The rain came down in cold, merciless sheets.
Reo staggered through the ruined streets, every step burning fire through his battered body. His knuckles were torn raw. His ribs ached with every breath. Blood dripped down his forehead, stinging his eyes.
But he was alive.
Somehow, he was alive.
And Kael was not chasing him — not yet.
The city around him buzzed with uneasy silence, broken only by the distant crackle of broken electricity and the hum of Doraemon's anxious voice through the communicator.
"Reo... Reo, can you hear me?"
He clicked the receiver. His voice came out rough, ragged.
"I'm here."
"You need medical attention immediately! You're losing blood!"
Reo smirked bitterly, wiping blood from his mouth.
"I've had worse."
"I'm sending a drone to pick you up. Stay where you are—"
"Negative," Reo interrupted. "It's not safe here. Kael's systems could come back online any second. If we don't move, he'll track the signal."
There was a heavy silence. Then, Doraemon's reluctant agreement:
"Understood. I'll reroute you to a safe house. Ten blocks east. Get moving, Reo."
Reo took a shaky breath.
Then he limped forward into the night.
---
Meanwhile... In the Ruins
Kael lay amidst the rubble, unmoving.
The EMP had short-circuited most of his systems. His vision flickered between static and blurred images. Warnings screamed across his HUD in angry red letters.
But slowly... agonizingly... Kael forced himself upright.
His face was twisted in a snarl.
"Mercy," he spat the word like poison.
He flexed his hands — the servos in his arms whining as they rebooted.
"He thinks mercy makes him better."
He clenched his fists.
"It makes him weak."
Somewhere deep inside, a voice — small, battered, forgotten — whispered:
He's still your brother.
But Kael crushed that voice.
There were no brothers anymore.
Only enemies.
And he would not lose again.
He tapped into the emergency override implanted in his systems — a forbidden protocol known only to a few.
The nanomachines within his blood responded, accelerating.
Repairing.
Evolving.
"Override confirmed," a mechanical voice whispered inside his mind. "Activating Berserker Protocol."
Kael smiled — a cruel, broken smile.
If Reo thought the fight was over...
He was dead wrong.
---
Safe House 13
Reo stumbled into the battered apartment, almost collapsing at the door.
Doraemon was already there, buzzing anxiously around him like an overworked nurse.
"You idiot! Look at you! You're practically a corpse walking!" Doraemon cried, dragging Reo to a battered couch and spraying antiseptic foam over his wounds.
Reo winced but said nothing.
His mind wasn't on the pain.
It was on Kael.
"He's not finished," Reo muttered.
Doraemon stiffened. "What do you mean? You beat him!"
"For now," Reo said grimly. "But Kael... he's like a virus. Every time you think he's dead, he mutates. He adapts."
Doraemon looked terrified.
"And when he comes back," Reo continued, voice hollow, "he'll be worse than before."
---
A New Threat Awakens
Somewhere in the broken heart of the city, Kael stood atop a tower of twisted steel.
His body had changed — muscles rippling with unnatural strength, veins glowing faintly under his skin.
The Berserker Protocol had unlocked new thresholds of power — but at a cost.
His humanity was slipping away.
Piece by piece.
Kael raised his head to the sky, letting the rain wash over him, and for the first time in years...
He laughed.
It was not the laugh of a man.
It was the howl of something monstrous.
"Run, Reo," he whispered. "Run as far as you like."
His eyes blazed red in the dark.
"I'll still find you."
---