29 January 2511, 14:37
Cyril lay on a stretcher inside the med-van, his right shoulder wrapped in thick bandages. The painkillers were starting to take effect, making the world feel a little unreal.
“Sir, we’ll reach the clinic in about twenty minutes,” the escorting soldier said over the comms from the lead escort vehicle. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay,” Cyril said weakly. “Just… tired.”
Through the transparent armored canopy of the medical vehicle, winter sunlight filtered through the clouds with a calm, almost beautiful quality. A small convoy of three flyers cruised steadily at three hundred meters: the lead craft armed escort, the middle one the medical van carrying Cyril, and the rear another armed escort—standard procedure for moving a high-value individual.
A medic sat beside Cyril, monitoring vitals. “Heart rate normal, blood pressure stable. You were lucky, sir—if the shot had been a little further in, it would’ve hit an artery.”
Cyril gave a bitter smile. “Luck… I’ve always had good luck.” He closed his eyes and replayed the moment, feeling a chill along his spine. He had been almost dead.
Where were Jack and LEO? They must be worrying about me. That pair had become the greatest hope of Cyril’s life.
Bang!
An explosion. The lead vehicle blew apart. The driver’s head was struck by something; the cockpit sprayed a mist of blood. The flyer went out of control and plummeted in a plume of black smoke.
“Under attack!” Karrion shouted into the comms. “Evasive! Evasive!”
The medic’s driver slammed the controls—
Bang!
A second shot. The driver’s chest burst; he pitched forward onto the console. The medical van began to lose altitude.
Instinct snapped Cyril into motion—he rolled off the stretcher and flattened against the floor of the cargo bay.
Bang!
A third shot struck the spot where he had been lying. The round penetrated the thin transparent armor at the canopy’s top—there it was the weakest—yet the superalloy side panel deformed and stopped the bullet. Shrapnel sprayed, hitting Cyril’s lower leg.
“Ugh!” he groaned. The medics cried out, “Get down! Get down!” and smashed to the floor themselves.
The van spun wildly and dropped fast—Bang!—the hull smashed into the ground and skidded dozens of meters, ripping through a thicket before slamming into a tree and coming to a halt. Cyril’s head swam; his ears rang.
He was alive.
“Sir! Sir!, answer me!” the comm chattered.
“I… I’m alive,” Cyril panted. “The med-van crashed… my leg… I’ve been hit…”
“Hold on! Reinforcements will be there in two minutes!”
Cyril lay on the ground, staring through the splintered glass into the distance, and saw nothing. Three kilometers away, on the roof of an abandoned industrial building, a figure crouched—packing up a weapon.
-------------------------------------
15:20, Federal Military Command Center
LEO stood before a holo-map, pallid-faced. “Cyril von Clausewitz was attacked during transfer. The sniper used a railgun and killed two drivers and one medic. Cyril was shot but survived; his leg is injured.”
“Where was the sniper positioned?”
“South district: the rooftop of the abandoned ‘Morningstar’ industrial building.”
“Dispatch special forces—seal the area now!”
“Yes!”
Ten minutes later: “Sir… the special ops team engaged resistance… heavy casualties…”
LEO frowned. “How heavy?”
“Shadowblade squad, twelve operators—KIA, all of them.”
“What?!”
Twenty minutes later, a second report: “Second special ops team, eleven—also wiped out.”
LEO’s fists clenched. “Wound analysis?”
A tech officer brought up a forensics image. “All fatalities were one-hit kills: shattered skulls, crushed larynges, collapsed chests. The weapon used was blunt-force trauma delivered with force an order of magnitude above normal.”
“And,” the officer enlarged a photo, “we found metal abrasion marks inside a victim’s wound.”
LEO stared. “What metal?”
“Superalloy.”
Silence filled the room. “His hand… is made of superalloy?”
“Looks like it. The right hand.”
