Butter's fingers, rigid as spears, stabbed for his eyes. Clock recoiled, spinning on his heel, feeling the wind of her strike whisper past his temple.

  But her attack was a sentence, not a word. As he spun, her leg hooked his ankles in a seamless, sweeping motion. He stumbled, balance shattered, but he was a fighter too. He used the fall, his body coiling into the momentum, and erupted from the ground not with a flurry, but with the coiling, penetrating force of a Liuhebafa technique—"Green Dragon Stirs the Water." His strikes weren't straight lines; they were spiraling fists and low, sweeping palms that pressured her backwards, their unpredictable angles denying her the space and rhythm to set another trap.

  She flowed back, a leaf on the wind of his assault, until her heel met empty air at the edge of the floating platform. For a split second, she was cornered. Clock pressed his advantage, launching into a half-completed backflip to evade a retaliatory Taichi strike and create distance.

  It was the wrong move.

  He bounced back from the ground, a coiled spring, and fired two rapid, powerful kicks aimed squarely at her chest.

  He never saw her hand move. It was just there.

  Instead of blocking, her index knuckle, met the center of his descending foot with the pinpoint precision of a diamond-tipped drill.

  THWUP.

  The sound was small, deceptively soft. But the effect was instantaneous and total. A concussive vibration, a wave of pure, disruptive force, resonated up the bones of his leg, short-circuiting the muscle, deadening the nerve. His leg gave way as if the string controlling it had been cut. He dropped like a stone, hitting the crystalline ground with a grunt of pure, shocked agony, clutching his numb and twitching limb. She hadn't broken it. She had simply... turned it off.

  With a snarl of pure defiance, he didn't try to massage feeling back into the leg. Instead, his fingers, knowledge of anatomy overriding panic, became claws. He drove his thumb with brutal force deep into the specific nerve cluster on his own thigh: a paralyzing point he knew from a hundred battles.

  A bolt of white-hot, excruciating sensation exploded through the numbness. It was agony, but it was feeling. The system shock jolted the deadened pathways back online. He gasped, his body arching off the ground, but his leg spasmed back to life.

  He was moving before the pain had even fully registered, pushing himself up on the now-functional leg, a feral growl tearing from his throat. The calculated defense was gone, replaced by raw, aggressive survival.

  Clock growled, pressing harder. A jab-cross combo meant to test her guard and sting her face. An eye gouge feint to make her flinch and expose her neck. He was done playing her game. He was making it his.

  Butter caught his arm, twisted, and flipped him over her shoulder. He hit the ground hard, the dreamscape trembling beneath him.

  For a second, there was silence. Then Clock laughed, blood on his teeth.

  "That’s my sister," he panted, a flicker of pride in his violet eyes before they hardened with urgency. "But you need to wake up."

  He growled, flipping upright with a capoeirista's impossible agility. A brutal, looping jab meant to distract. Butter's forearm deflected it with a sharp pak! But it was a feint. Clock was already driving a piston-straight right fist deep into her stomach.

  THUD. The blow didn't land. Butter's open palm intercepted it an inch from her body, her fingers closing like a vice around his clenched fist, stopping the force dead. His knuckles cracked under the pressure.

  Shock widened Clock's eyes for a microsecond. He reacted instantly, snapping his forehead forward in a vicious headbutt.

  Butter dissolved to the side, his skull whistling past her temple. And in the space that movement created, she struck. Not with a fist.

  Her head darted forward like a serpent, and her teeth sank into the side of his neck.

  "AGH! WHAT THE HELL?!" Clock roared, more in stunned disbelief than pain. He wrenched back, tearing free, and drove a powerful front kick into her center, finally breaking her hold.

  Butter staggered back, stumbling over a floating shard of crystal, but her fall was a controlled roll. She came up on one knee, poised and ready, a thin trail of his shimmering, violet-black blood on her lip.

  Clock didn't give her a second. Rage and adrenaline fueled him. He launched into a breathtaking aerial move, a capoeira au batido morphing into a flying double kick, both heels aimed to cave in her ribcage.

  Butter didn't just dodge. It wasn't speed. It was a glitch in reality itself. One moment she was there, the next she was three feet to the left, the deadly kicks passing through empty air where she'd just been. Clock's eyes widened as he hung, completely exposed in mid-air.

  And then she was on him.

