Time: 6:31 PM
Warehouse District — Sector 4
Smoke drifted through the ruined warehouse.
Sparks crackled from the shattered lights overhead. The concrete floor was scarred with impact craters and burn marks. In the middle of it all, Jack Monroe stood tall, his golden hair catching the light, his expression unreadable behind the jawless, fang-framed Golden Skull Mask.
His sword pulsed with a black aura, edged in gold. Every breath he took left a faint distortion in the air, as if heat and gravity were bending around him.
Across from him, the plant-piranha Hybrid snarled.
Vines lashed from its back like living whips.
The monster struck first — one vine screaming through the air like a spear.
Jack moved.
Not with training — with instinct.
He dipped low, the vine slamming into the ground where his head had been. He sprung sideways off a chunk of debris, then lunged forward — blade gleaming.
SHING!
A clean diagonal cut.
The vine recoiled, sliced open and twitching.
The Hybrid hissed.
Another vine came — two more after that. Jack dodged, barely—one grazed his shoulder. He winced, then countered, blade swinging in tight arcs.
Clang. Slice. Whirl.
Every movement was improvised. Unrefined. But fast. Feral. Like his body already knew what it needed to do.
Jack rolled under the last strike and drove the sword upward into the Hybrid's side. Black blood sprayed.
The creature shrieked and stumbled backward, its plant-matter body curling to protect the wound.
Meanwhile…
Adam was already on his second round with the rhino-gorilla Hybrid.
The beast came at him like a wall of muscle. Adam ducked a wide punch and answered with a hook straight to its gut — flames erupting with every strike.
WHAM. WHAM. CRACK.
The hybrid grabbed a rusted beam and swung it like a club.
Adam caught the metal with both fists, the flames from his hands bending the steel with heat. He twisted, broke the beam in two, and headbutted the creature square in the jaw.
"That's my car you wrecked!" he shouted.
The Hybrid roared and charged again. Adam welcomed it.
Back to Jack.
He circled the plant Hybrid. His breaths were ragged. His sword hung low in his grip — not from exhaustion, but focus. His eyes burned gold beneath the mask.
The monster lunged.
Jack dashed forward and met it mid-air, blade raised.
A wide, arcing slash.
SHHKRRRKK!
He landed behind it — the Hybrid staggered, motionless.
Then one of its many piranha-heads snapped at him from behind. It wasn't dead — only wounded. The rest of the vine-limbs tightened again.
Jack braced for impact—
But his sword pulsed.
Just a flicker. A hum.
Then, without thinking, he threw the blade like a spear — it pierced the creature's center mass, pinning it to a wall.
Jack gasped. His hand now empty.
Then the blade shimmered—
—and suddenly, he was gone.
POOF.
Jack reappeared in the air, exactly where the sword had landed, hand now gripping the hilt again.
He didn't understand it.
But in that moment, he didn't need to.
He raised the sword one last time, golden aura burning across the edge—
"Stay. Down."
SLASH!
The blade cleaved through the Hybrid with finality.
It dropped to the floor in pieces, vines twitching… then going still.
Time: 6:35 PM
Both monsters were dead.
The warehouse stood in silence again.
Adam limped over, his fists still faintly glowing, breathing hard. One of his sleeves was half-burned off.
Jack turned to face him — the glow of his mask dimming just slightly.
Adam studied him.
"…You alright?" he asked.
Jack's voice came through the mask, quieter now. "I think so."
Adam looked down at the sword. Then the gold mask. Then back to Jack's changed eyes.
A slow nod.
"You're one of us now."