Caelum stood amid the crew, watching Cypher with quiet scrutiny. There was always something disarming about the man—equal parts mischief and madness—but beneath that glint in his eye, Caelum saw calculation. Cypher didn't speak unless it served a purpose. And when he did, the world shifted around him.
"A junkyard?" Caelum asked, his voice low but skeptical. "You really think we'll find magic in a pile of scrap?"
Cypher's grin widened. "Ah, Caelum. In this city? Magic isn't in the air. It's in the grit. The rust. The forgotten things." He tapped his temple, then pointed toward the exit. "Go look. What you need is buried under everything you've been taught to ignore."
The crew hesitated—part caution, part disbelief. Then Cypher, with theatric flair, spun on his heel and leaned casually against a support beam. "Don't dawdle. Ironhaven's not a city that waits."
Dave cracked a dry smirk. "Alright. Let's go dig through some garbage."
They moved, slowly at first, then with purpose. Something in Cypher's voice had pierced their doubt. Caelum lingered for a moment longer.
"Rain's coming, kid," Cypher added, just before Caelum turned. "And when it pours here, it doesn't stop."
Caelum didn't reply. He didn't need to. The storm wasn't coming—it was already here. And he was finally starting to feel like part of it.
The junkyard stretched before them like a metal graveyard. Twisted spires of discarded machines and shattered tech rose into the haze. The air was heavy with the scent of ozone, scorched wires, and oil. A thousand forgotten stories lay in heaps, waiting to be unearthed.
Rosecurt was the first to pause, crouching beside something half-buried in the wreckage. Caelum stepped closer and saw the shape of it—a long, serpentine figure tangled in coils of rusted chain and splintered alloy.
"A cyber rattlesnake," Rosecurt murmured, brushing debris off the segmented body. It had once gleamed—twenty feet of high-tech muscle and menace. Now, it was dead metal. But Rosecurt's fingers moved with reverence, his touch almost ritualistic.
To Caelum, the thing was just another artifact. To Rosecurt, it was something else. Something that stirred memory.
"You think it still works?" Caelum asked.
"I don't know." Rosecurt's voice was distant. "But I want to try."
The team gathered, instinctively drawn in. They rummaged through nearby piles, dragging out power cores—small, cracked, unreliable.
"None of these'll cut it," Dave grunted, tossing a core aside. "This thing's built for war. Not a lamp."
Caelum studied the snake, then the scattered cores. An idea clicked into place, sharp and immediate. "What if it doesn't need just one?"
The others turned to him, curious.
"We link them," he said. "Clustered. Layered. Like a living nervous system. Spread the load. Increase the output."
Rosecurt raised an eyebrow. "You think you can do that?"
Caelum didn't answer. He was already rolling up his sleeves.
He moved with precision, his tools dancing across the broken shell of the rattlesnake. Wires became veins. The alloy bent under his will, reshaped to accommodate the new design. He didn't just fix it—he rewrote it. Gutted the creature and gave it a new soul.
Time slipped by. The junkyard fell quiet except for the hum of machinery and the soft, electric rhythm of creation. The final construct was crude but elegant: a skeletal harness wrapping around a cluster of fused power cores, unified by a pulse conduit of his own invention.
Caelum wiped sweat from his brow. "Let's see if it lives."
He slid the core into place. The moment hung, suspended in silence. Then—movement.
The snake's tail shuddered. Its red lights flickered like old blood flowing through new arteries. Metal shifted. The rattle buzzed.
And the serpent rose.
Rosecurt stepped back, awe etched across his weathered face. The rattlesnake blinked, its glowing eyes scanning its surroundings like a beast waking from centuries of sleep.
Caelum exhaled, a grin tugging at the edge of his mouth. "Welcome back."
The others didn't speak. They didn't need to. The moment spoke for them—a broken thing remade. Not just a weapon, but a symbol. Of persistence. Of purpose. Of what they were capable of when they stopped following and started building.
As the team pressed deeper into the junkyard, the mood shifted. They moved with new energy, finding potential in every pile. Vlad and Dave dug out furniture, old neon signs, and forgotten holographic projectors. Some flickered to life, their ghostly images twitching in and out of reality.
"We could use this in the club," Vlad said, holding up a cracked neon skull that still pulsed with red light.
Caelum nodded. "We'll make that place more than alive. We'll make it dangerous."
They weren't just scavenging anymore. They were architects. Rebels. Revivalists of a city that had long stopped caring.
And somewhere in the shadows of Ironhaven, something stirred—watching, waiting.
Because Caelum had done more than power a machine.
He had sparked a resurrection