  Her hands became a blur of devastating efficiency. Seven strikes. Each one perfectly placed, a symphony of brutal precision on a vulnerable target.

  Jab to the floating ribs. Cross to the solar plexus. Hook to the kidney. Palm-heel to the chin. Elbow to the collarbone. Knee to the thigh.

  A final, shocking spear-hand to the throat.

  The impacts echoed like firecrackers in the vast dreamspace. The force wasn't magical; it was pure, distilled kinetic energy, delivered with impossible accuracy.

  It blasted Clock out of his flip. He crashed into the hard, crystalline ground twenty feet away, skidding through glittering dust before coming to a stop on his back.

  He pushed himself up on one elbow and spat a glob of violet-tinged blood onto the pristine surface. He stared at her, his expression a mix of agony and utter disbelief.

  "How is she doing this," he wheezed, "with no powers?"

  Butter’s starry eyes flickered, just for a second, with something like recognition.

  Then the sky split open.

  ///

  Mango came tumbling through the rift like a falling star.

  Her fuzzy bunny slippers flapped wildly as she pinwheeled through the neon nebula, her sunset-pink sweater billowing, apple-shaped earrings glinting. She righted herself midair with a dancer’s twist, scarf fluttering around her locs like a battle flag.

  Clock’s grin could’ve powered a city. “Mango! You’re alive!!!”

  Mango blinked at him, nose ring catching the light. “Clock?” Her voice was equal parts childish glee and lethal calm. “What’re you doing here? Didja get lost again?”

  He pointed at Butter, who had continued floating in her lotus pose, eyes star-filled and vacant. “Gotta knock her out before she drowns in the Gloom. Powers don’t work here.”

  Mango wiggled her fingers experimentally. Nothing. She pouted. “Ugh. That’s gonna be hard.” Then she eyed Butter’s tensed fists and winced. “She’s really punchy.”

  Clock grabbed her by the shoulders, spinning her to face him. “We can do it together. Remember the game we played in the training lab?”

  Mango’s eyes sharpened. All traces of whimsy vanished. “Double Press.” She bounced on her toes, bunny slippers flopping. “Yay.”

  Clock turned toward Butter, cracking his knuckles. “Let’s do that.”

  Butter sensed them coming, her dream-body pivoted before they’d even moved, Wing Chun stance snapping into place. Too late.

  Mango went low. A cartwheel that morphed into a sweeping kick, her slippers slapping Butter’s ankles out from under her. “Sweep-kickk!”

  Clock went high. A knee-strike aimed at Butter’s ribs, but feinted, twisting last second into a grapple. He locked her arms behind her back. “Gotcha.”

  Mango sprang up like a jack-in-the-box, fingers poised in a knife-hand strike. “Nighty-night!”

  Butter roared, breaking Clock’s hold with a Tai Chi twist, but Mango’s strike connected, jabbing her pressure point.

  For half a second, Butter’s starry eyes flickered, human again. “C’mon, Butter,” Clock hissed, pinning her wrist. “Wake. Up.”

  Mango suddenly headbutted her out of nowhere. A sound like a melon dropped on stone. THUNK. Butter’s eyes rolled back, then her body went limp, floating on her back.

  Mango immediately checked Butter’s pulse with clinical precision, then claps. “We win! Do we get snacks now?”

  Clock spotted cracks in the dreamscape starting to appear. “I think she's waking up in the real world. We gotta go. Now.”

  The sky shattered like glass. Jagged fractures split the neon nebula, swallowing stars as the dream began to collapse.

  Clock grabbed Mango's wrist, his violet eyes wide. "If we don't leave now, we're getting trapped in here!"

  They lunged for the rift above, then screamed as iron fingers clamped around their ankles.

  Butter hung below them, suspended in the void, her eyes still closed. Her grip was a vise, her nails drawing blood.

  "STAY!" A distorted, multi-layered shriek echoed, Butter’s voice, pure nightmare.

  "EEK!NO NO NO!" Mango shrieked, kicking wildly, her bunny slippers spinning into the abyss.

  Butter yanked. They plummeted toward her, Clock twisting midair, only for Butter’s hands to snap out, seizing them both by the throat.

  "Oh crap!" Clock choked, clawing at her wrist.

  Butter’s face was serene. Blank. Asleep. Then, she moved.

