( • W3AV1NG S0ULS !NT0 ST^RS • )

"We're not done yet," I call to the bodies gazing over my shoulder, watching me close the tabs that slaughtered every file digitally stored in the heart of Delta. The decades they spent to steal the lives of the innocent for their own reign has eradicated before their own eyes. A bright, blue digital flame fades into oblivion with the souls of their slaves as Delta's network rests in the grave I kicked them in. What remains of the Legion, the minds who helped me build the virus, watch me rise with new life as I finish what the world wished to start. With stares peering through monochrome metal masks shaped in the heads of the animals that represent them, they surround me with a hundred lost souls in a house deep within the forests. "We've erased everything they had. All the research, all the tests, all the work they went through when the crown was held."

"They've been doing this work for decades. How do you know they won't keep going anyway?" A muffled male voice responds, his eyes carefully moving behind his mask. I run my fingers over a silver mask of my own, a hint of red marking the cheeks of a kitsune head, and slide it into a small backpack over the glass of a tablet.

"As I said, we aren't finished," I watch a leaf spiral through a sunbeam beyond a broken window, "We move on to the second phase of our plan. Delta has been turning inked tides ever since the riots had even started. They've been ruthlessly searching for new targets to steal, and now that their sovereign has been caught, they're working even harder to keep their vision alive."

Another man spinning a blade in his hand comments. "They were, until you found this place." I turn to him, my face worn from reflecting heavy emotions.

"It wasn't where this place was that mattered," I answer back to him, "It was what we found inside."

Everyone watches me pull out the same picture they've seen before. A laminated image of a young girl smiling her heart out to the ceiling when I first discovered her. I found a dozen more around it, waving next to broken glass and stained carpet.

"Before this, you all were scavenging the streets and hiding under the surface. Why?" I ask the group.

"We were leading the riots. Caging an animal as merciless as Autumn isn't enough for us. That woman has hunted millions, it's only fair she meets the same fate. Our words of rebellion went silent until you came to bring them to life," a woman across from me answers. I let a soft smile reshape my firm look, but brush it off with the topic at hand.

"Delta is the last thing that stands as hers. Once that tower falls, that is when her life is over. We can't stop her breaths, but we can end what she's still breathing for. We found these pictures over those markings downstairs. A few weeks before, we watched another news report about a missing child that looks just like her. Her older brother went missing, too. Do you know where he was?" I ask, my arms outreached. The thin air pinches every mouth in the room, and it takes a moment of silence for a whisper to break free.

"Working for Delta," the woman answers.

"As a little more than a janitor, too," I run over to the window, pushing the boy out of the way to point at the corpses below, "Those foxes were fresh when I first discovered this place. He brought her to Delta so they could do the same to her as they did to them!"

"They're trying to resurrect her work. Now that she's gone, her fight to keep the crown lies in Delta," another boy who has yet to speak finally steps in, "At least they learned that foxes don't feel a thing when it comes to the traumas of humanity. As much as I hurt for the poor creatures, this experiment has slowed them down from finally turning to children again."

"They're doing that how they know best, too. They want the stars under their feet. They're working as thieves to the divine, using innocence as a sacrifice for control beyond orbit. It took a lifetime to end the war that Autumn birthed. If Delta resurrects her efforts to be more than human, we'll be living in an eternity of sorrow," I explain.

"We don't need another celestial experiment gone wrong," the first man nods.

"Then we need to get to this one," I tap the picture with my fingers, "We need to get to her before she turns into one."

"What's our plan?" the woman crosses her arms.

"I've gotten myself into the list of a little party Delta will be carrying on later tonight. They'll be celebrating their new find, ignoring the animals outside their doors, and holding a masquerade ball to hype themselves for glory. I'll have my disguise ready," I answer back.

The woman furrows her brow. "You're going alone?"

"I'm not alone when I know you'll be watching over me. You've always been here for me, all of you, and none of you will be let down," I tell them.

"We've been in this fight for as long as the earth has spun, and now our work lies in you," a man shrugs.

I turn to him, my eyes soft through the harsh metal I stare upon.

"The last time you lie your eyes on me is the last time you have to fight for your freedom," I turn to everyone else, "When our names are woven in Autumn's last breaths, the stolen souls of the innocent will be freed to roam above the stars."