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 Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 4:58 am
Takes place early January, the day after: Northpoint - Blindsided
He walked a few paces ahead of the group, gloved hands balled into fists by his sides.
“This is it,” he said, voice low as they turned the corner. He nodded toward the office building covered in vines, with a section clearly cut out where the entrance was. “The stairs down lead to a lower level. That’s where everything started.”
He didn’t look back at them yet. Not because he didn’t want to, but because if he did, he’d see how serious everyone was. How careful. And that would make the tight knot in his chest worse.
“Be careful where you step,” he added, the words sharper than he meant them to be. “The plants move. Like they’re alive. And that General came out of nowhere last time. Just… don’t let him surprise you.”
The last words were meant for the adults, but they came out like he was trying to convince himself, too.“Noted,” Sessrumnir nodded, his voice calm but steady. “We’ll move slow.”
He knew Lucien and Soleiyu would keep their signatures masked as much as they could. He didn’t like any of what they were seeing, but the sooner they could go in and check out what they were up against, the better.
He had a headlamp already in place and ready to be turned on. He offered some to the others in the group, if they wanted to keep their hands free.
When he looked up at the building again, it was with a practiced kind of calm. It wasn’t the first ruined place he’d gone into, and probably wouldn’t be the last… but there was something about the way the vines seemed to move that sent a chill down his spine.
He nodded briefly toward Alastor, then to Ganymede, Michel, and Amarynthos. They’d already talked about what they would look for when they went in. They’d search the file cabinets and drawers -- he brought the tools necessary to pry them apart. They would collect the computer to bring with them. They would get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible. From his place on Alastor’s shoulder, Lucien’s tail flicked once with impatience. His fur bristled at the foul smell in the air, but pretended it didn’t.
“I’d prefer we didn’t linger long,” he frowned, tone clipped but even. He adjusted his balance as Alastor moved, his claws curling just enough into the man’s collar for grip. He peered toward the building entrance, eyes narrowed.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 7:01 am
Ganymede frowned at Reims’ back, quiet and contemplative as they made their approach. Reims didn’t strike her as the type to want comfort, not from her anyway. She hadn’t offered more than what might be considered polite the last time he’d found himself in a shitty situation, but this instance was much different. When she’d first seen him at Sessrumnir, Reims had been covered in blood and other unidentifiable substances—tense and pale and defensive; afraid, too, but too prideful to show it as anything other than anger.
Reims wasn’t family. Ganymede was probably too old for him to see her as a friend. He was a Knight of Ganymede, but that didn’t make him hers to command. She wasn’t sure where she stood with him and had been fine with that before. He had his friends. He got by well enough without her sticking her nose too far into his business. She’d made sure he knew he could ask for help if he needed it, but had no intention of forcing it on him. Ganymede had been his age when she’d awakened. She remembered it well. She wouldn’t have wanted someone in her position intruding when anger and defiance had been all she’d had sustaining her.
None of that changed the fact that he’d watched one of his friends die. Yvoire lived, but Ganymede knew from experience that grief and fear weren’t so easy to shut off. The maternal part of her, much stronger now that she had her own children, wanted to offer comfort and support.
She wasn’t sure whose wants should take precedence.
“He came out of nowhere,” Ganymede said, mulling over Reims’ words, those he spoke now and those she’d heard as she’d first learned of their ordeal, “but he knew exactly where you were and picked you off strategically. Probably safe to assume he was watching from somewhere.”
She kept pace with him, accepting one of the headlamps Sessrumnir offered. She was alert but calm, scrutinizing their surroundings with an ease that was only partially fake.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 7:12 am
Amarynthos had no need to offer directions when Reims did the job well enough. He was there half for himself and half for his friend. Reims had a tendency to push himself too hard, and even now, he might not have been fully healed. Amraynthos didn’t expect the truth from Reims, not when it came to his own well-being.
And, he’d be worse around adults. If something went wrong, Reims needed someone who could keep an eye on him. Who knew him.
So, Amarythos tagged along. For that, and for duty.
He wanted answers. Wanted to help.
Failure seemed impossible but Amarynthos knew better than to get ahead of himself.
They had masks this time but he wasn’t wearing his, it just hung around his neck. His nose and throat still burned from what felt like fumes. He wore a head lamp but hadn’t yet turned it on.
Soleiyu had arrived with Reims, but not Michel. The Mauvian stayed close to the teenagers, walking between the two of them less with them as sentries and more for him as support. Undoubtedly, he had been nagged to keep an eye on Reims, and he took this request very seriously. He was wearing a small visual scanner clipped to one ear and worn like a high-tech monocle. With nothing of interest to report, he kept the readings to himself for now.
