The hideout was restless. The recent mission had stirred the air, leaving everyone on edge. Myst had barely shaken off her thoughts from training with Nyx when Cipher's alarms blared through the hideout.
Razor stormed in; his face set in grim determination. "We've got incoming."
Cipher was already at his terminal, fingers flying across the keyboard. "Shit," he muttered. "They came in fast. No warning, no sign of a scouting party. It's like they knew exactly where to hit."
Myst's stomach twisted. This wasn't just a raid. It was a targeted strike.
Then the first explosion hit.
The hideout shook violently. Dust rained from the ceiling, the walls shuddering under the force of the blast. They were under attack.
The corridors flooded with motion—guns drawn, blades unsheathed, breath quickened in the face of battle.
Razor and Blaze were already on the front lines, engaging the intruders head-on.
"Stay together!" Razor ordered, slamming an enemy's head into a wall before turning to block an incoming strike.
Blaze, a few feet away, moved like a living weapon. He dodged a knife strike, twisted his opponent's arm, and drove his own blade deep into the soldier's ribs. But the man didn't go down.
Instead, the soldier let out a low, guttural noise and twisted free—his movements unnatural. He countered with a brutal punch to Blaze's face.
Blaze staggered back, blood smeared across his lips. "They don't go down easy," he growled.
Myst barely had time to grab her weapons before the next explosion ripped through. The walls split open.
Enemy forces poured inside; their movements precise like a machine operating with deadly efficiency. Gunfire erupted, filling the air with the sharp crack of bullets.
Myst sprinted into the battle, knife flashing in the dim light. A soldier came at her, quick, but she was faster. She dodged, twisting around him, and drove her blade into his side.
The man staggered but didn't fall.
Instead, he turned his head too smoothly, eyes flickering with something cold.
She barely had time to react before he lunged again.
Myst countered, throwing a sharp kick to his knee. The impact solid, bone-crunching, then followed up with a vicious strike to his jaw.
He stumbled, paused... then straightened like nothing happened.
Her breath hitched. That should have knocked him down.
From the other side of the room, Echo let out a low whistle. "You guys seeing this?"
He ducked under a punch, using his momentum to slam the butt of his pistol into his attacker's temple. Normally, that would knock someone unconscious.
The soldier simply turned his head like it barely registered the hit.
"Okay," Echo muttered. "That's new."
A second attacker grabbed for him, but he twisted out of reach. "I don't like this shit already."
Nyx moved with precise, fluid strikes. He blocked a blow aimed at his ribs, countering with a sharp elbow to the soldier's throat. His enemy staggered, but just like the others, he didn't fall.
Something about the way they moved was wrong.
Nyx's lips pressed into a thin line. No hesitation. No pain. Like puppets on strings.
Then, one of them turned toward Myst. She was busy fighting off another soldier, unaware of the one stalking toward her.
Nyx reacted before thinking. He grabbed a discarded blade from the ground and threw it, fast and precise. The blade buried itself in the soldier's neck. For a second, the attacker jerked like a glitch in a system before collapsing.
Nyx exhaled, but his relief was short-lived. Because the others? They were still standing.
Shade moved like a phantom. A soldier raised his gun at him, but Shade was faster.
A silent step. A flick of his blade. And the gun was gone, and so was the soldier's ability to breathe. One by one, they fell in his wake—but they didn't stay down.
Shade's eyes narrowed. This wasn't normal.
He faded back into the shadows, his mind racing. If bullets and blades weren't enough to keep them down… what the hell were they fighting?
Razor's voice cut through the chaos. "Cipher, what the hell are we dealing with?"
From their comms, Cipher's voice crackled through, laced with tension. "I don't know! They're not normal soldiers!"
Myst's mind flashed back to Kieran's warning. People who don't stay dead.
Her stomach turned cold.
This wasn't just an attack. This was an experiment in motion.
And they just might be running out of time.