Ravenna blinked against the fog as her boots crunched over broken glass. The sirens had stopped hours ago. The silence wasn't peace—it was tension. That thin line between the inhale and the scream.
They were deep in the Industrial Graves now—abandoned shipping yards on the city's eastern fringe, once used for chemical waste, now Syndicate turf. Jace walked ahead of her, coat flapping behind like a hunter's cloak. His silhouette moved like memory—familiar, dangerous, and marked by things she didn't want to remember.
"Tell me again why we're trusting a wounded rat and a glowing girl with half a mind?" she asked, flicking ash off her cigarette without lighting it.
Jace didn't turn around. "Because rats know the tunnels. And girls like her... they're the reason we're still alive."
A beat passed.
"And maybe because we've got nothing left to lose."
She hated how true that was.
They reached the derelict warehouse—rusted walls, high broken windows, chains swaying from cracked beams. Jace signaled a halt. He crouched low, scanning the area. Ravenna leaned on a rusting steel pole, guns holstered, hands on hips, watching him work.
"You still sweep like a soldier," she muttered.
He glanced at her, amused. "And you still stalk like a cat in heat."
She stepped closer, close enough that her breath touched his ear. "Watch it. I bite."
His grin widened. "That's why I came back."
"Thought it was the girl."
"I lied."
Their moment shattered as Kellin's voice buzzed through the comm bead.
"Inside. Clear. But... you'll want to see this."
Inside, the girl sat cross-legged in a circle of shattered circuit boards. Wires spiraled around her, drawn to her body like iron to a magnet. Her eyes were closed, and she was humming—not a tune, but data, code, some ancient rhythm buried deep in the servers of Golgotha.
Ravenna stared. "What the actual fuck..."
Kellin looked worse—pale, sweating, both arms bandaged. "She did this on her own. Soon as we crossed the Graves, she just... activated."
The girl opened her eyes. Amber light pulsed behind her pupils. She smiled faintly. "He's close."
"Who?" Jace asked.
The girl didn't blink. "The Architect."
Silence fell like a curtain.
Jace turned to Ravenna. "She's seen him."
"No," the girl corrected. "I remember him. And he remembers you."
A chill spread through Ravenna's chest. Not from fear. From recognition. The Architect was the man who built the war. The ghost that fed the Syndicate from the shadows.
She stepped forward. "If he's coming, we move now."
The girl stood. The wires fell from her skin like broken chains. "He's already here."
A crackle of static buzzed through the building.
Then—darkness.
Lights out. Power cut. Total blackout.
A deep voice echoed from every speaker, every broken comm system, vibrating through their bones.
"You brought her to me, Ravenna. Just like I knew you would."
Jace spun, gun drawn.
Ravenna didn't move. Her jaw tightened.
"That voice," she whispered. "I've heard it in my nightmares."
The Architect spoke again.
"You can't run. You can't fight what you helped create."
Then—
Screams from outside.
Metal crashing.
Boots pounding.
The building shook.
Ravenna raised her blades, eyes wild. "To hell with running."
Jace stood at her side, weapon ready.
And the girl—glowing now, arms raised—opened her mouth and screamed.
Not in fear.
In command.
From every broken screen, every dying circuit board, sparks flew. A surge of energy exploded outward, lighting up the entire graveyard district in electric blue.
The Syndicate men outside staggered—some dropped, bleeding from the nose.
Kellin whispered, "She's not human. She's... a fucking EMP weapon."
Jace didn't look away from Ravenna. "Still want to leave her behind?"
She answered by kicking open the warehouse doors.
Smoke rolled in.
And behind it—figures emerged.
Not men.
Not quite.
The Architect's new toys.
Synthetic assassins.
Phase-Two Ghostskins.
Ravenna didn't wait for backup, not that any was coming. She pushed through the half-collapsed corridor, boots crunching over debris and blood-slicked steel. Every breath she took tasted like copper and smoke.
Behind her, Jace was close—too close. She could hear the low hum of his weapon's charge unit, the steady rhythm of his breath. He was watching her, always watching. It was like being stalked by something that didn't want to kill you... just devour you slowly.
"You okay?" he asked.
She didn't answer.
Instead, she kicked down a side door. A Ghostskin was mid-reload inside—bad luck for him.
She moved like a scream through shadows, slammed him against the wall, blade to neck.
"Who sent you?"
He spat blood. "We're all dead anyway."
"Yeah? Let me help speed that up."
Her blade slipped in clean. The Ghostskin gurgled and dropped.
Jace stepped over the body. "You ever think therapy might be cheaper?"
"Not as satisfying," she replied, wiping blood from her cheek.
They entered a dark chamber lit by flickering red emergency lights. At the center was a chair—not just a chair, but a rig. Cables. Neural plugs. Old-world tech wrapped around a body like a steel cocoon.
And inside it... her.
The girl.
The one from earlier.
Still unconscious, but strapped in with Syndicate-grade bindings now, her eyes fluttering like something inside her wanted out.
"What the hell did they plug her into?" Jace murmured.
Ravenna stepped forward, brushing a hand along the rig's rusted edge.
"I've seen this before," she said. "Back in Sector Twelve. Before it burned. They used to call it a 'Chorus Chair.'"
He frowned. "Thought those were banned."
"They are. Too much collateral damage."
"What do you mean?"
"She doesn't just carry the neural key, Jace. She is the key. This machine... it's not waking her up. It's programming her."
As if on cue, the girl's back arched.
Lights flared. Sparks danced from the chair's coils.
Then—her mouth opened, and a voice not hers slipped out.
Low. Digital. Multi-layered.
"Golgotha lives."
Jace stepped back, raising his weapon. "Tell me you heard that."
Ravenna's eyes were wide. Not with fear—but wonder.
"Ghostskins and goddesses," she whispered. "They built her... to wake the dead."
Suddenly, the floor trembled. Something huge moved in the lower levels of the city. Not footsteps—grinding gears. As if a vault had unlocked.
Jace cursed under his breath. "If Golgotha's waking, that means—"
"Everyone in the Syndicate will come for her," Ravenna finished.
The girl's eyes opened again—glowing that unnatural amber. Her gaze locked on Ravenna, and she smiled.
Not like a victim.
Like a queen.
"Mother," she said, voice human this time. "You came."
Ravenna froze.
Jace blinked. "The fuck?"
Ravenna didn't speak. Couldn't.
That one word—Mother—hit her like a bullet straight through the soul.
The girl's voice was warm now. Innocent. But her smile… it wasn't. It was curved like a blade.
Jace stepped in closer, gun half-lowered. "Rav… she just call you—?"
"Yes," Ravenna whispered, too quietly.
The lights flickered again. Somewhere deep below, a turbine screamed to life. The building itself seemed to exhale, like an ancient creature just stirred from centuries of sleep.
"I don't understand," Jace said. "She's just a—"
"She's not just anything." Ravenna turned, her eyes sharper now. "Her name is Seraphine. Codename: Halcyon Core. I buried her in a Syndicate lab six years ago after a failed neural weapon test."
Jace's face twisted. "You buried her?"
"Her body. Not… whatever the hell this is."
The girl—Seraphine—blinked slowly, like she was rebooting. "Your hands were shaking," she said. "I remember. You cried."
Ravenna's jaw clenched. "Don't."
"She kissed my forehead before the fire," Seraphine said. "My mother kissed me."
The last word turned into a hum. The air thickened. Pressure built in the room like a storm about to split open.
Ravenna pulled her knives.
Seraphine stood—uncuffed, unshackled, and radiant with something not quite human. Her body shimmered like reality couldn't fully contain her. Ghostskin tech ran like veins across her spine, glowing violet now.
"I've been dreaming in the dark," she said. "But you left the door open."
Suddenly the wall to the left exploded inward.
Not with Syndicate troops.
But with her.
The Red Witch.
One of the Syndicate's Seven Executions. All blood hair and porcelain skin, eyes like poison rubies, body clad in silk and steel.
"You found her," she purred, stepping over the rubble. "Good. Now hand her over, Ravenna, and maybe I won't peel Jace's spine out of his cocky little back."