Michel had arrived on his own. He’d gotten very good at covering his tracks and wasn’t about to slip up just because he was furious some piss-ant General had terrorized a group of ******** kids. If this guy was watching, Michel wasn’t going to let him see who he was close to.
He met up with the group like it was happenstance and he’d just decided to tag along.
When they weren’t walking, he dug his clockhand–an impractical sword in the way he wielded it–into the ground and leaned on it. When they were moving, a walking stick. He held it with tight knuckles, not out of fear but out of barely concealed rage.
If looks could kill, the General would have been dead on sight.
Michel did not much care for Sessrumnir’s suggestion to take it slow. The faster they went in, the faster they’d get out. Or, more specifically, the less time they’d have for something to go wrong. Ganymede made a good observation which only fueled his desire to get in and get out. “There’s no point in dragging our feet. It’s only a threat if he’s still watching. So we just don’t give him much to look at.”
He didn’t care to take the lead, he was just impatient.
Reims had pointed out the door into the building, so he trudged over and yanked it open.
While listening, Alastor stood tall, as always, like Lucien wasn't a behemoth of a cat perched on his shoulders. When he started walking, he kept the same balance. Alastor stayed towards the back of the group, if only because magic had its advantages–and if he’d been in front, he and Lucien might have blocked someone’s vision.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 7:49 am
Reims hadn’t expected Michel to actually yank the door open, but he didn’t argue, nor did he flinch. He just stepped forward, taking out the handheld flashlight rather than opting for a headlamp. He could use it to direct easier, or so he told himself.
He swallowed down a sudden welling of nerves that came with being first in the door. The memory of being there -- just the night before -- was enough to put him on edge. The air felt just as dry and stale as it had before, heavy with dust. This time, at least, they had masks. He tried to keep his breathing shallow, even as he pulled the provided mask over his mouth and nose, reminding himself that things wouldn’t turn out as they had before.
His chest was still tender. Some healing magic and time in the hotsprings had helped, but he was too restless to sit still.
“Down this hall,” he said quietly, his voice steadier than he felt. “The stairs were just past the main lobby.”
He didn’t look back, even though he could feel eyes on him. Soleiyu’s, probably. Or Ganymede’s. Maybe both. It didn’t matter, he just kept walking, letting the beam of his flashlight cut through the dark.
Everything looked exactly the same here. The same fake ficus in the corner. The same overturned chair that had been their first superficial jumpscare. The same thin layer of dust over everything.
Reims felt Soleiyu brush against his ankle and resisted the urge to reach down for him. He couldn’t. Not when he was trying to look like he knew what he was doing.
“I guess stealth is off the table,” Sessrumnir let out a quiet breath, his lips twitching faintly. It wasn’t exactly a complaint, more just an acknowledgement. Michel’s way wasn’t his, but it was effective.
With a nod to Ganymede and Amarynthos, Sessrumnir followed the two in, which left Alastor and Lucien to take up the rear. He turned his headlamp on as soon as they crossed through the doorway, although the light caught on the dust, making the air appear even more hazy.
He pulled his mask up from where it rested at his neck, keeping an eye on the corners as they followed the others in. He kept his sword low, but ready. The floor creaked under his boots as he took a slow step forward. The place wasn’t old enough to be falling apart, but it felt like it should’ve been. Like time had stopped halfway through.
Part of him expected chaos, or maybe signs of a struggle. But the stillness was worse. He glanced over at one of the framed prints on the wall. A stock photo of a beach at sunset. It hadn’t been touched by time.
“Feels like walking into a museum,” he mused with a frown. His voice was quiet, careful not to echo. “Or a timecapsule.”
Lucien pressed himself low against Alastor’s shoulder as they entered, tail flicking once as he eyed the shadows.
The deeper they went, the stronger the sense of stagnation became. The air didn’t move -- not even the faint vibration of machinery or airflow from vents. Certainly not like what the young Knights had described of their previous experience. Lucien had been expecting a hum, at the very least. But his ears strained and there was nothing but their own footsteps shuffling through the dust.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 7:57 am
Ganymede lowered her gaze to the floor, following the scattering of footprints which had already disturbed the layer of dust. Reims, Amarynthos and their friends had entered in formation, their footsteps overlapping in spots as the hallway squeezed them closer together, making the impressions almost impossible to identify for someone of her skillset. The scuff off a heel could have come from Yvoire or Ephesus, or one of the girls. Maybe it had been there years ago, left before the building’s abandonment.
