Technique vs. Willpower

  The wooden floorboards creaked under Kol’s heavy boots as he climbed the stairs, each step sounding like a war drum. At the end of the dimly lit hallway, Elijah’s silhouette was a black smudge against the pale moonlight filtering through the cracks.

  The Reaper was leaning against the door of the last room, far too relaxed for someone who was surrounded. Between his gloved fingers, he twirled a playing card—Zack’s Ace of Spades.

  "You know..." Elijah’s voice came through the modifier, soft, yet with that metallic distortion that stripped away any trace of humanity. "I never put much stock in Zack’s cards. But he knew how to link the deck to every one of our achievements over these ten years. He used to say that destiny is a game that’s rigged from the start."

  Kol didn’t answer. He simply fixed his eyes on the "smile" of Elijah’s mask.

  Elijah tucked the card away with a fluid motion and, from his tactical pocket, pulled out a small, crumpled chocolate bar. The foil glinted faintly.

  "Andrew was just a kid..." Elijah remarked, looking at the candy as if it were a relic. "Broken inside, like all of us. Those sweets were one of the few things that made him smile when we weren't in the field. And you... you took that from us."

  With a casual, almost friendly motion, Elijah tossed the chocolate bar toward Kol. The object bounced off the Ukrainian’s chest and fell at his feet.

  "You know, scout..." Elijah uncrossed his arms. "Every killer is entitled to his last meal. Eat up. You’re going to need the energy for what I’m about to do to you."

  Kol kicked the chocolate aside, his expression hardened behind the wooden mask.

  "Save it for hell, Reaper," Kol growled, his voice hoarse with the weight of the long-awaited confrontation. "Andrew wasn't the only one who lost his smile today."

  The two stared each other down in the narrow motel hallway. Behind his mask, Elijah felt the adrenaline of the looming fight, but a part of him was deeply irritated by Kol’s disdain in kicking Andrew’s candy aside like trash.

  Kol kept his gaze fixed on the black eyes of the skull mask and challenged: "Take off the metal mask, Elijah. No face armor, no blades. A fair fight."

  Elijah let out a soft, short, and icy laugh. He brought the index finger of his left hand to the front of his mask, calling for silence in a theatrical gesture: "Shh... the mask is just for show. Underneath it, the Reaper is the same!"

  With a calm motion, he lowered his hood and removed the metal mask, clipping it to the lower-left mount of his tactical jacket. Kol removed his gray wooden mask. What remained there was simply the deadliest Reaper against a Ukrainian forged in the ashes of war.

  Both settled into fighting stances. The air seemed to grow thick. Kol lunged forward with an explosion of strength. Elijah, relying on his superhuman reflexes, anticipated with a cross-counter, but Kol was faster than expected: he parried the attack with his left arm and used his right to deliver a powerful punch to the side of the Argentine’s head.

  The impact sent Elijah staggering. For a split second, the Reaper thought: Did he increase his agility in such a short amount of time?

  The two grappled, gripping each other's arms in a stalemate of pure strength. Kol growled, pushing Elijah slightly to create space and delivering a violent knee to the chest, followed by a front kick that sent the Reaper reeling back. They backed off, catching their breath, as the silence of the hallway was broken only by the sound of flickering lights.

  Steel Karma

  Elijah shifted his stance. "Sports" mode gave way to the biological assassin. He fused Krav Maga and Karate into a frenetic, hybrid style. His strikes were blurs; the blades on his gloves tore through the air and Kol’s skin, leaving bloody gashes on the Heretic’s cheeks and forehead. Kol, however, was a retaining wall. He absorbed the pain, guarding his torso and focusing his counterattacks on Elijah’s legs, attempting to undermine the prodigy’s foundation.

  Inside the room, the combat turned into a duel of endurance. They traded straight punches to the face. Kol absorbed two impacts that would have shattered an ordinary man's skull; Elijah took three, the last one forcing him back with his guard wide open.

  Kol didn't wait. He drew a gray-handled knife and delivered a straight thrust, aiming for the heart. Elijah, in a purely instinctive reflex of sacrifice, raised his open right hand. The sound of flesh being pierced was muffled by the snap of the blade driving through his palm.

  Elijah stared at Kol with an icy gaze, the knife impaled through his own hand serving as a lock. Kol’s eyes widened. The Reaper, ignoring the excruciating pain, activated his left bident, but Kol acted fast, grabbing the mechanism with his right hand before the spikes could impale him.

