The café is too quiet. Shadows crawl across the broken tiles, dancing lazily in the slanting light of the overhead fixtures. The tables are mostly empty—except one, where tension hangs as thick as smoke.

  Alex sits with her arms crossed, her posture relaxed but her glare could strip paint. Across from her, Rick and Henry fidget like schoolboys about to get caught. The silence stretches thin, taut like wire.

  Rick’s voice cuts through the stillness, his words like a final, desperate plea. “Alexandria, we need you. You are the only one who can dispose of the crystal.”

  Alex doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. Her voice slices the air clean. “Nope. Uh-uh.” She leans back in her chair, steel in her spine. “First, you lie to me. Blackmail and then trick me into agreeing to fight. Now you want me to swallow the alien equivalent of an atomic bomb?”

  Rick leans forward, hands clenched. “You feel hurt and betrayed, we get it. We'll sort this all out later, right now we can’t afford to let our greatest weapon sit on the sidelines.”

  Alex arches an eyebrow, stills of Alexander flashing through her mind.

  Her head tilts. A dangerous glint flickers in her eye. “Weapon?” Her voice is velvet, soaked in centuries of rage. “How charming. Makes me nostalgic for the guillotine and witch hunts.”

  Rick growls in frustration, tugging at his hair like it’s the only thing keeping him from lunging across the table.

  “If we could be serious for a moment,” Henry says. His voice is soft, but it silences the room like a gunshot.

  Alex tilts her head, eyes glinting with untethered fury. “Do I sound amusing to you, Henry?”

  Henry hesitates, his mouth opening, but then closing again as if considering his words carefully. “I didn’t say that—”

  “Enough.” Rick’s fist slams against the table, rattling the salt shakers. “These people are barbarians. They've spent the last millennia laying waste to everything in their path. You cannot sit, and choose to do nothing!”

  Alex stands slowly, her voice low, lethal. “My sitting and doing nothing is probably the only reason you’re currently still breathing.” Alex spits, remembering similar situations with extremely contrasting reactions. Bloodier reactions. “So, you’re welcome.”

  Rick snaps. The table flips, crashing to the floor in a splintering mess. Still, Alex doesn’t blink. Just stands there with that unshakeable calm that’s more terrifying than any scream.

  “Okay!” Henry raises both hands like a man trying to stop a runaway train. “Let’s just breathe.”

  “I think I'm perfectly calm,” Alex replies coolly, turning to the window. Her eyes narrow. “considering the nonsense you and your father have been trying to pull all day.”

  Henry steps forward, guilt creeping into his voice. “Alex, we didn’t mean for it to go like this.”

  “I’ve been manipulated by you, Henry. Twice now. That’s two times too much.” she snaps, turning on him.

  “You brought me out here, by machinations of your own design. You knew I had the crystal on me, and that the aliens would follow me home. Maybe you thought they'd ruffle me up just enough to lose my temper and what, wreak havoc?” A thought flashes through her mind, and her eyes harden. “Did you run Chris over too?”

  Henry pales. “What? No—Alex, no. We knew he’d give you the crystal, but that was it. I swear to you. I’d never hurt Chris.”

  But Rick interrupts, his voice low and steady, but filled with urgency. “This whole plan hinges on you. If you’re not involved, everyone on Earth dies.”

  Henry’s frustration snaps. “Dad, you’re not helping!”

  “Well, she doesn’t seem to understand what’s at stake here!” Rick retorts, his voice rising. He turns to Alex, his eyes filled with desperation. “What do you think happens to innocents in war, Alex?”

  Alex lets out a bitter laugh. “Please. Don’t act like you’re suddenly a humanitarian. If Henry could leave, you’d both be halfway to a moon colony by now.”

  Rick’s fists clench at his sides. “But he can’t! And I have to make sure he gets to see another day. And so help me, Alex, he will see another day, even if I have to trick and manipulate you over and over again into helping us!”

  Alex sizes them both up, her gaze flicking between father and son, her mind racing. She opens her mouth, ready to cut them down one more time, but her words freeze in her throat as a sudden, chilling presence fills the room.

