It was 12:34 in the morning in the year 2023, and Rome bled rain upon it's pavement.
The Basilica di San Giovanni loomed like an old sentinel in the storm, its gothic towers blurred by the downpour, windows dripping with water as though the saints themselves wept behind the glass. The square around it should have been quiet at this hour—Rome at night was a chorus of distant scooters, half-hearted chatter from drunks in alleyways, and the soft hymn of the rain. But tonight the streets trembled under another sound.
A sound that didn't belong.
Crunch. Crunch. CRUNCH.
The noise rang louder than footsteps, sharper than thunder. Like bone breaking, like stone being chewed between iron teeth. It rattled through the alleyways until the echoes spilled into the cathedral square.
The police heard it first. Two cars, then four, then a dozen, engines howling as their sirens ripped through the rain. Tires screeched over slick cobblestones as Rome's finest answered a call they hadn't trained for. They knew what murder looked like—Rome had plenty of those—but the dispatcher's voice, trembling over the radio, told them this wasn't anything close to ordinary.
In the shadow of the basilica, on the wet stone that glistened red in the rain, knelt Dennis Ford. His designer coat clung to him, ruined by blood. His cufflinks still sparkled with the kind of arrogance that thought it could buy safety, but all the money in the world couldn't bribe the figure standing over him.
"P-please," Ford sobbed, clutching at the gory ruin of his arm. His left sleeve hung empty, torn clean at the shoulder. Blood pumped in rhythmic bursts onto the pavement, swallowed greedily by the rain. "I'll pay you whatever you want. Anything. Anything!"
The figure didn't answer.
His name—if names mattered anymore—was Stalax. The world's underworld whispered it with the same tremor it used for curses. His body rippled with the unnatural gleam of living stone: stalactite armor that shifted and cracked as if a cavern had grown legs and learned how to kill. Blood-red diamond shards jutted from his skin, refracting the rain into glitters of crimson. Each step he took was accompanied by that bone-grinding sound, the terrible crunch that had drawn the police here.
When Stalax spoke, his voice was low, rough, like rocks scraping glass.
"Where. Is. He."
Dennis Ford choked on rain and blood. His wealth, his empire, his thousands of employees—all useless in this moment. He had faced boardrooms, government committees, even threats from oligarchs. None of them looked like this. None of them promised death with every heartbeat.
"You think I'd tell you?" Dennis spat, though fear trembled under the defiance. "If I knew, I—"
The crunching grew louder. Stalax's arm elongated, diamond blood grinding and reforming into a blade that shimmered like crystallized gore. The sword hummed as it caught the light of a streetlamp, reflecting shards of red across Ford's terrified face.
The sirens were closer now. Blue lights flickered at the far end of the alley, growing brighter. But Dennis knew no salvation would reach him in time.
"I heard..." His voice broke into a scream as the pain gnawed at his sanity. "I heard through the feeds! Something's happening in Grim City! He—he's planning to release something there!"
Stalax tilted his head, shards of crystal sliding over his cheek like living armor. Rain poured off his body, hissing where it struck the heat of his rage.
"Much obliged," he said.
The blade sang as it moved.
Dennis Ford tried to cry out, but the sound was smothered by the rain—and then by the chorus of shink, crunch, crunch, crunch as blood-red stalactites tore through his body. His scream ended with a wet gurgle. His final sight was the gleam of crimson ice piercing his chest, the Basilica's holy cross reflected in the surface of Stalax's blade.
The billionaire slumped forward. A puddle of blood—sparkling strangely in the rain—spread across the cobblestones.
Stalax exhaled, a low growl rumbling deep in his chest. He turned his gaze skyward. The rain reflected in his crystalline skin, turning him into a grotesque mirror of the night. With a ripple, his body flickered, shards reshaping until he seemed to dissolve into the storm itself.
By the time the first officer skidded to a halt, gun raised, there was nothing left of the killer. Only a mutilated corpse, blood glimmering like gemstones in the rain.
"Madonna..." the officer whispered, lowering his weapon. Around him, more policemen piled into the alley, their radios crackling with frantic reports. None of them could look too long at the body.
High above, invisible to them, a shadow stirred. Stalax uncloaked on the ridge overlooking the city. His private jet, sleek and armored with military plating, crouched like a predator waiting to pounce.