LEO inhaled. “Initiate EMP jamming across the area; ground all flyers within a five-kilometer radius. He can’t get away.”
“But our men can’t get in either,” the officer warned. “We’ve lost twenty-three special operators.”
LEO was quiet for several seconds, then picked up a comm. “Patch me through to Jack Harlan.”
---------------------------------------------
15:45, inside a flyer
Jack sat in the back of the hovercar, wolfing down a Stardust Burger. (He’d dropped a serious chunk of change on the black market for this. The patty was authentic alien carnivore meat from the Darwin Nebula. Rumor had it, eating this stuff did wonders for a man’s... stamina. Cough, cough.)
Today’s interrogation had been a killer. He decided to head over to Nya’s place—see if he could mooch a free meal and, while he was at it, maybe spark a little romance.
The comm pinged: LEO calling.
“Queen, patch the line through,” Jack said.
“What is it?”
LEO’s voice was heavy. “Jack, Cyril’s been attacked again.”
Jack nearly spat the burger back out. “Again?!”
“The convoy was sniped during transfer—two drivers and a medic dead, Cyril’s leg hit, but he’s alive.”
Jack exhaled. “That’s… something. Where? I’m on my way.”
“The killer is in the Morningstar industrial complex, south district,” LEO said. “The twenty-three special ops I sent—all of them are dead.”
Jack went still. “What did you say?”
“Twenty-three,” LEO said calmly, but with anger underlying the tone. “All Shadowblade-class veterans.”
Jack felt cold. “What… what weapon?”
“Not a weapon,” LEO said. “A fist.”
Jack’s burger fell from his hand onto his lap with a wet plop. “A fist?”
“A superalloy right hand,” LEO said. “One blow shattered skulls, larynxes, chests. Not one of them survived a second hit.”
Jack’s hand began to tremble. “Who did it?”
“The Butcher,” LEO said. “Aetian extremist—formerly an elite of the Draconian royal guard. He was accused of massacres, disappeared, resurfaced as a royal asset: assassin for hire. In a few short years, he’s eliminated over twenty prime targets. His signature? A superalloy right hand. He treats war like hunting. His railgun marksmanship ranks second among killers.”
Jack felt sweat prick his forehead. “You want me to go? That thing is a nightmare—don’t send me to die.”
“You’re the only one who can take him,” LEO said. “Don’t expect to kill him with a single shot. You need to bait him, stall him while our forces encircle.”
“Fuck!” Jack shouted. “You want me to throw myself away? Twenty-three special ops—what do you think my odds are?”
“Think of the teacher, Nova, and those close to you,” LEO said. “If he escapes, he’ll exact reprisals. Do you want that?”
Jack was silent. “Fuck.” He picked up the last of his burger and chewed it viciously. His voice shook: “I’m on my way.”
“Execute Plan B,” Jack ordered.
The cold voice of Nova from the tablet: “Are you sure you want to go?”
“Yes. I have to.”
“Understood. Thor is powering up at Bay B-7. ETA ten minutes to a standby point 500 meters from Morningstar. Be careful.”
Jack took a long breath. “I will.”
No more replies. He sat in the flyer finishing the burger and staring at the sky. The sunlight was bright; he felt an icy chill in his chest. He braced his trembling hands. I’m going to die again. Fuck.
----------------------------------------------------
16:15, perimeter of the Morningstar industrial building
Jack stood looking at the seven-story derelict structure: shattered windows, flaking walls, the stains of time. Now it was a tomb—the grave of twenty-three special operators.
A garrison grunt approached. “Instructor Harlan, only three of your people are left alive. The rest are gone.”
Jack nodded without speaking, scanning the scene. In the distance, Thor stood at a corner—fifteen meters tall, fifteen tons, black armor reflecting the sunset with a dull gleam. Jack felt a small ease.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Which floor is the killer on?” he asked.
“Unclear,” the MP replied. “Our recon drones were jammed by EMP. Last track shows him between the third and fifth floors.”
