Chris tightens the handcuffs around the unconscious alien’s wrist, securing him to a sturdy metal rod before stepping back with a satisfied nod. He gives the cuffs an extra tug—just in case—then sets to work peeling away the layers of ridiculous fashion choices that apparently pass for extraterrestrial disguise.

  Grunting, he saws through the sweater and dress shirt with a Swiss Army knife, the overcoat having already been discarded. Between this unnecessary layering and the other alien—who was dressed like a bad parody of a hip-hop artist—he wonders how the hell they hadn’t been discovered sooner.

  He makes a mental note to commend Alex’s fashion sense more often. Even at its most lazy, it never involved this level of aesthetic crimes. Nothing, nothing, could be worse than strolling around in a purple hoodie with ‘THUG’ printed across it in yellow block letters.

  Once the alien’s torso is bare, Chris winces at the gaping wound in his chest. Then, just as quickly, he smothers the guilt. The gun had worked, hadn’t it? He was capable of building a gun that could drop an alien without even breaking a sweat. Now that was something.

  Still, he prods around the wound, checking for any major internal damage. It missed vital organs—if the alien’s physiology even worked that way. He straightens, pulls out his phone, and frowns at the half-broken screen. A thick crack splits the working half from the blank void, but it’s functional enough to make a call.

  He’s about to dial Alex from memory when the intercom crackles to life, blasting Glenn’s voice through the speakers.

  “If you’re alive and you can move, get to the observation room for census.”

  Chris stares at the speaker like it just insulted his entire bloodline. The insensitive prick. He exhales hard through his nose, pockets his phone, and spares the unconscious alien one last glance before heading down the hall.

  It doesn’t take long to run into Glenn—who is striding through the corridors like a man who owns them. Chris barely avoids getting flattened.

  “Ah, Jordan,” the General says, gripping his shoulder with one hand, the other effortlessly holding the alien-felling gun. “I was just looking for you. Job well done.” He waves the thing around as if it weighs nothing. “The prototype’s perfect. We’ll need to mass-produce them soon if we’re going to fight those bastards.”

  Chris clenches his jaw so tight it’s a miracle his teeth don’t shatter. He inhales. Exhales. Fists clenching, then loosening. Do not punch the meathead. He’d lose that fight, and his patience wasn’t worth a broken nose.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he asks instead, voice straining under the weight of forced restraint.

  Glenn raises an eyebrow. “Commending you. Thought you’d appreciate the effort.”

  “Your people are hurt, some of them dead.” Chris squares his shoulders. “We need to shut this down. Now.”

  The General waves a dismissive hand. “Not necessary. Med Bay’s fully stocked—”

  “Glenn, we've done enough,” Chris snaps. “We messed with things we weren’t supposed to, and now we have pissed-off aliens attacking—”

  “Nobody is leaving.”

  Chris stops breathing for a second. There’s something in Glenn’s voice that chills him more than the alien tech ever could. He takes an instinctive step back, and Glenn must see it, because the man forces himself to relax, schooling his expression into something calmer.

  “You saw what just happened,” Glenn continues, controlled but firm. “Superpowered aliens tore through a classified facility like it was nothing. They’re real, and they’re here, threatening everything we know and love.”

  “Don't be stupid.” Chris snorts. “That crystal is going to explode and wipe out this entire solar system. We need to stop this before—”

  “We are not aborting anything. We proceed as planned.”

  Chris straightens. Mind made up. “Then I’m done. I’m out.”

  Glenn barely blinks. “You say that like you have a choice.”

  Chris takes a step closer, his voice dropping to something low and dangerous. “Are you threatening me? Do you have any idea the sort of mess you're about to get yourself into?”

  Glenn smiles. The worst kind of smile. The kind that knows something you don’t.

  The kind that meant he had clearly decoded the hidden message in Chris' sentence.

  “Why don't you call her over, so we can find out?” He says, all unperturbed and excited to show off a new toy.

  The gun. Chris thinks, and he laughs. “You think just because you have a fancy alien-killing toy, you can intimidate me?”

