The whole atmosphere in the room changed in an instant. I grabbed Gravedigger and pointed it at Khopesh. Xiphos wasn’t my favourite person in the world, and I knew that there was more that she was keeping from us, but my allegiance to her outweighed my relationship with Khopesh.

Naginata obviously felt the same. The tip of the blade at the end of her staff was pointed right at Khopesh’s neck. With one precision thrust she could end him.

Hands raised, Xiphos stared Khopesh down.

“You don’t want to do this,” she said.

“What other choice do I have? What if EDGE Force uses this information to twist things for their own benefit?” Khopesh said and took a step towards Xiphos. His finger curved dangerously around the trigger, his emotions overriding his trigger discipline.

Stiletto had disappeared, and for a moment I wondered whether he’d decided to run, or whether he was going to strike out. Against Xiphos or Khopesh, I couldn’t be sure.

We’d find out in less than 5 seconds, when his stealth field wore off.

Xiphos took a step toward Khopesh, hands still raised, only half a metre between her and the barrel of Khopesh’s rifle.

“Why do you think EDGE Force does what it does, Khopesh?” Xiphos asked. “We serve to defend the world. That’s why I’m here, why you’re here, and that’s why EDGE Force is here in the Carpathians. There is an enormous source of anima right under our feet named Balaur – a dragon – a creature straight out of legend-”

Stiletto reappeared at that moment, right under the barrel of Khopesh’s gun. He grabbed the weapon and tore it to the side, right as Khopesh’s finger pulled the trigger.

A short burst of bullets erupted, spraying the far wall of the room. Khopesh dropped his weapon in surprise as Stiletto wrapped himself around Khopesh in an MMA-fighter grip and dropped him to the ground. Khopesh struggled weakly, but Stiletto just pulled his elbow tighter around the big man’s throat.

Moments later, as Khopesh’s eyelids fluttered as his brain starved, he tapped out. Stiletto unravelled himself and grabbed both the sword on Khopesh’s back and the pistol from his leg holster. Stiletto threw the sword away, then kicked Khopesh’s assault rifle out of lunging distance.

“You just had to go be a fucking idiot,” Stiletto said, then looked over at Xiphos while he drew his twin daggers. “You want me to finish him off?”

“No! Stiletto, stand down!” Xiphos said, eyes wide.

Stiletto slid the daggers back into their sheaths then raised his hands in a gesture beseeching forgiveness.

“My bad, Captain.” Stiletto took a few steps back from Khopesh, staying between the big man and his weapons on the ground. “No offense, but you just pulled your gun on our fearless leader.”

“I… acted hastily,” Khopesh admitted, but there was an edge to his voice, like he was still angry.

“What if this information is a missing piece of the puzzle?” Naginata asked.

“Exactly,” Xiphos agreed. “Part of the reason EDGE Command sends us on these missions is to uncover new information. Sure, we fight bad guys, but the more intel we deliver, the bigger picture EDGE Command gets.”

“This sounds big,” I admitted. “Balaur came here to try to protect humanity from whatever was coming. It sounds like his aims and EDGE Command’s aims align.”

“Those waves of power that you said you saw,” Xiphos said. “What colour were they?”

I blinked in surprise at the question. “I didn’t really take notice. I think they were white, or very light blue.”

Then I made the connection that I hadn’t before. Altrighus’s anima was purple, Balaur’s was green. The dragonslayer’s was red, and Mnemnhion’s was blue. The same colour as the anima that coursed through Bastard and the rest of the Edgebreaker forces.

Xiphos swore under her breath. She’d put the pieces together too, and a lot quicker than I had.

“Edgebreaker has something to do with whatever Balaur witnessed,” Xiphos said.

“Then EDGE Command definitely needs to know,” I agreed.

Everyone agreed, even Khopesh, though he did so with a grumble.

“You’re not going to try and kill us again, are you?” Xiphos asked as she strode over to pick up his weapons.

“No. I’m sorry I pulled a gun on you,” Khopesh said.

Xiphos carried Khopesh’s weapons back over and offered him his sword. “I understand. Your actions came from a place of trying to do the right thing. I can’t be angry about that. Just know that I expect something of my team. We will never turn out weapons on each other without discussing any friction first. Have you got that?”

Khopesh nodded. “Yes, Captain.”

“Good,” she said. “Now take your weapons, and we need to sweep this place before we go. Hatchet, Kaiser and I will find a way to get in contact with EDGE Command. The rest of you search through this facility and find anything we might be able to use in our mission from here on in. If this Dragonslayer has an army, we’re going to need weapons, ammunition and new gear with higher armour ratings.”

Stiletto approached Khopesh and slapped him on the back. “Come on, man. You and me, let’s go and find some supplies. No hard feelings yeah?”

