Unsettling Reports

Perca's jaw tightened as his gaze swept across the reports strewn across his desk, the overhead lights in his sparse office reflecting harshly off the slick paper. Each page was a stark white flag of surrender to the unease that coiled tighter in his gut with every passing minute.

He kneaded the muscles at the nape of his neck, a slow, grinding pressure that sent a cascade of small cracks down his spine as he leaned back in the worn leather of his chair. Sleep had become a luxury he could ill afford, and the grit behind his eyelids was a constant reminder of the weight pressing down on him, the responsibility that bowed his thin frame as he forced his attention back to the damning data.

*Where are they getting so many?* The question was a relentless drumbeat in his skull, a discordant rhythm against the hum of the city outside.

Barely a year had bled away since the Qrew had solidified from a desperate idea into a tangible force, and in that time, they'd carved deep inroads into the festering underbelly of the metahuman world. Predatory syndicates, once thriving in the shadows, now lay in ruins, their operations dismantled, their power shattered. 

Those they could reach, those not yet consumed by the darkness, they pulled back from the brink, offering not judgment, but a hand up, a path toward something resembling a life beyond fear.

The Qrew had become a sanctuary far grander than he'd dared to imagine. He'd known, in the abstract, of the vast, hidden tide of metahumans, forced into the suffocating silence of secrecy, hunted and reviled by a world that couldn't comprehend them.

But the sheer volume, the flood of desperate souls seeking refuge, hadn't truly registered until the Qrew opened its doors, a crack of light in an endless night. They emerged from the forgotten corners of society, drawn by the fragile promise of safety, of belonging. 

Years spent buried underground, powers leashed, identities fractured, now tentatively piecing themselves back together, seeking not just survival, but community.

Then there were the whispers, the hushed stories of those rare few, the haunted ghosts who had clawed their way out of the camps. Storby Camp. The name alone was a brand, seared into the memories of those who had survived it, and others like it. 

Among the Qrew, these survivors were treated with a reverence bordering on awe, a silent acknowledgment of shared horrors, a bond forged in the fires of unimaginable suffering. They were so few, a heartbreakingly small number in the face of the monstrous scale of the camps. 

His core group, the original strike force, carried that shared nightmare within them, their pasts inextricably intertwined by the barbed wire and shadowed watchtowers. Beyond them, perhaps a handful more had defied the odds, shattered their cages, and tasted freedom. The camps… designed to crush hope, to extinguish the very spark of defiance.

Escape was a whispered myth, a legend of impossible bravery, its successes tragically rare, lost in the overwhelming tide of despair.

As the Qrew swelled, the raw, untamed power of so many untested metas became a volatile element. A new urgency took root: the desperate need for a true haven, a sanctuary where metahumans could not just hide, but flourish. The search had been a grueling odyssey, a relentless pursuit through phantom leads and crushing disappointments.

Then, a flicker of improbable hope. Apeks City. 

Stumbled upon by chance, a whispered rumor leading them through winding trails to an impossible truth. Weeks of wary parley, a delicate dance of trust, proving their desperate need, their genuine desire for refuge from a world that hunted them. The gorillas – intelligent, articulate, impossibly real – had extended a hand, sharing the ancient, intricate science of their city's cloaking technology, a gift of trust beyond measure.

The Qrew had seized upon that knowledge, twisting it, refining it, molding it to their own unique needs. And so, nestled deep within the sprawling Canadian wilderness, New Spektrum City had risen, a fledgling town, a sanctuary woven from metahuman ingenuity and cloaked from prying human eyes. A testament to resilience, a beacon of hope in the encroaching darkness.

The Qrew's purpose sharpened, their focus honed to a razor's edge: protect this fragile city. Shepherd new arrivals through shadowed routes, smuggling the lost and hunted to safety within its invisible walls. 

