I Evolve 10,000 Times Faster

Maeve’s fingers stopped moving.

Holden noticed immediately. He was halfway through packing his bag, rolling his spare uniform into a tight cylinder, when the sudden silence from her corner of the bunker became louder than any alarm.

She had been typing nonstop for forty minutes, monitoring Capital chatter, tracking military communications and watching the underworld networks she had quietly infiltrated weeks ago.

Now her hands were frozen above the screen. Her eyes were wide, not with surprise but with the wide of someone who had just found a snake in their shoe.

"Holden. Don’t pack."

He set the uniform down. "Why?"

"Sit down."

He sat.

Maeve turned the tablet to face him. The screen showed a dark interface, black background with green text. Lines of encrypted code scrolled across the top, but below them, a decoded message sat in plain text.

"House Sterling," Maeve said, her voice flat, the tone she used when the data was so dangerous that emotion would only get in the way. "They paid a contract to the Crimson Syndicate thirty-six hours ago. The payment was routed through four shell companies and a fake mining collective, but the source account traces back to the Sterling family treasury. The amount was five million credits."

Five million. That wasn’t a bounty. That was a small fortune.

"What’s the contract?" he asked.

"Assassination. Target: Team Soup. Specifically, you." She scrolled down. "The contract orders the Crimson Syndicate to intercept and destroy the train carrying Team Soup from Demon Mouth Outpost to the Capital."

"They want to blow up the entire train," Holden said.

"They’re making sure there are no survivors," Maeve said, her voice steady despite the slight tremor in her fingers. "This isn’t just about killing you, Holden. They’re willing to kill everyone on that train to make sure it happens."

Holden leaned back in his chair while he processed the situation.

The Crimson Syndicate was the most expensive and ruthless mercenary organization in the kingdom. They didn’t take small jobs or personal grudges, only contracts that required military-grade firepower, which they executed with precision.

House Sterling had hired them. Lyra’s family. Her mother, the same woman who had already sent a Rank 3 assassin after him.

They were still trying to kill him.

The door opened, and Lyra walked in carrying three cups of tea. She stopped when she saw Maeve’s face, then glanced at the tablet.

"What is it?" she asked.

Holden turned the tablet toward her.

Lyra set the tea down and read the screen. Her eyes moved left to right, top to bottom. When she finished, she read it again. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, and a pulse of frost energy leaked from her body, coating the nearest cup in a thin layer of ice.

"They’re going to blow up our train," she said, her voice quiet and controlled, the kind of calm that came from somewhere deeper than anger. "A train full of soldiers. People who fought and bled at the Outpost. People who are just trying to get home to their families."

She looked at Holden, her glowing blue eyes hard and cold.

"My mother did this."

"Your mother’s people," Holden corrected gently.

"No. It’s my mother. She controls the treasury. Five million credits doesn’t leave the family vault unless she personally approves it." Lyra’s jaw tightened. "She signed the order. She paid the money. She knows exactly what she bought."

crack.

The tea cup nearest to her shattered, ice having compressed through the ceramic so fast it exploded outward in a shower of frozen shards.

"I’m going to deal with House Sterling. Permanently."

"We are. But first, we deal with the Syndicate."

Emric appeared in the doorway. He had been listening, his notebook already open and pencil in hand.

"Train routes," he said, sitting down and spreading a hand-drawn map across the table. "The railway from Demon Mouth to the Capital runs through three distinct terrain zones: plains, forest, and mountain pass. The plains are too open for a ground assault team. The mountain pass is also too tight, limited sight lines and escape routes. A professional mercenary group would want concealment for explosives, elevation for snipers, and a clear way out."

His pencil circled a section of the route. A bridge over a river gorge.

"Here. The Keldrin Bridge, thirty-seven kilometers from the Capital The train crosses a sixty-meter gorge over the Keldrin River, with forest on both sides. The bridge is a perfect choke point. Take out the supports, and the train drops into the gorge. Anyone who survives will be injured, disoriented, and trapped in the river canyon with nowhere to."

Renna had drifted in at some point during Emric’s explanation. She stood behind him, reading the map over his shoulder.

"So they blow the bridge, the train falls, and then their guys climb down and finish off anyone who’s still breathing?"

"Well, that’s standard syndicate procedure ," Emric said. "They’ve used this exact playbook three times in the last decade. The Academy War Crimes Tribunal has two open cases against them for identical operations."

"So we know where they’re going to hit," Renna said. "Can’t we just take a different train?"

"We could," Holden said.

Everyone looked at him.

He was smiling, and the room went quiet. The kind of quiet that meant he had already made up his mind and everyone else was waiting to hear it.

"We’re not taking a different train. We’re taking this one. Same train, same route, same time they expect us."

Emric looked at the map, then at Holden, then at the map again. "You want to walk into the ambush."

"I want to ride into it. Sitting down. With snacks."

"That’s tactically insane."

"It’s tactically fun though."

"Those aren’t the same thing."

"But close enough." Holden stood up. "The Syndicate expects sleeping academy students on a train. They expect an easy hit. What they’re not expecting is a Rank 2 squad who just killed an Abyssal General."