“Why isn’t he fleeing?” Jack asked. “Even without flyers, he could run.”
“We don’t know,” the MP said. “Maybe he enjoys it.”
Jack felt his spine chill. “A sicko.”
“You want to go in alone?” the MP suggested. “No—the killer’s brutal. Wait for reinforcements.”
Jack looked at the building and then at Thor. He took a breath. “…I’ll check the first floor. You watch the perimeter. If anything goes wrong, I get out.”
“Understood.”
Jack approached the entrance. Every step felt heavy. He shoved his hand into his pocket and closed his fingers around something taken from Thor’s armory: an ion dagger— a translucent blue blade humming with electric arcs. Heat rating 15,000 K—capable of slicing superalloy if struck at a critical joint. He clenched the blade and stepped into the dark.
---------------------------------------------------
Inside—first floor—Morningstar was pitch black.
Jack leaned against a wall waiting for his eyes to adapt, then crept forward, avoiding rusty machinery, stepping around shards of broken glass, and trying to be silent. He found three corpses strewn on the floor.
He crouched and ran trembling fingers over a throat. The larynx had been smashed to fragments; bone and innards mixed with blood. The wound didn’t look like a gunshot or blade injury—it looked like a hammer blow, but with an impossibly smooth edge. Superalloy. Jack gagged but continued searching.
A scream echoed from upstairs.
“Ahhhh—” Then heavy thuds. Bang. Silence.
Jack’s heart pounded—someone was still alive inside. He gripped the ion dagger and crept up the stairwell. Reason told him to flee. Emotion drove him forward. Maybe responsibility. Maybe he just refused to run.
Second floor: two bodies, shattered skulls. Third floor: four bodies, collapsed chests. The blood was still warm—these were recent.
Jack’s hands trembled more. This is a monster.
On the fourth floor, at the end of a corridor, a shape stood: tall, hulking muscle, the right hand glinting with metallic light. The figure faced away from Jack, bending over a corpse.
Jack approached silently—then stepped on a shard of glass. Crack.
The figure froze and spun.
A calm face—pale, about thirty, a wolf-cold glare like someone surveying prey. “Another one?” he said calmly. “Chunky.”
“Not too old and talks a lot,” the Butcher added, with a fond sneer. He built into his stance and lunged. Jack shunted his bulk and launched forward.
The Butcher rolled aside, then countered with a right-hand blow to Jack’s belly. Jack’s hands flew up and caught the killer’s arm and twisted. The Butcher grunted, planted his right foot, and swept his left leg in a flying kick. Jack twisted and slipped away, his face contorting in pain as flesh was shoved together and muscles bruised. He then kicked at the Butcher.
The Butcher grunted, flew backward, crashed through a wall; the sunset burst in. Jack’s iris HUD blinked: KILLER TIER 1: MAX DANGER.
Jack tucked, rolled, and sprinted up the stairwell. The Butcher rose and gave chase: slow, deliberate, like a cat stalking a mouse.
---------------------------------------------
Corridor, fourth floor
Jack ran as hard as he could. His bulk didn’t slow him much—maybe Martian genes helped: high oxygen content in cells, high lung capacity.
He muttered: I was just passing through. I solved a case; I didn’t plan to die here. Fuck.
“Run… run…!” came his own inner voice. The footsteps grew louder; the Butcher was close. Jack knew there was only one exit. He couldn’t outrun him.
Jack burst into a room and slammed the door, wedging a table against it. His legs shook. Calm down. He’s human, too. Superalloy fist—strong—but he’s still flesh. I trained for this—ten-G conditioning, Jeet Kune Do, yoga— I can—
Bang! The door flew open. The table flew out. The Butcher entered, his right hand hanging, superalloy glinting. “Hiding?” he mocked. “Coward’s choice.”