  To his absolute horror, Glenn casually tosses the gun aside, letting it smash against the wall. A perfectly functioning, three-million-dollar piece of cutting-edge weaponry—obliterated in seconds.

  Chris can’t even begin to process the insult to science and six hours of his coveted time, before Glenn steps forward, voice eerily calm.

  “On the contrary, Dr. Jordan,” he says, looking down at him. “I won’t need the gun at all.”

  The rhythmic clang of metal against earth reverberates through the thick, humid air. A pair of figures toil in the growing shadows of the late afternoon, buried waist-deep in a pit carved from stubborn soil.

  Albus, a wiry man with sun-darkened skin and a sweat-slicked brow, works diligently, his shovel cutting into the earth with practiced ease. His sleeves are rolled up, revealing arms speckled with dirt, muscles tensed from exertion. Nearby, his companion, Castor—a shorter, stockier man with the makings of a gut that suggests he enjoys life’s finer indulgences—lounges against the dirt wall, the rope ladder beneath him creaking as he shifts lazily.

  With a heavy sigh, Castor lifts a clay pitcher and unceremoniously dumps the last of their water over his head, groaning at the cool relief.

  "Don’t do the water like that, Castor!" Albus snaps, his voice cutting through the air with a crisp English lilt, though the frustration in it makes it sharper. He snatches the nearly empty pitcher from Castor’s hands. "It’s a long way back to the stream!"

  Castor, unfazed, leans back further against the dirt wall, staring up at the sky like a man contemplating life’s grand mysteries. He wipes a bead of sweat from his brow and flicks it into the dirt.

  "This is takin’ too long," he grumbles, letting his head thunk against the packed earth with a dull thud. "Would’ve thought we’d be finished by now." His vowels stretch with lazy indifference, his accent dragging through his words like he can’t be bothered to fully enunciate.

  Albus glances over, scowling. His face is red from the sun, dirt smeared across his cheeks. "Whose bloody idea was it to dig up an unmarked grave, buried twelve feet deep?" He gestures toward the hole with his shovel.

  Castor sucks his teeth, exhaling long and slow. Granted. It was his idea. "Aye, but I heard special things about this one, Albus. The villagers whisper all sorts of horrendous curses buried in this little box."

  Albus stills, hands tightening on the wooden handle of his shovel. "An’ you're makin’ us dig it up?!" His voice rises an octave.

  "No one knows how or when it got here," Castor continues, his tone airy, like they’re discussing the weather. He waves a hand vaguely at the grave. "Some claim it even predates the village itself. So I’m thinkin’ the hush-hush about it is mostly to hide the goodness it possibly entails."

  Albus sighs, rubbing at his face with a dirt-streaked hand. His skepticism remains, but the hint of curiosity in his furrowed brow is undeniable.

  "I dunno, Cas," he mutters, hurling a fresh scoop of dirt over his shoulder. "It’s the twelve feet thing that’s a little dodgy to me. Who in the hell digs a twelve-foot hole for a corpse? It’s a bloody corpse! What’s it gonna do, crawl out?" He kicks his shovel deeper into the soil with a grunt.

  "Maybe it’s to keep people like us out," Castor muses, running a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. "Stop us from vindicatin’ the priceless things they’ve got hidden away down there."

  Albus exhales through his nose, shaking his head. "Priceless things, yeah." He eyes Castor sideways. "I take it you ain’t joinin’ back in anytime soon?"

  Castor spreads his arms in an exaggerated display of helplessness. "Really, Albus, I feel faint from merely—"

  A loud clang interrupts his whining, the sound of metal striking something solid beneath the dirt.

  Both men freeze.

  Castor, suddenly as lively as a man struck by divine inspiration, scrambles to Albus’ side with surprising speed. He crouches low, peering eagerly at the spot where the shovel connected. His lips split into a wide grin, too large for his face. With an excited shove to Albus’ shoulder, he lets out a victorious laugh.