  It wasn't an attack; it was a statement. Her body settled into a stance so fundamental it seemed to root her to the floating dreamstone: a simple Wuji posture, the void before creation, hands open at her sides.

  Clock and Mango lunged as one, a pincer attack of gloom and fury.

  Clock came in high, a whipping bian quan (whip fist) aimed to split her forehead. Mango went low, a scissoring leg sweep meant to shatter her ankles.

  Butter’s right hand floated up. Not a block. A redirect. Her palm met Clock’s wrist with a sound like a wet towel snapping, subtly altering the vector of his punch so it whistled harmlessly past her ear. At the same time, her left foot simply lifted an inch, allowing Mango’s sweeping kick to pass beneath her heel, before stomping down to pin Mango’s trailing leg to the ground.

  They recoiled, regrouped, and came again. Clock exploded forward with a barrage of Xingyi Beng Quan: drilling, linear fist blasts that sought to pierce straight through her centerline. Mango with a barrage of Kyokushin knees and elbows.

  Butter deflected them with one arm each.

  Her right hand became a blur of Wing Chun efficiency, a seamless flow of deflections that slapped Clock’s punches aside with sharp, stinging pak! pak! pak! sounds, each parry leaving his arms numb and off-balance.

  Her left arm moved with the heavy, flowing power of Tai Chi. It didn't block Mango’s strikes; it swallowed them. A circular peng movement absorbed a crushing knee, redirecting its force into a spin that left Mango stumbling. An upward lu roll captured a vicious elbow, gently but irresistibly guiding Mango's own momentum to throw her off her feet.

  They were not fighting a person. They were fighting a principle.

  Clock, snarling, committed to a full-power xingyi charging punch, a single blow meant to drill through a wall. Mango, seeing the opening, committed her entire body to a flying unorthodox heel kick.

  Butter’s expression did not change.

  Her right hand shot forward, not to meet Clock’s fist, but to slice past it. Her fingers formed a biao zhi (leopard fist) that stabbed like a piston into the nerve cluster under his armpit. Clock’s entire right side went dead, his mighty punch dissolving into a limp twitch.

  In the same motion, her left arm swept upward in a tai chi "single whip." Her forearm met the bone of Mango’s shin with a sickening CRACK. The sound echoed through the void. Mango crumpled with a shriek, clutching her leg.

  Her face was still serene. Blank. Asleep.

  It had been less than four seconds.

  Her body moved with nightmare precision, both hands working independently. Her right hand drove a vicious elbow into Clock’s ribs as he stumbled up while her left hand twisted Mango’s arm into a tai chi lock as she swung, nearly dislocating her shoulder.

  Mango hissed, wrenching free with a desperate twist. Desperation took over.

  Clock headbutted her. His real body spasmed, nose bleeding onto the carpet. Mango bit her wrist. Butter's skin tore, leaking liquid rainbows. Butter didn’t flinch.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Instead, she punched Clock in the throat, crushing his windpipe. Gagging, he crumpled. She wasn't finished, in a blinding flash she whipped a roundhouse kick into his temple with her prosthetic leg.

  CRACK. The sound echoed through the disintegrating reality.

  His body went limp, eyes rolling back.

  "CLOCK!" Mango wailed. Her real voice a whimper in the silent room.

  Butter turned, empty-eyed. She lunged. Mango flipped over her head, appearing behind her, Butter swung a crushing backhand. Mango backflipped hard, both feet whacked Butter square in the jaw.

  THUD. Butter staggered, dazed.

  Mango didn't let the opening go to waste. Fueled by adrenaline and a fierce, protective fury, she launched forward. Her style shifted from playful acrobatics to the deep, powerful stances of Kyokushin karate. A thunderous chudan-zuki (middle punch) blasted toward Butter's solar plexus, followed by a brutal mawashi-geri (roundhouse kick) aimed at her ribs. It was a direct, overwhelming assault, meant to shatter her guard through pure, concussive force.

  It was pointless.

  The strikes passed through empty air. Butter didn't dodge; she ceased to be in front of Mango. In the same instant, the air stuttered behind the smaller girl.

  Butter materialized, her empty eyes fixed on Mango's spine. Her arms became a piston-driven blur. A rapid-fire volley of Wing Chun chain punches: pak-sau, lop-sau, straight blast, hammered into the vulnerable line of Mango's back. The impacts weren't loud; they were a series of wet, percussive thuds.

