August 6th, 2026
Cremont City
1:06 AM
The rain never stopped. It only strengthened as the night went deeper.
Cremont was a city that never slept, because it was afraid to.
Beneath its iron towers and neon crosses, the streets were stitched with blood, sin, and whispers of ghosts. The rain that fell was heavy and black, smelling of oil and old rust. Each droplet seemed to carry secrets that no one dared to utter.
Through that rainstorm, a convoy of armored black vans thundered down the empty boulevards. They looked like a swarm of mechanical beasts cutting through the veins of a dying god. Their lights flickered white against the dripping walls, against hollow-eyed statues, against graffiti that warned
THE QUEENPIN SEES ALL.
Inside the lead van sat Rio Castellan, the ghost everyone thought the city had forgotten.
But the city never forgot, it only waited.
He sat upright in the passenger cabin, wrists cuffed in iron, the metallic bite digging into his skin. His hair, black as obsidian, was combed back into a sharp pompadour, a crown of defiance against the chains that bound him. His suit, a gothic, tailored piece of dark velvet and silk, made him look like a prince who'd been captured on his own throne. The soft flicker of the overhead light cut a faint gleam across the slash-shaped scar that crossed his brow and nose, an old reminder that even beauty bled in battle.
Across from him, Alessandra Castellan sat with predatory calm.
Her legs were crossed, her gloved fingers resting on her thigh like a poised executioner. Her smile was small but dangerous, framed by a face of impossible poise. The scent of her perfume, black rose and smoke, lingered in the air like a warning.
Her storm-gray eyes never left him.
They glimmered with satisfaction, hunger, and something that looked disturbingly like love.
And beside her, silent as marble, was Ursula.
Bronzed skin, tall and muscled, a dress of soft, silky lace that barely concealed the raw strength beneath. She looked less like a bodyguard and more like a myth forced into mortal flesh. Her gaze, though calm, carried the stillness of someone who could break a man's neck before the next heartbeat.
The hum of the van filled the silence. The walls vibrated with the speed, the rain drumming against the metal like fingers on a coffin.
Alessandra finally broke the silence.
"So quiet," she murmured, voice smooth, melodic, but sharp enough to cut. "You don't like conversation anymore?"
Rio tilted his head slightly. "Didn't realize I was supposed to talk to my kidnappers."
A small laugh escaped Alessandra. "Kidnappers? Such an ugly word. I prefer retrievers."
She adjusted the cuff of her gloves, eyes gleaming. "You look good, though. Well-fed. Polished. Cremont's air suits you again, doesn't it?"
Rio's voice was cold. "Cremont's air smells like rot. Always did."
"Ah," she sighed softly, leaning back. "The old bitterness. You haven't changed. I wondered if the Army had beaten it out of you."
"Maybe it should've," Rio muttered, turning away to the rain-blurred window. Beyond it, the streets bled red and violet from flickering signs. "Would've saved me from this."
Alessandra's lips curled. "You fought the wrong war, Rio."
He turned his eyes back to her. Storm-gray, dangerous. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Her tone deepened, affectionate yet taunting. "You spilled blood for strangers. Died for colors and governments that never cared about you. While your real war was always here, within us. Within family. You should've stayed. You shouldn't have abandoned us, little brother."
Ursula stayed perfectly still. Her face gave nothing away. But her thoughts churned like a storm beneath the still water of her calm.
"Little brother, huh?" she thought. So that's what this is about."
She had served the Castellans for years, fought for them, killed for them, and bled for them. She knew how to read their silences. But this, this was new. The Queenpin, the three Mistresses, none of them ever spoke of another Castellan.
Another child? Another heir? Impossible… and yet here he was, alive, breathing, shackled before her.
"It doesn't surprise me." she thought grimly.
This family thrives on secrecy and dark lies. Half of Cremont's blood runs from their shadows. No one truly knows how deep their roots go, or what kind of monsters they bury.
She cast a glance at Alessandra's face, at the faint tremor of emotion beneath her perfect composure. Something about Rio unraveled her, made her pulse faster, her voice softer. It was unsettling.
Ursula turned her gaze back to the window, pretending not to notice.
Whatever he is to them, it's not in her place to know.
But deep down, curiosity burned like acid.
The Castellans always hide their devils in plain sight.
Alessandra's gloved hand rested on her thigh. Her voice dropped low, teasing, predatory.
"You'll see soon enough. Cremont has changed since you left. Mama has changed as well. The city bends differently now, under her will.
Rio's breath steadied, but the iron in his voice was unmistakable. "You think this city belongs to all of you? You're just playing her games."
That made Alessandra laugh, quiet, beautiful, venomous.
