“What did you just say?” The question escaped his mouth before he could catch it. Not because he didn’t understand her words, and more because his mind refused to take them at face value.
He stood there blinking under the blue downpour, feeling like an actor who’d forgotten his lines mid-performance and now had to wait for the next cue to arrive.
“Hah! Too braindead to clean your ears?” Of course CC took any chance she had to needle him. He couldn’t even be mad about it; that was just her nature, easy enough to grasp. Nothing particularly complex going on inside that empty head of hers. It would almost be refreshing, if not for how obnoxious she was. “You’re wasting your time, Tei. We don’t need their help.”
“I don’t think you need me to repeat myself.” Teitai paid little consideration to her partner and addressed Neon directly. Though her stance had regained its unyielding edge, she had stopped advancing. That said, she also didn’t look about to retreat. “And I can assure you that we’re not going to force you into anything.”
>> “You either accept and we can move on to something more productive, or you can refuse and we’ll part ways here.”
She got under Neon’s skin far more than CC ever could, particularly due to how difficult it was to measure if she could be trusted or not. Teitai was far too controlled, far too locked behind wall after wall of concrete-solid discipline. A while back she had called this madness, yet she spoke about it like she was discussing her next shift at work.
So she was either lying, or nothing could ever phase through her steel composure. Neither of those possibilities felt exactly comforting.
And when in doubt, experience had taught him that it was wiser to lean towards caution.
“Yeah, I’ve heard a sham sales pitch before.” Neon finally managed, flames rekindling along his fingertips —not as a threat, but as a reminder that he still had options. If this was an attempt to manipulate him, Teitai had a whole world of other things coming. “Pretty at first sight, rotten at the core. So thanks, but we’re going to pass on the whole join-my-cause routine.”
>> “Would you mind taking away your lotus thingies from my buddy now? Since we’re all at peace and such?”
“Ungrateful piece of… You’re so lucky I’m under this rain or I’d…” CC’s yapping quickly faded into background noise territory. She could bark as much as she wanted to, didn’t mean he’d listen.
What mattered were the shifts in Teitai’s expression. Or at least he wanted to call them that, but it was little more than a subtle twitch of an eyebrow tightening in annoyance. Neon guessed they didn’t amount to much. Yet. He was more than ready to keep testing the boundaries of that alleged altruism until it cracked.
“We’d be stronger if we joined forces. You’re smart enough to see that, Neon.” Her words came measured, but they gradually began to drop lower. “It should be obvious under this rain. If more people band together, then…” She cut herself off then, delivering a tired sigh at the realization that it was useless after all.
To be honest, Neon had expected her to keep escalat¡ng, in that slow burn of false kindness giving way to ultimatums, and then anger. The typical false messiah playbook. Instead, Teitai chuckled lightly. Not with mockery, but with… Fondness?
“You have a similar nature to your partner. You two fit each other.”
Wawawah? For the second time, Teitai had managed to get his mental gears stuttering. Since when in the hell had Nomine entered this equation?
“Fine. Have it your way. I’ve said my piece.” Teitai’s expression softened, genuine melancholy flickering through those deep eyes. “As for your request, I can’t remove Light Infection from Nomine. Not because I don’t want to, but because my skill doesn’t work like that. I can only detonate them, and somehow I doubt you’d appreciate that solution.”
>> “Here’s the thing, though. I can only trigger them if they’re in my sight. So if you don’t cross us ever again, he’ll be safe. I hope you can find that acceptable, and that there’s no more fighting between us.”
If this was her strategy… How damned insidious it was.
Teitai continued unpacking the mechanics of her augments without hesitation like she had nothing to hide. The transparency made his teeth ache, because the more she spoke, the more reasonable she sounded. The more trustworthy.
Maybe it was his own idealism doing the heavy lifting. That persistent, foolish part of him that wanted to believe in people, that kept searching for the good even when practice had taught him to stop looking.
What was he even doing anymore? What was he hoping to achieve by maintaining this defensive posture? What did it say about him if he shunned the extended hand just because he feared the concealed knife?
