The workshop was a warzone.

Not of swords or spells, but steel, fire, and purpose.

The table had become a battlefield of blueprints and burning metal, its surface swallowed by curls of parchment, half-melted schematics, and loose bolts still hot to the touch. Tools clanged sharp against iron. The forge roared like a beast roused from slumber, casting wild shadows that lunged and twisted across the soot-streaked walls. Sparks burst in bright arcs—tiny comets lost in the swirling haze of smoke and dust that clung to every breath.

S.A.B.R.E. scuttled across the floor in a frenzy of movement—its thin legs tapping with rhythmic urgency, mechanical eyes glowing like embers. It moved like a surgeon mid-crisis, snatching up gears, adjusting clamps, tightening rivets with impossible precision.

Neon hovered over the workbench, pale and trembling. His breathing was shallow, every inhale rattling against ribs that felt carved from glass. The blueprint beneath his hands curled at the edges, heat-warped and smudged with oil and soot. He jabbed a finger toward the core mechanism, his voice hoarse and tight, desperation making it sharp.

---

"Repeating construct. Mini-sized. Auto-loaded." His words came out between clenched teeth. "Can we etch the rune? Onto the bolts?"

Across the room, Calder paused. The old alchemist stood stripped of his coat, sleeves rolled high to reveal forearms laced with old burns and new sweat. Soot streaked his cheek and temple. He'd been working the forge for hours, face lit by molten glow, jaw clenched tight against exhaustion.

"Ye an' yer bloody machines..." he muttered, shaking his head as he ladled glowing metal into a narrow mold with a hiss loud as serpents. "Aye. We'll make it. But dinnae count on gettin' any sleep this night, lad."

Neon gave a tight nod. He looked ready to drop, but the fire in his eyes kept him upright—barely.

Calder wasn't finished. He turned, holding up a copper plate freshly pulled from the etcher. A faint rune pulsed dimly at its center, no brighter than dying coal. It was a pale imitation of the one carved into the beast's tooth. Weak. Flickering. Wrong.

---

"I cannae replicate it," Calder said, voice dropping low, almost reverent. "Not like that dagger. The rune's nae just carved. It's embedded. Like the bloody thing was born with it." He nodded toward the tooth-blade clamped in the vice, its jagged edge still catching stray licks of forge-light.

"Ye see that glow? That's nae ink, nor etching. That's essence, I'd wager. Burned into bone with fire older than any spellbook I've touched." He hesitated, then glanced toward the darker corners of the workshop. "We'd need more than teeth to copy it. We'd need part o' the creature's spirit. Its core."

Neon stared. "But the dagger—"

"Naw." The word snapped like a whip. Calder stepped closer, eyes fierce now, no longer a master craftsman but a battlefield veteran staring down a cursed relic. "That tooth won't yield, lad. I've handled relics from the ash pits of Arkenvale, reforged Gravium, even danced wi' Aeternium once. But this?"

He gestured toward the dagger gripped in the vice.

"This thing fights ye. I tried splittin' it once—just once. Nearly cracked the grindstone and set the bench on fire. Dinnae touch it again unless ye want the whole bloody workshop in the sky."

Still, they tried. Carefully. Not with the dagger, but the other teeth Neon had brought.

---

Calder worked the wheel slow, the grindstone whispering its way down the jagged edge of a splintered fang. The sound was dry, rasping—like wind dragging bone across stone. Every turn released a faint, curling dust, sour on the tongue and laced with the stench of burnt ozone.

As they shaped each fragment into bolts—slim, sharp, and purpose-built—the old man muttered beneath his breath, prayers or curses. Maybe both.

Some teeth cracked. Some resisted. But ninety survived.

Each bolt held only a sliver of the original rune—fractured, unstable, but alive. They pulsed faintly in the candlelight, a breath behind each glow, like hearts trying to remember how to beat.

Neon leaned in, sweat dripping from his brow, running down the hollow of his throat. The forge painted him in harsh gold, shadowing his sunken cheeks and the bruised crescents beneath his eyes. His hands trembled, skin scorched with heat and strain, fingertips blackened with soot and blood.

Not fear. Not anymore.

Just the weight of what was coming.

Of what he had to become to stop it.

He hovered over the final bolt. The rune flared faintly beneath his shadow. One breath. Two.

And then—

"Let's end this," Neon whispered. His voice was rough stone, but steady. A vow spoken in fire and smoke.

Behind him, Calder lifted his head. And for the first time that night, he didn't scoff or curse. He just nodded, slow and solemn, like a soldier sealing a tomb.

"Aye, lad," he said, voice soft but iron-wrought. "Let's send it tae the pit it crawled from."