Koka and Vikoka didn't arrive. They impacted.
BOOM! KRA-KOOM!
Two floors directly above them, the duracrete ceiling exploded downwards. Not with the ragged chaos of a bomb, but with the clean, terrifying precision of a surgical strike. Two figures dropped through the hole they had created, landing in the corridor in a perfect, synchronized crouch amidst a shower of debris.
They landed without a sound.
The air in the tunnel went cold. They were twins, identical in every way. Taller than the standard Enforcers, their armor was not the bulky black plate of the regulars, but a sleek, form-fitting shell of silvery-grey alloy that seemed to writhe like liquid mercury. There were no optics, just smooth, featureless helmets that reflected the dim light with unnerving clarity. Long, whip-like metallic tentacles, tipped with glowing energy points, were coiled on their backs.
"Anomaly located," said Koka, his head tilting a fraction of an inch as his internal sensors scanned Kalpit.
"Resistance operative designated," added Vikoka, his gaze locking onto Anasuya. Their voices were the same synthesized mono-tone, yet one held a note of cruel curiosity, the other a flat, clinical finality.
Anasuya stepped in front of Kalpit, her high-frequency blade humming to life with an aggressive intensity. "So Kali finally let his pets off the leash," she spat, her practiced calm cracking under the pressure of their presence.
"Leashes are for those who might disobey," Koka stated.
"We do not disobey," Vikoka finished.
There was no more warning. They moved.
FWOOSH! SHINK!
They were impossibly fast, crossing the ten-meter distance in a flicker. One moment they were there, the next they were on top of them. Anasuya reacted instantly, her blade meeting Koka's attack.
His arms were not just arms. The liquid alloy morphed, extending into razor-sharp scythes.
KLANG! SSSSKREEEEE!
The sound of Anasuya's energy blade grinding against the unknown metal of Koka's arm set Kalpit's teeth on edge. She was pushed back, her feet digging into the floor, the sheer kinetic force of the blow astonishing.
Vikoka went for Kalpit.
He didn't use a blade. The tentacles on his back uncoiled, lashing out like striking serpents.
VZT! VZT! VZT!
Kalpit dove, rolling behind the wreckage of a downed Enforcer as the energy-tipped tendrils struck the wall where he'd been standing, leaving sizzling, molten holes in the durasteel. He came up, iron pipe in hand, but he knew it was useless. It was like trying to fight a storm with a stick.
His Muladhara-sight was screaming. But this time, it was different. It wasn't showing him structural weaknesses in the building; it was showing them in the twins themselves.
He saw the energy flowing through their suits, the power distribution nodes, the faint stress lines in their armor where it flexed at the joints. But it was a fortress. No obvious flaws. No rusted bolts or crumbling pillars. They were perfect killing machines.
CRASH!
Anasuya was thrown against the far wall, her blade flickering. Koka stood over her, his arm-scythe raised for a final blow.
Adrenaline, cold and sharp, lanced through Kalpit. He couldn't fight them with brute force. He had to think. The pipe was useless, but the environment was not.
He glanced up. Directly above them, a thick bundle of ancient, high-voltage power cables sagged from the ceiling, their insulation cracked and peeling. He could feel the raw, untamed power thrumming within them, leaking electrostatic energy into the damp air.
It holds water. It is a vessel. The memory of Vashistha's lesson with the cup echoed in his mind. What was the purpose of these cables? To contain and conduct power. And their flaw? The failing insulation.
Vikoka's tentacles lashed out again, forcing Kalpit to scramble back. He threw the heavy iron pipe. It was a pathetic, clumsy gesture. Vikoka deflected it with a casual flick of a tendril, the pipe clattering uselessly down the corridor.
The distraction was all Kalpit needed. He sprang for the wall, using the jutting pipes and conduits as handholds to scale it.
"He runs," Vikoka observed, his tone flat.
"He delays the inevitable," Koka added, turning his attention from the downed Anasuya back to the fleeing Kalpit.
But Kalpit wasn't running away. He was running up.
He reached the sagging power cables just as one of Vikoka's tentacles whipped towards him. He didn't dodge. He grabbed the thickest of the cables with both hands.
KRA-KRAK-BOOM!
The shock was a supernova of pain. A billion volts of raw, untamed electricity surged into his body. His vision went white. His muscles seized. He was a conduit. A human switch.
The current, having nowhere else to go, found the nearest path to ground: the metallic tentacle that had just wrapped around his leg.
The energy surged down the tentacle and into Vikoka.
VREEEEEEEE—BANG!
The sleek, perfect assassin convulsed. Sparks erupted from the joints of his silvery armor. His smooth helmet cracked, revealing a flash of glowing circuitry beneath. He shrieked—a discordant burst of digital static and agony—as his systems were catastrophically overloaded.
Koka, who had been advancing, stopped dead. He turned, his head snapping towards his twin.
"Brother?" his voice was, for the first time, tinged with something other than cold confidence. A microsecond of confusion.
That microsecond was Anasuya's opening.
With a roar, she launched herself from the floor, her blade reignited to its maximum intensity. She drove it deep into the fractional gap at Koka's neck that Kalpit's senses had revealed—the one vulnerable point where the helmet joined the torso armor.
SHUNNK!
Koka stiffened. His arm-scythes retracted into normal hands. He slowly turned his head to look down at the humming blade embedded in his gorget.
"Logical inconsistency," he said, his voice glitching. "...Parameter not... found."
Then he fell, crashing to the floor with the sound of a short-circuiting server rack.
Kalpit dropped from the ceiling, his body smoking, every nerve ending screaming. The smell of ozone and burned flesh filled his nostrils. His cybernetic eye was fried, its lens cracked and dark. He landed heavily, his legs giving out, but forced himself to stay upright, leaning against the wall for support.
Vikoka was still twitching on the ground, his metallic tentacles spasming wildly, discharging small arcs of electricity against the floor. Anasuya stood over Koka's inert form, panting, her face a mask of grim victory.
It was over. They had won.
But Kalpit's danger sense, sharper and more primal than his new Muladhara-sight, screamed a final warning.
Vikoka's spasms stopped. His head slowly lifted from the floor. The crack in his helmet widened, and a single, malevolent red light flared to life within. His voice, now a corrupted, glitching parody of its former self, echoed in the corridor.
"
A high-pitched whine began to emanate from his chest cavity. A section of his torso armor slid open, revealing a pulsing, glowing core.
"Overload!" Anasuya shouted, her eyes wide with horror. "His power core is going critical! He's a bomb!"
The core glowed brighter, from red to an unbearable, blinding white. The whine escalated, climbing to a fever pitch that vibrated in their teeth, promising imminent, atomic annihilation. They were at ground zero. There was no time to run. No place to hide.