  "GYAH—!" Mango screamed, her body in the real world seizing from the nerve-shocking strikes. Her legs gave way, and she dropped.

  But she didn't drop passively. As she fell, her training —a chaotic mix of cartoon logic, street brawling and formal jujutsu— took over. Her legs scissored, hooking brutally around Butter's ankles and yanking hard. Butter, caught mid-assault, crashed to the crystalline ground with her.

  Mango was on her in an instant, a whirlwind of limbs and leverage. She didn't try to strike; she entangled. She wrapped around Butter's torso, one arm snaking up to lock Butter's left arm in a vicious shoulder lock, putting bone-torturing pressure on the joint. The intent was clear: submit or snap.

  Butter, pinned beneath her, gave no sign of pain. Instead, with a raw, guttural sound, she simply stood up. She didn't break the hold with technique; she violated it with pure, terrifying strength, dragging a clinging, wide-eyed Mango upright with her.

  Freed, Butter threw a wild, furious punch straight at Mango's face.

  The force of being dragged upright should have left Mango sprawling, but her body was already reacting to the new problem. As Butter's fist whistled toward her, Mango didn't block or duck. She unleashed her own weight, dropping from Butter's torso like a ripe fruit and landing in a low, wide stance that belonged on a basketball court, not a battlefield.

  Her knees were bent, her hands were up and open, not in a martial arts guard, but like a point guard defending the key, ready to steal a pass or cut off a drive. Her center of gravity was impossibly low, her entire being focused on occupying the space between Butter's fist and its target. It was a defender stopping a shooter, a perfect, instinctual translation of a sport into a life-or-death block.

  Mango didn't retreat. She did the opposite. She rushed into the blow, closing the distance before the punch could gain full power, and wrapped her arms around Butter in a desperate, crushing hug, pinning Butter's arms to her sides. At the same time, she leaned her weight forward, unbalancing them both.

  And from that impossible, intimate position, her leg bent at an unnatural angle behind her own back. Her foot, guided by an acrobat's impossible flexibility and a fighter's ruthless ingenuity, snapped upward like a scorpion's tail.

  SMACK.

  The heel connected with a sickening crunch, hitting Butter square in the face from a angle that defied all conventional combat. It was a kick launched from a hug, a perfect fusion of Mango's chaotic genius and utter desperation.

  "Let’s see how you like it!" Mango hissed, fury overriding fear.

  She lunged, fists a blur, Wing Chun punches, copied perfectly from Butter’s own style.

  Pak-sau!

  Tan-da!

  Chain punch!

  The last strike crushed Butter’s nose. A visible shockwave of clarity rippled out, shattering nearby islands into dust. Pink blood dripped from her nose.

  Butter’s eyes flashed open, normal, human, confused.

  "M-Mango?" She blinked, dazed. "What... What are you doing in my dream? And who's that... Who's that weird dude?"

  The sky imploded. Jagged fractures swallowed stars. Vacuum silence roared.

  Mango grabbed her shoulders, shaking hard. "If we don't leave, we're gonna fade away!"

  Butter’s face hardened. Understanding.

  In one motion, she hauled Mango and Clock against her chest, and palmed their backs with a tai chi strike so sharp it rippled the air.

  "GO."

  The force catapulted them. Bodies stretched, deformed by the launch. Limbs flailed unnaturally as they spun like ragdolls through the neon chaos. They vanished into the rift. bodies spinning like shot birds through the collapsing dream.

  Butter watched the emptiness where they’d been. The last dragon dissolved into static. The final bird’s song died mid-note.

  Then she woke up.

  ///

  The gasp tore from Butter's lungs like a dying thing. Her spine arched off the bed, fingers clawing at sheets gone damp with sweat. White curls stuck to her forehead as her eyes flew open, too wide, too wild.

  Brad's face swam into view first. His calloused hands gripped hers tight enough to bruise, blue eyes dark with something between relief and terror. "Butter? Jesus Christ, you stopped breathing for-"

  Movement. A rustle of leather to her left. Butter's head snapped sideways so fast something in her neck popped. There on the floor, limbs tangled like discarded marionettes, were the intruders.

  Mango groaned, rubbing her jaw where Butter had clocked her in the dreamscape. One bunny slipper hung half-off her foot, the other missing entirely.

