The fibers of the nano-bag quivered faintly in the air, rippling like water as they swallowed the female scientist's form entirely.
Two special ops soldiers lifted the precious "package." Their nano-suits blended perfectly with the environment, footsteps absorbed by silencing layers in their soles.
Within three seconds, the stairwell was silent again.
Leon pulled back the slide of his pulse pistol. The charged hum vibrated in his palm, breaking the oppressive quiet.
He turned toward Mike and Chris. No words were needed — years of fighting side by side had already synchronized their tactical thinking.
Simple hand signals —
Forefinger across the throat, middle finger tapping the temple — conveyed the plan: clear obstacles, remain hidden, prioritize extraction.
Optical camouflage activated.
Ripples shimmered across Leon's clothing as nano-scale arrays bent surrounding light.
His outline blurred, until only faint distortions of heated air hinted at his presence. The others followed suit, ten-plus men condensed into nothing more than subtle disturbances in the corridor airflow.
Bang—!
Chris kicked open the iron fire door.
Sunlight poured in, along with sirens and pounding footsteps.
The sight before them would have made even battle-hardened veterans hold their breath—
The plaza outside had become a military quarantine zone.
Armed drones formed a honeycomb blockade overhead, their scanning probes releasing deep-violet resonance waves, detection methods capable of piercing standard optical camouflage.
Ground forces were worse —
Heavily armored troops, their powered suits three times thicker than CMC-series armor, with shoulder-mounted cannons warming up, their muzzles glowing a dangerous orange.
"Interesting," Mike's voice murmured through bone conduction. "Even UED's orbital assault forces are deployed."
Leon's AR visor rapidly analyzed the defense grid.
UED had enacted maximum alert protocols.
Every few dozen meters stood a biometric checkpoint. Automated turrets along the street were fully charged. Most deadly of all, surveillance craft circled above, their sensors tuned to track psionic brainwave activity.
Chris's holo-map flashed red: "They've initiated EMP scans. Our camouflage won't last more than ninety seconds."
"Split up." Leon synced the breakout routes to every visor. "Team A causes chaos. Team B establishes EMP shielding. Team C with me — east checkpoint breach."
Ten seconds later, a blinding flash erupted on the plaza's east side.
Two special ops soldiers deliberately revealed themselves, tossing plasma smoke grenades that burst midair, filling half the plaza with electrically charged mist.
The drones swiveled toward it, but their scanning beams fractured uselessly against the metallic particles.
"Now!"
Leon led Team C through the breach like ghosts.
Their nano-suits overclocked, warping not only light but syncing their body heat with the ambient temperature.
As Leon slipped past a checkpoint guard, he could see the young soldier's jaw muscles tense under his helmet — likely his first real operation.
"Abnormal entropy detected!"
A tech officer's shout cut through the alarms.
The resonance scanner in his hands flared wildly, having caught the nano-suits' energy fluctuations.
Five nearby heavy UED troops spun instantly, shoulder-cannon lasers weaving a scarlet grid in the air.
Leon didn't hesitate.
Tak—Tak—!
His pulse pistol barked first, clean shots blasting through the tech officer's skull.
Mike hurled three EMP darts that unfurled into electric webs midair, disabling two turrets instantly.
"Break through! Break through!"
Chris's voice cracked over comms — already inside the checkpoint perimeter, his phase blade sliced alloy barricades apart with ease.
The special ops team pierced the breach like a blade. Every pulse shot was surgical, hitting the weak points of UED power armor joints, dropping the hulking suits like puppets with their strings cut.
But UED responded just as fast.
Surveillance craft dove, releasing dozens of metallic orbs.
In midair, they unfolded into spiderlike bots, each limb tipped with magnetic clamps.
More dangerous was the entanglement scanner on their heads — designed specifically to counter stealth tech.
"Damn it!"
Mike rolled to evade a scan beam. "Our camouflage is about to fail!"
Leon saw the first operative exposed under the scanner's light.
The young man struck back immediately — but three plasma cannons tore into him. The nano-suit fought desperately against the heat, distorting the air around him.
He didn't die outright. The suit absorbed lethal damage, and his gene-enhanced body endured — but he collapsed unconscious.
Nearby teammates rushed in, dragging him to cover.
Then, as one, the operatives shed their nano-suits.
The scale-like armor peeled away, scattering into tens of thousands of micro-jammers — a black cloud that briefly blinded the scanners.
The cost: total exposure.
But it also meant no more holding back — ammo, energy, and stamina could be spent freely.
Pulse weapons roared at full fury.
Leon's shots claimed a life with each pull, trajectories as precise as if calculated by a supercomputer.
Mike unleashed terrifying close-combat skills, twin vibro-blades carving through armor lines like a reaper's scythes.
Chris became a walking artillery piece, the plasma grenade launcher salvaged from a fallen soldier thundering in his hands with devastating effect.
When the last spider-bot was blasted into scrap, the squad had already reached the street corner.
Three disguised civilian skimmers waited, engines humming at minimal output.
"Go!"
Leon was the last to leap inside.
The skimmers shot forward at max thrust, breaking through the net before the turrets rebooted.
Outside the windows, UED headquarters receded into the skyline, its alarm lights still bleeding red.
Chris checked the hostage's vitals: "Package secure. Memory Worm at 98% completion."
Mike injected med-nanites into the wounded operative. "Our infiltration team's blown. All that just to bag UED's top warp expert… Doesn't feel like a fair trade."