Directly confronting a camp… the idea lingered, a phantom limb, a plan sketched in the deepest shadows of their minds, deemed too reckless, too audacious for the present. But it simmered, a promise for a future where strength and resources might align, where they could breach those walls of despair and liberate those still trapped within.

Financially, they operated in a realm of unexpected stability, sustained by a silent network of wealthy metahuman benefactors, phantoms in the human world who understood the precariousness of their own gilded cages, the fundamental injustice of a society built on fear and prejudice. 

Perca held a profound respect for these unseen hands. They walked among humans, cloaked in normalcy, enjoying lives of privilege, yet they risked everything – fortune, freedom, reputation – to aid those relegated to the shadows, or worse, condemned to the camps.

But even the quiet hum of satisfaction at the Qrew's hard-won victories couldn't quell the icy tendrils of unease that tightened around Perca's heart as he scanned the reports again. Past triumphs were hollow echoes in the face of the present threat, the looming shadow of Torden, now rendered in stark, undeniable data on these damning pages. He scrubbed at his eyes again, a sigh escaping his lips, heavy with the weight of a world tilting precariously on its axis.

"You're going to crack a rib if you keep that up." A voice, laced with amusement, sliced through the tense silence of the office, materializing from the shadowed corners, jolting Perca so violently his chair scraped back against the floor. 

Koldrune's laughter filled the room, sharp and bright, a jarring intrusion into the somber atmosphere. He clutched at his ribs, wheezing, genuine mirth dancing in his vivid blue eyes, the fading bruise blooming around his left eye a stark contrast to his infectious amusement. "Your face! Priceless."

Perca pressed a hand to his chest, willing his heart, a frantic bird trapped in his ribcage, to slow its panicked fluttering. "Don't *do* that." A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, an involuntary twitch in response to Koldrune's boundless energy.

"You're going to give me a coronary one of these days. And I'm betting the city's medical bay doesn't have a defibrillator strong enough to restart *this* engine."

Malkin's voice, a calming balm, joined the fray, grounding the lighter tone with her pragmatic presence.

"He's not wrong." She moved with fluid grace, a silent current of motion, settling into one of the worn chairs around the small, round table that dominated the office, the usual hub for team strategizing.

Perca rolled his eyes, a familiar, fond exasperation.

Malkin continued, her tone laced with gentle maternal chiding. "Seriously, Perca. Take a breath. Get out of this pressure cooker for a minute. Delegate something. Anything."

"Why are we talking about stoves?" Isamui's deep rumble resonated through the room, a gentle giant's confusion cutting through the playful banter. His massive brow furrowed, a visible ripple across the crimson armor of his skin, signaling a question struggling to form behind his white, pupil-less eyes. He followed Malkin into the office, his towering frame dwarfing the doorway, and settled into another chair with surprising lightness for his bulk.

Malkin sighed, a soft rush of air, rolling her eyes heavenward with exaggerated theatricality. "Never mind, Isamui."

Perca and Koldrune exchanged a fleeting glance, a silent pact of shared amusement behind Malkin and Isamui's backs. For all the constant sparring, the endless stream of playful jabs and mock insults, Malkin and Isamui functioned as the Qrew's unlikely anchors, parental figures in a sea of orphaned and abandoned souls. 

Perhaps inevitable, Perca mused. They were, after all, the only two who could convincingly claim adulthood in a tight-knit family forged in trauma, bound by circumstance and unbreakable loyalty.

Garrin, Signe Malheur, and Eldrin drifted into the office moments later, a familiar tide of youthful energy and easy camaraderie. They moved with practiced synchronicity, each instinctively gravitating to their usual spots around the table, a silent choreography honed through countless meetings, countless shared risks.

Signe Malheur, radiating her usual air of detached boredom, drawled, her voice laced with sardonic languor, "So, spill. What's the crisis du jour?"

