In the southern Urals, four members of an Earth counter-terrorism special forces unit — Ela, Iana, Fuze, and Doc — are searching for their missing comrades. Suddenly the ground rumbles at the old lab site, and when they come to, they've crashed through the ceiling of some penthouse and landed on a golf-ball sculpture.

Outside the window: a beach and a casino. In the sky: two moons. Yes, this is Dosoles, a resort city on Terra.

Rainbow Six Siege Collab, Part 2: 'Lucent Arrowhead.' The story of four gun-toting Earthlings navigating a world of Arts and crossbows — a tale of art, and of bombs.

1. The Bodyguards Who Came Through the Ceiling

At that same moment, in the penthouse of Dosoles's eccentric art-dealer tycoon Rainel Kowalski: unidentified armed men, huffing and puffing their way up the stairs (the private elevator's guarded, after all), are just about to kidnap him.

That's when the ceiling breaks open and the special forces unit comes crashing down. Rainel's new work, 'Collapse of Order'—two thousand golf balls stacked into a sculpture—literally collapses. His secretary Miłosz has one thing to say: '...Collapse?'

The four of them find themselves engaging the kidnappers before they know it. While they suppress enemies immune to grenades with smoke and mines, Rainel calmly pours himself a drink and watches the show. 'Might as well let whoever wins the fight decide who gets to kidnap me.'

When the fight ends and the operators step out onto the balcony, they're greeted by a sunset beach and an ice cream truck. And rising over the horizon: two moons.

Never thought I'd be asking this… but Mr. Rainel, is this planet we're on actually Earth?

— Ela

Welcome to Dosoles—the black heart of Bolívar.

— Rainel

2. The Employer with the Highest Bodyguard Turnover Rate

Stranded on an unfamiliar planet and in urgent need of food and shelter, the operators take jobs as Rainel's bodyguards. According to Miłosz, thirty-two bodyguards have already quit out of sheer exasperation with Rainel. Foreshadowing, that.

Sure enough, the moment Miłosz steps out on a business trip, Rainel heads straight for the bungee jump platform. And near the water's surface, he secretly releases the safety harness and free-falls. 'The feeling of shedding every shackle that binds you and just falling'—or so he calls it.

Furious, Ela throws down her resignation on the spot. But just before leaving, she mentions offhand, 'That sculpture in the special exhibit room—it's a replica.' Rainel's eyes light up. That replica was one he'd made himself, and Ela was the first person ever to notice.

'If you promise to behave yourself, will you keep taking care of me?' —And so Ela becomes the 33rd bodyguard.

Meanwhile, an interview airs on TV in which Rainel dismisses local artists as 'amateurs.' Watching through gritted teeth are Art Street's former firefighter Diaz and graffiti artist Tecno. Of all days, the gallery's opening ceremony has landed on the same day as the Art Street festival.

And one more player enters — Captain Mateo of the coalition government, the true mastermind behind the kidnapping. Miłosz quietly opens negotiations with this man, whose dream is to bulldoze Art Street and build an entertainment district in its place. Miłosz's report when he returns: 'The bait's been taken.'

3. The Suppressant Heist (Culprit: Mercenary Cosplay)

A few days later, Rhodes Island's Tequila and Catapult are ambushed while delivering Oripathy suppressants to Art Street. The culprits are some oddly clumsy 'mercenaries,' firing guns and throwing around Earth-style tactical jargon.

It's Mateo, imitating Ela's team's methods to steal the medicine and pin the blame on them.

At the same moment, Doc and Iana rescue Tecno, collapsed in the street downtown. When the kid shows off the Originium crystals sprouting from his knee and asks, 'Doesn't this scare you?', the medic from Paris calmly gives him first aid.

Art Street, where they bring Tecno, looks rough on the surface, but it's also home to an Arts master who gives massages without ever touching you, and a father who sings lullabies. But right at that moment, Diaz recognizes the two of them from a newspaper article. Branded as 'Rainel's bodyguards = drug thieves,' the pair suddenly find themselves hunted across the whole neighborhood.

It's Tecno who quietly smuggles the two of them out of their bind. 'I just came out to take out the trash, and I didn't see a thing. Got it?'

4. A Warehouse at Midnight, with Tango for BGM

The stolen medicine ends up, via Mateo, in a remote warehouse owned by Rainel. But into that same warehouse, at the very same time, sneak Ela's team (hired by Miłosz), Tequila's team (tracking the drugs through market intel), and Tecno (there to break the security).

Tecno sips a guard's coffee, spills it on the keyboard, and accidentally hits the intercom button—suddenly tango music blares through the entire warehouse. In the darkness, everyone ends up taking everyone else hostage in a chaotic standoff, until 'Freeze!' erupts from every direction at once.

Just then, a carefree voice calls out from outside the warehouse door: 'Hey, delivery for you!' Dead silence. Together, they interrogate the delivery man and uncover the whole of Mateo's scheme.

