Last Night.
The phone vibrated once in Vernon's pocket, a low hum cutting through the silence of the dimly lit study in the Vernon Krossvale's mansion. He pulled it out without haste, his broad frame casting a long shadow across the walnut desk. The screen glowed with a single name: Kai.
Vernon answered, holding the device to his ear, his voice flat and devoid of inflection.
"Vernon," Kai's voice came through, smooth as polished steel, carrying the weight of absolute authority. There was no greeting, no wasted breath—Kai never indulged in pleasantries.
"We have a problem in the eastern warehouse district. The Varga gang—those scavenging rats—intercepted one of our underground shipments last night. Experimental ballistics, high-grade suppressors, enough to arm a small militia. They think they can muscle in on our routes, sell it to offshore buyers, undercut us. Twenty eight of them, holed up in that abandoned steel mill on the outskirts. They're getting bold, Vernon. Too bold. I need it handled quietly. No survivors, no traces. Go now."
Vernon paused for a fraction of a second, his sharp eyes narrowing slightly in the low light. "Understood," he replied, his tone as emotionless as a machine's echo. That was all. No questions, no hesitation. Kai didn't need more—he knew Vernon would execute flawlessly.
The line went dead. Vernon slipped the phone back into his coat pocket, the long black fabric shifting heavily over his bare chest. He moved out into the night, barefoot steps silent on the marble floors before transitioning to the rain-slicked streets outside.
---
Under the relentless downpour, the abandoned steel mill on the city's outskirts stood as a hulking relic of forgotten industry, its corroded beams groaning against the wind like bones in a grave.
Rain lashed the ground into a quagmire of mud and rust, the air thick with the metallic tang of decay.
Vernon approached alone, his long black coat billowing open in the gale, exposing his bare, scarred chest—dense muscle rippling under pale skin, the large gash across his abs a stark reminder of past near-deaths.
His medium-long hair, darkened and slicked by the storm, framed his sharp, emotionless face, eyes like shadowed voids scanning the perimeter.
He moved with the calm inevitability of a predator, barefoot in the muck, unperturbed by the cold that would cripple lesser men.
The Varga gang—twenty-eight strong, a ragtag horde of scavengers bloated by their recent theft—had fortified the mill like a fortress.
Armed with pilfered Krossvale tech: modified assault rifles, serrated blades, improvised explosives, and tactical gear that made them feel invincible. They spotted Vernon from the upper catwalks and shattered windows, their crude laughter booming over the thunder, a chorus of mockery that echoed through the skeletal structure.
The jeers rolled across the rain-swept mill like thunder, raw and hungry, twenty-eight voices fused into one mocking wave. The leader—hulking, cybernetic arm whirring faintly under the wet metal—leaned farther over the rusted catwalk railing, pistol dangling carelessly from scarred fingers, rainwater streaming off his bald, pitted skull like blood from an old wound.
"Look at this lone fucker," he roared, lips curling into a sneer that split his face. "Kai Krossvale sends one man? One! What kind of insult is that? We'll peel that fancy coat off him, gut him slow, and string his insides from the beams for the crows. Boys—let's carve this pretty boy into ribbons and mail the pieces back to the Krossvale brothers!"
Laughter exploded again, sharp and vicious, weapons clacking as they readied—rifles racked, blades drawn, chains rattling in eager hands.
But from the shadowed edge of the lower floor, a quieter voice cut through the din—not loud, but heavy, like a stone dropped into still water.
"Don't."
The word hung there, small but unmistakable.
One of the newer recruits—a lean, twitchy kid barely out of his teens, face still unmarked by the city's real scars—stepped half a pace forward, rain plastering his hood to his forehead. His eyes were wide, locked on Vernon standing motionless at the entrance, coat open, rain sluicing over the hard planes of his bare chest and the old scars that mapped it like war memorials.
"Don't underestimate him," the kid said again, voice cracking on the last word. He swallowed hard, glancing at the others. "They call him a monster for a reason. He doesn't just kill gangs—he erases them. Whole crews vanish when he walks in. No bodies. No witnesses. Just... gone. Everyone in Draxen knows it. Everyone fears him. We shouldn't—"
A bark of laughter from the leader cut him off like a blade.
