The jukebox in Wasted Rocky coughed up a drunken hymn and the bar answered with howls. Glass chimed, boots thudded on splintered wood, someone puked into the alley and laughed about it inside. Neon bled through the grime of the windows; the air was a hot, greasy thing that tasted of cheap alcohol and old arguments.
At the far end, where the light dimmed and the smoke curls gathered like small conspiracies, she sat like a calm cut in a wound. The crowd blurred; she did not. Her beer steamed between gloved fingers. On her chest the sigil caught the light — a hand reaching upward, fingers clutching a living flame, a wrist choked with broken chains. The Ascendant Hand. The Rakshila mark. She was an island of composure in a sea of falling men.
"Hey, where's your usual?" the waiter asked.
She lifted one shoulder in a slow shrug. "Reign is in a better place" she said, flat as a shutter.
The waiter's smile died; she would not press it. She turned away to collect a tab and a promise of a free drink. "This one's on that man," the woman added, nodding at a corner where a drunk was face-first into a napkin. "He won't complain."
"Thanks, Lady Rocky."
Her phone buzzed on the table. A small light, a small demand. She glanced down. A single-line ping: Assignment dispatched. Rakshila operative only. No flourish. No signature. The kind of message that always tasted of iron.
She opened it.
A job, brief and cold: Capture alive. Target: man responsible for the death of a clan operative.
The air in her lungs thinned. "What-" she started, then swallowed it.
A photograph slid into view: grainy, timestamped,Body of Rex and then—closer—another figure in the frame. Rynor Maakai. Her thumb hovered over the picture as if it were a live thing.
"All details below" the message read. Locale, schedule, route. Happy hunting.
She held the phone like a promise and pocketed it as if it could burn.
_________________
Back at Rynor's place the lights were clinical: wires, metal, the smell of solder and coffee. Agnar moved with the slow certainty of someone who had done this act a hundred times. He adjusted a camera that would sleep on the wall until it smelled movement.
"Okay — CCTVs, motion sensors, silent alarms," he said, checking a tablet. "We'll know when she's in the area. We'll know when she looks."
Rynor watched the old screen glow his face into tired relief. He rubbed his jaw and let out a breath like a confession. "Your 'capture alive' means nothing to her," he said without looking up. There was a hard smallness to his voice, something like a broken instrument trying to sustain a note.
Agnar didn't smile. "She's Welkin. Rex's apprentice. She takes pride in finishing what he started." He tapped the tablet, the route map, the time stamps. "The Rakshila— they're not just soldiers. They have certain abilities. Be ready."
Rynor's hand tightened on the back of a chair until the knuckles shone. "I saw what Hodinsky did," he said. "So the Rakshila have members of that caliber huh?"
_____________________
9:15 a.m. — the hour Rynor Maakai sells his soul.
The hydrorail hums beneath him, gliding across the suspended arteries of Koios. Below, glass towers drip with advertisements. Artificial sunlight filters through the smog, painting the city in sterile gold. In his ear, static — the hum of every worker reporting in, every mind chained to a screen.
A small chrome orb hovers near his shoulder, its propellers whirring softly."Morning, Hellybo" Rynor mutters, half a sigh."Good morning, wage slave" the drone chirps with synthetic cheer. Agnar's voice filters through a channel: "Can't enter the building with a gun cause they have scanners for that sh*t so I got my baton ready. Ready to sell your soul for one last time"Rynor smirks. "Ready"
He steps into the office — glass walls, white noise, and a thousand faces pretending they aren't dying inside. Every keystroke is a heartbeat of the machine.
But something feels off.
There's a silence beneath the noise, a cold presence. Someone watching.
He sits at his desk beside Karo, his co-worker — one of the few who still laughs before 10 a.m."Late again," Karo teases, leaning back in his chair."Hydrorail delay," Rynor lies.
His pen slips from his hand, clattering to the floor. He bends down to pick it up—
BANG!!
When he lifts his head, Karo's face is gone — replaced by a spray of crimson across the frosted glass.