Jace raised an eyebrow. "Romantic."
Ravenna didn't move. "You're too late."
"Darling…" The Red Witch smiled, showing teeth too white to be human. "You're still playing the hero in a city that doesn't have room for them."
Then Seraphine raised her hand.
The room bent.
The Red Witch blinked. "What—"
Seraphine's voice dropped like thunder: "I remember you."
And with a flash of light and gravity-warping pressure, the Red Witch was thrown backward—smashed against the far wall, blood bursting from her mouth.
Jace stared.
Ravenna didn't blink.
Seraphine stepped between them, barefoot on the broken floor, radiating heat and chaos.
"She's not just a weapon," Jace said. "She's a fucking god."
"No," Ravenna whispered.
"She's my mistake."
The Red Witch didn't get back up.
She twitched, arm broken at an unnatural angle, blood seeping from one ear.
Seraphine tilted her head, her voice childlike again. "She was loud. I don't like loud things."
"Shit…" Jace muttered, stepping slowly toward Ravenna. "We need to leave. Now."
"No," Ravenna said. "We need to know what they did to her."
Seraphine smiled wider. "You always ask the wrong questions, Mother."
Then her body went still—too still. A soft tremor passed through the floor beneath them, followed by a deep, pulsing hum. The lights turned blue. The entire lab lit up like circuitry awakening from a long coma.
"She triggered something," Jace said, eyes darting around. "Protocol… Omega, maybe? Some doomsday kill-switch?"
"I told you," Ravenna replied. "They don't build weapons. They build traps wearing human faces."
Seraphine turned toward the far door. "He's coming."
"Who?"
But Seraphine didn't answer.
Instead, the steel vault door behind them screamed open—not swung, but peeled back like flesh, curling in on itself. And from the tunnel's mouth came a figure.
A man. Or the remains of one.
Wrapped in living tech. His flesh pale, eyes black sockets filled with code. Cables writhed where veins should be. His voice came out like static and prayer.
"Mother. Father. You came back."
Jace took a step back. "No fucking way—"
Ravenna whispered it: "Ghostskin Unit 001…"
Her first mission.
Her first kill.
The one that survived.
Jace raised his gun. "How many of these things did they build!?"
"Only one like him," Ravenna said. "Because he killed the others."
001 stepped forward, skin cracking with glowing lines. "The city burns, and you bring the match."
Seraphine didn't move. "You don't get to have them."
"They're ours," 001 hissed. "They made us. Broke us. Buried us. Now we bury them."
Jace leaned in toward Ravenna. "Tell me you have a plan."
She pulled a small orb from her coat pocket. "EMP grenade. Won't kill him. Might slow him down."
"You always did know how to turn me on," he muttered.
She threw it.
The blast knocked the room into chaos. Blue lightning arced over the walls. Screams erupted in Seraphine's head—mechanical and organic, blended like nightmares. The floor shook. Consoles burst into flame.
But 001 stood tall, smoldering, the skin of his chest peeled open to reveal a glowing red sphere. A core.
"Your pain taught me," he said, stepping closer. "I was the prototype. She was the angel."
"And what does that make me?" Ravenna shouted.
001's voice turned to venom: "The betrayer."
Suddenly—
Jace tackled Ravenna.
A blade meant for her sliced through the air where she'd been standing.
Seraphine shrieked. "Stop hurting them!"
001 lunged for her, but Ravenna was already moving—rolling, pulling her twin blades, carving upward into the cyborg's lower torso.
Sparks flew. Fluid spilled. He roared, mechanical and inhuman, and backhanded her through a glass tank.
Jace grabbed Seraphine's arm. "We're leaving!"
"No," she said, her voice suddenly calm.
And the world changed.
She glowed—fully. Every cell alive with energy. Her hair rose like wind danced through it. Eyes bright white. The ground cracked beneath her bare feet.
001 froze.
"Don't make me erase you," she whispered.
Ravenna, stunned on the floor, blinked. "Seraphine—don't—"
But it was too late.
There was no scream. No flash.
Just absence.
One moment 001 was there. The next, he wasn't. Not killed. Unwritten.
Seraphine collapsed, and Jace caught her.
Ravenna limped to her feet, blood trailing down her cheek.
"She's more than we thought," he said.
"She's everything they feared," Ravenna replied.
Outside, the lab's perimeter alarms began to wail.
Above them, gunships roared.
The Syndicate wasn't done.
Jace looked at Ravenna. "Run?"
She pulled him close by the collar, pressed her lips hard against his in a kiss soaked with adrenaline and grief.
"Fight," she said.
They ran for the breach.
Behind them, the city trembled.
Deadman's City had just awakened its oldest ghost.
Ravenna's boots slammed against the grated floor as they charged through the collapsed passage, Jace cradling Seraphine in one arm, his pistol in the other. Red alarms blinked overhead like a heartbeat counting down to zero. The air stank of ozone and burnt circuits.
"She's slipping," Jace said, glancing down at Seraphine. Her nose bled, and her glow faded.
"She overexerted," Ravenna muttered. "She's part organic, part something else. She erased a prototype like it was a memory. That drains more than energy—it drains identity."
"Jesus," Jace hissed. "They built a god, and stuffed her in a girl's body."
Ravenna growled, "No. They caged a god. We're just the unlucky bastards who opened the door."
They reached the lift shaft—shattered cables swayed over the dark vertical tunnel. Ravenna looked up, then down. "We climb."
Jace winced. "Seriously? With a passed-out goddess-child in my arm?"
She smirked. "I'll carry her."
He stared at her leather-coated frame, then passed Seraphine over reluctantly. "Try not to drop the apocalypse."
Ravenna started the climb first, Seraphine tied against her with cord from Jace's belt. Each pull up the cold steel reeked of desperation. Below, they could hear it—metal feet echoing through the lower levels. Syndicate Cleaners. Fast. Silent. Ruthless.
"Got movement behind us!" Jace shouted.
Ravenna grunted, "Climb faster!"
They made it to Level 13 before the first drone reached the shaft—its head glowing red, mouth open in a scream that was all digital.
Jace swung his rifle around, hanging by one hand.
"Don't you fucking move!" he yelled at the bot.
It ignored him.
He shot once—square in the eye.
The drone spiraled down the shaft, trailing sparks like a dying firework.
By Level 17, Ravenna's arms trembled. Blood dripped from her lip where she'd bitten through it. But she never loosened her grip.
"I see the hatch!" Jace yelled.
They climbed faster.
Bursting through the metal grate onto the top floor, they collapsed onto cold stone. No time to breathe.
The rooftop.
Deadman's City stretched out before them—rain falling in slow, acidic sheets. Neon smeared like oil across the skyline.
And waiting on the rooftop, like a scene from some tragic opera, stood a man in a white coat.
Not Syndicate.
Worse.
"Dr. Caelum..." Ravenna whispered.
The architect.
The mind behind the Ghostskin Program.
He clapped slowly, the sound echoing against the storm.
"You always were my finest creation, Ravenna."
Jace raised his rifle. "I'll paint this roof with your guts, you smug bastard."
Caelum didn't flinch. "Still reactive, Mr. Cross. I liked you better when you wore the mask."
"I liked you better when you stayed buried."
Caelum's smile vanished.
"I gave you purpose," he said. "I gave her life."
"You took everything," Ravenna snapped. "And now you're going to give it back."
"I can't," Caelum said simply. "Because I never took. You gave it up, Ravenna. You surrendered your identity the moment you chose the knife."
He reached into his coat.
Jace aimed. "Move and you're done."
But Caelum didn't pull a weapon.
He pulled a data crystal.
"This holds her memories. The real ones. The things they made her forget."
He tossed it on the ground between them.
"You want answers?" he said. "Take it. But know this—once you open that door, you don't get to walk back out."
Ravenna stared at the crystal.
Behind her, Seraphine stirred. "Mother...?"
Her voice was small. Lost.
Ravenna closed her eyes.
Then picked up the crystal.
The rooftop pulsed with tension. Lightning forked behind the clouds, throwing jagged shadows over Caelum's face. His eyes—cold, clinical—never left Ravenna's as she slotted the crystal into her wrist-comm.