  The air shifts. A pressure change, subtle and sudden, like the breath before a lightning strike.

  Then the wall explodes.

  Fraker—twisted, resurrected, and utterly monstrous—bursts through the drywall like a missile, hurling Rick and Henry aside like leaves in a storm. His glowing eyes lock onto Alex with vicious glee.

  Before she can move, Fraker’s laser vision slams into her chest, flinging her across the room. Her body hits the wall with a sickening crack. She crumples to the ground, disoriented and gasping for breath. Her vision blurs at the edges, a dark cloud of exhaustion pulling her down.

  Through the haze, she hears Rick’s voice. Distant. Warped. Her limbs refuse to respond.

  Fraker’s boots thunder closer. “You snapped my neck,” he growls. “Rude.”

  Fraker tests his neck. The one that Alex is dead certain she twisted not even two minutes ago.

  He stops, then grins. Recognition lighting up his face. “Alexandria Jordan. And the crystal. Two for one. Damn, I’m good.”

  She groans, blinking away blood. “If you’re another alien, I am done for the night.”

  “Alien?” he snorts. “Sweetheart, I’m as American as baseball and arson.

  She stumbles to her feet, stance defensive despite the scrapes on the side of her face knitting themselves shut. “If you’re a regular human, I’m half kangaroo.”

  Fraker chuckles, dark and gleeful. “I heard all about your quick wit. You won’t believe this, but I've studied you more than I've ever done anything else in my life. And let me tell you—stories don’t do you justice. But they all agree: if someone wants to make a name for themselves, they go through you.”

  “You still have time to walk away,” she says, a finger picking at the frayed elbow on her jacket. “I’m even willing to forgive you for messing up my jacket.”

  Fraker grins. “And miss the chance to kill you?”

  Alex returns the smile even colder, her lips curling into a knowing smirk. “Bold of you to assume you’ll be doing the killing here.”

  Fraker’s eyes burn red, and before she can react, the blinding flash of energy blasts toward her. It’s fast. It’s brutal. But Alex is faster.

  With the precision of a dancer, she dodges left, landing in a crouch with a brutal knee that connects with Fraker’s jaw. He winces, blood spilling from his busted lip—but his enhanced healing is already kicking in, and his jaw resets with a sickening pop.

  Fraker roars, a sound more beast than man, and charges. His fists swing wild, fueled by raw fury, but he’s too slow. Alex is already moving, weaving past each blow with the honed precision of a thousand battles. She grabs his head mid-lunge and slams it into the wall. The plaster gives way with a crack, dust and paint chips exploding outward.

  Again.

  And again.

  And Again.

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  Each strike tears his skin open and halts his regeneration mid-process. His skull hits brick, splits open—and yet he doesn’t drop. The Corporal is a thing of unnatural will, stubborn even in dismemberment.

  With one final slam, Fraker’s head punches through the brick like a wrecking ball. His body sags—but only for a second. He snarls, rising with demonic force, eyes glowing brighter than before. He reaches for something behind his back.

  The obsidian blade gleams with a sick kind of malice as he unsheathes it and lunges. He drives it straight into Alex’s abdomen.

  Her scream is sharp and sudden, a sound torn from somewhere deep and ancient. The force of the stab pushes Fraker forward into her, but she uses that momentum—plants her feet, clenches her jaw, and hurls him backward with all her strength.

  Fraker sails through the café, crashing through the front glass doors. The windows shatter in a violent cascade, glittering shards raining onto the sidewalk like confetti at a funeral.

  Alex staggers, clutching the knife buried in her stomach. Her blood pours out in rhythmic waves, soaking her shirt, her hands, the floor.

  Fraker limps back into the wreckage, laughing. His eye is split open, healing as he grins.

  “This is so much fun,” he says, voice wild and giddy. “I’m almost sorry about Chris having to die.”

  Alex’s fingers find the knife’s handle. She grips it tight, yanks it free. A white-hot scream claws at her throat, but she shoves it down.

  She won’t give him the satisfaction.

  Blood drips in thick streaks down her side. Her vision swims, but she stands. Barely.

