The Black Castle loomed like a malign apparition over the storm-scoured expanse, its gothic spires clawing at rain-heavy clouds as though heaven itself recoiled from its presence. Within, a cavernous chamber breathed cold silence, its breadth illuminated only by the wan glow of candelabras. Their flames guttered and writhed, casting elongated phantoms across walls of brooding mahogany, walls burdened with cryptic tapestries that whispered of ancient betrayals and oaths drowned in blood.
At the heart of the chamber stretched a table carved of obsidian so polished it gleamed like frozen midnight. From its centre rose black roses, blooming unnaturally, their petals dark as raven's wings yet gleaming with a sheen that resembled wet silk.
At the table's head presided over The Lady. Draped in a sumptuous Victorian gown of raven-black satin trimmed with crimson, she was regal and spectral in equal measure. A veil of shadow obscured her countenance, heightening the dreadful mystique that clung to her presence like a miasma.
Arrayed around her were the infamous Sinners, a cabal of chaos incarnate.
Zoyah leaned forward, emerald trench coat coiling about her like a serpent. Its golden embroidery shimmered faintly, as though alive, twisting like runes too dangerous to read. Her silver-white hair cascaded loose, moonlight incarnate, while her gloved fingers tapped a staccato rhythm upon the table's surface—the tolling of a death knell.
"Spindlemaw…" she began, her voice a paradox of lilting melody and venomous weight, "has been dispatched—felled by the Velvet Guillotine atop the Tower-7 of Jiǔlóng Spires. His bones lie shattered, his legion scattered, carrion beneath a butcher's blade."
The chamber fell into suffocating silence. Beyond the stained-glass windows, rain lashed like war-drums beating for the dead.
Adela, robed in velvet burgundy, her shawl woven like a widow's lament, pressed her hand to her lips in feigned dismay. "Chilling," she whispered, eyes gleaming with morbid delight. "Seventy-three of our kin already carved down by that man—and now Spindlemaw joins the abyss."
"Not only Spindlemaw," Zoyah added coldly. "Even Kairoth has been undone—by the Chief herself."
A guttural growl resounded from Wolverine, a giant in a sleeveless leather vest, his tattooed arms bulging with brute menace. He bared his teeth in a wolfish grin. "Factions be damned—we are all Sinners. And yet this Guillotine—this Agent-90—is no soldier. He is a predator who stalks as phantom and strikes as tempest. And phantoms," he sneered, "are not so easily slain."
In the shadows, Rahu drew her fingers through her silver-black mane, the strands cascading over her gaunt visage like a mourning veil. Her gravelled voice dripped unease. "And let us not forget—Hecate and Hella. They were ours once. Now they bend their knees to him."
The Lady's voice cut through like a blade of ice. "Then let them drown in their treachery. The Crimson Lotus shields them? Then the Lotus too shall wither."
Chelsea, adorned in chains of gold draped over her cropped top, shifted languidly. Her pink trousers glimmered faintly as her lips curled in a serpentine smile. "Exactly. What's the grand design, Lady? Surely this is more than mourning over bones." Her pink hair spilled like silken flame as her fingers toyed idly with her diamond pendant.
The Lady reclined, her hands—gloved, still, regal—gripping lion-headed armrests. A low, serrated chuckle escaped her veil.
"Agent-90," she hissed, every syllable venom. "A thorn lodged in our marrow. He has erased seventy-three of my chosen, extinguished Spindlemaw. He dares weave a legend in our blood. That ends now."
Her gaze, shadowed yet searing, swept her court: Zoyah, Bai-Yu, Bloodhound, Venom, Demolia, Rahu.
"You six shall be the hounds. Track him. Tear him from shadow. Drag him to me—alive, if fortune favours you. In pieces, if not."
Bai-Yu, resplendent in a jade qipao with silver filigree, inclined her head with icy poise. Her long braid swayed as her eyes glittered like tempered steel. "And should Di-Xian's agents or SSCBF dogs stand in the way?"
The Lady's veil shifted as her lips curved into cruelty. "Then gut them. Let their entrails stain the gutters. Their corpses will be my warning."
Her words thundered like prophecy. "The war has begun. A war of vengeance."
Rahu's knives clinked as his fingers traced their hilts. His baritone was grim. "Consider it done. Yet the Guillotine's legend—"
"He is as legend says," The Lady cut him off, voice sharper than glass. "And that is why you go. You, the most merciless, the cruellest of my kin. Fail me not."
The Sinners inclined their heads as thunder cracked above. The chamber doors groaned wide to admit Demolia, encased in armour of matte black that shimmered menace, and Venom, clad in combat rig streaked with crimson highlights.
"Shall we begin?" Venom's words dripped with anticipation, a predator's hunger.
The Lady dismissed them with a flick of her wrist, her voice ringing like a verdict. "Fetch me the Guillotine—alive… or butchered."
Meanwhile, across the storm-lashed city, Madam Di-Xian's chamber mirrored the tension. Her office was suffused with suffocation, the air thick with premonition. Rain rattled the portholes as she stood, a silhouette of iron poise, her agents arrayed behind her—Hecate and Hella foremost.
"Agents," she intoned, calm yet immovable, "a war is upon us. One none may evade. Ready yourselves."
Hecate arched a brow, her words hesitant, edged with awe. "A war, Madam?"
Hella's lips split into a reckless grin, her crimson eyes glinting with fever. "Exhilarating," she purred, voice like a wolf's growl.
Roy crossed his arms, scorn tightening his jaw. "Exhilarating? You speak as though slaughter is theatre."
"Enough," Di-Xian's voice rang, silken but sovereign, cutting dissent like a sabre.
Jun tilted his head. "And who, Madam, is the enemy?"
Her voice, low and foreboding, answered: "The Sinners. Their vengeance is fixed on Agent-90—but they will not stop there. They will drown us all in their fury."
Farhan gave a humourless chuckle. "Well… ninety is the name that curdles even killers' spines. A phantom in flesh. Trauma given form."
Alvi raised a brow, lips curling. "Then tell us, Madam. What is this war truly for?"
"For revenge," she replied, her words leaden with gravity. "For Spindlemaw. For their fallen. Ready yourselves—all of you. That includes you, Hella, Hecate. You will march with us. Alvi, you will maintain our lines. This war shall be orchestrated with precision."
Her gaze swept her kin like a blade's kiss. "Are we clear?"
"Yes, Madam!" they chorused, fists tight in unison.
Her eyes narrowed, voice dropping into prophecy. "The battle…"
At that same instant, across the Black Castle, The Lady's voice rang out, venomous, immutable:
"…between…"
And together, across storm and distance, two voices intoned as one—
"…Crimson Lotus and Black Rose."
The storm howled its approval, as though even the heavens bore witness to the birth of war.
In the sanctum of her office, Wen-Li sat surrounded by meticulously ordered dossiers, their spines aligned with the rigidity of a military parade. The desk lamp glowed with clinical severity, casting her angular features into chiaroscuro. The silence fractured as her comm-device buzzed. She lifted it with her usual composure, voice steady, almost conversational.
"Oh, Gonda," she said, her tone poised but untroubled, "what is it—have you some intelligence to convey?"
The reply came like a thunderclap, his voice tight, urgent, breathless.
"Chief!" he barked, urgency trembling through the syllables.
Her eyes narrowed, brows knitting as tension coiled around her spine. "What's wrong?" she demanded.
His words fell swift, stark, devoid of preamble. "A war has erupted—in the Twin Cities—between Black Rose and Crimson Lotus!"
Her pulse stumbled; she half-rose from her chair, the leather creaking beneath her sudden motion. "What?!" The question erupted more than spoken, incredulity cleaving through her usual calm.
"You will find out soon!" And then the line went dead, a hollow click ringing like the toll of a funeral bell.