The moment it connected, her body went rigid.
A flash—images strobing through her mind:
Strapped to a surgical table. Screaming.
Jace's face, but younger, masked, turning away as she begged.
Caelum's voice: "Emotion is a virus. We're curing you, Ravenna."
The knife in her hand—her first kill, a Syndicate traitor—but it was a test. She passed.
Then fire. A woman's voice: "You don't have to become this. You can still choose."
Her knees hit the rooftop.
Jace moved to her instantly. "Rave—talk to me."
She grabbed his collar, eyes burning with old pain.
"You lied," she whispered. "You knew who I was."
He swallowed. "They made me. If I told you then, they'd have killed you."
"You let me think I was born a monster."
"You're not," he said. "You were forged. That's different."
Her lip trembled, but she crushed the emotion.
She stood.
Caelum watched, curious. "So... will you become the savior now, Ravenna? The goddess they feared?"
"No," she said, stepping forward.
"I'm the devil they created."
She moved like lightning.
Jace joined her.
Together, they tore through the guards that had slithered up behind Caelum—ghostskin operatives in white bone-armor. Ravenna's knives flashed; Jace's bullets sang. Blood sprayed the roof tiles like petals in a funeral bloom.
Caelum retreated, shouting into a comms device. "Ghostskin Prime is compromised. Activate Protocol Zeta!"
From below, something rose.
A sky-lift hissed open—and from it stepped a towering figure in obsidian armor, pulsing with red light. A hybrid. Not man, not machine. Female. Tall. Elegant.
The original.
"Goddess," Caelum whispered.
Ravenna stared.
It looked like her—or what she could have become. Cold. Perfect. Unfeeling.
"I am Athenyx," the figure said. "Rogue unit Ravenna Noir, you are terminated."
"Try," Ravenna growled, knives ready.
Athenyx charged.
They clashed like twin stars—metal on bone, strength versus fury. Ravenna moved faster, but Athenyx hit harder. One blow sent her flying into a steel vent. Jace shot at the hybrid, but her armor shrugged it off.
Seraphine stirred again—eyes glowing.
"Stop," she whispered. "She's a lie."
Athenyx paused.
That second was all Ravenna needed.
She surged in, blade plunging into the exposed neck joint. Athenyx screamed—a sonic blast that cracked nearby windows—but Ravenna didn't stop. She climbed the hybrid's body, stabbed again, again—
And whispered, "You're not me."
She tore the power core out.
Athenyx dropped, spasming. Dead.
Ravenna rolled off, panting, blood-slick and bruised.
Jace helped her up, hand trembling.
Caelum was backing away toward a sleek black evac pod.
"I can still fix this!" he yelled. "I can reboot her! I can build another—"
Ravenna shot him.
Twice.
One in the chest. One in the leg.
He fell, coughing. "You... were supposed to..."
"Be yours?" she said. "You lost me the moment you made me forget who I was."
Seraphine stumbled to them, glowing brighter now, tears in her strange, golden eyes.
"Can we go?" she asked. "Is it over?"
Jace looked around. Dead bodies. Broken machines. The storm finally ending.
"No," he said softly. "But we're not running anymore."
He kissed Ravenna. Hard. Desperate. Not as apology—but as truth.
She let him.
And then pulled away. "We rebuild. But on our terms."
Below, the city stirred.
Sirens. Light. Fear.
But also—hope.
From the top of that blood-soaked rooftop, the Devil and the Spy looked down on a broken world.
And began to plot its salvation.
The air stank of blood, ozone, and hot iron. The back room of the Crimson Chapel bar was drenched in flickering red light, its walls pulsing like veins. Ravenna wiped the sweat off her brow with the edge of her glove, her gaze locked on the massive digital board flickering in the corner—bounty lists, dead drops, safehouses, betrayal markers. All Syndicate-coded.
Jace sat opposite her, shirtless now, his ribs bruised, his lip split. But those damned eyes? Still burning. Still watching her like she was the only thing in the world not rotting.
"You ever gonna stop bleeding?" Ravenna muttered.
He smirked. "Not if it gets your hands on me again."
She didn't laugh, but she leaned closer—too close. Her blade traced the rim of his jaw gently, not enough to cut, just enough to remind him who she was.
"You're lucky I still need you."
"Always have."
A pause.
She stood abruptly. "Gear up. We hit their convoy in forty."
Jace exhaled and grabbed his coat. "You sure it's a ghostskin transport?"
"Positive," she said. "And if they're moving ghostskins this close to city core, it means one thing—someone high up is bleeding scared."
"Or planning something they shouldn't."
"Same thing in Deadman's City."
They were halfway out the door when Kellin stumbled in, eyes wide, breath ragged.
"Change of plans," he said. "They moved the convoy early. And guess who's riding escort?"
Jace's eyes narrowed. "No."
Ravenna tilted her head. "Spit it, Kellin."
"The Valkyrie. In full armor. And she's not alone. The Reaper's there too."
A beat of silence. Then:
Ravenna's lips parted into a slow, dark smile. "Then we're not ambushing a convoy."
"We're starting a war," Jace finished.
She nodded.
And she liked it.
________
Deadman's City never slept—but tonight, it trembled.
Rain spit down like acid from the smog-choked sky. Neon lit the puddles with colors too garish to be holy. Sirens howled somewhere in the distance, but they didn't come close. They never did. Not in this sector. Not when the Syndicate had business.
And business was bloody tonight.
Ravenna crouched on the rooftop above the overpass, her hair slicked to her skull, her eyes trained through the scope of a stolen railgun. Beside her, Jace ran final checks on the EMP mines strapped to his chest.
Below them, the convoy moved like a beast of burden—three armored haulers, six escorts on pulse-bikes, and one infernal tank, matte black and thrumming with forbidden tech. Inside the lead truck?
Ghostskins.
Biotech death-suits made from stolen flesh, neural-linked to their Syndicate pilots. Wearing one turned a man into a predator. A hundred kilos of living armor, impossible to track, harder to kill. But those suits? They weren't just military toys.
They were sacred. To the wrong people.
"Visuals on the Valkyrie?" Ravenna whispered.
"Rear escort," Jace muttered, lens flicking across his retina. "She's mounted. Red jetbike. Tail fin etched with angel wings."
"Cute," Ravenna said coldly. "Still want her dead."
"She'll want you first," Jace said, then smirked. "You two have history?"
Ravenna didn't answer.
Because yes. They did.
Three years ago.
The arena beneath the Syndicate tower wasn't made for spectators. It was a proving ground. For monsters.
Ravenna stood half-naked in the center of the sand pit, blood pouring from her nose, her shoulder dislocated, her left eye swollen. Across from her, the Valkyrie—real name: LioraKass—gleamed in full chrome, every inch sculpted, deadly, perfect.
"You should've stayed in the outer zones," Liora said, her voice modulated, cruel. "You don't belong here, Red Sin."
Ravenna spat blood. "Neither do your parents. But I buried them anyway."
That got a reaction.
The Valkyrie lunged.
What followed wasn't a fight. It was poetry in carnage.
Now.
"Plan's the same?" Jace asked, crouched low beside her.
Ravenna nodded. "Hit the tank first. EMP second. Once the signal goes dark, we carve."
"You think she's alone?"
"No," Ravenna said. "But I don't care."
Jace looked at her. Really looked.
The black eyeliner smeared under her eyes. The tight armor soaked with rain. The blade at her hip gleaming like a fang. She wasn't afraid.
She was made for this.
And God help him—so was he.
"Three… two… one."
She pulled the trigger.
The railgun blast tore through the first bike like tissue paper. Fire erupted. Screams followed.
Chaos bloomed.
Jace leapt off the roof with a cry, landing hard on the back of an escort bike. He drove his knife into the rider's spine, stole the vehicle, and peeled off toward the hauler.
Below, Ravenna dropped, boots smashing onto the roof of the lead truck. She moved like a demon—flashing between gunfire and metal, twisting her body into shadows, her blade carving Syndicate throats like scripture.
