Turken Bacon climbed onto the cracked stone base of the old lantern, wooden staff thumping the courtyard tiles. Blue light hummed above him from the mana orb. His oversized aviators slid down his nose. He pushed them up with one finger and grinned. Someday, he thought, this whole city would listen. Nyra crouched a few feet away, prying open a sparking toy with a screwdriver. Wires hissed under her fingers. She didn't look up, but her shoulders tilted toward him. She was always listening, even when she pretended not to. A few steps behind her, another boy flicked his wrist and tried to cast. A weak spark popped, then died in the air. He cursed under his breath. Seraph-9 watched from the rusted doorway of their hideout, head tilted, blue eyes steady. The neon sign above her flickered red, then held. "Listen up," Turken said. He spread his arms wide. The staff caught the lantern's glow. "One day, I'm gonna run this whole city." They laughed. Nyra snorted. The boy with the dead spark rolled his eyes. But all three of them looked up. They stopped what they were doing and looked at him. That was the part Turken noticed. That was the part he filed away. He stepped down from the stone base and planted the staff. The laughter faded into something quieter, something closer to a promise. Nyra went back to her wires. Seraph-9 nodded once, slow. The hideout hummed behind them. Turken adjusted his sunglasses and smiled. The plan had started. Years later, standing in a campaign office, he would still hear that laughter — and remember exactly who had followed first.

Years later, Turken climbed the fire stairs to his rooftop perch and stopped cold. A yellow crane rig sat parked at the base of the building, tracks caked in oil. Above him, strange voices laughed. The plan needed quiet. The quiet was gone. He pushed his sunglasses up and kept climbing. On the roof, a crew had stacked pallets into a crooked tower. A chimney smoked from its top. Tarps flapped. His thinking spot was a camp now. A heavy chain lay coiled on the ledge where he used to sit. The pendant caught the light — a sharp symbol he knew. A scavenger boss who answered to one of the sitting officials. The message was clear. Someone had paid them to push him off. Turken counted them. Six. Armed. He counted exits. Two. He counted what he could win. None. Nyra would have charged. Seraph-9 would have calculated odds and told him the same number he already had. He picked up the chain, folded it into his coat, and walked back down the stairs. No words. No staff lifted. The crew watched him go and laughed again. He let them. Being underestimated was still an asset, even now. At the base, he stood by the crane rig and pressed his palm to its cold steel. The perch was lost. But the chain in his pocket named the hand behind it. He had a face now. The campaign had its first real enemy, and Turken already knew where to file him.

Turken left the crane rig behind and walked four blocks without looking back. The chain sat heavy in his coat. He had a name now, and a name meant a next move. He needed eyes on the crew before they noticed he was still standing. He found Seraph-9 waiting in an alley three streets over, her blue eyes lit soft under her hood. He passed her the chain. She read the symbol in one blink and pulled up a map across her palm. The crew's base was close — a warehouse with reinforced doors and graffiti stacked years deep. They moved to a roofline across from it. From there Turken watched. A crooked pallet tower stood lookout in the lot. A clean white booth sat at the foot of a second crane, its yellow stairs bright against the rust. Operators came and went. The crew wasn't just camping his perch. They were dug in across the whole block. Turken's plan needed proof, not a fight. He sent Seraph-9 around the back while he kept count. She slipped a small drive into the booth's data port and was gone in under a minute. By the time the operator looked up, she was already beside Turken again, her hand open. "Shipping logs," she said. "Payments. The official's signature is on three of them." Turken almost smiled. The same hand that signed off on the AI had signed off on his eviction. The pattern held. He pulled a scratched metal box from a hidden gap in the wall behind him, faded numbers crawling across its lid. He fed the new file inside and locked it shut. The perch was gone for good. But the campaign had grown teeth, and his enemy had just handed him the bite.

They slid down from the roof and into a graffiti-lit tunnel. Neon strips buzzed overhead. Turken kept one hand on the box in his coat. Seraph-9 walked half a step behind, her blue eyes scanning every shadow. They climbed a rail stair to a brick office above the warehouse row. From its tall windows, Seraph-9 spread the logs across the glass. "Same signature. Three shipments, two payments, one eviction order." She tapped the scorch-marked booth in the lot below. "That's where I pulled it. They haven't noticed yet." Turken looked past her at the warehouse. Steel doors, rusted panels, tags layered like scars. "Warehouse next," he said. The proof was real. The man was real. That was enough to move. "He will hit back," Seraph-9 said. "Hard. You walk in, you give him a target." Turken smirked. "Good. He's scared." He locked the box again and slid it into a gap in the brick wall. A scared man signs sloppy orders. A scared man sends crews where cameras can see. "Stay on the booth. I want every name that walks out of it tonight." She nodded and slipped back into the neon tunnel. Turken stayed at the window a moment longer, watching the steel doors below. The campaign had a face now, and that face knew his. By morning, one of them would be hunted. He had already decided it would not be him.