Some mornings you wake up, crack your neck, and whisper:
"Today's the day I ruin someone's legacy."
This was one of those mornings.
Sun blazing over a cratered city sector.
Concrete veins wrapped around dead glass towers.
Soot-stained clouds and screams rolling through alley vents.
Beautiful.
I was parked on the edge of a rusted beam thirty floors up, chewing dried meat from a vendor who claimed it "wasn't human this time."
Below?
The Apex zone.
Ground zero of last night's "Hey-Let's-Test-God" accident.
Fourteen blocks erased like someone dropped a tantrum with legs.
The killmark was still unclaimed.
The bounty? Stacked high. Sovereign-tier payout.
But I wasn't here for money.
I was here for fun.
That's when I saw him.
Walking through the ash-choked avenue like it was a f***ing red carpet.
Long black coat. Sleeves rolled. Data-glove glowing faint blue on one hand. Other hand in his pocket like he wasn't even impressed by the corpse mountains flanking the road.And whats that i blinked damn a golden Classic Dessert Eagle .Fuck i want that
Hair?
Disrespectfully perfect.
That walk?
Like physics paid him rent.
I narrowed my eye — Oracle-Eye kicked in with a soft blink-click. Bio-readings scanned. Heat signature locked. Face recognition scanning...
MATCH: UNKNOWN MALE.
"Weird. He's not in the registry," I muttered.
And then…
Then the bastard looked up at me.
No — correction.
He looked directly at my ass.
I blinked.
Then blinked again.
Yep. Still happening.
His eye twitched like he was zooming in.
And then… the smirk.
"...Did this motherf—"
I loaded a round into my rifle so hard it clicked like thunder.
"You want a damn picture, freak?"
Kaiser – POV
Okay. Let's be fair.
If God didn't want me to stare, He shouldn't have sculpted her like that.
There she was.
Perched on a bent tower girder like a post-apocalyptic gargoyle built for sin.
Athletic. Armed. Angular. Wrapped in leather and confidence.
And that ass?
Bro.
I've hacked nuclear drones. I've outplayed AI supercomputers.
I once seduced a bounty hunter mid-fistfight.
But this?
This was spiritual.
So yeah.
I looked.
And I smirked.
And then I almost died — which, let's be honest, isn't even in my top five Tuesday problems.
"You want a picture, freak?" she shouted. "Sorry," I called back, voice like velvet laced with ego. "It just moved in a way that defied gravity. Honestly impressive."
BANG!
She pulled the trigger.
I sidestepped — two seconds before she even fired.
Oracle suite didn't predict it.
My gut did.
That's how I knew who she was.
Hawk – POV
He dodged.
Before I even finished squeezing the trigger.
That pissed me off.
You know how rare it is for someone to dodge a shot from my Oracle-Eye?
You gotta be Apex. Fast.
Or a cheating bastard with precog implants.
Either way, I was already vaulting off the girder and aiming to stomp his smug skull into the sidewalk.
I landed with a crunch — boots hitting rebar like thunder.
"Name?" I growled, closing the distance with blades out. "Kaiser," he said, smiling like a sin. "Like the Emperor, not the dog."
And boom — my brain clicked.
I'd heard that name before.
Saw it on a busted-up digital billboard a few years back in Scarpoint.
Viral footage.
News headline: "NAKED MAN TORCHES A BAR AFTER BEING DENIED TEQUILA — LAUGHS WHILE REPROGRAMMING THE FIRE SPRINKLERS INTO FLAME THROWERS."
And there he was, grinning at the camera, ass out, flipping off law enforcement while dancing with a flamethrower in one hand and a stolen whiskey bottle in the other.
"Oh no," I muttered. "You're that guy."
He tilted his head.
"Depends. Which guy exactly?" "They didn't have tequila, you psycho." "Oh the bra i mean BAARR. Justified war crime."
Kaiser – POV
She remembered me.
Even better — she looked horrified and weirdly impressed.
And that meant she'd been thinking about me.
"She totally wants to kill me. That's at least third base."
But before I could make another inappropriate joke, the ground beneath us shook.
Both of us froze.
My eye went red. Her Oracle glowed.
Power spike.
Apex signature.
Just beneath the collapsed subway tunnel.
And rising.
She looked at me.
I looked at her.
"This bounty's mine ," she said, spinning her blade in a slow, taunting circle. "First one to the body gets the other's number," I replied. "I will stab you." "Promises, promises."