"EMP planted!" Jace called through the comms.
"Detonate!" she barked.
Flash.
Darkness.
The tank's engine sputtered, then died. So did the ghostskins' sync.
Ravenna dropped into the driver's cabin, slit the pilot's throat, and took the wheel.
The Valkyrie landed behind her like a falling star.
And the two stared at each other.
No words.
No mercy.
Just rage.
The Valkyrie's boot cracked the windshield. Ravenna raised her blade just in time, steel singing against armored heel. Sparks flew. The hauler swerved, tires screeching, bodies tumbling inside like meat puppets.
"You always did like the dramatic entrances," Ravenna grunted, pushing back hard.
Liora didn't reply. She spun mid-air, landed with a gymnast's grace in the cockpit, and slammed Ravenna against the console. The windshield burst open, slicing air into the cabin.
Ravenna kneed her in the ribs. Hard. Metal on bone.
The Valkyrie hissed, eyes flashing, and lunged again.
Flesh met fury.
They tangled in a blur of punches and curses, a deadly ballet lit by lightning outside. Rain sluiced through the broken glass, drenching them as they fought. Clothes tore. Skin met steel. Hands grazed hips, throats, scars.
Their fight tasted like hate—but something deeper pulsed beneath it. Old touch. Old heat.
"You remember that night in Sector Nine?" Liora rasped, pinning Ravenna against the dashboard.
"I remember you left me in cuffs," Ravenna spat.
"You begged me to."
Ravenna's knee shot up again, catching the Valkyrie between the legs. She doubled over, snarling.
"I begged you to finish the job."
The hauler jackknifed as it hit debris. Both women slammed into the walls.
Jace's voice crackled in her ear: "Ravenna, the tank's rebooting. Get clear!"
Ravenna rolled from the cockpit, dragging Liora with her. They tumbled across the hauler's roof, wet and vicious, until the tank below roared back to life.
Gunfire erupted again.
Jace was dancing with death down there—dual pistols, blood on his coat, Syndicate soldiers dying like flies. He ducked under a plasma blade, slid through mud, and kicked a corpse aside to reload.
Above, Ravenna caught the Valkyrie's chin with a roundhouse kick and threw her into the steel guardrail. Liora hit with a grunt, then sprang up, hair plastered to her cheek.
"You kill me," Liora growled, "and you'll never get that intel."
"What intel?"
"The one your little boyfriend's been hiding."
That stopped Ravenna cold.
Liora took the opportunity—elbowed her hard in the temple.
Ravenna stumbled.
But she didn't fall.
Instead, she snapped her blade forward—and sliced Liora's visor in two.
The Valkyrie gasped, blood leaking from her cheek. Ravenna raised her blade again. "Talk. Or I flay you."
"You really don't know," Liora coughed, laughing bitterly. "Poor little Red Sin. He never told you."
"Tell me what?"
"That he's not just Syndicate."
"What?"
"He's Hollow Dawn. Deep. Buried. And the mission? It's not about the Ghostskins."
Ravenna's heart twisted.
"He's here for you."
A sudden roar below.
The tank's turret turned toward the hauler.
Liora dove off the roof.
Ravenna leapt the other way.
Boom.
The hauler exploded behind them, a tidal wave of flame engulfing the street. Ravenna hit the ground in a roll, shoulder slamming pavement, pain slicing through her ribs. She coughed, staggered—
Jace was already there, hand extended.
She took it.
Their eyes locked—intense, breathless.
"Later," she rasped.
"Yeah," he said. "Later."
They ran—into the fire, through the wreckage.
Behind them, Liora disappeared into the smoke, bleeding, laughing.
Later…
In the abandoned substation deep under Sector Ten, they stitched their wounds in silence. Jace worked shirtless, sweat streaking his chest, the glow of emergency lamps turning his scars golden.
Ravenna watched, silent, her blade across her lap.
"You should've told me," she said finally.
He didn't turn. "I was going to."
"When?"
"When you loved me again."
Silence.
Then:
"You're still Hollow Dawn?"
"I'm off-grid. Burned. This mission's mine, not theirs."
"What's the truth?"
He stood, walked over slowly.
"You are."
Then he knelt between her knees, hands resting on her thighs. His touch was warm. Familiar. Dangerous.
"Ravenna, you're not a mission. You're my gravity."
Her breath hitched. She didn't want to believe him.
But his eyes—those damned eyes—didn't lie.
And when his mouth found hers, there was no war.
Only surrender.
Ravenna didn't sleep that night.
Jace did—eventually. After the heat cooled, after their bodies stopped trembling, after he whispered things into her ear she didn't let herself believe.
She sat in the dark, watching the monitor blink over a dusty old terminal, replaying Liora's words in her head:
"He's not just Syndicate… He's Hollow Dawn… He's here for you."
What the hell did that mean?
She pulled on her coat quietly, suppressing a wince as stitches pulled across her ribs, and slipped out into the corridor.
The old power station was dead except for a few blinking consoles and a cracked, static-spewing holoboard. Kellin was somewhere deeper inside, probably passed out with a needle and a bottle. The kid was useful, but broken.
Like the rest of them.
She passed rusted pipes, humming cables, and eventually reached the old elevator shaft that led deeper into the underlevels. Where no one went anymore. Where things whispered in the dark.
She needed answers.
And if Jace wouldn't give them… she'd steal them.
Back in the upper corridor...
Jace sat up, breathing hard. Sweat coated his skin. The nightmare had returned—flashes of gunmetal angels and fire-drenched labs. A girl screaming. A door slamming shut. His hands drenched in red.
He blinked. Looked around.
Ravenna was gone.
Shit.
He threw on his gear, checked his pistol, and bolted into the hallway barefoot.
Meanwhile, Ravenna dropped down a cable shaft.
The underlevels were soaked in damp. The air smelled like old blood and coolant. This deep, no Syndicate soldier patrolled. The only law was silence.
She walked past collapsed security drones and graffiti from gangs long extinct. The words GODDESS BLEEDS were scrawled in crimson paint.
She remembered this place.
This was where her sister died.
No one ever knew the full story. Not even Jace. Not even Kellin.
But she did.
Because she was the one who pulled the trigger.
A deep hum filled the chamber.
At the core of the underlevel was the Hollow Cache—one of the last data nodes untouched by the Syndicate. Some said it was pre-War AI tech. Others claimed it was alive.
She didn't care.
She wanted the truth.
She sliced into the panel with her blade and jammed a decrypter into the port. Blue lines crawled across the holoscreen. A synthetic voice buzzed:
"Identity confirmed. Agent Noir. Access granted."
"Query," she said. "Subject: Jace Cross."
A pause.
Then:
"Jace Cross. Alias: Unit 017-A. Status: AWOL. Classification: Hollow Dawn Deep Cover. Primary Directive: Neutralize Asset 914-A."
She froze.
"Define Asset 914-A," she whispered.
"Asset 914-A: Ravenna Noir. Code name: Red Sin."
The silence pressed into her chest like a knife.
He was sent to kill her.
All along.
The missions, the sex, the laughter, the betrayals—it was all a cover. Hollow Dawn had buried an agent in her bed.
And she let him in.
She let him in.
The floor creaked behind her.
She spun.
Jace.
Sweat. Shadow. Sadness in his eyes.
"You found it," he said softly.
"You were going to kill me."
"I was supposed to."
"Then why didn't you?"
He stepped forward. She didn't back away—but her hand drifted toward her gun.
"I saw you," he said. "Not the killer. Not the ghost. You. I fell in love with the one thing Hollow Dawn said was a lie."
Ravenna's voice cracked. "And the mission?"
"Dead. The second you kissed me."
She wanted to scream.
She wanted to shoot him.
She did neither.
Instead, she pressed her forehead to his and whispered, "Then help me burn them all down."
His smile was crooked. Pained.
But it was real.
"I thought you'd never ask."
Elsewhere in the city...
A Syndicate tribunal sat in darkness, watching surveillance feed from the hauler battle. Ravenna. Jace. Liora. The Bloodhound. The explosion.
A man in a crimson suit leaned forward.
