"My turn," Zarbac said.

  The metal floor beneath Zarbac's boots gave way with a groan of tortured steel.

  He didn't run; he launched himself.

  The speed of the attack wasn't human. It was a blur. Lunaria barely had time to react. She raised her hammer-pick in a desperate block.

  CLANG!

  The impact of the knife against the borophene rang out like a bell. Lunaria's arms vibrated all the way to her shoulders, absorbing an absurd amount of kinetic force for a man of that size.

  "You are so ugly!" she grunted, tensing every muscle to hold her ground. "And that's saying something, considering I'm with an ugly guy."

  Zarbac took a step back from the push, but his feet dragged with control.

  "Huh...? Did you just call me ugly?" Krzytof blinked, offended, a few meters away.

  "No..." Lunaria gathered momentum, digging her boots into the floor. "You are hideous."

  Zarbac let out a clean, childish laugh.

  "How fun!"

  He lunged again. This time it wasn't a single strike. It was a storm.

  Steel against borophene. Sparks flying in all directions. Lunaria responded with ferocity, matching his speed, deflecting cuts that sought her throat by millimeters.

  Almost, she thought.

  Zarbac's edge grazed her nose. Lunaria arched her back to a physical limit, feeling the wind of the cut on her eyelashes.

  She used the inertia of the movement. She straightened up like a spring and unleashed a front kick straight to Zarbac's solar plexus.

  The impact was solid. Zarbac doubled over, expelling air.

  But instead of a grimace of pain, his lips stretched into a smile that split his face from ear to ear.

  "Damn sicko..." Lunaria hissed.

  She retracted her leg and took advantage of him being bent over. She raised her weapon with both hands.

  "Go to sleep."

  She brought the hammer-pick down with lethal intent toward his skull.

  Zarbac let out a sarcastic snort.

  "Goodnight," he replied.

  He opened his left hand, letting his knife drop. And with that same bare hand, he caught Lunaria's weapon in mid-fall.

  He didn't grab the handle.

  He grabbed the head of the pick.

  The attack stopped dead.

  Zarbac stopped arching. He looked up and stared into her eyes, his left hand dripping blood as the edges of the borophene crushed his palm and fingers.

  Lunaria frowned, incredulous. She pushed with all her weight to free the weapon or finish crushing his hand. A wet crunch of breaking bones was heard in Zarbac's hand.

  "What a delight!" he moaned with genuine pleasure, smiling even wider.

  "My turn."

  With his right hand, he dropped the other knife. Now he had both hands free.

  He threw a short, brutal punch to Lunaria's stomach.

  The air left her lungs in a choked scream.

  He didn't stop.

  Another hit. To the ribs.

  Another. To the chest.

  Another. To the face.

  They were hydraulic pistons pounding meat. Lunaria tried to cover herself, but the brutality of the assault was demolishing her.

  "GET AWAY FROM HER!" Krzytof screamed.

  The Fox threw his two daggers with a flick of his wrist, desperately trying to stop the massacre.

  "Wretch!"

  The first dagger crossed the air to the side of them. The hum arrived with a delay, cutting the wind.

  The steel impacted the wall of the room. It didn't just stick; the metal around the blade began to hiss and bubble, corroding in seconds as if accelerated rust were eating it.

  The second one was heading straight for Zarbac's chest.

  The madman stopped his assault instantly. He retreated with a fluid movement, letting the blade graze his clothes and crash into a data monitor, which exploded in sparks and acidic smoke.

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  Poison? Zarbac questioned, looking at the corrosion, then locking his eyes on Krzytof.

  "That thing you just did is annoying..." He clenched his fists, with a tense smile. "But fun."

  Krzytof touched his bracelet and extended his arm to the side.

  "Now I will play with you."

  Zarbac gathered momentum and lunged at him.

  However, mid-sprint, a sharp whistle came from behind. Krzytof's daggers peeled off the wall and the monitor, tracing a curve in the air. They returned to their owner's hand as if they were magnetic boomerangs, seeking Zarbac's back in their trajectory.

  "This is so much fun!" Zarbac exclaimed, turning halfway to intercept them.

  "That's enough!"

  Lunaria appeared from his blind spot. She used the distraction to unload her weapon directly into Zarbac's face.

  The blow was brutal. A dry sound of impact.

  Zarbac, who didn't see it coming, took the full force of the borophene. His body was launched to the side and fell heavily to the floor, rolling until he lay motionless.

  "Don't get up again..." she gasped, lacking air and with pain in her ribs. "Sick piece of shit."

  Zarbac didn't move.

  For a moment, the situation seemed to calm down. The only sound was the Foxes' agitated breathing and the crackling of acid on the walls.

  "Let's see who you are..." Lunaria touched her bracelet and extended her arm toward the fallen body.

  A fan of blue light emerged from the artifact, sweeping Zarbac with thousands of miniature lasers mapping his physiology.

  "Initiating analysis," the synthetic male voice of the AI informed in her transmitter. "Tracking subject."

  Meanwhile, Krzytof sheathed his daggers with a click. He didn't look at his partner. He walked toward an object shining on the floor, reflecting the scanner's light.

  "Checking White Cradle records," the AI continued. "No matches in the Fifth Imperial Branch: Elite Soldiers."

  Krzytof stopped when he reached the object. He crouched down.

  "Checking Black Cradle," the AI paused for processing. "The Fourth Branch has no records. Searching remaining branches raised by the Black."

  Krzytof picked the object up from the floor.

  "What are you doing?" Lunaria asked, keeping the scanner aimed, but looking at him sideways with strangeness.