New footprints joined them as they walked, scattering dust in their wake. Ganymede learned little else from them, so her gaze tracked up. Chairs, plants, tables, television screens, none of which showed signs of recent use. She paused to eye one of the cameras then shifted out of its sight like she expected it to follow her, but it remained motionless.
“Must’ve rigged up his own cameras somewhere,” she said. “Smaller. Better hidden. Or he’s got some other way to watch.”
The Negaverse had their own Mauvians. Ganymede had never dealt with one, but she thought it was safe to assume they could produce the same level of work Soleiyu and Lucien were capable of—maybe better, given what Chaos could accomplish.
Ganymede turned for the stairwell, not too fast to disturb the lingering quiet, not too slow to keep them in one spot any longer than they had to be. Then again, their pace wouldn’t matter much. Teleportation left them vulnerable regardless. The General could arrive just as he had last time—undetected until the moment he was there.
Any apprehension Ganymede might have felt was shoved so far down none of it broke through her composure.
“And there’s been no other Negaverse activity in the area?” she said as they started down the stairs, directing the question more to Reims and Amarynthos. “Just rumors that were probably youma sightings, right?”
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 7:58 am
Michel huffed only once in response to Sessrumnir. “If he’s watching cameras, I’m pretty sure he’s going to notice the lights no matter how quiet we are,” Michel muttered, but he kept his voice lowered anyway.
Just because someone might have been watching from soemwhere didn’t mean there weren't other problems on the horizon, too. If there were youma skulking about–not that he could feel them–it would be smarter to be quiet.
Michel had a flashlight but his wasn’t turned on, and he kept himself with the group but not particularly close, as if he preferred to travel in darkness.
Amarynthos walked next to Reims, not close enough to bump elbows but he’d settled into the same gait and met his pace. Everything seemed exactly the same as it had been before, just as they’d left it. There weren’t even youma tracks in the dust.
…So if they were coming and going, they must have had a different path.
“No, no mentions of the Negaverse at all,” Amarynthos said after a minute, voice soft as if he could keep the thoughts to just their group. He didn’t want his voice to carry in the stairwell. “We’d have told somebody if we caught wind of that. It was just a bunch of rumors, things that didn’t even really sound like Negaverse stuff. I can get you the sources if it’ll help.”
He didn’t want to say too much, not if there was a chance someone was listening. But after this, he’d make sure Ganymede–and anyone else–had links to all the rumors. He wanted to tell her that Halle had checked his transponder map and hadn’t gotten a read of any signatures in the area, or even closely around it.
“I don’t know if people just don’t come to this spot a lot? We did hear some weird noises. But no energy signatures. You know, ‘foxes’. And we didn’t actually see any youma outside of this building. A lot of things pointed to something being weird here. But maybe the door was too obvious. I mean, maybe it was a red herring. The Negaverse wouldn’t need a door in. And the youma probably don’t need one either.”
Did any of them have hands? Or would they just have thrown themselves at the door until it opened? There hadn’t been any scratches or dents near the door handle.
On the stairs, Soleiyu walked one step behind Reims and Amarynthos but had nothing to share. Prior to their arrival he’d made it clear that his scanner was designed to track thermal sources and trails and monitor air pressure. He had nothing to report–nothing, which was abnormal in itself. “No pests,” he reported, and while it wasn’t exciting, he thought it worth at least reporting that there was nothing living in the area, or that had been around here recently enough for his scanner to pick up their trail. Barometric pressure was as expected, electromagnetic field sensors were as expected…
But data was slowly shifting. An occasional distortion. Not much, but enough that Soleiyu was paying attention as they descended.
For Alastor, who still lingered at the back, he observed quietly. He didn’t have the best sense of direction, so following after the group was his best option anyway. Sometimes he’d go still, just to let the space sink in. Nothing moved in front of him, or behind him, or around him.
It was uncanny–like walking through a set. It had all the right pieces but something was still missing.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 8:02 am
Reims kept his flashlight angled ahead as they moved through the hall, letting the beam cut through the gloom and flash across every now familiar surface. The furniture was all the same -- untouched and unmoved.
He tried to steady his breathing behind the mask, tried not to think about the last time they’d walked this way. Or what they might find in the basement.
Would they be met with the pools of blood left by Yvoire and Amarynthos? Would the plants have taken over completely?
He glanced over to where Michel was walking alone in the shadows, and for a moment he hesitated, wondering if it would be better to turn his own flashlight off. He didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention, especially if Michel didn’t think it was a good idea.
