Later that night, in the cold sterility of the CPG headquarters' war room, the holographic projection of the broadcast played on loop. No one dared speak. Not the aides, not the captains, not even the artificial intelligence embedded in the room's core.
General Elias Calloway stood alone at the center, his square jaw locked tight, one hand clenched behind his back, the other resting on the edge of the command console. The footage played again—Lilienne Vaestra, stripped of her dignity, beaten, humiliated, surrounded by a howling mob who once claimed oppression, now drunk on power and bloodlust.
He didn't blink. He simply watched. When it ended, the silence in the room thickened like a stormfront. Then came the long, slow exhale. "That's enough," he muttered.
He turned to his staff, who stood at attention the moment his eyes met theirs. "Initiate Operation Glass Rain. Effective immediately."
One of the younger officers hesitated. "Sir, that will mean direct urban conflict. Civilian casualties will—"
"Rebels have taken this city hostage under the veil of justice. They parade rape, murder, and humiliation in broad daylight. They think there's no consequence." He turned his full gaze to the room. "Anyone harboring radicals, anyone supporting this insurgency—anyone waving the flag of this madness—is no longer a civilian. They are a target."
Dozens of CPG officers snapped into motion. Encrypted orders left the room in waves, flowing into the dark veins of the city.
By midnight, cloaked VTOLs launched from underground hangars. Black Guards snipers were dropped into high towers. Black Watch assassins slithered through alleyways like ghosts. Judicators patrolled in full exo-suits, scanning every district with autonomous drones.
And above it all, in the skies of Jinjahan, a coded alert echoed through the secure channels of the Capitol Patrol Guard: "Operation Glass Rain: Active."
The first strike came without warning. A sudden shriek of wind as a rocket tore through the midnight air, launched from a low-flying VTOL by a Black Watch operator. Its target: a fortified rebel checkpoint disguised as an abandoned laundromat in Sector 17.
The explosion wasn't just loud—it ripped the night open. A blazing mushroom of fire and shattered concrete erupted in the middle of the block, windows blew out across four streets, the shockwave knocking civilians flat. Flames devoured the rooftops. Human silhouettes flung through the air like broken dolls. Then the screaming started. Chaos bloomed.
Sirens failed to rise above the screams. People stampeded in every direction. Children dragged by terrified parents. Hovercars flipped in the streets. Entire apartments collapsed under the force of shrapnel and fire. A marketplace near the impact turned into a warzone—fruits, bodies, and metal all littered the ground as merchants trampled their own stalls to escape the hellfire.
A pregnant Medean woman fell, trampled by a dozen desperate feet. A Zwarten teen tried to help her up before a drone's speaker ordered: "CIVILIAN PRESENCE DETECTED. CLEAR THE AREA."
Then, another blast. This time from above—Judicators' rail rounds tore through a rebel hideout nestled beneath a community center. The blast flattened half the building, sending concrete rain onto families hiding below. Explosions roared like thunder every five minutes.
The skyline turned into a flickering silhouette, bathed in red warning lights and orange infernos. Every corner of Jinjahan—rich or poor—felt the reach of Operation Glass Rain. The upper districts shook as fire spread from the old tenements below. Power grids failed. Neon lights flickered, then died.
A group of mutants gathered in a sewer entrance were vaporized by a Silent Rain drone. Their bones clattered as ash before they hit the ground.
On the southern bridge, CPG riot tanks rolled forward, crushing barricades made of stolen furniture and dead vehicles. A man screamed as one of his arms got caught under a tread. It kept rolling.
People banged on the armored windows of transport shuttles begging for escape. But every checkpoint was sealed.
Above it all, the broadcast returned: "By order of General Elias Calloway, the Capitol Patrol Guard has initiated Operation Glass Rain. Shelter is not guaranteed. Compliance ensures survival."
Gunfire lit the night like a strobe, the rhythm of chaos now set to the thunder of automatic rifles, missile trails, and the whine of VTOL wings cutting through smoke-choked skies.
Every scattered pocket of resistance—mutant cells, Zwarten outcasts, Medean radicals—coalesced into a single force, taking refuge in the industrial heart of Jinjahan, District 9, where factories once roared and smoke stacks clawed the sky. Now, the entire district was barricaded—steel crates welded into walls, rooftop snipers posted, and makeshift artillery facing every known CPG entry point.
The Rebels made their line. They stood shoulder to shoulder—ideologies divided, but fear united them. And then, CPG descended.
From the clouds, dropships howled like banshees. Sentinel Corps squads rappelled down in eerie silence, their dark armor gleaming with death, weapons locked with biometric precision. Judicators marched down the main roads, their presence a statement of law written in blood.
"No more warnings," whispered High Judicator Graves through open comms. "They've made their choice."
Then came Black Watch—the ghost stories of war. They didn't announce their arrival. They simply appeared. A blade in the dark. A bullet before the scream.
Rebel mortars arched into the sky, tearing through a CPG scout drone. The explosion rocked a nearby district tower, which collapsed into the street like a dying god.
