It was night again.

  He dropped from the humming gate, boots thudding against stone. The air behind him shimmered once, then snapped shut like a blade.

  The small guild hall—half pawn shop, half safehouse—sat in silence. And silence hit pause.

  The man beside the counter was tall, dark-skinned, his body dense with muscle—earned, not gifted. White dreadlocks framed a face with sharp blue eyes. This wasn’t Alaris the innkeeper. This was someone else.

  He stood on the twenty-fourth floor of Unity Street in Iwaya, off Herbert Macaulay Way, on the Mainland side of Lagos.

  His name was Riven Kane. He was twenty. And hadn’t aged a day in ten years—not that he’d ever call it a gift. One of the strongest enhanced alive—maybe the strongest, if he let himself believe it.

  He’d left a six-foot enchanted spear stabbed into a frozen slab of cow meat in his kitchen. Ceremonial. Sacred. Also pretty handy when people showed up uninvited.

  He took care of himself. Balanced meals. Trained like it was religion. No shortcuts. It was peace.

  The door chime barely had time to fade before the woman’s hand drifted off the counter. Not far—probably to a gun. If he had to guess, a Smith & Wesson M&P Shield.

  With D-grade Spelltech, she wouldn’t last long. Not against him.

  Kane dropped a jagged prism onto the counter with a sharp THWACK—like a judge’s gavel.

  The impact sent a glass jar of pickled herring skidding, crushed a torn pack of flatbread, and toppled an ashtray spilling over with Partagas stubs.

  He drummed his fingers, slow and deliberate.

  “How much for this? Maybe a thousand. Maybe two. Maybe three—be quick, and I might drop the price.”

  The neon sign behind her hummed, casting fractured light across the gridwork.

  PAWN SHOP glowed red.

  INSTANT CASH flickered green, its heartbeat unsteady.

  The dollar sign burned brightest of all.

  She picked up the shard, squinting as she turned it toward the dim light. A tap. A scratch. A slow inhale, nose nearly touching the surface.

  Those boys were probably around the corner already.

  “Move faster,” Kane said. His left eye flickered—just a faint pulse of red.

  She clicked her tongue. “Resale’s tricky. Demand ain’t what it used to be…”

  A slow smirk. “Best I can do is fifty.”

  Her voice was smooth—honey stirred into firewood smoke. Her eyes flicked downward. Below his belt.

  She wasn’t young. Not old old, but somewhere between forty and eternity. Skin like polished mahogany, smooth as someone who’d been dosing age suppressors since girlhood.

  Kane tilted his head just enough for the neon glow to catch. A strand of white hair slipped free from his hood.

  “This ain’t Spelltech,” he said. “It’s old-world tech. And it’s got electricity.”

  That got her attention.

  The shard pulsed. Jagged edges trapped in a rough metallic frame, fused to the crystal by ungodly heat. Inside, an ethereal blue light flickered, glyphs shifting, rewriting themselves. A double-helix of luminescence curled through its core.

  Footsteps.

  Then—the door burst open.

  —

  The door slammed shut. The chime barely squealed before it was smothered by movement—five white men spreading out. Government issue, down to the boots. Peacewatch. Not cops. Not military. Something in between.

  A sixth man lounged by the counter like he was owed the space. He tapped the barrel of his Mossberg against his palm, slow and deliberate. The shotgun wasn’t factory anymore—wires spiderwebbed its matte-black frame, faint runes burned into the stock, still pulsing from their last activation.

  Spelltech retrofit. A failsafe with a hair trigger.

  They didn’t ask for license or registration.

  “You know what bothers me?” one of them said. “A guy moves in—Black guy—into our neighbourhood, and nothing changes. No tax breaks, no jobs, nothing better for the rest of us.”

  He bent down, picked up a stick, rolled it slowly between his fingers.

  “Monkeys,” he said. “Extinct now. Funny thing. You got the same look.”

  The woman at the far end flinched.

  She was gone before the echo. Black, like Kane. She didn’t stick around for the rest.

  Kane didn’t answer.

  “What you got in that pack?”

  Still silence.

  He didn’t look directly at them. Just walked.

  A fist swung—he saw it—and with a slight tilt, it slipped past his jaw.