He was glad Amarynthos was there with him. He was better at answering questions.
Sessrumnir slowed his step to stay beside Alastor as they approached the first stairwell to descend. He let his attention drift toward Alastor for a moment. Even in silence, he could read him. The careful stillness. The way his husband always took the space in, listening for things most people missed. Sessrumnir trusted that instinct more than anything.
He leaned in slightly, voice lower so it wouldn’t echo. “I’m not picking up anything. I was expecting… a hum. Or smell. There’s nothing.”
Based on what the teenagers looked like and their recollections of the previous night, Sessrumnir thought there must have been something by now, especially if everything had been disturbed. But so far it was just like walking through an abandoned building from decades ago.
Lucien jumped from Alastor’s shoulder once the stairs were at the next landing. His paws hit the dusty linoleum with no sound. The scanner unit on his collar blinked once, soft and unalarming.
He padded forward, tail low and deliberate, as though trying to get a better reading from a different location.
After a moment, a faint tone buzzed from the device.
“No toxins,” he reported, voice professional. “Air quality is stable. Nothing hazardous, even with all this dust. No spores, no active biological compounds.”
Strange… based on everything they’d learned from the young Knights, they should have different readings.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 8:32 am
Ganymede listened to Amarynthos attentively. She had heard enough about their experience to have a developing understanding of what they must have faced, but the details had come to her in a disjointed fashion from several severely wounded and traumatized teenagers. Memory could be unpredictable at the best of times—sometimes impeccably preserved, sometimes completely unreliable. Tragedy had a way of distorting things further. Amarynthos and Reims might recall something new now that they’d returned to the scene that wouldn’t have stood out before.
They’d been drawn here by rumor and conspiracy and had been lucky to leave with their lives. Amarynthos calling attention to the conspicuously cleared door—which neither General nor youma had used—led Ganymede to wonder if luring someone here had been the intention all along.
She kept those thoughts to herself for now. Amarynthos and Reims were both smart and resourceful; maybe they’d had similar thoughts already.
When neither Soleiyu nor Lucien had anything to report down the first flight of stairs or on the first landing, Ganymede’s frown deepened. If the General was using Mauvian tech of his own, maybe they were cancelling each other out? (Ganymede, being technologically illiterate in comparison, chose not to voice this question in case it was stupid. If it wasn’t, the cats would’ve already taken that into account, seeing as neither of them were as unintelligent as she was.)
She opened the first door they came to already knowing what she would find. More dust. A great, empty expanse of unoccupied basement. Normal smells of paint and plastic, a little musty after sitting abandoned for so long. A few plastic tarps still hung in place, but there was no immediate indication that anyone had been using the space.
“Down once more,” she mumbled, closing the door before descending the next flight of stairs, slow and careful, so not even a click of her heels announced their arrival.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 8:33 am
“Well,” Amarynthos said, but sounded just slightly uncertain, “The plants–the really weird ones–were all in one room. At the very last floor. It was behind some heavy doors, so maybe they’re just sealed really well.”
He wasn’t one to doubt himself but a frown had settled on his face like he was already thinking something was different here.
Wrong, in that it felt less-wrong than it had the last day. He knew they hadn’t imagined things. There was a whole group of them.
There was no reassurance in that the devices picked up nothing but he wasn’t sure if he’d wanted them to, anyway. He wanted answers, but the absence of information was neither a relief nor a shame. He didn’t know how to feel. Being down here made his hair stand on end, even if there was no longer an unnatural electrical current.
There was, however, an unfamiliar, sour smell that grew in potency the lower they got. It was acidic and clinical, and bitter and rotten all the same. He took off his mask once in the middle of the stairwell, and again when they’d stopped briefly on the last flight of stairs.
“It smells weird,” he reported, not to encourage them to remove their masks, but just to let them know that something different was off about this place.
Lucien’s reading shifted drastically the lower they got. Scans began to detect extremely high levels of fine particulates–volatile compounds. Traces of solvents. Too many monoxides–carbon, nitrogen, sulphur. Too much chlorine.
There were no gaps between the door and wall, but something had darkened around the edges.
Michel held his hand to the door and though a mask covered his face, he was obviously displeased. He didn’t have to explain why–Soleiyu did.
“This door is hotter than the surrounding area. The whole wall is. But this is the only area reading differently. No vents, no trails.”
“How hot is it on the other side?” Michel asked, and Soleiyu answered, “Not hot enough to expect a fire, probably.”