  And him. The albino boy with violet eyes that glowed faintly in the dark. He was perfect. Too perfect. Porcelain skin, sharp cheekbones, violet irises that glowed faintly in the dim light. He coughed, rolling onto his side, his leather jacket creaking as he pushed himself up on one elbow.

  Their eyes met and her magic screamed. Not in warning. In recognition.

  A pulse of energy arced between them, making the hair on her arms stand up. His power tasted like hers, same frequency, different flavor. Where hers was candy-sweet chaos, his was something darker. Older.

  "You're..." Butter's voice came out cracked, foreign to her own ears. "We're the same."

  The words were a whisper, but they rang like a gunshot in the silent room. Clock froze. His violet eyes locked onto hers, unreadable.

  Brad's grip tightened. "Butter, what-"

  She barely heard him.

  "Brothers and sisters usually are." Clock's smirk didn't reach his eyes. He rolled his shoulders, the leather of his jacket creaking. "More or less."

  The world tilted. Butter's nails bit into her palms. "That's not possible." Her fingers flexed, her magic humming beneath her skin, alive in a way it hadn’t been in years. She felt strong. Unshaken.

  "How do I have a brother?"

  No one answered. Clock’s jaw tightened. Mango sat up, her nose scrunched like she was about to cry.

  And Butter. Butter remembered.

  The dream. The fight. The way Clock had moved like her, like he knew her, like they’d trained together a thousand times before.

  Her fingers curled into fists. "Who are you?"

  This time, it wasn’t a question. It was a demand. The silence in the room was suffocating.

  Clock exhaled sharply, running a hand through his platinum hair. When he spoke, his voice was low, urgent, like they had seconds before the world caved in.

  "You weren’t the only experiment, Butter."

  Her stomach dropped.

  "There were three of us. Triplets." His violet eyes flickered, unreadable. "I was sent to kill Yume on a suicide mission. The Syndicate hoped I’d weaken her, and get weakened myself, so they could kill me and drain my power." A bitter smirk. "Give it to our sister."

  Butter’s mind short-circuited.

  "Wait-wait-what? Three?!" Her hands flew up, fingers tangling in her white curls. "And y-you tried to kill Yume?! What's going on? Why are you even here?"

  Her voice cracked. The room spun.

  In the silence, Brad’s blood went cold.

  Oh.

  The pieces, scattered and chaotic, slammed together in his mind with the force of a physical blow. The attack on the mansion. Winter’s death. It hadn't been a single, brutal strike. It had been a perfectly timed, multi-pronged operation as he'd deduced.

  Clock was sent to occupy Yume. A suicide mission to keep the most powerful person in the mansion, besides Lucien, completely distracted.

  Mango was sent to occupy Butter. To keep the other heavy-hitter, the one who could warp reality with her creations, out of the fight.

  It was a surgical decapitation. Remove the guardians, then send in the clean-up crew for the primary target. It was so chillingly efficient he felt a wave of nausea. What else were they planning right now?

  His mind raced, spiraling. The fight that had nearly vaporized the entirety of Shanghai, he'd heard them talking about it downstairs during the meeting. The one that was miraculously, impossibly rebuilt and scrubbed from public consciousness within two hours. Lucien’s work. Everything was just... normal now. He wondered how normal people coped, how their brains simply edited out the impossible. Were they all quietly going insane?

  Clock’s gaze slid to Mango, who was obliviously rubbing her neck where Butter had choked her in the dream.

  "And you," he muttered. "You were supposed to die fighting Butter. Guess the Syndicate’s planning to kill us both now. Loose ends."

  Mango blinked. "I’m hungry," she announced, stretching her arms. "I want ice cream." Brad, who had been staring between them like a man watching a bomb count down, suddenly moved.

  A silent exchange passed between him and Butter. A question. A decision. She nodded. Brad took Mango’s hand, guiding her toward the door. "Let’s go get that ice cream."

  His face was a carefully neutral mask, but his grip on Mango’s hand was white-knuckled. He needed to get her out. He needed to think.

  Mango lit up. "I want mango flavor!" Brad didn’t even blink. "Of course you do."

  The door clicked shut behind them.

  Leaving Butter and Clock: siblings, experiments, weapons, alone.

