The sound came an hour before dawn, when the Junkyard's perpetual twilight was at its thickest. Not the usual scuttling of glowing rats or the distant groan of settling metal—this was something far worse. The rhythmic clanking and screeching of hydraulics and grinding steel, punctuated by the hiss of overworked pistons. A sound Lucent would recognize anywhere, even half-asleep with his skull still pounding from rawcast backlash.

He was moving before his eyes fully opened, fingers closing around the jagged length of shrapnel he kept tucked in his boot. The metal was cool against his palm, its uneven edges biting into his calluses. Across the dim interior of the shipping container, Kai twitched in his sleep, his breath hitching in that fragile way of someone caught in the throes of a nightmare. The kid's face was smeared with grime, his once-pristine jacket now a canvas of sewer filth and fear-sweat.

Closer now.

The noise set Lucent's teeth on edge. He remembered the last time he'd heard it—a year ago, in the Pit, with the crowd roaring and blood slick between his fingers. The way Nex's knee had given out with a sound like snapping cables. The way he'd screamed.

The container door shrieked open, its rusted hinges protesting violently. Dawn's sickly light spilled in, painting the interior in shades of bruised purple and industrial orange. The figure framed in the doorway was massive, shoulders nearly brushing either side of the entrance. But it was the leg that drew the eye—a monstrous construct of scavenged hydraulics and reinforced plating, the foot ending in three sharpened steel talons that had left those distinctive scratches in the metal outside.

Nex.

King of the Junkyard. The man who'd walked out of the Pit missing a limb, and come back twice as dangerous.

Behind him, silhouettes shifted in the half-light—Nex's usual retinue of freaks. The air turned thick with the stench of stale synth-lube and old blood, undercut by something sharper, something chemical.

"Well, well." Nex's voice was gravel in a tin can, the words distorted by the scar that twisted his lips into a permanent sneer. "Lucent fucking Argyr." His hydraulic leg hissed as he stepped forward, the steel claws leaving fresh grooves in the concrete floor. "Heard someone was trespassin' on my turf." The grin that split his face was more a baring of teeth than anything resembling humor. "And here I thought you'd never set your foot here ever again."

Kai jolted awake with a gasp, scrambling backward until his spine connected painfully with the container wall. His eyes—wide and bloodshot—darted between Lucent and the newcomers, panic rising visibly in the rapid flutter of his pulse at his throat.

Lucent didn't move. Didn't blink. His Conduit, propped against his thigh where he'd been charging it, read a precarious 28%. Enough for maybe one glyph. Maybe.

Nex's gaze—cold and calculating—landed on Kai. For a long moment, the only sound was the rhythmic hiss-click of his prosthetic's pressure valves. Then he laughed, the sound like rusted chains dragging across concrete. "Oh, this is sweet." He took another step forward, the steel claws scraping ominously. "You drag some Spire prettyboy into my Junkyard?" His grin widened. "Guess I never thought you'd bring a present for me."

Kai's mouth opened—whether to protest or plead, Lucent would never know. His boot connected with the kid's shin hard enough to bruise, the silent warning clear: Shut the hell up.

Nex watched the exchange with undisguised amusement. "Cute." He cracked his knuckles, the sound unnaturally loud in the confined space. Behind him, his crew shifted—a wiry woman with a mag-lev rotor saw, a hulking brute with elongated limb augments, a third whose face was half-melted from glyph backfire. All armed. All smiling.

"Now," Nex said, the amusement bleeding from his voice like coolant from a cracked pipe. "You gonna tell me why you're here? Or do we do this the fun way?"

The steel fist flexed, catching the dim light. Lucent still silent and never answering him.

Nex's grin was an intimidating thing, carved deep into a face that had seen too many underground fights. A thick scar ran from his left temple down to his jawline, pulling his smile slightly crooked, giving him the look of a man permanently caught between amusement and rage. His mechanical leg whined as he shifted his weight, the pistons contracting with a sound like bones grinding together.

"Last time you stood across from me," Nex said, his voice like gravel in a tin can, "I walked away lighter." He wrapped his knuckles against the prosthetic. The dull clang echoed through the container. "You remember that, Argyr? Remember how the Pit smelled that night? Blood and burnt meat?"

Lucent remembered.

The fight had been supposed to end at first blood. But Nex had come in juiced on black-market combat glyphs, his eyes blown wide with something more than adrenaline. He'd broken three taboos before the match even started. Lucent had simply finished it.

Behind Nex, his crew fanned out—a guy with melted face twisted in something resembling a smile, the next guy looming near the ceiling with his elongated limbs folded like a spider's, and the last girl's bone saw idling with a low, hungry whine.

Kai pressed himself harder against the wall, his breath coming too fast. Lucent could practically hear the kid's pulse rabbiting in his throat.

Nex's gaze slid to him. "Spire rats usually don't last five minutes down here." He took another step forward, the steel toes scraping concrete. "What's your secret, prettyboy? You somebody's pet?"

Lucent moved before Kai could answer—just a slight shift of his weight, but enough to draw Nex's attention back where it belonged.

"You want to settle old scores," Lucent said, his voice low, "settle them. But the kid's not part of it."

Nex barked a laugh. "Still playing hero." He shook his head. "That's why you're stuck in the gutters, Argyr. No stomach for what it takes to really win."

The container felt smaller suddenly, the walls pressing in. Lucent's fingers twitched toward his Conduit— about thirty percent charge, one mid tier glyph, maybe two if he pushed it. Not enough to take them all. But enough to make an opening.

Then Nex's grin changed.

"Thing is," he said, leaning in close enough that Lucent could smell the stale stims on his breath, "I didn't come here for you." His meaty hand shot out, pointing his finger on Kai. "I came for him."

Kai made a sound like a stepped-on rat.

Lucent's vision tunneled.

The steel toes gleamed in the half-light as Nex walked towards Kai.