**Chapter 61: Flare Guns and Open Gates**
The blood sky had started to pulse in time with the violence beneath it.
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**Safehouse – Industrial District**
Ignis and Lancelot came through the door still carrying the smell of school corridors and borrowed fear. Bangu and Jackson looked up from where they had been watching over Sally's sleeping form.
"Jennifer's still jumping," Ignis said without preamble. "She was in the janitor today. Tried to choke me out. Lancelot stopped her before she could finish the job."
Lancelot's voice was quieter. "She knows we're onto her now. She'll move faster next time."
Bangu rubbed a hand over his face. "Then we've got matching problems. Sally's blacking out every night. Wakes up covered in blood that isn't hers. Dead bodies she doesn't remember making. Something's riding her and it's getting stronger."
Jackson's mist curled tighter around his fingers. "Two parasites. One wearing bodies. One wearing Sally. Both of them active under the same sky."
No one had a comforting answer.
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**Abandoned Subway Platform – East Line**
The fight with Hemostro had stopped being a duel and become a demolition.
Kevin, Wyatt, Blessing, Neo, and Zane moved as a broken unit — white-blue Matrix light, metal pipe, Magitech circuits, raw speed, and whatever stubbornness Zane still had left. Hemostro flowed between them like living blood, the Amulet on his chest drinking every cut they managed to land.
Then Hemostro's claws found Neo.
A single horizontal slash opened Neo's chest from collarbone to ribs. Blood hit the tiles in a bright arc. Neo staggered, eyes wide, but did not fall. Instead he reached into the back of his belt, pulled a flare gun no one remembered him carrying, and jammed it straight between Hemostro's legs with the kind of accuracy that only pure spite could produce.
He pulled the trigger.
The flare ignited inside Hemostro's body with a wet, furious *whump*. The false Dracula's scream was high and animal. Red light and sparks exploded from the wound as he stumbled backward, clutching himself, face twisted in pure disbelief.
Wyatt barked a laugh that was half hysteria. "That's for Jennifer, you pale bastard!"
Blessing's Magitech bindings snapped into place around Hemostro's wrists. Zane hit him from the side. Kevin closed the distance with the Rampager Blade already forming.
Hemostro tore free with a roar that shook dust from the ceiling, still smoking from the flare. He grabbed Kevin by the throat mid-charge and hurled him the length of the platform. Kevin hit a pillar hard enough to crack it, the Matrix flickering wildly.
Across the tunnels, a different scream cut through the noise — high, continuous, and terrified.
Mr. Dudley.
Kevin's head snapped toward the sound even as he pushed himself up. Hemostro was already coming again.
Kevin stopped thinking about defence.
The Mythical Matrix answered with everything it had. White-blue energy detonated outward from Kevin's chest in a concentrated lance. It punched straight through Hemostro's torso, through the Amulet's protective field, and out the other side in a spray of black-red blood and shattered bone. The false Dracula looked down at the smoking hole in his own chest with something like genuine surprise.
Then he smiled through bloody teeth.
"Good," Hemostro rasped. "You're finally interesting."
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**Service Tunnel – Parallel Track**
Keisha Leister held Jonah Dudley against the wall with one hand and the Dark Matrix with the other. The English teacher's eyes were wild. Tears and snot ran down his face.
"Why me?" he sobbed. "Why me out of everyone? I'm just a teacher. I mark essays. I don't— I don't belong in this—"
Keisha's violet-black eyes glowed with quiet amusement.
"Don't you know, Jonah Dudley?" she said, almost gently. "Your mother hid it from you your entire life. Your superpower is called Shinecaster. You were born with a wand and a gate key and she buried both so deep you forgot you ever had them. I need you to find the wand, Jonah. I need you to open the gate."
Dudley's voice cracked. "Gate to *what*?"
Keisha leaned in close, lips near his ear.
"Don't worry about it, babes."
Jonah Dudley started screaming and did not stop.
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**Northern Forest – UFO Crash Site**
The green alien with the excellent hair had decided the conversation portion of the evening was over.
Its power revealed itself the moment Thor swung the hammer again: pure super flight. The alien became a green blur, rocketing upward, then diving at speeds that left sonic cracks in the air. It slammed into Thor hard enough to drive him six inches into the dirt, then shot sideways and took Bane's drones out in a single elegant pass.
Nathan's illusions tried to box it in. The alien flew straight through three false versions of itself and clipped Nathan across the collarbone hard enough to spin him. Vera laughed in pure delight and leapt, claws out; the alien simply went vertical again, green hair streaming like a banner.
Thor spat blood and grinned up at the sky. "I want a turn on the ride!"
Bane's voice was flat. "It is trying to kill you."
"Foreplay, Bane. Keep up."
The alien banked for another dive, black eyes reflecting the blood sky, and the four of them braced for impact.
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**Guardians Headquarters – Arrival Bay**
Koa stepped through the gate first, still limping from the Van Helsing fight, the True Beast spirits quiet for now. Behind him walked Lucifer Jr. — younger than the original, sharper somehow, carrying the same impossible presence in a smaller frame.
Cohen looked up from the command table. "You found him."
Koa nodded once. "He found me first. Long story. Involves a hunter with too many silver bullets and a fusion I still don't fully understand."
Lucifer Jr. surveyed the room with ancient eyes in a young face. "The sky is wrong. The banshee is awake. An imposter is wearing my father's old legend. And something is trying to open a gate that should stay closed." His gaze settled on the blood-red light leaking through the high windows. "You are all very busy."
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**Subway Platform – Final Seconds**
Kevin stood over Hemostro's still-smoking form, Matrix light flickering across the hole he had punched through the false Dracula's chest. Wyatt, Blessing, and Zane kept weapons ready. Neo was on one knee, hand pressed to the slash across his chest, still somehow grinning through the pain.
Somewhere deeper in the tunnels Jonah Dudley's screaming continued without pause.
Keisha's voice drifted through the dark, soft and amused.
"Tick-tock, little brother. The gate doesn't open itself."
Kevin's white-blue eyes narrowed.
The blood sky pulsed once, hard, like it had just been given permission.
**End of Chapter 61**