**September 5, 2026. Saturday. 4:00 PM.**
The Capital Convention Center was packed with thousands of supporters. Dylan Foster stood on stage, microphone in hand, delivering a speech about unity, prosperity, and the future of the UXA. The crowd cheered at all the right moments, waving signs and chanting his name.
Security was everywhere—suited men with earpieces stationed at every entrance, on every floor, scanning the crowd constantly for threats.
Three hundred miles away, in a rented studio with professional lighting and cameras, X began his livestream. The timing was perfect—both events starting simultaneously.
"Good afternoon, everyone," X said to his audience of thousands watching online. "Today I want to talk about why I believe Ronald Stone is the right choice for our future..."
Ten minutes into Dylan Foster's campaign speech, someone in the crowd screamed.
"Fire!"
Smoke began billowing from the east wing of the convention center. Sprinklers activated. Alarms blared.
Security immediately mobilized—half the force rushed toward the fire, following protocol to evacuate that section and contain the blaze.
That's when Lee made his move.
Sitting in a van two blocks away, Lee's fingers flew across three keyboards simultaneously. Code streamed across multiple monitors as he penetrated the convention center's security systems.
"Locking them out... now," he muttered.
Every electronic lock in the building engaged simultaneously. The security personnel who had rushed to handle the fire found themselves trapped in the east wing, unable to return to the main hall. Doors wouldn't open. Badge readers stopped working. Even emergency exits sealed shut.
Inside the main hall, the remaining security immediately recognized what was happening.
"We're under attack!" one of them shouted into his radio. "Get Foster out, now!"
Three security agents moved to surround Dylan Foster on stage, ready to escort him to safety through the underground evacuation route.
One agent approached Foster directly, reaching for his arm—
The lights went out.
Every single light in the building cut to black simultaneously. Emergency lighting should have kicked in within seconds, but Lee had disabled that too. The convention center was plunged into complete darkness.
In that darkness, suppressed gunfire echoed through the space.
When the lights came back on seconds later, chaos had erupted.
Half the security force lay dead or dying, shot with precision by shooters who had used the darkness to devastating effect. The crowd was screaming, running in all directions, trampling each other in their panic to escape.
But the remaining security had managed to form a protective circle around Dylan Foster and were already moving him toward the underground access point behind the stage.
"Go, go, go!" the lead agent shouted, practically dragging Foster through a hidden door.
They descended into the tunnels beneath the convention center—maintenance passages and old infrastructure that connected to several escape routes throughout the city. The heavy steel door sealed behind them with a hydraulic hiss.
Above ground, security finally managed to override Lee's hacking and regain control of their systems. They immediately locked down the underground access, sealing Dylan Foster in but also ensuring no one could follow him down there.
Or so they thought.
X concluded his livestream interview after exactly one hour, right on schedule. He smiled for the camera, thanked his viewers for their time, and ended the broadcast.
The moment the cameras stopped rolling, his expression went cold and businesslike. He gathered his equipment and left the studio, heading directly to the paint house base.
Lee, Marvel, Beto, and Itachi were already making their way there as well, extracting from their positions around the convention center before police could lock down the area.
When they arrived at the paint house, they found Lily, Nelson, Pablo, and Luis already waiting. These four hadn't been needed for the actual operation—their skills weren't suited for this type of mission.
Alpha was notably absent.
X entered first, still wearing his distinctive mask and tactical gear.
"How did the mission go?" Nelson asked immediately, reading nothing from X's body language.
"Going well so far," X replied, his voice distorted through the mask's modulator.
Then he reached up and removed his helmet.
Long hair tumbled free, and the face beneath was unmistakably female—a teenage girl, perhaps seventeen or eighteen years old.
"Wait—" Nelson stared in shock. "You're—"
"Alpha," the girl confirmed, her voice no longer distorted.
Deep beneath the convention center, Dylan Foster followed his security team through dimly lit tunnels. His heart was pounding, his expensive suit soaked with sweat.
"Dad!"
A young woman appeared from a side passage—Dylan's daughter, around twenty-five years old, her face pale with fear. She'd been attending the rally and had fled to the underground when the shooting started.
"Sarah!" Dylan grabbed her, pulling her close. "Thank God you're safe."
"What's happening? Who's attacking us?"
"I don't know, but we need to keep moving. This tunnel leads to—"
He stopped.
Three figures stood in the shadows ahead, blocking their path. Two men and one woman, their features barely visible in the poor lighting.
The security team immediately raised their weapons.
"Identify yourselves!"
The figure on the left—a woman dressed in black with a katana at her side—moved.