Michel grunted, unimpressed. “Well, stand back, I’m going to open it. This is where you got attacked?” He asked, and though the questions were directed at both of boys, he waited for Reims to nod.
Waited for them to move back.
When they did, when there were no convincing reasons for him not to shove his way in, he pushed open the door.
There was no fire.
Just the remnants of one. Black soot caked the walls and floor. If they hadn’t been wearing masks, they’d have choked. A powdery, iridescent yellow dust had settled–not pollen, not like before. Something chemical.
The long hallway was entirely coated in it, and a dense fog hung low in the air, like stale smoke that had nowhere to settle. A burst of warmth flooded once the door opened, like even the heat had been trapped behind the sealed doors.
They couldn’t see the room where the group had been attacked, not until they walked down this hallway and turned a corner. Michel took one step inside and paused when the layer of dust was so thick beneath his foot that it crunched like breaking bone.
The room was not as they had left it, and Amarynthos recognized it immediately. His eyes flashed as he glanced at Reims before peering warily into the darkness.
Alastor remained at the back, still mostly silent in his observations, but before Michel or anyone else could step too far in he cautioned, “Watch out for traps. If he’s had time to return here, we should expect that he’ll have had time to set something up. Just don’t be caught off guard. Watch where you step and what you touch.”
He didn’t have to ask Lucien to scan for anything–Lucien was good at finding traps and hidden dangers before anyone could set them off.
…Better, though, if everyone was trying not to set anything off.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 8:33 am
Reims tightened his grip on the flashlight when the air changed. The further they descended, the more oppressive things felt. It wasn’t just the smell, it was… everything. The absence of sound, the claustrophobic weight of the stairwell. Knowing they were already two floors underground, and that if things went south, there wasn’t going to be a neat little escape hatch waiting for them.
He stopped a step behind Amarynthos, squinting into the dim haze that drifted through the newly opened door.
“Are you shitting me?” he muttered, voice muffled by the mask. Although his words came out low, they were edged with a restless agitation that he couldn’t quite swallow down.
His beam of light swept over the floor where Michel’s boot had crunched through some soot, and he took a step closer to Amarynthos, as if his proximity might prevent his friend from sustaining another horrible injury.
He glanced over at Ganymede, and while he didn’t know her well, he trusted her judgment more than his own in that moment. But it didn’t stop the irritation from creeping into his voice.
“I don’t get it,” he said after a pause. “Why destroy everything? Why come back here just to burn it all down?”
His jaw tightened as he turned his flashlight at one of the scorched walls. There was anger behind the confusion now, although he was doing his best to keep it contained. “What was so important about this place that he had to bury it?”
Lucien’s tail flicked back and forth as he padded forward, nose twitching under the new smells. The readings coming off his collar were volatile now, shifting faster than his processor could compute them. He remained beside Soleiyu, glancing over at the other Mauvian with a tone that was somewhere between technical precision and quiet concern.
“Confirming your readings,” he said, voice low. “Surface temperatures along the floor are irregular. There’s been combustion, but currently no active fire. Chlorine, ammonia, carbon traces. Nothing airborne is toxic enough to cause immediate harm, but prolonged exposure would be unwise.”
He paused, looking toward the hallway and then back at Alastor, who still lingered protectively near the back. “Something burned fast. Too clean to be an accident.” But then again, that was likely something the others already realized.
Sessrumnir’s fingers flexed subtly around the hilt of his sword when the door opened. The smell hit him, sharp with the sting of chemical, even through the filter of the mask. He glanced past Michel into the hallway, every instinct in him demanding that they slow down, that they test every step before taking it.
He stayed beside Alastor, mirroring his stillness for a moment, trusting his husband’s instincts above all others. He glanced over to Amarynthos and Reims near the front, both tense but standing their ground, and felt the weight in his chest twist tighter.
Part of him wanted to find that General here. To face him. To repay what he’d done to their kids -- legally or not, Sessrumnir felt responsible for them. They could take him on, he was certain. Four Knights, all of them with summons, two experienced Mauvians, an Eternal Senshi with a thousand years of survival to his name, and a Princess. They had pretty good odds, in his opinion.
But the more he looked at the charred ruins, the more it felt like someone had already erased the trail they were meant to follow.
