The stairwell reeked of hot coolant, rusted blood, and sothing older — burned polyr maybe.
Hernan descended first, slow and steady, boots ghosting over the tal steps. Above them, neon vent shafts pulsed sickly green, carving jagged shadows across his jaw and long coat. Each flicker of light revealed just enough — a cold gleam in his eye, the tension in his jaw, the silence wrapped around him like armor.
Aya followed. Sparks twitched along her fingertips, subconscious tells bleeding into her skin. Her face said what her mouth didn’t: she didn’t trust this place. She didn’t trust this silence. She didn’t trust him.
Iro ca last, silent as ashfall. He moved like shadow-mist — one mont there, the next half-phased into smoke, echoing footfalls soft and wrong. Watching Hernan’s back. Or maybe waiting for it to turn.
They reached the bottom.
A square chamber. Concrete walls lined with ancient maintenance panels and signage in five alien dialects. One panel blinked with motion. A figure leaned against it — hooded, faceless, posture too casual.
"You’re late," said the figure, voice filtered and dry.
"We weren’t sure you were real," Hernan replied, tone level.
The figure gave a quiet, humorless chuckle. "Black Halo doesn’t play ghost. We play knife."
Aya shifted. "This doesn’t feel like a knife. Feels like a stage."
The figure tilted their head. "That’s what nerves do to people with pretty faces. You always spark when you’re nervous, Sparks?"
She took a step forward, sparks crackling. Hernan lifted a hand — not to protect her. To silence her.
"Iro," he murmured. "Periter?"
"Five," Iro replied instantly. "Two on upper stairs. One cloaked. One behind the coolant pipe. All ard."
The informant didn’t react.
Hernan stepped closer. Voice colder. Smile gone.
"You’re not Black Halo. You don’t talk like them. You don’t move like soone who sells blood tags for teeth."
He closed the distance. One ter apart.
"So," he said softly, "who do you actually work for?"
The informant flinched. Barely. But enough.
"I ca to deal," the figure replied. "You want Scorpio’s location? Fine. But you pay. That’s how it works down here."
"You didn’t bring intel," Hernan said. "You brought a trap. But not yours. You’re not important enough."
He leaned in, voice a whisper now.
"Who gave the order?"
Silence. Sweat beaded beneath the mask. Behind Hernan, Aya’s stance tensed. Iro vanished completely.
"Say it," Hernan murmured. "Just the na."
A pause.
Then: "Broker Z... from Tower Eleven. Said it was sanctioned by—"
Click.
A soft, tallic tick.
Hernan’s eyes widened.
"DOWN!"
He tackled Aya, arms around her, just as the world ripped apart.
The explosion wasn’t fire — it was force. A deafening, concussive slam that turned walls to dust, ripped tal beams like tinfoil, and threw Hernan’s squad across the room.
He hit the floor hard, head ringing, lungs fighting smoke. He rolled, pulling Aya behind a half-collapsed pipe. She groaned — alive, burned, arm bleeding.
The informant was gone. Just a sar. The price of silence.
"You knew," Aya croaked.
"I guessed," Hernan replied, eyes on the debris. "Didn’t think they’d burn a whole tunnel."
Iro erged from smoke, untouched, calm as always.
"Two hostiles. North panel."
Hernan’s voice flattened.
"Then we kill through the smoke."
He rose.
And walked into war.
The smoke curled like writhing fingers, thick and burning. Hernan’s eyes stung, his coat singed, the upper stairwell now a graveyard of twisted steel.
Sirens wailed above. Civilians scread sowhere distant. But down here?
Just them.
"Aya, move," he ordered, dragging her toward collapsed cover. Sparks still danced along her arm. She nodded, blood on her jaw.
Footsteps thundered in the fog.
"Three incoming," he muttered.
"Rogues?" she asked.
"Zodiac-trained. Freelancers."
Shapes took form — armored figures in powered exo-suits, visors gleaming. No insignias. Just weapons.
One raised a cannon. Fired.
BOOM–ka-KRACK.
Wall behind them exploded. Debris hamred Hernan’s back. He grabbed Aya and dove. Her breath hitched in pain.
The first rogue hero charged.
Tall. Augnted. Skin etched with subdermal plates. A plasma hatchet crackled in his grip.
Hernan didn’t wait.
He ducked the swing, rolled under the arc, drove an elbow into the knee. tal cracked. The rogue staggered.
Blade in hand. Fast.
Nico’s carbon razor sank under the armplate. The rogue howled, slamd Hernan into the wall.
Another swing — a blur of light and rage.
But Hernan was already behind him.
Blade went in. Under the ribs. Twist.
The rogue froze.
"Too slow," Hernan whispered.
The body dropped.
Blood pooled.
Sothing shifted behind Hernan’s eyes. Not fear. Not victory.
Dead Echo triggered.
His stance shifted. Shoulders aligned. Fingers flexed — mimicking the rogue’s grip, the rogue’s gait. Breathing slowed to match the dead man’s pattern.
Aya saw it.
She said nothing. But her stare sharpened.
"Two more," Iro’s voice ca from smoke.
Hernan moved.
Not like Hernan.
Like the man he just killed.
Sa step pattern. Sa weight transfer. Hernan closed in on the second rogue and beca him — down to the shoulder-feint, the overhand slam.
He shattered the attacker’s neck.
"Holy shit," Aya whispered.
She wasn’t reacting to the kill.
She was reacting to him.
Third rogue hesitated. Big mistake.
Hernan lunged, seized his vest, drove his head into the man’s face. A sickening crunch. The rogue dropped.
Iro flickered into sight. One kick. Body down.
Silence.
Smoke hissed from cracked pipes. Sparks sputtered in the dark.
Hernan stood motionless, blade dripping. Calm. chanical.
Aya stood too — breathing hard, watching him.
Not shocked.
Not scared.
Just watching.
Her eyes tracked the angle of his foot. The curve of his neck. The way his hand still mimicked a man who no longer breathed.
"I saw you fight last week," she said.
"You don’t move like that."
"I adapt."
"That wasn’t adapting." Her voice was quiet. "That was copying."
He didn’t answer.
He knelt beside the body.
Wiped the blade on the rogue’s vest. Twisted the helt free.
The corpse stared upward, blank-eyed.
But when Hernan looked up...
Aya wasn’t looking at the dead man.
She was looking at him.
Expression cold. Uncertain. Quiet.
Not afraid.
Not yet.
But sothing between them had changed.
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