For a moment the room seemed to collapse inward. Wen-Li stood there frozen, the faint hum of the lamp now oppressive, the silence suffocating. Her hand lingered at her ear as though still holding the vanished voice, her lips parted in disbelief. Slowly, mechanically, she set the receiver down upon its cradle.
She whispered to herself, words tasting of iron and uncertainty. "A war… between Black Rose and Crimson Lotus…? But that cannot be. It does not mean the Sinners, nor Madam Di-Xian's agents. Then what in heaven's name does it signify?"
Her reflection in the window stared back at her—a visage taut with confusion yet girded by resolve. A flicker of unease clouded her gaze, but it did not soften her resolve; rather, it sharpened it. Her fingers drummed against the desk, each tap like the beat of a war-drum, summoning courage from chaos.
"No," she murmured, straightening her posture, chin lifted as a commander before battle. "This I must witness with mine own eyes. To entrust such riddles to another would be folly."
She swept her coat from the chair's backrest in one fluid gesture, the fabric swirling about her like a raven unfurling its wings. With each step towards the door her confusion transmuted into grim determination, as though she herself became the blade that would carve through the mystery.
Alone, without entourage nor escort, she departed—the solitary shadow of a Chief walking into the storm of war, bearing the weight of questions like millstones upon her breast, yet moving with the quiet inevitability of fate itself.
Atop the High Chaebols Tower, the metropolis sprawled beneath Gavriel like a trembling beast in chains, its arteries of light blurred by the relentless rain. Thunder bellowed across the heavens, and the glass panes quivered as though the storm itself conspired with his thoughts. Gavriel stood tall, one hand resting upon the balustrade, his profile outlined by the ghostly flicker of lightning—a sovereign in contemplation, watching a world buckle beneath tempest and shadow.
The chamber doors opened with a sharp resonance, and Chief Richter entered briskly, boots striking the marble floor with the cadence of urgency. She paused a respectful distance behind him, her breath visible in the chill that had seeped through the storm-battered windows.
"Sir!" she announced, her voice taut with import.
"Yes," Gavriel replied, his tone calm yet imperious, without so much as turning his gaze from the rain-lashed horizon. His lips barely moved, as though the storm itself were his confidant.
"A battle is about to start," Richter declared, her words clipped, her stance rigid.
At this, Gavriel exhaled softly through his nose, the shadow of a smile ghosting his lips. He tilted his head ever so slightly, lightning carving his face into sharp relief. "Good," he murmured, his voice smooth as polished obsidian. "Let the tempest break upon the stones. Blood is but the ink of destiny, and tonight destiny demands a ledger."
Chief Richter's jaw tightened, though her eyes betrayed a flicker of awe at his unflinching composure amidst talk of war. "Yes, Sir!" she answered, her hand unconsciously brushing the hilt of the blade at her side. Then, with the faintest hesitation, she added, "Chief Wen-Li received word of the conflict… and she has gone alone."
At that, Gavriel finally turned, the movement deliberate, predatory. His gaze cut into Richter's like the edge of a scalpel, cold yet searing. He let the silence thicken for a heartbeat, his fingers drumming once upon the balustrade before he spoke.
"So…" he intoned, his voice lower now, weighted with sardonic gravity. "The lioness leaves her den to dance with wolves. Admirable… or ruinous. Yet tell me, Richter—what is steel worth if it trembles in its sheath?"
The words coiled in the air, venom wrapped in silk. His smirk deepened, though his eyes betrayed a flicker of calculation, as though Wen-Li's reckless resolve were a piece upon his board—one to be studied, not halted.
"Yes, Sir," Richter replied swiftly, bowing her head to mask her unease. She pivoted crisply on her heel, her coat sweeping behind her in disciplined arcs, and strode toward the door.
The echoes of her footfalls dwindled into the vast chamber, leaving Gavriel once more alone with the city's storm. He returned his gaze to the glass, his reflection half-merged with the lightning-lashed skyline.
Gavriel, left solitary once more, remained before the glass. The metropolis, drowned in rain and thunder, bowed beneath the storm—yet in his eyes it was no longer a city, but a chessboard upon which pawns, knights, and kings would soon bleed. His smirk lingered like a scar across his face as the heavens roared their approval.
Beneath his breath, almost inaudible, he whispered to the tempest, "Run to war, Wen-Li… Let us see if the storm devours you, or if you rise crowned in thunder."
And with that, the thunder answered him, like applause from a darkened theatre.
Twin Cities sprawled like a wounded leviathan upon the earth—half clothed in steel and light, half draped in rot and shadow. Its skyline was a paradox of splendour and desolation, where futuristic towers pierced the heavens like lances of ambition, whilst in the hollows below, moss and rust gnawed upon carcasses of forgotten architecture. It was a city cleaved in two—an empire of neon and glass in uneasy marriage with a graveyard of soot and ivy.
The rain fell in endless silver skeins, sewing together the smog and the neon haze. Above, drones buzzed like carrion flies; below, the streets lay fractured, their veins clogged with abandoned vehicles and shadowed figures. Children darted barefoot through puddles slick with oil, and in the cracks of alleyways, the unseen whispered like ghosts rehearsing tragedy.
At the heart of this fractured beast rose the infamous Twin Towers, symmetrical spires of jet-black steel and obsidian glass. They reached upward, cold and tyrannical, bridged by a luminous arch that pulsed with alternating hues of azure and crimson. This colossal link shimmered as though it were a celestial scar, baptising the city in its glow. The people called it The Arch of Silence, for upon that bridge men had once been hanged for spectacle. Its silhouette haunted the fog as a memento mori—reminding every soul who dared look up that dominion belonged not to the city's people, but to the powers enthroned in the heights.
Beneath that omen, in the neon-soaked arteries of the Tai-Yon Weiy district pulsed alive beneath the storm: its alleys shimmered with dripping lantern-light, while electric signage quivered in hues of jade and vermilion. The air reeked of iron, ozone, and the faint, acrid tang of oil.
Jun and Farhan threaded their way through this labyrinth of decadence and decay, shadows flickering against their coats as the neon fractured upon every raindrop. Their boots slapped against sodden cobblestones, each step swallowed by the polyphony of engines, vendors' cries, and the drone of skyrails above.
Jun, with red hair slicked by the downpour, swept his gaze across the crowd—his eyes restless, as though mistrust clung to every silhouette. He spoke low, his voice honed like a blade yet carrying across the din:
"Farhan… do you ever wonder if this city breathes? Look around us—half corpse, half machine." His hand twitched, brushing the butt of his pistol as if the thought itself demanded readiness.
Farhan, his composure crystalline even amidst chaos, did not falter in stride. He adjusted the collar of his rain-slick coat, his dark eyes reflecting the flickering red of a holographic billboard. "Jun," he replied, voice steady as an anchor in tempest, "this city doesn't breathe—it festers. And festering things breed war." His lips curled briefly, not in amusement, but in grim acceptance of inevitability.
Jun slowed for a heartbeat, his head canting as though listening beyond the clamour of the streets. A muscle twitched along his jaw. "Farhan," he said sharply, his tone tightening, "did you hear that?"
Farhan froze mid-step, body taut like a bowstring drawn to its limit. His hand went instantly to his earpiece, his voice clipped and commanding as thunder cracked overhead. "Roy, Masud, Hecate, Hella—stay alert. Something's amiss."
And then, as though summoned by the suspicion, a melody unfurled upon the night air. It was no ordinary song, but a spectral canticle—each note woven with foreboding, like rain sliding down a gravestone:
"Rains of dandelions flow by the wind,
The skies are gloomy with celestial bloom,
Black Rose lit up until dawn breaks,
Crimson Lotus drenched in bloodshed,
Wait for the lies as sin approaches,
Rippling thunder illuminates the deaths."
The tune slithered through the rain like perfume through a crypt, silencing even the chatter of the market. Faces turned, uneasy, but none could pinpoint its source—until she stepped forth.