He let out a breath and adjusted his stance to make sure Alastor’s flank was covered. “If he was trying to hide something, he did a good job. Might be too dangerous to try and find anything in the debris,” he suggested, glancing from Alastor to Ganymede and Michel. Maybe the Mauvians could scan through everything without having to touch.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 8:34 am
“Safe to say there was something here he didn’t want us to find,” Ganymede said, at once unsurprised and discontented to discover the remnants of a fire. She stopped as they turned the corner, nudging some of the ash with the toe of her boot. A quick glance around offered little in the way of clues. She tried to imagine the room as Reims and Amarynthos had described it, but the fire had removed any trace of it.
“I half expected he’d come back and clean up,” she said, taking a few cautious steps forward. “He had time. He would’ve assumed some of you made it out. You’d spread the word. He’d have to be quick. But this seems… excessive.”
She turned again to Reims and Amarynthos, studying what she could see of their faces above their masks. Their frustration and confusion was palpable. After what they’d been through, to come back and find no trace of it… Ganymede would have been angry and disheartened if she'd been in their shoes.
She had the benefit of distance, and more experience than she cared for.
“Maybe it’s not us he’s hiding it from. Or only us,” she said. Her gaze flicked from the boys to Sessrumnir and Alastor, then to Michel. “I’m not getting the sense this was your typical Negaverse operation. They like to entrench themselves, hide in plain sight, gain influence, but a place like this isn’t going to allow for that. No one comes here. The only thing of value here would be secrecy, but he doesn’t have to come Earthside for that. If isolation’s what he wanted, he could’ve done whatever he was doing in the Dark Kingdom.”
Ganymede glanced around again. The narrowing of her eyes and the furrow between her brows were the only evidence of her deepening frown.
“Unless all of this was unsanctioned,” she continued. Her gaze shifted back to Amarynthos and Reims. “Did he say anything? Or did you notice if he paid particular attention to a certain area? Either as a protective measure or something to avoid?”
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 8:35 am
Michel’s lip curled but he stopped walking while the Mauvians ran their scans. Charging in didn’t seem like the favorable option it had been a moment ago, so now he was at the mercy of their investigation.
Soleiyu hummed thoughtfully while running through his scans but after a moment, he could only nod to Lucien. “Is it worth it to take a sample to see what he used? We should. But I don’t know what contaminants it might have. This could be any number of volatile substances he just threw together. Doesn’t take much to start a chemical fire. And when you can teleport out, there’s not really a reason to be too cautious. I’m not picking up anything strange for the floor, it’s all concrete. So you don’t have to worry about falling through a trap, at least.”
And a trap wire seemed impossible–all these air particles would have made it too easy to spot. The soot on the floor was undisturbed except for their footsteps–and he was already wincing at the idea of getting this out of his fur. He walked with his tail up, on his tiptoes as much as possible.
It wasn’t much of a reassurance to Michel, especially not when they finally rounded the corner and he could see the damage to the main room.
Whatever was here was gone–completely.
Amarynthos stiffened at the sight.
It didn’t just look like a fire, it looked like an explosion. Parts of the walls looked like they’d either been pried off of it, or just warped badly in the fire. Places where he knew there had been strange lumps on the wall, or thick sheets of sinewy vines, were burned clean. There were larger piles of what he might have called ‘ash’ but that didn’t do it justice. The vents were closed off. The fluorescent lights had all busted. The ceiling was black, but more than that had a sickly yellow-green sheen, too.
The center of the room was in no better shape than the rest of it–there were no trace of the crops that had once grown there.
And, worst of all, there was no trace of the desk. No computer. No file cabinet.
Nothing.
“He didn’t say anything,” he answered slowly, hardly able to hide the disappointment in his voice. Amarynthos wasn’t an expert on how hot a fire had to burn in order to incinerate a metal file cabinet, or an ancient computer, but he suspected they wouldn’t find anything of them. They’d probably been taken. None of the dusty mounds looked substantial enough to have been anything surviving the fire.
Amarynthos proceeded slowly, carefully. There were no cameras in the corners of the room, so those had either been destroyed or removed, too.
“He didn’t step in the middle of the room. I mean, where those weird plants were growing.” Amarynthos gestured to the flattened patch where tall stalks once grew in tight rows. It wouldn’t have been easy to walk through the plants but the General had avoided them entirely. “He went to the desk. I don’t know if it was just because Lyon and Rose were the last two he went after. I didn’t see him check anywhere, though. He seemed more interested in us.”
He didn’t say ‘hurting’, because that didn’t really do it justice. He seemed like he wanted to kill them.
If his mask hadn’t been jostled, if he hadn’t left so quickly, maybe he would have.
Amarynthos was bitter. Disappointed. Frustrated.
He was working very hard to keep his tone even just somewhat upbeat.
