The air outside the mansion had gone still.
Flies buzzed over the remains scattered across the courtyard, their droning hum audible through the faint crackle of fire.
Torn bodies lay twisted across the ground, blood pooling beneath them, dark and thick under the faint moonlight.
Empty casings glittered in the dirt, thousands of them, catching faint red glints from the flas chewing at the husks of ruined Defenders.
The Escalades that had circled the estate now sat idle—black shapes against the orange glow. A few still smoked from their barrels.
Minions stood positioned in calculated symtry around them, rifles propped on the hoods, others manning mounted machine guns. So scanned the treeline, heads turning in unison, while others reloaded thodically, the sound of shifting magazines and clicks breaking the quiet.
For the first ti that night, there was no shouting, no engines, no gunfire.
Just the slow murmur of death settling in.
That stillness broke a heartbeat later.
WUUUURRRRMMMMM—~
Engines.
Distant but powerful. Multiple.
The minions stiffened, turning toward the road. The low growl swelled fast—an approaching thunder that rolled through the ground.
Headlights cut through the smoke first—four of them, then eight. The light splashed across the debris-strewn courtyard as Land Rover Defenders tore into view, moving in tight formation.
The lead vehicle didn’t hesitate.
It plowed through the broken gates, crushing twisted tal beneath its tires. Sparks flared under the bumper as it hit a fallen rifle and kept going.
The others followed close, engines roaring as they powered through the wreckage.
The mont the convoy breached the courtyard periter, the parked Escalades ca alive.
"Suiii!" one minion yelled through comms.
Instantly, the stationed gunners adjusted.
The barrels of mounted machine guns turned toward the new arrivals and fire erupted.
TATATATATATA~!!
The first wave of bullets struck the lead Defender, rattling across its armor like rain on steel. Sparks burst along its flanks. A few of the minions switched to heavier rifles—anti-superhuman rounds, their impacts harder, louder.
Still, the Defenders didn’t stop.
Inside the lead vehicle, the driver’s jaw tightened as each impact hamred against the fra. "Tch—annoying," he muttered, keeping one hand steady on the wheel.
Rounds slamd against the reinforced windshield, spiderwebbing the glass without breaking it.
From the back seat, one of the larger n leaned forward, voice rough. "Shit—they’re packing anti-superhuman rounds!"
The man in the passenger seat didn’t even glance back. His tone was calm, cold. "Have Rager take them out."
He pressed his comm. "Now."
The driver smirked faintly and slamd the brakes just long enough to twist the wheel hard to the left. The tires scread—SKREEEE~—as the Defender slid across gravel and spun wide.
Behind them, another Defender shot forward through the cleared lane, accelerating straight into the storm of bullets.
As it neared the center of the courtyard, the rear door burst open.
A massive figure dropped out.
He hit the ground hard—THUD~—rolled once, and ca up in a full sprint.
The man was enormous, seven feet at least, even hunched forward by montum. His fra filled the path between burning wrecks, muscles straining against tactical fabric that tore with each flex.
His head was bare—smooth, reflecting faint light, and his face carried no expression except a sort of anger that seed natural.
Bullets hamred against him almost instantly.
They sparked off his chest, his shoulders, his skull.
He didn’t slow.
As he ran, his body began to change.
The muscle along his arms bulged first, veins thick as cables pressing under his skin. Then his neck swelled, cords of muscle rising like steel cables.
His torso expanded with each step, the seams of his shirt giving way with wet, ripping sounds. His legs followed, fibers coiling like wound springs.
One of the minions on a nearby Escalade flinched. His finger froze on the trigger as he lowered the rifle scope and leaned back.
"...suii," he muttered, voice low with unease.
He fumbled for his comm and clicked twice. "Suiii, suiii—"
Gary’s voice ca through almost imdiately, calm but clipped.
"I see. It seems Mr. Richmond’s counterasures really are up to par."
A brief pause, then his tone hardened. "We are yet to retrieve everything. You know what to do. Hold them back by any ans."
"Suii." The minion’s reply was flat.
He turned to the others around him. They looked at him, waiting.
The minion gave a short nod, raising a gloved fist. "Suiii."
They answered in kind, a collective, grim acceptance.
Then they opened fire again.
Rager’s sprint didn’t falter. The bullets hit, but they did nothing—each impact deflected by thickening layers of muscle, skin hardening into sothing beyond human texture.
Inside the lead Defender, the passenger leaned slightly toward the side mirror, watching.
"They’re realizing their rounds aren’t doing shit," he said. "It’ll take more than that to hurt Ra—"
BOOOOMMM~!!!
The world outside vanished in an instant.
An explosion tore across the courtyard, a wave of heat and sound that swallowed everything.
A cluster of burning Defenders—those hit earlier and left smoldering—erupted all at once, their fuel tanks catching in a synchronized chain of fire.
The shockwave hit the parked Escalades first, flipping one onto its side. The force ripped through the courtyard, sending fragnts of steel and body parts flying.
Several minions were thrown off their feet, one crashing through the shattered windshield of a nearby car, another hurled against a wall hard enough to break it.
