The Citadel felt colder after the loss.
Not literally. The temperature held steady — thanks to geothermal regulators embedded deep beneath the mountain.
But the silence in the halls was thicker. The lights seemed a little dimmer. And every footstep from the returning team echoed too loudly.
The elevator doors opened with a pneumatic hiss, and the team stepped out in battered formation.
Toya led first, still dusted in the ash of rampage fallout, her jacket torn at the shoulder, red still lining the edges of her irises. Kane followed behind her, stoic as ever, his arms crossed over cracked armor.
Frost walked quietly, ice climbing down her left gauntlet in slow, pulsing coils. Sparrow had one eye darkened from a blow no one had seen land — probably took it shielding someone else.
Hunter walked with his usual calm, two knives still drawn. He hadn't said a word since the fight.
And behind them all was Xavier — visor off, chestplate scorched, lip split from the Knight's last hit. He walked slower, thoughtful, but unflinching. His dreadlocks were loose now, the ties snapped in the skirmish. His eyes didn't leave the floor.
Atlas waited just ahead, standing near the glass-ringed corridor that led to the Council wing.
He said nothing. Just gave them a long, full look.
Then:
"This way."
His voice was calm. Not cold. Not cruel.
But something in the tone made them raise their heads to mask their defeated looks.
The Citadel felt colder after a loss.
Not literally. The temperature held steady — thanks to geothermal regulators embedded deep beneath the mountain.
But the silence in the halls was thicker. The lights seemed a little dimmer. And every footstep from the returning team echoed too loudly.
The elevator doors opened with a pneumatic hiss, and the team stepped out in battered formation.
Toya led first, still dusted in the ash of rampage fallout, her jacket torn at the shoulder, red still lining the edges of her irises. Kane followed behind her, stoic as ever, his arms crossed over cracked armor.
Frost walked quietly, ice climbing down her left gauntlet in slow, pulsing coils. Sparrow had one eye darkened from a blow no one had seen land — probably took it shielding someone else.
Hunter walked with his usual calm, two knives still drawn. He hadn't said a word since the fight.
And behind them all was Xavier — visor off, chestplate scorched, lip split from the Knight's last hit. He walked slower, thoughtful, but unflinching. His dreadlocks were loose now, the ties snapped in the skirmish. His eyes didn't leave the floor.
Atlas waited just ahead, standing near the glass-ringed corridor that led to the Council wing.
He said nothing. Just gave them a long, full look.
Then:
"This way."
His voice was calm. Not cold. Not cruel.
But something in the tone said briefing first. Grief later.
The team followed in silence.
Ahead, the corridor curved upward, walls narrowing into polished obsidian and glass. The Citadel's architecture shifted as they ascended — less military, more ceremonial. Lights softened to a diplomatic gold. No more combat alarms. Just the quiet hum of consequence.
By the time the doors opened...
They were no longer soldiers.
They were witnesses.
Inside, the Council was already waiting.
The door to the chamber slid open.
The Council had already assembled.
Klaus Borin stood at the center — not seated. That was never a good sign.
He was tall and cutting in presence, dark skin gleaming beneath the crystalline overhead lights, silver-gray hair coiled back into a braided crown. His council robe was buttoned high and military crisp, accented with a black collar that shimmered with G.H.O.S.T. command insignia.
He turned as the team entered.
"Finally."
Atlas stepped forward.
"The mission was compromised. Marsa is gone."
Klaus's cane struck the floor once — loud in the silence.
"We know."
He waved his hand — and a massive screen shimmered to life behind him, showcasing a still from the prison breach.
A figure in sleek black armor. One clawed gauntlet raised. Flames bursting outward.
Shane.
"Civilians across the Geneva region saw the sky fracture during the attack," Klaus said, voice sharp. "We've already intercepted six unauthorized broadcasts, and the name came up in every one."
He turned slowly toward the team.
"They're calling themselves The Vaknar."
Silence.
Even Hunter looked up at that.
Sparrow squinted. "The what?"
"Old Wren tongue," Klaus said. "It means The Forged in Flame."
He tapped his holo-emitter, and a symbol projected midair — the jagged outline of a flaming ouroboros, consuming itself.
"They are not a splinter group. They are an ideology. One forged from fire... and betrayal."
Murmurs rippled across the delegates seated in the high tiers — rows of global representatives, augmented with retinal projectors, voice translators, security detail.
"Are they confirmed enhanced?" a delegate from SouthAfrica-2 asked.
"They're not just enhanced," Klaus said. "Some were trained. By us."
That landed harder than anything else.
Whispers turned to arguments. Heated.