From the umbral recess of a side alley, a figure emerged with predatory languor. A woman, her frame lean and honed, clad in a black tank that revealed the taut musculature of her midriff and prominently exposing her umbilicus, flaunting both confidence and danger.. Long, rain-darkened trousers clung to her as though the storm itself had dressed her, while an open jacket swayed like a serpent's hood in the gale. A wide-brimmed black hat shadowed her visage, but her eyes betrayed her—dual-hued, one pink, one violet, burning with a phosphorescent gleam that seemed to pulse with the storm's own rhythm. Tousled raven-black, cut in layered strands that fall around her sharp face, with streaks catching faint purples under neon light.
But her aura is seductive and unsettling, as though every smirk is a trap.
She smiled faintly, lips curved as though mocking the very notion of warmth. Her voice, when it came, was clear and melodic, yet each syllable cut like a shard of obsidian through the curtain of rain.
"It's a pleasure to meet you again, Agent Farhan."
Farhan's eyes narrowed to slits, his hand shifting to the hilt of his blade with a slowness that made the gesture more threat than preparation. His voice, when it came, was low, gravelled, threaded with venom.
"Deren Bernett!."
The single word fell heavier than thunder, his tone neither greeting nor warning, but a recognition steeped in venomous history. His stance stiffened, every sinew of his body singing tension; his breath, visible in the cold rain, steamed like smoke rising from a fire not yet extinguished.
Beside him, Jun shifted subtly, his stance widening, his pistol half-raised, eyes narrowed with a predator's suspicion. The storm hissed all around them, and yet, in that instant, the entire city seemed to fall into hush—as if Twin Cities itself held its breath, waiting for the inevitable fracture between past and present, between reunion and bloodshed.
The rain descended without reprieve, a silver curtain drenching the labyrinth of Jai-Jun district until its streets shone like obsidian glass under fractured neon. Flickering signs sputtered in futile defiance, their pallid glow mirrored in sprawling puddles that rippled with every stray droplet. Shadows writhed across the glistening pavement, stretched and warped into grotesque silhouettes, as though the city itself had donned a mask of madness. Once a hive of revelry and nocturnal commerce, the district now lay silent, its breath stifled beneath an atmosphere so oppressive it seemed to foreshadow a storm—not from the heavens, but from mortal hands and clashing wills.
Roy adjusted the hem of his rain-darkened coat, the motion precise, almost ritualistic. His eyes, sharp as tempered steel, swept the desolate avenue ahead; each puddle he disturbed echoed in shallow splashes, the sound absorbed by the suffocating quiet. Beside him, Hella moved with predatory poise, her gait measured, her posture taut as a drawn bow. Her gaze, hawkish and unrelenting, carved through the gloom with suspicion sharpened by instinct.
"Something's wrong," she murmured, her voice low yet resonant, the tremor within it akin to tectonic rumblings before an earthquake's release.
As they rounded the corner, the truth unveiled itself beneath the jaundiced flicker of a dying streetlamp. Two silhouettes waited, one cloaked in apparel that was both gothic and ceremonial. Deep swathes of sable, violet, and sanguine enveloped her form, weaving an aura of decadent peril. Her eyes glowed with eldritch fire, twin beacons of dread, and around her body coiled a malign energy, invisible yet palpable, swirling like storm-clouds eager to devour. The rain itself recoiled from her presence, droplets veering aside in mid-air as though creation dared not touch her skin.
"You?" Hella's jaw set, her fists clenched until her knuckles whitened. Her stance bristled with instinctive hostility.
The woman tilted her head, her cruel smile unfolding slowly, baring teeth that glimmered like razors in the jaundiced glow.
"Cabernet Donella," Roy muttered, his voice low, his features carved with disbelief tinged by contempt.
"Ah, you do remember." Cabernet's words purred forth, silken and venomous, like velvet soaked in hemlock. "I'm touched—truly. But I did not come for nostalgia."
The shadows around her twisted in feverish response, as though enslaved by her will. Tendrils of crimson luminescence pulsed outward, humming with forbidden cadence, staining the air with dread.
"She's dangerous," Hella whispered, her hand inching towards her blade, her breath held like an arrow waiting to fly.
"Dangerous doesn't begin to name her," Roy replied, his tone steady though his gaze narrowed to slits, the weight of recognition hardening his resolve.
Before further words could be forged, two more emerged from the dripping alleyways, their presences thunderous in contrast yet equally commanding.
The first stepped beneath the fractured light clad in a red jacket cut askew, her long trousers split at the abdomen to reveal the taut frame beneath a fitted crop top. An intricate tattoo writhed across her shoulder, seeming almost to pulse with its own rhythm. Her white hair, razor-sharp in layers, flared with each gust, while her gaze blazed with incandescent ferocity.
"Bianca Heaney," Roy breathed, the name escaping his lips like a curse. "Infernal Arc herself."
The second followed with glacial elegance. Her long coat, dark as midnight but trimmed in silver filigree, shimmered faintly as though frost had kissed the fabric. Beneath it, her sleek combat suit hugged her with an air of imminent violence. Ash-blonde hair coiled into a loose braid that fell like a rope of ice, and her grey eyes glimmered with the merciless precision of a winter storm.
"And Cassia Großmanter," Roy continued, his tone shaded with reluctant respect. "Cryo Dominion."
Bianca smirked, sparks crackling into incandescent flame at her fingertips, the street illuminated by sudden tongues of electric-blue fire. "You've nowhere to run, little heroes," she taunted, her voice sharp with mockery. "This is our dominion now."
Cassia's gaze locked upon them, her words slicing the air with frigid finality. "Resistance is futile. Surrender—or be frozen mid-breath."
Hella strode forward, her chin lifted, her eyes blazing with defiance as indomitable as forged steel. "We've faced worse than you," she spat, her tone a sword tempered in fury. "You won't frighten us."
Cabernet's laugh erupted, eerie and dissonant, echoing across the narrow lane as though the city's walls themselves carried her mockery. "Oh, darling," she purred, her voice dripping venomous pity, "you haven't begun to taste fear."
The air itself thickened; oppressive energy pressed upon the lungs, a suffocating pall where dread and resolve met in collision. Roy and Hella stood resolute, blades half-drawn, their eyes alight with grim defiance.
Bianca's grin widened, her flames roaring to life like the breath of a dragon. "Let's see if your bark holds teeth."
And in a heartbeat, chaos erupted. The street was consumed by fire and frost, shadow and blood-light. Neon flickers fractured into shards of colour as the district itself seemed to convulse in terror at the clash of titans.
Meanwhile, across Wai-Young district, an unsettling calm cloaked the streets—a silence so taut it seemed spun from the breath of the dead. Neon signs blinked erratically, their reflections smeared across rain-polished alleys like warped hieroglyphs. The city, in that place, became theatre—its faceless audience hidden, yet palpably watching, awaiting a grotesque performance.
Masud advanced with meticulous caution, every footfall calculated. His hand hovered near his weapon, his eyes sweeping with unwavering vigilance. Hecate glided beside him, her movements spectral, her gaze dissecting every shadow with surgical precision.
Then came the sound—a laugh, high-pitched and riddled with mania, shattering the silence like a cracked bell. It echoed unnaturally, ricocheting along the narrow stone walls as though mocking them.
From the shadows, a figure revealed himself: clad in a coat of black and crimson armour, alive with shifting holograms that twisted like reality unspooling. A jester's mask concealed half his face, its grin grotesquely eternal. From the exposed side, a human eye watched with disturbing calm, while the other glowed cybernetic red, unblinking and cruel. Knives shaped as playing cards flickered between his fingers, their edges gleaming promises of death. A collapsible cane twirled idly in his grasp, his posture a symphony of mockery and menace.
"Hah! Behold, honoured guests upon my stage," he declared, his voice lilting with theatrical derision.
"Joker," Hecate said, her tone as flat as an iron edge, her lips pressed into a blade-thin line.