We ran.
Side by side.
Kicking through bone piles and blasted concrete, racing toward a nightmare worth killing.
Only one of us could claim it.
But spoiler alert:
We were both about to own it.
Kaiser – POV
We hit the tunnel mouth together — Hawk sliding down the rubble with the grace of a homicidal gymnast, and me casually stepping into the darkness like it owed me rent.
The place reeked of old chemicals, copper, and decomposed ambition.
Subway line 9A.
Abandoned after some kid melted the tracks with an uncontrolled plasma trait.
Now? It was a breeding pit for Apex mutations and the worst kind of rumors.
Perfect place for a sovereign-tier freakshow to nest.
Hawk immediately drew her blade and tried to stab me in the thigh.
"Seriously?" I asked, sidestepping her swing like we were dancing.
"We're literally walking into a monster's lair, and you wanna flirt with murder?" "I don't flirt, I kill," she snapped.
"If I accidentally make it hot, that's on you."
Gods.
She was beautiful when she threatened me.
Hawk – POV
The tunnel stank of damp death and man-perfume.
Kaiser kept walking like he had a f***ing map in his skull. Calm. Unbothered. One hand behind his back;Scratching his ass i presume ,, other casually tapping the side of his temple like he was scrolling through goddamn cheat codes.
I hated him.
I really hated that I wanted to know what conditioner he used.
"What's your play, nerd?" I asked, stepping over a corpse fused to a rusted turnstile. "There's always a pattern," he murmured.
"Apexes don't just mutate randomly. Not like this one. It's repeating." "Repeating what?" "Fear behavior. Looping scent trails. It's testing us."
Pause.
"You say that like it's smart." "Oh, it is." "I'll kill it harder then."
Kaiser – POV
I was five seconds from explaining my entire plan — pressure points, escape routes, structural collapse contingencies — when a rumble tore through the tunnel wall.
The Apex was awake.
The lights flickered. Static hissed through the comms in my glove.
Hawk's eye flared red like a blood moon just blinked.
Then it screamed.
The sound wasn't human.
It wasn't even Apex anymore.
It was distortion. A gurgle of broken bones, boiling oxygen, and too many vocal cords fighting for airtime.
And then it arrived.
Eight feet tall.
Muscled like an anatomy textbook on crack.
Four arms. Spine split open into fractal wings made of rebar and glass.
And it was smiling.
"Claim's mine!" Hawk roared, charging in like a missile wrapped in rage. "Godsdamn it," I muttered. "You're gonna ruin my plan."
Hawk – POV
I hit it like a freight train — Overdrive already roaring. Every stab hit muscle, and every punch I took? Just made me faster.
Blood. Fire. Sparks.
This thing could take a hit.
But so could I.
"Call me a therapist!" I screamed as I drove my blade into its shoulder.
"Because I'm about to dig deep into your trauma!"
Then came the ambush.
Six figures dropped from the ceiling like roaches in heat.
Scavenger bounty crew — Augmented. Greedy. Outgunned.
One fired a railgun. I ducked.
The Apex? It didn't duck.
It ate the shot.
Literally.
Absorbed it through its chest.
Then it turned and tore the shooter in half.
"New plan!" I yelled over the carnage. "Kill the Apex and the roaches!" "Wow," Kaiser said behind me, voice calm as ever.
"Welcome to my TED Talk: Why I Told You So."
He stepped beside me, not even breaking stride.
Glove glowing. Neural jack pulsing. Eyes lit with tactical orgasm.
"Hey, Hawk." "What?!" "Cover me." "You're insane." "Only on Tuesdays. Is it Tuesday?" "I'm gonna kill you." "After this, sure."
And then he ran into the Apex.
Kaiser – POV
Here's something I learned in Apex combat:
If it looks suicidal and stupid, but you calculated the probability to 0.06% success…
Do it anyway.
Especially if Hawk's watching.
Because honestly?
Nothing turns me on more than surviving something I absolutely shouldn't while she glares at me like she's mentally sharpening a chainsaw.
I sprinted straight into the Apex's killzone.
Not around.
Not flanking.
Right. F***ing. Through.
Its mouth — which had way too many teeth and none of them in polite places — opened wide as I dove under a swipe that could've bisected a tank.
I slid on my knees under it, palmed a shock beacon, and planted it directly into the monster's spinal column.
Then I rolled out the back, grinning like I just cheated death.
