Chapter 16: Making A Plan
The subterranean base was silent at four in the morning, save for the rhythmic, low-frequency thrum of the primary mainframe servers.
Neiry stood alone in the center of the command tier, the soft blue luminescence of the primary terminal casting long, sharp shadows across his face. He hadn't slept. Every time he closed his eyes, the image of the fractured obsidian artifact flashed behind his eyelids—the weeping eye pulsing with a suffocating, ancient magic that had no business existing in this era.
With a silent gesture, he swiped his hand across the glass console, pulling up the encrypted visual files Kaleb had recorded from the Sector 2 processing plant. He cropped the frame, zooming past the heavily armored guards and focusing entirely on the lead-shielded containment vault. Next to it, he queued up intercepted archive footage of Apex's previous operations in other sectors, playing the video files in slow motion. He meticulously watched the Vanguard operative's posture, mapping out how Marcus Vance shifted his weight right before a kinetic wave erupted, tracking the subtle micro-movements of his hands that signaled a sudden shift in an object's alignment, and pinning down the exact bearing of his defensive fields.
Modern corporate data arrays were completely useless for the other half of the cargo, though. On-screen, the supercomputer simply flagged the vault as a "Class-0 Unknown Energy Anomaly," its diagnostic charts throwing errors as the algorithms tried to force-fit primordial magic into the clean, measurable metrics of quantum physics.
"Quantum modeling won't capture it," Neiry murmured to the empty room, a bitter, dark amusement twisting his expression. "They're trying to measure a soul-binding curse with numbers and equations. They have no idea what they are holding."
His mind drifted back across centuries, tearing through the veil of his locked memories. He recognized the shape. It was a fragment of the Onyx Core, a structural relic from his old demonic domain—a piece of the very kingdom he had ruled before they were executed. The fact that Aegis Corp was moving it meant they were attempting to strip its latent, primordial energy to fuel their synthetic weapon programs. But magic didn't bend to corporate machinery; if they cracked the final seals incorrectly, the resulting conceptual collapse wouldn't just level Sector 2—it would tear a localized rift in reality.
"I have to take it back," he whispered, a sudden flare of possessive, ancient hunger clawing at the walls of his consciousness. "If I don't, this city becomes a graveyard."
A faint, crisp step echoed on the metal stairs behind him.
Neiry immediately flicked his wrist, wiping the screen clean of his personal notes and leaving only the analytical breakdown of Marcus Vance's kinetic pathways and combat footages playing on a loop. He turned his head slightly as Mia stepped onto the platform. She had already changed out of her civilian gear. Now, she wore a black pair of athletic sweats and a black women's sports tube top, her posture tightly coiled and alert. Her bare feet made no sound against the steel deck.
She didn't look tired. She looked wired, her eyes sharp and entirely devoid of the warmth she used to greet him with.
"You're up early," Neiry said, his tone casual, though he didn't miss the rigid line of her shoulders as he took a slow sip from the warm cup of coffee in his hand. "Though, considering the look on your face, I'm guessing sleep wasn't really on the agenda for either of us."
"Couldn't sleep," Mia replied, walking past him without making eye contact and stopping right in front of the console. She stared at the frozen holographic frame of Apex. "And it looks like you never went to bed. Still trying to calculate a way to keep me out of the loop? Or did you just want to solve the whole puzzle before I had a chance to look at it?"
"I'm mapping his reaction times and combat style, Mia," Neiry countered quietly, stepping up beside her and gesturing to the fluctuating data graphs. "Look at the telemetry from his previous fights. If we don't find a definitive window of movement, we don't have a mission. I'm not trying to exclude you; I'm trying to make sure we both make it back in one piece."
Before Mia could strike back with another clipped retort, the elevator doors at the back of the bay hissed open, and Kaleb stumbled out, popping the tab on a brightly colored energy drink. He took a heavy swig, his hair pointing in four different directions.
"Oh, good, the tension is already at maximum capacity and the sun isn't even fully up," Kaleb muttered, wiping his mouth and shuffling over to his ergonomic chair. He spun around, slamming the aluminum can onto the desk. "Alright, listen. I ran the data path through the training matrix while you guys were sleeping—or brooding, whatever it is you two do. If we're going to pull this heist off before Apex moves that vault for good, we need to know exactly how your powers interact with his fields."
