Part One
"Get back to Moon Base. The boss wants us ready for the final mission—we're done playing in the small leagues," Chavez said as Echo reported in.
"What about him? B-Block?" Echo asked.
Chavez hesitated.
Of course the man would have to be eliminated—eventually. They were in the next phase now. The final phase. Echo was right: loose ends never counted toward success.
"Take care of it. All of it," Chavez said flatly.
"With pleasure," Echo grinned, already veering off-course. Cleanup time.
Meanwhile…
Plukett was trying to reach John when Atsumori's call came through. It was always the wrong time with him.
"Old man, can we do this later?" she muttered.
"Nah. I like now," Atsumori replied cheerfully. "Might not be a later, you know."
Her eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"Kid, I've sent you some files—and some other stuff you won't like." He chuckled. "But someone's got to do it."
"Still trying to convince me to stay permanent? I told you—I'm a liability. You don't want to keep cleaning after my mess."
"What? I'm hurt. I do an excellent job cleaning everyone's mess," Atsumori scoffed.
Plukett swore under her breath at a driver and pressed the accelerator.
"Easy now, kid," he said with a faint smile.
"You go on then," she muttered.
"I just want you to know," Atsumori's voice softened, "you've been the most important and precious asset I've ever taken under my wing. You always wanted to change the world as a kid… well, I've lived that dream for years watching you grow. You changed my world, kid. Don't forget that."
And then—his comm went dead.
Plukett's console flooded with incoming files. She didn't have time to open them. Maybe Atsumori was just having one of his "moments." He was always like that.
Meanwhile…
Atsumori lowered the comm and walked to the far wall. It slid open with a hiss, revealing the long, suspended blade. He drew the lightsaber-like sword, its glow reflecting in his eyes. He turned, facing the empty room.
"You can come out now, Crest. You're gonna have to fight me on this one."
A shimmer rippled in the air before Gilmor materialized, his invisibility cloak fading.
"This is the thanks I get for letting you say your goodbyes, huh?" Crest said dryly.
"Well," Atsumori smirked, "are we going to fight or what?"
With a sigh, Crest drew a dagger, his stance lowering. "You don't have to do this. Just tell me what you know."
"I believe we're past diplomacy," Atsumori said, smiling faintly. "Besides… I wouldn't have it any other way. We live and die by the weapons we hold."
"You old fool."
Crest moved first.
Crest vanished the instant his stance dropped, but Atsumori didn't even flinch. He closed his eyes for half a second, breathing in—not looking for the man, but feeling him. A faint shift in the air behind him told him everything.
Crest's first kick came in high. Atsumori pivoted, caught the shin with his forearm, and slammed an elbow down on it before the leg could retract. Crest grunted, his form flickering briefly back into sight.
"You're quick," Atsumori said, stepping forward with a fluid heel sweep, "but you fight like you've never been hit before."
Crest's footing broke. Atsumori's knee came up hard into his ribs—once, twice—forcing a sharp exhale from the younger man. The blade in Atsumori's off-hand hummed, but he didn't swing it yet; his fists were doing all the work.
A hook from Crest sailed wide as Atsumori slipped inside the arc, buried a palm-strike into his jaw, and followed with a brutal stomp to his instep. Bone crunched. Crest snarled, staggering back, his form flickering again.
"You're making too much noise," Crest spat, circling, his invisibility glitching from the impacts.
"That's the point," Atsumori said.
The distant clang-clang of boots on metal echoed from below—operators rushing up the stairwell, shouting orders. A synthetic voice crackled over the building intercom, demanding clearance codes for the top floor.
Crest's breathing was sharp now, his jaw tight. Atsumori stepped in with a lightning-quick front kick that folded him, then drove an elbow down into the back of his neck, slamming him into the wall. The entire frame shuddered.
"Feel it yet?" Atsumori asked.
"Keep talking, old man."
Crest bared his teeth. Then his wrist flicked, a subtle activation gesture.
A pulse rolled out—low, bone-deep, like the hum of a massive engine.
The lights overhead flickered once… and died.
Monitors went blank. The AI surveillance voice cut mid-sentence.
The hum of the building's systems guttered out into silence.
Shadow Cover Mode engaged.
"Its just you and me, Atsumori!"
Now, only the slow, oppressive thud of boots from below—and the quiet breathing of two men in the dark—remained.
The darkness didn't slow Atsumori's strikes—if anything, they came sharper, more deliberate. But this time, Crest wasn't evading. He caught a roundhouse kick on his forearm, felt the bone shudder, and held it there. He absorbed a palm strike to the ribs without moving an inch, then leaned in close enough for Atsumori to see the grin in the dark.
"Starting to think you've been enjoying yourself," Atsumori said evenly.
"Oh, I've been learning," Crest replied. "You've been teaching me all night."
The tempo changed. Crest's arms blurred now, blocking instead of dodging, countering instead of slipping away. His fists came low and hard—kickboxer's rhythm—pummeling the veteran's sides. The clang and thud of impact echoed through the sealed floor, drawing shouts from operators now stuck behind reinforced doors.