Because I had.
Again.
"Motherfucker," I whispered.
Nothing happened.
Well — something did happen.
The beacon fizzled.
Then melted.
Then exploded in my hand.
"Oh."
The Apex turned to me like it just figured out I tasted better than Hawk.
"Oh f—"
A shriek. A blur. Metal screamed.
And suddenly Hawk was there, her blade slicing down across its face, blood splattering against the walls like bad graffiti.
"Are you TRYING to die, you psycho?!" "Is it working?!" "No!" "Damn."
Hawk – POV
He ran at the damn thing.
Ran at it.
Who the hell runs at a sovereign Apex that just ate a railgun like a candy bar?
Oh right — this asshole.
I don't know what pissed me off more.
That he almost died?
Or that he didn't, and looked sexy while doing it.
I yanked him back by the collar, tossed him into cover, and dropped two frag knives into the Apex's throat.
"Try that again and I'll kill you myself," I snarled. "Kinky." "Shut up." "Yes ma'am."
The Apex screamed.
The floor cracked beneath it. The walls collapsed inward. Its traits were spiking — some kind of mimic-surge feedback loop. It was learning us. Adapting.
I felt it in my bones.
So I did what I do best.
I screamed louder.
And charged again.
Kaiser – POV
I watched her fight, bleeding, wild, grinning like a goddess of war with a vendetta and a caffeine addiction.
It wasn't strategy.
It was poetry written in knives.
And damn if I didn't want to read every stanza.
"I've got an idea," I called. "Unless it's running, bleeding, or murder, I don't care!" "It involves all three."
She paused.
"...Go on."
Hawk – POV
Something in me snapped.
No, wait — not snapped.
Snapped sounds cute. This was more like a concrete saw slicing through the last chain holding my sanity in place.
The Apex hit me. Hard.
Flesh tore. Ribs cracked. Blood sprayed.
And then?
My vision tunneled into crimson madness.
Overdrive kicked in.
Pain doesn't slow me.
Pain feeds me.
With every bruise, I got faster.
Every cut — sharper.
Every break — stronger.
My Oracle-Eye blurred red, screaming future-kill paths.
I followed them like dance steps in hell.
And I moved.
One leap.
Two spins.
Three blades buried into its chest.
Its scream echoed through the tunnels. So did mine.
"COME ON, MOTHERF***ER! BITE HARDER!"
I didn't care anymore.
The bounty didn't matter.
Kaiser didn't matter.
Only the fight.
Only the kill.
Kaiser – POV
She was beautiful.
Unhinged, blood-soaked, grinning like an apocalypse bride — but beautiful.
I watched her eviscerate the Apex with a joy I couldn't match.
Because me?
I was tired.
Tired of killing.
Tired of running.
Tired of pretending I didn't feel every crack forming inside me.
But I smiled anyway.
"She doesn't need saving," I whispered.
"She needs witnessing."
So I did.
I let her rage.
And while she tore the monster apart, I finished the plan.
Neural pulses. Thermal shifts. Sonic disruptions.
One final blow.
"Hawk!" I shouted.
"Now!"
She didn't ask.
She didn't hesitate.
She leapt.
I triggered the sonic collapse.
Boom.
The Apex imploded — screaming into dust and bone shards.
Silence.
The air tasted like metal and regret.
She landed beside me, panting. Bloody. Glorious.
"You still alive?" she asked. "Not even a scratch," I said, Grinning.
She looked like she wanted to punch me.
Or kiss me.
Or both.
And that's when the shot rang out.
It missed my head by half an inch.
But not by accident.
A shape stepped from the shadows.
Long coat. Mask carved from Apex bone.
Gun still smoking.
"There you are Kaiser," the voice rasped.
"You've been a very expensive mistake." Hawk – POV
I turned fast — blades up — but the guy had already shifted. Moved. Gone full ghost-mode.
"Who the f*** is that?" I barked. "Killmonger," Kaiser muttered. "They don't hunt Apexes. They hunt... well people like me and kaiser."
And suddenly, everything clicked.
The bounty wasn't on the Apex.
It was on him.
"You lied to me," I whispered. "I never lied. I just didn't say it out loud." "That's the same thing!"
At last i understood kaiser he wasnt just an ordinary pushover he has his secrets , well everyone has some but this guy is like acting one thing saying another and planning something else. GOD im so into this freak , but only if he survives this round.
END OF CHAPTER 1