Kaleb struck a sequence on his secondary keyboard. The central floor of the base hissed, the floor plates retracting to let the massive, holographic projection nodes slide into place. A second later, the clinical white lights of the base blinked out, replaced by a highly detailed, solid-light simulation of the Sector 2 processing plant's loading bay.
Standing right in the center of the digital space was a perfect, glowing purple projection of Marcus Vance. As the simulation finalized, a technical diagnostic overlay flickered into view over the holographic silhouette, generating a sleek corporate threat profile.
[ SYNDICATE ENTRY: APEX ]
Real Name: Marcus Vance
Affiliation: Aegis Corp Elite Vanguard
Classification: Class-4 Powered Threat
Primary Ability: Kinetic Vector Manipulation (Can alter the direction, speed, and magnitude of physical forces and objects at will)
Threat Level: CRITICAL
"The tactical computer calibrated this simulation based on yesterday's thermal and kinetic logs," Kaleb explained, his demeanor shifting into something genuinely professional as he adjusted his headset. He brought up a flashing, crimson data window over the glowing purple projection of Apex. "In a straight fight, if you guys try standard vanguard tactics, you're looking at a complete tactical wipe. Neiry, you're easily the strongest asset we have on the board, but the computer runs your solo survival probability against Marcus Vance at a flat ten percent. Alone, your shadow strikes just don't have the variation in alignment to break his kinetic loops."
Mia shifted her weight, her eyes scanning the dropping percentages. "And me?"
Kaleb winced slightly, rubbing the back of his neck before looking at his screen. "Worse. Mia, your light output is intense, but because your current constructs rely heavily on linear pathways, Apex can predict and reverse your incoming bearing almost instantly. Solo, the computer gives you a three percent chance of survival. He'd practically use your own light to blind you."
"A ten percent chance for me, and three for you," Neiry parsed, looking over at Mia with a serious expression. "Those aren't odds we can bet our lives on. A direct assault is absolute suicide because Apex thrives on predictability. He wants us to attack him cleanly."
"Exactly," Kaleb nodded, taking a heavy swig of his energy drink before typing rapidly. "But here's the kicker. When I chain your variables together—using Mia's high-frequency light bursts strictly as a non-lethal, multi-directional sensory overload to completely compromise his conscious perception, while Neiry uses a localized shadow shroud to mask the extraction pathway—your combined probability jumps up to forty-five percent. It's still a massive gamble, but it's the only mathematical window we have."
"So we change the rules of engagement," Neiry said, stepping into the edge of the simulation, his voice gaining a sharp, commanding edge. "We don't fight him; we blind him. Mia, the entire strategy hinges on your ability to deploy those bursts. I need you to focus entirely on multi-directional sensory overload. Don't try to strike him. Just overload his optic nerves. If he can't consciously perceive the spatial alignment around him, his subconscious kinetic shield becomes completely uncoordinated."
"And while he's blind?" Mia asked, her arms crossed tightly as she stared at the digital avatar of Apex. "What's your part?"
"I slip through the blind spot under a localized shadow shroud, decouple the vault's automated security locks, and secure the cargo," Neiry answered, his voice dropping slightly as he spoke of the vault. "Then we extract through the southern ventilation lines before the secondary grunt squads can rotate in. It keeps us ghosting through their lines without giving them a fixed target to strike."
Mia turned her head slowly, her eyes tracking Neiry's face. "The southern ventilation lines are on the opposite side of the central vault. Your plan has me positioning myself near the loading bay entrance to draw his focus, while you handle the extraction alone. You're keeping me away from the central vault entirely. Why?"
"Because it's the most efficient distribution of our specific abilities," Neiry said smoothly, though inside, his chest tightened. He couldn't let her near that artifact. If her latent holy light resonated with the pure demonic magic of the Onyx Core fragment, the reaction would shatter her current consciousness. "Your light can command the space near the entrance and create a massive distraction. My shadows are better suited for slipping into the secure zone undetected. It's math, Mia."
"Efficient," Mia scoffed softly, a bitter edge tracing her lips. She stepped completely out of the simulation grid, walking over to the equipment racks at the edge of the platform. "Or just convenient for you. You don't want me near that box, Neiry. And the fact that you keep hiding behind 'efficiency' and 'math' makes me think you're more worried about what I'll find out than whether we actually finish the mission."
She grabbed a pair of standard, heavily padded training gloves from the rack, pulling the velcro straps tight with a violent snap.
