Void led Elsie back to the Campus-9 subspace and stepped in first. Elsie followed behind him, rifle slung on her shoulder.
Void glanced sideways at Elsie as he moved through the door "You might feel it," he said quietly. "Entering here for the first time. It's… weird."
Elsie didn't even slow. She stepped through the door, eyes flicking across the room, then looked at Void with a faint amusement.
"What makes you think it's the first time I've entered here?"
Void's mouth opened, then closed.
He blinked once, then let out a short laugh. "Right."
Elsie's lips curved slightly.
Void shook his head once, then gestured down the corridor. "Come on."
They moved towards the central room, with the group still waiting on Void's return. A few hours had passed, but the table sat at the centre was still guarded by a warlock spell, lit in soft white. The Gate Lord corpse lay on it in pieces, contained within Alemyr and the Stoic's isolation work. The air around the table felt thick with restraint.
Gallida stood at the edge of the table with Taeko-3 beside her. Uzoma was perched on a counter. Isidel stood like a pillar, arms folded, gaze heavy. Alemyr and the Stoic were closest to the corpse, hands quiet, ready.
When Gallida spotted Elsie, she straightened instantly.
Taeko-3 did too.
They exchanged a look, quick and sharp, like a suspicion finally paying off.
Gallida's voice cut through the room. "Of course."
Taeko-3 nodded, almost smug. "We knew it. In the end, Ghostsword was going to bring his mysterious friend."
Elsie's eyes slid over them, calm. She didn't greet. She didn't posture. She simply walked closer to the table, as she belonged there.
Gallida stepped forward a fraction. "Can you actually do it. Extract the key. Safely."
Elsie's gaze stayed on the Gate Lord's remains. "It shouldn't be a problem."
Uzoma's brows lifted. "You are?"
Void nodded once, backing her without overplaying it. "You can trust her."
Taeko-3's head tilted slightly. "We don't even know her name."
Elsie finally glanced up, eyes steady. "Most don't, but don't let that bother you. If we're really doing this, I'll need explicit agreement that you'll do as I say."
The room went quiet.
Everyone shared a glance, and then all eyes finally flicked to Void.
Void gave back an approving nod, and the group parted to give her some more space.
Elsie stepped into the circle of light around the table. She rested her rifle strap tighter on her shoulder, then placed her hand on the exposed core of the Gate Lord's mind.
Elsie looked over to the Stoic. "When I tell you," she said, voice even, "you comply."
The Stoic's expression didn't change. His gaze lingered at Elsie for a heartbeat, then he inclined his head once.
Alemyr watched closely, jaw tight. He didn't like outsiders touching fragile things. But seeing as Void was the one to bring her in, he couldn't voice any disagreements. The most he could do was ensure that his spells did not fail.
Elsie's right hand remained on the core; her left hand traced the magnetic core of her rifle. Her eyes flicked to the watch on her wrist.
Then she released something.
Not Light. Not Darkness.
A pulse.
The air around the Gate Lord tightened. It felt like the room flinched. Around the corpse, something unfolded. A wrinkle. A pocket. A thin bubble that seemed to encapsulate the corpse and hold its translucent form.
The Gate Lord was still dead, but now it was dead inside a moment that had been pinned in place.
Taeko-3's voice dropped. "That is?"
Elsie didn't acknowledge it. She just spoke to the Stoic. "Now."
The Stoic hesitated for half a heartbeat. His Eyes flicked toward the glass sphere containing the radiolaria, then back to Elsie.
He moved.
A careful hand motion. A precise release.
The sphere shattered with a soft crack, not loud, but final. Radiolaria spilt out like thick mercury, luminous and alive. It flowed in a smooth line toward the core as if it recognised home.
Void felt a subtle prickle at the base of his neck.
The radiolaria touched the mind.
And the Gate Lord woke.
But not fully.
A faint flicker ran through its body as the gate lord instantly tried to trigger a spatial warp, but space seemed to stutter. At most, it released a fragmented pulse that frayed immediately, because the temporal wrinkle was holding it in place.
The gate lord would be alive for a second, maybe a minute, or perhaps even an hour. That did not matter. Truthfully, it was trapped in a moment it could not escape.
