December 31st, 1999. 10:00 PM.
The Hand's European headquarters had not changed since the last failed assault.
The same building. The same operational center controlling the organization's continental network. They hadn't relocated, hadn't adjusted their security beyond surface-level improvements.
Such was their arrogance.
But tonight, that arrogance would cost them everything. Tonight was their reckoning.
A shadow slipped through the outer perimeter.
No alarm sounded. No guard stirred. Not even the faintest breath disturbed the night air.
The figure glided like smoke—weightless, formless, leaving behind only a tremor in the dust floating beneath the dim red glow of emergency lights.
The intruder wore black, but not the tactical black of modern special forces. The attire was something older, built for movement and silence—loose pants gathered at the ankles above soft-soled boots, a wrapped tunic that clung to muscle and breath, a hood that swallowed the face in darkness.
The shadow paused at an intersection, head tilting fractionally. Listening. Sensing the patterns of life and movement through walls and floors. Then flowed left around the corner with inhuman grace, each step placed with perfect precision.
Two guards stood at the end of the hallway, smoking cigarettes and speaking in low voices. Routine patrol. Bored men who'd spent months believing the worst was over. That last year's security failures were a fluke.
They never saw death coming.
The shadow was simply there between them, materializing from darkness before either could react.
A palm strike crushed the first man's chest—one precise blow that shattered bone and stopped his heart before he could gasp. He collapsed instantly. The second managed half a breath, hand darting for his radio, but a finger thrust to his throat splintered cartilage and drove bone fragments into his artery. He gargled once, blood foaming from his lips, and fell.
Their bodies hit the floor within seconds of each other.
The shadow moved on without pausing, ghosting deeper into the facility.
Another patrol. Another pair of guards eliminated in absolute silence.
No sound. No hesitation. No mercy.
At the surveillance post, three men watched rows of monitors. They didn't hear the grate slide open above them. The shadow dropped silently, landing behind their chairs.
Three movements. Three deaths. Temple, spine, throat.
No time to scream.
The monitors kept cycling through their feeds, showing empty corridors and quiet rooms. No indication that anything was wrong.
The shadow studied the monitors briefly, memorizing patrol patterns and security blind spots, then methodically shut down each terminal before moving to the door.
Deeper. Faster now.
The facility's layout was burned into memory from months of reconnaissance and bitter experience. Every corridor, every checkpoint, every defensive position.
Guards fell in silence. Five. Eight. Twelve. Fifteen.
Each death methodical, efficient, emotionless.
Their bodies were left where they dropped—no time for concealment, no need for it. This wasn't an infiltration anymore. This was an execution.
When the first radio check failed, confusion rippled through the system. Then another silence. And another. It took eighteen minutes before anyone realized what was happening.
By the time the first body was found, it was already too late.
"Multiple men down—multiple—" The panicked voice on the radio dissolved into a wet, choking sound before the line went dead. Then the alarms began.
Red emergency lights blazed to life, bathing the hallways in blood. Sirens wailed—not the standard breach signal, but the special one that screamed intruder.
The shadow didn't slow down.
If anything, she moved faster now, no longer constrained by the need for absolute stealth.
Wave after wave of guards poured into the central corridor—batons crackling, blades drawn, eyes wide with panic.
She flowed into them.
A spin. A strike. A twist.
Bones cracked. Skulls split. Limbs buckled.
Every movement was a continuation of the last—graceful, fluid, inevitable. She was not fighting them; she was dismantling them. A force of nature in human shape.
The floor turned slick with blood.
The pristine white walls were painted in crimson arcs.
Screams filled the air, short and sharp, dying quickly as more bodies hit the ground.
The last survivor—a scarred veteran with a glass eye—stumbled back, clutching his ribs. His breathing rasped wetly. He raised a trembling hand, not in surrender, but recognition.
"The Thorn," he whispered, blood flecking his lips.
And then, louder, to the chamber beyond: "It's the Thorn! She's back!"
The name echoed through the compound like a curse.
And at last, the shadow stopped.
Not from fear. Not from exhaustion. Not from pride.
But because she wanted them to know.
Ariadne Anderson.
