CHAPTER 101: WAS IT WORTH IT?

Gabriel’s office was quiet.

Rowena stood before the desk, hands clasped behind her back.

"No trace," she reported, her voice clipped, professional. "Standard sweeps confirm Fin and Meg are no longer within the city or its immediate periphery. Energy signatures vanished abruptly post-incident."

Gabriel stared out at the city, fingertips steepled beneath his chin. He didn’t turn. "The domain."

Rowena’s posture remained unchanged. "We anticipated the possibility, sir. Scans for dimensional breaches matching his unique signature yielded negative results within detectable range."

"He didn’t breach," he said softly, still watching the city. "He simply withdrew. Sealed the entrance behind him." He finally turned, his pale blue eyes meeting hers. They held no surprise.

"They are sequestered."

The silence stretched for several beats. The implications hung heavy in the sterile air. Conventional tracking was useless. Direct assault impossible without locating a way inside.

"Change of plans," he said, his voice dropping slightly, losing its earlier resonant quality, becoming flat, decisive. "Call him."

Rowena shifted her weight almost imperceptibly. Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Sir?" The single word carried faint surprise, a hint of unease. "You don’t mean—"

"Yes," he interrupted, his gaze unwavering. "Him. We require his assistance."

She processed the order. Calling him meant standard procedures had failed completely. It meant the situation was deemed critical, the target and the artifact he carried – valuable or dangerous enough to warrant unleashing a specialist rarely deployed.

It was an escalation she hadn’t expected, not yet.

She inclined her head slightly. "Understood, sir." She turned and walked towards the door, her steps echoing faintly on the floor. The door slid shut behind her, leaving Gabriel alone, bathed in the cool glow of the city lights reflecting off his desk.

He remained seated, his gaze fixed on the city lights but not truly seeing them. The office hummed quietly around him. He picked up a stylus, tapped it once against the smooth surface of his desk, then set it down again.

Fin Carver. The memory surfaced unbidden. The boy sitting in the chair opposite him, radiating nervous energy beneath a layer of forced calm. Dismissive wave pinning Rowena. The sudden flare of power, green shifting to something else entirely. Defiance.

’I’ll pass.’ The words echoed faintly in the quiet room. Then the floor fractured, swallowed him whole. Gone.

Gabriel frowned slightly, the expression fleeting. An anomaly. An unexpected variable in a meticulously planned equation. Absurd power, seemingly stumbled upon by accident. Uncontrolled. Untrained. Yet, elusive. Capable of creating his own pocket dimension, capable of resisting Association authority.

He traced the rim of an empty water glass on his desk with one finger. The boy had potential. Dangerous potential. And now, he simply vanished, taking the Mana Cell and the girl with him. Into a place where standard protocols couldn’t reach.

Thorn in the side. Yes. Annoying.

He tapped the stylus again, a sharp, definitive sound this time. The Association disliked loose ends. It disliked unpredictability. Fin Carver was both.

The specialist would find him. He always completed his missions without fail.

---

Rowena stood in a quiet alcove off the main corridor. She held a secure comm unit, turning it over slowly in her hands.

Another woman, Anya, approached, holding two steaming mugs. She offered one to Rowena. "Rough briefing?"

She took the mug, the warmth barely registering. "You could say that." She stared down into the dark liquid.

Anya leaned against the wall beside her, sipping her own drink. "The Carver situation?"

Rowena nodded curtly. "He’s gone to ground. Domain is our guess."

Anya raised an eyebrow slightly. "Pulled the rabbit hole closed behind him?" She took another sip. "Complicates things."

"Gabriel wants him found," she said, her voice flat.

"Standard procedure," Anya replied. "Trackers, divination teams..."

"No." Rowena finally looked up, meeting Anya’s gaze. "He wants ’him’ called in."

Anya choked slightly on her drink, lowering the mug quickly. Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second before her professional mask slid back into place.

"Seriously? For a missing D-rank anomaly?" She shook her head slightly. "Overkill, even for Gabriel."

"Apparently not." Rowena’s grip tightened on the comm unit. She didn’t like using specialists like him. Too messy. Too unpredictable. Assets like that often had their own agendas.

"Well," Anya sighed, pushing off the wall. "Orders are orders, I guess." She gave Rowena a brief, understanding look. "Good luck with that."

Rowena watched her walk away down the corridor. She looked back down at the comm unit in her hand. She really didn’t want to make this call.

She took a deep breath, then keyed in a long, complex authorization sequence.

The comm unit chimed once, a secure connection established. Silence followed. No greeting, no acknowledgment. Just dead air, heavy with expectation.

"This is Operator Rowena, Authorization Sigma-7," she stated formally into the receiver. "Tasking order initiated by Director Gabriel."

More silence. Then, a voice answered. Low. Rough, like stones grinding together. "Target?"

She hesitated for only a heartbeat. "Fin Carver. Designation Anomaly-774. Last confirmed signature location Arclight. Believed sequestered within self-generated pocket dimension." She transmitted the data packet – Carver’s profile, energy readings, last known coordinates.

The rough voice didn’t respond immediately. Rowena could almost picture the figure on the other end, unseen, processing the information with cold efficiency.

"Objective?" the voice finally asked.

"Retrieval." she paused. "Lethal force authorized on if retrieval proves unviable."

Another pause. Longer this time.

"Understood," the voice grated. The line clicked dead.

She lowered the comm unit slowly. The connection was severed, the order given. She leaned her head back against the wall, closing her eyes for a moment. Calling him always left a bad taste in her mouth. Necessary, perhaps. But never pleasant.

---

Mara paced back and forth in Jolly’s office. The emergency alert still glowed faintly on the Guildmaster’s terminal. Jolly was elsewhere, dealing with the immediate fallout.

"It makes no sense," she muttered, running a hand through her already messy hair for the tenth time. "Murder? Hana? Fin wouldn’t... he couldn’t."

Juna sat perched on the edge of the desk, idly inspecting her perfectly manicured nails. She looked up as Mara paced past again.

"Doesn’t fit, does it?" Her voice was quiet, lacking its usual playful edge. Worry touched the corners of her eyes, though she masked it well.

"Fit?" she stopped, whirling to face her. "It’s impossible! He was barely back on his feet. And Hana was a veteran A-rank! The whole team wiped out, and somehow the rookie D-rank kills them all and steals an artifact?" She threw her hands up in exasperation. "It’s a fabrication. It has to be."

Juna nodded slowly. "The Association narrative is... convenient." She pushed herself off the desk, walking towards the window, looking down at the bustling Guild lobby below. "Too convenient." She crossed her arms. "But why? Why frame him?"

"The artifact," Mara said immediately. "They mentioned it. Something valuable." She shook her head. "But framing him for murder? Burning him publicly? Why go that far?"

"Leverage? Or elimination?" Juna mused, tapping a finger against the glass. "Maybe he saw something he shouldn’t have. Or maybe that ’artifact’ did something to him they want contained." She turned back to Mara. "Either way, the boy’s in serious trouble."

"We have to do something," she insisted. "We can’t just let them hunt him down."

Juna met her gaze, her expression unreadable now. "And do what? Defy an Association Omega Alert? Jolly can barely keep the Guild Council from demanding Fin’s head on a platter as it is." She sighed, a rare sign of frustration. "He’s made powerful enemies. More powerful than he likely understands."

"So we just... watch?"

"Yes," she began to walk out and stopped halfway, "Look, I like the kid too but we barely know him, do you really want to risk your life for him?" She left her with that question.

Was it really worth it?