Chapter 1 -
09-12-2035
Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria
DENNIS
Rain drowns the city, washing its sins into the gutters, but the filth never truly leaves. The lights of
Lagos flicker against the downpour, neon veins pulsing through the corpse of a dying metropolis.
Beside me, the Doctor flees. He thinks he can outrun inevitability.
I steer the car with the ease of a god watching his creation crumble. The vehicle ahead sways, tires
struggling against the flood. He is panicked. Desperate. I taste it in the air, a bitterness that excites.
"He knows," Solaja mutters, adjusting the sidearm on her lap. Rain slicks down the glass, casting the
world in streaks of gray. "He knows what he's done."
I smile. "Let's just enjoy the chase."
The Doctor is too slow, his humanity still shackling him. He should have abandoned that weakness
long ago. Instead, he clings to the illusion of escape. I roll down the window, letting the storm kiss my
skin.
"Quite the rush, Doctor," I call out, my voice slicing through wind and water alike.
He does not answer, but I see the way his grip tightens on the wheel. Good. Fear is a lesson, and he is
learning.
For a moment, I glimpse his eyes in the mirror—wide, frantic, reflecting the strike of white lightning
that splits the heavens. I see the regret, the weight of his failure pressing into the lines of his face.
He presses the accelerator.
The engine wails, a final cry against the inevitable. I let him have this last defiance.
Impact.
The collision is not a sound but a symphony. Metal twists. Glass fractures. The car tumbles, caught in a
storm of its own making. It rolls once, twice—momentum tearing it apart—until it comes to rest. A
broken thing, overturned in the rain.
I step out before the wreckage stills. Water sluices from my frame, soaking into the fine weave of my
coat. Solaja moves to exit the car, but I raise a hand.
"Wait."
The Doctor dangles, still strapped into his seat, blood pooling beneath him. His chest rises and falls in
short, labored gasps. A jagged spear of glass juts from his side.
He sees me. Recognition dawns, chased swiftly by despair.
"Please," he croaks.
I crouch, observing him with something bordering on curiosity.
"No, Doctor," I say, fingers curling around the handle of the briefcase. "This is your doing."
I do not linger. I do not offer him comfort. The storm swallows me as I leave him to drown in his own
sins.
Behind me, a phone vibrates.
It is his.
My heart clenches, an instinctive warning thrumming through my bones. I do not ignore it. I turn, and
there he is—the Doctor, bloodied but reaching, fingers trembling toward the device.
I move. Fast.
His lips curl into something almost triumphant.
"You're too late," he whispers, voice frayed at the edges. "He's already here."
The words unmake my thoughts.
The world shatters.
A thunderous crash: concrete rupturing beneath the force of something vast.
A figure, dark against the storm-lit sky, lands in a crouch beside me. The pavement fractures outward
like a wound.
My left hand rises, shielding my eyes from the debris. My right—weighted with the briefcase—pulls
against unseen hands. I kick, driving my heel forward before he can wrench it free.
He pivots. Smooth. Controlled. Travat form. One of Ellis's techniques. Is she here? The stance is
unmistakable.
I shift my grip and drive my shoulder into him. We collide, swinging wildly: fists, elbows, knees. A
storm of movement too fast to track.
He pulls back, slipping free just as a bullet hisses through the air where his arms had been.
Solaja.
She's out, moving to flank from four o'clock. The newcomer sees her too late.
Gunfire.
Three shots bury deep into his chest. The rain and thunder smother the sound, but I see the impact—the
way the bullets fail to drop him, the way his grin only widens.
He stands.
Three centimeters shorter than me. Much wider. The torn fabric reveals the dull sheen of grill armor
beneath his ruined coat. His lips peel back, teeth white as bone, gleaming against the backdrop of the
storm.
He speaks.
"Dennis." His voice is a thing of quiet amusement. "Would you mind telling the lady not to interrupt?"
A pause. His head tilts, eyes—blue-green like deep ocean currents—studying me.
"I've heard a lot about you. I just want to test myself."
He rolls his shoulders. The movement is slow, deliberate.
He draws his blade—a sangbātā, a cruel, curved thing forged from the darkness of old steel.
The black portals ripple.
I exhale.
I have never faced another Novan with intent to kill.
No turning back now.
I unsheathe my own blade, steel catching the glint of distant lightning.
"My life for your life," I intone, voice steady.
He smiles.
"And my blood for yours."
Motion becomes madness.
The distance between us vanishes.
We collide like hounds loosed upon the scent of blood, blades flashing, ringing in harmony
with the storm. Sangbātā meets steel, the clash swallowed by thunder, the gleam devoured by
lightning. He is skilled, battle-tested, tempered in war. One of Tarfa's traitors.
I see it in his footwork—the way he flows between stances, cutting angles, shifting his weight to
deflect my strikes. He fights like a man who has danced with death before.
But I am not a dancer.
I am the storm itself.
Our blades weave a song of ruin. A cut at my ribs—I turn into it, let it glance off the reinforced
lining of my coat. A downward slash to his thigh—he pivots, deflects, counters. I disengage,
spinning into another strike. He matches me, steel singing against steel, arcs of rain scattering
from our weapons.
He laughs, breathless. "Wow, you're good."
He tries to pull back, creating space. I do not allow it.
I am not a tiger stalking its prey. Not a lion lying in wait.
I am something from another time.
The shadows shift behind me. Solaja, moving in tandem, pressing the advantage.
The traitor steps back. But there is nowhere to go.
My blade bites through his armor, carving across his chest. He jerks away, fast, but not fast enough.
Blood spills from the wound, dark against the rain-slicked ground.
I press forward. Strike after strike. Relentless.
Windows creak open. Eyes peer from the darkness of their homes.
Damn. This was never meant to be seen. Our existence should remain hidden. I must end this now.
I move like a serpent striking, my blade a forceful fan that rends through flesh.
His scream shatters the night.
Steel splits his forearm from middle finger to elbow. His sangbātā slips from his ruined grip,
spinning through the air.
I snatch it mid-flight.
And drive it through his chest.
Pinning him to the concrete wall.
I raise my blade for the final blow.
"Move a muscle, and she dies."
The words stop me cold.
Not the words—the voice.
I turn, heart hammering.
Solaja kneels in the rain, her locks wrapped tight in Ellis's grasp.
Our eyes meet.
"Traitor," I whisper. The word drips with venom.
Ellis sighs, her turquoise eyes steady. Unapologetic.
"My life for your life," Solaja intones, voice calm despite the blade at her throat.
"And my blood for yours."
I move.
Steel flashes.
The Novan's head splits against the wall.
Blood spatters. His body goes limp.
Ellis does not hesitate.
Her blade whispers through the storm.
Solaja's head falls.
Rage ignites within me.
I react—my blade spins toward Ellis.
She catches it.
Not with her hands.
With Solaja's severed head.
A wire descends from above, slicing through the rain. And I see it—the Jet Bee.
I should have known.
I lunge to close the gap, but the cable pulls her skyward.
She lifts the briefcase, meeting my gaze one last time.
And drops Solaja's head—along with my blade—letting them crash into the waterlogged street below.
All I can do is watch.
As my lover kills my student.
Leaving me.
Again.