Ji-won exploded forward with inhuman speed. Her blade flashed in the dim light, and before the security team could even fire their weapons, all of them were dead. Five men cut down in less than three seconds, their bodies crumpling to the ground.
Dylan Foster staggered backward, pulling his daughter behind him. "Please—please, I'll give you anything, money, information, just don't—"
The central figure stepped forward into the light, revealing X's face.
"Don't hurt my daughter," Dylan begged. "She's innocent. She has nothing to do with any of this. She's my only family. Please."
X's expression was ice. "Did they plead for my family?"
"What?"
"My parents. My little brother. When your people burned them alive in their home. Did they plead? Did they beg for mercy?"
Dylan's face went white. "I don't know what you're talking about—"
"Liar!" X's voice cracked. "The cult. The cover-up. You helped them hide the evidence. You knew they weren't innocent, and you helped destroy the investigation anyway."
X drew a sword—not the enchanted katana Ji-won carried, but a weapon created from vital energy, glowing faintly with power.
"So no," X continued, raising the blade. "They didn't plead. They didn't get the chance. So neither do you."
But X didn't move toward Dylan. Instead, the blade shifted to point at Sarah, the daughter.
"I'll kill your family in front of your eyes," X said coldly. "Just like you killed mine."
"No!" Dylan threw himself forward, positioning his body between X and his daughter. "Take me! Kill me! But please, leave her alone. She's done nothing wrong. This is between us."
Laurel, who had been standing silently beside Ji-won, finally spoke up.
"X. Let her go."
X turned that cold stare on him. "Excuse me?"
"The daughter," Laurel said firmly. "Let her go. She's not part of this. She's innocent."
"There are no innocents in families like his—"
"That's not true and you know it," Laurel interrupted. "You said yourself—your own family was innocent. Your brother was just a kid. If someone had judged her guilty just because of who her father was, would that have been justice?"
X's hand trembled slightly on the sword. "He helped kill them—"
"And he'll pay for that. But she won't." Laurel stepped forward. "You're not a monster, X. Don't become one now."
The silence stretched out, tense and dangerous.
Finally, X lowered the sword. "Fine. Ji-won, Laurel—escort the daughter out. Follow the underground route until you reach the street exit. Make sure she's safe."
"Dad—" Sarah started.
"Go," Dylan told her, his voice breaking. "Please. Just go."
Ji-won grabbed Sarah's arm, not gently but not roughly either. Laurel took her other arm, and together they led her away down the tunnel, leaving X and Dylan Foster alone in the dim light.
For a moment, neither man moved.
Then X rushed forward, the energy sword blazing in his hands.
Dylan raised his palm. On it, a tattoo glowed—a circle containing two triangles, one pointing up and one pointing down, their points intersecting.
The sword struck the tattooed palm—and vanished.
X felt the weapon dissolve, absorbed completely by whatever power that mark contained. Before X could react, Dylan thrust his other hand forward, and an exact copy of X's sword materialized in his grip.
"Interesting technique," Dylan said, his earlier fear replaced by cold focus. "Let's see what else you can do."
X regenerated a new sword instantly and attacked again. Dylan absorbed it and created another copy. This pattern repeated—X creating weapons from vital energy, Dylan absorbing them and turning them against their creator.
They fought through the tunnel, their blades clashing in the confined space, sparks flying where energy met energy.
X tried different approaches—multiple smaller weapons, projectiles, constructs designed to explode on contact. Dylan absorbed everything, his tattoo seemingly infinite in its capacity.
After several minutes of intense combat, X's sword finally shattered, unable to maintain cohesion with the amount of vital energy being spent.
The moment the sword broke, X switched tactics. He struck Dylan's wrist with a precise blow, forcing him to drop his copied weapon, then closed the distance for hand-to-hand combat.
Dylan was no amateur. Despite his age and politician's appearance, he'd clearly been trained in combat. He matched X move for move, trading punches and kicks in the narrow tunnel.
Then the techniques escalated.
X suddenly vanished and reappeared behind Dylan—teleportation using Projection-stage Vitra. Dylan couldn't absorb the technique through his tattoo, because it wasn't an object.
X created a clone—a perfect duplicate that attacked from a different angle.
The fight became a showcase of every technique X had encountered and copied. Speed enhancement. Strength amplification. Sensory manipulation. Each one can't be absorbed by Dylan and used against its original wielder.
For ten minutes, they fought with increasing desperation and sophistication.
But slowly, X began to notice something.
**Narrator:** To understand what was happening, one must understand the fundamental nature of vital energy and Vitra. Vital energy is life force itself—the energy that animates all living things. When a creature is born, it begins with a fixed amount of vital energy that decreases throughout its life as it performs activities and sustains its existence. Think of it like calories, except eating doesn't replenish it. Once depleted, death follows.
