Doom's team was the first back.
If David had not been able to push orders across the network faster than any conventional signal, Byakko would have escaped.
Bucky and Old John arrived not long after, each of them returning with their targets secured.
Nolan gathered the room and showed them what the Azure Dragon power looked like when he called it to his palm. Then he explained why all four sacred beasts were still alive. The reasoning was straightforward enough that nobody pushed back. A method of acquiring special abilities was worth testing, and Doom was already thinking through the practical details before Nolan had finished speaking.
They worked through the other three in sequence, Doom and Nolan managing the approach together, timing each intervention for the precise moment when the target's condition became critical. The Genbu divine power came first, then the Suzaku, then the White Tiger. Each one followed the same pattern: the dying body gathered something enormous from somewhere it should not have been able to reach, and the protective talisman on Nolan's finger pulled the energy in before it could detonate outward.
Nolan had Doom and the others attempt to intercept one of the divine powers directly. The result was immediate and unambiguous. Anyone without the talisman who came close to the manifesting energy took the full force of the sacred shadow's counterattack. Nobody tried twice.
So the talisman was doing something the Ancient One had likely not explained in full. Nolan filed the question away. He would need to return to Kamar-Taj at some point and ask her directly.
With all four divine powers gathered, the sensation that settled into him was distinct and hard to describe precisely. He could feel the Empyrean Qilin at the far end of it, present somewhere in a void he could not see, waiting to be called. The power to summon it was real and immediately available.
The cost, however, was also immediately clear. Calling the beast would drain the divine powers significantly, and the recovery time afterward would be long. He closed his hand and let the energy settle.
"We save it," he said to no one in particular. "Use it as a final card when the situation actually requires it." He paused, considering. "The question is whether this kind of energy will function in the Warhammer universe. Psychic power carries across, so something of a similar nature may carry as well. We will find out when we need to."
He opened his eyes and let the thought close.
The Four Sacred Beast received panacea and time. When they were coherent enough to sit upright, the brainwashing equipment was brought in from the transport. Nolan had no particular interest in executing people who were not, at their core, villains. The soldiers they had killed at the Japanese base deserved something in return, and permanent service was a more fitting answer than a clean death.
Once the process was complete, the four of them, now fully cooperative, filled in the gaps in their own story.
The operation had gone well initially. They had located and engaged a covert organisation called the Ten Rings Gang, had a fierce confrontation with them, and by their account had been winning. Then they had come face to face with a single individual, and after that, there was nothing. No memory, no sense of time passing. When awareness returned, they were standing outside something that looked like a military installation, with a vague feeling that they had just attacked it. The panic that followed was instinctive. They ran in separate directions toward whatever felt like safety.
Everything after that, Nolan's team already knew.
The room sat with it for a moment.
"The Ten Rings Gang has almost no verifiable presence on the open internet," David said. "What exists is mostly rumor. What can be pieced together from limited sources places their operational range primarily within Asia." A brief pause. "This appears to confirm the earlier assessment. The increasing activity of this base in the Asian region drew the attention of a local power with significant reach."
Nolan was quiet for a moment, his fingers still.
Then: "David. Contact Raditus. Transfer one-third of the Intelligent Control Corps to the Japanese base. Also mobilize twenty heavy-duty Servitors and equip them for a medium-scale engagement. Separately, contact Natasha in Europe. If the situation there no longer requires her direct presence, I want Stormtrooper team recalled."
He looked across the table.
"Someone has already chosen to move against us. There is no advantage in showing restraint now. One decisive response prevents everything that follows. Let us prepare for what comes next."
The atmosphere in the room shifted. Expressions that had been composed became focused. People began to move before the meeting had formally ended, each one heading toward their own preparations.
Niwa was the last to leave.
She was at the door when she stopped. For a moment she looked back at Nolan, her face as unreadable as it had been since the day she arrived. Then she stepped out.
The metal corridors of the Japanese base were quiet this late in the cycle. Nolan walked them in the power armor, heading for his private rest room, the armor's footsteps ringing steadily against the floor.
He stopped before he reached the door.
His nose had caught something. Very faint, but distinct. Someone was already inside.
He raised one hand and pushed the door open slowly.
"If you came here to kill me," he said, stepping into the dim room without changing his pace, "I would recommend at minimum bringing something that can actually penetrate this armor. Ordinary weapons are not going to accomplish much."
A figure stood in the far corner with her arms folded, back straight, expression flat. Niwa looked at him with the same detached steadiness she had used for everything else.
"I am not an assassin," she said. "I am a messenger."
She raised one hand slowly, and a pale grey mist formed across the floor of the room, drifting upward without a source. It thickened, gathered, and shaped itself into a standing human figure, detail resolving as the mist held its form.
The figure spoke.
"Hello, Mr. Nolan." The voice was clear and calm, carrying the particular weight of someone accustomed to being listened to. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Niwa of S.P.E.A.R."