The workshop fell still again, the silence thick and suffocating, like fog curling in the lungs. Outside, rain tapped against the warped glass panes with growing urgency, each drop smearing the smeared orange glow of the city beyond—like blood running down rusted steel. Inside, the world shrank to breath and shadow, to dust and firelight.

S.A.B.R.E.'s delicate whirring echoed through the workshop like a distant heartbeat, the spider-bot's metal legs tapping softly along the wooden floor, searching. Thinking.

Calder didn't move.

His eyes stayed fixed on the jagged tooth buried in the workbench, the rune's faint glow pulsing in rhythm with the candle flame. Shadows fractured and stretched across the scarred surface like claws reaching from another world.

His brow furrowed—not in confusion, but something deeper. Older. The kind of weight a man carried only after witnessing too much.

"Where…" he murmured, voice low and hoarse, like gravel shifting beneath heavy boots. "Where'd ye get that, lad?"

Neon didn't answer right away. The firelight glinted off the sweat beading his brow, mingling with the grime and the scent of damp earth that clung to his clothes. He leaned in slightly, fingertips brushing the rune etched deep into the monstrous fang. It pulsed beneath his touch, warm and alive. Like a sleeping heart.

"You recognize it, don't you?" he asked, his voice brittle and tired.

Calder's hand hovered over the dagger—not touching it, just feeling it, the space around it charged with quiet danger. The rune hummed, the candle's flame trembling in its presence.

He didn't speak for a long moment.

Then—barely above a whisper—"Rune of Alchemical Resonance…"

---

His voice carried the weight of a name too dangerous to speak aloud.

"Anything forged from the same essence," he muttered, eyes wide with old knowledge, "it'll shatter on contact. Violently. An' I mean violently, lad."

Neon stiffened. The memory of the beast rupturing—its body tearing itself apart from within, bones breaking like splintered glass, blood evaporating into light—rushed back through his mind like a wave of fire and thunder.

"That's what happened," he whispered. "It wasn't me. It was the tooth. The rune—it made the thing explode."

But Calder didn't nod. He didn't agree. Instead, he reached for the embedded tooth with careful, almost reverent fingers. Slowly, he pulled it free, the rune's glow flaring faintly as the tip left the wood with a sharp crack—like a spark snapping in the silence.

He held it up to the light.

Turned it.

Studied it with the narrowed eyes of a man who had seen too much alchemy go wrong and lived to regret it.

"Naw…" he said at last, the word dragging out like a stone dropped doon a well. "This... this is somethin' else entirely."

Neon blinked, unsure if the poundin' in his ears was his own pulse or the rain hammerin' outside.

Calder's voice dropped low, grim. "This isnae just resonance, lad. This... this bloody thing breaks bonds. Molecular bonds." He shook his head, eyes locked on the faintly glowing rune. "It's no some wee alchemical spark—this is true transmutation. Perfect transmutation." He swallowed hard, throat bobbin'. "No rebound. No mana backlash. No entropy. Nothin'."

The candle flickered hard then, throwin' long, twitchin' shadows across the bench. Calder squinted at it, like it had whispered a curse.

---

"This rune... it disnae belong tae any circle. Not in my books. No the old scrolls. Not even the Black Scripts."

He looked at Neon then—not as a boy, not even as a soldier—but as something unfamiliar. Something uncertain.

"Where did ye get this?" he asked again, voice tight, laced with something rare in him.

Fear.

Neon didn't answer right away. His fingers curled around the edge of the workbench, cold and slick. His heart beat hard behind his ribs, each pulse echoing the rune's thrum. He couldn't find the words yet, not for what he'd seen in that breach—what he'd felt.

Instead, he reached into his satchel with a shaky hand and dropped two more teeth onto the table.

They clattered like bones across the wood.

Each one pulsed with that same unholy light, runes gleaming like old scars beneath the soot and blood.

Calder stepped back instinctively, his hammering breath briefly audible over the rain.

"By the old stones…" he whispered. "They've all got it."

"I'll explain later," Neon said, voice low but resolute, heat flickering beneath the exhaustion. "Right now... can we make bolts out of it?"

Calder stared at him, then at the teeth.

And for the first time in years, the old man hesitated—truly hesitated—between forging a miracle and inviting a curse.

His reply came like an oath carved into iron.

"Aye," he growled, reachin' for his tools. "But if this thing comes back tae haunt us, I swear, it's your name I'm writin' on the casket."