  "Phantom Corps has no record," the AI continued, impassive. "Checking the last branch of the Black Cradle."

  Krzytof stood up and observed what he held in his hand in detail. It was the remains of Zarbac's metallic mask.

  "Nothing..." he muttered, turning the piece of metal between his fingers. "I just found it curious."

  "You have such disgusting tastes." Lunaria made a face of repulsion and turned her eyes back to the body. "Stop snooping and report to the others!"

  He didn't react to the order. He raised the piece of metal to see it against the light, looking for something on the dented surface.

  For a few seconds, the AI remained in static silence, processing an unusual amount of information. in that dead lapse, Krzytof saw it.

  There it was. Right on the edge of the dented metal, small but unmistakable: a laser-engraved logo.

  It was a Trojan helmet, but it wasn't heroic; it was being suffocated and surrounded by tentacles, as if it were prey to a jellyfish.

  "It can't be..." Krzytof swallowed, feeling a lump in his throat. He directed his gaze quickly to Lunaria. "GET AWAY FROM HIM!"

  "Huh...?" Lunaria frowned. "Let me fini..."

  A voice interrupted her from the floor.

  "How stressful... Why does everyone have to interrupt?"

  Zarbac began to get up. His movements were no longer fluid; they were spasmodic, broken.

  By pure reflex, Lunaria took two steps back.

  Krzytof dropped the piece of metal as if it burned and drew his reaction pistol with a blur of motion.

  "I have a bad feeling," he said in a low voice, taking the safety off.

  "Coward," Lunaria snorted, gripping her hammer-pick with both hands.

  "Why?" Zarbac questioned almost in a whisper, finishing standing up.

  No one answered.

  "Why?" he repeated, looking at the floor. The sound of his teeth grinding, about to break from the pressure, filled the silence.

  "Why what?" Lunaria replied, agitated by the lack of logic.

  "WHY?!" Zarbac roared.

  "I don't know why you're crazy," she snapped, "but maybe it'll get fixed if I hit you again."

  Zarbac looked up.

  His eyes had changed. They no longer had a shine, nor were they dull. They burned. It was a feverish look, injected with blood and pure adrenaline.

  He took a step. The intensity in his gaze increased.

  He took the second. He looked like a rabid animal about to bite.

  "Stay back!" Krzytof shouted, and fired.

  Zarbac didn't even look at the weapon. He raised his hand to head height with disinterest. The movement caused the sleeve of his tactical clothing to slide down.

  It exposed what he wore on his wrist: a bracelet.

  Lunaria and Krzytof froze upon seeing it. It was identical to theirs.

  Before the reaction bullet touched him, the bracelet emitted a hum.

  In front of Zarbac, a shield of translucent blue light materialized, composed of perfect hexagonal cells, like a honeycomb. It looked like a fragile hologram, but physics said otherwise.

  The bullet impacted against the energy. It didn't ricochet; it flattened on impact, falling to the floor turned into a useless lead coin.

  The floor beneath Zarbac's boot sank slightly, giving way to the pressure of his launch.

  Lunaria blinked.

  It was just a fraction of a second of darkness.

  When she opened her eyes, he was already in front of her.

  Without any mercy, Zarbac closed his hand around her neck. He squeezed enough to cut off the air, but not to kill. He looked her in the eyes, enjoying the panic, and with a single arm movement, he lifted her into the air, her feet leaving the ground.

  "LET HER GO!" Krzytof shouted, squeezing the trigger until the firing pin clicked on empty.

  Lunaria dropped her hammer-pick. Her gloved hands desperately clawed at the arm choking her, fighting for a breath of air, but the grip was iron.

  The reaction bullets died against the hexagonal shield. Useless lead falling to the floor like dead rain.

  With desperation burning his blood, Krzytof threw the empty pistol, unsheathed his daggers, and launched himself into the attack. A suicide move.

  Zarbac didn't stop looking Lunaria in the eyes. He smiled.

  "Come on... amuse me."

  He delivered a dry headbutt to the bridge of her nose. Lunaria went limp for an instant from the stun. Zarbac pivoted on his axis and threw her face-first like a ragdoll.

  The impact was demolishing.

  Lunaria's body smashed through the laboratory's partition panel, breaking metal and plastic with a crash, and landed inert in the outer hallway, among the rubble of the wall.

  "You miserable bastard!" Krzytof roared.

  He launched a downward thrust with all his body weight, seeking to drive the dagger into his neck.

  Zarbac just twisted his neck.

  He dodged the steel by millimeters, stepping back with insulting speed. Krzytof went past him due to the inertia of the failed strike.

  Zarbac received him with an upward knee to the stomach.

  The air left Krzytof's lungs along with a cascade of blood. The blow lifted him off the floor, folding him in half.

  "Amuse me more..." Zarbac grabbed him by the tactical vest and slammed him back-first against the metal floor.

  "Assistance has been requested from higher-ranking personnel on board... retreat," the AI's voice resonated in both Foxes' transmitters, cold and distant, while Zarbac mounted Krzytof. "According to the Second Imperial Branch, the enemy classification is... Hunter."

  Zarbac raised his fist and let it fall. Krzytof's face crunched.

  "AMUSE ME!" the madman shouted, bringing down the other fist with fury. "IS THAT ALL YOU CAN DO?!"

  In the hallway, amidst the dust and rubble, Lunaria looked up with difficulty.

  Her left eye was swollen shut, purple and about to burst. With the right one, she saw the world blurred and tinted red. She heard the wet blows on the other side of the broken wall.

  "The Second Imperial Branch has answered our call," the AI concluded.

  End of the Mass Release.