Tuuli launched herself forward, putting her body directly between Henrik and the Council leader's descending, clawed hand. The air ripped with the force of the blow, a supersonic crack that promised obliteration. A bright arc cut through the space where Tuuli’s ribs would have been. Henrik lunged, shoving Tuuli hard to the floor while driving the stolen Vesper Blade upward. The refined blade struck the titan's forearm with a wet crunch. A hiss, like superheated metal encountering ice, filled the suffocating darkness. The warlord roared in pure shock, his golden irises contracting to pinpricks before narrowing into a snarl. Tuuli landed hard, her breath knocked out of her, but her gaze was fixed on Henrik. He stood his ground, the edge buried two inches into the forearm, his knuckles white against the grip. Thick, iridescent fluid welled around the wound, scorching the air with an acrid tang. The giant recoiled, thrashing his limb as his gaze darted from the steel to Henrik’s face. He bulked huge against the doorway, yet the metal burned like a brand in his flesh. “Juhan! Now!” Tuuli gasped, lunging toward the cracked server housing as the wounded beast bellowed and struck again. Henrik met him, the blade a defiant gleam, ducking under a sweeping claw that could have bisected him. Juhan, a small, furious dynamo, was already tearing at the exposed wires and sparking conduits of the ruined server rack. “Hold your freaking horses, Tuuli! I’m going as fast as my tiny, human little – AHA!” A shower of sparks erupted as he jammed a thick bundle of wires into a humming port, his tongue poking out in concentration. “Mainframe’s back online! Sort of! What the hell do I connect to the… ‘broadcasting array’? Where’s the damn button for ‘strip all beasts’?” Tuuli scrambled to her feet, her gaze locking onto the massive antenna structure visible through the gaping hole in the wall. The chaos, the sheer audacity of it, was both terrifying and exhilarating. Her celestial energy, long suppressed by the EMP, surged within her, reignited by the raw power of Henrik’s defiance and Juhan’s frantic efforts. It hummed, a deep, resonant chord in her bones, eager to be unleashed. “Channel it through the antenna!” Tuuli shouted over the screech of rending metal as Henrik dodged another heavy swing. “The whole structure is wired to the transmitter!” Juhan stared at the mangled wires, then back at Tuuli’s glowing form. “Are you insane?! You want me to hotwire a freaking skyscraper with your alien magic?” “Just do it!” Tuuli insisted, extending her hands toward the exposed wiring, her palms beginning to glow with a soft, ethereal light. “Think of it as… a really big power outlet!” Juhan grumbled, but his hands moved with frantic precision, stripping wires with his teeth, twisting them together with desperate speed. “Fine! But if this fries my brain, you’re buying me a new one! With extra memory!” He connected the last wire, a thick, braided cable, to a port that pulsed faintly with residual power. “Okay, it’s… open! Push the juice, Tuuli!” Tuuli closed her eyes for a brief moment, gathering the immense power that now surged through her. It was a river of starlight, a galaxy compressed into her very being. She focused on the tower, on the sprawling city outside, on the very concept of the ‘beast’ within every werewolf. With a soft gasp, she pushed. Her hands glowed brighter, the light intensifying, extending tendrils of pure energy into the haphazard wiring. The wires hummed, then screamed, the entire structure of the Tower thrumming like a colossal tuning fork. A blinding pulse of white-gold light detonated from the Vestergaard Tower’s antenna, radiating across Uusika in a silent blast. It wasn't loud, it wasn't violent, but it permeated everything. Every pack house, every hidden den, every werewolf cowering in the city felt it. It was cold and clean, like the first breath of winter, stripping away not just power, but essence. Inside the panic room, the Supreme Alpha faltered. His roars turned into whimpers, his colossal form shrinking, shimmering, losing definition. The molten gold in his eyes faded, replaced by a dull, confused brown. His immense muscles withered, his fur receded into pale, goose-bumped skin. The Vesper Blade, no longer held by supernatural might, clattered to the floor as his hand went limp. In seconds, the terrifying predator collapsed into a shivering, naked man huddled on the floor, staring blankly at his own hands. He stared at his own bare limbs, then at Tuuli, then at Henrik, his lips trembling. “My… my wolf…” he rasped, his voice high-pitched and choked with tears. “It’s… gone…” On the hacked Council reality-TV feed flickering on Juhan’s tablet, Raivo Tamm watched, frozen. The broadcast framed the great Suuris commander as nothing more than a balding man weeping against the baseboard. His pack, who had been scrambling at the base of the tower, suddenly looked up, their eyes confused, then horrified. They felt it too. Their own beasts, muted, tamed, *gone*. One by one, they looked at Raivo, their Alpha, the man who had led them into this. Then, with an almost comical synchronicity, they turned their backs and began to walk away, a slow, shambling exodus into the early morning light. Raivo was left utterly alone, powerless, and profoundly bewildered, his face contorting in a silent scream. Tuuli surveyed the wreckage. The former commander was still sobbing into his bare knees, shaking violently. She felt a pang of… not sympathy, exactly, but a deep-seated politeness. “Oh dear,” she murmured, scanning the wreckage for something, anything. Her eyes landed on a crumpled box of tissues near a shattered console. She retrieved it, carefully pulling one out. “Here you go,” she offered gently, extending the tissue to the blubbering, naked man. “It’s quite alright. Everyone has bad days.” Henrik, leaning heavily against the doorframe, a thin line of blood trickling from a graze on his temple, pushed himself upright. He looked at Tuuli, then at the sniveling, de-wolfed man, then back at Tuuli, a slow, dangerous smirk spreading across his face. He’d seen the impossible, faced down a monster with a single dagger, and now the world had changed. He seemed almost… energized by the chaos. His eyes, still holding that intense, possessive gleam, fixed on hers. “So,” Henrik said, his voice a low rumble, filled with a new, thrilling note of victory. “Step 5 was saving the world. What’s Step 6?”

The Broadcast