The Red Demon walked through the rain as if it parted for him, each step leaving behind glittering shards that vanished in the storm. He boarded the jet with a motion as fluid as his crystalline skin, and as the engines roared to life, he opened his pad.
On its screen glowed the image of his quarry: Malcolm Bridger.
The jet's interior lit up in crimson reflection as lightning split the sky.
The Red Demon was feared in every shadowed corner of the world. On the dark web, they called him the bogeyman of the powerful. But his real name was a ghost buried in memory: Victor Saint.
Once a mercenary for hire. Once a man. Before Malcolm Bridger. Before the accident. Before the betrayal.
Now he was something else.
The storm followed him as his jet clawed into the sky, leaving Rome behind. His destination: Grim City.
.......
The storm that had left Rome trembling now stretched across another sky. Grim City wasn't Rome—its towers weren't ancient stone but glass and steel, jagged teeth biting into the heavens. Its veins glowed neon, rivers of light running through streets that stank of oil, smoke, and too much money in too few hands.
Rain lashed the city like a punishment. The wind smelled of rust and ozone, carrying with it the crackle of something unnatural in the clouds. Thunder rolled, thick and heavy, but one man didn't mind.
Xavier Bridger sat in the cockpit of a jet that gave most top tech companies a run for their money.
The craft purred around him, its engines humming with the delicate arrogance of cutting-edge tech. Panels of matte black plating shimmered faintly with refractor fields, bending rain away in arcs of liquid light. G.H.O.S.T. R&D had designed it for stealth, reconnaissance, speed. Xavier would have rather been flying with his own wings—the suit he trusted more than anything—but after he'd blown half a lab to hell testing a new chestplate, he owed R&D a favor.
That thought tugged him back to the south wing of HQ, to that night weeks ago. The air had smelled like ozone and hot wiring, busted monitors painting everything in green haze.
Toya had been there. Always was, somehow—leaning against a wall like she owned it, dark eyes sharp, a half-smile playing on her lips like she had a joke about to escape her lips. She wasn't a standard issue G.H.O.S.T.; she didn't move like the rest of them. Too relaxed, too raw. Like a blade that hadn't been sanded down, still carrying its edge.
She'd been the first person to call him out when he joined the program years ago. Not out of cruelty—because she didn't waste time pretending. Xavier had learned quick that Toya Sakusi didn't give advice, she gave warnings, and if you were smart, you listened.
That night, when he'd limped past her workbench, chestplate sparking at the seams, she'd said it without looking up:
"Keep pushing like that and one day your suit's not gonna be the thing that saves you. It'll be the thing that buries you."
He'd tossed her a smirk, muttered something about her worrying too much. She hadn't laughed. She just tilted her head, eyes glinting, like she could see further than he wanted anyone to.
That was Toya. Sharp tongue, sharper instincts. The one who would gut you with honesty and still have your back in the field.
Now, strapped into the jet, HUD humming across his visor, he heard her voice again.
And hated how right it sounded.
He sat alone, gloved fingers dancing across the holographic controls. A face stared back at him from one of the floating panes: his father.
Malcolm Bridger.
A name that carried weight like a millstone. Billionaire. Visionary. Target.
Xavier's jaw tightened. The rain gleamed across his dark skin as blue light from the HUD painted sharp lines over his face. His locs, tied back into a bun, brushed against the high collar of his undersuit. He scratched absently at his beard, already itching with the first signs of growth. He hated shaving after missions. Always hated it.
To the world, he was the Maven—a whisper, a blade in the dark, one of G.H.O.S.T.'s most effective agents. To his stepfather Grim—the Shadow Elite who had raised him into this life—he was an asset forged from trauma. To his mother, he was still her boy, the only one who knew the truth of what he'd become.
To Malcolm? He wasn't sure what he was.
The sensors on the jet shrieked, dragging him out of memory.
Xavier tapped the alert. One of the city's CCTV drones had been hijacked into his feed. On the screen: his father, Malcolm Bridger, standing at the base of the Grim Monument in the city's square, giving a speech to an eager crowd.
The sight twisted something deep in Xavier's chest. He hadn't seen his father in years. Not in person. Not ever since he left after his birth. Not like this.
And then—another feed. The rooftop across from the square. A figure crouched there, unmoving, wrapped in rain and shadow.
Xavier didn't need the sensors to tell him who it was. He felt it like a pressure drop in the room, like the storm holding its breath.
Stalax.