  "If what they say about this fella is even half true, we’re gonna be rich as hell!"

  ~~~

  Albus and Castor stagger backward, panting from exertion, as they lower the coffin onto the dirt. It is disappointingly plain—aged wood, simple, unadorned. A far cry from the jewel-encrusted sarcophagus they’d envisioned.

  Albus, bent with exhaustion, braces his hands on his knees, a deep frown carved into his face. Whether it’s from the sheer weight of the coffin or the sheer letdown of its appearance, Castor isn’t sure. Probably both.

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  "I’m just sayin’, the coffin’s wooden, Cas," Albus gripes, breathless. His hair sticks to his forehead in damp strands. His entire demeanor radiates exasperation.

  "A diversion," Castor insists, his conviction unshaken. He steps forward, brushing dirt from the top of the coffin. "Probably to stave off dumber people in our chosen profession."

  He fishes out two rusted crowbars and tosses one to Albus. They exchange a look, a silent agreement passing between them before they wedge their tools into the seam of the coffin lid. With a nod, they heave in unison.

  The lid groans, wood splitting as it wrenches free. A thick cloud of dust bursts into the air, billowing out in a choking haze. Both men stagger back, coughing violently, eyes watering.

  As the dust settles, they lean forward in unison, peering into the coffin’s depths.

  And then—

  "It’s a lady," Albus states flatly, his disappointment somehow reaching new depths.

  Castor squints, shoulders rising as he cranes his neck. The figure within is indeed a woman. Dark-skinned, waist-length black hair splayed beneath her in silken waves. She is clothed in a flowing white tunic, unmarred by time, her face eerily untouched by decay. She looks less like a corpse and more like someone in the depths of sleep.

  But what stands out most is the dagger—a gold, jewel-encrusted weapon embedded deep into the right side of her chest.

  Albus groans loudly, running a hand down his face.

  "What a downright waste of time!" He peers into the coffin, searching for hidden compartments. He finds none. "There’s no jewels or valuables in here!"

  "Save for the dagger," Castor says hopefully, his fingers twitching toward it.

  Albus smacks his hand away. "‘Have you lost your marbles, man?! That thing was plunged in there for a reason!"

  "Don’t be superstitious, Albus, it’s unbecomin’," Castor rolls his eyes. "We spent the better part of’ the day diggin’ up this shoddy thing, and I’ll be damned if we don’t get somethin’ to show for it!"

  "Look at the state of the corpse, you git," Albus hisses, smacking the back of Castor’s head. "Older than the village itself, yet still as fresh as the day it perished. Don’t that scream suspicion?"

  Castor pauses, inspecting the woman’s unnervingly pristine face. His eyes linger only for a moment before snapping back to the dagger.

  "It’s probably some new embalmmin’ mixture. Like that weird thing they’ve got goin’ on in Egypt?"

  Without further hesitation, he reaches for the dagger.

  "Castor…"

  "Come off it, Albus," Castor mutters, fingers curling around the hilt. "We’re just gonna take the nice dagger, and toss the body."

  He wrenches the dagger free.

  The moment it leaves her chest, Albus flies for cover behind a rock.

  Castor freezes in place for a few seconds, only turning to his friend with a sigh of relief when the sky doesn't collapse on his head, or something equally dastardly. He takes in Albus' cowardice with a disappointing glare. Sucking air through his teeth when Albus raises up, and sheepishly cleans the dirt off his already filthy outfit.

  “No revenge seeking thunderstorms then?” Castor asks mockingly.

  Albus starts to answer when he freezes. His wide eyes lock onto something just beyond Castor.

  “That's not funny, Albus. Like I'd fall for that one.”

  “C-C-Cas–”

  Castor rolls his eyes at the dramatics. “Don't tell me. Little Miss is up and wants her missing knife back?”

  Then—

  "Little?" a voice murmurs behind him.

  He stills.

  Swallowing thickly, he turns. And the corpse is no longer a corpse.

  I have just one question.” The not a corpse says in a prim accent more superior to theirs. Her eyes narrow in vengeful fury, and Castor would later swear he saw them alight with fire.

  “What day is it?”