"This confirms it. Cross has turned."
Another voice: female, smooth, cruel.
"Activate Protocol Omega."
The man nodded. "And Red Sin?"
"Wipe her off the grid."
The screen cut to black.
The room they returned to was different now.
The silence didn't comfort.
The walls felt closer, colder, like the building itself had overheard everything in the underlevels and was bracing for war.
Ravenna lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. Jace leaned against the far wall, watching her like a man hoping not to break what he already broke.
"I should kill you," she muttered, eyes flicking toward him.
He didn't flinch. "I wouldn't stop you."
That made it worse.
Because it meant he meant it.
She exhaled smoke. "We don't have time to dance with guilt, Cross. The Tribunal just put us both on the chopping block."
"They activated Omega Protocol," he said.
She paused mid-puff. "You sure?"
"They always do when Hollow agents break code. It means they're calling in the Wasp Division."
She dropped the cigarette. "Shit."
The Wasp Division wasn't military. Wasn't Syndicate. They were worse—merciless operatives built for one thing: extermination. They didn't take prisoners. Didn't miss.
They were trained by Hollow Dawn themselves.
In another life, Jace was one of them.
"Then we hit first," Ravenna growled, picking up her sidearms.
He moved toward her. "That's suicide."
She grinned without joy. "It's Tuesday."
Underground safehouse, Sector 11
Liora was prepping explosives when they returned. She took one look at their faces and sighed.
"You finally told her, huh?"
"I dug it myself," Ravenna said.
Liora wiped sweat from her brow, flicked a match across the table to light a stick of dynamite's fuse, then snuffed it with her fingers just before ignition. Just to show she could.
"Then we're all in," Liora said. "One last dance?"
"More like a massacre," Jace said.
She smiled. "Same thing."
________
Outside, across Deadman's City...
The Wasp Division landed.
Twelve in total.
Black armor, gold visors, no names.
Each one surgically enhanced. Each one carrying weapons the regular Syndicate couldn't even name, much less use. Their leader was called Silk—a woman with a voice like honey and hands like blades.
She received the kill order without blinking.
Red Sin and the rogue agent Cross.
Location pinged.
Authorization: Absolute Erasure.
Later that night
The rain came back, thick as oil, streaking down the broken windows of the cathedral-turned-hideout. Liora sat cross-legged, surrounded by blueprints and trigger switches. Jace stared out the shattered rose window.
Ravenna cleaned her knives slowly. Like ritual.
Like she was saying goodbye.
"I loved you," she said without looking up.
Jace didn't move.
"I still do," she added.
Still silence.
Then: "I don't deserve it."
She turned to him.
"No, you don't."
"But I'm going to earn it."
Something in her chest cracked open.
And that's when the wall exploded.
They came in like ghosts wrapped in gold.
No warning.
No sound.
Just smoke, flashbangs, and shadows that moved faster than thought.
Ravenna dropped flat, slashed a Wasp in the thigh, and rolled under a table. Jace tackled another off the balcony, both of them crashing two stories down.
Liora flipped a switch.
Boom.
The far end of the church vanished in fire.
But the Wasps didn't scream.
They never screamed.
They just kept coming.
Ravenna found herself facing one directly.
A female. Slender. Tall.
Silk.
"You're prettier than they said," Silk whispered through her helmet.
Ravenna lunged. Blade met wrist. Sparks. Blood.
Silk moved like liquid—dodging, ducking, countering. Ravenna fought like a beast. No patterns, just rage.
They crashed through stained glass.
Fell into the mud outside.
The rain painted both of them slick and gleaming.
"You know why they call me Silk?" the assassin asked.
"Because you're soft?" Ravenna spat.
Silk laughed. "Because I kill gently."
Then she moved.
Meanwhile, inside
Jace was fighting his own demon—an old Wasp comrade named Vex. Once his trainer. Now his executioner.
"You always were the sentimental one," Vex said, slamming Jace through a marble altar.
Jace coughed blood. "And you were always a prick."
Gun. Knife. Elbow. Headbutt. Blood on statues. Smoke in lungs.
"I'm not the same man," Jace growled.
"Exactly. That's why you're weak now."
Jace didn't respond.
He just detonated the charge strapped under the pew.
Outside, Ravenna stabbed Silk in the chest—twice. The assassin didn't fall. Her blood was black. Her smile, cruel.
"You're not human," Ravenna gasped.
"I used to be," Silk purred, pressing her blade against Ravenna's cheek. "Then they made me better."
Ravenna headbutted her. Steel cracked. The blade dropped.
One shot from Jace—clean through Silk's temple—ended the dance.
Ravenna blinked.
"Good timing," she said.
He winked. "Tuesday, right?"
Two hours later
Bodies burned in the cathedral.
Rain turned to steam around the corpses.
Ravenna, Jace, and Liora stood under the broken cross.
"We hit them next," Ravenna said.
"Where?" Liora asked.
"Hollow Dawn HQ," Jace replied. "We wipe them off the map."
"And after that?" Ravenna asked.
Jace looked at her.
"You and me," he said. "Out of this city. Away from ghosts."
Ravenna nodded.
But deep down, she knew…
Ghosts don't let go that easily.
++++++++++++++++++++++
The walls of the undercity screamed with rust and history. Pipes hissed like snakes in the dark. Jace held his breath as they moved, ducking under a crumbling archway, Ravenna in front, gun raised, eyes scanning like a machine programmed for kill zones.
"You sure the informant's down here?" Jace asked, his voice low but sharp.
Ravenna didn't look back. "Positive. He only crawls out when the blood's thick in the gutters."
Their boots crunched over broken glass and spent shells. Above them, distant gunfire echoed like a war in heaven.
Ravenna paused, her silhouette cutting clean against the flickering amber light. "We're not just hunting info tonight. We're being hunted."
"You mean the skinwalkers?" he said.
She nodded. "The Ghostskins. Syndicate mercs jacked up on shadowtech. Half-human. Half-nightmare."
A sound rasped in the distance—like a blade dragging across stone.
Then silence.
Then—
"Ravenna," Jace muttered, weapon raised.
A body dropped from the ceiling. It wasn't human anymore. The Ghostskin wore the face of a dead cop, hollow-eyed, stitched at the jaw, skin bleached and stretched unnaturally tight.
It lunged.
Ravenna fired—twice, to the knees.
Jace caught its fall with a bullet between the eyes.
"That's one," she muttered. "They never hunt alone."
Three more came. Wall-crawling. Hissing. One landed on Jace, knocking his breath out. Its claws shredded his jacket before he blasted it off with a headshot. Blood sprayed in thick cords across the tunnel.
Ravenna met hers head-on. Blade to throat. Blood sprayed like an arc of poetry in the dark.
They moved fast now—no more talking. The fight became rhythm. Death as choreography. Each kill another heartbeat. Another memory painted red.
When it was done, five corpses steamed on the floor.
Jace leaned against the tunnel wall, breath ragged. "I need more nicotine or a new god."
Ravenna smirked. "We're all out of both."
But she stepped close. Pulled his head down. Kissed him, rough and deep. His hands tangled in her blood-matted hair as her breath became his.
The kiss broke, lingering heat between them. "For luck," she said.
He stared at her. "We're past luck, Rav. This is survival sex and bullet prayers."
She chuckled. "Exactly."
Then, movement behind them.
A voice rasped from the dark. "You shouldn't have come."
The informant.
He stepped out, face hidden beneath a veil of synthlace and goggles. Wires danced like dreadlocks across his shoulders.
"I got your files," he said. "But you won't like what you find."
Jace cocked his head. "Try me."
The informant's hand trembled as he passed over a chip. "Syndicate isn't the only beast down here. You're tangled with ghosts older than this city."
"Names," Ravenna snapped.
"Blackbird Protocol. Project Moros. And…" the man hesitated. "Obsidian Garden."
Ravenna went still.
Even Jace flinched.
Obsidian Garden. The Syndicate's myth. A place of human experiments, mind control, cybernetic grafting. The kind of rumor you buried in concrete.
"It's real?" Jace whispered.
The informant nodded. "And you've both been marked."