"Oh, darling, we are the game."
Meanwhile, in the first escort van, the men of the Castellan Order were growing uneasy.
The 9th District stretched ahead, a wasteland of decay and silence. Streetlights flickered weakly, barely illuminating the cracked roads and abandoned tenements. The smell of rot and gasoline filled the air.
"Place gives me the creeps," one of the goons muttered, gripping his rifle tight. "Too damn quiet."
"Keep your eyes peeled," another said, scanning the street through the windshield. "This district's a hellhole. Even rats don't live here."
"Why the hell are we taking this route?" a third asked nervously.
"It's the fastest to the Queenpin's domain," their driver replied flatly. "Just follow the route. Don't ask questions."
Once, the 9th District was an industrial heart , full of factories, workers, and the old Saint Daphina Asylum standing proudly on its hill. Then, fifty years ago, the fire came. A blaze that burned for seven nights, consuming everything and everyone. Officially, it was ruled an accident. But survivors spoke of screams before the fire, screams from beneath the asylum floors.
The city sealed it off, rebuilt around it, and pretended it never existed. But the 9th never died. The air there is colder. The fog thicker. Streetlights flicker and die after dusk. Even cell signals fade into static. Locals say the ground still breathes, that if you press your ear to the asphalt, you can hear the heartbeat and the screams of something alive and angry below. Rumors of figures wandering the streets at night - pale, eyeless humanoid figures that wander aimlessly. Some say they're remnants of the asylum patients. Others claim they're deserting soldiers from Vortania's many wars, bodies never recovered. Gangsters who tried to use it as a shortcut never came back. Crows never land there. Dogs never bark there.
Over the course of six years, the Cartels and Triads claimed what was left. They carved the ruins into territories: slaughterhouses turned into torture halls, school basements into meth labs, and the old asylum's underground tunnels into black-market arenas where men are forced to kill for sport. Missing people in Cremont? Most end up there, old, gutted, or worse.
No police go in. No body comes out. The walls whisper at night, and the fog carries shapes that move without sound. Even the most hardened hitmen cross themselves when their route passes near the border.
They call it The Devil's Vein, because it runs through the city like a poisoned artery , feeding Cremont's corruption, pulsing with death, and reminding everyone that beneath the concrete and steel… something still remembers.
As they drove further, the heavier the silence became. Even the engine noise felt swallowed by the darkness.
Then came movement, faint, slow, like the twitch of shadows.
"Wait," one of the goons whispered. "You see that?"
Shapes began forming in the fog, figures in masks, stepping out from alleys, one by one. Some carried rifles, others machetes. A dozen. Then two dozen. Then more.
"Holy shit," one whispered. "Who the hell are they?"
Before anyone could answer, one figure raised his hand, and a red flare ignited, bathing the street in crimson light.
"Drive! DRIVE!" someone inside screamed.
"RAM THEM!"
The first van swerved hard, engines roaring, but it was too late.
Gunfire erupted.
Back at the van of Alessandra.
Rio's brow furrowed. "You hearing that?"
Alessandra didn't respond immediately. She tilted her head, listening through the hum of the rain.
Then..
A flash of movement on the right flank.
Shadows in the mist.
Ursula's eyes sharpened. "Something's wrong."
The next second shattered everything.
BOOM.
The first van in the line exploded into fire.
A deafening roar ripped through the night, shaking the ground beneath them. Glass rained from the sky, and the flaming wreckage illuminated the skeletal remains of the district.
"AMBUSH!" someone screamed over the radio.
"GET OUT OF THE VEHICLE!" another voice yelled.
"PROTECT THE MISTRESS'S VAN!"
Gunfire erupted, a furious storm of bullets that tore through the street.
Masked figures emerged from the alleys, from the rooftops, from beneath broken cars, dozens of them, armed with assault rifles and Molotovs. Their insignias were carved into their masks: a crimson serpent biting its tail.
The Los Cazadores Cartel.
"Ursula!" Alessandra barked.
Ursula stepped outside the van, she rushed towards a a group of Cartels slaughtering a male gothic goon.
She drew a compact rifle from her thigh holster, smashed open the back window, and fired in short, deadly bursts. Three cartel gunmen dropped immediately. Her movements were clinical, goddess-like, terrifyingly efficient.
Rio, still bound, ducked instinctively as bullets shredded the metal beside him.
"Looks like they've decided to die tonight." Alessandra replied coolly, as if describing these Cartels as insects.
The van jerked violently as the driver tried to swerve around a flaming barricade.
"Stop this car!" Ursula furiously ordered. "I will butcher these motherfuckers!"
