Rin floated in darkness—cold, silent, endless.
It was like falling, but with no ground to ever hit.
No up. No down. Just her. And the void.
She clenched her fists, trying to hold herself together.
Her breathing was shaky, but steady enough to whisper.
"Okay... okay, Rin... think."
She swallowed the lump in her throat.
"You've been here before... not this deep, but you've felt it."
Fear crept up her spine like a cold hand.
"You're not useless... you're not just a burden."
She shook her head, though nothing moved around her.
"They believe in you. Father Ben... Kai... even Sultan..."
She let out a small, bitter laugh.
"Glitch would probably just roast me if he knew I was crying."
Her voice cracked, but she kept going.
"You're scared. Yeah. So what? You've always been scared."
"But you're still here. You're still alive."
She closed her eyes and breathed deeper.
"The shadows listen. They're mine. Not the other way around."
She opened her eyes again—and something shifted.
A faint shimmer pulsed in the darkness, far off in the abyss. Like a ripple.
Her fingers twitched.
"I just have to focus. Focus and feel it. Find the center."
She took one slow step through the void. Then another.
Her body was still half-trapped, but her mind? Her will?
It was reaching for control.
Her voice was quiet but fierce now.
"I'm not disappearing."
"I'm not going to be some girl they just... collect."
The shadow around her reacted again, as if it heard her.
It curled tighter around her—but not like before. Not to strangle.
To respond.
Something inside her had awakened.
Echo landed smoothly, boots hitting the chopper's ramp before gliding down with sniper in hand. Wind whipped around him, coat flaring behind him like wings. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes scanned the chaos with the calm of a seasoned killer.
Above, the twins dropped like they'd rehearsed it a thousand times.
Hoverboards split the air with a sonic hum—one twin spun mid-dive, landing with a crouch and a spark beneath her board. The other flipped backwards and landed in a power stance beside her. Their helmets slid back automatically, wind blowing their hair as they grinned.
On the ground, Glitch stood frozen.
He had just watched Kai take a brutal palm strike to the gut from Takuya.
His friend crumpled—flames flickering weakly around his hands before snuffing out.
Glitch's chest rose sharply. His fists clenched.
"...Kai..."
His body shifted violently.
Metal bones cracked, joints bulged, and his entire frame expanded.
Four muscular arms erupted—two transforming into jagged, gleaming blades, the others clenched into fists big enough to punch through steel.
He didn't wait for orders.
Sultan stood a few feet behind him, eyes wide, tossing his mallet aside as it disintegrated into fine sand. With a slow, graceful sweep of his hand, two katana blades formed—clean, curved, and sharp.
He raised them like a samurai preparing for war.
"Go in on three—" he started.
"Too late." Glitch growled, already charging.
Echo smirked slightly at the sight.
"This might actually be fun."
Without hesitation, he took off toward a shattered structure nearby—the grand, broken shell of a museum.
The sign outside flickered: "DINOSAUR EXHIBIT — Natural History of Ancient Beasts."
Glitch followed him like a freight train of steel and fury.
The museum groaned with age, the sound of dripping water echoing off cracked walls and fossilized jaws.
Glitch stepped forward, each footfall heavy enough to make the ground tremble. His four arms were primed—two bladed, two ready to crush.
"Come out, sniper boy," he muttered.
"I'm not here for hide-and-seek."
Then—CRACK!
Out of nowhere, a devastating blow slammed into the side of his face.
Echo appeared like a shadow, twisting mid-air, boots connecting with Glitch's jaw before flipping off a hanging pterodactyl skeleton and vanishing behind a display.
Glitch stumbled back, metal feet scraping against marble.
"The hell—"
Another hit—this time a spinning elbow strike to the back of his head.
CRACK!
Glitch turned, swinging wildly, but only met air. Echo was gone again.
He moved like a ghost in the dark—every movement silent, precise, brutal.
From above, he dropped down with surgical speed, driving both knees into Glitch's shoulders and rebounding off a hanging triceratops horn, flipping backward with sniper still slung tight behind his back.
"You're too loud," Echo finally said, voice calm like a whisper in a graveyard.
"And too slow."
Glitch roared and spun, slamming his fists into pillars and exhibits, sending debris flying.
"COME OUT AND FIGHT ME!"
But Echo was already circling, already planning his next move.
The sniper wasn't just a sharpshooter—he was trained for infiltration, for assassination.
And this time...
He wasn't aiming from a distance.
He was hunting up close.
Inside, towering skeletons loomed.
A T-Rex's bony grin watched silently as they entered. Dust hung in the air like smoke, catching the flickering emergency lights. Echo disappeared into the dark hallways, vanishing behind rows of prehistoric death.
Glitch's eyes scanned, blades drawn.
This wasn't just a fight anymore.
This was personal.
For a whole minute straight, the museum echoed with the sound of fists, flips, and flesh hitting metal.
Echo moved like a whisper in a storm—vanishing, striking, vanishing again. His form was sharp, each attack fluid, punishing, and deliberate. Glitch was powerful, but this wasn't his game. His monstrous body lagged behind Echo's ghostlike speed.
Then—splat.
One of Glitch's bladed arms caught Echo mid-dash, slicing across his side. Blood splashed lightly across the broken display glass.
Glitch, beaten and bruised, bleeding from his lip and sporting a darkened eye, smirked through the pain.
"You feel that...?" he said, swaying slightly. "'Cause I did."
But just as he raised his arms for another swing, something small bounced beside his foot—thunk... hissss.
A sleek gas grenade.
"What the—"
FWOOSH.
A white mist hissed out, curling like fog. Within seconds, it seeped into Glitch's body, attacking his transformation at the core. His blades cracked, his muscle mass shrank, and his four arms dropped limp.
His shifting failed.
His edge was gone.
And Echo didn't stop.
He reengaged, strikes faster, harsher—each one designed not to stun but to kill. Pressure points, bone breaks, joint locks—this was a takedown. Final and calculated.
But just as he delivered a final hook toward the neck—
CLACK.
Glitch's hand shot up—grabbing Echo's fist mid-air.
His eyes widened. He didn't know how... but he had predicted the hit.
Echo froze, caught in a moment of surprise. Glitch gave a weary smile, one filled with confusion and a flicker of pride.
"Heh... gotcha."
Then his eyes rolled back. His body, too exhausted and gas-drugged to stay conscious, dropped with a loud crash, shattering part of the floor beneath him.
He was out cold.
Echo stood over him, breathing steady, like a warrior who had trained for this exact moment all his life.
"That's one."
He reloaded his tranq pistol and moved on.
Echo stood above the collapsed body of Glitch, his breathing calm but his knuckles stained. The gas still lingered faintly in the air, swirling around shattered bones of prehistoric displays and fractured glass.
He turned away, his boots echoing in the marble-tiled dinosaur exhibit, walking with the same eerie calm he entered with.
But behind him, Glitch's fingers twitched—his face strained as he forced his eyes halfway open. His voice was hoarse, laced with disbelief and pain.
"You're... a human..." he coughed.
Echo paused mid-step, half-glancing over his shoulder.
"...You don't even have powers... How did you win?"
And just like that, Glitch's eyes rolled shut, his massive body going limp.
He was out.
Echo didn't respond. He simply gave a ghost of a smirk, reloading a fresh magazine into his tranq pistol, then faded into the museum's shadows.