Lucius stood in the bathroom, staring down at Davis's corpse.
Blood covered the tile floor in spreading pools. Blood on the mirrors. Blood on the walls. Blood on his hands, his arms, soaking through his bandages.
The fire alarm continued its ear-splitting wail outside.
His mind worked through the problem with cold precision.
Davis was an executive-sponsored fighter. His disappearance would trigger investigation. Security would review footage. They'd see Lucius entering this bathroom during the evacuation. They wouldn't see Davis entering—his chameleon ability made him invisible to cameras when active—but they'd find the body eventually.
Or they would have, if there was going to be a body to find.
This could ruin everything. The mission. The rat network. The intelligence gathering. Everything he'd worked toward over the past weeks.
But it was already done. The decision had been made the moment Davis mentioned tomorrow's match.
The moment he'd recognized who Davis really was.
---
EIGHT MONTHS AGO
The park was nearly empty at this hour.
Past midnight in New Kong, the cherry trees casting long shadows under distant streetlights. The city slept around them, but places like this never fully closed—too many people with nowhere else to go, too many who preferred darkness for their business.
Which made it perfect hunting ground for someone who targeted isolated couples.
Lucius and Jasmine walked along one of the winding paths, their footsteps quiet on stone. They were in disguise—With the usual hologram ability projecting different faces over their own. To any observer, they appeared to be a couple in their mid-twenties taking a late-night walk.
The reality was surveillance.
Six couples murdered in parks across New Kong over three weeks. Always late at night. Always when they were alone and vulnerable. Then afterward, the families would start dying. Parents. Siblings. Cousins. Systematically hunted.
The Family Butcher.
Green Gate had assigned Lucius and Jasmine to draw him out. Play the vulnerable couple. Wait for him to take the bait.
"Think he'll show tonight?" Jasmine asked, keeping her voice casual despite their actual purpose. She wore a simple dress, the hologram making her look older, her distinctive eyes rendered normal brown.
"Probability suggests yes," Lucius replied, tracking the empty pathways through peripheral vision and hydro-sense. "Pattern analysis points to this location."
"You and your patterns." She smiled slightly. "Sometimes I think you see the whole world as one big tactical problem."
"The world is a tactical problem."
"See? That's exactly what I mean." She shook her head, but there was affection in it. "You could just say 'I hope so' like a normal person."
"I'm not a normal person."
"No," she agreed quietly. "You're really not."
They walked in comfortable silence for a bit, moving deeper into the park where trees grew denser and streetlight barely reached. The danger zone. A perfect spot for any attack to occur.
"Can I ask you something?" Jasmine said after a moment.
"You just did."
She bumped his shoulder lightly. "A real question."
"Go ahead."
"Do you ever think about doing this for real?" She kept her tone light, casual, but Lucius caught the slight tension underneath. "Not the mission stuff. Just spending time together. Without it being about work or training or anything tactical."
Lucius processed that carefully. They'd known each other for years. Been through things together that most people couldn't imagine. Somewhere along the way, things had shifted between them—or maybe they'd always been shifted and he just hadn't wanted to acknowledge it.
He knew what she was really asking.
And the answer was complicated. Not because he didn't know how he felt, but because of everything that came with it. The complications. The history. The fact that getting close to him meant dealing with everything he carried.
And then there were his problems. The things he couldn't explain.
"Well maybe we s—"
Movement.
His hydro-sense flared a fraction of a second too late—something rushing toward them from behind with predatory focus, already too close, aimed directly at—
Jasmine's back.
Lucius's hand shot out and grabbed her arm, yanking her sideways off the path with enough force to pull her completely away from the strike zone.
A blade slashed through the space where she'd been standing. Elongated claws, skin hardened to metallic consistency, the attack meant to penetrate between shoulder blades and sever her spine.
They both spun around.
A figure stood on the path behind them. Fully morphed. No longer human in appearance—body restructured into something predatory, skin covered in adaptive camouflage that shifted and flowed like liquid, face elongated with extra sensory organs, hands and feet ending in reinforced claws. A full biological transformation optimized for hunting.
"Well well," the figure said, its voice carrying an unnatural quality through the morphed throat. "That's unusual. Most people don't notice until it's too late."
Lucius stood slowly. Said nothing. Just looked at the creature with cold calculation.
The morphed figure tilted its head, studying them. "A fellow NovaBreed, it seems. This night's hunt won't be as easy as usual. But that's fine. Makes it more interesting."
Jasmine had already moved—backing away from the confrontation zone, heading toward the park's edge. She knew her role. Clear any potential civilians. Make sure no one wandered into this. Let Lucius handle the threat.
The creature noticed her movement and smiled—an expression that looked wrong on its morphed features. "Where's she going? I was aiming for her first. The pretty ones always—"
Lucius attacked.
No words. No warning. Pure violence.
His right hand pulled the water bottle from his jacket pocket, the cap coming off in the same motion. The water responded to his will immediately, flowing upward and forward, flash-freezing mid-air into a precise shape.
An ice axe. Single-bladed. Perfectly balanced. Sharp enough to cut bone.
The creature's eyes widened—surprise at the speed, at the immediate lethality—and tried to dodge.
Too slow.
Lucius closed the distance in three steps and swung the axe in a brutal arc aimed at the creature's neck.
The creature managed to get an arm up to block. The ice blade bit deep into morphed flesh, stuck in dense muscle and reinforced bone. Blood sprayed black in the dim light.