Jack gripped the ion dagger behind his back. “Don’t come closer. I’m a nameless Federation grunt—there are hundreds of soldiers outside.”
“You lie,” the Butcher said. “Most of the convoy is on the floor. After I finish you, I’ll go enjoy myself.”
“You pussy fatso—this hell ain’t your place.”
He charged like a tank.
Jack instinctively sidestepped; muscle memory from ten-G training helped him dodge the initial strike. The superalloy fist grazed his face and slammed into the wall with a thud; the concrete exploded outward.
Jack’s face split with a welt. “Damn—you wrecked my mug! I earn a living on this face! I’ll make you call me Daddy!” He used the moment to dart out and run.
The Butcher followed, smiling. “Run then. It’s more fun than the chase.”
-----------------------------------------
Stairwell to the fifth floor
Jack climbed to the fifth floor and waited for a counterstrike. Footsteps closed. The Butcher rounded the corner—Jack thrust his dagger horizontally at the throat.
The Butcher reflexively blocked with his right hand. Sparks flew as the ion blade slammed against superalloy—no puncture.
The Butcher grabbed the dagger. His fingers, superalloy, gripped like pliers. Jack's knee struck the Butcher in the abdomen. The Butcher loosened his grip on the dagger. Jack’s kick struck like hitting iron; tremendous pain shot up his leg, but he persisted, driving a follow-up to the chest. The Butcher grabbed Jack’s leg, swung him, flinging him through the air. Jack tumbled, legs flailing; his watch’s HUD flashed a command as he staggered backward.
The Butcher pummeled Jack with heavy strikes. Jack retreated until his back met a wall, and he gasped for breath. The Butcher struck again; Jack’s ion dagger clanged against the superalloy fist, sending blue sparks, and the dagger slipped from his hand.
“Ah!” Jack cried—his right hand felt broken.
The Butcher scooped him up like a chicken. “You had a weapon,” he said, inspecting the ion dagger, “ion tech. Not bad. But you’re weak.” He threw Jack bodily into the wall so hard that Jack nearly blacked out.
The Butcher prepared the killing blow. Jack crawled and grabbed a handful of dust and flung it into the Butcher’s face. The Butcher blinked. Jack sprung with a whip kick—ten-G training augmented by two-hundred-and-twenty pounds—thunk! The Butcher’s knee buckled.
Jack followed with an elbow strike to the temple. The Butcher raised his hands to block; Jack twisted and used a grappling move to lock the Butcher’s arm and press his weight down. The Butcher was pinned beneath Jack’s weight as Jack rained fists, pounding a bloody cascade into his face.
The Butcher laughed through blood. “Not bad,” he croaked. “Stronger than the others.” But then his fury returned; he flipped Jack and slammed him down, then raised his superalloy fist high—“Goodbye, fatty.”
The fist crashed down, but Jack caught the Butcher’s wrist, holding it with all his might. The superalloy hand hovered inches from Jack’s face—ten centimeters, five, three—Jack’s arm trembled. I don’t want to die.
Jack noticed a faint blue glow at the joint where the superalloy fused to flesh—a power source. Summoning the last of his strength, he kicked the Butcher in the groin again—dirty but effective. The Butcher loosened his grip; Jack tumbled, snatched up the ion dagger, and lunged at the connection point of the Butcher’s right arm.
He plunged the blue blade in. Arcs sizzled; sparks flew. The Butcher roared. Jack twisted hard; the power unit sparked and hissed; the superalloy hand slumped, lifeless. Jack staggered back, gasping.
The Butcher looked at his own hand, silent for a few seconds, then laughed. “Interesting. You’re the first to take out my right hand. I’ll remember you.” He snatched the ion dagger from Jack and lunged.
------------------------------------------
Fifth-floor corridor
"Wait, wait! Let's talk!" the fat man hollered while sprinting. "The red-light district in Garipan just got some fresh meat—real lookers. Why don't I take you there?"
