The trio moved to the next room—an equipment hangar where crates were labeled by mission codes. Their cases were stacked and marked with the red sigil of Magnus' personal seal. They opened their packs while a pair of instructors watched from behind a reinforced glass wall.
Althea slid her gauntlets on first. They hissed and clamped onto her forearms, metallic plates shifting as tiny turbine cores activated inside.
"Redirection pulse active," she said. "Synapse link stable. Arm blades deployed."
Two thin blades emerged along her forearms, humming faintly with kinetic charge.
Nioh pulled out a small warhammer-shaped device from his bag, about the size of a fist. It shimmered with violet circuits.
"This is the Cryo-Binder," he said. "I'll plant five of them around the dragon's lair. Once armed, they'll sync through the relay node and emit a zone-wide suppression pulse."
