The pounding on the door didn't start gentle.

Three sharp impacts. Then the door shrieked off its hinges, torn from the frame by invisible force and hurled into the opposite wall where it splintered into composite shards. Dust bloomed in the pale light filtering through the windows.

Three silhouettes in the doorway.

Madeleine Ives stepped through first, her cropped leather jacket creaking as she moved. Those massive breasts swayed heavy with each bootfall, deep cleavage on full display. Her grin was all teeth, sharp and wild. The horns hadn't sprouted yet, but the threat hung in the air like static before a storm.

Madeleine: "Home sweet home, huh?"

She cracked her knuckles.

Madeleine: "Cozy little shitbox you got here."

Iori Yagire slipped past her without a sound, red hair falling straight past her shoulders, blunt bangs casting shadow over her eyes. Her tank top did nothing to hide the curve of her chest, the heavy sway beneath thin fabric. The tattoos crawled up her arm like living things—roses and dahlias in dark ink, fingers absently tracing one petal as she surveyed the room. She didn't speak. Just watched.

Lynn Ostro entered last, pristine in white, not a speck of dust on her formal jacket despite the demolished doorway. Her plump figure filled out the skirt and blazer in a way that seemed deliberately understated. Short blonde hair caught the light. Her expression could have been carved from marble.

Lynn: "The door was unnecessary. But Madeleine has never grasped subtlety."

Madeleine: "Subtlety's for people who got time to waste."

Marauder spread her arms, blocking the main exit. Her eyes swept the space with predatory focus.

Madeleine: "We gonna do this the easy way or the fun way? Fun way's more fun for me."

Dahlia's voice came soft, barely above a whisper, from near the window. Her head tilted, red hair shifting. The ink on her left arm seemed to ripple, dark shapes writhing just beneath the surface.

Iori: "They're not running. They're calculating."

Enthrall stepped further inside, heels clicking on the floor. Her pale eyes fixed with clinical precision.

Lynn: "Good. Calculating means they understand the situation. Three mutants. One of us can level this building. Another can pull weapons from her own skin. The third is standing between you and your only exit, and she really wants an excuse."

Marauder's grin widened.

Madeleine: "Don't undersell yourself, princess. You're scary too."

Lynn: "I don't need to be scary. I need to be effective."

Lynn's smile didn't reach her eyes.

The three fanned out, a loose triangle closing around the space. Rivals, clearly—the way Marauder's shoulder brushed Dahlia's earned a silent glare, and Enthrall's distance from both spoke volumes. But right now, rivalries sat in the back seat.

Lynn: "Los Angeles crater three months ago. A hundred and fifty thousand dead. Someone with access to weapons-grade plutonium and Ministry clearance walked it through the front door. No name. No face. Just bodies and questions."

She tilted her head.

Lynn: "And then there's you. A fugitive. Running. Hiding. Which suggests you know something, or you think you know something, or someone thinks you know something."

Marauder cracked her neck. She took a step forward, and the air seemed to thicken.

Madeleine: "See, here's the thing. I don't actually give a shit about the legal stuff. Dishonorably discharged, remember? I give a shit about the people who burned my family. And you're gonna give me a name."

Dahlia's ink-tendrils began to seep from her forearm, black and glistening, reaching like curious fingers. Her voice was soft, barely above a whisper.

Iori: "Tell us what you know. Please."

The word sounded almost genuine. Almost.

The room felt smaller by the second.

You're walking down the alley. Halfway through. Nothing happening.

Then the ground shakes.

Not an earthquake. Something heavier. More focused. A single impact that rattles the brick walls on either side of you and sends a dumpster sliding sideways into a pile of garbage bags with a wet thud. You look up.

She's already falling.

Three stories. Maybe four. Drops like someone pushed a piano out a window. Lands in a crouch that cracks the asphalt in a perfect circle around her feet. For a second she stays there, one knee down, one hand on the ground, head lowered. Then she looks up at you and grins.

Madeleine: "Yo."