The engine stoped, the tires screeched, and the vehicle crashed through the blaze, sparks showering the windshield. The smell of burning rubber and blood filled the air.
Rio gritted his teeth, the flames reflected in his gray eyes.
"You people call this progress?"
Alessandra smiled, her voice almost a whisper, lost between the chaos. She
"Looks like we're gonna be late, little brother."
Explosions echoed in the distance; vans behind them were being torn apart. The radio screamed with overlapping voices, panic, orders, death.
"Mistress!" a voice cried out through static. "We're surrounded! They're too fucking many!"
Alessandra's tone never faltered. "Then show them why the Castellans rule this city."
Outside, the gunfire became thunder.
Inside the van, the world burned red.
And through it all, Alessandra smiled, a smile that mirrored her mother's, beautiful, terrible, and psychotic, like a queen watching her empire burn and knowing she would rise from the ashes anyway.
The world outside burned red.
From the armored van's slit windows, Rio could see the streets of Cremont's 9th District collapsing into carnage. Flames licked shattered walls, glass rained down like dying stars, and the city's blackened sky roared with gunfire and screams.
The armored van swerved hard, its tires screeching against the slick asphalt. The thunder of machine guns tore through the night as the convoy of Castellan loyalists battled against the Los Cazadores Cartel.
Inside, Rio sat rigid, his wrists cuffed tightly behind him. The sharp scent of oil, sweat, and iron blood from outside filled the air. He could hear the screams of dying men, the echo of commands, and the clatter of rifles. His eyes followed the chaos outside through the reinforced glass, and what he saw almost didn't seem human.
Men doing terrifying, horrifying, and cruel things to each other. It wasn't a fight. It was a bloody slaughterhouse. But each person was a pig waiting to be slaughtered.
Cartel men were everywhere, masked and feral, swarming the streets like jackals. They fought with reckless savagery, firing wildly, screaming curses, charging into melee with machetes and chainsaws. Their bullets tore through steel and bone alike.
But the Castellan Order didn't fall easily.
Dressed in their dark gothic armor, Alessandra's personal soldiers moved with trained precision. Every motion was a strike of discipline. They returned fire in tight formation, covering each other's advance, their black rifles spitting death in rhythmic bursts.
Yet even so, the Cartels outnumbered them three to one.
A second van shook violently. A rocket-propelled grenade screamed past, exploding against a nearby building. Fire erupted, painting the van in an infernal glow.
Rio clenched his jaw, staring through the window. His pulse hammered in his ears. He'd seen blood before, the battlefield, the corpses, the horror of war, but this... this was something else.
These weren't soldiers fighting for country.
These were monsters feeding on chaos.
He turned his head, and his eyes landed on Ursula.
The giantess dressed in a gothic silky dress was a blur of carnage. She had leapt from the van moments earlier, tearing through the Cartel men like a storm in human form. Her long braid whipped behind her as she slit one man's throat, twisted around, and emptied her rifle into another's chest. Her movements were precise, savage, almost beautiful in their violence.
She switched between weapons seamlessly, a knife flashing in one hand, the rifle in the other. Blood sprayed across her soft dress, staining the silk, but she didn't flinch.
Suddenly, Rio heard her curse under her breath.
"Fucking goddamn vermin bastards ruining everything." Low, sharp, and venomous. Alessandra's tone was nothing like the soft, teasing voice she used earlier; it was raw frustration boiling through her control.
Rio never heard Alessandra cursed in front of him. He never even heard her cursed in his entire life a single time.
Suddenly, she turned her head toward him.
And for the first time, Rio saw something in her face that chilled him to the bone.
Her composure cracked. Her once-calm, beautiful expression twisted, the faint smile gone, replaced by something feral, unholy. Her stormy-gray pupils constricted, her jaw tightened, and a faint tremor pulsed through her hands as if she was holding back an unseen beast inside her.
It was like watching a devil awaken beneath her skin.
Rio's breath caught. This… this isn't Alessandra. The sister he once knew, the one who would shield him when they were kids. The one who would give him advices. The one he would rely for emotional protection. The one he adored so much.
She wasn't there anymore.
In her place stood someone else. Something else.
He opened his mouth to speak, to ask what the hell was happening to her, but she moved before he could utter a word.
Swift. Sudden.
Alessandra leaned forward and pressed her lips to his forehead.
Rio instinctively jerked his head back, but she was faster, her kiss landed, soft yet final, like a seal placed by the devil herself. Her gloved hand rose and cupped his cheek, her touch both tender and commanding.
"I'll be back, little brother," she murmured.
Her voice was low, steady, but it carried something Rio hadn't heard before. Obsession. Possession.
