A/N: Enjoy Chapter
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[Thieves Landing, Abandoned Workshop]
Smoke coiled from the forge's vents, curling in thick ribbons that clung to the ceiling like ghosts. The flames inside snapped and hissed, eating through metal without pause. Nearby, scavenged Fallen plating—chest rigs, pauldrons, rebreathers—lay in uneven stacks, still marked with scorch and blood, like trophies waiting for purpose.
Pahanin stood over a workbench, sleeves rolled, hammer striking steel with practiced rhythm. Sparks flared with each blow.
"So," he said, not looking up, "what's the endgame here? We've been gutting gear for days."
Void fed more pieces to the cauldron sitting on the forge, melting down their pile of Fallen scraps, "Just a temporary job, we'll need these short term."
"Right." Pahanin struck again, the hammer slipping against the grain. "And Spider? You planning something, or just stalling for heat?"
Void didn't answer immediately. He closed the intake and wiped the ash from his palms.
"Spider's more than just an investment. If anything, he's our lifeline on the shore. In shorter terms, he's leverage."
Pahanin glanced at him, silent.
Void gestured to the half-forged armour lining the table, "The Shore's the biggest black market in the system. Glimmer moves here without names, without ledgers. If you want to build something... it starts here."
Void walked towards the workbench, "But this place runs on rules. Old ones. Spoken in grit and gunmetal. Doesn't matter how clean your gear is. If you don't learn those rules, they'll strip you for parts."
"Whether we like it or not, the Fallen have been trading on the shore for decades. Smuggler crews, Syndicates, you name it they have it. Every crew, every syndicate—smugglers, pirates, scrappers—they all follow the same code, even if they don't admit it."
"On the shore, profit and loss are the same side of the coin." Void grinned.
Pahanin's grip on the hammer slipped, "What?"
"You saying the trade's just a shell game?" Pahanin frowned.
Void chuckled, and nodded once.
"Two sides to every coin here—profit, and loss. But the trick on the Shore is knowing they're the same side. The house always wins. Because the house is the syndicate."
He tossed a melted chunk of plating onto the table, "Prices change. Stock shifts. Supply vanishes. Not because of scarcity. Because someone decided it was time to tighten the leash. One crew's shortage is another's surplus. It's not trade. It's theater."
"No Vanguard. No Tower. No laws but theirs." Pahanin muttered.
"Everyone knows the Shore's just a front, a monopoly for the Syndicates to trade their stolen goods. Hell, the House of Devils is their biggest trader. The Syndicates might not like each other, but they still cooperate to make sure the Shore stays in their hands. If we put up shop here, they'll starve us before we know it."
Pahanin paused, one eyebrow raised. "So Spider's part of the monopoly?"
Void's gaze didn't shift, "somewhat."
"He is the monopoly," Void replied. "At least on this half of the Shore."
"Then why hit him?" Pahanin asked, hammer paused mid-air. "If we need him, why not talk? Cut turf, split margins."
Void shook his head slowly, "Because talk means compromise. And compromise with Spider just means letting him pull the strings."
"Trust me, he's the type to bleed us dry the first cycle, double-cross us the next."
A silence settled. Then Void looked at him fully.
"We don't need terms. We need dominance. No whispers. No lines blurred. The Shore has to remember one thing."
Pahanin tilted his head. "What's that?"
"That we're not here to share."
He set the hammer down. "And if he doesn't like the terms?"
Void looked up, tone even. "Then he gets the same message the rest of the Shore will."
Pahanin turned from the bench, wiping his hands, "Bold for just two people."
Void smiled, "We won't be, I've got a plan."
He stood, tossed a battered set of Fallen leg armour to Pahanin."Help me rebuild these. We've got a few days before the next strike. Paint them black. Heavy. Make sure they don't look like anything Fallen would wear."
Pahanin caught the armor, frowning. "You're building an army."
Void turned back to the forge. "Not quite."
Then over his shoulder, voice low: "Let's just say I'm building a shadow."
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[Spider's Base]
A few days had passed. The Shore had gone quiet.
Crews moved slower. Chatter thinned. Even the air felt lighter—emptied of tension, like a storm had passed.
Most of Spider's enforcers believed it was over. No more bodies. No leads. No attacks.They'd swept the Shore end to end, flipped every corner of Thieves' Landing—and came up empty.
The consensus? The ghost had blinked. Maybe the patrols worked. Maybe the mercenaries did their job. Whatever it was, the threat had passed.
But Spider knew better.
He'd lived too long, dealt too deep. No one hit a smuggling line with that kind of precision—twice—and simply vanished. Whoever this was, they weren't opportunists. They were professionals. Patient. Surgical.
And they weren't working alone.
To strike like that required more than firepower. It took intelligence—inside knowledge. Trade routes, shipment codes, rotation patterns. His rotations. Perhaps someone had bled information.
Which meant the real game hadn't started yet.
So Spider made his move.
"Bay Four," he rasped to his quartermaster. "Prep the crates. Five-man escort. Full loadout."
The crew nodded and moved.
Then he added, "Fill them with detcord. Every crate. Link them all to a trigger—remote-detonated."
Low, guttural Eliksni chatter echoed in the chamber. Spider waved them off.
From his throne, he watched the crates get hauled out under torchlight. He beckoned another quartermaster, tossed him a short-range communicator.
