Chapter Text
The first thing Red noticed when the vault door sealed behind her was how clean the floor stayed despite everything else looking abandoned. No dust dragged under her boots, no old grit gathered in the corners, just polished black stone cut with thin silver channels that caught the overhead light and sent it back in narrow lines across the room. Her own reflection moved under her for half a second whenever she crossed one of them. The briefing had given her one target, one containment chamber, one route in and one route out, and she still had her hand on the hilt before she reached the center because something about a room that polished itself this carefully never belonged to a simple assignment.
Movement came from her left before she finished the thought. Metal flashed first, then leather, then Hazel Hook closing distance like she had already decided hesitation wasted time. Red barely got her blade up before the strike hit hard enough to ring through her wrist, boots skidding half a step across the floor while Hazel’s shoulder turned with the force of it, hair half loose from whatever run she had taken getting there. Nothing about Hazel matched the name Red had been given, and that only sharpened the second swing when it came lower, faster, meant to force Red backward toward the wall instead of center.
Red caught that one too, breath leaving sharper than she wanted, her free hand bracing against Hazel’s forearm long enough to shove space between them. Hazel did not retreat so much as reset, weight already angled forward again, eyes cutting once over Red’s jacket like she was measuring whether the wrong person had arrived or whether the right person had changed clothes on the way in. The room answered for neither of them because another door hissed open across the vault and Chloe Charming came through at speed, sword already drawn, blue braid swinging once over her shoulder before she planted herself between them and redirected Hazel’s next strike sideways hard enough to spark metal off metal.
For half a second all three stayed caught in motion, each of them adjusting to one extra body where there should have been none. Chloe looked dressed for official work—clean lines, fitted gloves, every piece of her uniform exactly where it belonged—which made Red almost laugh because that was far too polished for what she had been told waited here. Hazel’s mouth tightened instead, not surprised so much as irritated in a way that suggested she had already reached the same conclusion and disliked sharing it.
Chloe’s gaze moved once from Red to Hazel and then back again, not lowering her blade. “Neither of you were on the file.”
Hazel gave a short breath through her nose that could have passed for a laugh if there had been anything warm in it, then shifted first, blade still angled up. “There should only be one of you.”
Red did not answer right away because another set of footsteps hit the grated upper landing before the words settled, heavier than any of theirs, quick and certain in a way that made all three of them look up together. The fourth figure dropped down from the side platform without waiting for the stairs, boots striking the polished floor with a hard crack that traveled through the chamber. Robbie Hood landed already moving, eyes not on any of them but on the far end of the vault, where the sealed glass chamber stood under its own bank of pale lights like he had known exactly where it would be before he came in.
That was the moment the room changed. Not because Robbie had arrived, but because none of them moved to stop him immediately—each one of them caught for a beat too long by the same realization that whatever they had been promised, it had not included three other names and a fourth person who looked as if he had been given different instructions entirely.
Robbie did not even glance at the three of them again once his boots hit the floor. He moved like the room had already been walked through in his head before he ever stepped inside, cutting across the silver-lined stone with one hand reaching for the short blade at his side, shoulders angled toward the glass chamber standing under the pale lights at the far end. Red saw the line he was taking and went after him on instinct, thinking only that he had found the exit first, that whatever had brought all four of them here had also given him a route out she had not been shown, but Hazel caught that same movement differently. Hazel’s head turned once toward the chamber, then toward the floor markings beneath it, something narrowing in her face before she swore under her breath and moved too.
Chloe was the last to understand where Robbie was actually headed, mostly because the chamber itself looked decorative until he got close enough for the light to shift through the glass. Then the shape inside became visible—small, upright, still enough that for half a breath it could have been a reflection thrown wrong across the surface. Chloe’s stride changed immediately, sword lowering from attack into interruption, but Robbie had already planted his foot against the chamber base and driven the blade hard into the seam where metal met glass.
The crack split louder than it should have, sharp enough that Red felt it in her teeth. Lines of white fractured outward across the chamber in jagged branches, and Robbie did not hesitate after the first strike. He hit the same point again, harder, until the whole side buckled inward with a violent hiss that sent cold vapor spilling across the floor. Whatever seal had been holding it together gave all at once, the sound of it tearing loose chased instantly by a mechanical click somewhere overhead.
Hazel reached him first, but too late to stop what he had already triggered. Her hand caught his shoulder just as the chamber lights snapped red, and the room answered before anyone could say anything useful. Something flashed near Robbie’s feet—one thin line of white dropping from the ceiling so fast it almost looked harmless until it went through him cleanly. He jerked once, barely enough to register, then hit the floor hard beside the chamber with his bow still in his hand.