  ~~~

  Albus stares, still trying to grasp the absolute madness unfolding before him. The once-buried woman, now pacing furiously, has left the ground beneath her a mess of trampled grass, her rage fueling each sharp turn on her path.

  Alex had not taken the news of the date well. At all.

  When they first told her, the sky had darkened like a brewing storm, and—swear to God—actual lightning had flown from her fingertips, reducing the remnants of her wooden prison to nothing but smoldering splinters.

  Now, the sky remains bright, a stark contrast to the menace radiating off her. The temperature is still warm, but after their exhausting work, it now feels much more tolerable—aside from the very real possibility of being turned to cinders by the angry young woman pacing before them.

  With every turn, her waist-length hair whips around her in untamed waves.

  "Three hundred and forty." The words leave her in an incredulous murmur before growing into an enraged yell. "I've been in a godforsaken box for three hundred and forty years?!"

  As if echoing her fury, the sky crackles once more.

  Albus shifts uncomfortably, inching away from any metallic objects, lest they make convenient conductors. He clears his throat, attempting to find something—anything—that wouldn’t escalate the situation further.

  "An impressive feat," he stammers, his voice not nearly as confident as he wishes it were. "Although we're, ah, mostly confused as to how you might have managed to accomplish that… actually."

  Alex whirls on him, her eyes gleaming with something old and dangerous. "Clearly, I'm immortal, you daft prick."

  No thunder this time. Albus marks that as a win.

  "Makes sense," Castor chimes in, his usual nonchalance somehow remaining intact. He sidles up to Albus and leans in, whispering with the excitement of a man who just uncovered the greatest scam in history. "Imagine bein’ able to steal through numerous time periods, Albus." He sighs wistfully. "I do wish we was immortal as well."

  The dagger in Castor’s grip pulses ominously, the purple jewel at its hilt glowing like a warning. A sudden spark lashes out, zapping Castor’s fingers.

  "Ow!" He yelps, dropping it with a curse.

  "Don’t mess up the knife, she might get mad!" Albus scolds, diving for it.

  Castor recovers first, snatching it up just as Alex spins on her heel again, resuming her furious pacing. Her hair—long, wild, and unmanageable—keeps slapping against her back with each turn. With an aggravated growl, she bats at it, trying to tame it to no avail.

  "What even is all this?!" she exclaims, grabbing fistfuls of it in frustration.

  "What, your hair?" Castor asks, puzzled.

  "Why is it this long and unruly?!"

  Albus frowns, thinking it over. "Well… because it grew?" he offers hesitantly.

  Then again, should hair really grow on someone who was, by all accounts, supposed to be dead? He shrugs. Considering the fact that Alex is currently arguing with them instead of decomposing twelve feet under, he supposes hair growth isn’t the strangest thing at play here.

  Alex stops pacing abruptly and extends a demanding hand toward Castor.

  "Give me the knife."

  At first, Castor doesn’t register her furious gesturing. But when she narrows her eyes, he promptly obeys, handing it over with a suspiciously eager willingness.

  And then he gasps in horror.

  Without hesitation, Alex grips the hilt firmly and lops off nearly all of her hair in a single, swift motion. The severed strands fall to the ground in limp heaps.

  "Madam, you can't do that!" Castor exclaims, a hand flying to his chest as if personally wounded. "You'll confuse a lot of people!"

  Alex levels him with a glare so withering that even the air seems to still.

  Quickly realizing that aggravating an unpredictable, possibly vengeful immortal is a poor life choice, Castor backpedals. "Then again," he amends with an exaggeratedly plastic smile, "you make it extremely fashionable."

  Albus elbows him in the ribs before he can dig the grave any deeper.

  Alex, apparently finished with her impromptu haircut, tosses the knife to the ground—Albus, ever the responsible one, immediately scrambles for it—and instead turns her attention toward something far more important: revenge.

  Her gaze darkens, voice lowering into something cold and calculated. "I am going to hunt down every last one of them and exterminate their race."

  Both men tense.

  "I’ll make it slow. I’ll make it memorable and painful," she continues, her words dripping with venom. "I think I might just manage to make it last 340 bloody years!"

