Ardashir cautioned her—again—against lunging blind at an enemy whose capabilities were still an equation with too many missing variables. Nefarith heard him. She simply chose to file the warning somewhere beneath “irrelevant.” The transport truck gleaming under the sun bore no insignia of Endfield or UWST, and that alone made it intolerable. Foreign. Unregistered. Unaccounted for.

With a lazy flick of her finger, she dispatched two henchmen toward the Raptor-class truck, their confidence inflated by her presence. They approached grinning, as though they were about to extort a courier rather than trespass upon a Columbian civilian exercising his constitutionally enshrined enthusiasm for firearms. The grins did not last long. In Columbia, “personal liberty” often arrives chambered and ready.

Unfortunately—owing less to strategy and more to stubborn pride—Nefarith followed after them. She attempted stealth. It was, at best, theatrical. Boots crunching gravel, cape catching wind, she advanced as though she were the apex predator in a field of sheep. Instead, she found her men sprawled in the dust.

“Hmph… I should’ve requisitioned better assets. Not these idiots.”

She folded her arms, composure barely stitched together over wounded ego. What she failed to calculate was that the operator responsible had not vacated the scene.