The hotel bar was playing something that sounded like rain turned into music—melancholic, drifting. Speakers hidden somewhere behind the plants made it feel like the walls were thrumming. Everything smelled like wet earth and old wood and whatever expensive whiskey Cole was nursing.

  He sat there swirling his glass, thinking about the last two days. Wonder if things get more exciting when I become a Photon Knight. The thought almost made him laugh. Few weeks ago his biggest worry was making rent. Now he was doing the math on how many more bodies he'd stack before the week ended.

  "Lost in thought?" Lia's voice pulled him from his reverie. She'd come down, and Cole had to do a double-take. Her usual style was gone, replaced by something wilder. She shaved the sides down to stubble in these intricate patterns and left the top cascade wild. She'd painted her face with chrome and electric blue in these sharp, angular lines. Conductive paint. Little sparks jumped between them every few seconds, making constellation patterns across her cheekbones.

  "Holy shit," Cole managed. "Did you raid a Storm City punk's closet? Or did one bite you?"

  "Shut up," Lia laughed, striking a mock pose. "I'll have you know this took me two hours. The barber kept asking if I was having a midlife crisis."

  "At twenty-three?"

  "Quarter-life crisis then. Besides," she added, running a hand over the shaved stubble, a surprisingly vulnerable gesture, "It will grow back. Faster than you'd think. Forge Domain side effect. My physiology tends toward rapid creation. Even hair follicles run on overclock."

  "Well, it looks good on you. Really good." The words slipped out before Cole could filter them, more honest than he'd intended.

  Her pink eyes flared with a spike of lumens at the compliment. Cole felt the ambient temperature climb a degree. Her forge-ports were leaking heat in response to her neuro-chemistry.

  She slid onto the barstool next to him.Up close the air around her smelled of heated metal and jasmine. A mix of heavy industry and something trying to be soft.

  "Hey, I just wanted to say thanks, by the way," Cole said, dropping his voice. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop on your convo with my sister yesterday. It's just that these new cybernetic ears… they pick up everything."

  "No worries. What are friends for, right?" Lia replied, her tone soft. She paused, seeming to test the word 'friends' like she was tasting wine. "Besides, you needed to hear it. You need to know we have your back.”

  Cole ordered a round of shots for the two of them. “Real tequila. None of that synth shit.”

  "Yes, of course, Mr. Walker,"

  The bartender's eyes did that telltale flicker, pupils dilating in the specific pattern of someone running scans through neural implants. Credit check, threat assessment, maybe a quick dive through public records. Whatever data came back made the guy's spine straighten, his whole demeanor shifting from professional to something closer to fear. He reached for crystal shot glasses from a refrigerated case.

  "Pre-war agave clone," the bartender noted with a hint of reverence. "One of the few strains that survived the Collapse. Grown in biodomes with soil from Guadalajara."

  He poured the clear tequila, the liquid shimmering under the light. He then ran a lime wedge around the rims and dipped them in salt before sliding them over to Cole and Lia.

  “To friends who see each other beyond how the rest of the world sees us,” Cole said, raising his glass.

  Something shifted in Lia's expression. A flicker of surprise, maybe, or recognition. She held his gaze for a moment longer than usual before raising her own glass. The glasses clinked as they knocked the shots back.

  Lia started coughing, her breath catching in her throat. "Holy shit, that is strong. I can feel it trying to dissolve my liver."

  "Worth it though?" Cole asked, grinning as he slapped his leg.

  "Ask me after the room stops spinning," she gasped. "Actually, no. Ask me after we see if I survive your sister's concert. I heard the last one ended with the venue on fire."

  "That was an accident. Mostly."

  "Mostly?"

  "The encore was definitely on purpose."

  Their eyes met for a moment, a shared spark of surprise and amusement passing between them. In that spark, something shifted: a wall coming down, a door opening just a crack.

  "Starting the party without me?" Lucius chimed in, sliding up behind Lia and draping an arm over her shoulder. Tiny static discharges jumped from his fingers to her forge-ports, creating little fireworks of gold and blue. "Bartender! Another round! Four more shots!"

  "Tequila? Really, Lucius?" Senna asked, eyeing the shot glass with suspicion. "Last time we did tequila shots, I ended up singing karaoke. Badly. The bar actually paid me to stop."

  Lucius grinned. "But you also punched that bartender who grabbed your ass. Perfect right hook."

  "That wasn't the tequila, that was just common sense," Senna said with a satisfied smirk. "His face made such a satisfying crunch though."

  "And then you dared me to backflip off the thirtieth floor."

  "I said 'bet you won't,' which is totally different from a dare." She paused. "Besides, watching you scream while sliding down that neon sign was hilarious. You hit notes I didn't know existed."

  Lucius clutched his chest in mock offense. "That was a battle cry. Very manly."

  "Sure it was. That's why I saved the security footage," Senna said sweetly. "My favorite part is when you yelled 'Mommy!' halfway down."

  "I said 'Oh my!' Very different."

  "The audio analysis says otherwise. But don't worry, I only showed it to... everyone."