Vitra users have learned to control their Pulse Nodes—the points where vital energy flows through the body. By opening and closing these nodes deliberately, they can regulate how much energy they use, extending their lifespan and enabling superhuman abilities.
But there's a critical limitation.
Imagine your body as a storage unit for vital energy, like a refrigerator stocked with food. Normally, you consume two units of energy per hour. If you open your Pulse Nodes fully and release four units per hour, two units are wasted, dispersed into the environment unused.
Now imagine you suddenly need to consume ten units per hour for intense combat. Initially, you can draw from the "extra" energy that was being wasted. But when that buffer is depleted, you're trying to consume ten units when only two are being generated naturally.
The body tries to force more energy through the system than it can handle. This feels like your vital energy has "run out," even though you technically still have reserves. Push too hard, and you either faint or die.
Dylan Foster's tattoo technique allowed him to absorb anything—objects, energy, even other people's techniques—and recreate them multiple times without using much of his own vital energy. He was essentially using his opponents' energy against them.
X's technique was different but complementary. X had developed a special eye ability, similar to Laurel's predictive eye but with a crucial difference. Where Laurel's eye predicted future movements based on present positioning, X's eye saw the vital energy composition of techniques—the exact proportions, the timing, the structure. This allowed X to copy any technique perfectly after seeing it once.
But copying techniques required energy. Lots of it.
To compensate, X used what could only be called "reverse infusion"—the same technique Lily had unconsciously used on Laurel in the white house. By making physical contact, X could absorb vital energy from others, replenishing what had been spent and preventing death from energy depletion.
The battle had become a strange loop.
X would use a new technique, spending vital energy to do so. Dylan would absorb and copy that technique using his tattoo, spending minimal energy. They would exchange blows, each using variations of the same abilities. Then X would make contact and drain some of Dylan's vital energy to replenish the loss.
It seemed like it could go on forever—an endless cycle of copying, draining, and fighting.
But there was a flaw in the loop that only one of them had noticed.
Each time Dylan absorbed and recreated a technique, he wasn't spending zero energy—he was spending small amounts. And each time X drained energy from him, Dylan lost slightly more than he'd spent.
The difference was miniscule at first. But over ten minutes of intense combat, those small losses had accumulated.
Dylan didn't notice. He was too focused on the fight, on matching X's seemingly inexhaustible arsenal of techniques, on staying alive against an opponent who refused to stay down.
By the time Dylan started feeling weak—that telltale fatigue that signaled vital energy depletion—it was too late.
X had been waiting for this moment.
As Dylan stumbled slightly, his movements slowing, X switched to a technique Dylan hadn't seen before.
Beto's regeneration.
Dylan's eyes widened as he watched wounds on X's body—cuts from earlier in the fight, bruises from impacts—begin to heal in real-time. Vital energy converted directly to cells, mending damage faster than it could be inflicted.
"That's... impossible," Dylan gasped, trying to absorb the technique through his tattoo. "You can't have that much energy left—"
"I don't," X confirmed, healing a deep gash on their arm. "I'm using yours."
The realization hit Dylan like a physical blow. Every time X had made contact during their fight, every grapple and strike and moment of close combat, X had been draining him. Not just replenishing lost energy, but taking extra. Building a reserve.
While Dylan had been slowly depleting his life force through repeated technique use, X had been systematically stealing it.
"You... you're killing me..." Dylan fell to his knees, his body no longer able to support his weight. "Please..."
X stood over him, and for a moment, something like pity flickered across that young face.
"My brother was five years old," X said quietly. "He liked drawing. She wanted to be an artist when he grew up. He burned to death because of people like you."
Dylan tried to raise his tattooed hand one last time, but he no longer had the energy to activate it.
X created a final sword—simple, efficient, sharp.
And ended Dylan Foster's life with a single thrust through the heart.
The presidential candidate slumped forward, dead before his body hit the ground.
X stood there for a moment, breathing heavily, the adrenaline of combat slowly fading.
It was done. Gluttony was dead. The first sin had fallen.
X absorbed the remaining traces of Dylan's vital energy—waste not, want not—and felt strength returning to a body that had pushed far beyond normal limits during that fight.
Then X turned and walked away, leaving Dylan Foster's corpse alone in the tunnel.
The escape route was memorized. The extraction plan was solid. By the time authorities found the body, X would be miles away, already planning the next move against the cult.
Outside, Sarah Foster was being escorted to safety by Laurel and Ji-won, unaware that her father had just died in the darkness below.
She would learn soon enough.
She would grieve.
And then, as X had predicted, she would want revenge.
But that was a problem for another day.