"We warned G.H.O.S.T. about centralized operatives—"
"Too much power—"
"Controlled recruitment is essential—"
Toya's eyes narrowed. "They chose that name?"
"No," Atlas said quietly. "Shane chose it. The rest just followed."
"And you didn't think to tell us this rogue enhanced was your former operative?" snapped Governor Hye-Sung from the corner of the room, arms folded, a permanent frown drawn across her face.
Hunter didn't even look at her.
"None of us knew what he became. Not until Geneva. Not like this."
Frost's voice was quiet. "It wasn't just him. There was... something else. A Knight. Made of shadows."
"We know," Klaus said. "We pulled your cam feeds. Spliced your HUD logs. Believe me — everyone on this Council has seen what you saw."
He walked forward, cane clicking.
"That prison is in pieces. The world knows Marsa's back. We are on the edge of collapse — not because you failed — but because you kept us in the dark."
"No one kept you in the dark," Atlas said, finally stepping forward. "There was nothing to tell until the breach. You want someone to blame, start with the fact this Council pulled containment funding two months ago—"
"Watch your tone, Director," Klaus said flatly.
"I'm not your Director," Atlas said, voice still even. "I serve the mission. Not the politics."
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to.
Everyone in the room remembered what happened the last time Atlas raised his voice.
Klaus's lip twitched.
And then the voice no one expected filled the room:
"Maybe it's time someone reminded you what the mission was."
The temperature dropped by two degrees.
A sound like heaven fracturing split the ceiling.
A portal tore through the air above the Council Wing — ragged, dark, unstable — edges leaking threads of burning static.
Before anyone could react, something was falling through it.
And something — someone — fell through it.
They crashed down from the rift like a dead star returning to orbit — landing in the center of the chamber with a deafening shockwave that cracked the floor tiles. The portal sealed behind him with a violent snap, leaving the air warped and humming.
A man.
Tall. Lean. Drenched in smoke.
One arm hung in a makeshift sling of bandage and charred leather. The other gripped a scorched weapon — more relic than blade, edges burned black. His skin was pale beneath the blood and grit. Silver veins pulsed faintly across his neck. His face was sharp, carved from war and time — eyes dark, unreadable.
The room froze.
Even Atlas's posture shifted.
Smoke clung to his coat. His boots dragged ash from somewhere none of them recognized. One shoulder was singed. His skin glowed faintly along the veins — like something inside him was barely contained.
His face was harder. Leaner. Cut from stone.
But Xavier knew that silhouette.
Everyone did.
"Holy sh—" Sparrow whispered.
The man stood slowly. Breathing like a man who'd seen the worst of hell — and walked out because hell wasn't enough to hold him.
Xavier didn't breathe.
He couldn't.
Not because of the smoke still drifting off the broken tiles — not even because the man's entrance had cracked the room's oxygen in half — but because he knew that silhouette.
Every soldier in G.H.O.S.T. knew it.
Trained in its shadow.
Fought to live up to it.
But Xavier had seen more.
He'd seen that figure in a different light once — not just as a legend, but as something almost like a father.
Someone who made the word "hero" feel real.
And then he was gone.
Gone before Xavier ever got the answers he needed.
Gone before Grim saw what he became.
Gone when the world needed him most.
Now, standing there in front of a room full of broken truths...
Xavier spoke.
Quiet. Tight.
"...You're supposed to be dead."
His eyes scanned the room until they landed on Xavier.
For a flicker of a second, the world quieted.
Grim didn't smile. But something softened in his eyes. Just slightly.
And for Xavier —
That was everything.
The room held its breath.
And then—
"...Grim?"
Klaus Borin's voice cracked through the tension like a dry branch underfoot.
The word sounded old. Reverent. Like it had waited too long to be spoken aloud.
The man in the center of the shattered floor turned slowly.
His face was half-shadowed beneath the burned hood. His eyes, once known for their calculation, burned white — not with power, but with survival.
Grim's voice came out rough. Like something inside him hadn't healed.
"I left this Council with one directive," he said slowly. "One mission."
There was weight in his stare — something like disappointment wrapped in weary understanding.
He walked forward, boots dragging faint trails of ash. His long black coat fluttered in the current from the shattered ceiling — each thread carrying soot from places no map held.
The smoke around him didn't rise. It circled — like it listened.
"Contain the echoes of Marsa," he said. "Secure her legacy. Watch for the Cabal.
And if necessary... burn the world to keep it safe."
No one dared interrupt. Not even Klaus.