He looked at each of them. "They set a trap for us. I say we spring it on our terms. We let them blow the bridge. We let them board the train. And then we remind them why five million credits wasn’t enough."

Renna spoke first. "I’m in. I’m so in. I’ve been wanting to shoot something that isn’t a centipede for DAYS."

"The plan has some risks," Emric said, "but we have the element of surprise. They think they’re the hunters."

He paused.

"They’re wrong."

"I want to see the look on the Syndicate captain’s face when he realizes what he walked into," Lyra said.

"Then let’s get ready." Holden picked up the map and folded it. "We board the train tomorrow morning. Weapons ready. Armor on. Nobody sleeps until we’ve cleared the car."

"What about me?" Maeve asked from her station.

"You stay on comms. Monitor the Syndicate’s communications channels. The moment their team moves, I want to know how many, from which direction, and what they’re carrying."

"I can do that." She paused. "Holden. They priced you at five million credits."

"I know."

"That’s a lot of money."

"I’m worth more than that."

She didn’t laugh, but the corner of her mouth twitched.

Morning came grey and wet.

The train sat at the Outpost platform, a long, armored snake of black steel cars. Steam rose from the engine in thick plumes that mixed with the morning mist. Vanguard soldiers loaded cargo into the freight cars while a small honor guard lined the platform.

Captain Venus was waiting at the passenger car. He stood at attention, his arm in a new sling and the cut on his forehead properly bandaged.

"Holden." He extended his hand. "I can’t tell you how to run your squad, but I can tell you that the rail line to the Capital passes through some rough terrain. If you need a military escort, I can spare twenty men."

"Appreciate it, Captain. But we’ll be fine."

"Safe travels, Voss." He saluted sharply. "The Demon Mouth Outpost owes you a debt we can never repay."

"Just keep the foundation reinforced," Holden said. "I hear the basement has structural issues."

Venus almost laughed.

Team Soup boarded the passenger car. It had a private cabin at the rear with four bunks, a table, and a window. Better than the freight cars they had ridden in to get here.

The train whistle blew.

whooo.

The engine lurched, and the cars shuddered as the platform slid backward. The train pulled out of the station, gaining speed as it left the Outpost behind.

The landscape outside the window changed quickly. The mud and scorched earth of the Outpost gave way to grassland, then scrub, until the first hints of forest appeared, dark trees closing in around the tracks.

Holden sat in the chair nearest the window. His Phantom-Weave Armor was on, the repaired panels fitting snugly against his body.

Emric sat across from him, his shield propped against the wall. His glasses were new, a replacement pair Venus had scrounged from a supply crate. They were slightly too big for his face, but they worked.

Renna was on the top bunk, lying on her stomach with her bow within arm’s reach, bouncing her feet against the mattress in a constant, restless rhythm.

Lyra sat beside Emric, her spear resting across her knees, eyes closed. She wasn’t sleeping but focusing, centering herself. The cold energy around her was perfectly controlled, not a single spark of frost leaking from her body.

"Gear check," Holden said.

"Shield’s good," Emric said. "Ready for impact."

"Bow’s ready. Forty-two arrows, plus spares. Storm charge on all of them."

"Spear’s charged. Ready for anything," Lyra said.

Maeve’s voice came through the earpiece. "I’m monitoring the Syndicate’s encrypted channel. Quiet so far. No movement. If they’re in position, they’re maintaining radio silence."

"Keep listening."

"I will."

Holden leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, but he wasn’t resting. His 10,000x processor was running at full capacity, focused entirely on the train tracks beneath him.

He could feel every vibration, bump, and every microscopic imperfection in the rail.

He mapped the tracks in real time. Every meter of rail ahead of the train was cataloged, analyzed, and stored. He could feel the density of the metal, the tension in the bolts and compression of the gravel bed beneath the ties. If a single charge was placed on the track ahead, or a section of rail had been tampered with, he would feel the change in the metal’s resonance before the train reached it.

The forest thickened outside the window. The trees pressed closer and the light dimmed.

An hour passed. Then two.

Renna’s feet stopped bouncing. Emric set his notebook down. Lyra opened her eyes.

They could all feel the anticipation. The weight of knowing that somewhere ahead, someone was waiting to kill them.

Maeve’s voice came through the earpiece, tight with urgency. "Holden. The Syndicate channel just lit up. Encrypted burst transmission. I’m decoding it now."

There was a pause for three seconds.

"Decoded. They’re active. The assault team is in position at Keldrin Bridge. Twelve minutes from your current position."

"Copy." Holden opened his eyes.

He felt it. A shift in the metal, so slight that no human ear could detect it and no instrument on the train could register. But his 10,000x processor was focused entirely on the rail’s vibration signature, and it caught the anomaly instantly.

The steel ahead was singing a different note. Something heavy had been attached to the track, something that didn’t belong. The rail’s resonance had changed along a specific section, roughly eleven kilometers ahead, right where the Keldrin Bridge stood.

"They’re here," Holden said. "Gear up."