Elsie's fingers tightened.
She looked down at the watch on her wrist and dialled it, precise movements like she was tuning a weapon.
Then she lifted her rifle.
Not toward anyone.
Toward the core.
Elsie fired.
The group around the table flinched.
But there was no bullet, nor an explosion.
Instead, an odd wisp seemed to break away from the Gate lord and enter the rifle's barrel. Elsie fired once more, and the Gate Lord's mind stuttered again, trapped between function and failure. Frozen in a pinned second while Elsie ripped information out of it like a surgeon pulling a thread.
She then aimed at a nearby data pad and clicked the trigger.
A string of numbers poured into the nearest terminal, too fast for anyone to read.
A key.
Longer than a human mind could comprehend.
A 2000000456-digit identifier, the Vex's own method of locating and splitting spatial distortions, the kind of code that didn't just open a door, it told the door what it was.
Obsidian's eye flared bright as he recorded it, his voice low with urgency. "Captured. Stored. Multiple backups."
Elsie's gaze didn't leave the terminal until the final digit settled.
Then she stepped back, hand lifting again. "Remove it."
The Stoic reacted instantly. He swiftly guided the radiolaria out, not with brute force, but with control, drawing it back into a newly reformed glass sphere. Glass knit itself under his hands, sealing without leaving a seam.
The radiolaria swirled inside, contained again.
The Gate Lord's mind core dimmed.
Time snapped back into place, like a taut string being released. The corpse fizzled into stillness, dead again.
Everyone in the room exhaled at once.
Marcus stared at Elsie as if he'd just watched someone cheat the very fundamental rules of life. "Who are you?"
Elsie spared him a glance.
"It's better if you don't know."
Taeko-3 opened her mouth, clearly ready to argue. Alemyr's brows tightened. Gallida looked like she wanted to ask twenty questions at once.
Elsie cut them off and whispered while turning to Void.
"Before you ever attempt the Black Heart," she said with a firm voice, "you prepare. Don't rush it. And when you're ready, you find me again. Is that clear?"
Void nodded, "Trust me, I will"
Elsie's watch ticked.
A faint sound, like a cold clock hand landing on a mark. Her body began to fade. Fine flakes peeled off her armour and drifted upwards. Her outline broke apart in a soft scatter, and in seconds she was gone, leaving nothing but a faint chill and a space where she'd stood.
The room stared at the absence.
Marcus finally couldn't hold it in any longer. "Okay. Nope. Seriously, who was that?"
Void didn't look away from the terminal where the key was stored.
"She's a friend," he said.
Alemyr exhaled, half impressed, half annoyed. "You have more strange connections than I thought."
Void nodded. "Yeah."
He turned slightly toward Uzoma, eyes narrowing with a different kind of focus. "By the way."
Uzoma lifted a brow. "Uh oh."
Void pointed at the terminal. "We had to call outside help to extract the key. Which means your squad technically didn't solve the problem."
Isidel's head tilted a fraction. Gallida's lips twitched. Taeko-3 straight up sighed like she could see where this was going.
Void continued, calm as ever. "So. Don't you owe me some glimmer back?"
Uzoma stared at him for a beat, then laughed. "You're joking."
Void's face stayed straight. "Am I?"
Alemyr rubbed his face with one hand. "That's a shrewd bargain."
Then he pointed at the node plans projected on the far wall. "But the glimmer you gave was already spent. On node work. On equipment. On running this place and making sure you can enter and leave at will. Opening the entrance is quite the expense, as you'd know."
Void clicked his tongue once, amused despite himself. "Shrewd response."
Uzoma grinned. "We learned from the best."
Void snorted and shook his head, then turned back to the table.
"The key is finally secured."
He looked around the room, letting his gaze land on each of them. Gallida. Taeko. Alemyr. The Stoic. Uzoma. Isidel. Marcus. Pahanin.
"Until then," Void said, "we focus on the project. Nodes. Placement. Scaling. We build the backbone. Because when I do go through that door, I don't exactly know what'll happen. I want to ensure we're all on the same page before then."
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