"We can run Kaleb's digital equations all morning," Mia said, turning back to face him, her posture tightly coiled, her eyes burning with a mixture of frustration and unresolved defiance. "But if we're going into Sector 2 in civilian clothes without our full vanguard rigs to back us up, I need to know exactly what I'm working with. We need to spar. Right now. I'm not going out there feeling second-best or waiting for you to protect me from whatever secret you're hiding."
Neiry looked at her for a long moment, the digital purple light of the simulation painting the sharp lines of his face. He let out a slow, deliberate breath, realizing that deflecting wouldn't work anymore. If he wanted her to trust his leadership out there, he had to meet her force with his own.
"Fine," Neiry said, his voice dropping the detached corporate tone. "If you need proof that the plan works, I'll give it to you."
Without another word, Neiry shed his denim jacket and his shirt, tossing them onto the console chair next to his cooling coffee. Dressed in his black athletic sweats, barefoot and bare-chested, he stepped onto the reinforced black sparring mat at the center of the floor. He raised his hands, his fingers curling into a relaxed, fluid stance that looked entirely too ancient for a standard high schooler. "Let's see where your focus is. Show me what you've got."
Kaleb cleared his throat loudly, leaning back in his chair and taking another sip of his energy drink. "Uh, just a reminder from your friendly neighborhood tech support—keep the power output to a minimum, please. I just recalibrated the floor sensors, and I really don't want to spend my afternoon fixing scorched concrete again. And before you ask, yes, I actually know how to fix these systems now, but only because of that ridiculously thick technical manual Neiry dropped on my desk last week. Seriously, that thing reads like a textbook from a black-budget military program."
Mia didn't answer Kaleb. She stepped onto the mat, her weight shifting smoothly onto the balls of her feet. The distrust that had been simmering between them since the previous night had finally found an outlet, and the air between them grew instantly electric.
Mia didn't wait for a formal countdown.
She exploded forward, the bare soles of her feet making a sharp, aggressive slap against the synthetic material of the sparring mat. She closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, her movement a blur of athletic grace. Wearing her black pair of athletic sweats and the black sports tube top, she led with a crisp, snapping left jab aimed squarely at Neiry's jaw. Her form was technically perfect—exactly the kind of standard, textbook foundation Neiry had spent weeks drilling into her during their early training sessions.
Neiry didn't retreat. Also barefoot and bare-chested in just his black sweats, he simply slipped his head to the right, the wind from her glove ruffling his dark hair. He kept his hands up, guarding his centerline, his analytical gaze tracking the micro-adjustments in her shoulders. He expected her to follow up with the standard right cross he had taught her to use whenever an opponent dodged outside.
Instead, Mia completely threw out his curriculum.
Mid-strike, she intentionally aborted the linear momentum of her jab, dropping her weight instantly and pivoting on her heel at an erratic, unpredictable angle. Rather than firing a straightforward punch, she swept her left forearm upward, channeling a sudden, chaotic burst of high-frequency light energy that didn't form a weapon, but instead shattered outward like a flashbang grenade right in front of his face.
It was an experimental technique born entirely from her own frustration—a deliberate attempt to break away from the rigid, defensive style Neiry always forced upon her.
The brilliant glare caught Neiry entirely off guard. Instinctively, his eyes narrowed and his shadow aura flared defensively around his shoulders to block the blinding illumination.
"Now!" Mia muttered.
Using the split-second distraction, she altered her style completely, adopting a fluid, close-quarters striking rhythm that defied the long-range pacing Neiry usually dictated. She stepped deep inside his guard, launching a rapid-fire succession of short hooks and palm strikes aimed at his ribs and torso, her golden light energy pulsing with every impact like a staccato rhythm.
Thud. Thud. Crack.
Neiry was forced onto the defensive, his arms working in a blur of blocks and deflections as he retreated across the mat. He could feel the raw heat of her light energy searing past his bare chest. Instead of remaining silent, he spoke through the rapid exchanges, his voice tight but present.
"Good! That's exactly what I meant about breaking the alignment," Neiry called out, parrying a sharp strike away from his throat. "You're changing the rhythm, making it impossible for a linear shield to predict. But look at your posture—you're throwing so much into the attack that you're overextending on the recovery!"
"Stop analyzing the situation and just fight!" Mia hissed.
Pivoting hard on her rear foot, she brought a vicious right hook roaring across, the golden light compounding heavily over her knuckles. It was a heavy, decisive blow designed to shatter his guard.