Before they could press further, a gunshot split the air. The informant's skull burst like a melon. Ravenna yanked Jace back.
Sniper.
From the catwalk above.
Another shot. Sparks flew.
"We run," Ravenna hissed.
"No," Jace growled. "We fight."
He sprinted toward the ladder, bullets dancing behind him. Ravenna covered him, twin pistols barking fire.
Jace climbed fast. Reached the catwalk.
The sniper turned—female, lithe, face tattooed with Syndicate runes. Her rifle gleamed with chrome and hunger.
She smiled. "Hello, Cross."
Jace didn't hesitate. They clashed, close quarters, gunfire and fists. She was fast. Almost inhuman. But Jace fought dirty. A knife from his boot caught her ribs. Her shriek was music.
Below, Ravenna took out a flanking squad with explosives she'd planted hours ago—just in case. The tunnel rumbled, dust and bodies collapsing in one glorious scream.
Jace finished it with a bullet through the sniper's eye.
Blood. Silence.
Victory.
But they weren't done.
Jace limped back down.
Ravenna tossed him a stimpack. "You dying?"
He injected without a word. "No time."
She pulled him into a shadow. Pressed their bodies together. Not just for heat. For grounding. For survival.
Her lips brushed his ear. "When this ends, we burn the city down."
He met her eyes. "Together."
She nodded.
Together.
And then the darkness swallowed them whole—two ghosts, one war, a thousand sins to pay. And every step forward was a new firestorm waiting to ignite.
-------------------------------
The undercity spat them out into the industrial zone of Old Calvary—where steel ribs of collapsed buildings stretched into the sky like the bones of forgotten gods. The night was soaked in chemical haze, lights from drones scanning the skies like mechanical vultures.
Ravenna pulled her coat tighter. Blood still warmed her thigh from a scratch she hadn't mentioned. Jace glanced over, his eyes sharp, calculating—but didn't say a word. She respected that. No questions unless necessary. That was their code.
They moved fast, weaving through husks of trucks, dead loaders, and busted crates marked Syndicate Biohazard—Do Not Open. Jace stopped beside one and wiped the grime from its panel.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked.
Ravenna opened the latch.
Inside were rows of sealed vials—green, pulsing faintly like fireflies trapped in glass.
"Shadowroot," she muttered.
He frowned. "Street myth."
"Not anymore."
Shadowroot was a biochemical enhancer—banned by every governing body on the continent. Said to give soldiers vision in the dark, perception of the future, and the bloodlust of wild animals. And also madness. The kind that made men tear out their own eyes.
She grabbed a vial.
"What the hell are you doing?" Jace asked.
"We're not fighting humans anymore," she said. "We're fighting ghosts. Machines. Experiments. I need an edge."
He didn't stop her.
She cracked the vial. Inhaled.
It hit fast. Her pupils dilated. The world slowed, like time was syrup. She could hear his heartbeat. She could feel the city breathe.
Her smile was feral. "Now I'm ready."
Before Jace could answer, gunfire raked the steel above them.
Syndicate hunters. Reinforcements.
Three. No—five. Maybe more. Clad in matte-black armor, glowing veins across their limbs. Enhanced. Wired for war.
Jace dove left. Ravenna surged forward.
The Shadowroot made her a blur.
She ripped through the first soldier with a blade to the throat, the second with a point-blank shot between the eyes. Bullets grazed her shoulder but she felt nothing. Time was hers. She danced through the kill zone like a red storm.
Jace backed her up. Shot clean. Never wasted a round. He slammed a frag grenade under the armored gut of the third soldier and watched him disappear in a bloom of fire.
Then silence.
Except one.
A large figure stepped out from the shadows, bigger than the rest. His body was a cathedral of scars and implants, his face barely human anymore. Eyes like twin embers.
He grinned.
"Red Sin," he said. "They told me you were beautiful."
Ravenna tilted her head. "And they told me you were dead."
He laughed. "Not yet."
His name was Talon. Ex-Korvo Battalion. Now Syndicate's top dog-killer. A butcher in a suit of bones.
He raised his fists. No weapons. Just rage.
Ravenna handed her guns to Jace.
"You serious?" he asked.
She stepped forward. "I want to feel him die."
Talon came fast.
Ravenna ducked, weaved, struck his ribs—but he didn't flinch. He hit back, a hammerblow that knocked her back into a crate. It exploded in a shower of needles.
She got up. Blood in her teeth.
Laughed.
Then she hit back.
Faster. Sharper.
Her fists were steel. Her body a weapon. She danced around Talon, striking joints, soft flesh, ripping at his armor. He roared and grabbed her by the throat.
Jace fired, distracting him.
Ravenna slipped free—then shoved a hidden blade under Talon's chin and drove it up through his skull.
The big man convulsed.
Dropped.
Dead.
She panted, wiping blood from her mouth. "One less god in this city."
Jace handed her a cloth. "Remind me never to piss you off."
She grinned. "Too late."
They moved again. No time to rest.
Across the street was an entrance to the Obsidian Garden—a place only whispered about in the darkest Syndicate files. Jace scanned the keypad, hacked it with a flick of his wrist.
The door hissed open.
Darkness inside.
Ravenna stepped in first.
What they found made even her pause.
Tanks filled with bodies. Experiments. Children with wires in their eyes. Men with insect limbs. Clones. Fetal mutants. Half-formed gods in glass.
Jace's voice broke. "They were building an army."
"No," Ravenna whispered. "They were building a new species."
Then a voice echoed from the speakers.
"Welcome home, Ravenna Noir."
She froze.
Jace looked at her.
She didn't speak.
The voice continued. "Project Nemesis recognizes its progeny."
Jace blinked. "What the hell does that mean?"
Ravenna turned slowly. "I think... I was born here."
Silence.
Then alarms blared.
And from the far end of the lab, machines stirred. Bodies moved. And something big began to wake.
Something that knew her name.
The floor of the Obsidian Garden trembled—each tremor sending ripples through the blue-lit tanks that lined the walls. Some of the creatures inside began twitching. Others pressed their malformed faces to the glass, as if sensing her presence.
Jace lifted his rifle, flicking the safety off. "This isn't just some lab. It's a goddamn tomb."
"No," Ravenna replied, her voice cold, certain. "It's a nursery."
A central platform rose from the ground, revealing a massive pod—obsidian black, webbed with red circuits. Inside, a humanoid figure hung suspended. Genderless. Hairless. Its flesh pale as bone, laced with artificial veins pulsing with amber light.
The voice returned, mechanical and soft. Feminine.
"Subject 0: Ravenna Noir. Project Nemesis DNA confirmed. Initiating command link."
Ravenna stumbled. Her vision blurred. Pain slammed into her skull like a freight train. Images. Flashes. Memories not her own—men in white coats, screams, injections. A child. A little girl with eyes like hers, strapped to a gurney.
Jace grabbed her, steadying her.
"What's happening to you?"
"I—I don't know," she gritted out. "But I think… I think I wasn't just made here."
"She is not just one of us," the voice said. "She is Mother."
Every screen in the chamber lit up with her face.
Younger. Cold. Dead-eyed.
Her voice echoed on a recording:
"Phase One successful. The prototype will be self-aware by year four. Emotional latency remains a concern. Termination protocols in place."
Jace took a step back. "Wait... that's your voice."
Ravenna shook her head violently. "No. It's not. It can't be—"
"Phase One..." Jace looked around at the tanks. "You're Phase One. They cloned you."
And then, behind them, the pod snapped open.
Steam hissed out.
The figure stepped forward.
It was her.
But different.
Taller. More angular. Eyes pure black. A goddess sculpted from rage and machine precision. The clone blinked—and the world seemed to pause around her.
"Hello, Ravenna," it said, its voice her own but hollow. "I've waited a long time to meet my mother."
Jace raised his rifle. The clone looked at him and tilted her head.
"You're not important."
With a flick of her hand, a pulse of electromagnetic force threw Jace across the chamber, slamming him into a wall.
"Jace!" Ravenna screamed.
The clone stepped forward. "Why did you abandon us?"