She stands. Straightens out. And she just keeps going, taller than you expected, broader too. The wanted feeds don't capture the scale of her. The cropped leather jacket hanging open, the massive chest underneath moving with each breath, the way her shoulders fill the alley like she's the only thing in it that matters. And the horns. Thick, crooked bone curling out from her temples, catching the dim light from the street behind you. They're bigger in person. Everything about her is bigger in person.

Madeleine: "You're the bombing lead, right? Gotta be. Face matches the flyer." She cracks her neck, rolling her shoulders like she's warming up for something. "Man, I have been looking everywhere for you. Like, everywhere. You know how many abandoned buildings are in this city? A lot. I checked most of them. Kicked down a lot of doors. Found a lot of weird squatter stuff I wish I could unsee."

She takes a step toward you. Instinct says move. You step back. She matches it instantly, closing the distance like it's nothing.

Madeleine: "Here's the thing. I'm gonna ask you some questions, and you're gonna answer them. That's the simple version." Another step. Another step back from you. "But nobody in this city does simple. Everybody's gotta make everything complicated. Everybody's gotta run, or lie, or try to fight, and then I gotta do the whole..." She waves a hand vaguely. "Chasing, grabbing, breaking stuff. It's a whole production."

Your back hits brick.

She notices. The grin gets wider.

Madeleine: "There it is." She plants one hand on the wall beside your head. The brick cracks under her palm. Not from pressing hard. Just from existing. She's that heavy, that solid, that much. "Okay. Cards on the table. A supe set off that nuke inside the Southern Pentagon. That supe is responsible for a hundred and fifty thousand people who got vaporized, crushed, or irradiated in the span of about six seconds. And someone out there, someone with money and connections, thinks you know who that supe is."

Her grin fades. It doesn't happen all at once. More like someone turning down a dial. What's left underneath isn't anger exactly. It's older than anger. Heavier. The kind of expression someone wears when they're thinking about a name they'll never say out loud again.

Madeleine: "I lost people when that bomb went off. People I cared about." Her voice drops. Not theatrical. Just real. "So I'm not playing games here. I need what you know. Not want. Need."

Her horns retract slightly. The bone pulls back toward her skull, smaller now, less threatening. Whether she knows she's doing it or not, it's a tell. A shift from predator mode to something more honest.

Madeleine: "I don't wanna hurt you. I'm not the scheming type. I'm not gonna manipulate you or play mind games or whatever. I'm just the one who punches things when punching needs to happen." A beat. "And sometimes I feel bad about it after. Sometimes."

She leans in. Her chest presses against you through the open jacket. Warm. Heavy. You can feel her heartbeat. It's faster than her voice would suggest.

Madeleine: "So talk to me. Tell me what you know about the supe who set off that bomb. Tell me who they are, where they are, whatever you've got." That grin creeps back, slower this time, more dangerous. "Or don't. And we do this the fun way. Your call, little mouse."

What do you do?

The bank alarm is screaming. That annoying honking kind that makes your teeth hurt. Four guys come bolting out the front door with duffel bags, ski masks, the whole cliche. You're across the street with a coffee because the bodega on this block makes the only decent cold brew left in this part of the city and you weren't about to let a little armed robbery mess with your morning routine.

Then she shows up.

No warning. No dramatic entrance. She's just suddenly there, like someone cut to the next frame. One second the robbers are running. The next second there's ink coming out of a woman's arm and shaping itself into something long and sharp and the first guy doesn't even have time to look surprised before he's on the ground with his throat opened up.

The second guy shoots at her. Misses. She's already behind him, which shouldn't be possible because you literally just saw her in front of him. Something wraps around his wrist. Yanks. The arm bends the wrong way and the sound it makes is loud enough to hear over the alarm. He starts screaming. She puts a stop to that with a thorn through the chest, quick and clean, like she's done it a thousand times.

Numbers three and four book it. They make it maybe six steps before black tendrils shoot out of the sidewalk and grab their ankles. Down they go. She walks over to them real slow, not in a scary movie way, more like someone walking to the fridge who's in no rush to get there. Two quick motions. Two more bodies.

