Proving Ground
Chapter 1 — The Vigil
The television woke like a haunted lung, coughing static into the dark.
Its fractured screen bled ghostlight across the casino's wreckage—every flicker painting ruins in sickly halos, half-melted wires hissing behind the bar as though the building itself remembered how to breathe. The walls leaned closer with each pulse of light, curious and judgmental, witnesses to a vigil they hadn't asked to host. The image stuttered, then held: Catalina mid-spin, floodlights tangled in her hair like captured starlight, eyes sharp and shining with something between joy and danger, mouth parted as if the next note might tear the world open.
Adeline sat motionless in the curve of the booth, wings folded limp against her back like broken shields.
Three hours. You've been watching for three hours like some kind of stalker.
Her fingers dug into cracked leather, knuckles bone-pale in the shifting light. She didn't blink. Didn't breathe. The world had narrowed to that screen, to that face, to that moment replaying in endless loop.
The footage reset. The Bowl. The roar. Shadows moving through smoke thick enough to choke on. The crowd screaming—terror or ecstasy, impossible to tell which. For one flickering heartbeat her own silhouette cut through the fire—blades drawn, wings spread wide, a dark shape against the flames—then vanished again, swallowed by static and smoke as though she'd never been there at all.
Lucifer leaned against the bar, cigarette burning low between his fingers. Smoke curled upward in lazy spirals—questions he wasn't ready to ask, written in air that held them like secrets. His eyes—ancient, weary, impossibly kind—never left her.
"You've been watching that loop for three hours."
Adeline's jaw tightened. "Thought maybe this time it'd show me something I missed."
"Did it?"
"No." Her voice dropped to something raw, something that hurt to hear. "I still broke."
He crossed the room and crouched beside the booth. His hand found her shoulder. "You didn't break, little flame."
"I cracked." She still wouldn't look at him. "Same thing."
"No." His thumb pressed once against the place where tension had knotted her muscles into iron. "Breaking's when you stop. When you give up and walk away. Cracking's when you keep going even though it hurts. Even though every step feels like it might be the one that finally shatters you."
Out of instinct, she grabbed the remote and flicked through channels. Static. A soap opera. Commercial for car insurance. Then—
Her thumb froze.
A skyline twisted across the screen, buildings bending like molten glass under impossible heat, architecture folding in on itself as though reality had forgotten what solid meant. White-gold fire bled through cracks in the world itself. Civilians staggered through the streets, mouths open in screams that carried no sound. A woman collapsed mid-sentence, eyes blank and staring at nothing, her face slack with the horror of forgetting who she was.
Adeline's breath caught. "That's London."
Fire ignited in her chest—hotter than grief, sharper than fear, burning with the kind of intensity that felt like purpose given form. This was it. This was real.
"I can help. I have to." She stood, wings spreading slightly. "This is it. I can help. They wouldn't let me in at the Bowl—wouldn't even look at me. This is how I prove myself. This is how I join the Saviors."
Lucifer's expression stayed even. "You think you're ready?"
Adeline shook her head, meeting his eyes directly. "No. But being ready's not a luxury everyone gets."
For the first time in hours, a smile touched the corner of his mouth. He nodded once. "Then go. See what's waiting for you."
She turned toward the door, wings folding close.
"Make them remember your name."
Adeline paused. Just a breath. Just long enough to let the words sink in.
Then she nodded and stepped into the smoke-filled night beyond.
Phoenix turned, visor retracting to show a grin carved sharp as broken glass. His gaze locked on her—deliberate, dissecting, dismissive.
"That?" The word landed like a slap. "That's a pigeon."
Adeline's wings twitched once. Her hands curled into fists.
But she didn't flinch. Didn't look away.
"At least pigeons don't burn down their own nests."
Silence.
The Savior squad shifted uncomfortably. Nervous laughter rippled through the ranks.
But Phoenix's grin only widened. "Cute. You've got lines." Another step closer. "But Savior isn't a stage, pigeon—it's a fire. And fire doesn't forgive mistakes."
"Then maybe you're not fire," she said, voice low but steady. "Just smoke."
The grin flickered. Just for a breath.
Phoenix leaned in close—close enough that the heat from his armor made sweat bead on her temples. His voice dropped low. "Keep flapping. Maybe one day you'll fly."