The rain felt deafening in the silence that followed, its rhythm matching the oppressive churn of his thoughts. Teitai’s approach had been forceful, certainly, yet still somewhat peaceful. This didn’t seem like their first rodeo, they were too coordinated for that, and the result was this chokehold lock he and Nomine were now under.
Yet they could’ve been way more ruthless. And Teitai chose not to be. That alone made her offer all the more convincing.
But this choice wasn’t his to make alone. No matter what big words he could throw around, Nomine could barely even be considered to be working alongside him. The veteran operated on his own wavelength, which made any hypothetical alliance even more of an offshoot.
Thinking about Nomine led Neon’s eyes to drift towards him, discovering he had drifted even closer to Whisper at some point. Whether this was his move or not, it was almost funny to see the old man almost ready to faint just from the proximity alone. Stormy Weather was probably the only thing keeping Black Metal from cutting him down to shreds.
And Neon found himself… Unwilling to let that happen too. If there was a resolution where none of them had to die, then…
Regardless! Nomine appeared relatively at peace with himself. Not aggressive, or even particularly tense. His posture had mellowed from combat readiness to something more contemplative, knuckles taping his lower lip with a pondering expression that could’ve meant anything from planning ten murders to wondering what was for dinner.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Their eyes met across the clearing, but gosh was he not even close to reading a damn thing behind that carefully maintained veneer of his. Whatever calculations were taking place in that inscrutable mind, they belonged to Nomine and Nomine alone.
So this was for the better.
“We are leaving, then.” Neon finally spoke, words coming out more dejected than what he intended despite his best effort to sound neutral. He ended up lowering his gaze soon after, unable to keep eye contact with Teitai, with any of them. “Try not to get killed out there.”
Was it just the tactical defeat that made this taste so bitter? Denying that part of him was futile, he did want to win. But at the same time, this conclusion felt wrong for very different reasons. Almost like walking away from the mine all sorry-looking while the diamonds rested just a pickaxe swing away.
“A shame.” The sentiment seemed to be mirrored by Teitai —minus the silly detours, at least. Her voice softened with regret, rigidness easing just enough to reveal a human beneath the armor. “Since we may never see each other again… Would you like to have water or food before leaving? The last member of our group should be cooking as of now, and I don’t mind sharing.”
“Tei! You can’t!” CC’s protest came sharp and immediate. Her constant disagreeing ended up costing her leader a bashful scratch of her head.
“Ah, well… You can call it just my hunch, but…”
>> “I seriously doubt Neon’s a bad kid.”
Kid!? Something about that statement felt insulting. How come he had already been categorized as harmless!?
“But…”
Slow realizations crept to silence CC’s protests. Whisper… Had never been a hostage? Was it his own overthinking getting the better of him, seeing manipulation strings where there was only cooperation?
Since when had he become like this? What kind of broken instinct made kindness register as more suspicious than crude cruelty?
The questions made him feel small. Pathetic. Like he’d lost some essential part of himself somewhere between his previous life, his death, and whatever this new reality was supposed to be. Like he’d been rewired into someone who couldn’t accept a meal without asking for the pricetag first.
“Don’t look so troubled. Just take it. Her offer.” Nomine’s voice emerged inside his mind like a ghost bleeding through static to disturb his self-recrimination. The mental link between them —the connection that went so unused Neon could almost forget existed— suddenly felt intimate in a way that made his pulse stutter. “You need it anyway, no? I can deal with them if they try anything funny.”
His reassurance felt like a weight lifted from his chest, sudden and dizzying. A permission Neon hadn’t realized he’d been hoping for, validation from the one person whose judgment actually mattered to him.
And just like that, Neon became all the more aware of how wrecked he was. How his legs trembled with exhaustion. How his throat felt like sandpaper. How adrenaline had abandoned his veins to leave him hollow and brittle.
“Alright, I’ll bite. Where’s the catch?”
Teitai’s eyes brightened slightly at his reluctantly spoken words. For once, Neon was far too tired to overthink whatever that might mean.