"I didn't even know you existed!" Ravenna shouted, drawing her blades. "I didn't ask to be part of your nightmare."
The clone smiled. "That's the difference between us. You ran from your past. I became it."
She moved.
Fast.
Their blades met with the sound of steel screaming. The clone was stronger. Smarter. Precise. Ravenna bled quickly, dodging, slashing, thinking like a killer—but facing her own perfected shadow.
Jace stirred, blood dripping from his mouth. "Ravenna! Left shoulder—her joint's exposed!"
She shifted mid-swing, drove a dagger into the joint. The clone shrieked—a horrible metallic cry—and staggered.
But didn't fall.
Instead, the clone smiled.
"You learn fast," it said. "Let me show you what I learned from you."
It slammed a hand to the floor.
Red energy pulsed out. All the tanks cracked. Glass exploded. The creatures inside—half-bred horrors—began crawling free.
"Gods," Jace breathed. "She's waking them up."
Ravenna grabbed him, blood on her teeth. "We can't fight all of them."
"We're not staying. Hit the override. The whole place—can it blow?"
She sprinted for the central console.
The clone tried to stop her, but Jace tackled the thing to the ground, wrapping his arms around its neck.
"Go!" he roared.
Ravenna punched in the code. The console blinked red.
OBSIDIAN GARDEN SELF-DESTRUCT INITIATED.
A calm female voice began counting down. "Five minutes to detonation."
She turned back.
The clone had overpowered Jace and now had a blade to his throat.
"Choose," it said. "Let him die... or save yourself."
Ravenna's heart pounded.
She remembered the first time she saw Jace—undercover, cocky, and infuriating. She remembered the time he stitched her up in silence, the way his hands trembled when he touched her. She remembered the night he kissed her and said, "You're the only one who makes me want to live."
She raised her blade.
"I choose us."
She threw it—not at the clone, but at the ceiling. A pressurized tank exploded, blasting debris into the clone's face.
She grabbed Jace, half-limp, bleeding badly, and ran.
Fire caught behind them. The clones screamed.
They didn't look back.
They surfaced in a sewer shaft, coughing, bleeding, and shaking.
The night sky looked strange. Too peaceful.
Jace rested his head on her shoulder. "What the hell was that thing?"
Ravenna lit a cigarette with trembling fingers. "My past."
He smirked weakly. "Your ex has a hell of a temper."
She chuckled, then sighed. "We're not done. This city... it's more than just crime and blood. It's a breeding ground. And they want to unleash gods on the surface."
Jace closed his eyes. "Then we stop them."
She kissed his forehead. "Not 'we.' Me. You need to rest. I need to finish what I started."
He grabbed her wrist. "Don't do this alone."
She stood. Wrapped in smoke. Red eyes burning.
"I was born alone. Built for war. But now..." She cracked her neck.
"Now, I'm ready to end one."
------------------------
The Obsidian Garden was no longer a lab—it had become a battlefield of genetic abominations and burned gods.
The clone, scorched but unbroken, staggered through the flames like a demon reborn. Her face, half-burned away, revealed synthetic muscle beneath faux skin, glowing circuits replacing blood vessels. The moment she emerged from the smoke, the broken hybrid creatures—misshapen fusions of bone and machine—bowed their malformed heads.
"She commands them," Jace whispered. "Like a queen."
"More like a virus," Ravenna muttered, yanking a serrated blade from her boot. "And I'm the cure."
She rushed forward, dodging as a creature lunged. It snapped its teeth—rows of razors protruding from a mouth stitched shut—and she plunged her dagger into its temple, ripping sideways.
Jace, bleeding but conscious, scavenged a plasma grenade from one of the lab tables. "Heads up!"
He threw it.
The grenade bounced, stuck to the clone's chest—and detonated in a shockwave of molten light. The force threw the queen and her creatures across the chamber, some igniting into screeching, writhing fireballs.
Ravenna leapt into the air, blades drawn, and drove both into the clone's chest before the smoke cleared.
But instead of screaming, the clone smiled.
"You can't kill the divine, Mother."
She detonated something—an internal charge—and the floor beneath them collapsed.
Ravenna fell.
She hit the lower level with a bone-snapping thud, glass shards embedding in her side. Above, sirens wailed louder. A countdown voice echoed down into the abyss.
"Two minutes to detonation."
She dragged herself up.
The lower level was darker—lit only by the eerie green glow of containment vats, some broken, some intact. Inside floated silhouettes of unfinished gods—children of war and horror, twitching as if dreaming of vengeance.
Then she saw it.
The original schematics.
She staggered to the display, flicking through holographic files. Dozens of blueprints—her DNA, her neural maps, her memories extracted and catalogued like weapons.
Then, one file stood out: PROJECT: RED SIN — FINAL RESERVE.
She tapped it.
A voice recording played. Her voice. Again.
But older. Wiser. Desperate.
"If you're hearing this… I failed. They used me. Turned everything I was into a blueprint for genocide. But I've hidden the override command in my neural code. Only I can stop them. Or my bloodline."
A beat of silence.
"You were never supposed to exist, daughter. I created you to destroy the Garden. To burn it all."
Ravenna's eyes burned—not with tears, but fury.
It hadn't just been an experiment. It had been a warfare protocol. She hadn't been bred to serve the city. She'd been bred to end it.
She turned.
The clone was behind her.
Half her face gone. Chest split. But standing.
Ravenna raised her fists, blades ready.
But the clone didn't attack.
"You were... the seed," it said. "I am the blossom."
Then, to Ravenna's surprise, the clone knelt.
"Let me serve. Let me burn it all with you."
Ravenna's blade hovered over the clone's throat. "Why the change of heart?"
"I remembered," the clone said. "You loved me once... before they erased it."
"One minute to detonation."
Jace limped into the room, clutching a pistol. "Ravenna! We have to move!"
Ravenna looked at the clone—then pulled her up.
"You want to serve?" she said. "Help me rewrite this city."
The clone nodded. "With pleasure, Mother."
They ran together, slicing through what remained of the half-born horrors. Blood sprayed. Sparks flew. Tanks shattered. The screams of dying monsters echoed across metal walls.
They burst through a hatchway—light exploding across their bodies—just as the Obsidian Garden collapsed behind them in a cataclysm of white fire.
One hour later. Rooftop of the Rust Crown.
Ravenna stood on the edge, cigarette between bloodied lips, wind tangling her hair.
The clone—now cloaked in one of Jace's jackets—stood beside her, watching the smoke rise from the crater that had once been the Garden.
Jace approached behind them, wincing with every step.
"You okay?" he asked Ravenna.
"No," she said flatly. "But I'm not dead. That's a start."
He nodded toward the clone. "And her?"
"She has a name now," Ravenna replied. "Nyx."
Jace blinked. "Like the Greek goddess of night?"
Ravenna smiled faintly. "She picked it herself."
Nyx looked at them. "You two have complicated energy."
Jace grunted. "Yeah, we're working on it."
The city below breathed fire and neon—chaos in slow motion.
Ravenna lit another cigarette. "This war isn't over."
Jace stepped close, his hand finding hers.
"Then let's burn them all."
DEEPER INTO THE HEART OF HELL
The lab's lower level wasn't just another chamber—it was a cathedral of nightmares. Ravenna hit the ground hard, ribs cracking on steel, a gash across her brow painting her vision red. Glass crunched beneath her palms as she struggled to her feet, breath ragged. The room was bathed in sickly green light from rows of suspended artificial wombs, each containing… something.
Her gaze flicked from tank to tank.
Bodies—some malformed, some eerily beautiful, all suspended like sleeping angels turned wrong. Their eyes were closed, but she could feel them watching her. Hungry. Breathing in the psychic dark.
"Two minutes to detonation."
Her ears rang from the explosion above, and blood pooled down her side where a shard of metal had embedded itself. But the pain was nothing compared to the revelation burning in her mind:
They had cloned her.
Copied her body. Fragmented her psyche. Weaponized her love.
She reached the central console, barely standing. Her fingers trembled as she interfaced with the system. A cold voice chirped:
"Welcome, Project RED SIN. Neural signature accepted. Terminal unlocked."