“If this wasn’t a normal Negaverse operation, what does it make it?” It felt like such a stupid question. Maybe it was. Amarynthos glanced back at Ganymede. “I mean, is there any way that works in our favor? Or does it mean that we don’t have any leads and nothing to work with?”
From the very back of the group, Alastor was dragging his feet. It wasn’t that he lacked interest in the rest of the room but he could hear what the others were saying well enough from where he stood by the still open door. He had yet to release the doorhandle, if only because he couldn’t shake a nagging feeling.
He’d originally thought to hold the door open to help air it out a bit, but it was abundantly clear that there was no way to ventilate this room. The air was thick with chemical fumes, and strong enough to agitate skin and eyes–and nose and mouth, if they weren’t wearing the masks.
But, because he was looking for a way to keep the door propped open–or, maybe because he was naturally suspicious, he noticed a strange black box fixed above the door. Unlike most everything else, it was completely charred, though it was covered in a thin layer of dark particles.
He pulled a zip tie from subspace, and hooked it around the door pull, fastening it to a pipe strap on the wall. He gave it an exploratory tug but the metal didn’t budge. Alastor brought no attention to the thin wire that fed down the wall, over the top of the door and down the side of it, disappearing into the latch. He couldn’t see if the other door was fitted in the same way but he expected as much.
Alastor caught Sessrumnir’s eyes and nodded up to the box on the wall, mounted in such a way that no one would have seen it while coming in, not unless they’d been looking directly up.
He didn’t know what it was supposed to do but he didn’t care to find out.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 8:35 am
Reims made a sharp, bitter sound under his breath. Half a scoff and half an exhale.
“Yeah, looks like he covered his tracks,” he muttered with a sneer, answering Amarynthos’s frustration with his own. “Made sure there wouldn’t be a single thing left to find. The plants, the desk, even the goddamn walls.”
He swept his flashlight over the walls again. The warped metal and cracked plaster caught the light and he frowned. “It didn’t look like this before,” he added, jaw tightening. “I mean, obviously. But before it had been maintained. Like a garden. You don’t build something that detailed just to blow it up.”
Unless it really wasn’t supposed to be something anyone found.
He turned slightly, looking at Ganymede with the same restless tension in his shoulders. “So… yeah, if it wasn’t sanctioned, maybe he wasn’t supposed to be here at all. You think the Negaverse would do something if we ratted him out?”
Not that it would help them, but if they could get the guy in trouble for whatever he was doing, well… Reims could use a good laugh.
Lucien’s head dipped as his sensors swept the walls again. “Affirmative,” he murmured toward Soleiyu, tone sharp with focus. “Sample collection is possible, but the chemical degradation will make analysis limited. Most of what’s left is residue. Whatever compounds he used burned at extreme temperatures.”
He stopped, tail lashing in annoyance. “Disappointing,” he admitted quietly. “There may have been data here -- activity logs, communications… now it’s gone.”
He looked towards Ganymede, then Amarynthos and Reims. “Your suspicions are likely correct. Someone didn’t just want to erase everything. They wanted to make sure no one even understood what it was.”
Sessrumnir caught Alastor’s look immediately, and that was enough. His heart skipped, instincts snapping to alert before his mind even processed why.
The tilt of his head was subtle, but there was a weight to his voice when he spoke that emphasised how important it was for them to pay attention.
“Nobody move.”
He stepped closer, slow and deliberate, following the line of Alastor’s eyes to the small black box above the door. Even from a distance, it looked wrong. He didn’t see it right away, but once he caught sight of the wire, he felt like he was validated for his instincts to stay slow and steady in their exploration.
“I don’t know what it’s for, but nothing good ever comes in a black box. We’re done here.”
His voice stayed calm, but his tone left no room for argument. “Ganymede, can you get us out? Now.”
He didn’t lift his weapon, didn’t risk shifting his weight, didn’t breathe too deeply. His pulse was racing, but his focus was locked on Alastor. The fact that his husband had kept the door open might have just saved all of them.
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 8:36 am
“I wouldn’t say we’ve got nothing to work with,” Ganymede replied, meeting Amarynthos’ gaze. She strove for calm rationality even when her instincts turned toward anger. “We can follow up on our suspicions. Ask around. Find out if anyone knows this General. Learn what we can about him. If he’s hiding this from his own people,” she continued, slow and cautious to temper Reims’ reckless impulses, “then we might have one card to play later. If we rat him out now, they’ll bury it. We’ll never know what he was doing here. He could—”
Ganymede drew to an abrupt halt, freezing at Sessrumnir’s direction.
