Wind hummed over the rooftop, tugging at coats, hair, sleeves. The odd trio perched above London's sprawl like birds on a power line - calm, at least on the outside. Inside? Entirely different storms.

Sven stretched his arms behind his head, leaning back far enough that a pebble rolled off the roof's edge.

'This is either genius or insanity,' he thought, eyes half-closed. 'Probably both.'

He grinned anyway.

"I wonder what the others are up to," he said, breaking the silence like a brick through glass.

Isaac didn't even turn at first. He was staring at Wembley's silhouette in the pale morning haze, memorising it out of habit. When he finally did glance over, his expression read, 'Really? now?'

"You can literally call them and see," Isaac replied, voice flat with disbelief. Phones in hand, none of them had bothered. The screens sat dark. Unused. Untouched.

They trusted the rest of their ragtag mutant family to be fine, and that was that.

"Nah," Sven said, pushing off the ledge, dusting his trousers. "We gotta get this over with. We'll see them again soon enough."

No final messages. No check-ins. No good-luck calls. Just faith and stupidity and maybe a little charm.

He was sure they would also be completing their side of things around about now.

As such, they were ready to begin.

Takeshi rose without a sound. One second he was there - the next he wasn't.

He launched off the rooftop, robes streaming behind him like ink ribbons. The wind itself seemed to carry him, letting him glide over the London skyline, skimming past chimneys and steel beams before he descended onto the stadium roof in one smooth drop.

From the top, Takeshi was a speck. A single quiet dot atop the colossal arena.

Even after seeing it a hundred times, Isaac and Sven were still mesmerised.

'Graceful bastard,' Sven thought. 'He's like a loading screen animation. Every damn time.'

Isaac agreed silently, eyes gleaming. 'One day that'll stop impressing me…'

It never will.

Then it was Isaac's turn.

No theatrics. No countdown. No warning. He simply sank.

His form rippled, then dissolved into the concrete beneath him. The floor swallowed him like water.

Down he went. Ten floors. Twenty. Thirty. Dozens. Weightless. Soundless. Effortless.

When he reached the ground, he re-formed with a quiet exhale, one hand in his pocket, the other sleeve pinned empty where his missing arm should be. He looked up at the building above him, nausea-free, already walking - reminding him just how much he'd progressed.

Sven was left alone on the roof, blinking at the hole in the floor.

"I guess I'll take the lift," he muttered.

The lift ride was slow. Awkward. Very human.

The doors pinged open. Building security stared at him like he walked in wearing neon signs.

"Sir, how did you get into the building?" one asked, hand already twitching toward a radio.

'Not off to a great start, are we?' Sven thought, smiling sheepishly.

He could've dropped them all before they inhaled. But instead, he waved a hand.

"Sorry," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "I'm lost."

He was escorted out, well, more correctly, politely thrown out. A legend in fistfights and underground arenas, evicted like a drunk uncle at Christmas.

Outside, Isaac waited leaning on a lamppost, already there, already watching, already smiling faintly.

"That's why I didn't phase you back down, just to see that," Isaac said as Sven approached.

Sven scowled, necklace ring glinting under the weak sun. "Yeah yeah. Don't rub it in, Casper."

Together they set off toward the stadium on which Takeshi already waited, cutting through London streets with renewed purpose.

-

Meanwhile, somewhere across the world and far above the clouds, in a silver airship hidden from all known flight paths, Nyx paced through his floating laboratory. The place was a cathedral of steel and science - tubes bubbling, machines clicking like insects, screens flickering with live feeds.

He wasn't just watching the world.

He was holding the strings like a puppeteer.

Since the creation of the first stable artificial mutant, Kai - Subject 357 - his research had exploded forward. Advancements stacked like dominoes, each one more deranged than the last. An hour never passed without an update on his favourite runaway experiment.

A very long leash.

One Kai didn't even feel.

"No matter where he is," Nyx whispered, pressing his palm against a monitor displaying Kai's face, "Subject 357 is mine."

Then his gaze slid, slowly, lovingly, toward the central containment tube.

Inside it floated his wife, or what used to be her. Now, a semi-stable monster stitched together with precision and madness. The bubbling liquid around her shimmered like venom.

"My beloved," Nyx murmured, "look how beautiful you are."

He crouched, brushing a finger along the scar line on her left arm - the one he'd grafted onto her after stealing the phasing ability from Isaac by literally attaching his arm onto her body. Stabilised with Kai's blood and cells from Hyperion's regenerative tissue.

"Now no one can harm you with that arm," he said, voice trembling with affection. "You are the prototype. Mutants 2.0. The next evolution."

On either side of her tube were two smaller containment cylinders, each holding one of his twin sons. Their bodies warped, monstrous, breathing, stitched. Flesh rebuilt after Kai had ripped them apart during his berserk escape from the facility.

How were they alive?

If this could even be called alive?

Only Nyx was capable of such horrifying creations.

"Now, my lovelies," Nyx continued, standing, arms wide as if addressing royalty, "your time to recapture the Bloodweaver will come eventually. I have something else prepared for him this time. In the meantime…"

He turned to the screens showing Isaac and Sven strolling toward Wembley, Takeshi already on the roof, blindfold still intact, katana sheathed by his side.

"…I get to watch these three have fun," he said, grinning.

Drones drifted in the clouds, cameras embedded in stadium walls, CCTV lenses buried in corridors. Dozens of perspectives sparked to life.

From the stadium roof, to the backstage lifts, to the service bays, to the streets surrounding the arena - he had it all.

A laugh crawled up his throat, slow, delighted, ominous.

"I just won't let it be that easy," he said.

Then, one final whisper, dripping with anticipation:

"This will be a good appetiser."

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