Then she released him.
Without another word, Alessandra turned away and unlocked the van door. The hinges groaned as the heavy steel opened, letting in a blinding wash of red and orange light. Smoke and gunfire poured through the crack, filling the van with the scent of burning metal and blood.
Rio watched as she paused at the threshold, her back straight, her hair, long and platinum under the firelight, catching the glow like a halo forged in hell.
She took one deep breath. Calm. Purposeful.
Then, through the bulletproof glass, he saw her raise both arms in a commanding gesture, signaling her men to form up, to defend the van at all costs.
Her voice cut through the chaos, fierce and cold, muffled but unmistakable:
"Defend this van! Not one of them gets through!"
And then she turned toward the battlefield, the inferno awaiting her.
Rio watched, frozen.
The sister he thought he knew walked forward, slow and deliberate, into the storm of bullets and blood.
For a moment, silhouetted by the flames, Alessandra looked divine, like a gothic queen rising from the ashes. Then she drew her pistols from beneath her dress with fluid grace, the steel glinting under the burning sky.
She didn't run. She didn't shout. She simply walked.
Straight into chaos.
Unshaken. Unstoppable.
And Rio, bound and helpless, could only whisper to himself, his voice barely audible beneath the thunder outside:
"…Who the hell are you now, Sandra?"
Meanwhile, in Vortania...
August 6th, 2026
11:34 PM
The afternoon sun hung low over Vortania, half-buried behind an ocean of gray clouds that muted its light into a cold, lifeless amber. The sprawling military base stretched for miles across the plateau, a concrete labyrinth of steel towers, radar dishes, and humming generators. Inside, the corridors smelled faintly of gun oil and rain-soaked dust, the scent of machinery and discipline blending into one.
The intelligence wing was quieter than usual. Rows of screens blinked with encrypted code and shifting data streams, bathing the dim room in a ghostly blue glow. Each flicker seemed to whisper secrets from faraway worlds, smugglers' routes, coded chatter, terrorist pings from the Red Frontier.
Amid this quiet hum sat Lieutenant Elias Castle, hunched over his desk, cigarette resting between his fingers, a coffee cooling beside his elbow. His tie was loose, sleeves rolled up. His expression was carved with exhaustion, the kind born not from sleepless nights, but from seeing too much.
The door creaked open.
"Still alive in here, Lieutenant?" came a familiar, teasing voice.
Elias didn't look up. "Barely."
The voice belonged to Corporal Anders, a wiry young man with tired eyes and a mug in each hand. "Figured you'd need a refill," he said, handing one over. "You look like you've been staring at hell for too long, sir."
Elias accepted it with a faint nod. "If hell had pop-up ads and encryption walls, you'd be right."
Anders chuckled, rubbing his neck. "You know what's funny, sir? Out of every damn unit in this base, General Evanoff always picks us for this crap. 'Scour the dark web,' she says. 'Search for chatter,' she says. We're soldiers, not some cyber-police task force."
Elias smirked slightly, taking a sip. "You wanna tell her that, Corporal?"
"Hell no, Lieutenant!" Anders said immediately, shaking his head. "Do you know that woman? She terrifies me. She stares at you like she's peeling skin off your bones with her eyes. I swear she doesn't blink."
Elias gave a low chuckle, but his tone was flat. "She blinks. Just not often enough to make people comfortable."
Anders groaned, slumping into a chair across from him. "I miss the days when 'military intelligence' meant chasing enemy convoys, not surfing through creepy black-market forums run by sociopaths."
"You'd be surprised how similar those worlds are," Elias muttered, scanning another encrypted feed.
Anders huffed. "At least convoys don't send malware." He stood and stretched. "Anyway, when you're done drowning in code, I'll be in the mess. Don't die of boredom, yeah Lieutenant?"
"Not planning to."
As Anders left, the door shut softly, sealing the lieutenant once again in the quiet hum of circuitry and rain tapping faintly on the glass. Elias exhaled smoke, letting his mind drift with the rhythm of the monitors.
He scanned data feeds for potential threats , shifting through endless fragments of intercepted messages, trading networks, and foreign transmissions. His eyes flicked across the text. Weapons shipment… border crossing… smuggling route through Cremont's west docks.
He stopped. Cremont again. Always Cremont.
The name alone carried weight, corruption, syndicates, blood. And under it all, whispers of one family.
The Castellans.
He leaned back, rubbing his temples, when something odd blinked at the edge of his screen. A hidden directory. Deep inside an encrypted government archive that shouldn't exist.
One file. No timestamp. No encryption label. Just a name.
Janus Castellan.