  A pulse of energy surges outward, a violent crack echoing as their abandoned shovels and crowbars explode into tiny, twisted fragments.

  Albus flinches. Then, hesitantly raises a hand.

  Alex turns to him, brow arched in impatient curiosity.

  "What?"

  Albus glances around, making sure there’s nothing else for her to explode before proceeding.

  "Just a bit of mild curiosity, really," he starts, carefully wringing his hands together. "But 340 years later is a bit… lax for organizing revenge against your captors, isn’t it?"

  The look Alex gives him is predatory, all teeth and wicked intent. It is not a smile—it is a warning.

  She steps forward, her movements slow, deliberate.

  Albus stiffens as her arm snakes around his shoulders, the casualness of the gesture feeling anything but friendly. Her touch is ice-cold against his sun-warmed skin, and the way her fingers rest against the nape of his neck feels distinctly like a threat.

  A drop of crimson drips onto his shoulder.

  He looks down.

  Blood trails from Alex’s nose, staining the front of her white tunic. The contrast of it—the eerie, untouched beauty of her face against the stark red of fresh blood—makes his stomach turn uneasily.

  And yet, she smiles.

  "They're warlocks, my good friend," she purrs, her voice carrying the weight of something ancient, something terrifying.

  Then her gaze shifts, unfocused, locking onto something unseen in the distance.

  "You see, warlocks…" she breathes, lips curling at the edges, "they have all the time in the world."

  Albus exhales shakily.

  Oh, bloody hell.

  Nelzux lands roughly, his boots skidding against the dirt as he struggles to steady himself. The moment his feet hit solid ground, Nod shoves away from him with force, stumbling a few steps before whipping around, chest heaving with barely contained fury. His entire body trembles, whether from rage or grief, Nelzux can't quite tell.

  It's a miracle he even managed to stay in flight with all the uncomfortable squirming—not to mention the hoarse shouting that had been drilling straight into his ear the entire way. His head still rings from it.

  Nelzux groans, rubbing at his temple as he watches Nod storm off in the direction they came from.

  "Where are you going?" he demands, though he already knows the answer.

  "Back, to save Kyp," Nod spits over his shoulder, his voice ragged. He doesn’t slow, doesn’t hesitate—just marches forward like he can will the universe to undo what’s already happened.

  Nelzux clenches his jaw, inhaling sharply before pushing to his feet. "Do not be daft, he is probably dead." The words taste bitter, but there's no use dressing them up. He won’t lie.

  Nod freezes mid-step, his shoulders rising and falling in short, sharp breaths. Then he turns—fast, aggressive, his eyes burning like molten embers.

  Nod snaps. "How can you sit there and be so cold? Kyp was one of us! We grew up together, served Nekkar together!" His voice cracks on the last word, raw with unspoken grief.

  Nelzux barely has time to brace himself before Nod is on him again, shoving hard against his chest. His feet drag back an inch, but he doesn’t retaliate. He understands. He feels it too.

  "You think I do not know that?" Nelzux bites back, and for the first time, there’s something dangerously close to breaking in his own voice. "If we go back there now, blinded by grief, we will not be helping anyone. Not Nekkar, not our fallen comrades, and certainly not Kyp."

  Nod lets out a sharp, breathless laugh—humorless, pained. He shakes his head, eyes flitting to the ground as his hands ball into fists. "We took an oath, Nelzux. For us and for our realm." His voice wavers, but there is steel beneath the sorrow.

  Nelzux watches him for a long moment, the weight of their reality pressing down on them both. The wind howls between them, carrying the distant echoes of war, of dying screams that refuse to be forgotten.

  "You were right the first time, Nod," he finally says, his tone quiet but resolute. His gaze hardens, a storm swirling behind his eyes. "Humans are not to be reasoned with." His fingers curl at his sides, knuckles white with restrained fury. "Fear not, comrade, for we are but one trial away from our revenge. Soon, Earth, Velkor, and all of Naetune will pay for their transgressions against us."

  The promise hangs thick in the air, heavy with the weight of what is to come.