The rain fell in cold, needling threads, washing the blood from the asphalt into dark, swirling rivulets around Ethan’s body. The world was reduced to the drumming on the pavement, the distant groan of a foghorn, and the fading thump of his own heart. Bruno’s taunting apology still hung in the damp air, an insult carved into his final moments.But Ethan wasn’t finished. Not yet.Somewhere beneath the paralysis and the searing pain, in a deep, uncharted stratum of his being, a spark remained. It wasn't hope, nor love, nor fear. It was pure, unadulterated will. The will to see another sunrise. The will to breathe.He hadn't survived all that he went through only to end it now. He hadn't fought death itself when it felt as though death had already won only to give up now.And so, wth a mental scream that had no physical voice, he reached for it—the ghost in his machine, the pact sealed in fire and agony years ago.ACTIVATE: AEGIS.A silence, profound and absolute, swallowed the sound of

A flicker of light, not from the clearing sky, but from within. The Aegis interface superimposed a map over A.M.E.N.'s vision, plotting a single, pulsing coordinate. The system wasted no time to inform him where Cobra King was, as that was the priority in Ethan's mind at that particular moment.He wasn't going to take chances, not with everything that had just happened. And since he was waking up to a new version of A.M.E.N, his senses had become sharpened than normal.The data stream was clean, devoid of the emotional static that would have plagued Ethan. There was no anger at Cobra King's betrayal, no simmering frustration at the dead end. There was only a problem, and a series of steps to its solution. The first step was movement.And with that, A.M.E.N. moved.***Cobra King was with his men as usual when Ethan stormed.He never heard the breach, never saw it coming, and was in no way prepared for it.After the face off with Frank a couple of days back, they had decided to cut hi

Margaret’s breath caught. The analytical mask she’d worn since the airport shattered. Here was not a memory, not a photograph, but the living, breathing result of her most profound choice—and her most profound failure. The girl she had left in pigtails and baby cot was gone. In her place stood a woman, all sharp edges and wounded pride, beautiful in a way that was entirely her own and terrifyingly unfamiliar.All her life she had looked forward to this day. She had looked forward to the day she'd see Chloe again, and tell her how much she had missed her.She had looked forward to the day that she'd be reunited with the daughter she left over twenty years ago, but now that she was here right in front of her, she wasn't so sure how to react anymore.“Chloe,” Margaret managed to breathe, the name a soft exhale of awe and pain. “My daughter.” The words felt foreign on her tongue, a title she had forfeited the right to use. She saw the flinch they caused, saw the way Chloe’s jaw tightened

Ethan arrived at the Oliver's Swiss facility with an unusual kind of rage that could tear through mountains and he was determined at that point to take down anyone that would stand on his way.When he got to the facility, he quickly scanned the area realising that Oliver had stationed tough men waiting to counter any form of attack from an enemy.But to Ethan, these men were nothing. If taking down Cobra King and his men didn't pose much challenge to him, then according to the interpretation of the Aegis system, these men were just a piece of cake.And with the speed that was not common, he moved like the wind targeting the guards whom he intended to knock out swiftly and without resistance.The first guard in the upper ventilation chamber heard a scrape of metal. He turned, raising his rifle. He saw a blur—a shape that resolved into a man for a fraction of a second—before a hand like steel clamped over his mouth and a precise, shattering strike to the temple dropped him into void.Th

The word "please" hung in the air, a foreign, fragile thing against the industrial hum of the airfield. For a moment, Nathan's mockery faltered, replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated disgust. His lip curled.It felt awkward seeing Ethan beg, and even if that was what he wanted, it still came with some disgust. He had expected some resistance, some level of defiance. But Ethan had done the exact opposite."I thought you were tougher than this, brother?" Nathan mocked, the gun still trained on Emma. "What happened to you? Fort Tright was supposed to forge a weapon. Not this... this mewling creature."Ethan didn't reply. The plea had been a calculated gamble, a performance of utter desperation to lower Nathan's guard, to make him believe he had broken completely. Inside, the Aegis was screaming with threat assessments and countermeasures, but Ethan silenced it, letting only the raw, terrified man show.At that moment, all that mattered to him was the safety of Emma, and for her sake,