Before tension could settle, another stepped forth. Her bodysuit shimmered like the skin of the cosmos, its hues shifting between violet, black, and storm-blue, reinforced with alloy plating that gleamed menacingly. Glowing conduits pulsed across her frame, feeding into the twin scythes that materialised in her grasp with a hum like the heartbeat of a god. Her cape, tattered and inscribed with flickering runes, whispered of forgotten sorceries. Her hair, stark white, rippled as though stirred by unseen winds, while her silver-blue eyes burned with abyssal promise.
"Levylak," Hecate said, her voice steady though tension arched her spine.
Levylak inclined her head, her smile a predator's concession. "You've strayed into the wrong storm." Her scythes blazed brighter, hissing as rain vanished to steam upon contact.
Masud's stance anchored, his hand resting on his blade. His tone, when he spoke, was tempered iron. "We didn't come to play games. Move aside—or be forced aside."
Joker's laugh crescendoed, jagged and manic. "Oh, but you are the game. And there's no script for your survival."
The neon lights faltered, plunging the street into shadow, as if recoiling from the dread now birthed. Rain lashed like needles, each drop stinging as though charged with malice.
Hecate stepped forward, her resolve etched in fire. "If this is your stage, Joker, we'll make it your grave."
Levylak's scythes sang with power, her smile widening. "Then let us see if you can dance upon the storm."
And the silence fractured. Chaos erupted like lightning unfurling—frost, flame, laughter, and ruin intertwining as Wai-Young descended into battle.
The night draped itself upon Ai-Yaon District like a mourner's veil, the ceaseless rain cascading as though the heavens themselves lamented the sins engrained into its forsaken streets. Thunder snarled in the firmament, each growl splitting the sky with argent veins that briefly illuminated the narrow alleyways. Agent-90 advanced with deliberate cadence, his movements carrying a symmetry of poise and portent, his polished boots dispersing shallow puddles into ripples that vanished almost instantly beneath the relentless deluge. Neon signs flickered overhead in dying convulsions, their fractured glows mirrored upon his rain-slicked spectacles, wherein his sharp blue eyes glinted like twin shards of glacial quartz.
He entered the warehouse, the heavy iron doors groaning as though resentful of intrusion. Within, darkness sprawled like an ancient tapestry, only fractured by the sporadic incandescence of lightning that bled through cracked windows. Each thunderclap became a cruel maestro, conducting brief symphonies of light and shadow across corroded beams, rusted chains, and broken crates. Rain battered the roof with merciless ferocity, its hammering rhythm reverberating like war drums, while trickles leaked through fractured panels, pooling upon the mould-stained floor.
From this cavernous gloom, a voice unfurled—low, sinuous, and venomous. It slithered through the damp air, curling like smoke around the ears. Agent-90 halted mid-stride, the echo of his boots dying into silence. His gloved fingers rose, adjusting the rim of his spectacles with a mechanical precision as unyielding as clockwork. Rain streamed down his statuesque visage, each rivulet tracing the contours of his face like liquid lament, yet his composure endured—unflinching, monolithic, an effigy of stoicism amidst the tempest's symphony.
From the ink-black recesses emerged Zoyah. Darkness clung to her like armour, her blade gleaming whenever lightning scythed through the fractured roof. She moved with predatory elegance, each step calculated, each gesture woven from a loom of inevitability. The way she angled her weapon betrayed an artistry of violence, her poise akin to a needle threading silk.
"You walk these streets as though they are your dominion," she murmured, her voice sharp, cutting through the air like a surgeon's scalpel beneath candlelight.
Agent-90 inclined his head but a fraction, his lips curving into the faintest ghost of a sardonic smile. His voice, when it came, was low yet resonant, tempered steel wrapped in ice.
"I walk them not in ownership, but in stewardship. You mistake silence for absence and restraint for weakness. That miscalculation will be your undoing."
Behind him, another cadence of footsteps punctured the rain-sodden quiet. Adela emerged from the gloom, her elongated scissor-blade catching the lightning's fleeting brilliance. Its serrated edge gleamed with a spectral blue, as though it had feasted upon the marrow of ghosts. Her expression remained marble-cold, detached, the weight of inevitability etched across her features. She moved not as one engaging in choice but fulfilling an edict carved in some bloody ledger beyond mortal sight.
To his right drifted Bai-Yu, her blade raised with funereal composure. The steel whispered against the rain-soaked air, its edge promising finality with each faint shimmer. She advanced with the silence of an apparition, her footfalls refusing to stir even the pooled water beneath her.
On his left, Rahu prowled forward, her clawed hands glinting with metallic menace as the lightning kissed their sharpened curves. Her posture exuded feral readiness, lips drawn into a predatory smile that dared him to twitch. Her eyes burned with the savage lust of a huntress who had scented her quarry.
From the periphery, more shadows thickened into form. Bloodhound's towering silhouette loomed, his monstrous weapon hefted lazily upon his shoulder, as though carnage itself were an inevitability he savoured in anticipation. Venom seeped into the scene, his aura thick with malevolence, his every breath taut with venomous potential. Behind his, Demolia radiated volatility, her very presence vibrating with caged ferocity, each inhale and exhale brimming with unspent destruction. And lastly, Ravok advanced, his smirk etched with insolence, his weapon gleaming wickedly beneath each thunder-strike, arrogance coiling about him like a second skin.
Agent-90 stood unmoving amidst their encirclement, his head tilting ever so slightly as if studying them through a lens of disdain. His unreadable eyes reflected the storm's fleeting brilliance, his expression a mask sculpted from calm defiance. Lightning ripped across the heavens above, casting his adversaries' faces in stark chiaroscuro, revealing for an instant the twisted devotion and malevolent glee in their eyes. For a breathless heartbeat, even the rain seemed to falter, as though the world itself paused before a tempest more violent than nature's own fury.
Elsewhere in the sprawling labyrinth of districts, parallel storms gathered. At four disparate battlegrounds, the five agents and two Sinners stood before their adversaries, confronted with peril that eclipsed expectation. The seven combatants, scattered yet united by fate's design, bore visages of unflinching resolve, their eyes exuding a chill so profound it might freeze the marrow of lesser souls. Each gaze was a shard of mortality sharpened into inevitability.
Farhan's voice crackled through the comms, taut with urgency, reaching Masud, Roy, Hecate, Hella, and even Agent-90. His words were a clarion call, urgent yet steady. The agents, though isolated in different crucibles of battle, exchanged no words but only silence—silence that became assent, their nods unseen yet felt, a covenant forged beneath stormlight. Each accepted the confrontation not merely as battle but as reckoning.
And so, beneath thunder's dirge and rain's relentless requiem, the stage stood set—seven warriors poised, their hearts as taut as bowstrings, their resolve like an anvil awaiting the hammer. The storm that brewed was no longer of heaven's making, but of man's will, colliding with the unrepentant malice of shadows.
The Tai-Yon Weiy District was a theatre of gloom, its avenues drenched in rain and bathed in intermittent neon glimmers that stuttered like a dying heartbeat. The storm bore down with merciless gravity, its thunderclaps ricocheting through the towering glass façades, as if the heavens themselves sought to fracture the city. Beneath this tempestuous canopy, three figures stood poised in the crucible of violence—Agent Jun, Farhan, and their adversary: Deren Bernett, the Crimson Lotus cloaked in midnight silk.
Her presence was intoxicating, peril wrapped in splendour. Deren's crimson attire shimmered with every flash of lightning, the fabric whispering like a forbidden hymn. Her eyes gleamed with a sorceress's relish, her lips curving into a smile that hovered between seduction and cruelty. When she raised her hands, the rain itself seemed hesitant to fall upon her, curving away as though enthralled by her gravitational allure.
"You should have stayed in your shadows," she breathed, her tone laced with silken malice. "Here, among the blossoms, I reign."