  ///

  The hallway was cold and dark compared to the charged atmosphere of the bedroom. Brad leaned against the heavy door, his heart hammering against his ribs. The rune on his chest pulsed, a warm, sickening counterbeat to his panic.

  Mango, oblivious, tugged on his sleeve. “Ice cream?” she whispered, her voice loud in the silent hall.

  Brad didn’t answer. His mind, reeling from Clock’s revelations, was snagging on a new, terrifying detail. He replayed the last few minutes behind his eyes, frame by frantic frame.

  Mango bursting into the room. Her eyes landing on Clock. Her mouth opening to-

  He had clamped his hand over her mouth. He’d hissed a rushed, desperate explanation. “Butter’s sick, that boy is trying to help, you can’t interrupt, you’ll hurt her.”

  And Mango... Mango hadn’t questioned it. She hadn’t asked how. She’d just... known. Her eyes had gone distant for a split second. Not confused. Focusing.

  Then she’d gone limp in his arms, her body slumping against him while her spirit, her consciousness, had simply... left. Teleported straight into the psychic battlefield of Butter’s mind to find Clock.

  She didn’t ask where he was. She didn’t need a description. She just locked onto him and went. The implication detonated in Brad’s brain with the force of a supernova. It wasn’t just teleportation. It wasn’t just moving physical objects.

  Mango could actively, instantly know the location of anything. Anyone. A living GPS woven into the fabric of reality itself. All she needed was a single point of reference. A memory. A feeling. A person she’d once touched.

  The power of a god wielded by a child’s brain. The ice cream could wait.

  He looked down at her. She was now trying to balance on one foot, the missing bunny slipper forgotten. A reality-warper who probably thought the best use of her power was winning a game of hide-and-seek.

  “Mango,” he said, his voice dangerously calm.

  She stopped wobbling and looked up, her big eyes blinking. “Huh?”

  “That thing you did. Going into Butter’s head.” He kept his tone soft, non-threatening. Just curious. “How did you know where to find Clock?”

  She scrunched her nose, thinking hard. “I just... felt him.” She wiggled her fingers in the air. “He feels like static and... and sour apples. I just followed the fizz!” She grinned, as if she’d just explained how to tie a shoe.

  Brad’s blood went cold. He feels like static and sour apples. She could track a specific, unique essence across dimensions.

  The strategic applications, the terrifying, world-breaking applications, unspooled in his mind like a cursed scroll. There was no hiding from her. No secure location. No fortress, no bunker, no pocket dimension.

  If she could find Clock in the labyrinth of a dreaming mind, she could find anyone, anywhere. Ever.

  He forced a smile, a brittle thing that felt like it might crack his face. “Right. The fizz. Let’s go get that ice cream.”

  He took her hand, his own grip slightly too tight. As he led her down the dark hallway toward the kitchen, he wasn’t just leading a little girl.

  He was escorting the most powerful tracking system in existence, who only wanted mango sorbet and whose loyalty was secured by a pinky promise and a room full of candy.

  A fresh, cold unease prickled at the back of his neck. No one in this mansion was human. Mango was a plant-child creature who smelled of flowers and damp tree bark. She ate constantly, but he’d never once seen her use a bathroom. The food just... converted into magic. No waste. A perfect, unnerving biological machine.

  She's a child, he pushed the thought away, a reflexive defense. No need to be scared.

  The correction came instantly, unbidden: A child in a teenager's body.

  The horror of that fact, the sheer wrongness of this teenage girl being a three-year-old toddler mentally, lodged in his mind like a splinter. He paused for a moment, his steps faltering as the weight of it all pressed down.

  Mango watched him, her head tilted. "Are you pregnant?" she asked, utterly serious. "I heard people get tired when they're pregnant."

  Brad looked down at her, at her wide, genuinely curious eyes. The sheer absurdity of the question, posed with such innocent logic, was a dizzying contrast to the thoughts he'd just been having.

  "No, Mango," he said, the words feeling inadequate. "I'm not pregnant... Men can't..." He stared at her, at this being for whom the laws of biology were clearly just suggestions. He sighed, the fight going out of him. "Never mind. Let's just get the ice cream."

  And who knew? Maybe men could get pregnant here. It wouldn't be the most surprising thing he'd learned today.

  The rune on his chest throbbed, a persistent, hungry reminder of one truth: in a world of monsters, the most dangerous ones often looked the most harmless.