  This time, it was Elijah whose eyes widened at the Ukrainian’s brute strength. "You’re a joke, Elijah," Kol growled, his voice dripping with contempt. "What?" Elijah gasped, blood slicking the blade in his hand.

  "Those experiments..." Kol yanked the knife from Elijah’s hand with a violent diagonal motion. The steel tore through the glove, the flesh of the palm, and took bits of fingers with it in a trail of blood. Without giving the shock time to fade, Kol buried the blade into the Argentine’s gut, piercing both the vest and his entrails.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Elijah let out a short grunt. "...Only made your path easier!" Kol finished the sentence while, with his left hand, he drew the Five-Seven from Elijah’s own holster.

  With a powerful kick to the chest, Kol sent the Reaper staggering toward the already shattered glass window. Elijah reeled, and Kol didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger six times.

  BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

  The high-penetration rounds shredded the Reaper’s chest. The final impact sent Elijah plummeting outward. He fell, hitting the roof of the old car with a hollow metallic thud—the same spot where Henry had fallen minutes earlier.

  Down below, Elijah looked at the black sky for the last time. His black hair was a mess, and blood bubbled at his lips as his heart stopped and his eyes closed. The world’s deadliest Reaper was dead.

  Upstairs, Kol blew on the pistol's barrel, the gunpowder smoke mingling with the Oregon mist. He looked down at the street and saw the final battle: Henry and Kane fighting desperately against Silas.

  The "God" of Assassins

  The synchronization between Henry and Kane was impressive, forcing Silas to retreat. Henry, with his bidents, managed to break through Silas’s defense, cutting through tactical fabric and striking the Reaper leader’s arms. But Silas was a wall. With a left hook, he landed a direct hit on Henry’s wooden mask; the impact was so sharp that the blue piece split in half, revealing Henry’s face, now exposed and drenched in sweat.

  To regain control, Silas drew his Red9. The sound of rounds hitting the asphalt near the Heretics' feet made them fall back. It was at that moment that Silas looked to the side. His eyes narrowed as he saw Elijah’s body sprawled over the car. The silence that followed was ice-cold.

  "It’s over..." Silas murmured, and the tone of his voice wasn't one of surrender, but of a fury that had just lost its leash.

  Before Henry could process it, Silas fired. The Red9 bullet pierced Henry’s right leg, slamming him to the ground with a scream of agony. Henry was incapacitated, pinned to the asphalt as he watched the enemy holster his weapon and walk toward Kane.

  What followed was a one-sided massacre. Kane, unarmed and terrified, attempted a desperate punch, but Silas moved his head with insulting ease. The counterattack came like an avalanche: a punch to the stomach, a headbutt that cracked Kane’s skull, then a knee strike. Silas entered a trance of raw violence, unloading punches into Kane’s face—first shattering his green mask, then battering his face until the English scout’s features vanished into a crimson blur of flesh and cartilage.

  Kane staggered, his body refusing to fall out of pure nervous reflex. He could barely see, but he turned his face toward Henry. "Goodbye... brother..." he whispered, the voice escaping through shattered teeth.

  "NO! KANE!" Henry roared, trying to crawl, but it was too late.

  Silas pulled the Red9 from his trench coat and aimed it directly at his opponent's head.

  "No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" Henry screamed.

  THWACK!

  The final shot was a sharp, definitive crack. Kane’s body was thrown backward, hitting the ground lifeless.

  Silas spat on Kane’s corpse, a gesture of absolute contempt. He turned to Henry, who, trembling with pain and hatred, managed to stand up. Henry was alone, wounded, and surrounded by the scent of death from his last great field partner.

  The Twilight

  Silas walked slowly toward Henry, the sound of his boots on the asphalt ringing out like a sentence.

  "War has its ups and downs, Henry. I lost mine, you lost yours," Silas said, placing his hand on his chest, over his tactical vest. "I don’t even know if it hurts anymore. I’m more angry than sad about what you’ve done. As soon as I kill you, I will burn your corpse and crucify you on a cross larger than all the others at the edge of the forest... a reminder that the Heretics are nothing! And after that, I will have my family back."

  Henry tried to respond, but the air failed in his lungs. However, the dry crack of successive shots echoed.

  BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

  The Five-Seven rounds struck Silas in the back, piercing his vest. He staggered, the impact forcing him to plant his left hand on the asphalt to keep from collapsing. He spat out a mouthful of dark blood, shock gleaming in his eyes.

  "But... who...?" he growled.

  Kol emerged from the shadows, his face hardened by battle. Without a word, he stood beside Henry and handed Elijah’s pistol to his friend. Silas stared at the two of them, letting out a nervous laugh thick with scorn from behind his bandages.

