**Chapter 65: Waiters, Waves, and Openings**
The blood sky had begun to feel like a held breath that refused to end.
---
**Guardians Headquarters – Medical Wing**
Nathan Moya found them scattered across the subway tiles like broken toys.
Kevin's Matrix still flickered weakly. Wyatt could barely lift his arms. Hercules sat against a pillar with bronze light sputtering in and out. Blessing's Magitech circuits sparked painfully under his skin. Neo and Zane were conscious but pale. Steve kept phasing in and out of super speed like his body couldn't remember the correct setting.
Nathan didn't waste time with questions. Illusions formed floating stretchers. Within minutes the entire group was moving through a transport gate and into Dr. Tommy Watson's medical wing.
Watson worked in silence at first, the Undefeated Doctor aura flickering around him in controlled pulses as he stabilised bones, sealed internal bleeding, and forced overloaded powers back into dormancy. When the worst of it was done he stepped back, wiping blood from his hands.
Kevin sat up slowly, one hand pressed to the still-healing wound in his side.
"We need Chien Jen," he said. "The waiter. Former ally. Power Absorption. If anyone can pull whatever Zayelle has become out of her without killing her, it's him."
Blessing frowned. "Where do we even find that… Chien Jen?"
Wyatt groaned from the next bed. "We're finding a damn waiter. Of course we are."
Nathan's expression was already distant, mapping old routes and favours. "I know where."
---
**Command Floor – Same Time**
R. Dogder stood in front of the main holotable, messy brown hair falling into his eyes, the blood-fed blaster on his arm still faintly pulsing.
"The Beast of Gévaudan," he said, "started as a normal animal in the 1700s. Something old and hungry wore it like a coat and made the countryside bleed. The blood sky has given that coat back. It is not a human who transforms. It is something worse — a living legend that remembers every kill it ever made."
Bangu's arms were crossed tight. "And Sally? What's happening to her?"
R. Dogder glanced at him. "You don't know? She's a Sphinx. That is her superpower. The blackouts, the blood, the bodies she doesn't remember — the Sphinx side is waking under the red sky and it doesn't ask permission."
Jackson's mist curled tighter. "So the Beast is just… a thing that decided to be a wolf?"
"Worse," R. Dogder said. "It's a story that decided to be real again."
---
**Coastal Road – Cyprus**
Jordan Pitas — now more machine than man — slammed into empty air where the Beast of Gévaudan had been a second earlier. Metal limbs sparked. The red optic whirred in frustration.
Rodriguez Hernandez flickered back into visibility beside the stolen tank.
"It jumped," Rodriguez said. "I tracked the heat signature. It's heading for Redfern Ridge. Capital city Willowbrook. That place is already drowning in supernatural noise. If the Beast gets there first, the body count won't stop at teachers and cops."
Jordan's human eye narrowed. The mechanical one glowed brighter.
"Then we're going to Redfern Ridge."
Rodriguez almost smiled. "Tank or car?"
"Both. I'm not losing it twice."
---
**Northern Borderlands – Seed Nest / Hidden Lab**
The attack came without warning.
Pope Lick — a newly hatched hostile seed, goat-headed and wrong — dropped from the upper scaffolding of the hidden lab with a sound like laughing children. Grug met it head-on. The Revenant's draining touch slowed the creature, but Pope Lick was faster and meaner than the earlier seeds. It slammed Grug into a containment tank hard enough to crack the glass.
Lovelady's golden eyes went wide. "You feel fear. And anger. So much anger."
Pope Lick roared and backhanded the Frogman across the room.
Korg floated in the centre of the chaos, tentacles trembling, black eyes huge. Fear rolled off the blue seed-being in visible waves. Then the fear became something else.
A pulse of pale energy exploded outward from Korg's chest.
Fear Wave.
Pope Lick was lifted off its feet and hurled backward like a doll, smashing straight through one of the Monster Womb containments in a spray of glass and amniotic fluid. The creature twitched once and went still.
Grug pushed himself up, coal-fire eyes flickering with something like approval.
"Cool," the Revenant said. "Your superpower is Fear Wave."
Korg blinked. "That… is cool."
---
**Headquarters – Tech Bay**
Ignis and Lancelot stood over Bane's locator as the holographic map locked onto a single point in Kuwait.
"Khalid Ali," Ignis read. "Geneticist. Top-tier. If anyone can reverse-engineer whatever Jennifer is doing to the bodies she jumps, it's him. We go right now."
Lancelot stared at the distance marker. "Shit. We are far away."
Bane didn't look up from the console. "There is a way."
Both teens spoke at the same time. "How?"
"Transportal," Bane said. "Metaphysical machine. It moves the soul into a temporary transit realm and drops you at the target coordinates. For a country hop it's quick. Also painful. Very painful."
Lancelot shrugged. "Sure."
Ignis swallowed hard. "I hate this job."
---
**Unknown Location – Holding Site**
Keisha Leister wiped blood from her knuckles and looked down at Jonah Dudley, who was curled on the floor trying not to sob.
"This is why I kidnapped Coach Cho," she said lightly. "His superpower lets him find anything or anyone just by touching their belongings. Old Cho knew what you were the whole time and kept quiet like a good little baby. Hahaha."
She plucked the blood-spattered glasses from Dudley's face and held them out to the bound soccer referee.
"Find the wand, Cho. Open the gate for me."
Coach Cho stared at the glasses, then at Keisha, and shook his head once. Hard.
Keisha's smile never reached her eyes. "We'll work on the attitude."
---
**Ivan's Hidden Holding Site**
The resurrected crew had spent the last hour taking turns insulting the original Lucifer inside his singing cage. Lycer watched in husky form from the corner, silent. Ivan leaned against the bars, voice soft and venomous.
"You used to be feared. Now you're furniture."
Lucifer, still seated, looked almost bored.
Then he stood up.
The singing cage's bindings simply… stopped. Chains fell. The melody that had held him shattered like glass. Lucifer rolled one shoulder as if he had only been resting.
Kael the Tikbalang lunged first, horse-headed and furious.
Lucifer caught him by the throat, drove a hand straight through his chest in one clean motion, and let the body drop.
"Let us cooperate, okay?" Lucifer said mildly, shaking blood from his fingers. Kael gasped on the floor, barely breathing.
Lucifer smiled.
The door at the far end of the room opened.
Michael the Angel stepped through, six wings folded, expression unreadable.
Lucifer's smile widened just a fraction. "Told you I was going to give you an opening."
The two brothers stood side by side.
Ivan the Siren took one slow step backward. For the first time since crawling out of Hell, real fear crossed his face.
The blood sky, far above, seemed to lean closer — listening.
**End of Chapter 65**