?The Guild Hound sat in a pile of plaster dust, his chest piece cracked, the blue light of his kinetic shield sputtering like a dying bulb. He wheezed, clutching his ribs, his eyes wide with the shock of impact.
?In the corner, the Messenger—the thin man in the charcoal suit—scrambled backward over the debris. He wasn't a fighter. He was a bureaucrat who had never seen blood that wasn't on a spreadsheet.
?"Code Red!" the Messenger screamed, his voice cracking. He fumbled with his tablet, his fingers sliding on the sleek glass. "Dispatch! We have a Class-3 deviation in Sector 4! The target is—"
?Alex didn't look at him. He didn't speak. He simply reached down with his left hand and picked up a jagged chunk of the exploded brick wall—a dense, red clay shard the size of a softball.
?He weighed it in his palm for a fraction of a second. He didn't aim like a pitcher; he calculated like an engineer sighting a demolition charge.
?[ OBJECT MASS: 1.2 KG ]
[ TRAJECTORY: 12 DEGREES ]
[ VELOCITY: MAXIMIZED ]
?CRACK.
?The brick didn't hit the man; it hit the tablet. The device shattered in the Messenger’s hands, spraying glass, sparks, and plastic shrapnel into his face. The thin man shrieked, dropping the ruin of his lifeline and curling into a ball against the moldy wallpaper, clutching his bleeding hands.
?[ COMMUNICATION: SEVERED ]
?"You..." Vance groaned from the floor.
?The Hound was trying to stand. The servos in his legs whined—a high-pitched mechanical protest—as they fought to lift his armored bulk. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor, his shock replaced by a raw, ugly rage.
?"You think you're special, Mercer?" Vance snarled, grabbing the heavy stun-baton he had dropped. "You're just a Mule with a battery leak. Look at you. You're shaking."
?Vance was right. The violet light in Alex’s veins was pulsing faster, erratic and dangerous. His right hand—the purple, swollen ruin—hung uselessly at his side, throbbing with a dull, sickening heat that made his vision swim.
?"I’m going to strip the flesh off that broken hand," Vance spat, thumbing the dial on his baton to MAX VOLTAGE. The tip crackled with a blinding white arc of electricity that smelled of ozone and burnt hair. "Let's see you crawl with one arm."
?Vance lunged.
?He didn't swing wildly this time. He was a professional who had hunted Tunnel Stalkers. He used the weight of his Mark-II armor as a weapon, thrusting the baton forward like a spear, aiming directly for Alex’s chest.
?Alex saw the [Trajectory Line], but his body was failing. The "Dirty Power" was strong, but his muscles were tearing under the strain of the uncalibrated speed.
?He twisted to the side, but the heavy armor clipped him.
?CRASH.
?Alex was thrown backward, crashing into the kitchen table. The rotting wood splintered under his weight, sending bowls and cutlery clattering to the floor.
?"Got you!" Vance roared, raising the baton high for a crushing overhead blow.
?Alex scrambled back on his elbows, kicking a broken chair into Vance’s path. The Hound didn't even slow down; he smashed the chair aside with his gauntlet, sending wood chips flying.
?I can't fight him head-on, Alex realized, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He has mass. He has armor. I have a broken hand and a dying battery.
?Alex rolled to his feet, putting the pile of debris from the exploded wall between him and the Hound.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
?Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. The Messenger, realizing Alex was occupied, was scrambling on his hands and knees. He wasn't heading for the door. He was crawling through the jagged hole in the wall Alex had created—scuttling over the broken bricks like a cockroach fleeing the light.
?Alex wanted to stop him, but Vance was already charging through the dust cloud.
?[ WARNING: NERVE DAMAGE DETECTED ]
[ MOBILITY: 70% ]
?"Stop running!" Vance yelled. He swung the baton in a wide, horizontal arc.
?Alex ducked, feeling the heat of the arc pass inches above his head. He backed up until his boots hit a pile of twisted rebar—the skeletal remains of the wall.
?He looked at Vance. He looked at the heavy, armored plating covering the Hound’s body. The chest plate was too thick. The helmet was reinforced.
?His Architect’s Eye flickered, scanning the suit not as an enemy, but as a structure.
?[ SCANNING ARMOR: MARK-II RIOT GEAR ]
[ JOINT ANALYSIS: EXPOSED SERVO-MECHANISM (KNEE) ]
[ WEAKNESS: LATERAL STRESS TOLERANCE LOW ]
?Vance stepped forward, sensing the end. He raised the baton. "Game over, Rat."
