Gunfire echoed down the service corridor.
Not loud—suppressed—but close enough that Netoshka felt the vibrations through the soles of her boots. The surveillance hub behind them sparked and died as Circe's last override finished frying the cameras, but it was already too late.
"They've clocked us," Rue muttered, reloading.
Red warning lights pulsed along the ceiling. Somewhere deeper in the structure, metal shutters slammed shut.
Netoshka raised her hand.
"Move. Now."
Inferius flowed forward, slipping through maintenance access halls and narrow stairwells, keeping low, keeping quiet. But the city's security net was already tightening—boots thundered above them, drones whining to life somewhere out of sight.
A squad of Malicer's gate guards rounded the corner ahead.
Not standard soldiers.
Their armor was matte crimson, segmented like insect plating, masks smooth and expressionless except for a single vertical visor slit glowing white.
Red Wardens.
Malicer's inner security caste.
The Wardens didn't shout. Didn't warn.
They raised their rifles in perfect synchronization.
Too late.
The hallway lights died.
Darkness swallowed everything—followed by a sound like steel singing.
A blade flashed once.
Then twice.
Then silence.
The lights flickered back on.
Three Red Wardens collapsed almost simultaneously, throats opened with surgical precision. One didn't even finish falling before his head separated from his body and rolled to a stop near Netoshka's boots.
Inferius froze, weapons snapping up—
—but Netoshka didn't raise hers.
She already knew.
A figure stepped out of the shadowed stairwell, cloak torn, armor scratched and weathered. A longsword rested casually on her shoulder, its edge still humming faintly as if displeased with reality.
Light pink hair. Ash-streaked cloak. Eyes sharp enough to cut.
Lyra Ashenblade.
For a split second, nobody spoke.
Then Netoshka exhaled, something tight in her chest loosening despite herself.
"…Lyra? Is that you?."
Lyra smirked faintly.
"Netoshka, i told you i'd come to your aid."
Rue blinked.
"—You KNOW her?"
"Unfortunately," Netoshka said flatly.
More footsteps echoed—more Wardens converging.
Lyra's expression hardened instantly, all warmth gone, replaced by battlefield clarity.
"You're in deeper than you think," she said.
"This city's not just watched. It's curated. Malicer doesn't rule with fear alone—he edits reality through systems, records, disappearances."
She pointed down a side corridor already filling with smoke.
"I've got a blind path. Ninety seconds before it closes."
Genrihk tilted his head.
"You move like someone who's been here a while."
Lyra didn't look at him.
"Long enough."
A drone burst around the corner—
Zopi shot it mid-air.
"Less talking!" Zopi squeaked.
Netoshka stepped beside Lyra, matching her pace as they moved.
"You survived the forest," Netoshka said quietly.
Lyra's jaw tightened.
"So did you."
They slipped through the corridor just as armored figures flooded the previous hall, gunfire ripping through empty space where they'd been seconds before.
A sealed blast door slammed down behind Inferius, cutting off pursuit.
Silence fell—thick, uneasy.
They stood in an abandoned service junction, cables hanging like veins from the ceiling, emergency lights flickering weakly.
Twila broke the quiet.
"So… friend of yours?"
Lyra finally looked at the rest of the squad, eyes assessing, measuring.
"Ally," she corrected.
"For now."
Netoshka crossed her arms.
"You said you had a path."
Lyra nodded.
"I do. But after this, you won't be able to stay together."
Netoshka's gaze sharpened.
"Explain."
Lyra stepped to a cracked city map etched into the wall, tapping two districts.
"Secret Police are mobilizing. Sweeps incoming. If you don't split, you'll be boxed in and erased—quietly."
Her finger traced diverging routes.
"East Side. West Side."
Netoshka stared at the map, already calculating losses, risks, futures.
The city groaned around them, systems resetting, eyes reopening.
Lyra met her gaze.
"This is where it stops being infiltration," she said softly.
"And starts becoming war."
Netoshka nodded once.
"…Then we adapt."
Above them, somewhere deep in the city, sirens began to wail.
And in the silence of the city, a Red Equilibrium tightened its grip.