  He adjusted the sleeves of his coat like someone checking the time. Bored. A little annoyed.

  He sighed.

  “You better think,” he said. “If you kill us, people will know. They’ll hear the sound.”

  “You threatening me, little girl?”

  Another fist came, this one faster. His hands weren’t up in time—

  Bang.

  The world tilted. His leg swept out. Hands pinned his arms. A knee slammed into his ribs.

  Janson finally moved. Boots scraped the floor. Calm. Like a man with paperwork in his briefcase.

  “I heard from my boys you were with Molly,” he said. “You know the kind of white I seen. Thought I’d pay you a visit. This city works a certain way. You’re messing with that.”

  Kane’s left eye flickered again. Red, steady now. His arms twitched.

  He was done.

  He stood.

  He moved before the gun could level.

  One step. Then two.

  A blur of boots and breath. The floor cracked beneath him.

  The twitchy one—just a kid—didn’t even raise his weapon in time.

  “Wait—”

  Too late.

  Kane hit him full-on, shoulder first. A sickening crunch followed. Skull caved inward, not exploded—just failed. A pressure collapse. Wet. Sudden.

  Silence.

  Then—screaming.

  One Peacewatch dropped his weapon and ran. Another turned to fire, but his hands were shaking. The third backed into a shelf of VCRs, knocking them down in a crash of black plastic.

  “Holy—he just—”

  “Fall back!”

  The failsafe by the counter fumbled with the Mossberg, fingers slick with sweat. Mouth open. Breath caught between fight and disbelief.

  Kane walked through the chaos like it wasn’t happening. Like he had all the time in the world.

  He stepped over the twitchy one’s body. Didn’t look down.

  Janson tried to move.

  Didn’t get far.

  Kane grabbed him by the collar. Yanked him down hard. Knees cracked tile.

  Then the hand moved—slow, like pushing through wet clay—and wrapped around Janson’s head.

  “Wait,” Janson said, voice thin. “Wait—please.”

  Tears now. Real. Snot bubbling. A man too far from his swagger to reach back.

  “I didn’t mean—Molly said—”

  Kane blinked. Tired. Detached.

  “You should’ve thought about that,” he said. “Before you opened your mouth.”

  A beat.

  “Before you attacked.”

  Crack.

  Skull folded inward. Bone gave way. One eye burst. The rest followed.

  Stillness.

  The last Peacewatch didn’t shoot.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  He pissed himself.

  Then ran.

  Kane watched him go. Didn’t chase.

  “Hey, bitch—they’re gone.”

  She was already walking back.

  “You could’ve at least called the—”

  He cut her off with a breath.

  Hand in his pocket. A Benson. A lighter. Click.

  Smoke curled through the blood drying on his face.

  He didn’t ask if she was paid. Didn’t have to.

  She smirked.

  He could end her in a blink. But it wouldn’t help now. Shops like this thrived on anonymity, and the one who ran might already be talking. If Orbit even caught a scent that he was still alive—

  He let the thought go. He’d find the man. He already knew his heartbeat patterns, the rhythm of his synapses. That made him unique. Traceable.

  The shard money was still in his pocket. Two months’ worth.

  A rich life—if you didn’t mind watching your back.

  He stepped outside.

  Muscles twitched beneath torn flesh.

  The wound bubbled shut like time rewinding under skin.

  A second ago, it was raw.

  Now it just itched.

  No thrill. No heat in the blood. Just another bad attempt at a fair fight.

  He lit another Benson. Let the smoke curl against his lip.

  The DICE Festivals were coming. He heard it in every whisper, every street vendor betting early money on which enhanced would leave the arena breathing.

  People fought in DICE for all kinds of reasons.

  Money. The “best” spelltech. A license to solo beasts outside the walls without a squad.

  Some did it for the crowd. Some just wanted the ranking.

  But those were oddities, most of them—

  They were fighting for a way out.

  Suspended.

  The floating arcologies. The perfect climate. The illusion of peace.

  They thought if they won enough, killed clean enough, they’d get noticed.

  Recruited.

  Relocated.

  Like Suspended was heaven.

  He wasn’t on the lists. But that didn’t matter.