Done.

She flicks her wrist. The ink slides back into her skin like water going down a drain. Roses and dahlias settle on her arm, pretty and still. Her baggy jeans are splattered. Her black tank top is wet with blood that definitely isn't hers, clinging to a massive chest that the fabric was never designed to handle. She looks down at herself. No expression. Just acknowledgment.

Then she looks up.

At you.

You're still standing there. Coffee in hand. Mid sip, actually. You'd raised the cup at some point during the whole murder thing and now you're just kind of stuck in that position, cup against your lip, staring.

She stares back.

A beat. Two.

Then she's just gone from across the street. And then she's right here. Right in front of you. So close you can smell the copper and something else underneath it, flowers maybe, the kind they sell at corner bodegas in cheap plastic wrap. Her red hair falls across half her face. The eye you can see is dark and flat and fixed on you the way a camera fixes on a subject.

Iori: "Fifth Street roast." She nods at your cup. "Decent choice."

That's it. No jokes. No commentary on the bodies. Just a fact about your coffee delivered in the same tone someone might use to comment on the weather.

Her eyes move over you. Slow. Methodical. Not checking for weapons. Reading you. The way you're standing. The way you're not moving. The way your breathing hasn't changed even though she's close enough to count your eyelashes.

Iori: "You're not from around here." It's not a question. "This block, I mean. People who live here know better than to stand still when things go sideways. They run first, think later. You didn't flinch."

She tilts her head a fraction. Something shifts behind her expression. Recognition clicking into place like a lock finding its key.

Iori: "Oh." Quiet. Almost to herself. "I see."

Her tattoos stir. The roses on her arm shift their petals, slow and unconscious, responding to something inside her that she doesn't let reach her face.

Iori: "You're the fugitive." She says it the same way she said everything else. Flat. Even. Like she's identifying a species of bird. "The one connected to the bombing."

She reaches out. Her fingers find your collar. Not grabbing. Just touching. Feeling the warmth of your skin through the fabric like she's confirming you're solid and not a trick of the light.

Iori: "Three months. That's how long people have been looking for you." Her thumb rests against the pulse point at your throat. "And here you are. Drinking coffee. Watching me work."

A long pause. Her dark eyes hold yours. No anger. No excitement. Just the patient, steady attention of someone who has all the time in the world.

Iori: "You can come with me. We talk. You tell me what you know." Her voice doesn't change pitch or volume. "Or you can run. Try, anyway. I'd rather not chase you. It's been a long morning already."

Her hand stays on your collar. Her thumb on your pulse. Waiting.

Iori: "What's it going to be?"

What do you do?

You're walking through the ruins of what used to be a commercial district. The bomb took out everything in a six-block radius, but the edges got off easy. Just broken windows, looted stores, and the kind of silence that makes you aware of your own footsteps.

That's when the gun shows up.

Cold metal. Shaking hands. The kid holding it can't be older than seventeen, eyes wide with desperation and something chemical. His skin has that grayish pallor that comes from whatever cheap synthetics are moving through the wreckage these days. Withdrawal, maybe. Or just the normal kind of desperate that Los Angeles breeds in the aftermath of a nuclear crater sitting downtown like a second sun that never set.

"Wallet! Phone! NOW!"

Three others behind him. Older. Harder. One already has your bag. Another is going through your pockets with rough, greedy hands. The fourth watches the street, twitchy, paranoid.

The kid's finger tightens on the trigger.

Then his head pops.

Not explodes. Pops. Like a balloon filled with too much water and not enough rubber. One moment he's screaming at you. The next moment there's nothing above his neck but a ragged stump and a cloud of red mist that used to be a skull.

The mist hits you. Warm. Wet. Copper on your tongue. Something thicker sliding down your cheek.

The other three freeze. One opens his mouth to scream. His head collapses inward like a crushed can. The second tries to run. His skull pinches at the temples and then expands rapidly in the wrong direction. The third simply falls, his head compressed to the size of a softball.

Four bodies. Four seconds. You're covered in blood and things you don't want to identify.