The Red Demon had come to Grim City.
Xavier's hand hovered for only a moment before slamming the release. The bottom of the jet hissed open, and his suit responded like a living thing. Segments of chromium fiber detached from their sockets, crawling over his limbs, locking into place with magnetic snaps. Blue circuits lit up across his body in a web of light.
His faceplate closed last, blank and mirror-slick, reflecting the storm outside.
By the time the jet roared over the square, Maven was no longer just Xavier. He was weaponized, cloaked, ready.
And when he dove from the jet, blade unsheathing from the strap across his back, he wasn't just a son watching his father from the shadows. He was the Ghost's blade, falling straight toward the man who had turned Rome into a slaughterhouse.
The rooftop exploded into chaos.
.....
Rain blurred the lights of Grim City into long, jagged streaks of neon. The square below pulsed with movement—umbrellas, camera flashes, Malcolm Bridger's voice amplified in static bursts against the storm.
But on the rooftop above it all, silence pressed in like a held breath.
Stalax stood at the edge of the building, perfectly still, his crystalline form catching every flicker of lightning. His body was no longer entirely flesh; it was sculpture, brutal and jagged, a lattice of blood-hued stalactite hardened into a predator's armor. His rifle—grown from his arm itself—gleamed with the cold patience of a hunter.
The Demon was a statue, but his intent radiated. He had no heartbeat to betray him. No twitch of nerves. Just a single finger tightening against the trigger, bead sight trained on Malcolm Bridger's chest.
Then the rooftop groaned.
Metal boots slammed into the wet concrete, sending shards of water scattering like diamonds. Maven landed low, blade drawn, his mirrored faceplate reflecting the Demon back at himself. For an instant, it was like two ghosts had met in the storm—one born of technology, the other of mutation and rage.
"Victor Saint," Maven's voice came through the suit, filtered, mechanical, steady. "How much are they paying you to kill him?"
The Red Demon turned his head slightly, not startled, not even curious—just annoyed. "Not a damn thing."
Lightning flared between them, outlining every jagged edge of Stalax's crystalline form and the smooth, engineered symmetry of Maven's armor. Rain hissed off molten rifle-barrel heat.
Maven straightened, blade angled downward but ready. "Rome was a bloodbath. You didn't think we'd follow you this far?"
Stalax's lip twitched. His voice was a rasp of stone grinding on stone. "I knew. I just don't care."
And then, with terrifying calm, the Demon pivoted his rifle back toward the square.
Maven moved first.
He lunged, armor servos whining, blade flashing. The rifle's shot detonated in the same instant, a thunderclap louder than the storm itself. The crowd below screamed as the air cracked, and the rooftop lit in white fire.
Maven slammed into Stalax mid-trigger, the force of the collision rattling glass across the building face. The rifle's shot went wild, scorching a marble column inches from Malcolm Bridger's head.
The square below erupted into chaos—bodyguards swarming, Malcolm dragged from the podium, cameras shattering under the rush of panicked civilians.
On the rooftop, rain became shrapnel.
Stalax's arm—rifle and flesh one and the same—shifted with sickening crunches, collapsing into a blade as natural as bone. Maven parried, sparks screaming across steel.
The Demon snarled, jagged teeth glinting in the neon gloom. "You think you can keep him from me? You think you can erase what he owes?"
Maven didn't answer. He couldn't. The weight of the man beneath them—his father—clawed at the edges of his focus.
Instead, he drove forward. Shield modules along his arm flared alive, hexagonal plates snapping into formation to deflect the barrage of crystalline shards Stalax hurled point-blank. Each impact rang like a church bell, metal shrieking against stone.
Below, Malcolm's convoy of black SUVs screeched against wet pavement, bodyguards shoving him inside. Sirens wailed. Civilians scattered. But above it all, on the rooftop, the duel consumed everything.
Stalax's voice rose with each strike, jagged stalactites blooming from his arms and snapping off like bullets.
"HE MADE ME! HE MADE ME INTO THIS!"
Maven's blade whirled, parried, cut through another crystalline spear. "You chose this, Victor!"
"I chose vengeance!"
The Demon lunged, the rooftop trembling under his weight, and the two collided again—blade against blade, storm against storm.
The fight teetered on the razor edge of the building. Every clash of steel and crystal echoed down into the square, magnified by the canyon of skyscrapers.
