The night was restless. The base buzzed with silent preparation, every agent moving with sharp precision. The mission was unlike the others—deeper, darker, calculated. If they succeeded, the underground network's backbone would collapse. If they failed, it would cost them more than just the operation.
Swayam stood apart from the others, his arms crossed, his eyes narrowed as Agent 01 laid out the plan. She spoke with unwavering authority, her tone clipped and confident, as though she could already see the mission's success playing out before her eyes.
"You know your roles," she said, her gaze sweeping across the agents. "Tonight, we don't just infiltrate—we take control. We make them trust us, then we gut their operation from the inside. Failure isn't an option."
Her words carried weight, but to Swayam, they also carried arrogance. He had never liked her—her way of commanding without earning respect, her cold calculation. And yet, she was leading, and he had no choice but to follow.
The teams broke apart:
Alpha Team: Arav and Purvi, tasked with controlling the perimeters.
Beta Team: Neha and Rohan, responsible for support fire and flanking.
Gamma Team: Swayam, solo, the blade in the dark.
Delta Team: the tech unit, erasing their traces, securing intel, and controlling surveillance.
Agent 01 placed herself in Gamma's orbit—leading directly with Swayam, because of course she would. She never trusted anyone else to do the most dangerous work.
By the time the vans rolled out, silence had settled. The city lights faded into nothing as they drove toward the outskirts. The textile mill loomed ahead—abandoned in appearance, but inside, alive with shadows, secrets, and men willing to kill for them.
The Staged Battle
The air inside was thick, heavy with damp and rust. Swayam moved like a shadow, his gun steady, his eyes never still. He had fought in dozens of missions, faced death countless times—but tonight something gnawed at him, refusing to let go. Siya's face, her laughter in the park, her midnight meeting with that man.
The questions clawed at him even as the operation began.
Gunshots rang out, sudden and violent, echoing in the cavernous halls of the mill. Arav shouted from the north wing, Purvi returning fire. Neha and Rohan cut off escape routes with precision. The chaos was real, but controlled—exactly as Agent 01 had planned.
"Pushforward!" she barked, her voice sharp over comms.
Swayam moved fast, covering the gang leader, dragging him into the shadows as bullets sprayed. Agent 01 flanked, her shots clean, ruthless, taking down "attackers" one by one.
Within minutes, the tables turned. Where the gang leader had expected death, he found salvation—delivered by strangers.
His eyes, hard and mistrustful at first, flicked between Agent 01 and Swayam. Then, reluctantly, they softened. "You saved me," he muttered, disbelief thick in his tone.
"That's what alliesdo," Agent 01 replied smoothly, her weapon still trained on the smoke.
Trust, once impossible, had been planted.
The gang leader allowed himself to be escorted deeper, past steel doors and guards, into the heart of his hidden chamber. Stacks of files, ledgers, and encrypted drives filled the room. Weapons manifests. Shipment routes. Names. Everything the agency had been hunting for.
Delta team moved in silently, their hacking rigs already connected, pulling information at lightning speed. Arav and Purvi held the exits, while Neha and Rohan covered the hall.
Swayam stayed close to the gang leader, watching him, his gun never lowering. His instincts screamed not to trust the man, but the mission came first. Always the mission.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw movement. A shadow slipping through the smoke, quiet, fast.
That figure.
The same one from last night. The man Siya had met in secret.
Swayam's pulse spiked. His hand twitched toward his weapon, but hesitation caught him. He couldn't abandon the gang leader. Couldn't break cover. By the time he made a move, the man was gone, swallowed by the darkness.
His chest tightened, anger and confusion churning. Who was he? Why Siya?
But there was no time. The data transfer was complete, and Agent 01's voice cut through the noise: "Phase two. We cripple their backbone."
The Real Mission Begins
The vans split into the night again, scattering like fragments of shadow. The gang's weapons empire rested on two massive warehouses. Destroy them, and the network would bleed.
Agent 01's orders were sharp: "Alpha, Beta—you secure the perimeter. Gamma—we split. East warehouse is yours, Swayam. I'll take the west. Delta, stay on overwatch."
Swayam said nothing, only nodded.
The east warehouse towered ahead of him, dark and silent. He moved in, breaking the lock, slipping inside. His flashlight swept across rows of crates, metal gleaming dully in the shadows.
But these weren't rifles. Not grenades. Not missiles.
Explosives. Hundreds of them. Wired. Waiting.
His gut twisted. One wrong move, and this wasn't just a warehouse—it was a grave.
Meanwhile, Agent 01 pushed into the west facility, her weapon raised, her senses sharp. But within seconds, she realized the truth. Empty. Silent. A hollow shell.
A diversion.
Her heart sank. "No… no, damn it!" she muttered, her comm silent. The trap had already been set.
She didn't hesitate. She ran.
The Explosion
The earth shook with the first small blast. Sparks lit the night sky, followed by the roar of fire spreading across steel.
Swayam was inside.