The air around her pulsed—an invisible exhalation that prickled against the skin. Jun felt it first, a shiver along his spine, as though unseen fingers trailed across his nerves. In an instant, the world shifted. Neon lights bled into crimson hues, their edges warping into unfurling petals. Hallucinations bloomed in riotous splendour: roses coiled around his limbs, their thorned vines digging into his flesh. The perfume of phantom blossoms invaded his lungs, sweet yet suffocating, a narcotic perfume that sought to bend his mind into submission.
Farhan staggered a step, his visor glitching with spasms of distortion. Deren's Crimson Allure tore through his cybernetic processors, flooding them with false signals. His HUD fractured into kaleidoscopic blossoms, diagnostic warnings screaming in fractured succession. His hands twitched, his targeting systems betrayed by the chemical storm seeping into his artificial synapses.
Jun gritted his teeth, the soldier's discipline anchoring him against the tide of illusion. His hand slid to the hilt of his blade, the steel hissing as it left its sheath. His body moved with precision, honed through years of battle—a storm wrapped in flesh. With a guttural exhalation, he sliced through the hallucinated vines, the blade tearing through not phantoms but the haze in his mind. His eyes narrowed on Deren, resolute and burning.
"Your tricks will not bury me," he growled, his voice low and serrated, each syllable honed like a blade.
Farhan, shaking free of the dissonance, recalibrated his systems with sheer will. Sparks spat from his neural-link as he overrode the scrambling pheromonic interference. His fists clenched, the metal knuckles creaking under his grip. He surged forward, his frame a blur of mechanical ferocity, swinging with a precision that cleaved through the rain-soaked air.
But Deren moved like smoke in a gale—her body twisting, pirouetting, her every step the choreography of a dancer who wove carnage into grace. She let the blows whisper past her, the hem of her dress spiralling like a bloodstained lotus in bloom. With a flick of her wrist, another wave of invisible venomous fragrance exhaled from her, enveloping Farhan once more. His sensors shrieked, vision doubling, tripling, then fracturing into phantasms of enemies that were not there.
Jun lunged, his blade singing through the storm, forcing Deren back against a wall slick with rain. Sparks flew as steel met the steel of her hidden fan-blades, their edges concealed within folds of silk. Her smile widened as she countered, her movements impossibly fluid, as if she were both predator and courtesan, executioner and temptress.
"You bleed belief into a dying world," she taunted, her words a venomous caress. "And I—I make belief bleed."
Jun pushed harder, his muscles straining, his eyes fierce with unbroken resolve. Every strike was a refusal, every parry a declaration. His blade hissed through the air like a serpent tasting blood. Farhan, shaking off the fog, re-entered the fray with a roar, his mechanical limbs propelling him forward like thunder incarnate. He hammered blows into the concrete as she slipped between them, her laughter echoing like wind through chimes.
Petals—phantom or real, no one could say—spiralled around the combatants, staining the rain with crimson illusions. The storm above seemed to mimic their clash, each thunderclap a drumbeat to their violent ballet, each flash of lightning illuminating the madness in fleeting tableaux: Jun's blade poised at her throat, Farhan's fist inches from her spine, and Deren twisting free, her aura pulsing with malignant allure.
Their eyes met in a triad of wills—Jun's burning with stoic defiance, Farhan's flaring with mechanical fury, Deren's glinting with predatory delight. And still, the fight raged on, unbroken, unresolved, the night itself convulsing beneath their struggle as the storm bore witness to a dance of steel, illusion, and inexorable will.
The Jai-Jun District lay in ruinous silence, its streets drenched in rain that turned the cracked pavement into black mirrors. Neon signs sputtered intermittently, casting the world in erratic hues—blue, crimson, violet—like stained glass in a cathedral of despair. Overhead, thunder drummed its relentless cadence, and lightning clawed jagged scars across the heavens.
Amid this storm, four figures converged, their presence transforming the abandoned district into an arena of calamity.
Cabernet Donella stood foremost, her silhouette draped in ritualistic finery that shimmered with wet silk and blood-hued lace. The shadows around her seemed animate, writhing and coiling as if they were extensions of her very flesh. Her lips, painted as dark as dried wine, curved into a smile both exquisite and cruel. Her eyes glowed with that eldritch covenant, the red luminescence pulsing in rhythm with the rain's heartbeat.
Opposite her, Roy adjusted his coat, the leather glistening with droplets, his sharp eyes glinting beneath the dim lamplight. His grip upon his weapon was steady, statuesque, yet within his chest the storm churned: grim recognition, iron discipline, an old soldier's weary contempt for the theatre of monsters. Beside him, Hella's stance was taut, her jaw set, her gaze like a falcon sighting prey. Every sinew of her body quivered with readiness, her defiance a blade honed upon fury.
Behind Cabernet emerged two more harbingers: Bianca Heaney and Cassia Großmanter. Bianca's hair, stark and pale, clung to her face in strands that shimmered under the neon glow, her smirk curling as sparks of blue flame coiled lazily about her hands. Each flicker illuminated her grey crop top and red jacket, a defiant uniform of ferocity. Cassia stood as her foil, her long dark coat embroidered with argent patterns that resembled hoarfrost. Her piercing grey eyes were devoid of warmth, cold and calculating, like glaciers appraising their next crevasse. Frost steamed from her palms, crystallising the raindrops mid-air before they shattered against the ground.
The four warriors' gazes locked, the air between them trembling with unspoken enmity.
Cabernet's voice unfurled, velvety and venomous.
"Do you feel it, darlings? The air itself thirsts for blood. Permit me the kindness of feeding it."
Her hand swept outward. In an instant, the shadows at her feet exploded into tendrils, writhing serpents of ink that lashed toward Roy and Hella. From her wrist, crimson filaments of liquid blossomed—her own blood, elongated and sharpened into barbed lances that shrieked through the rain.
Roy pivoted, his boots splashing through puddles, parrying one blood-blade with a sweep of steel that rang like a bell of defiance. Hella darted forward, rolling beneath a tendril that split the pavement as though it were paper, her dagger flashing as she slashed through another strand. Her breath hissed through clenched teeth, every movement precise, deliberate, unyielding.
Bianca laughed, her voice serrated with mischief.
"Oh, don't leave me out of this revel!"
Her hands ignited in torrents of electric-blue flame. With a flick, she conjured a spiralling inferno that roared across the street, boiling the rain mid-air. Steam erupted, veiling the battlefield in a ghostly mist.
Roy braced, shielding Hella as the firestorm smashed against him. The heat was unbearable, searing his coat, but he held firm, his silhouette carved against the azure blaze. With a growl he surged through the flames, counter-attacking in a vicious arc. His blade carved through Bianca's conjured fire, scattering it in radiant shards that fizzled like shattered lightning.
Cassia moved without a word, her eyes narrowing with disdain. She raised her hand, and from her palm blossomed a spire of crystalline ice that shot forward, freezing the mist into jagged prisms. The ground beneath Roy and Hella crystallised instantly, slick treachery that threatened to seize their footing.
Hella struck her blade into the frozen ground, steadying herself, her glare incandescent.
"You'll not cage us," she spat, her voice a knife tempered by fury.
She vaulted forward, slicing through an oncoming icicle that splintered like stained glass under cathedral light.
Cabernet's laughter rose, a chorus of mockery. Shadows coiled around her legs, carrying her effortlessly across the battlefield as though she were borne upon a tide of darkness. She re-emerged behind Roy, her blood tendrils wrapping toward his throat.
Roy reacted in a blur, his blade intercepting just in time. But even as he severed the strands, Cabernet's aura surged—she inhaled, siphoning the blood mist from her own wounds and from those her allies had inflicted upon the district's derelict carcass. The red vapour spiralled into her lungs, and her wounds sealed with unholy elegance.
"Every drop you spill nourishes me," she purred, her words dripping with sacrilegious delight.
Roy's jaw tightened. His voice was steel incarnate.
"Then you'll drown in it."