Maven braced behind his shield module, sparks hissing as Stalax hammered blow after blow. Each strike landed with inhuman weight, driving the agent backward, closer to the ledge. Rain smeared across Maven's visor, blinding him in staccato flashes of neon.
The Red Demon was relentless. His crystalline armor rippled, reshaping mid-battle into jagged protrusions—swords, spikes, a living arsenal fueled by rage. He swung low, blade scraping sparks from the rooftop as it carved for Maven's legs.
Maven vaulted, jet-boosters in his boots flaring just enough to carry him over the strike. He landed heavy, rolling across gravel and shattered glass, pistol flashing into his grip.
Two shots rang.
The first struck Stalax's shoulder, molten sparks chewing into the crystalline lattice. The second grazed his jawline, searing a molten scar down his face. For the first time, the Demon roared in pain—a sound not human, not entirely alive.
"CHEAP TOYS!" Stalax spat, tearing shards of crystal from his wound and flinging them like knives. They screamed through the rain, burying deep into the rooftop with explosive cracks.
Maven's shield splintered under the barrage, energy readouts spiking across his HUD. His systems were holding, but barely. Each block rattled through his bones, each impact a reminder: Victor Saint wasn't just fighting to kill. He was fighting to erase.
And then—momentum betrayed them both.
Maven lunged with blade drawn, forcing Stalax back. The Demon countered, slamming a crystalline fist into Maven's chestplate. Armor whined, servos straining. The force hurled Maven into the ledge, concrete splitting under his boots.
Lightning split the night, illuminating them: Maven pinned against the rooftop's edge, Stalax's jagged fist grinding down on his chest, shards biting into his armor.
Below, the square had dissolved into chaos. The convoy was on the move, tires screaming across slick asphalt. Sirens, gunfire, civilian screams—Grim City itself became a war drum.
"LOOK AT HIM RUN!" Stalax's eyes gleamed with madness, shards splitting from his arm and reforming into a spear. "COWARD. LIAR. HE LEAVES EVERYONE TO DIE!"
Maven gritted his teeth, bracing with all the power his suit could channel. His HUD flashed red warnings—integrity dropping, power cells draining. He could feel his ribs bruising beneath the armor.
But he forced his voice steady. Cold. Precise. "Then maybe I'll be the one to stop you, Victor."
With a sudden surge, Maven twisted, locking his gauntlet around the Demon's crystalline wrist. Energy surged through the stabilizer circuits, crackling arcs of blue lightning crawling across Victor's body.
For a breath, Stalax staggered, spasms flickering across his crystalline veins.
Then he laughed—low, broken, terrifying. "Not strong enough, boy."
And with a brutal heave, the Red Demon hurled Maven over the edge.
The agent dropped into empty air.
The world inverted around Xavier.
One instant, rain slick rooftop beneath his boots. The next, nothing—just a yawning gulf of air swallowing him whole. Neon bled into streaks, raindrops became bullets pelting his visor, the storm's roar rising in his ears. His stomach lurched as gravity claimed him, hurling him toward the chaos of Grim City's heart.
Below, the square dissolved into hysteria. Civilians scattered, trampling over one another in blind panic. Market stalls overturned, canvas tents tearing in the gale. Police shouted orders lost in the storm, their sirens drowned by the rumble of collapsing scaffolds. Malcolm Bridger's convoy carved through the flood of people, armored SUVs skidding on the slick cobblestone, engines screaming.
Maven spun mid-air, his HUD blaring crimson alerts:
ALTITUDE DROP CRITICAL. SYSTEMS FAILING.
He spread his limbs, forcing his suit's stabilizers to flare. Blue jets ignited along his boots and gauntlets, coughing against the storm winds. His body twisted into a controlled descent, but the force nearly tore his shoulders from their sockets.
And then came the shadow.
Stalax leapt from the rooftop after him, descending like a meteor. Crimson shards rippled from his body, forming a spear that burned against the lightning-lit sky. His scream cut through the storm—not words, just raw fury, a beast unchained.
"MOVE!" a cop screamed below, pointing skyward.
The crowd surged, a tidal wave of humanity scattering across the square. Mothers clutching children, vendors abandoning carts, officers drawing weapons useless against the monster plummeting toward them.
Maven twisted hard, skimming the rain-slick side of a high-rise. Sparks hissed as his gauntlet scraped concrete, slowing his descent. Pain rattled through his arm, but he gritted his teeth. He couldn't let the Demon hit the ground unchallenged.