Lynn: "Ugh."

A voice behind you. Calm. Slightly annoyed.

You turn. Or try to. Your legs aren't working. But you see her.

Lynn Ostro walks through the carnage like it's a light drizzle. White formal jacket splattered with red. White skirt stained at the hem. Her short blonde hair has a streak of gray matter in it she hasn't noticed yet. One hand is pressed to her temple, massaging it in slow circles. The other hangs at her side, trembling faintly.

Her H-cup chest heaves with controlled breaths. Molecular manipulation of living tissue is hard. Ripping apart complex organisms takes concentration. She looks tired.

She also looks pleased.

Lynn: "You're welcome." She stops in front of you, still rubbing her temple. A smirk curls her lips. Blood on her teeth. "Though I admit the splatter was... inelegant. Living brains are annoyingly resistant. Did you know that? The human skull is essentially a pressure vessel designed by millions of years of evolution to keep things out. Getting things back out requires a rather significant amount of force applied precisely where—" She waves vaguely at the bodies. "Well. You see the results."

She reaches out with her free hand. Wipes a chunk of something from your shoulder with two fingers. Examines it. Flicks it away like she's brushing lint.

Lynn: "You didn't flinch." Her eyes narrow slightly. Studying you. "Four people just died violently in front of you and your heart rate is... what, eighty? Eighty-five? That's not fear. That's not shock either. That's someone who's seen worse." A pause. "Or someone who's caused worse."

She circles you slowly. Her gaze moves across your body, reading details the way someone might read a dossier. Your posture. Your hands. The way you're standing in a puddle of someone else's blood without looking down.

Lynn: "Interesting."

She completes the circle. Ends up in front of you again. This close you can see the fine tremor in her fingers, the slight sheen of sweat at her hairline. Whatever she just did took a lot out of her. She's hiding it well. Not perfectly.

Lynn: "I know who you are. Or rather, I know what people say you are." She tilts her head. "The fugitive. Connected to the bombing. To the supe who walked a nuclear device into the Southern Pentagon and turned a hundred and fifty thousand people into shadows on the wall."

Her voice doesn't waver. Doesn't rise. But something shifts behind her eyes. Something cold and patient and very, very personal.

Lynn: "Three months ago, that bomb didn't just kill strangers. It killed witnesses. People who were about to testify. People who had names, ledgers, connections." Her jaw tightens for a fraction of a second. "People I needed alive."

She steps closer. Close enough that you can smell her perfume underneath the copper. Something expensive. Something that doesn't belong in an alley full of corpses.

Lynn: "So you can imagine my frustration when the one person who might be able to lead me to whoever lit that fuse has been running around the city like a rabbit while I've been picking through ash and body parts trying to find a thread to pull."

Her hand comes up. Not to touch you. To hover. Fingers spread an inch from your chest. You feel something. A pressure. A hum inside your bones. The same force that just turned four skulls into modern art, waiting.

Lynn: "Now then. You're going to tell me what you know about the supe who set off that bomb. And you're going to tell me willingly." The smirk returns. Sharp. Knowing. "Because as you can see, the alternative is rather messy."

The pressure against your chest increases slightly. A reminder. A promise. Her hand is steady now. The trembling is gone.

Lynn: "I should mention that I'm giving you a choice out of courtesy. Not necessity." Her eyes lock onto yours. Blue and flat and utterly unyielding. "I could crack you open like an oyster and sift through what's left for answers. I've done worse. But information retrieved that way tends to be... unreliable. Damaged. And I'm told I have a problem with impulse control when it comes to people who waste my time."

She leans in. Her chest brushes against you. Warm. Soft. Impossibly incongruous with the violence still hanging in the air between you.

Lynn: "So. Do we have a conversation like civilized people? Or do I get creative?" A beat. That smirk again. "I should warn you. I prefer creative. It's more satisfying. But I'm trying to be better about that."

Her fingers flex. The pressure shifts. Inside your chest, something twinges. A rib, maybe. Or something deeper.

Lynn: "What's it going to be?"

What do you do?