Brothers of the Blade
Flashback – The Black Chamber, Nine Years Ago
The air inside the Black Chamber always smelled like oil, steel, and fear. Deep beneath the city's surface, in a facility that didn't officially exist, they built weapons out of children. Not with metal or wires — with pain, obedience, and silence.
Kael was fifteen when he met Darex.
The boy was a shadow — dark eyes, jagged mind, and a grin that didn't belong to a child. They weren't friends. No one had friends in the Chamber. But Darex talked, even when he shouldn't.
"We're ghosts in training," he said one night, after a session that left Kael's ribs cracked and bleeding.
"They want us to forget who we are."
"I don't want to forget," Kael had replied.
"You will. Or you'll die."
They were the best. Top of their class. Tactical, brutal, silent. They moved like smoke and struck like lightning.
But Kael had something Darex didn't.
A line.
A boundary.
A voice in his head that still whispered, "No."
The trainers tried to beat it out of him. Tried to make him into Darex — who killed without hesitation, who smiled when others screamed.
"You think this is about justice?" Darex once laughed during a live-op trial. "There's no such thing down here. Only winners. Only survivors."
They were seventeen when the revolt happened. A breach. Someone on the outside had leaked data — maybe Elen, maybe others. Chaos erupted.
Kael ran. Took the first real breath of his life when the blast doors opened.
But Darex?
He stayed.
"You go play hero," Darex had whispered through the smoke. "I'll become a god."
⸻
Present Day – Dareth City, Sector Six Rooftops – 01:09 A.M.
Kael snapped back to the present, perched on a crumbling rooftop, watching the lights of a patrol car drift by.
Darex lived.
Trained.
And now he wore Kael's legend like a stolen face.
But he wasn't just copying.
He was sending a message: "I'm what you could have become."
Kael tightened the strap on his forearm blade.
"This ends with one of us," he whispered.
And then he vanished into the fog.
Unknown Location – Deep Network Node – 03:33 A.M.
Darex stood in front of a wall of monitors — some flickering, some black, some displaying faces he'd memorized for death.
The city of Dareth was coming apart at the seams.
And he was the one pulling the thread.
"They still call him a ghost," Darex muttered, pacing slowly. "Still whisper his name like a prayer in the dark."
He stopped. His reflection stared back from one of the screens — jagged mask, crimson lines like blood frozen in place.
"Let them pray. Let them bleed."
Behind him, a teenage boy hung upside down, bound and gagged, bruises across his face. A resistance runner. Young. Loyal. Still alive — for now.
Darex turned toward him.
"You know what your problem is?" Darex asked softly.
"You believe in him. You think he's better than me."
He crouched beside the boy, pulled off the gag slowly.
"But I was in the same fire. I bled the same way. Only difference?"
"I didn't lie to myself about what we are."
The boy spat at his feet. "You're not him."
"You're right," Darex said, standing again.
"I'm the version they were trying to make."
With one press of a button, the power surged. Screams echoed briefly, then were gone.
He didn't flinch.
A voice buzzed into his earpiece — a distorted modulator, hidden even from him.
"You're accelerating the timeline."
"The city's already unraveling," Darex replied. "I just have to light the fuse."
"And the Ghost?"
"He'll come for me. It's what he does." Darex smiled behind the mask.
"But by then… I'll already have burned his name to the ground."
He stepped into the elevator, descending into the earth.
His next target was already marked.
And this time, it wasn't just a symbol.
It was someone Kael loved.
The wind screamed through rusted steel scaffolds. Lights flickered across an abandoned freight yard — quiet, empty, except for the shadows that didn't belong.
Kael stood atop a broken crane, silent, still, heart racing faster than his breath. His gloved hand clutched a stolen datapad. The screen was cracked, but the message was clear:
"Target confirmed. Sector 12. Elen Vire. Clean kill. No witnesses."
Sender: [REDACTED]
Signature: D.
His blood ran cold.
Darex had found her.
Kael dropped from the crane, hit the ground in a crouch, and sprinted. Every second mattered now.
⸻
Underground Transit Tunnel – 08:52 P.M.
Elen's footsteps echoed as she moved quickly, nervously, through the tunnel. Her contact hadn't shown. Something felt wrong. Too quiet. Too still.
She reached for the pistol at her side. Not much use against someone like him — if he really was coming.
Then she heard it.
A scrape. Barely audible. But there.
She spun.
Nothing.
Just shadows.
"I knew he'd send you," she called into the dark. "But I'm not afraid."
Silence.
She turned—
—and a blade whipped past her cheek, slicing a line of red across her skin.
She fired twice, blindly. Muzzle flashes lit up the tunnel — but no body fell. Just laughter, cold and familiar.
"He never deserved your faith," Darex's voice echoed.
"But I'll let you die still believing. It's kinder that way."
He stepped from the dark like death made flesh — blood-red mask, twin blades glinting under flickering lights.
Elen backed away. Her hand trembled on the trigger.
"You're not him," she said.
"No," Darex whispered. "I'm the upgrade."
A gunshot rang out.
Not from Elen's weapon.
Darex staggered backward, a burst of red at his shoulder.
"You're not me either," a voice growled behind him.
Kael emerged from the smoke, one arm raised, pistol aimed.
"Get away from her."
Darex turned, laughing softly. "There you are."
Their eyes met. No masks, no lies — just two reflections of what the Black Chamber had created.
"You're slowing down, Kael," Darex smirked. "You almost let her die."
"I won't miss twice."
But Darex was already moving. A flash of metal, a smoke charge, and then—
Gone.
Kael cursed under his breath, scanning the smoke, weapon ready. But it was over.
He turned to Elen. She was bleeding, but standing.
"He's not finished," she said quietly.
"Neither am I," Kael replied.
But in his gut, he knew:
This was no longer about the city.
It was about them.
And next time, one of them wouldn't walk away.