Nothing but her gaze shifted, lifting to the spot above the door that seemed to have gained both his and Alastor’s attention. Being a few steps ahead put her a little further into the room. She saw the black box only in her periphery; she wouldn’t be able to get a better look without turning back, but a closer examination wasn’t necessary. Ganymede trusted their judgment. Alone, Sessrumnir was maybe a little paranoid. Together, he and Alastor had excellent instincts. If they both thought it was best to leave, then they would leave.
Ganymede drew her phone out of subspace.
“I can get us out,” she agreed, but there was a subtle thread of reluctance in her voice. She kept a wary eye on the black box. “If that’s what I’m assuming it is, we probably won’t be able to get back in. Maybe there’s nothing to find in this room, but we haven’t checked the rest of the building. If that goes off, does everything go with it?”
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Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2026 8:36 am
Michel paused, unwilling to take orders, but accepting suggestions. If he were being honest with himself, he wasn’t here to figure out whatever the General had been researching. He just wanted to kill him. The disappointment he felt was not because there was nothing to find here. It was because he wasn't here.
For a long moment, he stood still in the room. He didn't move, not because he was afraid to, but because he thought if he stood still enough maybe something would stand out. Jump out, maybe.
But the room was still. Empty. Dead.
He was mad enough that he wanted to kick the mountain of soot next to him but instead he just dug his nails into the hilt of his weapon. This room was so thoroughly destroyed that it didn't take a genius to figure out that the only thing they'd get out of here was a respiratory infection.
"So he couldn't clear the place out fast enough on his own. And he couldn't risk anyone else finding what was down here." It wasn't that there was no information to glean from this, just that it wasn't as straightforward as simple.
The General was quick to act. He'd cleared this place out in less than a night. Whatever he'd done had happened so quickly that the fires had already cooled. He must have been back minutes–hours–after the teenagers had left. He'd probably taken anything of use. A computer and a file cabinet, and maybe whatever hadn't been pilfered from the desk. He'd made enough time to set some sort of trap by the door–so he was either skilled enough to make–what, a bomb?–or he was working with someone else who could.
It had been wired to the door so that it didn't go off when it opened, but instead when it closed–when whatever group entered, it went off on all of them. The bones of this building didn't seem so badly damaged that it might have collapsed on top of them, but there was no telling if that thing had been wired to anything else.
It was unwise to think that the only threat was that which they could see.
If he'd been willing to destroy whatever was left, there probably wasn't anything useful to find here.
With a snarl, Michel backtracked to cluster closer to the rest of the group. He stepped only where he had before, where he knew it was safe, but he stayed close to Reims.
Amarynthos's expression had settled again, this time into something more stoic. He didn't want to leave, but he too understood that there was probably nothing meaningful for them. Unwilling to leave with nothing, he withdrew his camera again. "I'm coming," he promised, but stayed put–just for a minute. He had pictures of the before. He'd have pictures of the after. At the very least, he could share it with their friends so they didn't have to worry about what they were missing.
He shined his flashlight across the room, slowly capturing a video of everything. He didn't know if it would be useful but he'd rather have something than nothing. After the video, he took a few pictures. He could hardly tell where anything had been before. He could see the spot on the wall where he'd been skewered, but it was so warped that it didn't even look right. He could see where Yvoire had been bleeding out–dying–but there were no bloodstains. Only a layer of unnatural ash blanketing the floor, as it had everything else.
There wasn't much data to collect at all.
Even Soleiyu decided against taking samples. Between his scanner and Lucien's, they'd have collected enough about air quality to infer the conditions. And if he really wanted to examine the particles, they could just brush them out of their fur. While he stayed put, he let his instruments collect whatever scraps of passive data available to them. He knew Lucien had his own programs running. They could compare later. He doubted their devices could collect much meaningful information given the circumstances. If he'd been so thorough about this destruction, it was unlikely they'd have found anything, no matter how long they searched.
With a heavy exhale, he moved a little closer to Ganymede. "If he rigged that to detonate, I think he'd need something much larger to take down the whole building. It might draw attention, too. I didn't pick up on structural weaknesses while I was scanning on the way down." It didn't mean there weren't any–just that he hadn't found them. "But if he's willing to go to extremes to keep his secret, I don't know what else he's capable of."
Maybe he knew more about the building than they could dig up. Maybe there were bombs in the walls. Maybe it was a poison gas that would just kill them quietly.
Whatever it was, it wasn't safe.
Leaving now before something triggered it was their best option.
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