The revival of Liora Nightshade was a far grittier affair.
When the cryo-stasis sequence completed, she didn't wake up gracefully. She awoke with a choked, ragged gasp, her body convulsing as her restored nervous system came violently back online. She was an assassin, and her first instinct was survival.
Before anyone could react, she launched herself out of the med-bed, a whirlwind of motion. She snatched a surgical scalpel from a tray and lunged, not at Dr. Thorne, but at the person she perceived as the greatest threat in the room: Mira Jin.
Mira, a master of espionage, was not caught off guard. She moved with a fluid grace, deflecting the scalpel with a reinforced forearm bracer. "Easy, Nightshade," she said, her voice calm and firm. "The war is over for you."
"Liora..." Liora Nightshade snarled, her eyes wild with hate and confusion as she stumbled back. "Where is she? Where is the Archon?!"
"Gone," a new voice said. Ayla stepped into the room, flanked by two of Jax's heavily armed soldiers. "Defeated. By the same person who defeated you."
Liora's gaze darted around the advanced medical bay, at the ZERO insignias on the soldiers' armor, at the calm, confident faces of Mira and Ayla. The pieces began to click into place in her disoriented mind.
"I'm... not a prisoner?" she asked, her voice raspy.
"You're a patient," Thorne corrected, stepping forward. "And a potential recruit. We saved your life. Your former masters left you for dead."
The fight went out of Liora Nightshade. She slumped against a wall, the scalpel clattering from her hand. The betrayal, the defeat, the confusion—it all came crashing down on her. She was a weapon whose owner had discarded her.
Over the next few hours, Mira and Ayla debriefed her. They told her everything: Ravi's victory at the tower, the fall of the Pale Hand's military, the rise of Faction ZERO. They showed her the broadcast, the symphony of her former comrades' defeat.
She listened in stony silence, her expression unreadable. She was a creature of the Pale Hand's brutal hierarchy. Loyalty was beaten into her from birth. The concept of a new order was alien.
"So," she finally said, her voice a low, dangerous purr. "The little god won. He tore it all down. And now you want my help."
"We need your help," Ayla said, meeting her gaze without flinching. "We need to get into the Sector Zero power hub. You know the protocols, the secret paths. You know how their elite guards think because you were one of them."
"And why should I help you?" Liora sneered. "To replace one master with another? I know how these games are played. The Black Crown will just become the new Oracle."
"No," Mira said, her voice cutting and precise. "You're wrong. I served them. I know their methods. They rule through fear. We rule through strength. There is a difference." She leaned in. "They used you, Liora. They promised you power, and when you failed, Liora abandoned you. She didn't even try to retrieve your body. We did. We offer you something the Pale Hand never could: a choice. And revenge."
The word 'revenge' hung in the air. Liora Nightshade's eyes, which had been dull and guarded, ignited with a cold, black fire. Revenge against the woman who shared her name, the Archon who had humiliated her and left her to rot. It was a powerful motivator.
"You want me to help you get into the hub," Liora said, a slow, predatory smile forming on her lips. "Very well. But my price is not loyalty. It is not safety." Her eyes flickered with hate. "When you finally face Archon Liora again, her life belongs to me."
Ayla and Mira exchanged a look. They were unleashing a devil to fight a demon.
"Agreed," Ayla said.
The infiltration was set for the following night. The team was small, agile, and deadly. Ayla, the objective. Mira, the strategist. And Liora Nightshade, the key. Jax provided them with a small, cloaked hovercraft for their insertion.
Liora, outfitted in a new suit of black ZERO armor and armed with a pair of silenced pistols, looked like a phantom reborn.
"The hub's main defense is 'The Labyrinth'," Liora explained as they flew through the dark under-levels of the city. "It's a series of shifting corridors and laser grids controlled by a semi-sentient AI. It's designed to be unsolvable. But every system has a flaw. The AI's patrol routes are based on a predictive algorithm. It thinks it's random, but it's not."
"You know the pattern," Mira deduced.
"I don't know it," Liora corrected with a smirk. "I designed it. It was my final project before my promotion to Archon Liora's personal guard."
They reached the outer perimeter of the hub, a massive, featureless wall of black steel. Liora led them to a small, unmarked maintenance panel. She opened it, revealing not wires, but a series of pressure-sensitive plates.
"The key is not a code," Liora whispered. "It's a rhythm." She tapped out a complex, syncopated beat on the plates. A section of the wall slid open with a silent hiss. "A little backdoor I built in, just in case."
They slipped inside. They were in a world of humming power conduits and shifting walls. The air was cold and smelled of sterile electricity.
"Welcome to the Labyrinth," Liora purred. "Now, stay close and do exactly as I say. The devil you know is better than the one you don't."
She took the lead, guiding them through the deadly, shifting maze with an eerie confidence, a predator back in her own hunting grounds, ready to turn the tables on her former masters.