(Back at Aegis Headquarters, set amid a rocky landscape in Nevada, during the quiet night, Commander Cromwell and Commander Locke promptly walk through the hallway, both putting on serious and firm expressions. Inside the base, all soldiers assume their disciplinary positions in anticipation, allowing both commanders to make their way through. Meanwhile, in another room, Sylvia is left to make a video call with a man in his early fifties with straight grey hair, dull blue eyes, and a dark skin tone, wearing a sleek, formal suit with a blue tie; this guy is none other than the Secretary of Defense himself, Secretary Lawson, who’s speaking through a large monitor. Both of them are comfortably seated during this video call.)

  Secretary Lawson: (via monitor) Ms. Anderson. I didn’t expect you of all people to make the call.

  Sylvia: (nonchalantly) Your two commanders hurried to meet up with the team, so they left me to break the news for you. I’ll join them afterwards, so… no biggie.

  Secretary Lawson: Then gimme a sitrep. How did Operation Black Vector go?

  Sylvia: (subtly annoyed) I’m starting to believe that you people think I’m working for you or something.

  Secretary Lawson: (firmly) I do not. To me, you’re the handler of the Sparks mercenary group and nothing more. I’ve been told about your arrangement with us.

  Sylvia: Just thought I’d made it clear. (sighing deeply, crossing her arms) In any case, they’ve got the intel we need, and they’ll arrive at Headquarters any moment now. Oh, and they’ve also captured a Surge Beacon while they were at it. Thought you’d like to know.

  Secretary Lawson: I see. And what about capturing the culprit?

  Sylvia: No luck. We’ve only ever managed to secure intel regarding the culprit’s activities. (grimacing) And Stone hasn’t been found yet, which’s got me wondering if you’re really planning on keeping your end of the deal.

  Secretary Lawson: (narrowing his eyes) You haven’t kept yours either. Your help wasn’t enough to capture the culprit in this operation. Once you help us achieve that, we’ll make sure to help you rescue your teammate in return. As of now, we’ll have to bear each other a little longer. Are we clear in that regard?

  Sylvia: (scowling) I guess. I’ll have the commanders let you in on what happens next. I’ve got nothing to say at the moment.

  Secretary Lawson: Noted.

  (Secretary Lawson ends the video call, leaving Sylvia scowling in annoyance as she gets off her seat. Meanwhile, Commander Cromwell and Commander Locke head outside Aegis Headquarters and arrive at the military camps outside, with the soldiers rallied outside as well, and the two commanders catch sight of two aircrafts approaching.)

  Commander Locke: There they are.

  (Inside one aircraft, Team Gamma — consisting of soldiers from both Aegis and the IRU — remain seated with sharp expressions, clutching their weapons tightly. Inside the other aircraft, the team remains seated, a grim atmosphere taking over. Flare and Focus sit on either side of the cuffed Shay, with Focus grimly crossing his arms and Shay bowing his head with a grimace. Jax, Proxy, and Pulse sit beside each other in silence, and Boltix, Jackpot, and Mistrick sit beside each other as well, leaving the deafening silence hanging over them. Hunter sits down beside the unconscious Ethan, guarding him with a sharp expression, while Flare, Focus, and Shay glance at the latter with grim expressions.)

  (Commander Cromwell and Commander Locke watch as the two aircrafts land in their own designated runways. The soldiers of Team Gamma step out from one of the aircrafts then head for the military camps nearby to recover, and the team’s leader remains on standby with a group of soldiers. Hunter’s team steps out of the other aircraft, all silently walking behind Hunter. They’re all grave, sharp, and tense with their grim expressions, especially Flare, who passes a glance at Ethan and then sets eyes on Focus with a subtly skeptical frown, her eyes narrowing. Commander Cromwell and Commander Locke nod in acknowledgment as Hunter and his team meet up with them, specifically glancing at Gauntlet.)

  Commander Locke: (firmly) Gauntlet. (noticing his bare hand) What happened to the other glove?

  Gauntlet: (shrugging) Yeah, you’ve got the Ice Beacon to thank for that. (glancing at his bare palm) Too bad. I kinda liked those new gauntlets.

  Commander Cromwell: (noticing Shay’s presence, sharply) What’s this old man doing here?

  Shay: (scowling) Yer the one in charge ’ere, ain’t ya? And ye talk like ye are, fer sure.