"F*CK—!" Rynor dives under the desk, heartbeat roaring in his skull.
Through his earpiece:"Rynor, stay low! Don't move. I'm tapping into Hellybo's feed."
The little orb zips upward, its lens glowing red as it scans the floor. Everyone else is frozen — then chaos erupts. People scream, scatter, trip over chairs. The soulless routine shatters in an instant.
From a corner office, the manager storms out, face red with confusion."I was on call with our lovely president so why is it SO DAMN NOIS—"
BANG.
He drops, clutching himself, a pathetic scream dying in his throat.
Agnar's voice is colder now."She's here. Thermal scan picking up distortion — top-right quadrant, opposite building. She's invisible, as is her sniper rifle."He zooms the feed. The image shivers—heat ripples on the opposite tower."She's not in your building, Rynor. She's across the street."
Rynor peeks through a bullet hole in the glass. The neighboring high-rise glints like a mirror — and somewhere in that reflection, she's there.
Agnar already moving inside the building opposite to that of Rynor.
A dark coat, an eyepiece over one eye feeding him Hellybo's live vision. The world flickers between infrared and spectrum lines as he sprints across a suspended bridge connecting the two towers.
Wind howls. He draws his baton — a compact staff crackling with blue current.
"Hellybo, mark target."
The floor is silent — abandoned. He walks through cubicles, shadows stretching thin under flickering lights. Then—
SWISH
A bullet grazes his shoulder, bursting sparks off the wall.
"Found you" he growls.
Welkin flickers into partial view — a distortion of air, a woman's silhouette wrapped in invisibility. A shimmer moves across her armor like liquid glass. She moves like a ghost, her blade whispering through the air.
"You shouldn't have followed me, Whitehaze!" her voice echoes, distorted, cold.
"Sorry," Agnar replies, twirling the baton. "Corporate policy says handle intruders"
They clash.
Sparks bloom like flowers as his baton meets her invisible blade. Each strike is a flash — metal against metal, light against void. Agnar ducks, rolls, counters; Welkin vanishes mid-swing, reappearing behind him. He blocks blind, guided by Hellybo's overhead scan.
"Six meters left!" Hellybo warns.
He pivots and strikes — static arcs through the air, connecting for a heartbeat. A flash reveals her face: sharp eyes, cold purpose. Then she vanishes again.
Agnar grits his teeth, blood dripping down his arm."She's faster than expected" he mutters.Hellybo replies, "Deploying smoke protocol."
"Do it."
The orb shoots into the ceiling and sprays smoke that fills the floor — thick, gray, swallowing light. Welkin stumbles back, her visor flickering.
She activates her stealth again. "You can't see me, boy"
Agnar smiles through the haze. "That's where you are wrong!"
He taps the eyepiece. A soft tone. 'Thermal Vison!'
Him and Hellybo sync on a neural level.
Now he fades — skin melting into the oblivious fog. Even the smoke swirls around him as if uncertain.
Welkin turns, eyes darting through the gray static. Nothing. Just silence and the hum of a machine dancing in the air.
Then—THUD.
Her vision flashes white as the baton slams into her ribs. She drops to one knee, gasping. Another hit to the shoulder — she spins, blind. A final blow to the back of her neck drops her in an instant.
The smoke clears slowly.
Hellybo hovers down beside her fallen form. "Target neutralized. Injury You have lost form, Whitehaze"
Agnar chuckles. "Zip it, Hellybo" He says as he looks at his grazed shoulder.
When Welkin opens her eyes, the first thing she sees is light — sterile, white, humming softly. Her hands are bound to a chair, wrists tight with metal bands.
Across from her, Rynor sits in another chair, silent,and by his side, Agnar stands with his arms folded, eyepiece gleaming faintly.
"Morning" Agnar says, voice calm but edged with menace. "Hope you don't mind the hospitality."
Welkin pulls against the restraints, metal biting her skin."What… do you want?"
Rynor leans forward, his gaze heavy. "Answers"
The drone Hellybo drifts closer, its single lens glowing like an eye.
"Let's talk" Rynor says. "About Rex."