He kicked into the air without waiting for a response, boots leaving scorch marks on the pavement. Flames roared beneath him as he rose toward the Savior airship hovering overhead.
He didn't look back.
Adeline stood in the fading light, fists clenched so tight her nails bit into her palms.
Pigeon. He called you a pigeon.
So show him what pigeons can do.
Chapter 3 — The Embers
The fracture looked dead.
But Adeline knew better.
She moved through the square with wings folded tight against her spine, each step deliberate, controlled. Broken glass glittered underfoot like starlight shattered and scattered. Neon signs hung dark and crooked overhead, their colors drained to gray.
He didn't fix it.
He'd pressed it down. Chained the fire long enough for applause, for cameras. But the burn still whispered underneath—patient and hungry, waiting.
The city still remembered what had tried to consume it. And memory, once set ablaze, doesn't go out so easily.
"You're not gone," she murmured to the pavement, fingers pressed to scorched stone. "You're just waiting."
A woman paused near the fountain's edge—the water still now, reflecting smoke instead of sky. She stared at her own hands, turning them over and over. "I had… someone," she whispered to no one, voice hollow. "I remember having someone."
The words hung in the air for a moment—fragile, desperate—then faded like smoke.
Adeline's chest tightened.
Phoenix's fire had burned away the symptoms, had put on a show of salvation. But the wound remained—invisible now, bleeding beneath the surface where cameras couldn't see.
Festering.
Her fists clenched, blood dripping from her fingertips where nails had broken skin.
"I'll prove it," she said under her breath. "I'll prove you're still here. I'll prove he didn't finish it."
I'll prove I'm not just a pigeon.
Her wings stretched wide. She rose into the air with powerful strokes that scattered debris.
Behind her, barely visible in the gathering dark, the scorch marks pulsed once more.
Golden.
Faint.
Alive.
Waiting.
Chapter 4 — The Stowaway
Smoke and rain blurred the skyline as Adeline watched the Savior squad vanish into the belly of a hovering fortress.
The airship hung above London like a storm trapped in steel—massive, impossible, defying gravity through sheer force of will and technology she couldn't begin to comprehend.
She moved low through the loading dock's shadows—wings tucked so tight they ached, every muscle coiled with tension. Cameras swept in silver arcs across the platform. But she'd learned to read their rhythm, to see the blind spots between sweeps.
Like a rumor no one believed.
Like a ghost passing through walls.
A supply ramp hissed open. In the chaos, in the noise—
She moved.
The hatch sealed behind her with a pneumatic sigh.
You're in. You actually made it in.
The corridor stretched ahead like the throat of some vast creature—sleek and curved, lit by pulse-lines of light that crawled beneath her boots like bioluminescent veins.
She brushed a glass panel experimentally. The surface was cool under her fingertips. The moment her skin made contact, glyphs flared awake across its surface in cascading patterns—liquid stars chasing one another in streams of light that looked almost like writing.
A grin ghosted her lips. "Okay… that's actually really cool."
"You always break onto ships, or is today special?"
The voice hit her like a physical force.
Not because it was loud. It wasn't.
Because she knew that voice. Had memorized every inflection, every laugh, every breath between notes from hundreds of hours of recordings watched in the dark.
No.
Adeline spun so fast her boots squeaked against the floor, wings flaring half-open in pure reflex.
Because standing ten feet away, framed in the corridor's soft glow—
Catalina.
Catalina Star.
The Catalina Star.
She was real. Close. Close enough that Adeline could see the faint freckles across her nose that didn't show up on camera. Close enough to notice the small scar above her left eyebrow.
Catalina leaned against the wall with the kind of casual grace that shouldn't be legal. Hair a restless spill of pink and blue that fell across her face in deliberate disarray.
SAY SOMETHING.
Adeline's jaw worked uselessly. No sound emerged.
LITERALLY ANYTHING.
MAKE WORDS HAPPEN WITH YOUR MOUTH.
Catalina's expression shifted—curiosity sharpening into something warmer, something that looked dangerously close to amusement. "You okay there? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I, uh—"
Her voice cracked. Actually cracked.
"I work here?"
The statement curled up into a question at the end, betraying her completely.
You absolute catastrophe of a human being.
But Catalina wasn't laughing. Not the way Adeline had feared. Her lips curved into a smile that spread slow and warm, like honey in sunlight.
