the woman's body had fractured under waves of cosmic energy, her hormones rewritten.
Her body refused to let go of the child, and for three long years the unborn girl was sustained with constant infusions of cosmic energy until her birth.
Sofia had come into the world already different, her internal structure rewired, her vessels matured enough to contain power beyond any newborn's capacity.
"In some way, I believe it," Deborah said softly. "That girl was never normal from the start. Give me some time, Terry. I'll look for the kids myself. I thought they were gone, but this device doesn't lie."
She cut the call with a tap. Deborah knew Belle and the others were alive. Belle's frost alone gave it away. She was like herself, an earth clan descent.
She smiled faintly at the thought of taking Belle under her wing, then continued her survey of the battlefield. The Void's signature had vanished completely, but the children's power… only faded. They were alive. Somewhere.
"Where are those kids now?" she muttered.
Hours later, Belle, John, and Dorothy were sprinting for their lives down a snowy slope. Behind them, an avalanche roared from the mountains, swallowing hills whole.
Snow thundered down with such force it shook the ground itself. John carried an unconscious Sofia across his shoulders, every step slowed by the thick drifts beneath their feet.
Belle and Dorothy were drained, their bodies nearly empty of cosmic energy. Escape felt impossible.
"Oh shit, shit, shit, we're gonna die!"
John yelled as he ran. The avalanche closed the gap with terrifying speed. Just before it swallowed them whole, the earth shook and a massive frost wall erupted upward from the ground.
It towered dozens of meters into the sky, a frozen barricade that caught the avalanche and split it apart.
The three of them stopped dead, wide-eyed in disbelief. Belle's shock was the greatest of all.
"Nice one, Belle! Didn't know you had that much juice left in you!" John shouted with a grin.
"John… that wasn't me,"
Belle answered, her voice trembling. Her eyes fixed on the enormous wall. It was the largest frost structure she had ever seen, something beyond even her fullest strength.
Before they could think, the low hum of engines echoed overhead. They turned to see an aircraft descending, snow spiraling in its wake.
Its sleek frame gleamed against the white. They didn't need to ask, only Galaxia owned ships like this.
"It's a Galaxian ship! Come on!" John shouted, shifting Sofia carefully on his shoulders as they dashed toward it.
The ship slowed to a hover, then with a hiss, the side hatch slid open. Deborah stood at the edge, her eyes scanning the group below.
"As expected… the grandchildren of Sir David," she murmured.
She descended the ramp into the snow, her boots crunching the frost, but before she could say more, the three had already reached the ship and stood waiting in front of it.
The cold wind whipped around them, tugging at their torn clothes and exhausted faces.
"There's no time. Get in," Deborah commanded, signaling them inside.
Without hesitation, they rushed aboard. As they passed her, Deborah's gaze caught on Dorothy. Something about the girl, her presence, her long hair flickering as she moved, sparked a question in her mind.
'Who's that?'