He triggered a beacon.
A metallic disk shot from his belt, slamming into the side of a nearby skyscraper. A cable snapped taut across the air, catching Maven's momentum. He swung wide, slicing through banners and neon tubing, before catapulting himself toward the square.
Below, Malcolm's convoy slammed through barricades. The lead SUV fishtailed, nearly flipping, before regaining traction. Malcolm himself—ever the spectacle—stood half-exposed from the armored hatch, firing that strange purple-tinged weapon into the sky at the falling assassin. His security detail screamed at him to stay down. He didn't listen.
Then—impact.
Stalax struck the pavement with apocalyptic force. The ground ruptured, a crater tearing open in the square. Asphalt split into jagged seams, glass rained down from shuddering buildings, and a shockwave ripped through the crowd. Civilians screamed, hurled backward by the blast. The lead SUV flipped sideways, rolling twice before smashing into a monument pillar.
Maven crashed into the square seconds later, rolling hard across the fractured stone. His visor cracked, systems flaring static. He forced himself upright, chest heaving.
Stalax rose from the crater, rain sluicing across his blood-crystal body, steam rising in ghostly tendrils. His spear elongated into a jagged halberd.
"YOU CAN'T SAVE HIM!" the Demon roared, voice echoing like thunder. "YOU CAN'T SAVE ANYONE!"
Maven steadied himself, blade extending from his gauntlet with a hiss. "Try me."
The crowd had scattered, but the city itself remained a battlefield. Smoke bled from the overturned convoy. Police fired useless rounds that ricocheted off the Demon's hide. A siren wailed from somewhere deeper in the city, a wolf-cry to chaos.
And in that fractured square, amid the storm and ruin, Maven and the Red Demon circled one another like gladiators in a broken coliseum—both bound by vendetta, both unwilling to fall.
The square was no longer a civic plaza; it was a warpit. Stalax towered from the crater, his body a cathedral of crimson shards glinting in the stormlight. Every movement rippled with the sound of cracking ice and grinding diamonds. He swung the halberd with impossible weight, cleaving through a toppled streetlamp like it were paper.
Maven darted across the fractured ground, his boots sparking against the ruin. His visor flared warnings, but he shut them out, blade locking against the halberd with a shriek of metal against crystal. Sparks spit across the rain, scattering into the dark.
Each strike was a thunderclap. Shards of stone exploded underfoot, fountains of rubble spitting into the night. Stalax pressed forward like an avalanche, Maven deflecting, sidestepping, countering—but every hit rattled his bones. One wrong move and he'd be pulverized into the pavement.
The Demon roared, stabbing downward. Maven vaulted back, halberd slamming into the street where he'd stood. The impact cracked a fissure that raced like lightning through the cobblestones, splitting open the foundation of the square. Water from the storm flooded the wound, boiling into steam against Stalax's searing crystal form.
Maven threw a beacon. It skittered across the ground, erupting into a dome of blue static. The halberd strike rebounded, electricity crawling up the Demon's body. He snarled, tearing free of the field in a shower of sparks. "TOYS WON'T SAVE YOU."
Maven only smirked beneath the mask, even as blood trickled into his teeth from biting too hard. "They usually buy me time."
Pinned in the overturned SUV, Malcolm Bridger braced against the chaos with the kind of calm that unnerved even his own security. He adjusted his tie with trembling fingers slick with rain and smoke, eyes locked on the duel above the crater.
To the guards around him, he looked like any billionaire caught in crossfire. But Malcolm knew better. He recognized the mercenary's form—the abomination he had once known as Victor Saint.
One guard dragged him by the arm, urging him to the secondary vehicle, but Malcolm shook free. His gaze lingered on the wristwatch glowing faintly at his cuff. The footage inside it weighed heavier than any weapon, heavier than the pistol he'd fired. Proof of betrayal, of the truth behind Stalax's fury. Proof he was ready for the world to see.
But as the halberd split stone a few yards away, Malcolm realized choice was narrowing. If he didn't act, the Demon would tear Grim Square to its bones.
He knelt by the ruined SUV, pulled a second weapon from its hidden compartment. Sleek. Black energy humming along the barrel. A prototype. A very experimental one.
And he took aim at the monster.
....