?Alex didn't look at the weapon. He looked at the floor.
?He hooked his boot under a three-foot length of rusted rebar lying in the rubble. It was jagged, bent, and covered in concrete dust.
?He didn't kick it at Vance. He kicked it into the gap.
?As Vance planted his right foot to swing, Alex snapped the rebar upward. The rusted metal rod didn't just hit the leg; it jammed perfectly into the open servo-joint behind the knee actuator.
?CRUNCH-GRIND-SCREECH.
?The sound of metal shearing against metal was deafening.
?"ARGH!" Vance screamed, his momentum betraying him.
?The suit’s leg locked up instantly, the rebar acting as a wedge in the high-torque machinery. The servo motor whined and smoked, trying to force the joint closed, but the debris held. Vance buckled, the heavy armor pulling him down like an anchor. He crashed onto one knee, the floorboards cracking under the impact.
?"System," Alex gasped, stepping into the guard. "Target lock: Helmet Seal."
?He didn't use his fist. He used his left arm to wrap around Vance’s head in a guillotine chokehold. But he wasn't choking the neck; he was driving his forearm—dense with [Structural Density Lvl 8]—against the magnetic latch at the base of the helmet.
?"Get off me!" Vance thrashed, dropping the baton and clawing at Alex’s arm. His gauntlets tore at Alex’s jumpsuit, ripping skin, drawing blood, but Alex didn't let go. He was a statue of leverage.
?"Disengage," Alex gritted out through clenched teeth.
?He torqued his body, using the fulcrum of Vance’s own shoulder to pry the seal open.
?CLICK-HISS.
?The seal broke. The pressure release hissed violently, and the helmet popped loose. Alex ripped it off, throwing it into the dust.
?Vance was exposed. His face was red, sweaty, and terrified. He looked small without the steel. He looked human.
?"Wait—" Vance gasped, staring up at the man looming over him. "Mercer, wait! The Guild will—"
?Alex didn't listen. He looked down and saw the stun-baton lying on the floor near Vance’s paralyzed leg. He picked it up with his left hand.
?"You wanted to see the inventory," Alex said, his voice a dry rasp.
?He didn't hit Vance in the face. He jammed the crackling tip of the baton directly into the exposed Neck-Port Interface of the suit—the open socket where the helmet had connected to the armor’s power supply.
?ZZZZZ-CRACK!
?"AAAAAAHHHHH!"
?The scream was cut short by the physics of electricity.
?Vance convulsed. The voltage from the baton fed directly into the suit’s internal grid. The armor short-circuited, locking every limb in place. Sparks showered from the joints, illuminating the room in strobing flashes of blue and white. Vance seized, his eyes rolling back in his head, before he slumped forward, held up only by the frozen, dead weight of his own gear.
?[ TARGET NEUTRALIZED ]
[ STATUS: UNCONSCIOUS / SUIT LOCKED ]
?Alex dropped the baton. It clattered on the concrete, smoking.
?The room fell silent again. The Messenger was gone, leaving a trail of blood drops through the hole in the wall. The only sound left was the high-pitched whine of the Red Seal still draining the life-support pod in the corner.
?Alex swayed. The world tilted on its axis. The adrenaline that had been holding his broken body together began to evaporate, leaving only the cold, hard reality of his injuries.
?[ WARNING: MANA SATURATION AT 22% ]
[ CRITICAL ALERT: BIOLOGICAL INTEGRITY FAILING ]
?He turned slowly.
?Lily was clutching the twins in the corner. Her face was pale, streaked with dust and tears. She was looking at him, but her eyes were wide with a primal terror. She didn't see her brother. She saw a creature with glowing violet veins who had just dismantled a Guild Hound with the cold efficiency of a machine.
?"Alex?" she whispered, her voice trembling. She pulled the twins tighter against her, an instinctive reaction to the violence she had just witnessed.
?Alex tried to smile, to tell her it was okay, but his face felt like cracked plaster. He took a step toward the pod, and his legs gave out.
?"Not... done... yet," he wheezed.
?He fell against the glass of Sarah's pod, sliding down until he hit the floor. He reached out with his left hand to rip the Red Seal off the glass. He needed to stop the drain. He needed to save her.
?But his fingers wouldn't close. His hand shook violently, the tremors of the Mana Sickness taking hold. He clawed uselessly at the seal, his strength gone.
?"Lily," he gasped, his vision tunneling into darkness. "I can't... grip it..."
?He looked up at her, pleading with eyes that burned with a dying violet light.
?"Help... me."