The suppressants make it safely back into the residents' hands. And Mateo gets chewed out by his superiors. Someone stripped that delivery man naked and dumped him at the front gate of the base—a public humiliation of the coalition government, apparently.

5. Dancing Once More, in the Burned Ballroom

Once the misunderstanding is cleared up, Tecno shows the operators his pride and joy: two enormous wooden puppets, meant to dance at the festival.

There used to be a fire at the ballroom. Nobody's danced since.

— Tecno

It was firefighter Diaz who saved people from that fire. But he couldn't save everyone, and he hasn't danced since that day. It was also Diaz who said, 'Let's build puppets so people can dance again.'

The day before the festival, an accident tangles a puppet's arm in its cables. With the puppet eight stories up and no one able to climb that high, Ela quietly grabs a rope. She's fallen from a twentieth-floor building before, she says, so this is nothing.

What's wrong with a little delusion? All you have to do is succeed at some impossible challenge you set for yourself, and surprise everybody.

— Ela

The repair succeeds, and that night, the two puppets dance for the very first time. With no rehearsal and no conductor, the whole neighborhood answers with an improvised performance, and the residents dance right along with it—for the first time since the ballroom burned.

That same night, at Rainel's mansion, a lullaby plays from an old music box a restorer had just repaired. It was a birthday gift his late mother composed herself, meant for a young Rainel—who says nothing, only stares out the window at the moon.

6. The Bombs Are Already in Place

The puppets' dance becomes the talk of all Dosoles the very next day. Overnight, the 'dangerous slum' becomes the star of the news.

Miłosz makes an unexpected request of Ela. The opening ceremony date, he explains, actually falls on the anniversary of Rainel's mother's death—could she persuade Art Street to postpone its festival by just one day? While he's at it, he tells her about Rainel's father: the greatest art dealer in all of Kazimierz, a man who crushed artists under threats and personal attacks.

There's even a story about how, when his mother damaged one of his father's works in protest, that very work sold for even more afterward, having gained a 'philosophical meaning.'

And that night, in his bedroom, Rainel quietly tells Miłosz: 'Every last explosive is in place.'

However great the shockwaves might be when a work is unveiled to the world, they can hardly compare to a truly great death.

— Rainel

This eccentric tycoon has planted bombs at his own gallery's opening ceremony. His plan: to blow up, with his own two hands, an entire art market that crushes art beneath money—on the very anniversary of his mother's death.

Meanwhile, Mateo secures command of Dosoles's military from the coalition government. Fully armed troops surround Art Street under the pretext of a 'routine fire safety inspection.'

7. A Raid Called 'Fire Inspection'

The inspection was destruction. Soldiers tear apart works that took half a year to make, beat artists who resist, and dismantle the wooden puppets right in front of the residents. As the puppets' eyes dangle from tangled wires, only Diaz refuses to look away, watching to the very end.

Just as they're about to seize the storage device holding the blueprints, Tecno snatches it and refuses to open his fist, even as he's beaten down. 'I'm... never... letting go...' At that exact moment, a sniper's laser sight lands on the commanding officer's forehead. It's Doc.

Go ahead, step on him one more time. If you're curious what it feels like to take three bullets at once, be my guest—don't hold back.

— Doc

Ela storms up to Rainel to confront him. As it turns out, Rainel had dangled a bait in front of Mateo—development rights, in exchange for 'dealing with' Art Street—all so he could watch the captain get his comeuppance from the residents. He claims he never expected armed troops to get involved, but he offers no apology either.

In the ruined street, an agitator planted by Mateo whips up the crowd, shouting, 'Let's trash the gallery!' Diaz steps forward before the furious crowd. He says he's grabbing his gear and heading to that glass building.

If they don't want to see us dance, then we'll just have to make sure they can't look away.

— Diaz

Instead of revenge, he means to bring instruments and sound equipment and perform right in front of Rainel's gallery. At that same moment, Tequila, tracing the shipping records for the explosives, comes face to face with a hidden basement room in the gallery, its walls packed floor to ceiling with bombs.

8. The Opening Ceremony: When Two Terror Plots Collide, It's a Collage

Opening day. Rainel stands on the podium before investors and brokers and unveils his 'Virtual Art Collection Project'—digitally replicating artworks so that only ownership, not the work itself, can be bought and sold. A blatant mockery aimed at the entire art market.

He provokes further by unveiling 'His Royal Pettiness the Captain,' aimed squarely at Mateo in the audience—but Mateo doesn't get angry. Instead, he checks a signal on his device and stands up. Under the pretext of a 'terror threat,' he begins his hostage-taking, trapping the entire audience inside the gallery.

And so, unbeknownst to either of them, Rainel's bomb plot and Mateo's hostage-taking collide in the very same building. Ela's name for it: the terror incident 'Collage.'

When his trusted subordinate commander tries to talk him down—'This wasn't the plan, let's run'—Mateo shoots him dead with an arrow. 'I can't turn back anymore. Neither can you.' This man has now truly crossed a river with no way home.

