They were waiting on the roof of a half-abandoned building with squatters in it; Roy wore his long dark coat with silver trimmings and his infamous half mask with a teardrop jewel hanging from it, while Kieran wore a similar long black coat but with a hood. Below, the road curved lazily alongside a river that reflected the city lights in long, fractured lines.
Cars passed occasionally, their headlights sliding across the water like brief, borrowed stars.
Roy stood near the edge, hands in his pockets, looking down. The height didn’t bother him. It never really had.
Behind him, Kieran lay flat on his back, staring up at the sky with his arms folded beneath his head. The clouds were thin tonight, just enough to blur the stars without hiding them completely. He smiled to himself.
“Whoa,” Kieran said suddenly. “There’s the moon.”
Roy frowned slightly. He hadn’t noticed it on the way up. Tonight was supposed to be a new moon. He hesitated, then glanced up.
“Where?” he asked.
Kieran turned his head just enough to look at Roy, then put on an exaggeratedly stupid voice. “Um, in the sky? Where else, dumbass?”
There was half a second of silence before Kieran completely lost it.
He burst out laughing, sharp and uncontrollable, rolling onto his side and then onto his back again. He clutched his stomach like he’d been punched, gasping for air between wheezing breaths. Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes, spilling freely as he laughed harder, feet kicking uselessly against the roof.
Roy didn’t laugh.
He stared down at him, unimpressed, expression flat in a way that suggested this wasn’t the first ti Kieran had pulled sothing like this and certainly wouldn’t be the last.
“You know what, Kieran?” Roy said calmly, “Fuck you and everybody you love.”
Kieran waved a dismissive hand through his laughter, unable to respond properly. “Worth it,” he managed between gasps. “Absolutely… worth it.”
Roy turned back toward the edge, eyes returning to the river below. The city didn’t react. The stars didn’t shift. If anything, the night seed mildly amused.
Eventually, Kieran’s laughter burnt itself out, leaving him sprawled on the roof, chest rising and falling unevenly. He wiped at his eyes and sat up with a grin that hadn’t dimd in the slightest.
Then headlights flared below.
A single car turned off the main road and rolled toward the fenced periter of the old plant near the river. The place had shut down years ago. It was stripped, abandoned, and left behind once it stopped being useful. The gates were open now, bent and forgotten, with weeds growing through cracked asphalt.
Roy noticed it at the sa ti Kieran did.
Their moods shifted instantly.
“On ti,” Kieran murmured.
Roy straightened, gaze sharpening as the car disappeared into the shadow of the facility. No alarms. No lights flicking on. Just the low hum of an engine dying and silence reclaiming the space.
They didn’t speak as they moved.
The descent was practised, efficient, and without flair. From roof to fire escape to ground, their movents were economical, almost bored. This wasn’t new. It wasn’t exciting. It was just sothing that needed doing.
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Inside the plant, the air was stale and tallic, thick with dust and echoes. Old machinery lood like skeletons of sothing once alive. The car sat near the centre, doors open, its occupants already moving deeper inside.
Roy and Kieran waited.
Then, when the mont ca, they went into the plant. Their footsteps barely made a sound against the concrete, boots finding familiar rhythms in unfamiliar terrain. The inside was colder than outside, the kind of cold that lived in walls and never quite left. Rusted catwalks crisscrossed overhead. Pipes ran along the ceiling like exposed veins. Every surface carried the mory of purpose, even though purpose itself had long since abandoned the place.
The people from the car were already ahead of them.
Roy counted quietly. Three sets of footsteps. asured. Careful. Not amateurs. He caught Kieran’s glance and lifted two fingers, then three. Kieran nodded once, grin gone, body coiled into sothing sharper.
They followed at a distance.
The deeper they went, the more the plant changed. Less open space. More narrow corridors. Control rooms with shattered glass. Panels ripped open, wiring spilling out like intestines. Soone had been here recently. Not just tonight. Recently, recently.
“What that?” Kieran murmured under his breath, eyes flicking to a scorched mark along one wall.
Roy nodded. He felt it too. A wrongness in the air that had nothing to do with dust or decay.
The deal point was in the old turbine hall.
A massive open chamber, ceiling lost in darkness, the river faintly audible through cracked concrete walls. Moonlight, or what little there was, filtered through broken skylights, cutting the room into pale geotric shapes.
In the centre of the hall sat a reinforced case, matte black, etched with runes that humd faintly even from a distance.
The artefact.
Artefacts are items imbued with alot of prana than an average item; this may be due to many reasons, like staying in a place with a high density of it.
Due to the reason they are imbued with alot of prana, they can have special effects on sothing or soone. This artefact that they were after has the ability to accelerate natural healing without causing mutations or dependency.
It was called The Cradle.
Solenne ntioned that it would be very beneficial for the whole organisation since Roy wouldn’t have to always heal.
Roy felt it before he really saw it. A pressure behind the eyes. A low vibration under the skin, like the world was holding its breath around that object.
The three figures stood near it, arguing in low voices.
“…price wasn’t supposed to change,” one of them hissed.
“Plans change,” another replied. “Especially when you’re late.”
Roy and Kieran took positions behind separate columns, splitting naturally without discussion. This was the mont they’d prepared for: observe, confirm, extract. Clean and quiet.
Then Roy noticed the wires.
They weren’t part of the artefact’s containnt. Too crude. Too rushed. They ran from the base of the case outward, disappearing beneath the floor plating, converging toward a device bolted hastily to an old generator housing.
Roy’s eyes narrowed.
That wasn’t theirs.
He scanned again, faster now. The scorch marks. The disturbed dust. The way the artefact’s hum wasn’t stable; it stuttered, like a heartbeat skipping beats.
He looked at Kieran and made a small, sharp gesture.
Bomb.
Kieran stiffened. His expression shifted from focused to sothing almost annoyed.
Of course.
Before either of them could move, one of the n near the case swore loudly. “What the hell is that sound?”
The artefact pulsed.
Each one getting quicker than the last.
The hum deepened, vibrating through the hall, rattling loose debris from the ceiling. The bomb answered with a thin, rising whine.
Roy didn’t hesitate.
“Not our job anymore,” he muttered into Kieran’s ear as he moved. “We’re leaving.”
Kieran glanced longingly at the case. “But…”
“Another organisation got here first and rigged it,” Roy snapped. “Which ans we’re expendable.”
That did it.
Kieran grinned, sharp and feral. “Say less.”
The third pulse hit harder.
One of the n shouted, panic breaking through discipline. “It’s ard—who ard it?”
Roy and Kieran were already moving.
Roy vaulted a fallen railing, boots hitting the ground hard as he sprinted for the side exit. Kieran followed, laughter bubbling up despite the situation, adrenaline turning fear into sothing dangerously close to joy.
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