It was only after leaving the front doors of the hall could Mateo realize how much of a softie Reeves actually was.
Two days ago, she'd taken them out for a real dinner before they entered the war zones—not rations, but actual food at a restaurant. Yesterday, she'd let Seraphine lash out about Ben's reassignment. And now she was letting Seraphine stay behind to "keep watch" instead of forcing her through patrol rotations.
Mateo was starting to think her first name "Petal" fit better than he'd originally assumed.
But that softness—if that's what it was—sat strangely against everything else. Yesterday's debrief had been clinical, efficient. Three villains encountered. Numbers likely to increase exponentially. No time to waste, no space for hesitation. The tremors in the distance were getting stronger, the flashes of light more frequent. The war was creeping closer to their doorstep, and Reeves knew it.
So why was she being gentle with them?
"Do you think she's going to be okay?" Maya asked Marina as they put distance between themselves and the base.
Marina walked in silence for several steps before responding. "I think so. I think she has abandonment issues—that's why she reacts this way to losing people. But she's stronger than she looks."
Maya nodded, but Mateo caught the doubt in her voice. They were all feeling it now—the weight of being so few, so fragile. Team B-3 had lost Ben to reassignment, then Amara to the shadow that had taken her.
Mateo pulled on his gauntlets, feeling their familiar weight settle around his hands. Then came the helmet, and with it, that strange sense of invulnerability that he'd never quite understood. He didn't know if was because he modeled the horns to match his brother's—didn't want to ask—but when the metal sealed around his head, he felt like nothing could touch him.
Like Alec himself was watching over him.
The illusion lasted exactly as long as it took for the hall doors to open behind them.
"I thought you were staying to man the base?" Alex asked, turning back as Commander Reeves emerged with an M4 assault rifle slung across her shoulder.
"Seraphine's handling that. Anon's inside for communications." Reeves's voice carried that same clinical efficiency from the debrief, but something in her posture seemed different. Tighter. "I'm conducting my own reconnaissance. I have some... suspicions I need to resolve."
The words hung in the air like a challenge. When she saw their expressions, she forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"I'll be fine. I'll rendezvous with you at the scheduled time. Now move out, soldiers."
Before turning away, she called over her shoulder: "Do not take any lives. Immobilize only. Resort to lethal force only if there's no other option."
Then she was walking in the opposite direction, rifle held with the casual competence of someone who'd used it before.
Mateo watched her disappear around a corner and felt the familiar itch of suspicion. He knew Reeves could be kind—he'd seen evidence of it multiple times now. But she was also firm, unyielding when it mattered. Yet she'd offered Eschart freedom if she switched sides, even suggested lying to defend her. When the possibility of a mole had first surfaced, Mateo had immediately suspected one of the other teams.
But what if it was their commander?
Where was she really going? And why did she need to go alone?
If she was the mole, though, wouldn't she wait until they were completely out of sight before making contact? The timing felt wrong, too obvious. Unless that was the point—hide in plain sight, act suspicious enough that they'd dismiss the possibility as too obvious.
Mateo shook his head, trying to dislodge the conspiracy theories. He had one mission to focus on, and paranoia would only make him sloppy.
The two teams split up—B-1 heading north, B-2 moving east through the skeletal remains of what had once been Ashdrift's commercial district.
Another patrol. Another list of things that could go catastrophically wrong.
The streets stretched ahead of them like the ribs of some massive corpse, empty storefronts staring back with broken-tooth windows. In the distance, flashes of light painted the horizon in brief, violent colors, followed by tremors that made the rubble dance. The war was getting closer.
The team walked mostly in silence, Amara's absence a weight they all carried differently. Akira's usual sharp alertness had dulled to something more like resignation. Alex's bouncing energy had been muted, though she still scanned their surroundings with predatory focus. Henrik remained Henrik—if Amara's loss affected him, it didn't show in his posture or expression.
Mateo found himself recognizing landmarks that felt like ghosts. Mrs. Chen's convenience store, boards nailed over windows that had once displayed colorful advertisements. The old woman had given him instant noodles when he didn't have any enough money to pay for it that day. The arcade where work his ass of trying to earn enough for Atlas Academy's application fee. The Cemetery—a six-story apartment complex with rooms barely larger than coffins, where he'd lived for two years after his family died.
His memories of this place had been miserable at the time. Now, walking through its corpse, they felt almost nostalgic.
"I think we should take a break."
The suggestion came from Alex, who didn't look tired so much as restless. They'd been walking for two hours without encountering anything more threatening than wind-blown debris. The silence was oppressive, broken only by distant explosions and the occasional scatter of rats through the ruins.
