Diamantis sat in the center of the room. The lights were dead, his fingernails had been torn out, fingers smashed with a hammer. He was left in the dark, broken, bleeding, and regenerating slowly.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
All he could do was think. Focus.
He'd connected his mind to Visca once before—just before he was captured in Raval. That connection had been enough to warn him. Enough to tell him about the white-haired affected, and the fact that he'd been taken.
That was why backup had arrived.
Now, he just needed to do it again. To reach out. To tell Visca where he was, if he could get through, maybe they would come faster.
He exhaled slowly. His fingers tapped against the armrest of the chair.
"Focus..." he whispered.
"On what?" a voice replied from the dark.
The lights snapped on.
Two eyes stared directly into his.
Not the inquisitor.
But someone else—the affected he'd deemed too far gone down the human path. Someone who, in his eyes, had been not worth saving.
Diamantis held his gaze as two more figures entered behind him, Sabrina, and another. One he vaguely remembered from the Raval battle.
He leaned back slightly, blood still dripping down his arm. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"
Gran approached slowly, the only sound in the room the steady thunk of his boots on the metal floor.
No one spoke.
Massiah stepped back, silent, his eyes locked on Diamantis.
Without warning, Gran swung his leg forward. A brutal kick that slammed into Diamantis's chest, sending both chair and body crashing against the wall. His torso recoiled, a sharp grunt echoing through the room.
"You don't know how lucky you are," Gran growled, "How lucky you are that Sabrina's standing behind me. How lucky you are that you just happen to have the tiniest piece of information we need."
Diamantis coughed, blood splattering at his feet.
His head dipped, chin touching his collarbone.
"All of it was calculated," he rasped. "Every decision made to ensure my survival. Not sure how much of that you can call luck."
Massiah was beside him now, the smaller exterminator's voice brushing just behind his ear.
"What were you focusing on?"
Diamantis didn't respond.
If he could reestablish the link with Visca, he'd make sure to warn him about two people.
Massiah.
And the one who'd effortlessly killed the hybrid they'd created.
These two were dangerous, too dangerous to be left alive.
"I don't know," Diamantis finally said, voice dry. "It's been a rough couple of days. Who wouldn't want to... reflect on better times?"
Massiah didn't blink. "Such as?"
Diamantis looked at him. Smiled.
He wanted to say Raval. But he was afraid. Afraid that Massiah would swing fast enough to take his head clean off. Instead, he tilted his head slightly and gestured with what remained of his hands.
"What do you want now?" he said, eyeing his torn nail beds. "They haven't even grown back yet. So I don't see why you're here—"
"Your friends are here," Sabrina said coolly, finally stepping into the conversation. "Doesn't seem like human myutants are all you can control."
Diamantis turned to her with a smirk.
Of course help had come. He was too important to Visca—too valuable. But what he didn't know was who had come.
"You must be scared of them, huh?" he said with a laugh, voice gravelly. "What's your side's death toll now? Thousands?"
Sabrina only tilted her head.
"It doesn't seem like he's here to save you, though," she replied, folding her arms. "Half the Myutants are already dead, and those doors haven't budged. Are you sure these are your friends?"
Diamantis held her gaze, saying nothing.
"Some friends you've got," she continued, only further agitating him. "Slaughtering civilians, throwing themselves at our exterminators... Doesn't look like you're very high on their priority list."
Still no answer.
But inside, Diamantis seethed. However, he wouldn't give her the satisfaction. This was bait, a psychological ploy and he knew it. She wanted him shaken, second-guessing Visca.
Not happening.
His eyes drifted, slowly. Past her shoulder, to the door. To the small one-way glass window just beside it.
He could see through it.
And on the other side stood Ansel Coulter.
Pale.
White
Incredible.
A perfect mutation, Diamantis thought. His genetics had twisted beautifully. It was so tragic the boy didn't know what he truly was.
Diamantis inhaled slowly, calming himself even further.
He tried to feel the ground shake, any proof that backup was still in the city, he couldn't. But his panic didn't show outwardly, instead he listened for the sound of his heartbeat—one, two, three. Stable pumps. A steady rhythm.
"Harkkavel..."
His eyes shot open, he'd found the connection. But he didn't want to talk, not here, not in front of them.
"Knox is on his way to you," Visca's voice echoed through his mind, faint and distorted, like it passed through an ethereal speaker. "Do you have eyes on the white one?"
Diamantis glanced again toward the window.
At Ansel Coulter—unmoving, unaware. "Yes."
Sabrina glanced at him.
"Good. Knox will bring him back." Visca said, his voice fading. "You have been a wonderful servant."
Diamantis stiffened. Something was wrong. "...What do you mean by that?"
Everyone in the room had stared at him, wondering if he'd gone mad.
"You are no longer of use to me." Visca's voice was colder now, distant in a different way. Detached. "Reclaiming you will only drain our siblings further. There's no value in your return. Do not be troubled. Another will take your place."
Diamantis shot forward, chains scraping and clattering across the floor. "What do you mean another?!" he snapped. "I'm still useful! My powers—my control—I can still serve the cause! Don't discard me like this!"
"Harkkavel." A final, clinical whisper. "You completed your task. That is enough."
And then silence.
The voice was gone.
The link severed.
"Who are you talking to?" Sabrina asked him, her hands pressed against the table.
After everything he'd done for Visca, after all he had given. Tortured, beaten, humiliated, all because he believed help was coming. Because he believed he mattered enough to be reclaimed.