  “You know,” Fraker drawls, pacing slowly through the broken glass, “with all the legends about you… I thought you’d be more of a challenge. This?” He gestures to her trembling form. “Pathetic.”

  Alex coughs. Blood spatters onto her lip. But her eyes gleam.

  Her smile is razor-thin. Cold. Icy enough to freeze stars. “He declared,” she rasps, “after cheating.”

  Fraker’s smile vanishes. He lunges again.

  His hand clamps around her throat and lifts her. Her back hits the wall. The knife clatters from her grip, spinning across the tile. She kicks, claws, but he’s stronger than before. Unnatural.

  “I wish we could play a little more,” he says, voice slick with contempt. “But I’ve got places to be. People to kill. You know how it is.”

  His eyes light up again—bright and deadly, aimed straight for her head.

  A gunshot rings out, the sound sharp and clear, cutting through the chaos.

  Alex collapses to the floor, as Fraker lets go of her, her body crumpling to the floor. Her vision blurs, her breath shallow.

  Fraker staggers. A hole blossoms in his lower back, sizzling.

  He turns.

  Henry stands in the doorway, arms trembling, the gun still aimed. His knuckles are white.

  “Oh, you stupid kid,” Fraker snarls, blood running down his spine. “You should’ve stayed down.”

  Alex coughs from the floor, one eye half-closed. “Funny,” she croaks. “I was gonna say the exact same thing to you.”

  Fraker’s head snaps to the side just as every metal object in the café lifts from its surface. Knives, spatulas, silver trays, iron stools—all suspended in the air like they’ve been caught in a magnetic storm.

  Henry and Rick dive under a table.

  Fraker doesn’t move. Just stares. “...What the hell?”

  The metal flies.

  It’s a blur of silver and steel, a screaming cloud of fury. Dozens—no, hundreds—of blades tear through the air, slicing through Fraker’s armor, his flesh, his screams. Knives punch into his shoulders. Forks stab into his gut. A whisk embeds in his cheekbone. A soup ladle slams into his temple with the force of a brick.

  The storm is relentless, furious, and merciless.

  Fraker collapses. The barrage doesn’t stop. It rains down until there’s nothing left but a twitching, broken body impaled a hundred different ways.

  Silence falls.

  The only sound left is Alex’s breathing—shallow, rasping, but victorious.

  She stumbles backward, slumps into a chair with the grace of a collapsing building.

  “I think I vaguely remember why I’m done with this line of work,” she mutters to herself.

  Henry peeks from beneath the table. “Holy shit.”

  Fraker’s body is a grotesque masterpiece. Forks jammed through his eye sockets. A pizza cutter lodged in his shoulder. His chest rises once. Twice.

  Then doesn’t.

  Rick slowly approaches, nudging Fraker’s body with his foot.

  He doesn’t move.

  “Pincushion,” Henry mutters. “He looks like a human pincushion. Made of… IKEA.”

  Alex exhales, sharp and pained, then glances at the blade on the floor.

  That knife.

  Her voice is hoarse. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  Alex stares maliciously at the discarded dagger. The blade hisses faintly in her grip, almost alive. She slaps it onto the nearest table with a clatter, the sound ringing through the ruined café like a gunshot.

  It gleams in the fractured light—slick with blood, yet pristine. Its obsidian surface swallows the glow, while the purple jewel set into the gold-runed hilt pulses faintly, like it remembers.

  Alex stares at it like it’s an old enemy. Which, in fairness, it is.

  Destined to haunt her. A fitting punishment. A cursed memento from the first unforgivable sin: the murder that started it all. Over two millennia, and it still hasn’t left her alone.

  Rick and Henry linger nearby, too stunned to speak, stuck between staring at Fraker’s corpse and the strange object that Alex is intently glaring at. Morbid curiosity tightens the air between them.

  "I'd take his head off," Alex mutters, her voice sharp as she eyes the dagger. Her fingers twitch, but she doesn't reach for it.

  Rick and Henry turn to her, still fixated on the blade. "They have a habit of coming back to life," Alex adds, her gaze flicking between them and Fraker on the floor.