Grim's eyes swept the chamber. Saw the polished walls, the gold-tier security, the diplomats, the silence. He breathed — and the silence breathed with him.
"I came back," Grim said. "And what do I find?"
He turned toward Atlas.
Not with hostility. Not with anger.
With understanding.
And something that looked too close to pity.
"A Director fighting everything to keep this agency alive. A Council debating whether to leash the fire or let it burn. A name Ace buried years ago... now whispered in the mouths of the living."
His jaw tightened.
"And now a name I didn't understand then. And still don't."
He turned — slowly — until his gaze locked on Xavier.
And just like that — the heat in his voice cooled.
His shoulders eased.
"You've grown," Grim said. "Into the man we hoped you'd become."
Xavier's mouth opened, but no sound came. Not awe. Just a churning quiet.
He wanted to speak.
Wanted to shout.
Wanted to ask where the hell Grim had been.
But he couldn't.
Not yet.
Grim took a final step and raised his voice — this time, not to Xavier.
To all of them.
"To the Council of Nations, and the operatives who still stand."
He tapped a burned node on his wrist.
A fractured hologram snapped into view — staticky, broken. A flash of Marsa's face. Her voice — mid-scream. And behind her...
Something else.
Taller.
Only a shape wrapped in runes and symbols that bent the light around them.
Like the world wanted to forget it ever saw it.
Grim let the hologram die.
The air in the chamber remained heavy — like the portal he came through never fully closed.
"I saw her," he said quietly. "Marsa."
Gasps again — but fewer now. Like the room was growing numb.
"She's not who she was. Not what she was. The resurrection warped her. Maybe it was time. Maybe it was grief. Or maybe... it was never her choice at all."
He looked directly at Klaus.
"She's being led."
Klaus straightened. "By who?"
"I don't know," Grim said. "But she's moving with purpose now. She isn't trying to finish her war."
His eyes narrowed.
"She's trying to open something."
The chamber went still again.
Xavier's hands curled at his sides.
Toya glanced at him — subtle, steady.
Hunter's knife slowly stopped spinning between his fingers.
Atlas didn't speak.
Not yet.
Because something in him shifted.
His vision blurred. The red glow behind his left eye flared — then pulsed.
He clutched his throat subtly as he felt his breathe escape his lungs permanently.
Tyranos.
The death god whispered in no voice at all. A presence under his skin. A cold pressure behind his thoughts. The debt loomed.
His quota wasn't paid.
Five souls.
He'd taken none.
And already... the cost was rising.
"Atlas," Grim said suddenly.
The name dragged him back into the room.
"You feel it, don't you?"
Atlas didn't answer.
He just nodded once — barely.
Grim stepped forward, slowly.
"Then we don't have time to be afraid."
He turned back to the Council.
"Stop debating. Start moving. Reinforce the teams. Double-lock the Hold. I want all Vaknar profiles resurfaced and updated."
Atlas stepped forward again — visibly straining to control his breath.
"We hold the line," he said.
Then, without ceremony, the lights dimmed again. The briefing closed.
Grim didn't follow the others out.
He stood beneath the dying glow of the council chamber, smoke still clinging to his coat, as the final delegates filed out in hushed urgency. Atlas lingered near the far end of the room, speaking low with Klaus, but even his voice faded into the storm murmuring against the Citadel glass.
Xavier remained.
Arms folded. Jaw tight.
He didn't approach right away.
He just stood there, across from the man he'd idolized, then hated, then mourned.
Now he was back.
Not triumphant. Not healed.
Just... here.
Grim finally turned to face him, slower now. The lines on his face caught the low light — pale scars, sleepless shadows. The same man. But not.
"You said I'd be more than them," Xavier said quietly. "Back when I was still running drills with knives too big for my hands."
Grim didn't smile. But something softened in his stare.
"You are."
Xavier's throat tightened. "Then why'd you leave? Why all these years?"
A long pause.
"I had to," Grim answered. "To make sure you'd survive what comes next."
Xavier looked away. For a second.
Then he stepped forward.
He nodded once.
"We've got a lot to talk about man."
Grim didn't argue. "We will."
Xavier exhaled.
The tension didn't disappear.
But it eased. Just slightly.
Grim reached out, and for the first time in a decade, placed a hand on Xavier's shoulder.
Not as a commander.
Not as a G.H.O.S.T..
But as the man who raised him since he was 6 years old.
"We start preparing, and I'm starving," Grim said cheekily.
Xavier chuckled and nodded, embracing him in a hug.
And as they left the chamber together —
Outside the Citadel, the storm finally broke.
Thunder cracked.
Rain fell like ash.
War was coming.