  "You rats... you took Elijah’s gun. One of the few things in this world that can kill us... vermin, playing dirty..."

  With a final effort of will, Silas stood up. He reached for his face and began to remove the white bandages that had accompanied him for years. Beneath them, the burn scars told the story of the experiments, but they couldn't erase the beauty. He was wheezing, life draining through the holes in his back.

  "It seems... luck... didn't smile on us today... did it? Zack..." he murmured to the wind, accepting the fate the cards had held in store.

  Henry didn't hesitate. With a steady arm and his gaze fixed on the man who had decimated his brothers, he pulled the trigger repeatedly. The Five-Seven’s magazine was emptied into Silas’s chest, every bullet a nail in the coffin of the Reaper leader.

  Silas fell onto his back. He looked up at the full moon, his vision beginning to dim.

  "Zack... Diego... Ian... Andrew... Lil... Elijah... I failed you, my brothers... I’m sorry..." His last words were a whisper, an impossible wish for return: "Freya..."

  In that final millisecond, Silas didn't see blood or war; he saw a glimpse of twenty years ago, hugging his sister before the world ended. He closed his eyes. The world's greatest assassin was dead.

  The Bloody Aftermath

  In the streets of Chemult, the sound of gunfire finally ceased, giving way to a heavy, sickening silence. Henry and Kol shared a brief look; there was no celebration, only the recognition of trauma. Kol, the man hardened by wars, wept silently, his eyes fixed on Kane’s disfigured corpse. Henry, with mechanical movements, holstered the Five-Seven.

  At that moment, a light breeze blew over Silas’s body. From one of his tactical pockets, the Joker card that had belonged to Zack slipped out, twirling and flying toward the black skies. In that war, the "Joker"—the Reaper’s absolute military power—proved useless against the fury of those with nothing left to lose.

  The Price of Cruelty

  Meanwhile, in the garage, the fight reached its technical peak. Mickey tried to make Fabrizio suffer, using his spinning chain with chaotic aggression, but the Reaper’s technique prevailed. With surgical coldness, Fabrizio sheathed one of his scythes and, in a perfect counter-move, grabbed the chain, pulling Mickey close with explosive force.

  The scythe’s blade pierced Mickey’s shoulder, driving through flesh and cartilage. Fabrizio forced him to his knees and, in a gesture of dominance, slammed his left boot onto Mickey’s head, pinning him to the concrete while wielding both scythes again for the final blow.

  A few meters away, in the brown house, Aiden and Leo were at a technical stalemate, wounded and exhausted, merely staring each other down like two animals waiting for the other to slip up.

  The radio of every Reaper hissed simultaneously. Jester’s voice cut through the frequency, heavy with the modifier:

  "Turner... Aiden... Fall back now! Silas and Elijah have fallen! Retreat immediately!"

  Time stood still. Fabrizio and Aiden were stunned. Fabrizio raised his scythe, ready to kill Mickey out of pure hatred, but the sound of heavy footsteps approaching—Henry and Kol—made him change his mind. He couldn't face the three of them alone.

  Fabrizio let go of Mickey and bolted through the garage's back doors. Aiden did the same, abandoning Leo in the brown house. The two survivors rushed to the entrance of Chemult, mounting their motorcycles and speeding off into the darkness of the road.

  The Post-War

  Henry and Kol entered the garage and helped Mickey to his feet. The Enforcer held his shoulder, cursing under his breath: "The bastard... Fabrizio got away," Mickey growled.

  Leo appeared shortly after, confirming that Aiden had also retreated.

  They walked through the scene of devastation, where the area was cluttered with bodies and debris. The final image was Henry observing what remained of his allies: Vane, Beck, Piro, Elena, Kane, and Solomon. Upon seeing Elena's decapitated corpse, young Leo couldn't stomach it and vomited onto the asphalt.

  Henry stopped and gave the order in a hoarse voice: "Kol... take the Reapers' metal masks as trophies. Take the bracelets too; they might be useful."

  "And the bodies, Henry?" Kol asked, looking at the carnage.

  "The Heretics will be burned together. So their souls may ascend to the heavens with the fire. As for the bodies of Andrew, Lil, Ian, and Elijah... let them rot on the ground, devoured by rats. But Silas? No. Freya deserves to see her brother one last time... or what’s left of him."

  The Enforcers' home, once an empire of extortion, was now a sanctuary for the dead. They won the war, but the price was the group’s very soul.

  End of Chapter