Neiry saw the commitment in her shoulder line. Instead of blocking it and absorbing the power, he utilized his own signature combat style—fluid, deceptive, and using minimal effort to redirect force. He slid his left hand along the inside of her forearm, catching her wrist and riding the momentum of her strike.
"If you commit this much weight against Apex, he doesn't even need to strike you," Neiry explained loudly as he executed the move. "He just lets your own velocity finish the job."
With a subtle twist of his hips, he guided her heavy right hook completely past his face, shifting her entire line of attack out of alignment and using her own forward velocity against her. The concrete-cracking force of her punch struck nothing but empty air, throwing Mia entirely off her bearing. Before she could correct her stance or detonate another flash of light, Neiry stepped into her blind spot. He wrapped his right arm firmly around her waist, executing a seamless, sweeping trip with his back leg.
"See the opening?" Neiry muttered as the world tilted for Mia.
A breathy gasp escaped her lips as she fell backward. But she refused to let it end there. As her back hit the mat, she hooked her ankle firmly behind Neiry's knee, pulling him down into the fall with her. They crashed onto the reinforced floor together, rolling into a tangled heap of limbs, sweat, and absolute friction.
Mia immediately scrambled, using the momentum of the roll to establish top position, pinning her knee into his chest and raising a closed fist. Her breathing was ragged, her tube top rising and falling rapidly under the heavy exertion.
Neiry lay perfectly still beneath her, his hands resting flat against the mat in a position of passive defense. He looked up at her, his expression no longer a cold, distant mask, but showing the genuine strain of the secret he was carrying.
"See?" Mia breathed, her voice shaking as she looked down at him, her fist hovering inches from his nose. "You did it again. Even when I try something completely new, you just absorb it, talk your way through it, and control exactly where we land. You're always three steps ahead, always manipulating the board. I'm tired of playing the pieces, Neiry. I want to know who my partner actually is. Talk to me for real!"
Neiry looked up into her burning, frustrated eyes, and for the first time, the iron walls around his expression cracked. He didn't just stare blankly; he spoke, his voice quiet but incredibly intense.
"You think I enjoy keeping you in the dark, Mia?" Neiry said, his voice raw. "You think I like standing here playing the tactician while you look at me like I'm the enemy? I am doing this to keep you alive. If I tell you everything—if I open up the things I am trying to protect you from—it won't just break your trust in me. It will destroy everything you think you know about yourself. I can't lose you to this. I won't."
Mia froze, her fist trembling slightly as the sheer weight of his words hit her. It wasn't the answer she wanted, but the raw emotion in his voice was undeniably real.
From the side of the room, the loud hiss-pop of Kaleb opening a second energy drink shattered the heavy silence.
"Uh, look, I'm not an expert on tactical psychology," Kaleb called out, raising his aluminum can from the safety of his monitors. "But the biometric sensors on the floor are literally screaming right now. Mia's adrenaline is peaking, and Neiry... you actually have a pulse now. Can we maybe establish a baseline of trust before you guys accidentally murder each other before the actual heist?"
Mia stared at Neiry for three more agonizing seconds, searching his face, processing the sudden, intense vulnerability he had just shown. It wasn't a total explanation, but the wall wasn't seamless anymore. Slowly, she exhaled a sharp, frustrated breath, dropped her fist, and pushed herself off his chest, standing up and stepping completely away from the mat.
Neiry sat up smoothly, sweeping a hand through his hair as he watched her walk away. The dark resonance of the artifact was still a dull ache in his veins, but as he looked at Mia, he knew that opening up even a little bit had shifted the alignment between them. The secrets were still dangerous—but the silence was no longer an option.
As the heavy steel door of the locker tier slid shut behind Mia, the solid-light simulation grid around the mat suddenly flickered. The purple holographic silhouette of Marcus Vance dissolved into static, but instead of the clinical white base lights returning, the entire command deck plunged into a deep, absolute darkness.
The low-frequency thrum of the servers vanished. The digital monitors froze. Time itself seemed to stretch, thickening into an icy, suffocating silence that pressed hard against Neiry's chest.
"You walk a fragile pathway, little prince."
The voice didn't come from the speakers. It echoed directly inside Neiry's mind, shifting with the weight of an unmaking cosmos. It was Infinity—the vast, formless entity bound to his very essence, the quiet force that existed purely to shatter the absolute scripts of destiny.
