The experiment hadn't only hardened the Rhino Man's body—it had supercharged his raw strength, pushing him far beyond human limits. He flexed his hands, the overlaid polymer skin creaking like armored plates shifting into place.
"Now then," he rumbled, voice thick with arrogance. "Let's see who dares disrupt our little negotiation."
He rose from the sofa in Lady Viper's private box, and his silhouette swallowed the light. With every step, the floor trembled, bottles jingling on the shelves as if afraid to rattle too loudly. Confidence radiated off him like heat.
Lady Viper watched with a serpent's smile. She ran a lacquered fingertip slowly across her lower lip and murmured, "Good. It's been a while since I've enjoyed a proper show."
---
Out on the smoke-filled main floor, the firefight continued to pulse in strobe-lit bursts. Breaker cut through the chaos like a living scalpel, dropping gang shooters with precise strikes while Ames assault lines advanced in a wedge. He moved fast—a cheetah among wolves—and every motion ended with another criminal on the ground.
Then the bar's back wall shivered.
A hidden panel blew open and a massive shadow rocketed out of the secret passage.
Breaker barely turned before it hit him.
Boom!
The impact sounded like a truck rammed through an iron gate. Breaker flew—a black streak—and smashed through a load-bearing post, cratering into the far wall. The holographic birdeye in Levi's office momentarily filled with static as Breaker's visor jolted.
Snowy interference crawled across the live feed.
Then the picture snapped back.
From his chair high in Vanderbuilt Technologies HQ, Levi crossed one leg over the other and tilted his cup of tea. "Interesting," he murmured, amused. "So that's the variable."
His gaze sharpened. This battle wasn't going to be boring after all.
---
On the floor, Breaker dragged in a breath and pushed himself up, fluids recalibrating through his synthetic musculature. His chassis had taken real damage—whoever that brute was, he hit like a meteor.
Good thing Breaker's frame had been hand-crafted under Ark's supervision. Diagnostics cascaded across his HUD; systems rerouted, micro-stitches sealed, servos steadied. He shook his head hard, clearing the ringing.
Out in the wreckage, the Rhino Man was already on the move.
He plowed forward like a runaway train—tables splintered, chairs exploded, steel rails twisted underfoot. Every step cracked tile and threw sparks, a monstrous shovel tearing through anything in his path.
A ring of Modia Units pivoted, rifles rising in perfect unison.
"Open fire!"
Da-da-da-da! Sheets of rounds stitched the Rhino Man's chest and shoulders. Muzzle flashes strobed across his armor, but the bullets might as well have been rain.
He slowed. Not from pain—from boredom.
"Heh," he snorted, turning with scarlet eyes glowing in the dark. "Itches. Good scratch."
The pressure in the room changed; men with guns felt suddenly very small.
"But if you insist on angering me," he said, rolling his shoulders, "you'll pay for it."
He moved—a blur despite his size. One massive swipe took a Modia Unit's head clean off. The body cartwheeled bonelessly and slammed into the floor, spraying sparks.
Warning sigils flashed across nearby Ames optics.
> [Crisis detected!]
[Crisis detected!]
Two Modia Units lunged—fearless, resolute. The Rhino Man twisted brutally, seized one by the torso, and flung it like a discus through the bar's ceiling. He caught the other by the helm, fingers digging in.
"I'll show you the price of disrespect." White vapor hissed from his nostrils as his eyes bled red.
"Die."
He stomped. The Unit beneath his heel snapped in half—waist sheared, conduits spilling in a shower of light. The one in his grip twitched as the Rhino Man clenched.
Crack.
The helm collapsed. Electric arcs tore over the shattered frame, racing up the Rhino Man's arms. He grunted, muscles tensing as the surge snapped through him, more annoying than harmful.
The destroyed Units' cores dimmed to dead embers.
---
Back at Vanderbuilt HQ, several of Levi's screens flickered out and back from the residual interference.
Izzy took an involuntary step forward, eyes wide. "That force…! I didn't think a human-variant could output that much raw power."
Levi didn't take his eyes off the feed. "Tip of the iceberg," he said mildly. "This world smiles on the surface. Underneath… waves and teeth."
He set down the cup. "Hell's Kitchen is a puddle with sharks. Imagine the oceans beyond."
His mind clicked through contingencies and timelines. They'd accelerate the plan. And if this brute was a Kamen Rider-style "weirdo"… then it was time to answer him in kind.
"Izzy," Levi said softly, "signal Sabine. Tell her to authorize it."
Izzy nodded, fingers dancing across the console.
---
Down at Wilson Bar, Sabine's visor pulsed once—a silent priority ping from Izzy.
She understood immediately.
"Copy." Sabine's eyes hardened. She slid a small matte device from an inner pocket: a storm-gray key, its etched lines faintly glowing.
She cupped it in her palm, then shouted across the ruined floor, "Breaker!"
Breaker, still staggered, snapped his head up.
Sabine hurled the key. It spun through the haze—a shining arc in the chaos.
Breaker caught it out of instinct, his hand closing around its weight. "What… is this?"
"Upgrade Key!" Sabine answered crisply. "Power unlock! Slot it—authorize physically—then load it into your device!"
The Rhino Man stomped forward, laughter booming. "More toys? By all means—try."
Breaker's processors hit a decision threshold in a heartbeat. No more half measures.
He pressed the key.
It snapped awake—lines flaring with pale brilliance. The Upgrade Key's lattice unfolded like a puzzle solving itself, revealing a locking ridge that matched the port on Breaker's gauntlet.
