10 February 2000
17:00
Scottish Army Base
The ceiling fan hummed above the dim office, stirring the scent of coffee, ink, and cold air. Outside, the Highland wind scraped against the windows like restless ghosts. A thin wash of winter light filtered through the blinds, striping Captain Tiffany Clark's desk in alternating bars of gold and shadow, light that never quite reached warmth.
Her fingers moved with measured precision across the keyboard, eyes fixed on the encrypted feed. Each flick of the screen revealed something worse: mutilated bodies, organs gone, faces frozen in horror. Their eyes, always the same, clouded by a faint silver film that turned her blood to ice.
She stared a moment longer before whispering, "The Mimcro Monstro."
The words tasted of disbelief. Forty years since their last sighting, creatures spoken of only to scare young warriors, long buried in myth. Yet here they were again, tearing through the streets of Paris.
Tiffany's jaw tightened. "They're back."
The printer whirred in the corner, its rhythmic churn the only sound. Black-and-white horrors slid into the tray, screams caught in still frames. When the last page fell, she rose, gathered the papers, and tapped them into order. Every motion was precise, mechanical, the choreography of someone who survived through control.
The monitor's glow caught her left hand, igniting the faint shimmer of the mark etched into her skin: a V crossed by an L, crowned by a sun. It pulsed once, alive, before she closed her fist and hid it away.
To the army, it was a burn scar, a relic of some MI6 mission gone wrong. Her file even said so.
But she knew better.
It was not a wound.
It was a seal.
The mark belonged to the Via Lucis, the Way of Light.
MI6 was the mask; the Order was the truth.
Where the world saw agents, she and her sergeants were guardians, warriors fighting a hidden war against the darkness that slipped between history's cracks.
And tonight, that war had called again.
Two sharp knocks.
"Enter." She said
The door opened. Sergeant Rook came first, tall, broad-shouldered, hair a flicker of red-gold in the half-light. Behind him, Dean, quieter, older, the kind of man who reads silence the way others read maps.
"Captain," Dean said, voice steady but edged. "You called for us."
Tiffany gathered the pages into a black folder, clipped them shut, and looked up. "Close the door."
Dean obeyed. The click of the lock sealed the world outside. In here, the masks fell away.
She slid the folder across the desk. "This came in from Lance. Five confirmed Mimcro Monstro in Paris. Intel traces them to Gordon's network."
Rook's jaw set. "That name again."
Dean's expression hardened. "Hate that name."
Tiffany rubbed her temple. "Lance sent it through encrypted channels. He's still in Texas but will meet us in Paris. General Meyers signed the transfer. We leave at oh-five-hundred."
Dean opened the file. The first image showed a Paris alley, a woman sprawled on cobblestones, chest hollowed clean. Not torn — taken.
"Since when does Gordon use creatures?" Dean muttered. "The Mimcro Monstro were extinct."
"That's what unsettles me," Tiffany said. "They don't hunt for chaos; they harvest. The organs are preserved, dark-matter stasis. Gordon's collecting purity, the essence of light, to forge a vessel. Something… not meant to exist."
She nodded toward the final page. "See for yourself."
Dean turned it over, a photograph of a cracked scroll, the markings ancient and unfamiliar, alongside a list of Gordon's movements. His breath caught. "You think he's trying to summon again?"
A flicker of fear crossed her face, gone as quickly as it came. "Maybe. Whatever it is, it's enough to draw him out of hiding."
Silence thickened.
Rook exhaled. "And how exactly do we stop that?"
"Undercover," Tiffany said simply.
Rook's tone darkened. "I don't like that plan. Last time, he nearly caught you."
"This time we send a team," she replied, voice firm. "Gordon might be eternal, but not untouchable. Without his sister Camila, he can't die, but he can weaken. We'll drive him back."
Rook grunted. "Right. Forgot that part."
Dean's mouth twitched. "You slept through that part."
"I preferred the fighting," Rook shot back.
"Boys." Tiffany's tone cut the air, cool and precise. "Focus."
They straightened instantly.
She drew a slow breath. "This isn't just another mission. Gordon's been silent for three years. No sightings, no whispers. And now he returns with creatures unseen for four decades and rituals older than civilization? Something's coming."
The room chilled.
They all remembered Berlin.
Three years ago: fire, screams, buildings collapsing under a crimson sky. Tiffany was bleeding out on a ruined street, Rook and Dean dragging her to cover while the heavens burned. She had lived because the phoenix bloodline refused to let her die, her rebirth sealed by light itself. None of them ever spoke of it again.
Tiffany turned away now, one hand resting briefly on her abdomen, a scar's memory beneath the uniform. She opened a drawer and drew out a photograph, the paper thin from years of handling.
A boy with sun-bright hair held a sleeping girl in his arms. Both children, both smiling beneath the weightless peace of innocence.
Rook leaned forward. "James."
Dean's voice dropped. "He'd be twenty-six now."
"If he's alive," Tiffany said softly.
Rook met her eyes. "You still believe—?"
"I know." Her voice was a storm contained. "Every trail Gordon leaves bends toward James. He vanished nine years ago in that desert. Gordon's kept him hidden for a reason."
She traced the boy's face with her thumb. "A few days ago, a tourist in Sri Lanka caught a photo near an abandoned industrial site. The resemblance to Gordon was almost perfect."
Dean folded his arms. "And where Gordon walks…"
"…James isn't far behind," Tiffany finished.
The words settled like ash.
Every lead they'd chased ended in shadows, every shadow in medical files, each stamped with one recurring name. James Lukyan.
Dean remembered him from the Order's hidden school, a boy who bent light like breath, fearless and bright. Rook had trained beside him. They'd both thought he would lead the Council one day.
For Tiffany, he'd been more than that, her protector, her constant, the boy who once promised, I'll always find you.
Now she carried that promise for him.
Dean broke the silence. "Then we go. Paris first. Sri Lanka next."
Tiffany nodded, "Paris first. If we need to triangulate the signal, we move east. Lance is handling the SOS with Ruan."
Rook asked quietly, "And the army?"
"They'll think it's MI6 business," she said. "Meyers covers our leave, Mason takes the drills. No one outside this room knows."
Dean gave a crisp nod. "Understood."
Rook managed a humorless chuckle. "Feels like old times. Monsters in the dark while the world sleeps."
"That's the point," Tiffany replied. "They sleep because we don't."
She closed the folder, tapping it once. "Gear up. We leave before dawn. Tonight we plan. At first light, we move."
Both men straightened, not soldiers now, but warriors of the Via Lucis, their eyes bright with resolve.
"Captain," Dean said, voice respectful but heavy with meaning.
They left the room as quietly as they had entered.
When the door clicked shut, Tiffany remained still. The hum of the lights felt deafening in the emptiness. She sat slowly, gaze falling back to the photograph on her desk. The paper's edges curled like wings.
Her thumb brushed the boy's smile.
I'll find you, James, she thought. Even if it kills me.