The clash reignited with renewed ferocity. Bianca hurled whips of blue flame, each strike detonating like artillery. Cassia summoned frozen spears that screamed through the air, their edges keener than guillotines. Cabernet's shadows writhed like a nest of serpents, her blood forming walls and blades with every movement.
Yet Roy and Hella endured. Hella's strikes were swift, her blade flashing through rain and flame alike, her eyes blazing with unbowed defiance. Roy's every motion was deliberate, measured, as though he carved not merely at foes but at fate itself.
The battlefield became a theatre of contrasts—fire against ice, shadow against steel, blood against resolve. Neon lights flickered above them, casting the battle in fractured colour: crimson blossoms, azure infernos, argent frost. The rain hissed upon fire, froze upon ice, and darkened beneath blood, while the storm above seemed but a mirror to the tempest of wills below.
And though the clash had already birthed ruin, none faltered. Cabernet's eyes gleamed brighter with each drop spilled. Bianca's laughter only grew shriller, the sound of a predator drunk on carnage. Cassia's silence was more dreadful than words, her every motion precise, merciless. And Roy and Hella, battered yet unbroken, stood resolute, their very posture declaring their refusal to bow.
The night itself seemed to recoil, for the fight was not ending. It was only the beginning.
The Wai-Young District was a graveyard of steel and light, its skeletal towers bowing under the weight of years and storm. Rain came down in torrents, battering the broken streets until they resembled rivers of ink reflecting fractured neon. Holographic billboards flickered in spectral disarray, projecting advertisements for long-collapsed empires that dissolved into static as the tempest raged.
Into this drowned theatre stepped Masud and Hecate, their figures cutting solemn silhouettes against the chaos. Masud's coat clung to his broad frame, sodden but resolute, the hilt of his blade resting in his scarred hand as if welded by destiny. His eyes, dark and piercing, burned with an unspoken creed of defiance; every measured breath was discipline forged in the crucible of a hundred wars. Hecate stood beside him, her violet eyes reflecting an eerie calm that bordered on otherworldly. She did not blink, her pupils dilating and contracting unnaturally, the gift—or curse—of foresight painting the world before her like fractured glass.
Across the shattered boulevard stood their adversaries.
Joker emerged first, his grin cutting through the storm like a crescent of malice. His long coat, patterned with a harlequin's fractured diamonds, flared in the wind. Around him, his ability Pandemonium had already begun to manifest—illusions unfurling like phantoms. Ten Jokers, twenty, thirty—the street became a carnival of grotesque doppelgängers, each smirking, each twirling a blade, each moving in mockery of reality. Their laughter echoed, overlapping into a chorus of dissonance, filling the night with a cacophony that clawed at sanity.
And then came Levylak Tinaos—the Living Cataclysm.
She did not so much walk into the district as unmake it. Space itself rippled around her, the air fracturing into jagged lines of violet energy as her ability Apocalypse Nexus tore at reality. Behind her, blackened scars of space hung like wounds in the sky, pulsating with energies stolen from dimensions unseen. Each rift bled a soundless roar, a vibration felt more in the marrow than the ears. Her eyes were voids of incandescent malice, her every step causing the ground to tremor, as though the city itself recoiled from her presence.
The battle began not with a word, but with a fracture.
Levylak raised her hand, and a tear split the air, vomiting a torrent of incandescent energy that screamed toward Masud and Hecate. The pavement vaporised, steel beams liquefied, and the neon-lit rain itself seemed to burn as the torrent surged forward.
Masud bellowed, his voice thunder rolling with the storm. He thrust himself forward, blade cutting a brutal arc that clashed against the dimensional surge, sparks and plasma exploding in a chaotic bloom. His body shook under the impact, his boots carving trenches into the broken asphalt, but he did not yield—he roared like a man striking at the very jaws of apocalypse.
Hecate moved differently—where Masud embodied force, she was precision incarnate. Her eyes flickered, pupils dilating, and for five seconds she glimpsed the battlefield unravel before it occurred. She sidestepped a phantom blade, ducked beneath a false Joker's strike, and pivoted just as the real Joker lunged from her flank. Her dagger flashed, slicing through his coat, the faint hiss of torn fabric swallowed by his unhinged laughter.
"Clever girl," Joker cooed, though his voice came from everywhere, from everyone. Thirty of his clones advanced, circling Masud and Hecate like hyenas in a rain-drenched coliseum. Each one mirrored the real Joker's swagger, each one flicked its blade with identical menace.
Masud snarled. His blade swung, cleaving through two illusions that dissolved into shimmering static. Another three danced away, taunting him, their laughter digging into his ears like needles.
"Tricks," Masud growled, spitting rain, his face grim as iron. "Nothing but tricks."
But his words faltered as a rift tore open beside him—Levylak's doing. From it emerged not fire, nor shadow, but obliteration itself: a confluence of light and dark, a roiling torrent of annihilation that bent the rain mid-fall.
Hecate's voice cut sharp.
"Masud—left, now!"
He obeyed without hesitation, pivoting just as the dimensional cascade erased the very ground he had stood upon. Pavement, steel, even rain itself—gone, unmade, reduced to nothing but a smoking crater.
Hecate countered with her own strike, her foresight guiding her to the real Joker amid his illusory carnival. Her blade sang through the rain, clashing against his dagger in a shower of sparks. Joker's grin widened, his eyes manic crescents.
"Oh, you saw me, darling," he whispered, his voice silk laced with arsenic. "But how many times can you?"
Behind her, five more Jokers descended, each identical, each laughing, their voices merging into a grotesque choir.
Levylak raised both arms now, and three rifts split the air above, forming a trinity of devastation that hummed like dying stars. The storm itself seemed to recoil, thunder silenced by a greater cataclysm.
Masud planted his feet, shoulders squared, his voice a growl through the rain.
"Then let the storm break here."
With a roar, he charged into the collapsing street, his blade alight with fury, his body a bastion against despair.
Hecate's eyes widened as her foresight fractured with possibilities—dozens of futures blooming and collapsing before her like glass shattering in infinite succession. She clenched her dagger, her lips whispering a silent vow.
At the warehouse Agent-90 is at the center where Sinners surrounded him,
Eight adversaries. One agent.
The storm cracked above, thunder exploding, lightning ripping a silver gash across the warehouse.
And Agent-90 moved.
His nunchaku whirled into motion, faster than sight, arcs of metal gleaming as they carved the air. He struck first at Zoyah, his swing crashing against her glaive, sparks erupting where tangible steel collided with spectral edge. The clash resounded like a church bell, echoing through the chamber. She phased her blade, slashing through his guard, but he twisted, narrowly avoiding what should have been a mortal blow.
Adela slowed time around him, rain suspending mid-fall, the echo of his own motion trailing like broken glass. She lunged—but Agent-90 pivoted with uncanny precision, his movement a metronome defying her manipulation, his nunchaku snapping against her wrist in a vicious crack.
The floor beneath him ruptured—Ravok slammed his fist, sending a shockwave hurtling. Agent-90 was launched backward, his body twisting mid-air, rolling across the wet ground. He rose instantly, expression unchanging, as Bai-Yu's ice erupted upward, trying to entomb him. His nunchaku shattered the frozen spires, each strike splintering ice into glittering shrapnel that sparkled under lightning's flash.
Then the air collapsed inward—Rahu's gravitational bind seized him, the weight crushing down upon his bones. His knees bent, blood vessels straining under pressure. She smirked, drawing closer, claws raised.
And yet—through sheer will, Agent-90 stood, body trembling but defiant, muscles straining like steel cables. With a roarless exhale, he surged forward, nunchaku whistling. The weapon cracked against her forearm, her smirk vanishing as pain rippled across her composure.
But the assault did not relent. Venom's toxin mist thickened, burning in his lungs, his vision blurring. Bloodhound's blade whistled through the rain, nicking his arm. Demolia's gauntlets discharged a violent surge, hurling arcs of fire and electricity toward him, while Ravok's shockwaves pounded like war drums.
