Inside the reinforced command chamber, Dreykov stood before a wall of glowing screens. His fingers tapped lightly against the desk as the footage looped—Widows falling one by one, flame and steel cutting through his facility.
And yet, his expression remained composed. The faint curl of his lips was almost amused.
"After so long, I never thought I would see another betrayal," he murmured, voice low, confident. "Well, looks like I can at least test my new safety measures."
Even as he spoke, another monitor flared white—two Servitors reducing a hangar bay into a storm of fire. The Black Widows' bodies crumpled like paper silhouettes. Dreykov exhaled, annoyed more than shaken, adjusting his cuffs with deliberate calm. His mind circled his contingencies: the best course of action would be to escape, but he decided against it, confident in his new varmachi.
Then, a chime rang out from the central monitor. Security feeds crackled, static cutting through the display. For an instant, he saw them—two Skitarii advancing down the final corridor, optics burning red, steps silent and unstoppable. The screen flickered again, but Dreykov had already seen enough.
His mind was filled with frustration, but his posture remained steady. Taking his seat, he prepared to confront his enemy, as he wasn't planning to go down without a fight.
As the door of his office opened to welcome the Skitarii, Luthar and his group were also moving in the same direction. All of them stepped over a shattered bulkhead, their gazes sweeping casually across the carnage inside.
The silence was unsettling—every threat already neutralised, every body lying still in the snow-dusted halls. Natasha's breath steadied. For the first time in years, she hadn't needed to draw her gun.
She glanced sideways at Freya, who walked with her usual cold composure, then at Anya and Irina, both wide-eyed at the wreckage. The echoes of battle still drifted deeper into the base, a reminder that this was no simple outing.
Natasha's lips pressed into a thin line. The battle had been decided before she even raised her weapon.
As they pressed deeper, they could see walls scarred with bullet marks and cracks. Soon, they found two Black Widows collapsed on the floor.
One lay sprawled unconscious but breathing. The other slumped against the wall, blood streaking her hair. Her pulse was erratic and shallow. Natasha slowed, narrowing her eyes at the signs of brain trauma. She expected Luthar to walk past without a second glance.
Instead, he stopped.
From his robes, he drew a slender injector and a vial of pale fluid. Without hesitation, he knelt, tilting the Widow's head with mechanical precision. The injector hissed against her neck, and the faint glow of the compound spread beneath her skin. Her breathing steadied, her pulse no longer stuttering.
"The flesh may be weak," Luthar said evenly, as though explaining to no one in particular, "but it is still useful. I intend to preserve as many as possible."
Natasha's jaw tightened. It wasn't mercy—not truly. He treated them as tools, property to be salvaged. In her eyes, he was no better than Dreykov. She folded her arms, silent, though the unease in her chest grew heavier.
As Luthar completed the treatment, he suddenly became still. His mechanical eye whirred softly. In an instant, streams of data began to race across its lens. Amidst the swirling information, a silent pulse of notification surged through his vision.
[Unit 07 – Signal Lost]
[Unit 08 – Signal Lost]
For the briefest second, his head tilted, voice low, calm but a little confused. "Two Skitarii offline."
Freya caught the shift instantly, her sharp gaze sliding toward him. "Oh… even your toys can break."
Luthar didn't flinch. "So what? I can create more of them. I already have their genetic samples; cloning them is easy."
Natasha, who had been watching in silence, finally spoke. Her eyes narrowed, tone edged with dry scepticism. "If you can just clone them, why bother with Red Room agents at all?"
His masked face turned slightly toward her. For a moment, he gave no answer, letting the pause stretch in the cold, smoke-filled corridor. When he did speak, his words were measured, clinical.
"Because cloning is time-consuming. And unstable. What you get is inconsistent, unreliable." His mechanical eye flickered faintly. "It's much easier—and cheaper—to use real people."
He gestured for the group to follow. The chaos outside was already fading, replaced by occasional groans of the wounded left behind. Natasha's fingers brushed her pistol, more from habit than need.
She felt no comfort—even after watching Luthar save a Widow's life. If anything, it confirmed her suspicions: he was pure evil. All she could hope for now was a miracle—some unforeseen weapon or accident that might stop him.
With each step, the stillness deepened. Then, faintly, a low vibration carried through the corridor—the hum of reinforced steel doors ahead, Dreykov's last bastion.
As they arrived, the doors opened by themselves, no effort required.
Inside, the command chamber was unnervingly pristine compared to the devastation outside. Cold light spilled across polished floors, reflecting the grotesque wreckage at the centre. Two Skitarii lay ruined—limbs torn, metal warped as though something had dragged their frames apart from within. Wires dangled like veins, optics shattered into dead glass.
Freya's expression didn't shift, but her eyes lingered on the broken constructs. Natasha stiffened, a flicker of unease crossing her face. None of them had seen these machines fall. None of them knew how.
And yet Dreykov sat calmly at his desk, as though the destruction were nothing more than spilled ink. A glass of amber liquid rested in his hand, his other fingers drumming lightly against the surface.
"Interesting sight, isn't it?" Dreykov's voice carried smoothly through the sterile chamber, calm but edged with mockery. "Flesh bound to steel… a fascinating experiment. But in the end, they were rather stupid."
Luthar's gaze swept over the mangled Skitarii without a flicker of emotion. His mechanical eye registered the ruin, data scrolling across the lens. For a moment, his head tilted slightly, as if he understood more than he revealed.
Then his masked face lifted toward Dreykov, voice measured and unwavering.
"Stupidity takes many forms, and you are one of them," he said. In his mind flickered the thought of building a penitence engine to punish Dreykov for destroying his creations. But he dismissed it almost instantly—time and resources were better spent elsewhere. Torture was unnecessary. Efficiency always came first.
Authors note : sorry for the late upload have too much cold and coughing bad headache
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