  The four of them took the next round together. The tequila burned clean through Cole, warming him from the inside out and finally chasing away the last of the adrenaline from the day's earlier violence.

  He watched as Lucius tried to coax Senna into another shot. She simply held up a hand, stopping him.

  "I'll make you a deal," she said, her eyes glinting with amusement. "I will take a shot with you if you can successfully walk to the door and back without stumbling."

  Lucius looked toward the bar's main entrance, then down at the booth. He stood, walked two steady steps to the bathroom door five feet away, touched it, and returned.

  "There. To the door. And back."

  "I meant the front—"

  "You didn't specify which door. I chose this one." He pointed at the bathroom door. "Now pour."

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  "I deserved that." Senna flagged down the bartender. "He wins. Another round."

  The bartender, who'd been watching this exchange, slid over two shots. "Good work on the technicality."

  "See?" Lucius grinned at Senna. "Professional appreciation for loopholes."

  "You're both idiots," Senna said.

  He saw Lia watching them both. For a moment, they weren't Vertex, the mercenary crew. They were just four people in a strange city, sharing a drink before a show.

  “So, this venue,” Lia said, “what are we walking into?”

  "Alice said it's an old, pre-war storm shelter called 'The Capacitor'," Cole explained. "Built to house ten thousand people during the bombing raids. Now it houses ten thousand watts of sound system and whatever drugs the local dealers are pushing. She said the acoustics are insane. It's deep underground, reinforced concrete."

  “An underground punk show? Sounds like my kind of place," Lucius’s eyes lit up. "No rich weirdos pretending they're at the beach. Just honest violence and cheaper drugs."

  "No fire exits, you mean," Senna countered. "So, a deathtrap. Got it."

  "That's what makes it exciting, Senna!" Lucius shot back. "You can't have a proper punk show without at least one major safety violation. It adds to the ambiance."

  “And I still can’t believe you were a few hours short of becoming a fire marshal.”

  “I would have looked good in the hat,” Lucius retorted, reaching up to adjust an imaginary helmet. "Anyway, time to head out."

  Lia rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling. She slid off her stool, her new look catching the light. "He's right. Time to go."

  She looked at Cole. "Ready to see what your sister can do?"

  "You have no idea." Pride spiked in his chest. Alice had been playing music since she was twelve, the guitar their father had given her before he died.

  He finished his own drink and stood, the warmth of the tequila and the easy company of his team a welcome shield against the mayhem waiting for the outside world.

  The air outside the hotel felt heavy enough to wear. Street vendors lined the curb, hunched over carts rigged with exposed induction coils. Sausages sizzled and popped as blue arcs of electricity danced over the grease. Every hawker was screaming over the rain. Each one claimed their specific voltage frequency unlocked the optimal flavor profile.

  Above them, some Jolt energy drink ad kept glitching out—showed this guy's hair going vertical before his eyes shot cartoon lightning, then the whole thing would dissolve to static and start over. Pack of kids had figured out the timing, jumping up to catch the malfunction's discharge. Their hair went straight up and they screamed with joy every time.

  The Capacitor's entrance was this massive spiral ramp drilling down into the earth, wide enough for a mob. Band posters plastered everywhere, all of them AR-animated—ghost guitars strumming, drums keeping time with your footsteps. Someone had tagged 'ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER' over the official capacity sign. Someone else had scratched out 'HOPE' and written 'CREDITS' in its place.

  Then the ramp opened up and holy shit.

  The dome was massive. Ceiling disappeared into black somewhere above them, emergency lights long since replaced with strobes and lasers that painted the concrete in shifting colors. The acoustics were exactly as insane as Alice had promised. Every sound, boot scuffs, and shouted conversations, bounced off the curved walls and came back amplified. They'd coated the concrete with something that made it resonate, turned the whole place into an instrument.

  The space was packed with a vibrant, energetic crowd: punks with chrome mohawks that doubled as heat sinks for their overclocked neural implants, goths wearing leather that changed color with their mood, low-Sequence Storm Domains with little lightning halos dancing through their hair.

  "This place is incredible," Lia had to yell over the noise, her eyes following the stress fractures running across the ceiling. "Those cracks are from the original bombing. They left them as a reminder."

  "The ambient energy is amazing!" Lucius shouted back, practically vibrating with excitement. "I could power a small city block just by standing here!"

  Damian was waiting for them near the stage, a fresh synth-skin patch on his abdomen visible where his shirt was torn. The patch was still pink and raw-looking, nano-sutures visible at the edges. He gave Cole a huge, one-armed hug. His other arm was holding his side, and Cole could smell the antiseptic gel that was keeping infection at bay.

  "You made it!" he yelled. "And nobody's trying to kill us! Yet! This is already better than this afternoon! Alice is about to go on! The opening act just blew a capacitor, literally. The drummer was a Spark-Head, got a little too into it. Set his whole kit on fire. The crowd loved it."