Smoke filled the air as he darted between crates, trying to trace the wires, trying to find the detonation point. Every second mattered. But the fire moved faster, licking at the walls, heat pressing against his skin.
And then—Agent 01 was there. She burst through the entrance, lungs burning, eyes locked on him.
"Swayam!" she shouted, her voice raw.
He turned, startled, confusion flashing across his face.
"It's a trap!" she screamed, sprinting toward him. "This isn't a warehouse—it's a bomb!"
His eyes widened. Too late.
The detonation hit.
The shockwave ripped through the building, fire exploding outward. Swayam felt himself thrown, his body crashing against the dirt outside. For a heartbeat, he couldn't hear, couldn't breathe.
And then—he saw her.
Agent 01 lay just feet away, her shoulder torn open, blood spilling. She had shoved him clear, taking the brunt of the blast herself.
"Agent 01!" he staggered forward, dragging her up, his hands pressing against her wound. She winced, her face pale but her eyes unbroken.
"I told you…" she whispered through clenched teeth, "…control your distractions. Or they'll kill you."
Her arrogance was still there, but it was cracked now, softened by pain. Even broken, even bleeding, she had saved him.
Swayam's breath came ragged. For the first time, he didn't see her as just a rival. Not just arrogance wrapped in authority.
She was something more.
And she had almost died to prove it.
The world still roared with the echo of the explosion, smoke curling upward like a beast unleashed. Swayam crouched beside Agent 01, his hand pressing against the wound on her shoulder, but she shook him off with a sharp glare.
"Don't—focus on the mission," she hissed, gritting her teeth.
Her comm crackled, voices from the teams breaking through the static. "Status? What happened? Gamma, respond!"
Agent 01 reached for her earpiece with trembling fingers. "This is Agent 01. The warehouse was a trap. Repeat—trap. Explosives, not weapons." She sucked in a sharp breath, her voice steady despite the blood seeping through her suit. "Alpha, Beta—the real stockpile is located north sector, docks 17 and 19. Move now."
"Copy that," Arav's voice replied.
Purvi added, "We'll take 17."
Neha and Rohan's voices overlapped, determined. "We'll handle 19. Just hold on, Boss."
Swayam wanted to argue, to tell her to stop, but Agent 01's eyes were locked forward, burning even through the haze of pain. She wasn't just a commander giving orders—she was the reason this mission hadn't already ended in failure.
Minutes stretched like hours. Swayam half-carried her behind the ruins, keeping her steady as the distant sounds of combat rose again. Gunfire cracked in the night, explosions lit up the horizon, and comm updates came in one after another.
"Alpha here—charges set at Dock 17. Countdown initiated."
"Beta here—Dock 19 secured. Weapons neutralized."
The final detonations shook the ground, fire plumes lighting up the skyline. Both warehouses—gone. Along with the syndicate's weapon supply.
Agent 01 let out a breath, her lips curving in a faint, pained smirk. "Mission… accomplished."
Swayam studied her for a long moment, his emotions tangled. He had hated her arrogance, her rivalry, the walls she always kept around herself. But now—bleeding, broken, yet unyielding—he couldn't deny the truth.
She wasn't just a rival. She was a soldier who had risked everything to keep him alive.
And that truth unsettled him more than the explosion ever could.
Her hand slipped from the earpiece, falling weakly to her side. She swayed, her legs unsteady.
"Agent 01—" Swayam's arm shot out, catching her before she could collapse fully.
She winced, blood soaking into the dark fabric of her tactical suit. Still, she tilted her chin up, refusing to let weakness show. "Don't… look at me like that," she whispered, her tone clipped even in pain. "I'm fine."
"Fine?" Swayam's jaw tightened. He wasn't used to arguing, not on the field, but this time the words tore out of him. "You nearly died dragging me out. And you're bleeding out in front of me—how the hell is that fine?"
Her lips curved into the faintest smirk, a shadow of her usual arrogance. "Because… the mission succeeded."She sucked in a sharp breath, fighting to stay conscious. "That's what matters."
Her eyes flickered—still fierce, still commanding—but then her strength faltered. Her body grew heavier against his hold.
"Agent 01." His voice dropped, sharper now, his grip firm around her shoulders. "Stay awake."
For a moment, she tried. Her lashes fluttered, her gaze clinging to his, stubborn even now. "You… owe me… Agent 2," she whispered, almost teasing, almost soft.
And then her eyes rolled shut, her body going limp in his arms.
The comm exploded with voices—Arav, Purvi, Neha, Rohan—all demanding updates, unaware of her condition.
But Swayam didn't answer them immediately. He was frozen, staring down at her pale face, at the woman he thought he despised—now unconscious in his arms because she had chosen him over herself.
With a heavy breath, he finally spoke into the comm, his voice colder, sharper than ever.
"This is Gamma. Agent 01 is down. Mission successful. Extraction required immediately."
He lifted her into his arms, determination burning in his eyes as the smoke and fire lit the night around them.
And for the first time in years, Swayam wasn't just thinking about the mission.