"Shut your fucking mouth, greenhorn," the brute snarled, cyber-arm flexing with a low mechanical whine. "You think fairy tales scare us? We've got twenty-eight guns, twenty-eight blades, and enough stolen Krossvale tech to level this mill. He's one man. One. And he's about to be meat."
The kid shrank back, lips moving silently, but the others only laughed harder—derisive, dismissive, drunk on numbers and bravado. They were fresh blood in the city, outsiders who'd bought into the myth of their own invincibility the moment they stole that shipment. They hadn't lived here long enough to feel the weight of Vernon's name settle in their bones like frost.
They hadn't heard the stories whispered in back alleys and black-market dens:
The man who walked into a fortified warehouse alone and walked out alone.
The man whose silence was louder than screams.
The man who killed not out of rage, but with the calm precision of someone folding laundry.
They didn't know.
And because they didn't know, they charged.
Vernon never moved until the first boot hit the mud.
Then the night became red.
The gang erupted in jeers, spreading out across the mill's vast floor—some perched on elevated platforms, others forming a loose semicircle at ground level. "Pretty face won't save you now," one snarled, cocking a rifle. "We'll take turns breaking you—make it last." Another, a wiry thug with filed teeth, brandished a chain whip. "One against us? You're already dead meat!"
Vernon stood motionless at the entrance, coat heavy with rain, expression unchanging. No words. No retreat. The first wave charged—five men, blades drawn, howling like beasts. The leader fired a warning shot that pinged off a beam near Vernon's head.
Vernon exploded into motion, a blur of controlled savagery. He closed on the nearest attacker in two strides, his long legs devouring distance. A knife thrust aimed at his gut; Vernon parried with a forearm block, bone meeting bone in a crack that shattered the man's radius.
He countered with a palm heel to the throat—cartilage crumpling inward, the thug's windpipe collapsing in a wet gurgle. Blood frothed from his mouth as he clawed at his neck, eyes bulging in terror. Vernon didn't pause; he grabbed the dying man's collar and hurled him into the next assailant, the impact crushing ribs with a sickening snap, both tumbling in a heap of flailing limbs.
The third lunged with a chain, whipping it toward Vernon's face. Vernon caught it mid-swing, the links biting into his palm, drawing blood—but he yanked hard, pulling the man off-balance. A knee to the groin ruptured organs, followed by an elbow to the temple that caved the skull like eggshell, brain matter splattering the mud.
The fourth fired point-blank; the bullet tore through Vernon's coat and grazed his shoulder, carving a bloody furrow. Pain registered as a distant echo. Vernon seized the rifle barrel, wrenching it upward as he drove his fist into the shooter's face—nose exploding in a spray of crimson, teeth shattering, jaw unhinging in a grotesque angle. The man screamed, but Vernon silenced him with a twist of the rifle, snapping his neck like a twig.
The fifth hesitated, knife trembling. Vernon advanced, boot stomping down on the man's foot—bones pulverizing under heel, eliciting a howl. He grabbed the thug's hair, slamming his head into a rusted beam; skull splitting open with a wet crack, blood and gray matter sluicing down the metal.
Panic rippled through the gang. "Swarm the bastard!" the leader roared from above, unleashing a barrage from his cyber-arm's mounted gun. Bullets chewed the ground around Vernon, one clipping his thigh, muscle tearing but not slowing him.
The next ten surged forward— a chaotic mass of bats, knives, and improvised clubs. Vernon waded in, merciless, a one-man apocalypse.
He disarmed the first with a precise strike to the wrist—tendons severing, hand flopping uselessly—then drove the bat back into the owner's face, orbital bone fracturing, eye popping from the socket in a gory eruption.
Another swung a machete; Vernon ducked, rising with an uppercut that shattered the man's sternum, shards piercing lungs—he collapsed, drowning in his own blood.
To be continued....