The girl who'd failed here once. The daughter of a dead Chaste warrior. The relentless ghost who had haunted them ever since—slashing their networks, crippling their supply lines, dismantling them one bloody piece at a time.
Their nightmare given form was back.
They had named her The Thorn because she never went away. Because every time they thought they'd plucked her out, she returned sharper.
She exhaled, long and steady, and lowered her hood.
Moonlight from a broken skylight fell across her face—hard jaw, steady eyes, the quiet fury of someone who had long outgrown fear. She remembered bleeding here once, helpless, the world fading as Winky whisked her away.
The girl who had fallen that night was gone.
What stood in her place had been forged in K'un-Lun's fire, tempered by solitude, sharpened by relentless training and iron determination.
She had come alone this time.
No Winky waiting in the shadows, ready to teleport her to safety when things went wrong. No Arthur Hayes prepared to tear open portals and extract her from impossible situations. No backup plan, no safety net, no last-minute rescue.
She'd informed no one of her plans. In fact, since the day Arthur had left K'un-Lun after completing his accelerated training—nearly sixteen months ago—she hadn't contacted him once. Hadn't reached out to Winky. Hadn't activated the communication charm Arthur had given her before his departure.
She'd promised to stay in touch, to send regular updates, to maintain their connection across whatever distance separated them.
But weeks had become months had become nearly a year and a half of silence.
At first, she'd told herself she was too focused on training. The masters of K'un-Lun demanded everything, and she'd given it willingly. The chi manipulation techniques—she'd devoted months to mastering them, pushing her body and spirit to their absolute limits. The forms, the meditation, the endless repetition until technique transcended conscious thought and became pure instinct.
But that wasn't the real reason for her silence.
The truth was simpler and more complicated.
She'd needed to know she could stand alone. That she wasn't just Arthur Hayes's weapon, or her father's weapon, or someone who only survived through others' intervention. She needed to prove—to herself more than anyone—that she could be her own weapon. Her own agent. Her own avenging angel.
The training had been brutal beyond anything she'd experienced before. Lei Kung pushed her harder than he'd pushed Arthur, perhaps sensing her desperate need to prove herself, to transform pain into power. She'd pushed back just as hard, training until exhaustion forced her to collapse, then getting up and training more. Again. And again. And again.
Months blurred together into an endless cycle of refinement. Forms practiced ten thousand times until muscle memory became cellular knowledge. Chi pathways expanded and refined until energy flowed like water through her body, warm and responsive. Sparring sessions against Lei Kung's senior students—winning some, losing others, learning from both. Eventually sparring against Lei Kung himself, absorbing centuries of accumulated technique and wisdom.
She'd stayed longer than Arthur. Longer than she'd initially planned. Nearly sixteen months total in that hidden valley, drilling techniques until they were as instinctive as breathing.
She'd left K'un-Lun two months ago, descending the mountain alone and returning to Europe with singular purpose.
The Hand's European operations had continued without significant disruption in her absence. Without her constant pressure—attacking supply lines, eliminating dealers, disrupting their business—they'd actually expanded with renewed confidence. New routes. New markets. New victims.
Not anymore.
Tonight she would end it all.
Tonight was the culmination of everything. Years of planning, training, preparing. Years of living for a single purpose that had sustained her through every moment of pain and doubt.
Tonight she was alone, and she preferred it this way.
Because if she failed tonight, there would be no second chance. Only the cold rain and the silence of a mission unfinished.
And 1999 would end with her name forgotten.
But if she won?
Then the new century would begin with the Hand's blood on her hands—and fire in her soul.
—
She turned away from the scattered bodies, facing deeper into the facility.
The surviving guards had regrouped. Reinforcements poured in from the east wing. And ahead—past the shattered doors and broken bodies—stood the trio she remembered all too well.
The enhanced. The Red-Eyes. The ones who'd beaten her nearly to death during her last assault.
They grinned as they saw her face.
"Thorn," one growled. "You came back to die."
Ariadne didn't answer.
She moved.
What followed wasn't a fight. It was an execution.