No one moved for the half second after because the vault had already started screaming. Warning alarms burst from hidden speakers overhead, a flat repeating tone that cut through the chamber so sharply it made the polished floor tremble under Red’s boots. New light spilled down the walls in red bars, and somewhere behind them heavy locks began sealing with one clunk after another, deeper inside the stone.
Heat followed almost immediately, subtle first—just the kind that touched the back of Red’s neck before it spread wider, wrong for a room that had been cold enough a moment ago to fog around the broken chamber. Numbers lit up across the far wall in bright white, large enough that nobody could miss them: 02:59
Chloe had already crossed to the nearest panel before the second number dropped. Her hand skimmed the edge of it, eyes moving too quickly over the symbols there, breath caught tight enough that her next words came without her looking at any of them. “None of us were sent here for the same thing.”
The chamber gave another strained metallic groan behind Robbie’s body. More vapor spilled low across the floor, curling around Hazel’s boots where she had crouched just enough to check whether he would move again, then stopped because there was nothing to check. A latch released somewhere inside the fractured frame, slow at first, then louder as the entire glass door shifted outward on damaged hinges.
Something inside moved.
The chamber door dragged open another few inches, metal catching once before giving way fully, and the girl inside stepped out like the floor had changed while she was standing there. Pink blinked hard against the red warning lights, one hand staying behind her on the edge of the broken chamber as if she needed to check that it still existed. Vapor curled around her shoes, pale against the black floor, and for a second she only looked down at Robbie where he had fallen, head tilted slightly the way someone does when the shape in front of them belongs to a question they have not reached yet. "is he..? oh my god, is he-"
The numbers on the wall dropped again—02:41—bright enough to flare across the glass shards around her feet. Pink looked up at that, then at the open chamber door, then back toward the room with a slow uncertainty that made the weapons still pointed in her direction feel almost absurd and somehow not enough at the same time. Her voice came out quiet, rough from disuse more than fear. “Wait,Was it supposed to open?”
Nobody answered right away. Chloe still had her sword half lifted, though her attention kept pulling toward the control panel and the countdown it was no longer pretending to hide. Hazel had shifted just enough to stand between the chamber and the nearest wall panel, blade lowered but not away, posture carrying that same tight readiness she had walked in with. Red stayed where she was because moving first suddenly felt like deciding something she did not understand.
Pink’s eyes crossed the room once, not lingering on Chloe or Hazel long enough to make either of them flinch, and then stopped when they reached Red. Something changed there—not recognition exactly, more like relief arriving before thought had time to argue with it. She crossed the distance before Red fully realized she was coming, two quick steps and then arms around her middle, light enough that Red could have stepped back if instinct had not failed her at exactly the wrong moment.
Red’s hand lifted halfway and stayed there, suspended uselessly near Pink’s shoulder because none of the briefings she had ever taken included what to do when someone came out of containment and held on like they already knew where they belonged. Pink seemed to notice that almost as fast as Red did. The pressure of the hug eased, not withdrawn yet, just uncertain now, and when she leaned back enough to look up, there was a small crease between her brows like she had reached for something familiar and touched empty air.
The countdown hit 02:33 with another warning pulse through the walls. Red finally found her voice, though it came lower than intended. “Who are you?”
Pink still had one hand caught lightly in Red’s jacket, fingers curled near the seam like she had forgotten to let go. She looked at Red’s face as if checking whether the answer might already be there and then glanced aside toward the broken chamber behind her. “ Pink.”
Hazel made a short impatient movement at that, less disbelief than the kind of irritation that comes when the room keeps refusing to behave in any useful order, but Chloe never got as far as speaking because the ceiling above the control bank cracked with a sharp splitting noise. One of the overhead panels tore loose under the heat already building in the vault, dropping hard and fast toward her shoulder.
Chloe turned too late to do anything cleanly. Red saw her start to move, Hazel saw it too, but Pink reached first without seeming to know she had decided to. Her free hand lifted, palm open, and the falling slab stopped inches above Chloe as if it had hit something invisible. Dust broke loose around the edges, drifting down across Chloe’s sleeve while the whole weight of it hung there, suspended in a silence that lasted just long enough for all three of them to look at Pink instead of the ceiling.
Pink stared at her own hand before the slab tipped sideways and crashed harmlessly against the floor. Her fingers closed slowly, then opened again like she expected an explanation to appear there. The red light cut across her face, catching the confusion before she lowered her hand altogether.
The wall flashed 02:27.
Somewhere deeper in the vault, another lock released with a heavy metallic slam.