  The thought was a spark in the dark tinder of his mind.

  It caught. It flared.

  And suddenly, Brad was back in that black, sterile room, Blur on his shoulder.

  Mango: Street-tier threat. Winter: City-tier threat.

  He’d accepted it. Filed it away. It had made a warped kind of sense, a neat taxonomy for the madness.

  Now, standing in a dark hallway holding the hand of a being who could find anyone, anywhere, by following the fizz, the lie of it detonated in his skull.

  Street-tier? Mango wasn’t a street-tier threat. She was an existential one. She could find a specific person across continents, across dimensions. She had, in fact, found Clock inside Butter’s comatose mind on a different plane of reality. If she could petal-step herself and others across the globe, what was the upper limit? Could she send a person into the heart of the sun? Into the Mariana Trench? The answer was a terrifying, resonant almost nothing. She was a living, breathing teleportation coordinate for anything, with the strategic value of a god and the impulse control of a sugared-up toddler.

  City-tier? Winter had fought Vithon: a Syndicate boogeyman in reactive armor, Sphinx: a monster of speed and nanite blades, and Kestrel: the greatest martial artist on the planet with the power to shake continents with a punch... while she was weakened!!!

  Her final, drained burst, moving on wisps of leftover energy, had the potential to carve canyons and shatter mountains. What would a 100% burst from a fully-charged Winter have looked like? Not city-leveling. Not continental. Planetary, at minimum. Perhaps solar-system. A walking, talking extinction event with gold eyes and a love for goth fashion.

  Blur had lied.

  The realization was cold, clear, and absolute. She’d fed him sanitized, manageable statistics. False metrics.

  Why?

  The questions cascaded, one leading to a darker, more logical next.

  Was she trying to be funny? Her sense of humor was corrosive, yes. But this felt... structural.

  Did she think he was a spy all along? Of course she did. She’d seen the rune on his chest the moment they met. She was a phantom, a splinter of Yume’s soul given metaphysical form. The rune didn't work on her because she had no physical mind to manipulate. She would have retained that data, analyzed it, understood its insidious purpose: a probability manipulator, a trust-weaver, a sleeper agent’s tool.

  The answer clicked into place with the finality of a vault door sealing.

  She hadn’t lied to protect the team’s secrets from him. The Syndicate already knew their true capabilities. They’d built half of them.

  She lied so that if he ever ran back to the Syndicate, if he was ever debriefed or tortured, he would feed them garbage data. Information so laughably beneath the truth it would be useless. Worse than useless, it would be an insult. A joke.

  And what did the Syndicate do with assets who returned with useless, insulting information?

  They killed them. Or they tortured them until nothing was left.

  She hadn’t been trying to protect the mansion. She’d been setting a trap in his mind, a dead-man’s switch of false intel designed to get him executed the moment he outlived his usefulness here. Because she found that possibility... amusing.

  The final, most chilling piece of the puzzle slotted home.

  During the mansion attack... Blur had infinite speed. She existed in a state of perpetual, frozen-time velocity. She could have cleared the entire Syndicate strike force in a nanosecond. She could have saved Winter.

  She hadn’t lifted a finger.

  She’d watched. She’d let Winter die.

  Not because she couldn’t intervene. Because she didn’t want to. She didn’t like Winter. The same way she’d never liked him. Blur’s affections were arbitrary and her enmities were fatal. She was a ghost in the machine with the power of a deity and the petty, immortal boredom of a child pulling the wings off flies.

  Blur scared him.

  Not like the Syndicate scared him, with their labs and their harvesting plans. Not like Lucien’s cold fury scared him.

  Blur scared him because she was chaos wrapped in omnipotence, with an unsettling smile and a soul-deep indifference to everything that lived and breathed and loved. She was the monster in the server, and she was already playing a game he couldn't see the rules to, moving pieces towards ends that were, to her, nothing more than a momentary distraction from eternity.

  The hallway felt colder. Mango’s small, warm hand in his felt like a live wire.

  He had been naive. He’d been looking for allies, for family, for a place to belong.

  But in this mansion, he was surrounded by entities whose true scales of power he couldn’t comprehend, whose motives were layers deep in trauma, vengeance, or outright malice.

  And the only one who had ever tried to give him a straight answer had been doing it to sign his death warrant with a giggle.