Gunfire echoed off walls. Mutant fire-wielders hurled flames across alleys, only to be struck down by electromagnetic grenades. A Zwarten woman screamed as her brother caught a rail round to the chest—leaving nothing but a hole in his torso and the sound of her soul breaking.
Airstrikes followed. Massive sonic booms tore through the clouds. VTOL bombers dropped smart ordnance like rain—pinpoint explosions taking out entire buildings, rooftops turned into fire pits. Ash swirled above like snow in hell.
A young Medean rebel tried to hold the line with a stolen pulse rifle. He shouted something about freedom before a Black Watch assassin appeared behind him and drove a knife into the base of his neck.
On the broken streets of Jinjahan, where firelight outshined the neon glow, chaos had no ceiling—only depths. Every corner became a wae zone. Markets turned to slaughterhouses. Old shrines, once sacred, crumbled beneath artillery fire. The scent of blood clung to every breath, every heartbeat echoed with incoming fire.
But then—they came. The so-called voices of the resistance, long hidden in tunnels and shadows, stepped into the fire. Not as whispers anymore. But as warriors.
Izaak Tan'ra, the iron-tongued Zwarten philosopher who once rallied hundreds with nothing but his voice, rose atop a crumbling monument. His fist raised high, his voice booming. "We die standing or we live kneeling—choose!"
Before the crowd even cheered, a high-velocity round tore through his eye socket. His body slumped, tumbling from the broken stone like a broken promise. Blood pooled beneath him as his followers screamed and scattered.
Then came Rivan, the Medean tactician—brilliant, cold, calculated. He led an armored convoy through South Loop, aiming to breach the CPG line with modified loaders. But a drone strike caught the lead vehicle. The explosion vaporized it. His escape pod ejected—only to be intercepted mid-air by a Black Watch operative. The last thing seen of Rivan was his twisted frame pinned to a wall with his own spinal cord.
Next was Orla Vox, mutant leader of the Iron Howl Pack, known for commanding respect with her telepathic commands. She leapt into the fray like a mythic warrior, claws tearing through six CPG infantry in one strike. But it didn't matter. Sentinel Corps anticipated her. Three seconds later, she was paralyzed with a neural disruptor and burned alive by an orbital strike.
Jinjahan Park. Once the heart of the city—its lungs, its soul. The last green sanctuary amidst steel, neon, and smog. That night, it became a graveyard in waiting.
What remained of the crowd still lingered. Bloodied banners. Burned-out stages. The faint cry of the broken echoing through trees that once offered peace. Somewhere, a child sobbed beneath a shattered bench. Somewhere else, the soft hum of a lullaby cut through the screams—someone trying to remember peace. And there she was—Lilienne.
Tied again. Bruised again. Still breathing. Her pale skin glowed like porcelain under moonlight, her once-pristine beauty now marked by horror. Torn gown clinging to her like a final humiliation, yet her eyes—those famous, Edenian eyes—stared up at the sky as if she knew what was coming.
A sound began to rise. Not from the people, but from above. A low whine, building into a howl, then splitting the night sky with a sonic shriek.
From the heavens, a black streak cut through the clouds—a high-altitude thermobaric missile, codenamed Seraphim's Ash. Launched by the CPG under Operation Glass Rain, authorized with one simple message from General Calloway. "Let it end."
In that final second, some looked up and screamed. Others ran. Some knelt and prayed. A few... simply stood still. Liliene didn't move. She smiled. The blast swallowed them whole. White light. Black fire. Silence.
Jinjahan Park ceased to exist. A haunting stillness cloaked the city in the wake of the inferno at Jinjahan Park. Smoke curled like phantom limbs across the skyline. Sirens wailed in the distance, fading slowly into eerie silence. The final scream had long since died, replaced by the crackle of burning ruins and the soft, metallic groan of a broken city trying to breathe.
The rebels—those who hadn't been caught in the blast—were no longer fighters. They were prey. Scattered, hunted, and broken. CPG officers, in full riot exo-gear, moved through alleys like reapers with license to purge. No mercy. No arrests. Only ends.
Then every holo-screen across Jinjahan blinked to life. The symbol of the Capitol Patrol Guard spun slowly into view, sharp and gold, haloed in red. A moment of static. Then the image cleared. General Elias Calloway stood alone in the war room.
His face was calm, carved from stone, lips pressed thin. He wore no helmet now—just his dark coat, bloodstained at the edges, the weight of the world sewn into his shoulders. His voice, when it came, cut through the silence like a blade. "To the citizens of Jinjahan—this is your final warning. We gave you time. We gave you space to breathe, to grieve, to rebuild. And in return, you chose fire. You chose chaos. You chose to turn a city of progress into a tomb of hate. Effective immediately, all unsanctioned gatherings will be treated as acts of sedition. All resistance groups are designated enemies of the state. Any action against Alben citizens or CPG forces will be met with lethal force."