"You're a terrible liar," Catalina said. "Like, genuinely awful. I've seen better lying from toddlers caught with cookie crumbs on their faces."
"Lucky for you," Catalina continued, pushing off the wall, taking a step closer, "I don't mind."
The distance between them shrank.
Ten feet became eight.
Eight became six.
"I remember you."
Adeline's heart stopped. Actually stopped.
"From the Bowl." Catalina took another step. "White hair that caught every light in the venue like you were made of moonlight. Eyes that didn't look away, not once, not even when Discord showed up and everything went to hell."
She noticed you.
She remembered your HAIR.
"You tried to stop him. Discord. While everyone else ran, you threw yourself at a god."
"Didn't stop him," Adeline said quietly. "Barely slowed him down."
"You tried."
Two words. Simple. Certain.
"Trying matters." Catalina's voice had gone softer now, stripped of performance. Just truth. "More than most people realize."
"Come on." Catalina's hands slid into her jacket pockets. "You should meet the rest of the team."
She turned and started walking, not looking back, completely confident that Adeline would follow.
Which she did.
Obviously.
You are so incredibly screwed.
The corridor stretched ahead, quiet and half-lit, and the space between their footsteps filled with everything neither of them was saying.
Every few paces, their arms nearly touched—sleeves brushing close enough to share warmth. Then didn't quite touch. Then nearly did again. A dance neither acknowledged, both absolutely aware of.
"So." Adeline's voice came out too loud in the quiet. "You're... Savior?"
Catalina's smile was audible. "Among other things. It's complicated."
"Complicated seems to be the theme today."
"Gets easier." A pause, then softer: "Or you just get better at pretending it's not crushing you."
"For what it's worth," Adeline said quietly, "you don't seem like you're pretending."
Catalina turned to look at her—really look.
"Thanks, snowbird."
Snowbird.
The nickname landed somewhere in Adeline's soul and set up permanent residence.
"That's new," she managed.
"Your hair," Catalina said simply. "Looks like snow falling. Seemed to fit."
She gave you a nickname.
You're never going to recover from this.
"We're here," Catalina announced, stopping before a door. "Ready to meet the rest of the disasters?"
"Disasters?"
"My team." Her grin sharpened with affection. "We're all various kinds of broken. It's kind of our thing."
"I think," Adeline said slowly, "I might fit in there."
Catalina's expression softened into something that made breathing difficult. "Yeah. I think you might."
"Welcome to the Rooks' Nest, snowbird."
Chapter 5 — The Rooks' Nest
The corridor opened into a room that didn't feel like the rest of the ship.
Steel gave way to something quieter—black walls softened by low amber light that pooled in corners like liquid gold. The space had the feel of a hideout carved from hostile territory, a pocket of warmth the rest of the vessel pretended not to notice.
Screens lined the far side, their glow tracing maps and data feeds in shifting constellations. In the center sat a long table scarred by use, its surface cluttered with slates and datapads, half-drained mugs leaving ring stains on metal.
Three people called it home.
JT lounged first—chair tipped back on two legs in a physics-defying balancing act. Red hair caught the amber glow like copper wire. A black mask covered the upper half of his face—sleek, form-fitting, making mystery into armor.
He spun a knife between his fingers with the fluid grace of someone who'd done it ten thousand times.
The moment he spotted Catalina, his grin cut wide. His eyes slid to Adeline with open assessment. "And look what you brought me. Someone who broke every rule we have and still walked in clean."
Adeline stiffened, wings twitching tight against her back.
But JT just flipped the knife once more, then caught it clean without looking. He extended a fist like it was the most natural greeting in the world.
"Takes guts," he said simply. "I respect that."
She stared at his offered fist for half a second too long. Then she tapped her knuckles against his, the motion stiff at first, awkward with unfamiliarity. But warming as their eyes met.
"You'll fit in just fine, newbie."
Marlowe lingered near the map wall, absorbed in shifting lines of data crawling across her slate. Long black hair spilled down her back in a straight fall.
When Catalina cleared her throat softly, Marlowe finally looked up.
Her gaze was calm, unreadable, but not unkind. She studied Adeline with quiet assessment—not judgment, just observation.
Then, simply: "Hi."
One word. Two letters. No fanfare.
Just acknowledgment.
"Hi," Adeline echoed back, voice quieter than she intended.