His grip tightened on the throne's armrest.
"If they show—anything at all—you draw them in. Make them feel safe. Then you light the whole thing up."
He rubbed his brow, tension crawling into his breath.
"Leave nothing alive."
The Eliksni quartermaster clicked his jaws in acknowledgement and vanished into the gloom.
Spider sat back.
'Let's see how clever these ghosts are when they're ash'
The bunker gate opened, revealing a sky of fractured stars. The squad disappeared into the dark, their shadows bleeding into the void behind them.
As the gate sealed shut, the hinges hissed.
But somewhere, in the far corner of the dark——a ripple stirred. Subtle. Silent.
And watching.
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[Thieves Landing, Docks]
The stars above the Shore glittered like cold eyes. The shipment was underway. The air smelled of ozone and old oil, salt clinging to every breath like a warning.
Five Fallen enforcers in rust-red armor moved through the lot, weapons drawn and visors active. The crates were bulky, sealed with biometric locks. Inside: nothing but coiled death. Detcord.
Enough to level half the dock. A trigger was rigged into the squad captain's belt—one twitch of the claw, and everything vanished in fire.
Spider's voice buzzed faintly in the captain's earpiece. "Keep formation. Watch the roofs. They must be watching you."
The Eliksni hissed acknowledgement. They were veterans—scars on their hides, kill tallies painted in blood—but even they were quiet tonight. Their strides were slow. Precise. Deliberate.
The kind of movement that came from instinct, not discipline.
Something was wrong. That was certain.
The squad reached the loading gantry. Lights hummed. Shadows stretched long behind cargo pylons. One enforcer knelt beside the crate and opened a maintenance panel. The others spread out, scanning.
That's when the wind changed.
A faint breeze swept across the dock. No sand. No scent. Just a chill.
The Fallen captain straightened. His Jaw clicked, tightening.
Another beside him trained his finger on the trigger. A shudder ran through him.
They looked around. The distant clanking of Thieves' Landing had stopped. No grinding winches. No hollering from smugglers. Even the seabirds were gone. It was unnatural. The kind of silence that settled over a battlefield seconds before the killing started.
"Is it clear?" Spider growled. But only his voice echoed.
No one answered, as if tongue tied. But they could feel it, any word spoken was certain death.
The Spider continued rambling on the comms channel, but after a while there was nothing but faint static.
The Fallen captain scanned the skyline—scopes sweeping towers, cranes, and ruined rooftops. His claw hovered near the trigger. Ether clouded his visor.
Then—
A clang.
Subtle. Soft. Behind a container. A scrap of metal tipping over.
All five spun in unison, rifles aimed. Nothing. Just a rusted loading arm and a flickering lantern.
One clicked his mandibles, unsettled. They crept forward.
Another clink. This one sharper. To their left. A glint of motion—gone in a blink.
The squad opened fire. Purple bolts streaked through the dark. Sparks flew. The loader exploded in a burst of flame. Silence followed, thick and unbroken.
Nothing.
The squad regrouped. Their steps now shuffled. Jittery. They turned in circles, tracking every corner, every rooftop.
"Who's there?" Spider barked again, "What do you see?"
Then a Dreg spun wildly—his rifle shaking.
thk. His hand hesitantly traced his comms, he replied, "Just shadows, ghosts. Nothing else."
A sharp, wet noise. His voice cut off.
"Keep. Looking." Spider grumbled.
The squad followed, scanning the surroundings. But as the Dreg approached a dark corner.
He slipped.
The entire Squad jerked, their eyes darted to him.
He was gone. Not just dead—gone. No body. No scream. Just a smear of blue blood across the surface and a single clawed gauntlet lying on the floor.
"Regroup!" the captain barked. His claw rested on his belt, ready to detonate—
But his eyes wandered. Where were they? Who were they?
Before he could even say another word, something moved in the shadows.
He barely turned at blinding speed. The remaining three fired in all directions, blind and panicked.
But their shots found nothing. Shadows moved between bolts. Something leapt from the catwalk, passed through the beam of a spotlight—and vanished.
Another dropped next, his leg severed cleanly, dragged screaming into a side hatch.
As the gunfire echoed over the comms, Spider felt his blood boil. He barked in Eliksni.
"DO IT. DO IT NOW. DETONATE"
His gravelly voice reverberated, but the Captain was paralyzed with fear. With only two left with him, the Fallen captain was shaken.
He backed up slowly, shuddering. His rifle sights illuminating the dark docks. Then he saw an outline ahead of him.
There were two. Humans. Or rather, phantoms. His finger tapped the trigger, bullets rang out. But the phantoms seemed to weave through.
With one claw on the detonator the Captain continued firing. He barked over the comms, "Targets spotted."
"Blow them up. NOW!" Spider roared.
The captain roared in Eliksni, then slammed his claw on the detonator.
Light swallowed the world.
A thunderous eruption consumed the dockyard—crates, gantries, walkways, and flame. Shockwaves shattered windows across Thieves' Landing. A towering fireball lit the sky, reflected in the eyes of those watching from rooftops and alleys. The tremor rolled outward like a titan's heartbeat.
Then came silence again.
Spider leaned forward on his throne, breath shallow, mandibles flaring. "Report…" he rasped.
Nothing.
He sat back. Slowly. Thoughtfully.
"…It's done."
But the moment he exhaled, something shifted.
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