"Crisis du jour is that I'm apparently persona non grata at impromptu office gatherings now. That's the crisis." Yoshi's voice, pitched high with mock outrage, echoed from the doorway. He strode into the office, hand clutched dramatically to his chest, a picture of theatrical wounded pride. He'd timed his entrance perfectly, arriving just moments after the others, his arrival a perfectly orchestrated comedic beat.

"Maybe if you weren't always dawdling," Eldrin teased, a playful smirk flickering across her lips, the fiery strands of her orange hair catching the light. Yoshi retaliated instantly, tongue darting out in a childish gesture that clashed amusingly with his sharp intellect.

As Eldrin's fingers twitched, a spark of irritation flaring in her eyes, threatening to escalate the playful jabs into something sharper, Malkin's voice, firm yet laced with a motherly warmth, cut through the rising undercurrent of tension.

"Children! Enough. We weren't holding a formal meeting. Koldrune and I were just attempting to stage an intervention for our fearless leader, get him to remember what sunlight feels like."

Garrin, ever the champion of distraction, perked up instantly, his green eyes shining with an almost childlike eagerness. "Team vacation? Yes, please! Japan? Beaches? I call dibs on building the biggest sandcastle ever!" He bounced in his seat, barely contained excitement radiating from him in tangible waves.

Perca offered another smile, a fleeting, weary upturn of his lips, the brief lightness dissolving as quickly as it appeared. His red eyebrows drew together, furrowing his brow once more with the weight of his concerns. 

"Maybe… another time, Gar." His tone was gentle, but firm, a leader's measured calm cutting through the rising tide of anxiety. "We have a… situation."

"We *always* have a situation," Signe Malheur sighed dramatically, leaning back in her chair, a picture of languid boredom, idly twirling a pencil end over end in the air with a casual flick of her wrist. But even her carefully constructed indifference seemed to waver, a subtle shift in her posture betraying a flicker of underlying curiosity.

Isamui, however, leaned forward, his massive frame shifting with surprising agility, his usual easygoing demeanor replaced by a gravity that mirrored Perca's own. "Lay it on us, boss. What are we looking at?"

Perca pushed the scattered reports across the polished surface of the round table, a silent invitation for the others to wade into the grim details themselves. He laced his fingers behind his head, stretching back in his chair, the movement stiff, betraying the accumulated tension in his muscles. 

"We're looking at a freaking leviathan, guys." His voice was low, somber, each word weighted with unspoken implications. "Torden."

The name hung in the air, a dark, suffocating presence.

"They've been playing the long game, quietly sinking roots into the criminal underworld for years. Decades, even. Their recent skirmishes with the heroes, those were just… appetizers. Testing the waters. They only really pinged on *our* radar in the last few months. Apparently," he continued, the reports' stark numbers echoing in his mind, a chilling litany, "they've been vacuuming up every stray metahuman they can find. Aggressive recruitment doesn't even begin to cover it. We're talking almost thirty confirmed metas added to their ranks in… eight weeks."

Signe Malheur whistled softly, a low, genuinely impressed sound that cut through her habitual bored façade. Her purple eyes widened, a flicker of something akin to genuine interest sparking in their depths, her mouth parting almost imperceptibly in surprised acknowledgment of the sheer scale of the threat. The rest of the Qrew mirrored her reaction, faces shifting, the playful banter abruptly silenced, shock and dawning apprehension replacing their earlier lightheartedness.

Malkin leaned forward, her usual calm composure etched with a sharp line of worry. Her mouth pursed, a subtle tightening around her lips, a familiar sign of deep unease. "And this is the charming organization we embedded… him… into?" Her voice was tight, the unspoken pronoun hanging heavy in the air, a shared understanding of the precariousness of their undercover operative's position.

Perca nodded grimly, the weight in his chest intensifying, a cold knot of dread tightening in his stomach. Malkin's frown deepened, lines etching themselves into her forehead, worry radiating from her in palpable waves. "I really don't like this," she stated, her voice barely a whisper, laced with a chilling apprehension. "He's too green for a deep dive into a group this big, this… unstable."