The burning air rolled outward, eting the incoming Land Rovers mid-charge.
Inside the lead Defender, everything went white. The sound was gone—just pressure and light.
Then impact.
The blast caught the front of the vehicle, lifting it off its wheels.
tal scread—GRRNNNNCH~—as the Defender flipped sideways, twisting midair before slamming into the ground roof-first. Glass shattered, the weight of armor crushing in.
The other vehicles tried to swerve but were thrown by the sa wave, tumbling over debris.
Fire washed through the entryway, swallowing smoke, bodies, and wrecks alike.
For a few seconds, nothing but the roar of fla filled the night.
As the blasts rolled through the estate like thunder trapped underground. The walls groaned, chandeliers swayed, and dust shook loose from the ceiling in fine clouds.
Inside the mansion’s private office, the tremors hit like a distant heartbeat—steady, violent.
Books toppled from the shelves, scattering across the floor.
Elle stood near the far wall, her figure half-lit by the soft blue glow of the biotric safe embedded behind a large, crooked painting. Her posture was still. Not a speck of dust touched her clothes despite the chaos beyond the walls.
Beside the safe, Gerald Richmond leaned heavily against the wall.
His breathing ca ragged, shoulders trembling with every exhale.
Blood still stread from the ruined socket where his eye once was, soaking into his collar. His skin had gone pale beneath the streaks of gri.
The digital voice from the safe spoke with sterile calm.
"Biotrics confird. Please state the final password."
Gerald swallowed hard, coughing weakly. "Give... give a second—"
He didn’t finish.
BOOOOMMM~
The next explosion hit like a hamr. The office shook violently, dust raining from the ceiling as cracks spidered along the wall.
The vibration sent Gerald sprawling to one knee with a pained grunt. His hand pressed against his ribs as he looked toward Elle, face twisted between fear and fury.
"Ah—h-hey now!" he barked hoarsely. "I already said I’d cooperate! No need to level my ho in the process!"
Elle didn’t answer. Her form flickered—an afterimage left behind where she had stood a second earlier.
Then she was beside him.
The air shifted with a faint electronic pulse as she reappeared, one gloved hand resting loosely at her side. The faint mist still drifted from her eyes.
"You’re wasting ti," she said quietly.
The tone wasn’t raised. It didn’t need to be. The words sank into his nerves, cold and cutting.
Gerald froze mid-protest, breath catching in his throat. The anger in him crumbled under the weight of her presence. His remaining eye darted to the glowing lock, then back to her.
"Fine," he muttered, voice unsteady. "Fine."
He inhaled once, coughed, then spoke the code aloud—
a long, broken string of mixed syllables, phrases, and inflections, almost musical in its complexity.
The biotric system processed it for several seconds before answering.
"Code accepted."
A deep click followed, then a series of shifting tallic clunks as hidden chanisms disengaged. The safe’s panel split down the center and slid open, revealing its contents.
Inside, rows of neatly aligned flash drives sat in magnetic suspension, their surfaces engraved with thin silver markings. Beside them were half a dozen small spheres, no larger than marbles, each one faintly pulsing with pale light—data spheres, expensive tech.
Elle raised her hand. The items lifted from the safe in synchronized motion, drifting through the air before settling into a slow orbit around her head, turning gently in the dim light.
She spoke again. "The encryption codes for the drives and data spheres."
Gerald didn’t answer right away. He stayed slumped, one arm trembling as he tried to support himself against the wall. The mont he drew breath to speak—
BOOOOOM~
Another explosion tore through the distance, shaking the floor beneath them. The shockwave made the suspended objects wobble midair. A portion of the ceiling cracked, sending a chunk of plaster crashing onto the desk beside him.
Gerald flinched violently, losing his balance and collapsing onto his side with a ragged groan.
Outside, faint through the rumble, ca the echo of screaming and gunfire. The mansion sounded like it was being torn apart piece by piece.
Elle didn’t move. Only her head tilted slightly, as though listening to sothing far away.
Then her earpiece clicked.
Gary’s voice ca through, crisp under the static.
"Miss, we’ve breached the target area. The servers are open and we’re already copying the data partitions. Transferring primary clusters first—local mirror nodes will be wiped once we’re done."
Elle’s eyes shifted faintly toward the door, then back to the safe. "Good," she said softly. "Begin retreat once extraction is complete. Ensure you’re not followed."
"It shall be done, Miss," Gary replied. Then his tone lightened just slightly. "Best of luck to you and Sir Predator."
Elle’s answer ca without pause. "It’s those who get in our way who will need the luck."
Gary gave a brief laugh through the comms. "Ah yes, right you are."
The line cut.
The office was quiet again, save for the faint hum of the hovering drives and Gerald’s strained breathing.
Elle’s gaze fell back to him. He had managed to lift himself halfway upright, one eye glaring weakly up at her.
She took a slow step forward.
"The codes," she said.
The word alone made him freeze.
Her voice was calm—but sothing in its stillness promised that the next mont would decide whether he spoke at all.
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