“Talk my ass! I’m not into you, fatass. It’d be fun to peel your flesh off.” The Butcher snarled and lunged, slashing at Jack’s back with the dagger. Jack twisted away and slammed into a room with a broken window. This was his last chance. He looked for an exit—none. The Butcher blocked the doorway.
“No more running,” the Butcher said.
Jack squared up. His legs shook. No more running. So he fought. The Butcher charged—Jack ducked a strike and unleashed a short punch to his ribs—snap! A rib cracked. The Butcher grimaced and countered with a blade swing. Jack arched back in a yoga-bow to dodge, then used a leg to strike the Butcher’s chest. The Butcher grabbed Jack’s leg and tried to throw him. Jack hooked and sprang up with an uppercut—the explosive power like a furious boar. The punch connected with the Butcher’s jaw and sent him staggering. He crashed through a door into the corridor.
They grappled along the hallway—pummels, elbows, knees. Jack was trained, but the Butcher was the true professional. Gradually, Jack tired; his motions slowed. The Butcher landed a kick to Jack’s chest, and Jack was launched backward, crashing into a corroded railing that snapped. He lost balance—falling backward.
“Ahhh—” he screamed as he tumbled from the fourth-floor rail toward the first-floor lobby—about sixteen meters down. The Butcher sneered, then leaped after him, ready for the final blow.
— — — — — — — —
First-floor lobby
“Thor!” Jack shouted midair. A giant metal hand shot up and caught him. Thor—fifteen meters tall—had shut down nonessential systems and idled in silent overload like a ghost, tipped on its toes to see him, defying physics with the gentleness of a crane. The metal hand guided Jack into the cockpit. Jack slumped bleeding inside and slammed the cockpit controls, cheeks still bloated with flesh. “Let me die, fuck, go to hell,” he snarled. （After Jack entered the building, Thor exploited the blind spot created by the EMP interference. He shut down all active systems and switched to 'Pure Mechanical' mode. Moving without a sound, he slipped into the lobby and lay in wait in the shadows.）
Late at night, deep within the medical bay. Jack floated naked, suspended in the pale green nutrient fluid of the bio-gene repair pod.
Countless nanobots, too small for the naked eye to see, clustered over his wounds like a shimmering silver mist. They pulsed with a faint blue fluorescence, glowing in a rhythmic, breathing tempo. It was the work of micro-cold lasers, starting from the skin's surface and meticulously "knitting" the torn muscle fibers back together, layer by layer.
Simultaneously, they injected gene-repair proteins directly into the nuclei of the damaged cells, catalyzing tissue regeneration at a speed visible to the eye. No needles, no sutures, no scars—only a tingling, electric itch that washed over him as the flesh made itself whole again.
The five mechanical fingers snapped shut, trapping him like a bug.
"W-What the...?!" the Butcher stammered, struggling.
Watching the trapped Butcher on his screen, the fat man cracked a sly, wicked smile.
Thor... hoisted him up.
The mech’s right arm extended upwards, dangling the Butcher in mid-air.
He was still struggling, stabbing wildly at Thor’s fingers with his ion dagger—
But Thor’s left hand swept in, pinching the blade. With a swift, fluid motion, he wrenched it free, sending the dagger spinning away.
Jack manipulated the controls, and Thor started to shake him.
Left, right, left, right, up, down.
Like shaking a ragdoll.
"You motherfucker! Let me go!" the Butcher roared. "Have the guts to fight me head-on!"
Jack flipped on the external speakers. "Fight you? You’re the number two assassin in the universe, and you want a fair fight with a fat guy?"
The shaking continued.
Harder.
The Butcher’s face started to go pale, his stomach churning with nausea.
"Damn it, I thought you were tough! Come on, show me what you got!" The fat man’s old habit of being a sore winner kicked in—vicious and unforgiving. Even though he’d feigned exhaustion earlier to bait the trap, truth be told, his bones felt like they were about to shatter. He’d risked getting hit multiple times just to turn the tables; it had been a messy, desperate gambit.