  Commander Cromwell: Answer me. Who are you, and why are you here?

  Shay: (bitterly) I’m Seanán Gallagher, an’ I’ve come t’look after th’ kind lad ye took away.

  Commander Locke: (glancing at Ethan, who’s dragged by Hunter) You mean the Ice Surge Beacon?

  Hunter: He objected to the capture of the kid and personally requested to be held captive as well. Commander Locke: Is that so? (to Shay, sternly) This is our business. You’ve got nothing to do with it.

  Shay: (gritting his teeth) Ye’re not the judge o’ that. I’ll stay for Ethan, whether ye like it or not, and I’ll make sure ye don’t lay a finger on him.

  Hunter: (hoarsely) I don’t remember bringing you here to call us out. (to Commander Cromwell) The collar will keep him unconscious. Are we ready to take him in yet?

  Commander Cromwell: The containment chamber is ready. (to Team Gamma’s leader) Take the Ice Surge Beacon into the lab and keep an eye out.

  Team Gamma Leader: (firmly) As you command.

  Shay: (angrily) Where d’ye think yer takin’ him, eh?!

  Commander Cromwell: (sharply) You obviously know more than you should. Cooperate with us, and you might get to see him again.

  (Shay grits his teeth and clenches his fists as he glares at Commander Cromwell, while Team Gamma’s leader approaches Hunter with a pair of soldiers. The latter hands him Ethan’s unconscious body, and the soldiers escort the Ice Surge Beacon out of the area. Shay watches that with a scowl, and Flare and Focus observe as well with grim expressions, with Flare particularly clenching her fists and momentarily gritting her teeth. The tense silence following that moment hangs for a while until Sylvia arrives and joins them with her typical nonchalance.)

  Sylvia: (nonchalantly) Oh, you’re all here. (to Flare and Focus, unamused) And the car-wreckers as well.

  Focus: (dryly) Still hung up on that, huh?

  Sylvia: (wincing, looking around at the others) Oh, my, I sense some hostility.

  Commander Locke: Did you inform the Secretary about the latest updates regarding the situation?

  Sylvia: (shrugging) Yeah, sure. But you gotta do stuff like that yourselves next time. I’ve got no business speaking on your behalf.

  Hunter: (sighing deeply, to Commander Cromwell, firmly) Let’s not waste any more time. We’ve got our intel. We need to look into it at once and plan our next steps accordingly.

  (Commander Cromwell and Commander Locke firmly nod and turn to leave the area outside. However, in that moment, Flare catches a momentary glimpse of the small badge on Cromwell’s uniform, a circular black-and-steel insignia featuring a stylized shield at its center, overlaid with an abstract, angular eye symbol. All of a sudden, her memory is filled with indecipherable flashes, and she clutches her head in pain, alerting the others.)

  Focus: Flare!

  Flare: (groaning weakly) It’s nothing. I’m fine. Let’s just… get going.

  (Focus’s lips part in surprise, and the others are stunned as well, but upon seeing Flare walking off, the others promptly follow the two commanders, with Sylvia joining Boltix, Jackpot, and Mistrick and walking alongside them. The cuffed Shay is escorted by a pair of soldiers, to which he reacts with a grimace. The group enters Aegis Headquarters once again, the ongoing tension accompanying them inside. Upon entering the headquarters, Commander Cromwell subtly looks over her shoulder at Flare, who’s walking behind her with her tense frown, and her expression momentarily turns bitter, which Flare and the others remain oblivious to.)

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Commander Cromwell: (internally) We meet again… Project Flare.

  (Meanwhile, the leader of Team Gamma accompanies his soldiers as they escort the unconscious Ethan through one of the base’s backdoors and into the hallway, eventually making a turn into the laboratory and meeting up with a team of researchers.)

  Team Gamma Leader: (handing over Ethan’s unconscious body to one of the researchers) You know what to do.

  (The researcher nods then grabs Ethan’s unconscious body and carries it, leading the other researchers inside the lab, where they promptly open up a containment capsule and place him inside. Meanwhile, as the leader of Team Gamma walks through the hallway, he reaches for his communicator and sends a single message to his soldiers.)

  Team Gamma Leader: (via communicator, firmly) All units. It’s time. Just as we planned.

  (The soldiers — who were on standby all this time inside the military camps — receive that message and exchange nods, splitting up into several groups and heading inside Aegis Headquarters from several other backdoors. Meanwhile, Flare and the team continue walking across the hallway and behind the two commanders, with Commander Cromwell finally breaking the silence.)

