Mylo kicked the side of the workbench hard enough to send a screwdriver clattering to the floor, then immediately hissed in pain and cursed whatever idiot left a hexnut right where his toe could find it. That idiot was him. Obviously. Didn’t make it any less satisfying to blame someone else.

He limped dramatically for a few steps, just in case anyone was watching, then flopped backward onto a half-patched sofa like he was dying of battle wounds instead of bruised pride. The musty cushions groaned in protest—honestly, they’d probably seen more war than he had this month.

Everything felt different lately. Wrong angles, off rhythms. Same cracked walls and low-humming light tubes, same scent of solder and sweat and someone’s godawful instant noodles—but off. Like the beat of their crew’s song had shifted, and nobody told him the tempo changed.

Mylo stared up at the ceiling like it had answers. It didn’t—just water damage and a spider that was probably plotting something.

“Go ahead,” he muttered, pointing a finger lazily at it. “You want the place? Rent’s due in screams and I’m fresh out.”

He laughed at his own joke. No one else did. Because no one else was here. Because everyone else was off with the newbie.

The newbie with the polished gear and the practiced smirk and the weirdly good aim. The newbie who “was just trying to help,” who “meant well,” who “really earned their place.”

Tch.

Mylo sat up fast enough to make himself dizzy, scrubbing a hand through his mess of hair, jaw tightening.

“Not mad,” he muttered aloud. “Just... y’know. Observing. Commentating. Being informed.”

Which was code for: seething.

It wasn’t that he hated change. Change was Zaun’s heartbeat—grimy, sputtering, chaotic. He thrived on it. Reinvented himself three times before lunch most days. But this... this felt like a replacement. Like someone had taken the family portrait he’d bled for and smudged him out of it. Claggor laughed at someone else’s dumb jokes now. Powder had stopped checking in with him first.

And maybe he was the loudmouth. The one who picked fights just to feel alive. The one who poked at scabs ‘cause healing felt like forgetting. But dammit, he was their loudmouth. He’d earned that spot with every broken bone and bite of ration bread.

Mylo stared at the floor. A bolt rolled slowly across it, wobbling like it couldn’t make up its mind where to land.

He didn’t either.

But he did know one thing: if this was his family, then he wasn’t going to go down easy. They could bring in as many golden-boy rookies or doe-eyed mechanics as they wanted, but he wasn’t gonna fade into the wallpaper.

Hell no.

He’d fight tooth and nail, shout and claw, until they remembered exactly who’d had their backs before the world gave a damn. And if that meant getting his hands dirtier than usual?

So be it.

He was Mylo. And he didn’t go quiet.

Not for anyone.