Catalina's voice cut through the quiet. "So, you need a codename."
Adeline blinked. "A what?"
JT's grin widened. "Everyone's got one. Part of being a Rook."
Adeline's lips twitched. "And if I don't have one?"
"Then we'll give you one," Catalina said, leaning forward. "But it's better if you choose. More you, you know?"
"Fair warning," JT added, "if you don't pick something, I will name you, and I promise you won't like it. I've got a list. 'Feathers' is on it. So is 'Bird Brain.' And 'Captain Molt.'"
"Those are terrible."
"Hence the warning."
She thought back to the rooftop conversation. To Lucifer's dry words that had landed heavier than he'd probably intended.
"Go at every enemy like a dark horse of hell—unexpected, unbreakable, the kind of force that changes everything while everyone's still figuring out what hit them."
Her jaw set, decision crystallizing.
"Dark Horse."
Silence folded around the words like a held breath.
Catalina's smile broke first—quick, genuine. "I like it. Fits you perfectly."
JT nodded once, no mockery in the gesture. "Dark Horse it is." He clapped the table. "Welcome to the team—kind of. Unofficially. Until Warren makes it official or kicks you out, whichever comes first."
Marlowe glanced up, her lips curved in the smallest smile. "Dark Horse," she repeated softly, as if testing how it felt. Then nodded.
Adeline exhaled slowly, as if sealing the choice into herself, making it permanent.
For the first time since London's smoke cleared, since Phoenix had dismissed her with a single word—she felt something anchor inside her.
Her name.
Her edge.
Her beginning.
"Dark Horse," she said again, quieter this time. Claiming it fully.
JT raised his coffee mug in mock salute. "To Dark Horse. May she be unexpected, unbreakable, and a complete pain in Phoenix's ass."
Catalina laughed—bright and warm, the sound filling the room like light. "I'll drink to that."
She was Dark Horse.
And for the first time in longer than she could remember, she wasn't alone.
Chapter 9 — The Dark Horse Rises
The fire recoiled, its golden body rippling with something that looked almost like uncertainty.
The city trembled beneath its fury, streetlamps bending like wax in furnace heat, windows melting into rivers of glass that ran down walls like tears. The fracture rose higher, building itself into a wave ready to consume everything in sight.
But Adeline didn't wait for the strike.
She moved first.
She dashed straight into the blaze—not away from it, not around it, but through it like the difference mattered, like intention could reshape reality.
The fire lunged down, jaws splitting into twin streams of molten light that converged on her position with killing force.
Adeline slid between them at the last possible second.
Blades carving arcs that bent the streams apart, that guided them wide instead of blocking them.
The flame roared past her on both sides, shredding the buildings behind her, melting stone to slag—but missing her completely.
She spun mid-movement, wings beating once for momentum, and drove her swords into the heart of the fire.
Not slashing. Not severing.
Pinning.
The black steel sank into the blaze like anchors finding purchase in churning water, and for the first time—the very first time—the fire stuttered.
Above, the airship's glass caught the impossible sight: Adeline standing in the center of the fracture, blades driven into living fire, wings outstretched like pale shields against the storm.
An angel holding hell itself at bay through sheer force of will.
"I won't destroy you." Each word forced through the agony of holding something that wanted desperately to break free. "I'll hold you."
The fracture convulsed, light flashing brighter than lightning.
Then it shuddered—a full-body tremor that rippled through golden flames.
For one suspended breath—one impossible, eternal moment—the blaze froze in place.
Not gone. Not healed. Not contained in the sterile way Phoenix had tried.
Held. Acknowledged. Seen.
Adeline stood locked against it, every muscle trembling, smoke curling from her wings in dark ribbons. Blood ran down her arms from a dozen cuts.
But she held.
Memory rose—Lucifer's voice from that night on the rooftop:
"Go at every enemy like a dark horse of hell—unexpected, unbreakable, the kind of force that changes everything while everyone's still figuring out what hit them."
"Dark Horse," she breathed—not loud, not a declaration for the world to hear, but a vow to herself.
And with the word, she rose.
The fracture writhed one last time, golden light clawing against her body with desperate fury. Then, with a shudder like a wounded animal finally accepting it couldn't escape, it folded inward. Streams of molten fire spiraled down her swords as though the blades were drains carved into reality itself.
Her weapons drank the light.