  Commander Cromwell: (to Shay) So tell us what you know, Gallagher. Everything you were told.

  Shay: Ah sure, I don’t know much, commander. Only that there’s Surges and what ye call ‘Surge Beacons’. I know as well that someone’s after Flare, that’s the truth. But don’t ye worry. I wasn’t given a heads-up ’bout ye.

  Focus: I can confirm that. He’s only been informed of the basic details.

  Commander Cromwell: And have you informed anyone else about this?

  Shay: (narrowing his eyes) I can keep a wee secret.

  Commander Locke: If so, then we can release you after a few days. (sternly) But sure it stays that way, Gallagher. The mere idea of releasing you is a risk given your knowledge about us. (to the two soldiers) You can take him away now. No need to lock him up. And no need to keep the cuffs. Just keep an eye out. We’ll get back to him later.

  (The two soldiers nod and grab Shay’s shoulders after removing the cuffs from his hands, making a turn to another hallway and escorting him away from the group. The old Irishman maintains his stoic demeanor, while Flare and Focus watch with dread and tense grimaces. With that out of the way, Hunter speaks up.)

  Hunter: If that’s settled, then we need to discuss the situation at hand. First, let’s go over what we know.

  Sylvia: (placing a hand on her chin) Okay, so whoever that guy is, we know he paid us to capture Flare, which we did. This implies a lot. To start with, the culprit, who incidentally goes by the name ‘Infinity’, must know about Surges, and he’s planning something big, something that very much involves the Fire Surge Beacon.

  Flare: (passing her a side eye) I’m standing right here.

  Jax: Not only that, but given how he managed to track Flare, he also must be capable of tracking down Surge Beacons just as well as Aegis.

  Pulse: Adding to that, he knows about Aegis, apparently, and the IRU… and just about everything else going on. But… how would he know so much? Could he have possibly had past connections to Aegis?

  Commander Cromwell: I don’t know for sure, but it’s possible. However, I did make sure that no one outside of Aegis knows about Surges.

  Boltix: (grimacing) Then at the cavern, he abducted Stone. He couldn’t have done that without a good reason. And it was… after his outburst and the awakening of a Surge. The capture of Stone is one thing, but how did he develop a Surge?

  Mistrick: We thought he had no Surge, but then… it just happened. Could the masked guy be after this as well?

  Gauntlet: (subtly annoyed) Guess we’re very good at coming up with questions we can’t answer. Who cares about what happened? It’s all about what will happen!

  Commander Locke: I’ll have to second that. Right now, our priorities are clear. We need to figure out the culprit’s motives and plans first and foremost.

  Proxy: (grabbing the flash drive) Then we might as well look into our intel.

  Commander Cromwell: That’s where we’re heading.

  (The two commanders lead the group to the control room, where two soldiers stand outside on guard, and the door slides open for them. They head inside the massive control room, with a giant monitor ahead of them. Proxy promptly steps up to the monitor and connects the flash drive to it, then Focus turns on the monitor, which displays a wide collection of files ahead of the group.)

  Hunter: (grimly) That’s a lot of intel we’ve collected. And to think Infinity didn’t put up much of a fight to stop us.

  Commander Cromwell: (confused) What are you talking about?

  Pulse: We didn’t encounter resistance when we went off to secure the intel. It felt like we weren’t his priority at the time… like he couldn’t care less whether we secure that information or not.

  Commander Cromwell: It’s still crucial information that we’ve seized, and we need to make the most of it. (turning to Proxy) Proxy, take a look at the files. See what’s of use to us. After all, we don’t have time to look into all the intel now, do we?

  (Proxy nods and lights up both her palms with purple energy, activating her Tech Surge. She places both her hands at the monitor, and her eyes glow purple as she simultaneously looks into every single file in the flash drive. It only takes a short moment for Proxy to look into all the intel, and then she singles out a select few of the files, which get highlighted with a purple glow, and before deactivating her Tech Surge, she opens one of the files. The monitor displays several energy readings of an energized green crystal, identified as ‘The Catalyst’. Proxy then gets on the control panel and opens up a research diagram that Infinity previously created.)