Lucius didn't try to pull the axe free. Just released it and drove his knee into the creature's gut with pile-driver force.
The impact folded the creature forward. Lucius's elbow came down on the back of its skull. Once. Twice. The kind of strikes meant to crack bone and scramble brain matter.
The creature stumbled, tried to create distance, its morphed body already working to heal the axe wound.
Lucius pursued relentlessly.
A punch to the ribs—bone cracking under reinforced flesh. Another to the face—teeth shattering, blood flowing. A kick to the knee joint—ligaments tearing despite biological reinforcement.
The creature tried to fight back. Clawed at Lucius with both hands, the strikes fast and desperate.
Lucius blocked, redirected, countered. Every movement precise. Every strike calculated to cause maximum damage. His expression never changed—just cold focus, barely containing the urge to end this thing completely.
The morphed figure was healing, yes. But not fast enough. The damage accumulated faster than regeneration could handle.
"Wait—" the creature gasped, its voice wet with blood. "Stop—you don't—"
Lucius grabbed the ice axe still embedded in its arm and ripped it free in a spray of blood and torn flesh.
Then swung for the neck again.
The creature threw itself backward, rolling across the stone path, putting distance between them. Its morphed features showed something it probably rarely felt.
Fear.
"You're making a mistake," it said, backing away. "You don't know who you're—"
Its mouth opened wider than should be possible. The jaw unhinged, and something shot forward from the back of its throat.
A tongue. But not normal—elongated, muscular, covered in barbs, moving with whip-like speed.
The attack caught Lucius across the face, the barbed tongue wrapping around his head, trying to pull him forward into claws that were already extending for a killing strike.
Pain flared. The barbs dug into skin. But Lucius had already moved, tilting his head, using the pull to close distance rather than resist it.
His left hand—grabbed the tongue where it connected to the creature's extended jaw.
And yanked.
The tongue tore partially free from its root, blood exploding from the creature's mouth. It screamed—raw and agonized—and its concentration on the camouflage ability broke for just a moment.
Just long enough.
The morphed form flickered, became slightly more visible, the adaptive camouflage losing cohesion.
Then it snapped back into full concealment. The creature turned and ran—moving with enhanced speed, its form blurring and fading, the camouflage making it impossible to track visually.
Lucius's hydro-sense tried to follow. Tracked the water content in the creature's body for three seconds.
Then that signature began to diffuse. Spreading. Blending with environmental humidity until it became indistinguishable from background moisture.
The creature was gone. Completely undetectable.
Lucius stood there for a moment, ice axe in hand, blood on his face from the barbed tongue attack, breathing controlled despite the violence.
Escaped.
Jasmine appeared from the tree line. "Did you—"
"He got away." Frustration edged into Lucius's voice.
She looked at the blood splattered across the path, the torn chunks of flesh and tissue. "You nearly killed him."
"Should have."
"Lucius—"
"He attacked you." His voice was flat. Final. "From behind. While you weren't looking."
She was quiet for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah. He did."
Sirens approached in the distance. Someone had heard the fighting.
"We need to leave," Lucius said.
They disappeared into the darkness before authorities arrived, their hologram disguises making identification impossible.
The blood and tissue samples recovered from the scene would eventually identify the attacker through DNA analysis, but by then he'd vanished completely—gone from known addresses, probably changed names, disappeared into New Kong's underworld.
The Family Butcher killings stopped after that night.
---
PRESENT
Lucius stared down at Davis's corpse.
When Davis had appeared on the bathroom stall, the recognition had been instant. The morphed features. The camouflage ability. The predatory way he moved.
The same man scheduled to fight tomorrow.
The calculation was simple.
Davis was tier 4, probably higher when fully morphed. He'd kill whoever he fought. That's what he did—killed his targets, then hunted their families.
If Davis won tomorrow's match, whoever lost would die. Then Davis would go after their family. Systematically. Thoroughly.
There'd been two options.
Let Davis fight. Hope his opponent survived or won. Then kill Davis later when they faced each other.
Or stop Davis now. Before the match. Before anyone else got hurt.
But the decision became irrelevant the moment Davis smiled and talked about tomorrow's match. About "testing" someone. About "seeing how much damage they can actually take."
And now there was cleanup to handle.
This could ruin everything if handled wrong. The investigation. The suspicion. The tournament potentially shut down before he could complete his mission.
But it could also work.
If handled correctly.
Lucius stood up.
---
The mess hall was crowded when Lucius arrived.
Fighters, some of the other staff's packed together, some looking annoyed at the disruption, others appearing genuinely concerned about the fire. Guards moved through taking headcounts, ensuring everyone had evacuated successfully.
Lucius found an empty section of wall and leaned against it, arms crossed, expression neutral.
Clean. No blood. No evidence. His bandaged left arm properly wrapped, his clothes showing no signs of violence.
Clean as a whistle.
The fire alarm finally cut off, leaving ringing silence.
"ATTENTION!" A guard called out. "Fire is contained! Maintenance handling cleanup! Return to quarters in thirty minutes! Remain here until cleared!"
Conversations filled the space. Fighters discussing what happened. Others looking irritated at having their evening disrupted.
Lucius stood there quietly, just another fighter waiting out an emergency evacuation.
Perfectly normal.
Perfectly innocent.
No one knew.
No one would know.
Davis Brown had disappeared without a trace.
And tomorrow, when they realized he was missing, everything would change.
But for now, Lucius just waited.
---
TO BE CONTINUED