  Rick joins her side, his eyes narrowing as he studies the weapon.

  “What is that?”

  “We need to get out of here," Henry fidgets anxiously beside him, but his eyes catch the blood still pouring from Alex’s wound. “Wait—why isn’t it healing?”

  Alex sighs, irritation flaring. She gestures at the dagger like it’s a rude guest. “Because I was stabbed with that charming piece of cutlery.”

  Rick leans in, picking it up carefully, as if it might bite. He turns it in his hands, brows furrowing. “There’s something familiar about this weapon…”

  Alex watches him, her expression flat. “Something, something, cursed blade. It’s what you get when you kill Alexander the Great.”

  Rick studies the blade intently, while Henry freezes, obviously understanding the gravity of the words she had just uttered better than his father.

  “Did you just say you killed Alexander the Great?”

  Alex doesn’t blink. “First best decision I ever made after setting foot on this dirtball of a planet.”

  “Oh my God.” Henry lifts a hand to his mouth, eyes wide and horrified. Rick, meanwhile, doesn’t even glance up.

  “This is 9th metal,” he says flatly.

  Both Alex and Henry turn toward him.

  “Ninth what now?” Henry asks.

  Rick meets their gaze. “9th metal. Naetunian in origin. Highly viscous molecular structure. Basically indestructible. And it kills anything. Permanently.”

  What Alex sure as hell isn’t volunteering—is the metal’s other talent: wish fulfillment. A twisted perk built into its cursed core. One wish. One desperate, whispered desire. And then the slow, exquisite rot begins. The wish warps, turns on you like a rabid dog, until your mind frays at the edges and your soul starts chewing itself from the inside out.

  See: Albus and Castor for mistakes you didn't make twice.

  Alex’s stomach tightens. “Charming.” Alex crosses her arms, ignoring the blood soaking through her shirt. “So, how did a bunch of old warlocks get their hands on alien metal?”

  Rick doesn’t answer right away. His expression hardens. “Naetunian pods have components made from 9th metal.”

  Good to know Alexander had pilfered her ride.

  Alex exhales slowly, the weight of that truth settling like lead in her chest. “So not only am I stuck fighting that trigger-happy General…” She gestures to her wound. “Now I get to worry about dying permanently.”

  Henry looks at her, then Rick, his face pale. “If that can hurt you—”

  Alex cuts him off with a sharp look. “Then it can hurt your Dad, too.”

  Henry flinches. “I was gonna say the Nekkarians, but… yeah. That too.”

  The implication crashes into all three of them at once. Super soldiers. Alien weapons. Metal that doesn’t just kill—it erases.

  Henry runs a hand through his hair, eyes wide. “We’ve got one knife that can kill immortals, Nekkarians, and whatever else is out there.

  “Including your Dad.” Alex adds again, simply for the sake of being a menace.

  “Yes, thank you, Alex,” Henry mutters. “We got that the first time.”

  She just raises a brow. “I’m just saying.”

  Rick, meanwhile, studies the knife like it holds the future. “Any Nekkarian-killing weapon is good enough for me.

  Henry throws his hands up in disbelief. “How on earth does the military know about magic?”

  Alex’s mind snaps to attention, the realization hitting her like a bolt of lightning. “Phone,” she says suddenly. “I need to call Akio.”

  She tries to move—but pain lances through her. Her knees nearly buckle.

  “Shit.” Her hand goes to her abdomen, already sticky with blood. The wound that she needs to attend to before she bleeds out.

  Rick moves to help her, concern flickering across his face. “You need to sit down.”

  “I need to not bleed out,” Alex growls.

  “You see, this is why we make plans.” She gestures furiously from Henry, to the blood seeping from her side. “So nice people like me don’t end up with mystical daggers sticking out their sides—”

  Before Henry can respond, there’s a deafening crash. The glass windows explode outward, showering the café with shards as something massive slams into the side of the building.

  Alex’s gaze snaps upward just in time to see a car hurtling toward her, its metal frame twisted and mangled, a force of destruction on a collision course.

  Everything goes dark for a heartbeat.

  Then—impact.