  As he spoke, the house lights cut out. It was not a power failure, but a deliberate darkness.The venue's way of telling everyone to shut up and pay attention. Excited shouts rippled through the crowd. The bass died mid-throb, leaving this ringing silence that made everyone lean forward. The only light now came from the crowd's own hardware—red combat mods, blue corporate tech, green for the black market installs. The whole dome turned into this underground galaxy of blinking LEDs, each person a different colored star.

  A single, piercingly bright spotlight cut through the darkness, illuminating the stage. The light was pure white, almost painful in its intensity, making everything else disappear.

  And there she was.

  Alice stood alone with the guitar she'd just bought—black carbon fiber with silver lightning bolts etched into it, actual conductors that would channel electricity during the show. She looked different up there. Not Cole's little sister anymore. Something else. The city's chaotic soul wearing his sister's face. Her blue braids caught the light like fiber optic cables, those silver bells she'd woven through them throwing rainbow fragments across the stage.

  She didn't speak. Just raised one hand, bells chiming—somehow you could hear that tiny sound perfectly in all that space.

  Then she played.

  It started with a single, clean, sharp guitar riff that sliced through the silence. It hung there, vibrating at some frequency that made everyone's augmentations resonate. Melancholic but defiant. The sound of something broken that refused to stay that way.

  Cole's Lucent powers kicked in without him thinking about it, the spotlight refracted through the air, throwing a dozen phantom versions of Alice across the stage, each one glowing a different color. The crowd gasped. They could see it too. His power literally making her larger than life.

  Half a beat passed, then the band crashed in.

  Jax hammered on his drums that sparked with each hit, launching these harmless electric butterflies into the crowd. Kira joined on a bass throbbing with a life of its own, the strings were synthesized muscle fiber that contracted with each note. The sound hit so hard Cole could see air rippling, feel his chest cavity matching the rhythm. Like getting punched by something beautiful.

  Alice's voice soared over it all, a clear, powerful cry that was full of hope and rage in equal measure. She sang in three languages, English, German, and Japanese, the words blending into pure emotion that transcended language. It was the same rage Cole had felt in the factory, the same fire he'd used to tear those men apart. But she had taken that raw, destructive energy and turned it into something beautiful, something that didn't break the world but instead gave it a voice.

  The crowd roared, a single, unified beast moving to the rhythm. Heads tilted back. Some sang along, others just stared, wide-eyed, as if afraid to blink and miss a note.

  Cole found himself grinning. For the first time in weeks, he wasn't thinking about who might be trying to kill him.

  Lucius was going wild. Arms wide. Soaking up the current. Electricity jumped person to person around him, following the trail of his joy like his Domain couldn't help but dance along. He could see Senna appreciating the sheer technical mastery of the performance, the perfect, complex system of notes and rhythm. Damian, eyes closed, lost in the music. One hand on his wound, the other raised to the sky, looking more at peace than Cole had seen him in years.

  And Lia. She leaned into the railing. Her expression showed genuine, unadulterated awe. Her forge-ports pulsed in time with the music, tiny flames dancing at their edges, creating her own light show that she didn't even seem aware of.

  Alice locked eyes with him from the stage. Cole raised his beer to her, a small gesture that said everything. Her next note rang out stronger, powered by something more than electricity. Powered by love, by survival, by the sheer stubborn refusal of the Walker siblings to let this world break them.

  The song kept building. Should've been impossible to get louder, but somehow it did. Jax's drums pounded through bone. Kira’s bass frequency vibrated in Cole’s chest cavity. Alice's guitar arced with electricity, the conductors in the instrument channeling current from the Storm-touched atmosphere.

  The final note punched through the crowd, leaving everyone stunned, ears ringing, hearts racing. The silence that followed was almost religious. The quiet lasted maybe two seconds before the place went absolutely insane. Screaming, crying, someone yelling "ENCORE!" and suddenly the whole dome picked it up, chanting.

  In that moment, under the weight of the city, surrounded by his old friends and his new team, listening to his sister set the world on fire with her music, Cole felt something he hadn't felt in a very long time.

  He felt completely and utterly alive.

  He looked at his hands and saw them both shaking from pure, unfiltered emotion. Around him, his team was the same. Lucius was openly crying, tears streaming down his face as he laughed. Senna was just standing there, her eyes wide, her usual controlled composure gone. She looked completely overwhelmed. And Lia... Lia was looking at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears, and in that look was a question and an answer and a promise all at once.

  Alice started the next song. The next track was slow. A lullaby for a corroded world. Cole let himself feel it all: the music, the moment, the people around him. For once, he didn't see countless different versions of the scene. He just saw the one that mattered, the one where they were all here, all alive, all together.

  Tomorrow, there would be violence again. Tomorrow, someone would try to kill them or hire them or both. But tonight? Tonight was theirs.

  And that was enough.

  A low-ranked soldier sent to butcher beastfolk in the desert for a kingdom that despised him.

  He left as a necromancer, wielding forbidden powers of pestilence and undeath — gifts worth execution by church or crown.

  What to Expect:

  - RPG-style system with leveling, skills, mana, and stats

  - Slow-burn but deep and believable harem

  - Morally gray characters

  - A steadily growing legion of the dead