Somewhere overhead, the sprinkler system hissed alive, showering the room in cold rain. It plastered Atsumori's hair against his head, glistened on the blade in his hand. Operators could be heard moving in the halls, but the lockdown held tight. Nobody was getting in.
Meanwhile…
Plukett's voice was sharp in Midas' earpiece.
"Where is he at?"
Midas, hunched over the bar counter, looked around. "John? He was right here—uh… somewhere…" His eyes narrowed, scanning the doorways. "I—"
"I think I've got a lead on—" Plukett cut herself short. Something in Atsumori's earlier words echoed in her mind. Not his usual rambling. No, there was weight there.
She cut Midas off and yanked open the incoming files on her console. The air in her car lit with dozens of holographic pages—schematics, reports, personnel logs—names she recognized, others she didn't. The deeper she scrolled, the colder she felt.
"What the…"
She slammed the gearshift into reverse, tires squealing as she tore back the way she'd come.
Back in the fight…
Crest's first real hit landed—his fist burying into Atsumori's shoulder blade with a crack. The veteran stepped back slowly, eyes narrowing, his stance lowering like a coiled spring.
Crest's breathing was ragged, but his body was fixing itself. Torn skin knitting back together, bruises fading into nothing.
Atsumori noticed, and his frown deepened. He'd underestimated how far Crest's augmentations had come.
"You heal now," Atsumori said quietly. "That's new."
"New enough to end you," Crest smirked. "No comebacks this time, old man."
Atsumori's lips curved faintly. "Then I suppose I have a story to tell you… You read my files, didn't you? Ever come across the name Sun Dragon?"
Crest paused, recognition flickering. He remembered it—classified, half-redacted. And the link to her—Plukett. He'd assumed it was just another ghost project.
"I volunteered," Atsumori went on. "Bineth didn't care about me. I only cared about making sure the girl survived her operation."
That was when Crest saw it—heat rippling off Atsumori's skin.
The old man's nostrils flared, each breath a plume of vapor in the cooling air. His mouth, ears, even the pores of his skin began to bleed shimmering heat.
The katana in his hand blushed orange, the steel starting to warp.
His soaked clothes hissed and peeled from his body as the temperature climbed.
The sprinkler water rained down—and vanished into steam before it touched the floor. Dense, choking vapor filled the space, curling around the two fighters.
"You…" Crest muttered, realization settling in. "You've got Bineth's enhancements."
Atsumori's eyes locked on him through the rising haze. His bare skin glowed faintly, veins illuminated like molten rivers beneath the flesh.
"I am the Sun Dragon," he said simply.
Crest set his jaw. This was going to be a hard fight.
Plukett's vehicle tore down the road, her hands locked white on the controls. She cycled through channels, calling every line she could think of, but nothing connected.
Static. Silence.
Even her onboard AI sputtered.
"Facility network unreachable. External relays… offline."
She slammed a fist into the dash. Something's wrong. Very wrong.
Meanwhile…
Echo arrived at B-Block's lair. The place felt wrong the moment his boots hit the cracked floor.
It was quieter than he remembered—unnaturally so. No hum of machinery. No low, constant chatter from the crew. And the darkness—thick, total.
He sent out a vibration pulse, a deep resonance that rippled through the halls like invisible sonar. The wave returned almost instantly… except there was only one living presence in the entire structure.
One.
Echo's hand tightened around his sidearm, his other reaching for the heavier weapon on his back. His instincts told him to leave. But instinct wasn't his job—he pressed on.
Bodies were everywhere.
Men. Machines. Things in between. They weren't just dead—they were obliterated. Shattered into pieces, walls streaked with unrecognizable remains. Metal was bent in ways it wasn't meant to bend, armor sheared apart, heads caved in with impossible force.
It reminded him of someone.
Chavez.
Then he saw what was left of B-Block. Or maybe it wasn't him anymore—just a mangled, twitching heap of armor and flesh.
In the dark, two glowing red eyes hovered above the wreckage, unblinking. Watching.
Echo fired first—pure instinct. Twin beams of energy ripped toward the figure… and vanished into nothing before reaching it.
He sent another echo pulse—faster, sharper—but the return was fractured. The thing moved faster than his senses could pin down, its position shifting in impossible bursts. Here. There. Nowhere. Everywhere.
"Why don't you show yourself, whatever you are!" Echo barked, his voice low and taut.
He pulled his heavy weapon free, powered it up, and braced for a fight that felt more like an execution waiting to happen.
Footsteps.
Soft at first. Then gone.
The eyes appeared again—closer this time. And then the blur of motion hit, a speed blitz so violent the air cracked. Echo barely registered the figure before it was on him, the fist screaming toward him like it was burning the oxygen out of the room.
Time slowed. He saw the heat warping around the knuckles, the impossible speed in the movement—felt the certainty in his bones that he could not block this.
Not a monster. Not some unknown freak.
A face he knew. A retributor previously met but not like this.
John.