The sun sank behind the crumbling skyline as Jayden's silhouette cut through the ash-laden air.
There was no ceremony, no speeches — only cold, relentless purpose.
Tonight, blood would answer blood.
---
In the hollow of an abandoned subway station, Jayden met with the few who still followed him:
Jeff, Wendy, Elias, and a handful of silent figures wearing grief like a second skin.
No one asked about the plan.
They knew what it was.
Annihilation.
Jayden unfurled a tattered map on a cracked stone table, his voice low and steady.
"Three targets. We hit them simultaneously. No survivors."
Wendy stiffened. "Jayden... are you sure?"
His eyes — once filled with a wild, stubborn hope — now held something else: a cold finality.
"I'm sure," he said.
And no one dared question him again.
---
Night swallowed the city whole.
Jayden and Jeff moved through the first facility like shadows, blades whispering death into the ears of unsuspecting guards.
No wasted motion. No hesitation.
When they found the labs, Jayden didn't even blink.
He wired the explosives himself, every movement a silent scream for Sophia.
For everyone they had lost.
As the detonator clicked into place, he stared for a moment at the rows of cages — at the broken, human experiments inside.
A spark of mercy flickered inside him... and died.
They were too far gone.
He pressed the button without looking away.
The explosion tore through the night like the roar of a wounded god.
---
The Warning
At the second site, Wendy and Elias encountered heavier resistance — men and women twisted by the organization's experiments.
Flesh turned into weapons.
They fought savagely, not for survival — but for purpose.
And for the first time, Wendy realized:
Jayden wasn't just fighting enemies anymore.
He was fighting the future itself.
A future where monsters ruled, wearing human faces.
When they torched the second building to the ground, the fire reached high enough to paint the clouds orange.
A message written in smoke and flame:
"We are coming for you."
---
At the third site, Jayden faced something unexpected.
Inside a sealed vault, amidst shattered glass and rusted machines, he found a file.
Sophia's file.
And beside it, another — with his own name.
His hands trembled as he flipped through pages of lies, betrayals, and secrets.
They had chosen him from the start.
They had planned every loss, every heartbreak — engineering his downfall to create the perfect weapon.
Jayden staggered back, heart hammering against the iron bars of his ribs.
"All this time..."
Sophia's smile flashed before his eyes.
She had known.
She had sacrificed herself to free him.
---
Jayden dropped the file into the flames without a second glance.
There was no going back now.
No forgiveness.
Only war.
---