He glanced toward Leon in the front seat.
"Ahem."
Leon coughed awkwardly.
Indeed — if he hadn't fallen through the ventilation shaft, the mission would've stayed clean, and Chris, Mike, and the covert team wouldn't have been forced into the open.
The three skimmers weaved through the canyon of towers, engines overheating to a sickly orange.
Leon gripped his gun tight, knuckles white, watching in the mirror as twelve UED interceptors formed a death formation behind them.
The sleek killing machines flew with precise fifty-meter spacing, pulse cannons charged but eerily holding fire.
"They're toying with us," Chris said, tapping commands into his wrist holo. The projection showed the tightening net. "Sectors Seven and Nine already locked down."
Mike strapped the scientist into a seat and glanced at the hunters outside. "Capturing a Terran Empire spy alive is worth ten times more than a corpse."
He smirked. "Shame they got the hunter and prey reversed."
Suddenly, four interceptors surged ahead, pincering the rearmost skimmer.
They cast electromagnetic nets — woven nano-wires that could cripple any vehicle's systems instantly.
The driver yanked the controls, sending the skimmer diving nearly vertical into a glass tower. At the last instant, it rolled sideways, the nets whipping past and slicing two drones that couldn't dodge in time into scrap.
"Shadow Eye, this is Vulture Three."
Leon's voice went cold as he hailed the cloaked vessel in near-orbit. "Release the strategic-class bioweapon. Verification code: Wrath of Mankind."
In orbit, the weapons officer aboard the stealth craft didn't hesitate. He slammed the blood-red switch.
A jet-black drop pod launched from magnetic rails, beginning its descent.
No cloaking field. No electronic countermeasures.
The three-meter "death beacon" dove openly through the atmosphere, its hull burning crimson from friction, trailing a glaring plasma contrail across the sky like a god's spear of fire.
UED's anti-air response was textbook.
Orbital defense lasers lit first, dozens of beams tearing down through the clouds, sizzling around the pod.
Ground silos belched interceptor missiles, weaving a net of fire.
The pod juked violently, thrusters firing at impossible frequency, dancing a deadly ballet.
Three missiles were spoofed by decoys. Two lasers miscalculated and canceled each other. But more firepower closed in—
One missile locked true.
BOOM—KRRRRSSHHHH—!!
A brilliant fireball blossomed midair, the shockwave shattering every window within 300 meters.
Burning debris rained like meteors, igniting rooftop gardens.
In UED's defense command, cheers erupted. Officers clapped shoulders, holo-screens flashing green: THREAT NEUTRALIZED.
They celebrated too soon.
The cheers died abruptly.
The air itself seemed to freeze. Faces locked in horrified stillness as the main holo-screen revealed something impossible—
A humanoid silhouette hovering amidst the smoke.
The operator's hands shook, zooming in until the image sharpened—
A two-meter male figure clad in black polymer combat-suit, muscle lines sculpted. A crimson cape billowed without wind, embroidered with the golden dragon crest of the Terran Empire.
Most chilling was his face. No helmet, just a pallid visage framed by short golden hair, untouched by the blast. His ice-blue eyes were void, as lifeless as stagnant pools.
"Bio-readings abnormal!" a monitor tech shrieked, voice breaking. "Unknown energy reaction detected inside target! Exceeds all measurement limits!"
Alarms wailed anew. A general shoved the operator aside, pulling up tactical analysis himself.
On holo, spacetime curvature warped unnaturally around the marked "Unknown Unit."
"All air units intercept immediately!" the general roared. "Repeat, this is not a drill! Intercept now!"
The twelve interceptors banked sharply, onboard AI locking target in milliseconds.
Missile bays flared. Twenty-four air-to-air missiles streaked with contrails.
BOOM—BOOOOM—!!
Explosions engulfed the figure again, shockwaves shattering skyscraper facades, flaming wreckage raining down.
Officers held their breath—until, through the smoke, the figure emerged intact. Not even his cape was singed.
"Impossible," the weapons officer croaked, slumping. "That was our latest micro-yield warhead…"
The figure — not "Unknown Unit" anymore, but Atlas's reconstructed Homelander — slowly raised his head.
His ice-blue eyes began to glow red, twin suns charging with unearthly power. Energy beyond UED comprehension welled in his irises, warping the air with heat.
FZZZZZZZZ—!!
Twin scarlet beams erupted, blazing brighter than miniature suns.
Wherever they struck, interceptor armor tore like paper, fuel tanks vaporizing before they could explode.
One fighter rolled desperately, only to be sheared in half. The pilot's terrified face carbonized in an instant.
In three seconds, twelve billion-credit fighters were nothing but burning wrecks.
Ground turrets fired at last, unleashing depleted uranium storms.
But rounds that could pierce battleship armor did nothing against Homelander's body, reforged by Atlas and the Terran Empire.
A soldier, watching through binoculars, saw the futility — and terror overtook him. This being was beyond their understanding.
"Retreat! All units fall—"
A command died half-spoken.
Their anti-air emplacement was lanced by beams. The entire site became a molten hellscape, cannons drooping like wax, soldiers' screams drowned by boiling steel.
One by one, command center screens went dark.
On the last main display, Homelander slowly turned his head.
Those fully charged crimson eyes stared directly into the monitoring lens — as if peering through it, into the soul of every human watching this massacre.
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