The files unfolded like a curse—project logs, combat footage, psychological evaluations of her… and of Jace.
She saw him in one video, tied to a chair. A needle sinking into his neck.
"Subject Cross resists conditioning. Increased dosage. We will implant the betrayal sequence manually."
Her breath hitched. The betrayal. The one that had broken her. It wasn't just choice.
They had done it to him.
Her knees buckled. Grief surged through her chest like hot ash. She gripped the console to stay upright.
"One minute thirty seconds to detonation."
A shadow moved behind her.
She spun, blade drawn—
It was her.
The clone. Nyx. Bloodied. Skin half-melted. Yet… alive.
They circled one another like wolves, their footfalls soft, yet razor-edged.
Nyx smiled, that haunting mirror grin. "Now you know. We're sisters. Twins, split by steel and fire."
"No," Ravenna said, stepping in. "We're nothing alike."
Nyx lashed out—a roundhouse kick laced with explosive strength. Ravenna ducked, countered, stabbed her blade into Nyx's shoulder. The clone didn't flinch. She grabbed Ravenna by the throat and slammed her against the steel wall.
"I remember the man," Nyx hissed. "His eyes. Your lips. The way you screamed when he kissed you. You gave me his memories—stole the fire, but left me the ash."
Ravenna's fist drove into Nyx's jaw, then another into her gut. They tumbled across the floor, smashing into tanks. One burst, spilling acidic fluid that seared the ground and caught fire.
They fought like two halves of a dying god—blade to blade, bone to bone. The air sang with blood and fury. They tore into each other until both were staggering, drenched in gore and sweat.
Ravenna fell back, panting. "You want to be me so badly?"
Nyx grinned, spitting blood. "No. I want to be better."
"One minute to detonation."
Above, the Garden groaned—supports collapsing, fire raining through the holes in the ceiling.
Then, Jace crashed through a side door, limping, pistol in hand.
"Enough!" he shouted, the gun wavering. "We're not dying here, damn it!"
Nyx turned toward him. "Do you still love her?"
Jace hesitated—then nodded. "Yes. And that's why I'll kill you if I have to."
Ravenna raised a hand. "Don't."
Nyx stared at them both.
And… something changed. The rage flickered. The fire died down, just enough.
"I remember your heartbeat," Nyx said softly, facing Ravenna. "It used to calm me when I slept in the tanks."
A silence hung.
"I remember being you," she added. "I remember wanting freedom. Like you."
Ravenna's blade lowered.
"Thirty seconds to detonation."
"Then help me end it," she said. "Not for revenge. For liberation."
Nyx's hand dropped from her weapon.
Together, they ran.
Jace took Ravenna's arm, supporting her as flames chased them through the hall. Nyx moved ahead, slicing through a closing bulkhead with one of Ravenna's stolen plasma blades.
"Ten seconds."
They burst through the final door as the chamber behind them exploded—heat rolling across their backs like a dragon's breath.
THE AFTERMATH — OBSCURA ROOFTOPS
Hours passed.
Ravenna sat shirtless on the edge of a rooftop, blood streaked down her spine, cauterized wounds still sizzling. Jace stitched a gash above her rib with steady hands, while Nyx—now in fresh gear, hair tied back—stood watch.
"Doesn't this city ever sleep?" Ravenna muttered.
"No," Jace said. "It just... feeds."
She stared at him. "You remember the lab?"
"I do. All of it."
"You said you loved me."
"I meant it—even when they tried to rewrite me."
She leaned in and kissed him. Slow. Rough. A promise written in bruises and blood.
Then turned to Nyx. "You coming with us?"
The clone shrugged. "I've killed every version of me they ever made. I've earned a new story."
Ravenna nodded. "Then let's write one."
She rose, eyes burning toward the skyline—where the next enemy waited.
The war for Deadman's City had only just begun.
--------------------------
FIRE IN THE BLOOD
The night sky bloomed with fire.
Obscura's skyline vanished behind the towering plume of smoke rising from the Garden's ruin. From the rooftop's edge, Ravenna watched it fall, one crumbling spire at a time—an empire of ghosts turned to ash.
Her breathing was shallow. Jace's hands, steady despite the tremors in his shoulders, pressed gauze to her side. The makeshift medkit beside him was nearly empty.
Nyx stood apart, still and silent, lit only by the burning skyline. The wind tugged at her jacket. Her fingers, stained with dried blood, curled and uncurled as if unsure whether to hold a weapon… or someone's hand.
"Why did you stop fighting?" Ravenna asked finally, her voice raw.
Nyx didn't look at her. "Because I didn't hate you. Not truly. I hated what they made me from. What they did with me. I hated being... a shadow."
Ravenna looked down at her own trembling hands. "We were both made weapons. Difference is… I forgot I had a choice."
Jace sat back, wiping sweat from his brow. "And now?"
"I'm choosing to be more than what they bred into me," Ravenna said, eyes locked on Nyx. "But I can't do it alone."
A long silence stretched.
Then Nyx spoke, soft but unflinching. "I'll stay. But don't ask me to forgive you."
"I'm not asking you to," Ravenna said. "I'm asking you to kill with me."
A smirk twitched at Nyx's lips. "That I can do."
The tension broke with the weight of that truth. A kind of twisted bond—sisterhood born not of womb, but war.
And beneath that rooftop calm, the storm raged.
SOMEWHERE DEEPER IN OBSCURA...
A surveillance drone hovered above the wreckage of the Garden, its lens cracked but still operational. Audio captured the final exchange between the three fugitives. A synthetic voice recited:
"Ravenna Noir has survived. Clone Alpha is active. Agent Jace Cross has gone rogue. Initiating Phase Four."
In the shadows of an ivory tower, a woman in silver heels and a violet slit-gown lit a cigarette, watching the footage. Her face was untouched by emotion. A pale scar ran down the side of her jaw, glinting under moonlight.
Evelyn Morrow.
Commander of the Eros Protocol. Head of the Clone Genesis Program.
And Ravenna's real creator.
"Contact the Reapers," she said to her aide. "And prepare the Seraphim unit."
The aide hesitated. "What about the Council?"
Evelyn smiled, smoke trailing from her lips. "We're done waiting. This isn't just containment anymore."
"This is war."
BACK ON THE ROOFTOP – HOURS LATER
Night had turned to rain. The city was slick with oil and secrets.
Ravenna stood near the edge, eyes shut, letting the rain cleanse her bloodied skin. Jace sat against the wall, exhaustion sinking into his bones, weapon across his lap. Nyx knelt nearby, sharpening a blade—her hands shaking less with each drag of steel.
"You okay?" Jace asked, glancing at her.
"No," Ravenna said. "And I think that's the point."
She turned toward them both. "They'll send more after us. Stronger. Deadlier."
"I hope they do," Nyx said, her tone cold fire. "I've got plenty of payback left to give."
Ravenna pulled her coat tighter, the stitches across her ribs straining.
"Then we start now," she said. "One ghost at a time."
She walked toward Jace, her silhouette backlit by firelight. Without a word, she pulled him to his feet, pressed her forehead to his. Blood mingled with rain between them.
"If you ever betray me again," she whispered, lips ghosting his, "you won't get a second chance."
"I won't need one," he said. "This time, I bleed for you."
They kissed—deep, desperate, the kind of kiss you give when the world might end tomorrow. Nyx looked away, the conflict in her eyes deeper than envy.
Maybe desire. Maybe grief. Maybe both.
FINAL SCENE — A NEW CHAPTER BEGINS
As the trio disappeared into the Obscuran night, weapons slung across their backs and vengeance hot in their veins, the sky split open.
A new broadcast hummed over the city's broken loudspeakers.
"Attention: All citizens are now under martial lockdown. The rogue element known as Ravenna Noir is to be considered armed, dangerous, and state-executed. Anyone providing her aid will be subject to immediate termination."
Across the city, screens flickered.
And then, her face appeared.
Ravenna Noir. Red-lipped. Cold-eyed. Covered in blood.
The empire wanted her dead.
But the streets?
The streets were hers now.