To the civilians of Grim City, the square became a nightmare in living color. The ground was alive with fissures, cars overturned like toys, neon signs sparking and collapsing into fire. Families stumbled through smoke, clutching children, choking on acrid fumes.
Vendors scrambled to salvage what they could. A woman screamed as her jewelry cart collapsed, silver chains spilling into the gutter like snakes. A drunk staggered in confusion, knocked flat by a fleeing officer.
Above, Maven and Stalax were titans, their battle reverberating through the plaza. Civilians cowered beneath the overhangs, recording shaky footage with trembling hands, their feeds exploding live across the world. #RedDemon. #GhostsBlade. #GrimSquare.
Sirens wailed closer. Firetrucks swerved into the mess. Riot police began pushing back panicked mobs, shields rattling under the storm of rain and fear. Medics crawled into the open, dragging the wounded by their jackets.
Every bystander became part of the war's theater—screaming, running, filming, bleeding—with no choice but to pray for it all to end.
The Demon surged. Maven's blade cracked against the halberd, forcing him backward through the wreckage of a newsstand. Paper exploded into the air, swirling like white ash in the storm. Stalax's eyes glowed through the sheets, monstrous and red, a nightmare come to life.
"HE IS MINE!"
He hurled Maven across the crater, smashing him into the hood of a police cruiser. Metal caved under the impact. Sirens died mid-wail. Officers fled as Maven rolled free, armor groaning with the strain.
Malcolm fired.
The black blast slammed into Stalax's chest, the Demon staggering with a howl as crystal cracked and split. The crowd gasped—hope flickered.
But Stalax only roared louder, shards sprouting like wings across his back. "YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL ME TWICE?!"
He leapt again, straight for Malcolm.
And Maven, dragging broken breath through bloodied teeth, launched himself after the monster.
Stalax erupted upward with the force of a warhead, wings of blood-crystal spanning wide enough to eclipse the ruined square. Shards rattled loose, raining knives across the crowd. He dove, halberd first, the air breaking around his descent in a howl of pressure.
Malcolm braced. His pistol hummed, violet arcs crawling across his arm as he charged another shot. But the Demon was faster, fury made flesh. The halberd came down—
—caught in Maven's mirrored blade.
The impact sent a shockwave ripping across the square, flipping cars, toppling barricades. Civilians screamed as glass from shattered skyscraper windows rained like hail.
Stalax pressed down, Maven straining against him. Their blades screeched, sparks and shards flying into the storm. The Demon leaned closer, his face inches from the blank mask.
The square was chaos—sirens screaming, civilians scattering, rain drowning out their shouts. The stage where Malcolm Bridger had been giving his speech now lay half-deserted, guards dragging the billionaire toward the armored SUV, while above, Maven and Stalax locked in a brutal, dazzling struggle.
Maven's spear-shield clashed against crystal blades that hissed through the air with the sound of stone grinding against stone. Each strike sent sparks across the rooftop, each parry cost him precious breath. But the Red Demon pressed forward like a storm given flesh, unrelenting, unstoppable.
"Malcolm did this to me!" Stalax roared, his crimson body glowing with inner fire as he drove Maven back. His voice was jagged stone, and it cut as deep as his blades. "Your precious Bridger cursed me!"
Maven gritted his teeth behind the mirrored plate. He had read reports. Rumors. Nothing ever confirmed. But now—he heard the man's own conviction in the words. And it terrified him.
He slammed a gauntlet into the mercenary's jaw, sparks leaping from the impact. The mercenary barely flinched. They crashed from rooftop to street, colliding with the pavement hard enough to leave a crater. Maven rolled, armor locking to brace his spine, while Stalax rose with the grace of an executioner.
"Victor!" Malcolm's voice cut through the chaos. The billionaire had stopped running. He stood just beyond the SUV, tuxedo now drenched in the rain, a weapon glowing black in his hands. He looked a ghost of himself—face haggard, eyes fierce. "You still don't see it, do you?"
The mercenary turned, body twitching with fury. "You ruined me. You made me into this."
Malcolm shook his head, raising his watch. "No, Victor. You did this to yourself."
A flick of his wrist—and the hologram bloomed in the storm. Rain streaked through its light, distorting it, but the truth was undeniable. Younger versions of both men—Victor's eyes fevered, Malcolm's calm but edged with desperation. The gunfire. The eruption. Ice swallowing the hall, then burning red as screams filled the air.