Neiry didn't flinch. He stayed seated on the black mat, his bare chest glistening with sweat as his dark shadow aura flared instinctively, a defensive reflex against the coldness of the cosmic entity. "I told her what she needed to hear to keep her focused. Nothing more."
"You spoke from fear, not logic," Infinity countered, the voice carrying a soft, mocking amusement that echoed like cracking glass. "You hide the fragment of the Onyx Core because you fear the alignment of her light. You think by separating her from the vault, you can out-calculate the script. But Fate does not play by your probabilities, Neiry. The Demon King's legacy and the Angel Princess's awakening are already tethered. The more you pull at the threads to keep her safe, the tighter the knot becomes."
"I can control this mission," Neiry thought back sharply, his jaw tightening. "I won't let her memory break. Not here. Not Now"
"Every future must remain possible," Infinity whispered, the voice beginning to recede like a pulling tide. "But a future built on fear is just a different kind of cage. The artifact calls to your blood, Neiry. When the time comes to reclaim your crown, will you choose to be a hero... or will you let the monster finish the design?"
With a sharp, conceptual snap, the darkness shattered.
The clinical white overhead lights of the subterranean base blinked back to life. The server arrays hummed back to their normal frequency, and Kaleb let out a loud, startled gasp from his workstation, slamming his energy drink down so hard it splashed over his keyboard.
"Whoa, okay, what the hell was that?!" Kaleb yelled, rubbing his eyes and frantically tapping at his secondary console. "The primary grid just took a localized brownout, but the diagnostic logs are showing absolutely zero power drops from the main core. It's like the ambient air in here just decided to drop twenty degrees for three seconds."
Neiry stood up smoothly from the mat, grabbing his discarded shirt and pulling it over his head, his expression instantly locking back into its calm, unreadable mask. "Just a minor calibration error with the solid-light nodes. Don't worry about it."
"Uh-huh, right, 'calibration error,'" Kaleb muttered skeptically, though he quickly shifted his attention back to a massive, physical textbook resting on the corner of his desk. He propped his chin on his hand, flipping through the yellowed, heavily bound pages with a look of deep, technical fascination. "Hey, speaking of weird anomalies... I've been digging through this ridiculously thick manual you dropped on my desk last week about our base. Seriously, where did you even find this thing? It reads like a textbook stolen straight out of a black-budget military research program."
Neiry paused, adjusting the collar of his shirt. "It's what I made when writing all the code and building the base if someone other than me needed to get a look through it."
"Oh, it helps. It helps a lot," Kaleb said, turning the book around and pointing a finger at a heavily printed schematic of a localized energy grid. "But here's the crazy part, man. Half of these structural layouts and geometric alignment protocols are completely insane. But hey you went absolutely wild with a heavy black marker."
Neiry walked over to the desk, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked down at the pages.
"Look at this section on high-frequency dampening," Kaleb pointed out, tracing a line of dense, blocky print. "Right beneath the server layout, there are entire paragraphs completely crossed out and redacted. And it's not corporate redaction either—it looks hand-drawn, like someone was trying to erase a specific set of handwritten notes. But whoever did it pressed so hard with the ink that it bled into the paper. See these structural footnotes?"
Neiry stared at the blacked-out sections. He recognized the heavy, aggressive strokes of the ink. He had drawn them himself, centuries ago, trying to bury the forbidden formulas that crossed the boundaries between modern physical engineering and old-world demonic warding.
"What do you think was written there?" Kaleb asked, looking up at him with genuine curiosity.
"Nothing that matters for our current objective," Neiry said, his voice dropping into a low, steady tone as he gently tapped the edge of the book, closing it firmly. "It was likely obsolete data. Focus on the unredacted pathways for the southern ventilation lines. That is the only blueprint we need today."
Kaleb blinked, sensing the immediate shift in Neiry's demeanor, and wisely decided not to push it. "Right. Obsolete data. Got it. I'll just, uh, stick to the digital maps then."
The steel doors of the locker tier hissed open, and Mia stepped back out onto the command deck. She had dried the sweat from her face, her sports tube top and black athletic sweats still holding the faint, lingering warmth of her golden energy. Her eyes locked directly onto Neiry, the tension between them still heavy, but the silence between them had finally changed. The mask was cracked, and both of them knew there was no going back to the way things were.
"Kaleb," Mia said, her voice steady and completely focused as she walked past the mat. "Bring up the civilian sector transit loops. Let's finish the playbook. It's time to get ready."