Eight predators, each power a catastrophe unto itself—closing in, circling, pressing, tightening the noose.
And still Agent-90 stood, unmoved, unbroken, his nunchaku spinning in defiance of despair.
His spectacles glinted beneath the storm's white fire as he tilted his head—expression unreadable, body poised like a statue sculpted for war.
The storm split the heavens apart. Rain lashed down upon the Twin Cities as though the sky itself sought to drown its sins. Lightning flared across the skyline, and with each white-hot stroke the battlefield fractured into its theatres of ruin.
Deren's eyes glowed with crimson phosphorescence, her lips curling into a smile that was half-rapture, half-threat. Her ability Crimson Allure seeped into the air like perfume—hallucinatory blossoms erupting in spectral bloom around Jun and Farhan. Scarlet petals unfurled across their skin, phantom vines tightening, whispering poison into their nerves.
Jun gritted his teeth, his stance low and unwavering, veins straining against the chemical sorcery trying to collapse him. His blade shimmered as he cut through hallucinations, every swing carving illusions into tatters. His voice, steady even under siege, cut the miasma:
"Farhan! Anchor yourself—her beauty is a lie!"
Farhan slammed his fists together, sparks of his own kinetic energy vibrating outward. His knuckles bled as he punched through the hallucinations, eyes blazing with furious clarity. "Then we tear her illusions apart!"
Deren laughed, her laughter both intoxicating and venomous. She swayed with the storm, the crimson blossoms multiplying, their tendrils winding tighter. "Your senses belong to me now. And soon… so will your souls."
The petals erupted into serpentine coils—wrapping their arms, biting their flesh. Both agents roared in defiance, one with his sword, the other with his fists, breaking the nightmare by sheer will.
Here the storm was drowned by fire and ice. The district burned and froze in equal measure, skyscrapers erupting into electric-blue infernos conjured by Bianca's Infernal Arc, their mirrored windows shattering under the heat. Opposite them, Cassia's Cryo Dominion cloaked the streets in glacial barricades, every shard of ice catching the storm's lightning like knives of heaven.
And between them towered Cabernet Donella, cloaked in blood and shadow. Her Crimson Covenant writhed around her like living scripture—blood-blades lashing, shadow-tendrils writhing. Every step she took was ritualistic, a liturgy of corruption, as if she were priestess and executioner in one.
Roy stood shoulder to shoulder with Hella, his rifle gleaming with storm-water, his eyes sharp and unsmiling. "Three against two. Numbers never decided wars, only conviction."
Hella cracked her scythe, her mouth twisting into a grin that belied the carnage. "Then let us carve conviction into their bones."
Bianca shrieked, hurling a wave of electric-blue fire across the boulevard—skyscraper glass liquefying under its touch. Cassia mirrored her, freezing the collapsing debris mid-air into jagged icicles before hurling them like spears. And Cabernet advanced in the midst of it all, her shadows devouring fire and ice alike, her blood-tendrils spearing forward with ravenous hunger.
Roy fired—bullets lancing through the storm like lightning itself. Hella spun her scythe, cleaving flame, breaking ice, severing tendril. Yet for every strike, three more rose—the battle a relentless hymn of chaos.
Meanwhile, at the streets, but here—reality itself seemed to unravel. Joker laughed, his body splitting into a dozen mirror selves, each moving in flawless mimicry. His Pandemonium filled the streets with doppelgängers, their laughter bouncing off the rain-slicked glass, disorienting Masud and Hecate.
Masud snarled, his stance square, his blade sweeping, cutting illusions apart—but each time he felled one Joker, another grinned behind him. "Coward!" he spat, "come forth as one!"
Joker's chorus of voices cackled as one, "One? But what fun is one when the world can have a hundred?"
Then the air itself tore open. Levylak Tinaos—the Living Cataclysm—raised her hand, and with a gesture, reality split. Black rifts howled open, Apocalypse Nexus bleeding destructive energy from worlds unseen. Each tear scorched the earth, swallowing cars whole, leaving behind nothing but smouldering craters.
Hecate's eyes narrowed, her irises glowing with spectral foresight. She breathed slow, every movement measured, as visions of five seconds ahead painted her mind. She raised her hand just as Levylak's rift blossomed where she once stood—her body already shifting aside before destruction consumed her. "Masud, left flank incoming!"
He obeyed instantly, dodging a phantom Joker's strike, his blade cleaving through the true one—yet even as the body fell, it dissolved, mocking him still.
Levylak spread her arms, more rifts birthing devastation. Her voice was thunder incarnate: "This world is but clay. I am its shattering."
And against her, two agents stood as flickers of defiance, already battered, yet unbroken.
Rain hammered the broken roof, thunder snarled, and the warehouse quaked under the fury of eight powers.
Zoyah's glaive phased through steel beams, severing them like paper. Adela bent time itself, slowing Agent-90's nunchaku mid-swing as though drowning his motions in syrup. Bai-Yu's ice vaulted upward, entombing whole sections of the chamber. Rahu's gravitational bind pressed against his ribs, threatening collapse. Venom's toxin seeped, paralysis gnawing his veins. Bloodhound's weapon sang through the storm, always striking where he moved. Ravok shattered walls with each blow, shockwaves levelling everything near. Demolia's pyro-electric gauntlets crackled, arcs of unstable fire dancing like serpents hungry to devour.
Eight—against one.
And still Agent-90 fought with surgical inevitability.
His nunchaku blurred, shattering Bai-Yu's ice into a hail of crystal daggers, which he then spun into Rahu's gravitational field, redirecting pressure for the briefest breath. He rolled beneath Venom's lunge, the mist stinging his lungs, yet his movements did not falter—spectacles flashing cold fire as if his very eyes rejected weakness.
Zoyah slashed—the glaive ghosting through his guard—yet his body twisted, impossibly precise, her blade cutting nothing but air. He retaliated, striking her arm, forcing her back with a blow that rattled even her spectral composure.
Adela smirked, fracturing time further, slowing his breath itself—but Agent-90 adjusted, each step like clockwork, as though he too had already rehearsed inevitability.
Then—Ravok struck. A kinetic shockwave rippled, collapsing the wall, bringing half the warehouse down. Agent-90 was hurled through the rain, his back striking steel. Blood stained his collar.
He rose. Still silent. Still unreadable. Still inevitable.
The storm held its breath, and the camera fractured—back to Farhan roaring against blossoms, Roy cleaving through blood and flame, Masud cursing illusions as Hecate whispered prophecy.
Four battlefronts. Four symphonies of ruin.
And none yet resolved.
The storm had become a dirge. Rain pounded the broken city with relentless rhythm, as if time itself were measured in thunder. Each district bled chaos, every front straining toward resolution.
Deren's crimson blossoms had nearly swallowed the avenue whole. Phantom petals curled around Jun's sword-arm, constricting, suffocating. His muscles trembled under the neurochemical tyranny, his breath shallow, his eyes swimming with false visions of gardens that never bloomed.
Farhan struck the ground with his fists, fissures splitting the rain-slick pavement. He roared against the hallucinations, his raw will rupturing Deren's illusions like glass beneath a hammer. "Jun—on me!"
Jun tore free with a cry, his blade flaring under the stormlight, slicing through spectral vines. For one heartbeat, their movements were in perfect synchrony: Farhan's fists breaking the illusions, Jun's steel severing their roots.
But Deren stood untouched, her smile widening as blood trickled from her own lips. Her allure pulsed stronger, the blossoms multiplying. She whispered, voice like velvet laced with arsenic:
"You resist—but the body will fail the mind. And the mind already kneels."
Both agents staggered, but their eyes—unyielding—burned like embers refusing extinction.
The boulevard had become a theatre of apocalypse. Bianca's azure flames twisted into serpentine arcs, consuming steel beams; Cassia's frost erupted into spires that skewered the sky itself; Cabernet strode amidst the ruin, her shadows dragging streams of blood into bladed whips.