“A catch? I suppose there is one.” Of course there was, but even with how little she knew of her, Neon already anticipated it’d be something underwhelming. “You’ll have to come with us to our hideout. No strings attached, promise.”
“Don’t get it twisted!” CC’s fingers jabbed towards him. Again. Why was it that she antagonized him so much? Was it because he didn’t let her roast him back then? “If I see you trynna backstab us I’m gonna make sure you regret it!”
“Just… How do you even do it?” Neon looked at her finger, then at her face, questioning more out of exhaustion than actual curiosity. “To never get tired of all the yelling, I mean. That’s gotta be your trait, right? Lungs of Steel or something like that?”
The mighty, fearless leader ignored their bickering and directed her attention towards Whisper. Her voice lost none of its authority, despite the gentleness she employed. Seemed like severity was part of her natural cadence.
“Mr. Degree, we’ve reached an agreement here. Could you ask Amelia to please make a pathway for us?”
Having the name of the missing teammate so casually dropped made Neon’s eyes drift across the clearing, measuring everything. The extensive network of Light Infection marks, the marks left behind in the soil by their coordinated ambush the moment he and Nomine arrived. The mention of a hideout…
All of it organized. All of it built in less than a single day.
It gnawed at him a little. Not out of jealousy, but something uncomfortably close to it. Admiration mixed with inadequacy. He and Nomine could barely exist in the same space without friction, while Teitai had secured an inter-team alliance, established a base, and was now trying her hardest to get both of them under her wing.
And she was doing it while knowing Nomine was a veteran. Someone who’d survived a chaos like this before. Yet at no moment had she appeared intimidated by it. Never hesitated, never questioned. Just measured him, found him manageable, and extended the invitation anyway.
Neon couldn’t help but wonder. Was she recklessly idealistic? Or dangerously stupid? The distinction felt important, though Neon couldn’t articulate why yet. Maybe because he recognized himself in those choices —that stubborn insistence on seeing potential friends where anyone sensible would only see risks.
Was he truly any different? Standing there, getting more and more tempted by the second to play the same game, to believe in what she offered despite all the red flags.
Oblivious to Neon’s internal dilemma, Whisper’s hands released with a weary sigh that seemed to carry the weight of decades. The very moment his fingers separated, the blue rain ceased as if someone had simply turned off a faucet.
Neon’s entire body tensed involuntarily. Now would be the perfect moment for Nomine to strike. No more Stormy Weather to hold him back. No more forced pacification field to keep his blade sheathed.
But the veteran stayed in place. Whisper was mere inches away, and Teitai had several marks scattered throughout his body. Instead of attacking them, Nomine simply popped his neck and stretched his arms like he’d been holding an awkward pose for too long. Scary.
Teitai began her retreat towards them, and so Neon equally fell into step, wringing the bright blue liquid from his shirt and shoving his soaked hair out of his eyes.
CC took it upon herself to become his personal escort, dropping back from her beloved Teitai just so she could scowl at him. Up close, Neon could now see smaller details that distance and motion had hidden —like dark brown roots in her hair showing through a cheap dye job just like his, or a chipped tooth visible in her perpetual sneer.
She looked young. Younger than him, even. Hard to tell with all the childish anger in her face. It made Neon question what exactly had a brat like that done to earn herself a convict sentence. He supposed the same mystery applied to Gnaw, Soreisan, and Nomine. What crime warranted getting thrown into something like this?
A rumble cut through his thoughts, traveling up from beneath the jungle. It wasn’t an earthquake. This thing propagated like a signal across an underground set of cables, subtle at first, but undoubtedly moving closer.
He searched their faces for an explanation. Teitai wore an expression of patient anticipation. Whisper sagged with fatigue, looking relieved that his role was complete without anyone getting hurt. CC on the other hand just grinned in the nasty satisfaction of someone thinking they were about to prove a point.
So it was their doing, these tremors. Their hideout wasn’t some cave they’d claimed as shelter, or a clearing they’d fortified with makeshift walls. It was a creation, and unmistakably the work of yet another unknown augment.