  He didn’t want fame. He wanted friction.

  Maybe someone at DICE could give it to him.

  A real opponent. Or at least a reason to feel something again – like back when he was in the orbit.

  One or two names had floated to the top.

  Hype beasts. Mercenaries. Gutter-god types from the southern Expanse.

  But one stuck.

  The girl from the Narrows. No last name. No interviews.

  Just six seconds of leaked footage—

  Her cutting through three grown men like cloth.Her sword was most likely enchanted and to no small degree.

  Kane exhaled.

  Maybe.

  —

  By the time the blood had dried on his boots, he was already halfway across the city, where the scent of fried maize masked the stink of memory.

  From the bend on the side of the road, he stepped onto a new street.

  Beneath his feet, there were vibrations—a train hissing past some distance away. Sirens dopplered through the city, rising and falling, lost in the smog-choked sky.

  A crowd had already gathered. Kane pulled up his hoodie let his head phones slide to his neck and walked closer.

  He stared, not even blinking at the fused bodies, at the blood-steamed concrete, at the crowd pretending they weren’t curious.

  Another amateur bomb, another reckless enhanced.

  No control. No art. Just mess.

  He wondered how many of them were betting on the DICE Festivals already.

  Fools didn’t even know what they were watching for.

  Let them cheer for blood from the bleachers.

  He’d step into their circus soon. And if he was lucky, maybe someone there could finally break a sweat.

  Someone gagged.

  A woman barely had time to stumble before her stomach heaved, spilling bile and half-digested meat onto the pavement. The stench of onions, acid, and blood curled into the air.

  "GO SHIT SOMEWHERE ELSE, BITCHES!"

  A man in a grease-stained jacket threw his arms up in frustration as she bent over again, retching.

  Darkly comedic. A brief flicker of levity.

  Then—the murmurs rose.

  "What the hell is the government doing?"

  "Are we all gonna die?"

  "Fuck the DICE festivals—this is our reality!"

  An old man—face sunken by time and booze—shouted into the void.

  "Just moments after the election, and they’re already slacking!"

  "Let this goddamn enhanced be jailed or sent to fight outside the walls!"

  "Like what the hell Suspended has effectors and enhanced, but you don’t see them fighting and destroying cities!"

  They didn’t get it.

  The truly deadly enhanced weren’t in Suspended.

  They were here.

  Apart from people like me, trained there, no one could endure being regulated by those fools.

  They routinely published lists of a hundred people to kill just to keep their corruption thriving.

  "Hey—y’all disperse now!"

  A man stood on the curb, digging the lid of his pen into his ear as if something had jumped in just to annoy him.

  When he finally fished the insect out, he looked around.

  "Why are you still here, ya creeps? Get moving. ALL OF YOU!"

  He looked at the clean pen top with disgust.

  And threw it.

  Straight at Kane.

  His hands shook.

  ---

  His limbs were heavier now. Daylight still hadn’t dared to show—rubber soles slapping against the long, weathered staircase winding upward through a narrow alley. Tightly packed buildings flanked both sides, leaning in as if whispering secrets to each other.

  Cracked concrete steps, worn by years of hurried footsteps. Faded graffiti, half-scrubbed but never quite erased. Kids had probably played here once. Now, it was just another path people took without thinking.

  Potted plants spilled over rusted railings, a weak attempt at softening the place. Overhead, dead wires crisscrossed like veins of a long-forgotten machine.

  The city smelled like rain. Or maybe rot.

  Someone had tossed trash near his feet.

  ---

  The soft metallic clink as the key slid into the lock.

  God, he was tired.

  The door swung open, and in one motion, his hoodie was off—hitting the floor with a dull thud.

  "Take aim… steady your breath. Hold the scope—it's all mindset."

  "Breathe in… hold… breathe out. The battle is over, soldier."

  A flick of the switch, and the radio went silent.

  He turned to the cracked mirror at his side.

  He’d left before noon now it was deep night. A full day gone to blood and boredom.

  A tilt of the head.

  Both arms raised.

  Front Double Biceps.