When it ended—when the last spark collapsed and faded—the fracture was gone.
Silence.
Ash fell soft across her wings like snow settling after a storm.
The trial was hers.
She'd earned it in fire and blood and the kind of determination that couldn't be taught, only discovered when there was no other choice.
Chapter 10 — Ash and Smoke
The casino doors moaned on their rusted hinges as Adeline pushed through, the sound like the building itself sighing in relief.
Home. You made it home.
Boots dragging ash across the floor in gray trails that mapped her journey from airship to here. Smoke still clung to her feathers, woven into white down until she looked like something caught between angel and aftermath.
Lucifer was where he had always been—leaning against the bar, red coat hanging loose over his shoulders, a book open in one hand he clearly hadn't been reading. The pages hadn't turned since she'd left. He'd been waiting.
His eyes found her the moment she crossed the threshold, and something in his expression shifted. Relief hit him hard enough to show.
"Well?" His voice came calm, controlled, but beneath it lingered the weight of someone who already knew the answer and needed to hear it anyway.
Adeline sank into the nearest booth without ceremony. Wings sagging against cracked leather. She tilted her head back, exhaling a breath she'd been holding since London.
A smile ghosted her lips. Tired but real.
"I bent it." The words came out rough. "Held it. Made it stop."
The book shut with a soft thud.
Lucifer crossed the room and pulled her into him.
"You did more than stop it," he murmured into her hair. "You proved yourself. To them. To Warren. To that jackass with the fire wings."
A pause, and then softer: "To you."
Her throat tightened around words that wouldn't come.
"They saw me," she whispered against his coat. "All of them."
Not invisible anymore. Not just wings and weapons and broken pieces someone glued back together.
Seen. Acknowledged. Made real by witnesses who couldn't deny what they'd watched.
Lucifer's grip tightened. "Good. Now they'll have to reckon with you. Now they'll have to remember your name whether they want to or not."
Finally, she pulled back. Wings trembling as they folded behind her. Her face was streaked with soot, but her eyes gleamed bright beneath the grime. Fierce. Alive. Burning.
"I'm the Dark Horse," she said softly. Not a question anymore. Not hope or aspiration or desperate claim to identity she hadn't earned.
Truth. Fact. Reality forged in fire and sealed in blood.
Lucifer smiled—small, almost hidden in the shadows of his face, but enough. "Yeah, little flame. You are."
She held his gaze, ash still clinging to her lashes, and felt something rise in her chest.
"But we're still us." The statement came firm. "Even if they're part of it too. I want you there—with me. With them. We're still a team, right?"
The question hung in the air like a blade suspended by thread.
Please say yes. Please tell me I don't have to choose.
Lucifer's expression shifted—surprise cracking through ancient composure. And behind it, deeper down—
The ache of someone hearing what he'd never dared to hope.
"Yeah," he said, and the single word carried the weight of covenant. "We're still a team."
Her shoulders loosened. The last of the night's strain finally breaking like fever cresting and falling away.
She wasn't choosing between them. Wasn't leaving him behind to chase glory with the Saviors.
She could have both.
In her room, he brushed ash from her jacket with careful hands. Tucked a blanket over her shoulders when she collapsed onto the mattress without even trying to remove her boots.
She blinked up at him through strands of white hair gone gray. "Thanks, Luce."
"Sleep," he said gently. "You earned it."
Her eyes fluttered shut before he finished speaking. Wings folded around her like a second blanket—wrapping herself in white feathers the way she always did when she felt safe enough to truly rest.
Lucifer lingered a moment longer, watching her. Her words echoed in his head—we're still a team—and for the first time in longer than he could remember, the thought made him smile.
She chose you. Even with everything else she could have, she still chose you.
Quietly, he pulled the door shut.
The casino was empty when he reached the bottom. Lit only by the amber glow of the salt lamp behind the bar. He leaned against the counter and let the silence settle around him like dust after an explosion.
After a while, his eyes drifted to the far end of the room—to the shadowed doorway that led down. Down to places even Adeline didn't know existed.
He stared at it for a long time, as though it might still have answers waiting in the dark.
The doorway stared back, patient as only darkness could be.
And there, with ash still clinging to his coat and his daughter safe sleeping above, he stayed.
Watching the darkness that watched back.
Waiting for something he couldn't name but knew was coming.
Had always been coming.