And in the background, paused in a single frame—the crest. Serpent coiled around an axe.
Anitta Van Ross.
Stalax staggered. For a heartbeat, the red crystal of his body dulled, as if the truth itself had reached inside and hollowed him. Maven saw it. Saw the man behind the monster surface, just for a flicker of time.
Then came the howl.
"LIES!" His grip snapped forward, hand like a vice around Malcolm's throat. The billionaire gagged, feet leaving the ground. Blood streaked down the mercenary's jagged arm.
"Today you pay for your sins," Stalax snarled, raising his other arm, crystal blade gleaming in the lightning.
Maven lunged. His gauntlet slammed against Stalax's ribs, engines whining, servos overclocking. Sparks. The smell of ozone. The Demon did not let go.
"D—" The word almost slipped, but Maven caught it, turned it into a growl. "Let him go!"
Malcolm's hand, trembling, fumbled at his watch. "It wasn't me," he rasped, voice cracking under the chokehold. His eyes bored into Victor's. "It was her. Always her."
The hologram replayed, zoomed, froze—on the cannon in the shadows, the crest burning like a brand.
Stalax froze. His body trembled, fissures of crimson light racing through his form like veins bursting. The rain hammered against him, steaming where it struck his searing skin.
And then he screamed. A sound that wasn't human, wasn't animal, but something caught in between. A grief so vast it hollowed the air.
Maven took the opening. Fingers flew against the holographic keyboard projected from his gauntlet. His jet, still circling, descended with a sonic boom. "Sequence 54 Delta," he barked.
The sky ripped open. The jet barreled downward, engines shrieking, and with a final roar, it speared into Stalax's chest. The mercenary screamed as his body shattered into shards of crystal, fragments reshaping, convulsing, until Maven fired the destabilizer into his core.
The Red Demon howled one last time before his body solidified into blood-red stone. Frozen. Lifeless. A monument of wrath, cracked and silent.
The jet angled, stabilizers flaring, and collected the body into its hold. Maven hung on, suit locking him to the fuselage, until they both steadied.
...
The storm had quieted, but only in comparison to the chaos minutes before. Grim City's square was broken glass, overturned vehicles, rain pooling into crimson streaks on the stone where Stalax had raged. Civilians whispered and pointed, reporters swarmed like vultures, but Maven was already gone—his jet cloaked, carrying the Red Demon's petrified body into the clouds.
Xavier stood on the rooftop where he had left Malcolm. His father coughed against the rain, wiping blood from his lips, looking at the young man who had saved him yet refused to let him close.
"Thank you, Maven," Malcolm said again, but softer this time, like he sensed something beneath the mask. "In our line of work... enemies are inevitable. They always find their way to the people we love." His eyes flickered, guilt shadowing them. "Sometimes, leaving is the only way to protect them."
Xavier froze, fingers curling into fists behind his mirrored gauntlets. The words burned—because they were the closest thing to an explanation he'd ever heard for why his father had left. But Malcolm didn't know. He couldn't know. Not yet.
The silence between them stretched, heavy as the rain. Xavier's comms suddenly blared in his ear, a lifeline that snapped him away from the edge.
"Hey, Maven," came Hunter's voice, dry but tense.
Xavier turned his back on Malcolm, stepping to the far edge of the rooftop. "This better be good, Hunter."
"You gotta get down to HQ. Now."
"Why?" Xavier asked, forcing calm into his tone.
There was a pause. He could almost hear Hunter exhaling on the other end, debating how much to say. Finally: "Because something showed up in R&D. A box. No delivery. No breach alarms. Just... appeared."
Xavier frowned. "So? It's R&D—they're used to weird."
"Yeah," Hunter said, voice lowering, "but this one started playing footage. And it's about you."
The agent stiffened. "...Footage?"
"Yeah," Hunter replied. "Footage from the future."
Lightning cracked across the city skyline. Xavier's jaw clenched beneath his mirrored mask. "What are you saying?"
Hunter's voice hardened, no trace of humor now: "I'm saying we're all about to meet a apocalyptic end. Every last one of us. And you're at the center of it."
Xavier's stomach dropped. He looked over his shoulder—Malcolm still watching him, brows furrowed as if he could read the tension even through the mask. Xavier turned back to the rain.
"I'll be there," he said quietly, cutting the comm.
For the first time since he put on the suit, the Maven felt something colder than fear: inevitability