It was the same kind of quiet they'd experienced yesterday, right before everything went to hell.
"Did what happened to Amara teach you nothing?" Akira snapped, her voice sharper than usual. "This isn't a game. We can't just stop because we're bored."
"Relax," Alex said, though her tone carried less of its usual cockiness. "We follow Reeves's orders. As long as we stick together, we should be safe."
"Being together didn't save Amara," Henrik growled and Mateo saw Alex flinch slightly. "Safety is an illusion. The only thing that matters is being ready when it breaks."
"I know that," Alex said, and for the first time since Mateo had known her, she sounded almost defensive. "But I feel like we've been missing something since we got to this base. Something important."
"And what might that be?" Akira asked, eyebrow raised.
"Training."
As she spoke, Alex gestured toward the building they'd stopped in front of. Mateo was surprised he hadn't noticed it immediately—The Underground, Arx's gym, where he'd spent countless hours pushing his body to its breaking point.
"Training?" Akira repeated incredulously. "You want to work out while everything's falling apart?"
"Think about it," Alex continued, and Mateo caught something in her voice—not quite desperation, but close. "It's not just about getting stronger. You all feel it, right? Like there's energy trapped under your skin, trying to claw its way out? Don't you want to hit something?"
None of them nodded, but Mateo saw the recognition in their faces. They did need something—a villain, a fight, some way to channel the frustration of losing. Of being helpless.
"What if someone corners us inside?" Henrik asked.
"Then we handle them," Alex shrugged, but Mateo noticed her hand drift toward her weapon. "You can keep watch if you want."
"I can send Dong to scout," Akira said slowly, warming to the idea despite herself. "Keep an eye on the perimeter."
The suggestion appealed to Mateo more than he wanted to admit. For the past two years, plus his week at Atlas Academy, physical training had been his anchor. It kept him grounded, focused, gave him something to control when everything else was chaos. The familiar burn of muscle fatigue, the satisfying impact of flesh against resistance—maybe that's what he needed right now.
But there was one obvious problem: the gym was locked. A metal padlock the size of his palm hung from the security gate like a challenge.
"Did Arx give you a key?" Mateo asked. Alex's uncle, the burly gym owner who'd somehow managed to maintain this place at the edge of a war zone. Mateo hoped he and his family had made it safely to the capital. "Because I don't see how you're going to—"
He didn't get to finish the sentence. Alex extended her hand, fingers spread, and the gate simply caved inward as if struck by an invisible wrecking ball. Metal screamed against concrete as it collapsed onto the gym floor with a crash that echoed through the empty street.
"There wasn't a quieter way to do that?" Henrik winced, but he was already moving toward the entrance.
Akira sent Dong skyward in his raven form while the rest of them filed inside. They really needed to use that scouting strategy more often—having eyes in the sky was invaluable in urban combat.
Dust motes danced in shafts of light streaming through grimy windows, and the air carried the familiar cocktail of old sweat, mildew, and rusting metal. Rows of treadmills and elliptical machines sat silent, their digital displays either dark or flickering with erratic power. The wall-to-wall mirrors were spider-webbed with cracks, some missing entirely and leaving dark rectangles of adhesive residue. Paint peeled from the walls in long strips, revealing layers of color underneath like geological strata. Motivational posters hung askew or had fallen completely, their corners curled and water-damaged.
The building had once been designed for energy, for pushing human limits. Now it felt stagnant, forgotten.
"God, this place reeks," Alex grimaced. "Worse than I remembered."
Henrik moved with his usual silent efficiency, selecting a fifteen-kilogram dumbbell and beginning a series of controlled curls. His black tactical gear made him look like death taking a casual workout.
Akira headed for the training dummies, where an orange human dummy hung from a reinforced pole. Within seconds, she was attacking it with her fists and the Japanese war fan she kept strapped to her waist, each strike carrying more violence than technique. She was beating the dummy like it had personally offended her.
Mateo knew exactly where he needed to be.
The heavy bag in the corner looked like it had survived twenty years of abuse—duct tape wrapped around tears, the leather cracked and discolored from countless impacts. It was exactly where he'd left it, and seeing it felt like coming home.
He threw his first punch with the hydraulic system in his gauntlets fully activated. The last time he'd used this feature at Atlas Academy, he'd fractured his forearm. Since then, he'd been working on power modulation and impact absorption.
He created a slime cushion between his suit and skin, then let his fist connect. The bag shot forward like a pendulum, swinging far beyond what any normal human punch could achieve. And he barely felt the recoil.