Roy's rifle rang thunder into the chaos, each bullet a line of defiance carved through elements. "Hella—cut the centre!"
Hella twirled her scythe in a blur, leaping through flame and ice, her laughter a razor's edge. She severed Bianca's flame-whip in one strike, then shattered Cassia's ice-barrier with a second. Her eyes, sharp and mocking, glimmered like a predator who revelled in peril.
Cabernet's tendrils lashed. Shadows seized Roy's legs, pulling him toward a pool of congealed blood that writhed like a living abyss. Her voice was a chant, echoing ritual: "Your lifeblood will hymn my covenant."
Roy fired point-blank, bullets splintering the tendrils. "If blood is what you want, you'll choke on mine before I yield."
Joker's illusions swarmed like a plague of crows, every grin his, every blade his, every laugh a dagger in the mind. Masud swung his blade in furious arcs, splitting phantoms that dissolved into smoke. Sweat mingled with the rain, his lungs burning from exertion.
"Damn trickster—face me!" he growled, carving yet another mirage.
Hecate's eyes gleamed with spectral foresight, visions flickering of moments five seconds hence. "Left—now!" she shouted.
Masud spun as the true Joker lunged from the rain, blade angled for his throat. Steel met steel; sparks sprayed. For one breath, the illusion shattered, Joker's face twisting in manic joy.
And then Levylak raised her hand.
Reality screamed. Apocalypse Nexus opened, rifts tearing the avenue into void. Buildings sagged inward, warped, consumed by the hungry mouths of other dimensions. Lightning bent into the fissures, vanishing like threads pulled into a loom of unmaking.
Hecate dragged Masud aside, her foresight just barely keeping them ahead of annihilation. Yet her lips tightened, the knowledge of inevitability heavy in her eyes. "We cannot endure this much longer."
Levylak's laughter was the voice of cataclysm itself.
The storm roared through shattered girders, every lightning flash illuminating a tableau of ruin. Agent-90's breath came shallow, blood streaking from his brow, his nunchaku slick in his grip.
Eight circled him like wolves.
Zoyah's glaive shimmered spectral.
Adela's scissor-sword gleamed with fractured time.
Bai-Yu's frost spires caged him in.
Rahu's gravity bore down on his ribs.
Venom's mist coiled like serpents, tasting the air.
Bloodhound's weapon gleamed, ready to strike.
Demolia's gauntlets crackled with unstable fire.
Ravok's shockwave rumbled, eager to collapse all.
Agent-90 stood silent—statuesque yet battered—his spectacles reflecting lightning like cold fire.
Adela moved first. Time fractured, her scissor-sword carving the air in slow inevitability. Agent-90 raised both hands—no weapon—catching the blade between palms. Blood erupted instantly, steel biting flesh to the bone.
The others lunged—eight converging upon one.
Then—it happened.
A crimson light split the storm. Shackles of scarlet energy snapped into existence, curling around their weapons, forcing them back in a violent jolt. Venom staggered, Bai-Yu's frost cracked, Ravok's surge recoiled.
Zoyah's eyes widened, her predatory calm breaking into shock. "Crimson… Shackles?"
The stormlight revealed her. Chief Wen-Li.
Standing at the warehouse's ruined threshold, cloak drenched, eyes burning with an iron will. Her SIO-PX7 tactical handgun gleamed black and merciless, muzzle trained steady upon them.
"Enough," Wen-Li said, her voice cutting sharper than any blade.
Zoyah's jaw tightened, her glaive lowering by fractions. She spat softly, venom beneath her calm. "Wen-Li. So the hawk descends at last." Her gaze flicked to the others, her tone commanding. "We leave. Now."
The eight withdrew in synchrony, their expressions a mix of anger, reluctance, and dark amusement. Before vanishing into the shadows, Zoyah turned back, her words coiling like smoke:
"This is not mercy, Chief. This is adjournment. Your agent still bleeds."
At Tai-Yon Weiy, Deren froze mid-step as Zoyah's signal reached her through comms. Her crimson blossoms withered in the air, collapsing into ash. Her smirk deepened, eyes narrowing on Jun and Farhan.
"Saved by your mistress. Pray she always answers your call." With that, she dissolved into scarlet vapour, leaving silence behind.
At Jai-Jun, Cabernet halted, shadows quivering like leashed hounds. Bianca's flames sputtered; Cassia's ice fractured. Cabernet exhaled with theatrical disdain. "The symphony halts not because you triumphed—but because we have no need to play further." Her form melted into shadow, the others following, leaving only scorched rain and silence.
At Wai-Young, Levylak's rifts closed with a thunderous groan, the wounds in reality knitting shut. Joker tipped his hat, bowing mockingly to Masud and Hecate. "Alas, the curtain falls. But do keep your swords sharp—I so adore encores." Both vanished, laughter and void swallowed into storm.
Back at Ai-Yaon District
Only two remained in the wreckage: Agent-90, bloodied, stoic, hands pierced; and Wen-Li, her gun still levelled until shadows fully dissolved.
Rain drummed silence.
Zoyah's last words echoed from the storm:
"We will meet again, Wen-Li. And next time, no shackles will save him."
Then all was quiet, save the storm and Agent-90's ragged breath.
Wen-Li stepped forward, her eyes flicking to his ruined palms, to his spectacles clouded with blood and rain. She said nothing—but the weight of her presence was both shield and verdict.
The war ended there—on a still frame of Agent-90's silhouette beside Wen-Li's, the storm clawing at the broken warehouse, war only adjourned, never ending.
Wen-Li lowered her weapon at last, the storm's growl filling the silence left by their vanished foes. She turned sharply to Agent-90, her usually stoic eyes carrying, for once, a flicker of human concern.
"Are you all right?" she asked, her voice quiet yet edged with command, as though the question itself admitted no denial.
Agent-90 staggered but forced himself upright, his posture unyielding despite the crimson dripping steadily from his torn palms. His spectacles caught the dim lightning glow, rendering his gaze unreadable save for its cold defiance.
"Why are you here?" he demanded, his tone clipped, almost accusatory—like a soldier affronted by pity.
Her eyes narrowed at his obstinacy. "You're bleeding!" she said sharply, her words like thunderclaps breaking composure. Her gaze fell to his hands—rivers of blood running from the puncture wounds where Adela's blade had pierced.
He flexed his fingers as if to prove his resilience, but the motion made the wounds gush further, dark rivulets spilling against the rain. His lips twisted faintly, half smirk, half grimace. "It is… nothing," he muttered, voice low, as though willing his agony into irrelevance.
Wen-Li stepped closer, her cloak heavy with rain, every movement precise as a falcon stooping upon its prey. She reached for his arm, her hand surprisingly gentle despite the steel in her eyes. "I'm taking you to a hospital immediately."
"No need," Agent-90 replied, his tone as rigid as forged iron. He attempted to withdraw his arm, but the weakness in his stance betrayed him, knees threatening to buckle.
Her voice sharpened, brooking no argument. "Don't be stubborn." She seized his wrist, heedless of the blood, her own hand becoming slick as she gripped his injury with an uncompromising firmness. Her eyes locked onto his, unblinking, unwavering. "Come."
For a moment, silence stretched between them. The rain hammered like an orchestra of war-drums, lightning painting their figures in white brilliance.
Agent-90 looked at her, the implacable Chief Wen-Li, standing resolute before him—unyielding as granite, yet burning with a rare, concealed flame of care. His jaw tightened, his pride railing against her command, yet something in her gaze disarmed him, as though his iron will had met a harder alloy.
With a faint exhale—half concession, half fatigue—he inclined his head, a soldier's bow to inevitability. "…Very well."
Her expression softened, barely perceptible, like a shadow passing across the moon. Without another word, she tightened her grasp and began to lead him into the storm's embrace, the two figures framed in rain and ruin—an allegory of wounded steel and steadfast flame, bound not by command alone, but by something unspoken yet indelible.