The junkyard was too quiet.
Keonei could feel it in the air—the stillness. The weight of unseen eyes.
He crouched in the rusted shell of an old van, watching Kai tinker with a drone they'd salvaged last week. The little thing buzzed clumsily above the boy's head as he laughed, oblivious to the danger creeping closer.
"Check it out, Keo! I finally fixed the stabilizers!" Kai called, grinning as the drone wobbled in a drunken arc over their campfire.
"Nice job, kid." Keonei smiled faintly, but his gut twisted like barbed wire.
Ever since the fight last night, something had felt… off. He hadn't slept. Couldn't.
The mafia's eyes were everywhere in Wreckspire. And Heavy Metal's victory had been too clean. Too flashy.
⸻
The Ambush
The first shot came out of nowhere.
CRACK!
The drone exploded in a shower of sparks, pieces raining down over Kai's head.
"Get down!" Keonei roared.
Kai froze. "Keo—what's going on?"
A bullet ricocheted off the van with a shriek of metal.
Keonei grabbed his brother and dragged him behind a heap of tires as shadows moved at the edge of the junkyard. Three men in ragged coats emerged, rifles glinting in the moonlight.
"Bring us the kid!" one shouted. His voice was rough, greasy. "Boss says he wants the operator alive. Don't matter if the big brother's in pieces."
Kai's eyes went wide. "They're here for me?"
Keonei's jaw tightened. I knew this would happen.
"Stay behind me," he muttered.
"But Keo—"
"NOW."
⸻
Unleashed
The bounty hunters fired again, bullets ripping through rusted metal like paper. Keonei crouched low, his hands pressed to the ground.
The air around him began to vibrate. Nails, screws, and scraps of steel shivered, then lifted into the air, orbiting him in a swirling storm.
The lead hunter hesitated. "What the hell…?"
"Your first mistake," Keonei growled, "was aiming at my brother."
With a flick of his wrist, the scrap storm shot forward like a shotgun blast. Rusty blades and bolts ripped through the hunters' weapons, tearing them apart.
"SECOND mistake," Keonei said, stepping out from cover as more metal debris hovered around him, "was thinking you'd leave here alive."
He clenched his fists.
Every loose hunk of iron in the yard screamed as it hurtled toward the attackers, slamming into them with bone-crushing force. Guns clattered to the ground. Two of the men fell hard and didn't get back up.
The third dropped to his knees, trembling. "P-please! I'm just doing a job! Don't—"
"Then quit," Keonei snarled.
The man bolted into the night.
⸻
Aftermath
Kai stared at his brother, wide-eyed.
"You… you've been hiding this from me?"
Keonei's chest heaved as he forced the swirling metal to clatter back to the ground.
"I didn't want you to see me like this," he said quietly. "Didn't want you to be scared."
"I'm not scared," Kai said. "I'm pissed. Why didn't you trust me?"
Keonei looked away. "Because now they'll come even harder. And they won't stop until one of us is dead."
Kai's hands clenched into fists.
"Then what do we do?" he asked.
Keonei turned toward the city skyline, the faint glow of the fight pits in the distance.
"We hit them first."
—Iron Vengeance
The streets of Wreckspire bled shadows.
Neon signs flickered weakly above cracked sidewalks. Rats scurried through broken bottles and cigarette butts. Somewhere in the distance, gunfire crackled like dry twigs snapping.
Keonei and Kai moved like wraiths between the alleys, hoods pulled low. The junkyard wasn't safe anymore. Not after the bounty hunters came knocking.
Tonight, they weren't hiding.
Tonight, they were hunting.
⸻
The Plan
"They hang out at the Red Fang bar," Kai whispered. His rat-tail twitched nervously as he scanned the alley. "At least that's what I overheard when those thugs came for me."
"You're sure?" Keonei asked, voice low.
"Positive. The guy in the white suit—he's got a bounty office set up in the back room. Anyone who wants the money for my head has to check in there."
Keonei's fists clenched. The scrap in his pockets vibrated faintly as his anger spiked.
"They thought they could hunt us," he said coldly. "Let's show them how that feels."
⸻
The Red Fang
The bar was a seedy, two-story dive lit by a blood-red neon wolf's head above the door. Drunken voices and bass-heavy music rattled the cracked windows.
Inside, gangsters lounged at sticky tables, knives strapped to their belts, tattoos crawling up their throats. The air smelled of smoke, cheap beer, and violence.
Kai sat hunched at the far end of the bar, pretending to fiddle with his radio. Keonei's voice murmured in his earpiece.
"Ready?"
"Yeah," Kai whispered. "You?"
Keonei was already in position, crouched in the crawlspace above the ceiling tiles. His eyes narrowed as he felt the metal all around him—the nails in the walls, the screws in the tables, the pipes in the floor.
He reached out.
And pulled.
⸻
The Attack
It started with a low groan.
Then a screech as the tables and chairs ripped free from the floor, flying into the air like angry hornets. Bottles shattered. Gangsters dove for cover, shouting in confusion.
"What the hell is happening?!" one yelled.
The Red Fang's front door slammed shut, twisting and warping as the metal bent inward like clay.
Keonei dropped from the ceiling, landing in a crouch amid a storm of spinning knives and cutlery.
"Evening, boys," he growled.
The nearest thug raised his gun, but the barrel crumpled like tin foil before he could pull the trigger. Keonei flicked his fingers, and the weapon ripped out of the man's hand, smacking him across the face.
"Where's the guy in the white suit?" Keonei demanded.
The room went silent.
One brave soul lunged at him with a machete. Bad move.
Keonei waved a hand, and the blade flew out of the attacker's grip, embedding itself in the ceiling. With another motion, he sent the thug flying across the room into a stack of barrels.
⸻
The Back Room
Kai crept toward the door marked "STAFF ONLY." His hands trembled, but he gritted his teeth. Keo's counting on me.
He slipped inside.
Stacks of cash and ledgers lined the walls. At the desk sat the man in the white suit—slim, pale, with a gold tooth flashing as he smirked.
"Well, well. The operator himself."
Kai froze.
"Did you really think I wouldn't recognize you without your big brother?"
The man snapped his fingers. Two hulking bodyguards moved to block the door.
⸻
Magnetic Fury
But then the wall exploded.
Shards of steel and wood flew as Keonei strode in, eyes glowing faintly with magnetic energy. The bodyguards raised their guns—too slow.
The weapons twisted in their hands, warping into useless chunks. Keonei yanked the steel beams from the walls and sent them crashing down like clubs, knocking the men unconscious.
"Don't touch my brother," Keonei snarled.
The man in white raised his hands, gold rings glinting.
"Easy, now. No need for violence. This is all business, you understand? Your little act in the pits cost me a lot of money."
"Here's my counter-offer," Keonei said.
The man frowned. "What's that?"
"Stay. The hell. Away."
Keonei flicked his hand, and every metal object in the room—coins, knives, nails—swirled into a deadly tornado around the mafia boss's head.
"You've got one chance to walk out alive."
⸻
The Escape
When the Red Fang's front doors finally burst open, the crowd outside saw the aftermath: gangsters moaning on the floor, tables overturned, and the man in white sitting pale and silent, a single note pinned to his chest with a bent nail:
"The brothers of Heavy Metal aren't prey. We're predators now."
Kai and Keonei disappeared into the night.