Khopesh grinned. His whole dour persona shattered like glass with his gleaming smile. “If you can act so swiftly against your friends, then I am glad to face enemies with you. No hard feelings.”

Stiletto flashed a lopsided roguish grin. “Come on, buddy. You too Naginata! Let’s find some gear to make the dragonslayer’s life a living hell, yeah?”

“I think I saw an armoury or something like it while we were being taken here,” Naginata said.

“Then lead the way,” Stiletto said. “Come and find us when you’re done with EDGE Command, Captain!”

With that, they left. The tension that had threatened to tear our group apart only moments before had evaporated like morning dew at sun’s first light. I followed Xiphos, who seemed to know exactly where she was going.

“Have you been here before?” I asked.

“No, but most EDGE Force facilities are laid out pretty much the same. The communications room should be somewhere down here,” she said as she turned a corner down another hallway.

Sure enough, we soon came to another room with a bunch of old computers in it – old enough to be connected to old school CRT monitors – along with some seriously retro looking communications equipment. Xiphos slid into one of the desks and unlocked the computer by placing her eye close to a webcam on top of the monitor.

“Retinal scanner?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “As an EDGE leader you’re briefed on contingencies in case of emergency. One of them is simple. You find an EDGE Force workstation with a webcam, and it’ll unlock itself for you.”

Without Xiphos, this never would have worked. It was lucky I’d come along when I did.

The screen unlocked and an app opened by itself. The words Connecting to EDGE Command flashed on the screen, followed by a series of dots that appeared and disappeared as we waited.

When it connected, a face appeared covering the entire screen. He was younger than me, maybe in his late twenties, with a bald head and black beard. His voice was immediately recognisable.

“Xiphos? Is that you? We thought we lost you,” Rho said.

“We’re still in one piece, but there is a lot of intel that you need to know.”

“Okay, hit me.”

“Hatchet’s with me, and he observed most of it firsthand. It’s probably best if he tells it his way.”

I grabbed another office chair and wheeled it over next to Xiphos. Kaiser jumped up and put his paws on the desk, eager to be a part of the conversation.

“Hey Kaiser!” Rho said.

Kaiser barked in a way we’d practiced that approximated him saying hello. It came out as something more like hewo but the effect was not diminished by this.

Rho grinned. “Oh that’s too cute.”

Then I jumped back into the events, retelling them again. Xiphos told about how the Edgebreaker team had captured them and brought them here, which meant that Bastard, Scythe and Trench had known about this facility. Rho countered by saying that many of the Edgebreaker operatives were higher up defectors from EDGE Force, so they took a plethora of intel with them when they left.

“And you just let them go?” I asked.

“EDGE Command tries to recapture any assets that become liabilities, but those who defect to Edgebreaker become notoriously difficult to find,” Rho admitted.

“What was the purpose of this facility?” Xiphos asked.

I almost didn’t expect Rho to give us the answer to that question, but he did.

“Read the information pack I just sent to your workstation desktop once we’ve finished debriefing,” Rho said.

I continued on, going into detail about Balaur, the vision he showed me, and the blessing the ancient dragon gave me. I hadn’t given Xiphos and the rest of the team much information about what the blessing actually did, and I decided to keep most of that pretty close to my chest. I told them it let me siphon anima from weakened enemies and willing participants, it let me heal others, and it let me convert pure anima into experience points that were compatible with the EDGE Force augment.

Rho’s eyes widened at this, so I followed my initial instinct of not telling them about skill copying trait.

“So it lets you convert any kind of anima, from any source, into anima compatible with the EDGE system?” Rho said.

“Pretty much,” I said.

“If this dragonslayer is as strong and as dangerous as we’ve seen so far, and if he’s responsible for the disappearance of two villages and a ski resort that we know of, your mission parameters have changed. Xiphos, we want you to do everything you can to power up Hatchet so he can destroy this dragonslayer.”

“Acknowledged,” Xiphos said.

“Secondary objective, EDGE Command wants to establish an open channel of communication with Balaur. Hatchet, it’s your job to achieve this.”

I sighed. “There’s more.”

Then I launched into the vision, and that’s when Rho got very quiet. When we got to the bit with the rings of light encircling the globe and changing the fact of the planet, the colour drained from his face. He went very quiet and very still.

“Did I just see the reality crash?” I asked.

“One second,” he said, then the camera switched off.

It came back on a few moments later, right as Xiphos and I shared a concerned look. When the monitor flashed back on, the camera feed was split in two. Rho’s face appeared on one side of the screen, but the other side of the screen was taken up by someone who I didn’t recognise immediately, but looked very familiar.

“This is Prime Commander Cato,” the newcomer said.

Cato. As in Madeline Cato, the woman who I found in a picture with both Arthur Cullen, the leader of the Fellowship of Cosmic Truth, and Roger Forge the Director of Mnemtech.