The people of Art Street arrive outside the gallery, and Ela's team, along with Catapult, joins them to form a rescue operation. Diaz steps up too. 'Don't forget what my job used to be.'

9. The Emergency Exit Is Upstairs

The team that breaches the building rescues the hostages one by one. Using the Gemini Replicator, Iana plays the part of a pale white Sankta murderess whose bullets pass straight through her body, terrifying the guards—who'd just been watching a horror movie—into surrendering without a fight.

That's when Miłosz appears before Ela and offers a deal. Four bombs, detonation at ten in the morning. He'll hand over every last piece of disarming information—if she'll save Rainel.

If Master Rainel cannot be saved… then I suppose I, too, shall remain here, to keep him company on his journey.

— Miłosz

Roles are assigned — Fuze takes the basement, Tequila and Catapult the third-floor darkroom, Diaz the sixth floor, and Ela's team the penthouse. But Diaz, disarming a bomb on the sixth floor, is discovered and dragged before Mateo.

On the balcony, Mateo demands the detonation time and the private elevator key from Rainel. Rainel's answer is nothing but mockery—calling him a foul-smelling beast, a burden beast, that's barged its way into a memorial hall.

Meanwhile, the bomb on the sixth floor detonates, bringing down the only staircase and trapping Ela in the rubble. Even so, Ela insists she'll go upstairs alone.

You've got it wrong. I'm going up there to save someone. Not to find a way to save myself.

— Ela

Just as she's surrounded and cornered by enemy soldiers—a wall explodes and breaks open. Ash, Blitz, Frost, Tachanka. Their missing comrades, already on Terra before them—the very people they'd been searching for—have come to save Ela.

Ela calls out their real names, one by one. Cohen, Tina, Koets, Alexandr...

10. Grow Up

Just before ten o'clock, the only way out left is to jump from the balcony. Blitz pulls out gliding jetpacks made by Rhodes Island's Closure, and one by one, everyone jumps.

Rainel takes a jetpack too, and jumps. And then, mid-air, he throws it off himself.

Ela's outstretched hand doesn't reach him. Just as Rainel, in free fall, is about to savor the ruin he designed for himself — the golf balls glow and swarm together, catching his body. He opens his eyes to find himself by the pool, lying on a mat of golf balls.

To Rainel, who calls his own ruin 'an honorable act of rebellion,' Ela speaks plainly: he's a rebel, sure, but there's nothing honorable about it. She asks if he ever actually thought about how to truly rebel against the father he hated, or if this was all he ever came up with.

And then she brings up what Miłosz told her: that his mother was a true artist, and that as a young man, he used to resemble her.

Ask yourself what your mother would have thought. Would she have been proud of what you've done? ...Mr. Rainel. Please. Grow up.

— Ela

Lifting his head out of the water, Rainel sees, on the far side of the pool, someone's blurred silhouette watching him before quietly walking away. That gaze, he says, reminded him of his mother.

In the end, Rainel was still alone.

Epilogue: The Galleria Barbecue Restaurant

All the bombs are disarmed, and Mateo, left dangling off the edge of the balcony, is 'rescued' and arrested by the police. Doc's verdict: 'That's some seriously good luck, if you ask me.'

That night, the gallery's central hall turns into a full-blown festival. The walls become graffiti canvases, there's a rock-and-roll stage, even free food carts. Artists, hostages-turned-audience, and police alike dance together—the biggest ball in Art Street's history.

Rainel appears before Diaz, drinking alone, and offers something that's almost, but not quite, congratulations: 'So you ended up throwing your festival in my gallery after all.' Then Diaz gives him one last line.

If you want to dance, you can dance with anyone here. Just not with you.

— Diaz

Afterward, Rainel is set to be deported back to his homeland of Kazimierz without so much as a trial. He signs his entire fortune over to 'whoever happens to be passing by'—and that name turns out to be Diaz. 'Better to leave it with someone who truly loves art.'

On the day of his transfer, the escort guard is knocked out and a silver car pulls to a stop. Behind the wheel: Miłosz. 'Might I give you a ride as well?' The two of them drive off with no destination in mind, letting the car take them wherever, until the gas runs out.

"But not today." — "No. Not today."

— Rainel & Miłosz

And so the Galleria Kryształowa becomes a barbecue restaurant. All eight members of the Rainbow team gather around its round grill table. Ash and the others, who'd arrived earlier, had fallen into the Sargon desert and become the 'Rainbow team' at Rhodes Island—and they still haven't found any lead on how to get back to Earth.

Blitz leaves Doc a meaningful request: if he ever comes to Rhodes someday, to pull up his hood and act natural even if Blitz calls him by his real name. When Ash tries to explain why, he's cut off: 'Come on, Cohen, no fun in spoiling it already.'

The strangers who fell through the ceiling still haven't made it back to Earth. But they've found their lost comrades again, and now they have a restaurant to return to, beneath two moons. And in the ballroom that once burned down — the music plays once more.