"Physical Authorization—ready." chimed a calm, weapon-side voice only Breaker could hear.
He slammed the key into the Upgrade Key device on his forearm.
> [PHYSICAL AUTHORIZATION // LEVEL-DELTA]
[BIOMECH CHANNELS OPEN]
[KINETIC LIMITERS RELEASED]
[AIMES-CAPTAIN: BREAKER — SYNC 97.3%]
Light flooded his frame. Plates shifted. Filaments braided down his arms like living lightning. His boots anchored, blowing dust back in concentric rings.
The bar seemed to shrink.
"Round two," Breaker said quietly, and the floor cracked under his stance.
---
Satellite Ark, six stories underground, pulsed as Project Malice streamed in a new tranche of "malicious" signatures from the firefight.
> [Malicious Data Intake: 912% of Baseline]
[Predictive Combat Map: Updating]
[Recommendation: Vector Lure—South Column, 4.2m offset]
In Levi's private overlay, Ark painted ghost lines over the bar—the Rhino Man's most probable charge paths, stress points in the building, and a pin-perfect strike window.
Levi's eyebrow twitched. "Elegant," he murmured. "Proceed."
---
The Rhino Man charged.
The ground tremored. He tore forward in a rhino-rush, horn down, smashing through what remained of the dance floor.
"Now." Breaker moved—not away, but into the charge. He shaved past the horn by millimeters, planted, and with his upgraded servos heaved an uppercut like a piledriver.
Impact.
The blow lifted the Rhino Man a half-step—just enough to break his momentum and expose a seam in the shoulder plate. Sabine's marksmanship stitched a three-round burst into that exact seam, guided by Ark's projection.
The brute barked in surprise. For the first time, the armor spidered with fractures.
"Try again," Breaker said.
The Rhino Man did.
He spun, sweeping a forearm meant to pulverize. Breaker caught it. Metal screamed. Breaker's new bracing channels glowed, venting heat through his vambraces.
He twisted, using the Rhino Man's mass against him, threw the giant through the remains of the bar—and followed.
They crashed into the support column Ark had highlighted. The column buckled, dropping a section of ceiling squarely on the brute's back. He snarled, shrugged stone aside, and swung with a hook that would have killed any normal man.
Breaker parried, forearm to fist, and drove his knee into the cracked shoulder seam. Armor popped. The Rhino Man stumbled.
"You bleed, after all," Breaker said, voice flat.
"Gonna crack you open and wear your chest as a trophy," the Rhino Man spat, and bull-rushed again.
Ames squads flowed on the periphery—Modia Units cycling civilians out, sealing exits, re-establishing perimeter. Sabine kept her fire disciplined, never letting it drift near noncombatants. The Criminal Network overlaid escaping heat signatures with warrants, tagging and bagging in real time.
Above them all, Ark's quiet voice slipped into Breaker's HUD:
> [Angle 18° left. Displace 0.6m. Counter in 0.21s.]
Breaker obeyed.
He slid left, let the horn skim his chestplate, and drove the Upgrade Key device to full output. A compressed kinetic burst detonated point-blank into the cracked shoulder.
Boom.
The Rhino Man screeched, stumbling to one knee. Polymer split, revealing angry, scorched flesh beneath.
He swayed, then slammed his fist into the floor to launch back up. "Not… done!"
"Neither am I," Breaker replied—and surged.
They collided at the bar's center, shockwaves rippling through glass and neon. Breaker hammered the same weak point again and again, relentless, efficient, unyielding. The Rhino Man traded back with building-breaking blows, each one strong enough to pulp concrete.
The Upgrade Key's power wasn't infinite. Breaker's HUD pulsed yellow as output crept toward thermal thresholds.
Sabine's voice cut in, cool as ice. "You have thirty seconds before the device throttles. End it."
Breaker steadied his breath.
Ark whispered one last time:
> [Ceiling rig—chain. Drop. 3…2…1…]
Breaker snapped his wrist, sent a tether up, and yanked. A length of steel chain and lighting rigging collapsed. The Rhino Man flinched—just for a heartbeat.
That was enough.
Breaker stepped in and unleashed a final, clean sequence: elbow to collar, heel to knee, core-driven straight to the torn shoulder.
CRACK.
The Rhino Man roared and fell back through broken tables, one arm finally dead, the horn gouging a crescent through the floor as he skidded.
He tried to rise.
Breaker planted a boot on the horn and pinned him.
"Stay down."
For a moment, only the sizzle of sparking fixtures and the hiss of broken valves filled the air.
Then the Rhino Man laughed, low and ugly. "You think this is over?" His eyes burned hotter. "Lady Viper isn't done."
As if on cue, the lights deepened to a sullen red. Somewhere in the bar's bones, a secondary system woke—something Lady Viper had paid dearly to install.
Sabine's data stream spiked. "Breaker—new signatures. Biochemical. Multiple."
From Levi's office, Ark's core flared.
> [Alert: Malicious cluster—emergent. Updating threat board.]
Levi smiled, just a little. "Monsters do love their encores."
He folded his hands. "Izzy, keep the line open. This is where Ames proves it wasn't a fluke."
On the floor, Breaker lifted his head, eyes narrowing as hidden doors began to hiss around the bar's perimeter.
New enemies were stepping out of the dark.
And his Upgrade Key was ticking down.
Bold or broken—this would decide it.
—To be continued.
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