Elias blinked, frowning. "What the hell…?"
He sat back, rubbing his eyes, unsure if fatigue was tricking him. But it was there, a file buried deep in a data cache that wasn't supposed to exist, its metadata scrambled beyond recognition. His hand hovered over the mouse for a moment.
He knew that name.
Janus Castellan, Rio's father.
A respectable man once, until the war changed everything. Elias had heard rumors that Janus was involved in Cremont's underworld years ago, but Rio never talked about it. He could still remember Rio's tone whenever his father was mentioned, cold, broken, buried beneath duty and silence.
Curiosity won over caution.
He double-clicked.
The screen went black for a heartbeat. Then, grainy footage began to play. The image was distorted, barely lit by candlelight, as though filmed in some underground chamber. The sound came first: chains, heavy breathing, the faint shuffling of boots.
Then, a woman's voice.
"You thought you could betray me?"
Her tone was soft, almost melodic, yet drenched in venom. Elias straightened in his chair. Something about her voice sent a chill down his spine. It wasn't loud, but it carried authority, a cold, deliberate power that could crush anyone who dared to answer.
"I gave you a chance to earn yourself a name despite our separation. You had your chance to serve me, Janus. To serve us. And this is how you repay loyalty?"
A weak groan came through the speakers. A man's voice. Muffled, broken, the sound of someone too far gone to beg properly.
Elias's expression tightened. He didn't speak, didn't even blink. His jaw clenched slightly as his hand inched closer to the mute button, but he didn't press it. He couldn't.
"You thought the police would protect you?" the woman continued, her tone rising like a whip crack. "The police belong to me. The whole city bows to me."
There was a pause. Then the sound of something wet, maybe a blow, maybe something worse. A metallic scrape followed, and the man whimpered again, almost childlike.
Elias's eyes darkened. His throat tightened.
Then another voice entered, masculine, smooth, arrogant.
"You're magnificent when you're angry."
The woman exhaled a low, cruel laugh.
"You always say that. But he deserves this, don't you think? A man like him doesn't deserve to die quietly."
"Oh, I agree," the man replied. "He should watch what he's lost. Who he's lost."
The woman giggled, not with joy, but with sadistic pleasure. It echoed faintly through the speakers, warped by static.
"Kiss me," she said suddenly, voice dripping with venomous delight. "Let him see what real strength looks like. Let him see what it means to be replaced."
The sound that followed was unmistakable the muffled gasp of a broken man, followed by the sickening noise of two people kissing with deliberate cruelty.
Elias flinched slightly, his hand rising instinctively to cover his mouth. His reflection in the screen looked pale, eyes wide, jaw tight. He didn't move, didn't speak. He just watched.
The kiss went on too long.
Then, faintly, another voice, a young woman's voice, calm, detached, unbothered.
"That's enough. Father's done for today."
Elias's brow furrowed. He recognized that tone, aristocratic, cold. It wasn't fear or disgust. It was routine.
The woman in charge, the first one, exhaled softly.
"Fine. Take him back to his cell. I don't want him dead yet."
The sound of boots moving followed. Chains rattled. Something heavy dragged.
Then, silence.
The footage flickered. The screen glitched once, twice, and then went black.
Elias stared at the reflection of his own face in the monitor. The room felt colder now. The air, heavier. He sat motionless, but his eyes saw something cruel and horrifying.
He swallowed hard, his throat dry. That was Rio's father.
But before he could react, the screen came alive again. Lines of text began typing themselves across the black background, one after another, fast and mechanical:
"We saw you, Lieutenant Castle.
You shouldn't have opened that.
Stay out of Castellan business.
If you value your life... forget what you saw."
Elias's pulse spiked. He reached for the keyboard, fingers trembling, trying to copy the file, but it was already gone. Instantly deleted. The window closed itself, replaced by the faint reflection of his face once again, sweating, pale, horrified.
He sat there for a long moment, breathing heavily, unable to move. The hum of the servers was deafening now. Every sound, the click of the ceiling fan, the faint buzz of electricity, felt like a warning.
He whispered, almost inaudible. "God damn, Rio."
Outside, thunder rumbled over Vortania, faint but approaching. The rain began to tap against the windows like ghostly fingers.
Elias leaned back in his chair, pressing his palms against his face. He wanted to unsee it. To unknow it. But the voices... they wouldn't leave him. The venom, the laughter, the kiss.
He lowered his hands and stared blankly at the dead screen. Somewhere deep inside, he knew what that video meant. It wasn't just a recording, it was a confession. A truth buried under decadence, betrayal, and blood.
And the worst part?
He was one step away to gather that video and send it to Rio.