  Proxy: (reading the research) ‘The Catalyst. A crystal meticulously forged from the tiny shards of shocked quartz left behind in the Chicxulub crater, which — for the record — is the area where the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event took place, thus introducing Surge energy to the world. Its composition and connection to the origins of Surge energy itself allows it to better absorb and manifest Surge energy than any other material, allowing the user to openly control any sort of outward Surge energy as long as it’s unstable enough for the crystal to assume control of.’

  Focus: The Catalyst. I had a talk with Ethan’s parents. They said that he truly went berserk when Hollow influenced him with some sort of green crystal. I can assume that his condition must have been already unstable back then, leading to the success of the process.

  Jax: Now that I think about it, I’ve also seen the culprit using that same green crystal when Stone went berserk and awakened an Earth Surge. My team and I were there when it happened.

  Flare: Then that crystal’s kind of a big deal, huh?

  Boltix: (nonchalantly) It turned both of these guys into Beacons. Of course it’s a big deal. (placing a hand on his chin) But there’s gotta be more to this crystal.

  Proxy: There is.

  (Proxy switches to a few more files, which show segments of further research about Surge anatomy and a lot more subjects, leaving the others intrigued, but then she opens the last file, which shows a three-dimensional live diagram of the Earth, with a glowing green orb right at the core, an orb that’s looking too energized for its own good.)

  Proxy: (intrigued) This intel contains studies of Surge anatomy, the creation of Surge energy, and the physiology of Beacons, but perhaps it’s this file that hints at his primary motive. This live diagram clearly shows a mass reserve of Surge energy inside the Earth’s core, and right now, it’s looking unstable.

  Commander Cromwell: A result of what happened at the cavern, perhaps.

  Proxy: Very much, yeah. What’s interesting is that given what we know about the Catalyst crystal, it could perhaps be the cause behind all this, and it all adds up when you think about it. Here. Lemme show you.

  (Proxy activates her Tech Surge once again and extends her palm towards the monitor, and this three-dimensional model of the Earth switches to a planar, two-dimensional diagram. It shows the entirety of the Earth and the spread of Surge energy around it, portrayed by a green hue, but it’s not entirely spread evenly, with the continent of North America being especially unstable with its energy levels.)

  Commander Cromwell: (grimacing) That doesn’t look reassuring. What is this?

  Proxy: The world’s Surge energy is imbalanced, making it easier to control, and in this region, it’s already on the brink of collapsing. Surge Beacons generally undermine that balance, which is perhaps what our enemy wants to accomplish.

  Focus: This explains the energy shockwaves. First, he planted the seed on the Earth’s core, giving the Catalyst the slightest kernel of control over its Surge energy. The Catalyst grew in power and influence when he used Flare and Stone’s intense battle to undermine the balance again. Then there was Ethan. Surge Beacons attract all the energy around them and concentrate it into a single region, thus causing the instability, and if Infinity makes use of a Surge Beacon strong enough, then…

  (Proxy puts that into test by concentrating a massive amount of Surge energy into a random point in the model and then amplifying it over and over again. The area keeps flickering with intense energy until a huge flash of bright white engulfs the diagram, causing the others to look away for the moment. As the light fades, they see the diagram filled to the brim with constantly fluctuating Surge energy that practically floods the entire Earth. It’s then that everyone in the room turns to Flare, who comes to the same realization as everyone else.)

  Focus: (stunned) And the Beacon needed to accomplish such a feat —

  Flare: (muttering) Is me.

  (A tense silence takes over the control room once again, with everyone staring at Flare with a mix of concern and fear, while Flare clenches her fists with a worried grimace. Commander Cromwell and Commander Locke head out of the control room with their typical sharp expressions, prompting the others to silently follow. The two commanders lead them across a corridor and then take a turn to a massive, eerily empty room, leaving them baffled.)

  Focus: (baffled) Commander… what are we doing here?

  Commander Cromwell: (sharply) Right now… it’s time for our next move. We know what must be done. (turning to Focus) You know what must be done, don’t you… Agent Focus?

  (Focus’s lips part in shock upon hearing that line, while the others remain baffled, and then the former turns to Flare, who can only glance at him in confusion. His eyes show an immense sort of dread, as if knowing what could happen right now. He’s too late to spell it out, however, and suddenly, a large number of soldiers emerge from inside the room and promptly surround Flare and the others, aiming their weapons at them, but the way it is, it looks like they’re only here for one person.)

  Commander Cromwell: (icily) Welcome back… Project Flare.