"Chased me until I had to jump off a damn building! You happy now?!" The fat man had Thor’s mechanical hand give the Butcher a hard squeeze. The other mechanical hand reached down and grabbed the Butcher by his pants.
Jack poked and prodded with Thor’s fingers. “Name, gender, age, profession, virgin?” he jeered. “Say it or I strip you!” The Butcher wept, humiliated. He hadn’t expected the fat, lecherous instructor to have set this trap—he realized too late that Jack had led him precisely where Thor could catch him. As he remembered crying as a child, suddenly the Butcher—a man who had never feared death and had bathed in victims’ blood—felt overwhelmed by mortifying grievance. He burst into tears, and in a final, deranged act, smashed his own chest with his superalloy right hand—piercing his heart—and muttered, in his last breath, to Jack: “You—greasy—rat!” Blood streamed from his mouth; his eyes lost the murderous light and dulled.
“Greasy?” Jack barked angrily. “You said no mechs! Did you say that?” He stared blankly at the Butcher, not understanding how easily some people could decide to kill themselves—it was like a game to them. These people didn’t care about life, not others’, not their own.
Jack felt bewildered. This had been the most dangerous fight of his life—he’d come close to being killed at any moment by a master killer forged by endless slaughter. He didn’t know how he’d survived. He had fought, run, and taken hits. Every second drained him. In the end, the Butcher declared, “I give up!” and killed himself. Jack had seen it before, but still could not accept it.
He sighed and collapsed inside the cockpit; exhaustion weighed down his whole body. The duel had nearly taken him. He only wanted to sleep.
Before dozing, Jack glanced at the Butcher’s dead face still clutched in Thor’s hand and fell asleep with a trace of confusion. How many more of these men will there be in future wars?
---------------------------------------
Afterword
That night, internal military report:
Target eliminated: The Butcher — universe-ranked #2 special assassin.
Killer: Jack Harlan
Method: tactical mech capture; target committed suicide.
Our losses: 23 special operators, KIA; Jack Harlan moderately injured.
Note: When General Carrick signed the electronic report, he added a handwritten line: “Jack Harlan proves, again: singularity.”
-------------------------------------------
Late at night, deep within the medical bay. Jack floated naked, suspended in the pale green nutrient fluid of the bio-gene repair pod.
Countless nanobots, too small for the naked eye to see, clustered over his wounds like a shimmering silver mist. They pulsed with a faint blue fluorescence, glowing in a rhythmic, breathing tempo. It was the work of micro-cold lasers, starting from the skin's surface and meticulously "knitting" the torn muscle fibers back together, layer by layer.
Simultaneously, they injected gene-repair proteins directly into the nuclei of the damaged cells, catalyzing tissue regeneration at a speed visible to the eye. No needles, no sutures, no scars—only a tingling, electric itch that washed over him as the flesh made itself whole again.
Nova’s voice came from the tablet. “Jack—the nets are talking about you.”
“What are they saying?”
“They say you ‘used a mech on a human—unfair,’ ‘history’s most shameless hero.’”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Let them fight the Butcher and see who’s fair.”
“Some say the Butcher’s death was undignified.”
“Undignified?” Jack snorted. “What about the twenty-three special operators? One punch each—heroic, huh?”
Nova smiled softly. “You’re right.”
“I’m not a hero,” Jack said. “I’m a coward.”
“A shameless coward,” she teased.
“But you survived,” Nova added.
“Right,” Jack breathed, closing his eyes. “I survived again.”
“Then that’s enough.”
The tank lights dimmed. Jack’s breathing steadied. In his dreams, he replayed the killer’s final words: “You—greasy—rat.” Jack smiled in his sleep. Yeah, I’m greasy. But I’m alive. You’re dead. So who won?
End of CH96.