  ---

  He brushed a stack of files aside and a pill bottle 112-XX2, reaching for the bread squatting away the flies. Green patches spread across its surface. A half-empty water bottle sat beside a burger that had turned rock-hard. Batteries rolled across the table as his fingers brushed against them.

  The batteries, the bread, the burger and the pills—he stuffed them all into his mouth.

  The pills tasted like ash and static.

  XX2.

  He’d stolen the formula from a handler back in Eko Atlantic—one of the early blends, before they got smart about who could read the labels.

  It slowed his healing. Not a lot. But enough.

  Enough to pass for a normal person.

  Side effects?

  Twitching hands. Red in the eyes. And sometimes he’d bleed longer than he should.

  The compound messed with physical-type enhanced. Slowed the body’s natural feedback loops.

  Some said it could short out regen if you mixed it right.

  He had tried all variants.

  Nothing could block out the absolute control he had over himself.

  He still felt every cell. Every whiff of his soul.

  It was exhausting.

  He used to think pain made you smarter. Now he wondered if it just made the silence louder.

  At least in the DICE arena, the silence would have a crowd.

  Maybe there, he’d meet someone sharp enough to cut through the numb.

  He chugged the water down, ignoring the taste. The foul smell had already faded into the background.

  At the window, he gripped a rope tied to the frame, letting it slide through his fingers as he glanced outside. The city stretched before him—laundry fluttering, wooden shutters creaking with the wind, unseen neighbors shifting behind thin walls.

  Then—darkness.

  He shut the window.

  ---

  The pile of clothes on his bed was soaked in red.

  Magazines. Guns– the spell tech kind. He shoved them to the floor and collapsed onto the mattress.

  Somewhere beneath him was the paper Hector had given him.

  His hand swept across the bed, fingers brushing against damp pages. The blood had seeped into everything.

  A flicker of movement.

  The black box on the side of the bed buzzed.

  He pressed it.

  “What is it, Hector?”

  A pause.

  “Damn, why the coldness, bro?”

  “Just tired.” Kane stretched one shoulder until it popped. “You should’ve joined a Flood Lord’s gang. More money. More protection. Government’s not doing shit for us..”

  Hector snorted. “Yeah, but then I’d have to grow a beard, shoot my own cousin, and start calling my apartment a ‘fortress.’ I like my sanity.”

  “You sell anything yet? That shard from dragon sweeping?”

  Kane could hear the grin in Hector’s voice.

  “You coulda just said that from the jump, bro.”

  “That would be heartless. How do they say it? Pleasure before pain?”

  Kane chuckled, low and dry.

  Then he leaned forward slightly, voice dropping a degree.

  “That guy... the one who ran. The last Peacewatch. You’re the one that made a mess of him?”

  A beat.

  “Was it you?”

  Silence. Then a burst of laughter from Hector.

  “Come on, Kane. You think I’d let someone walk after throwing a gun at your face? Please. I always got your back.”

  Another pause. Then—

  “And... what about McAlister? When’s the hit going down?”

  Kane flipped the shard in his hand, watching its glyphs pulse and cycle. Smoke curled from his lips like an exhale from the dead.

  He hadn't actually sold it. Just sleight of hand.

  “You think a pack of nobodies can kill him?” His voice was flat. Not questioning. Stating.

  “No,” Hector admitted. “Not like that. Not loud. But maybe… slow.”

  “Poison in the drink. Signal jammed. Cable cut. A bomb under the debate stage. No trail. No sound. Just exit.”

  Kane blinked once.

  “You playing chess now, Hector?”

  “Just saying, man. Not everything has to be blood and fireworks. The DICE Festival’s perfect cover. Everyone’s eyes on the arena—no one watching the crowd.”

  Kane exhaled slowly. Ash flicked off his cigarette.

  “You’re thinking like a survivor. That’s cute.”

  He leaned back, head tilted toward the ceiling.

  “It’s from people in Suspended,” he said. “They cleared a path. Getting us in. Close enough to make the impossible… convenient.”

  “Too convenient. Too boring.”

  The shard pulsed again. Brighter this time. Like it understood.

  Hector’s voice dropped to a whisper. “So we’ve got inside hands?”

  Kane’s fingers twitched. His eye flared—just faint red behind white.

  “Then I guess he’s already dead.”