"You're not really training if you're using special equipment," Alex said, appearing at his left side and beginning to work the bag with her bare fists. Her movements were fluid, unrestrained, almost perfectly efficient. It made Mateo jealous—she had a natural confidence in combat that he'd always had to fight for.
"Fine." He stripped off his gauntlets, letting them clatter to the floor like shed skin. Then he settled into his stance and threw a real punch. His knuckles connected with satisfying force, sending vibrations up his arm and into his chest.
This was what he knew. This was what made sense.
Soon he was lost in the familiar rhythm: jab, cross, hook, uppercut. Punch after punch after merciless punch against the battered leather. His mind drifted through his catalog of failures—losing to Eschart, being helpless against the man in the white coat, arriving too late to save Amara. Further back: his early confrontations with Alex at Atlas Academy, his fight with Brett, the moment he'd realized he couldn't save the people who mattered most.
He hadn't realized how much frustration he'd been carrying until now. Maybe Alex had been right for once. Channeling his anger into something physical was helping, even if it didn't actually fix anything.
Minutes passed with nothing but the sound of impacts and heavy breathing. Mateo was drenched in sweat when he finally paused, pulling off his helmet halfway through to cool down. At almost the same moment, Alex stopped as well, breathing hard.
For a moment, they were just two exhausted teenagers in an abandoned gym. Then she spoke.
"You feel it too, don't you?"
Mateo turned his head slightly. "Feel what?"
She scoffed, looking away. "You know what I mean. The uselessness. The frustration. Even when you do your best, it's not enough."
The words hit closer to home than Mateo expected. He'd never thought someone like Alex—confident, powerful, seemingly invincible—would have those kinds of doubts.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I do."
He could feel her eyes on him as he bent to retrieve his gauntlets. They'd spent enough time here. It was time to go.
"Why do you fight, Mateo?"
The question stopped him cold. Alex wasn't conversational, at least not with him. Their relationship had been rocky from the moment they'd entered Atlas Academy—especially with her pinning him against a wall because she thought he was underestimating her. They'd developed a working partnership during team exercises, but they'd never really talked. Not like this.
"Huh?" he asked, genuinely confused.
"Ugh." She groaned, running a hand through her hair. "More than a week ago, when I came to help Uncle Arx pack up, I saw you here. Late at night, punching this bag like it was your worst enemy. Back then, I thought you were like me—that you wanted to be a hero because you loved fighting, loved the challenge of combat. But now..."
She trailed off, and Mateo saw something vulnerable in her expression. Something almost fragile.
"All my life, I thought strength was everything," she continued. "That if you were strong enough, you could handle anything. But now I'm not so sure. So I'm asking—is that why you fight? For the love of it?"
Mateo's breath caught. This was the longest conversation they'd ever had, and possibly the most honest thing Alex had ever said to him.
"I think I told you before," he said carefully. "I fight for the people I care about."
It was a variation on the truth. He fought to avenge the people he cared about—his mother, Alec. But as he said the words, he realized their meaning had shifted. Now he cared about his teammates, about Henrik and Akira, about the other members of Class 1-B. He'd risked everything to try to save Amara. He'd even jumped into danger to save Alex herself.
When had his motivation become so complicated? When had his drive for revenge gotten tangled up with actually caring about people who were still alive?
Alex moved closer, and without his helmet, Mateo felt exposed, vulnerable. She was close enough that he could smell her shampoo—something honey-scented that seemed impossibly normal given their circumstances.
"Am I on that list?" she asked softly. "The people you care about?"
Mateo's mind went blank. Then they both jerked apart as crackling static filled their earpieces.
"Requesting backup from Team B-2," came a voice through the comm system. Akira and Henrik immediately stopped what they were doing to listen. The voice was tight with stress, maybe fear. "Two dangerous villains spotted at the Conwood Hotel."
A pause, filled with the sound of something heavy hitting something else very hard.
"Come as fast as possible."
Mateo recognized the voice: Inferno. He jammed his helmet back on while the others grabbed their gear, and they rushed toward the gym's exit.
He'd have to process what had just happened with Alex later. There had been other signs—her giving him ration packages without being asked, leaning close during their confrontation with Eschart to tell him that she wasn't alone. And now this. He hoped he was just imagining it.
But he had bigger concerns. He'd heard the tremor in Inferno's voice, and that was terrifying. This was the son of the third-ranked hero in the world, someone Mateo had nearly died fighting during Atlas Academy's final tournament.
What could they possibly be facing that would shake someone like that?