Where before she'd been overwhelmed by their frenzy, now she saw the gaps in their chaos. Their attacks were wild, fueled by rage and serum, but untrained.
She could see their patterns now—their rhythm, their mistakes. When the first swung wide, she slipped under the arc, caught his wrist, and slammed his skull into the wall—once, twice—until bone cracked and blood painted the stone. He slid to the ground, dead before he knew it.
The second charged, roaring. She met him head-on, driving a chi-charged elbow through his ribs. The blow caved his chest inward, the air leaving his lungs in a single broken gasp. He collapsed mid-step.
The last came with a spinning kick aimed for her head. She ducked, caught his leg, and yanked him off balance. As he stumbled, she grabbed his hair, turned, and snapped his neck with a clean, brutal twist.
Silence returned, heavy and absolute.
The same Red-Eyes who had once been her nightmare now lay motionless at her feet. The fight had lasted less than a minute.
Ariadne stood among the wreckage, her chest rising and falling in steady rhythm. Not from fatigue—from focus. Every lesson, every hour of pain and rebuilding, had led her here.
She looked ahead, past the carnage and broken lights, toward the heart of the compound.
She was ready to finish what she started.
—
The inner sanctum loomed ahead.
Massive steel doors, sealed with biometric locks and old magic—she could feel the wards humming beneath her skin, a faint itch like static. She didn't bother picking them.
She kicked.
Once.
The doors buckled inward with a groan of tortured metal.
Inside, the chamber was lit by a single hanging lantern. At its center sat a man in a tailored suit, sipping tea as if he hadn't just heard his entire security force collapse.
He looked up. Smiled.
"Ariadne Anderson," he said, voice smooth as poisoned silk. "I wondered when you'd return to our home. You should have stayed in hiding. Should have accepted your defeat and moved on with your life." The smile widened, showing too many teeth. "There is no escape for you tonight."
She stepped forward, boots echoing on the stone.
"There is no need for escape tonight," she said quietly, her voice carrying absolute conviction. "Because from tomorrow, there will be no Hand operations on this continent."
The man—Markus Reinhardt, head of the Hand's European operations—chuckled and carefully set down his teacup on its saucer. The porcelain clinked with delicate precision.
"Brave words, Miss Anderson. Admirable conviction." He leaned back in his chair, completely at ease. "But you're still just one woman. Talented, yes. Surprisingly resilient, certainly. But ultimately..." He gestured dismissively. "Alone."
Then—movement.
Three figures shimmered into existence behind him, cloaked and hooded, their wands gleaming pale under the lantern light.
Ariadne's blood turned cold.
She knew those robes. She'd seen them in Arthur's photos—the Death Eaters, remnants of Voldemort's followers. Wizards.
Reinhardt's smile became genuinely pleased, vindictive satisfaction coloring his features. "Did you really think we hadn't prepared for your possible return, Miss Anderson? That we hadn't taken... precautions? Last time you escaped through some mysterious means—teleportation, we suspected, though we could never prove it. Some magical ally watching from the shadows."
He stood from his chair with leisurely grace, straightening his suit jacket.
"This time, we made certain there would be no miraculous rescue. I have these three esteemed guests to ensure you remain here. Permanently."
The lead wizard stepped forward, sneering down his nose. His accent was crisp, old British wealth and disdain. "You hired us to deal with a muggle?" he scoffed. "Pathetic. Still, gold is gold. We'll make this quick."
Ariadne said nothing. Her eyes tracked every movement—wand angles, spacing, the subtle tension before casting. Arthur had taught her about magic: how spells needed focus, timing, and openings.
She would need all of it now.
Because this wasn't the fight she'd planned for.
This was something else entirely.
And yet—she didn't falter.
She'd come here knowing she might die.
She'd come here knowing she might fail.
And she'd come here knowing that she would rather die standing her ground than live one more day in fear of the Hand and their allies.
No backup. No rescue. No last-minute portal from a man who'd moved on to fighting gods and reshaping galaxies, who probably didn't even think about her anymore.
Just her.
And the century's final night.
The clock would strike midnight in less than an hour. The millennium would turn. And either the Hand would finally fall, or she would die trying.