—
The Arctic wind howled across fractured ice sheets.
Richard, Siara, Tanya, Luna, and Zane were running.
Behind them, the battlefield where Corpse, Ghoul, and Blaze had fallen was nothing but broken tundra and blood-stained frost.
Zero was gone.
Orbit was still active.
And they were prey.
The ice beneath them trembled.
A shadow moved under the glacier like something swimming through stone.
Then it erupted.
A towering mass of armored muscle and jagged bone burst from the ice, easily thirty feet tall. Plated spine. Serrated horns. Forearms thick enough to crush tanks.
A Minasaur.
Another bounty hunter.
Its roar split the sky.
Zane stumbled back. "You've got to be kidding me—"
The creature lowered its head and prepared to charge.
The sky warped.
High above, the air folded inward like glass bending under pressure.
A black speck descended.
Orbit.
He didn't land.
He hovered.
Raised one hand.
Gravity condensed into a pinpoint sphere at his fingertip.
The compressed mass fired downward.
It struck the Minasaur's skull—
There was no explosion.
The creature's head imploded inward under concentrated gravitational collapse. Bone folded. Flesh compacted.
Before the body even hit the ground, Orbit rotated his wrist.
The atmosphere above the battlefield distorted violently.
Gravity began folding inward from every direction.
Then it detonated.
Not with fire.
With pressure.
The Minasaur flattened instantly, crushed into the tundra like it had never existed. Ice fractured outward in concentric rings as the shockwave expanded.
Silence fell.
Orbit descended slowly through drifting frost.
Light bent faintly around him.
His reserves were low.
But even low—
He was still Orbit.
"Spread out!" Richard shouted.
Orbit flicked two fingers downward.
Gravity spiked in a narrow vertical column.
The air screamed.
A cylindrical zone slammed into the ground like an invisible piston.
Ice, snow—everything within a wide radius flattened into a crater
Luna tried to lift debris telekinetically.
The gravity field crushed it back down.
Tanya attempted to counterfire.
She couldn't even raise her arm.
Zane froze.
Orbit vanished.
He reduced gravity around himself, turning his body into a projectile.
He reappeared behind Luna.
One controlled strike.
She hit the ice unconscious.
He pivoted instantly.
Tanya tried to move—
Gravity intensified around her spine.
She slammed face-first into the ground.
Out.
Zane rushed in desperation.
Orbit didn't even look at him.
A microburst of gravity struck his torso.
He collapsed instantly.
Three down.
Seconds.
Richard roared and charged.
Siara's eyes ignited.
"Gamma Nine!"
Energy condensed around her in geometric prisms, unstable and blinding.
Richard attacked head-on.
Orbit was at thirteen percent output.
He still blocked the strike.
Curved gravity around Richard's punch, redirected the force, twisted, and launched him across the ice.
Siara fired.
A beam of condensed energy tore across the battlefield.
Orbit bent gravity around himself.
The beam curved—
Toward Siara.
Siara's face drained of color.
"RICHARD DON'T—"
He didn't dodge.
He threw himself forward.
Intercepted it.
The beam pierced straight through him.
A five-inch hole tore through his torso.
The blast dissipated into the sky.
Richard collapsed into Siara's arms.
Blood spread across the ice.
Orbit studied him.
Calculated.
Survival odds: negligible.
He turned away and began ascending.
Temperature dropped instantly.
Orbit paused midair.
Frost spread unnaturally across the battlefield.
A streak tore across the sky like a comet.
It didn't fall.
It arrived.
A mass of condensed ice slammed into the ground between Orbit and the group, crystallizing outward instead of exploding.
Zero stepped from the frozen epicenter.
His coat was torn from travel.
His eyes locked onto the hole in Richard's chest.
"…I'm late."
He knelt immediately.
Reverse Chrome Technique activated—structural, precise.
He froze the wound into perfect alignment, reconstructing tissue layer by layer with crystalline scaffolding. New lung tissue formed. Blood vessels sealed. Muscle reknit.
"He's repaired," Zero said calmly.
Siara shook. "He's not breathing!"
Zero stood.
"Pump air manually. Don't stop."
She obeyed instantly.
Zero turned.
Orbit descended slowly.
"Zero."
"You overreached," Zero replied.
The atmosphere condensed violently above Orbit.
Moisture froze midair.
A kilometer-wide glacial mass formed and dropped.
Orbit swung Gambit upward.
Gravity condensed into the hammerhead.
The ice meteor shattered in a catastrophic shockwave.
Orbit burst through the debris at high speed.
They collided midair.
Gravity spikes versus flash-frozen constructs.
Orbit reduced gravity for speed, increased it for impact.
Zero formed invisible ice platforms in the air, shifting angles with surgical precision.
They moved like two forces of nature colliding.
Orbit's strikes grew heavier.
But slower.
Burnout crept into his chrome reserves.
Zero noticed.
"You're overheating."
Orbit attempted another gravity surge.
It flickered.
Zero closed the distance and drove a compressed glacial spear into Orbit's abdomen.
It detonated outward.
Orbit crashed into the tundra, carving a trench through ice.
He tried to stand.
His chrome technique sputtered.
Overextended.
Burned out.
Zero landed before him.
An ice blade formed at Orbit's throat.
"Next time," Zero said quietly, "check if I'm home."
Orbit's grip on Gambit weakened.
He activated a weak anti-gravity pulse—
And retreated into the sky.
Defeated not by power.
But by burnout.
Zero rushed back.
Siara was still forcing air into Richard's lungs.
"Enough."
Zero pressed his hand to Richard's sternum and injected a precise chrome surge.
Richard's body jerked.
He inhaled violently.
Coughed.
Alive.
Siara finally took a breath of relief.
Zero sat back as frost evaporated from his shoulders.
"…I'm sorry," he muttered.
Far above, Orbit vanished beyond the clouds.
The bounty was still active.
But now—
Zero was back