GAIA RESEARCH CENTER

 The sterile hum of the containment room thrummed like a heartbeat steady, artificial, suffocating. White walls. White floors. Four narrow beds bolted to the ground. No windows. Only the faint, dimmed glow of overhead lights. The newly erected duplicate of the GAIA RESEARCH CENTER by EVER group.

They’d been captured. Sylus sat on the edge of one of the beds, chains clinking softly as he shifted. His fury was a living thing an aura that warped the air, his red eyes burning like molten stars. His silver-white hair hung in disarray, horns breaking through where his restraint faltered, his dragon tail coiled restlessly behind him. He was seething. Never before had he been captured in the fourteen years since their first escape and now, it was happening again. This time, because Caleb had turned on them. The weight of that betrayal lingered heavy in the room. Zayne sat hunched on another bed, face buried in his hands, his black hair falling like a shadow across his eyes. He didn’t look up when Caleb walked past. His voice, when it came, was cracked with disbelief and hurt. “You-of all people,” he muttered. “You helped them?” Caleb, still in his black colonel’s uniform every medal, every sharp line of authority stood at the foot of the room. His lilac eyes glinted under the dim light, torn between guilt and duty. “You think I wanted this?” he said quietly. “They would’ve killed her if I hadn’t complied.” “Xia?” Zayne’s head snapped up, a raw tremor in his voice. “You mean Yun Xia?” (MC) The silence that followed was answer enough. Zayne’s jaw clenched, his Evol flickering faintly under the suppression collar just enough for the veins on his arms to glow azure frost, consuming his arms for a heartbeat before dimming. “You knew,” he said, voice trembling with rage. “You knew she thought you were dead. And you let her grieve you, let all of us believe...” He broke off, unable to finish, the fury collapsing into something quieter. “You don’t even know what that did to her.” Caleb didn’t reply. The remorse in his expression was genuine, but it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t be. Rafayel sat apart from the others, his dusky purple hair falling into his ombré eyes blue and pink flickering like dying neon. His breathing was uneven. The collar around his neck gleamed faintly, and his fingers trembled as he muttered under his breath, voice distant and frightened. “They used… scents before,” he whispered, almost to himself. “Perfumes that… forced me into rut.” His eyes darted around the room, wild and glassy. “They’ll do it again.” Xavier, seated near him, reached out to steady Rafayel’s shoulder, his own blue eyes scanning the walls, memorizing vent placement, camera angles, and door locks. His mind was already at work, plotting. Calculating. “They won’t get that chance,” he said under his breath. “I’ll find a way out.” The collars all five identical, a red ring of light were familiar to Xavier. He’d been wearing one, long ago when he was first captured, now the others have one too for the first time. He still remembered how it burned, how it silenced the spark of Evol like strangling your own breath. Sylus’s snarl broke the tension. “You think we’re staying here?” His voice was guttural, unrestrained, his fangs catching the light. “I tore through their walls before. I’ll do it again.” But when he tried to move, the suppressor collar flared, sending a current through his body. He winced but didn’t flinch. The fury didn’t fade it just smoldered quieter, deeper. Caleb’s gaze lingered on him something between pity and respect. “If you do, they’ll kill her,” he said finally. That silenced the room. Sylus turned toward him, eyes narrow. “You better hope she’s untouched. Because if she’s not-” he leaned forward, his voice low and venomous, “-no collar in this world will stop me from ending you first.” For a moment, the colonel looked like he might respond. Instead, he turned for the door. As it hissed open, he looked back once, meeting Zayne’s eyes with quiet regret. “She’s safe,” he said softly. “I made sure of it.” Then the door closed, locking with a hollow metallic thud that echoed through the room. The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the faint hum of machinery and Rafayel’s trembling breath. Xavier leaned back against the wall, blue eyes glinting. “Then we plan,” he said quietly. “Because if Caleb’s right…” He looked at each of them, one by one. “...we’ll need to burn our way out of this hell before they do something none of us can come back from.”