But that wasn't the case.
They weren't here for him.
They were here for the white-haired one.
The affected he had told them about.
He wasn't even worth the trouble and to that end, Knox would kill him. Knox was coming to kill him.
His hands trembled against the armrest. He didn't need to hear it. He knew. Knox would find this place. And when he did, he would take Ansel, but not before tearing his head from his spine.
The boy had never liked him in the first place.
Diamantis swallowed hard. His voice broke the silence, hollow and deflated. "So this is how it all ends."
Sabrina leaned forward, her gaze narrowing. "How what ends?"
Diamantis turned to her, defeated. There was no point in protecting anymore. This was the end of his life. Knox would merely be the final punctuation. But maybe, before that, he could still be useful. Even just once more.
"What do you want to know?"
Sabrina didn't waste the moment, asking. "What was the Raval myutant?"
Diamantis met her eyes, speaking. "A human. Pure of heart and body," he said. "He was transmuted by us. Transformed into the hybrid."
Sabrina's eyes widened. "Transmuted? What do you mean?"
"Just like the pollutant forcibly evolved and changed wildlife," Diamantis said calmly, "we can do the same to humans. But without my presence—" he whistled, "they fall apart like meat off a bone."
Her jaw tightened. "What are you? What are all of you—?"
The ground rumbled beneath them.
Diamantis only laughed, lifting his head toward her with a half-smile.
"Far to the north," he said, voice low, "on a small isolated island buried in eternal winter... lies a village. Perched atop the ice, untouched by time. There, you'll find your answers. Either in your blood—or in the blood of my family."
Sabrina froze.
"Winterglaides..." she muttered, the name escaping before she meant to say it.
Her hand flew to her earpiece.
She knew someone from there. Someone that could verify the information that was being given.
The line connected. "Arsenal, are you there?"
"...Yes," Arsenal replied.
"What's your current situation?" She asked, already having made a call to border patrol earlier.
"Most of the third grades have been wiped out. Civilians are secured at the shelters. However..."
Sabrina didn't wait, "I've rerouted additional Border Patrol to reinforce the area. Return to base now. We need your assistance—urgently."
Arsenal paused at the end of the other line.
Then as if in a rush said. "Sabrina, I'M WITH THE—"
The line cut off.
Sabrina pressed her fingers to her earpiece, tapping again. Nothing but silence. Had the relay towers been hit? Interference, maybe, but the timing couldn't have been worse.
Still, Arsenal had received her last message. He'd be here soon.
"Who was that?" Massiah asked, eyes narrowing.
"Arsenal," Sabrina replied, "Third grade. Messed-up mindset. You'd like him."
She turned fully now, squaring up with Diamantis again.
"What's on that island?"
"A warehouse," he said without pause. "That's where the hybrid was created. The one you faced in Raval."
Gran stiffened. "You're making more?"
Diamantis didn't answer right away. He lifted his gaze to the ceiling, eyes landing on the piercing glow of the overhead lights. The soft almost inaudible noise now soothing against his ears.
Then his voice came low, deliberate.
"The pollutant... it wasn't a fluke. Not some industrial tragedy. Not the byproduct of a failed experiment."
He looked down, locking eyes with Sabrina.
"It was a gift. A reckoning. Divine intervention, not from some distant deity, but from the world itself."
Sabrina's brow creased.
He continued.
"Humanity is a forgone conclusion. A race destined to devour itself. Weak. Pitiful. Incapable of ever becoming something more," he said. "The pollution gave you that chance—one chance—to become something better. To embrace evolution. Perfection. And yet..."
He looked at all of them.
"You stand here. Pure. And utterly useless."
"Pure... you think the affected are superior?" Sabrina asked and Massiah turned toward him, silently echoing the question with his stare.
"Not yet," Diamantis said, "But they stand at the edge of perfection, so close... yet still so far." He leaned forward. "It's only when they meet the masked one, that they'll understand. That they'll truly see how unsightly you all are."
"The masked one?" Sabrina asked, her voice taut. "Who is that?"
Diamantis grinned, ear to ear.
"He is our savior. A ruthless force who will cleanse this world. A god who will carve through the remnants of the old, and bring forth the age of the perfected human."
Then—
The lights cut.
A loud bang echoed through the building as red warning strobes ignited along the ceiling. Yellow emergency lights flickered to life, bathing everything in a dull hue.
Ansel and Dahlia burst through the door, weapons drawn. In a heartbeat, they all flanked Sabrina, shielding her with their bodies. Her eyes never left Diamantis.
"His name," she demanded. "What's his name!?"
Diamantis opened his mouth.
"His name is—"
"You've said too much."
A voice slithered in from the darkness.
Blood sprayed across Sabrina's face as Diamantis's head slipped free from his shoulders, landing with a wet thump into the hand of the intruder.
His body collapsed in silence.
Massiah moved instantly—faster than a blink. His leg swung wide through the air.
But something caught him.
A tendril, thin and glistening like blood drawn into thread, wrapped around his leg mid-kick. It yanked him violently sideways, sending his body smashing through the reinforced wall.
Knox exhaled softly, brushing hair from his eyes.
His gaze found Ansel.
The boy stood frozen, hair stark white, face pale, grey eyes wide. His mutation was visible. Incredible.
Knox's eyes lit up.
"You," he whispered, reverent.
"You are amazing."