Location: Volnova Holdings Rooftop Access | Time: 5:50 A.M.
The first guard crumpled like a folding chair.
Steel barely glanced down, then tapped his wristwatch.
[INITIATE: SENTRY THREADS]
Nano-fibers hissed to life, zipping over his limbs in reverse flames. His combat suit wove itself together seamlessly—black onyx with moss-green paneling, tactical elegance wrapped in a gentleman's cut.
He whistled low. "Tailored by nanobots. Suck it, Armani."
From the unconscious guard, he lifted the man's glasses and slid them on.
"Now I look like a Bond villain's rebellious nephew."
Swipe. Beep. The elevator accepted the keycard.
As he stepped in, Steel popped open a pocket, pulled out matte-black earbuds, and slid them in.
[Now Playing: "Ordinary" – Alex Warren]
The song buzzed into his ears.
He leaned back against the mirror-lined wall, humming mockingly off-beat to the chorus. He even air-strummed during the instrumental, mouthing the lyrics like a caffeinated teen on TikTok.
Ding.
The elevator doors opened to hell.
Twelve Russian men in sleek suits stood like statues, weapons half-drawn, all staring him down.
Steel blinked. Slowly raised his hands.
"...I thought this was an infiltration mission," he said, voice high-pitched and innocent. "Not... prom night for mob assassins."
Silence.
Then the elevator doors shut behind him.
Volnova Holdings HQ — Noise-Proof Executive Chamber
5:50.A.M. — Top Floor, Private Conference Room
Thick steel doors slid shut behind them with a hiss. The chamber was sleek—chrome walls, a circular obsidian table, holographic panels embedded in the glass floor, displaying roving maps of conflict zones and chemical graphs. It was a room where wars were whispered into existence, and peace came with a receipt.
Liliya Volnova circled the table like a conductor preparing an orchestra of devils.
Around her sat men and women cloaked in power—arms dealers, ex-generals, corporate warlords. They drank nothing. Smoked nothing. All focus on her.
Her heels clicked slowly.
"Some of you ask," she said, voice crisp, laced with velvet and venom, "Why sell it?"
A man with sun-scorched skin and a jagged scar down his cheek leaned forward, fingers clasped.
"Yes. Why you, Liliya? What's your price?"
She stopped behind him, resting a gloved hand on his chair. "I simply want to make the world a better place."
The air thinned.
A Chinese investor to her left scoffed under his breath. A Moroccan arms syndicate head whispered something in Arabic to his bodyguard.
Then came the low, gravelled voice from across the table.
"By giving monsters to monsters?" asked a man known only as The Broker. Half his face was reconstructed with nanotech. "That serum turns men into tanks. You sell that on the open market, we won't have nations anymore. Just kings."
Liliya's lips curled into something like amusement, her gloved fingers tapping once against the table's edge.
"I give power," she said. "Who chooses how to use it... is history's concern, not mine."
A beat of silence.
Then she nodded to her second-in-command. He pressed a button on his wrist.
From the center of the table, a panel hissed open and slid aside—rising in its place was a sleek capsule containing six syringes, glowing a soft crimson. The vials pulsed like living things.
"The first strain of Ember," she said, eyes gleaming. "Pure. Uncut. Lab-tested. War-ready."
The display shifted. A hologram materialized in the center of the room: a man lifting a two-ton truck like it was a briefcase. Another tearing through reinforced steel. Another healing from a gunshot wound in four seconds.
The warlords leaned forward like addicts catching the scent of flame.
"Starting bid," Liliya purred, "is five hundred million euros."
The man with the scar raised a finger. "Five-fifty."
The Moroccan dealer leaned in. "Seven hundred. In gold. Delivered in forty-eight hours."
The Chinese tycoon smirked. "One billion yuan. No questions asked."
The room began to hum with dark energy.
Another voice—American, maybe CIA once—spoke from the shadows. "I'll pay in crypto. Nine hundred million. And I want a sample delivered tonight."
Liliya raised her brows, impressed.
"A billion euros," The Broker cut in, calm but firm. "And I want exclusive rights in Central Africa."
She chuckled softly. "Now we're speaking the language of tomorrow."
But the tension hadn't left. One man—silver suit, ex-Russian military—still watched her with suspicion.
"Why sell at all?" he asked. "You sit on godhood, and you barter it like trinkets."
Her eyes locked with his. "Because power unused is wasted. Power kept is feared. Power sold… is worshipped."
He said nothing.
She turned toward the room.
"Now… who's willing to buy godhood?"
They stared.
No one breathed.
A servant girl entered the room quietly, bearing a silver tray.
On it: a matte-black pistol.
The man who'd questioned her earlier glanced at it.
Liliya smiled at him. "Still unsure? Then test it."
The second-in-command stepped forward, suit perfectly pressed, face expressionless. He adjusted his cuffs and stood tall in front of the table.
"Shoot him," Liliya said.
Murmurs sparked. Some chuckled. Others looked dead serious.
The man hesitated. "You can't be—"
"Do it," she said.
He took the pistol. Aimed. Fired.
Three rounds, clean to the chest.
The second-in-command didn't move. His shirt tore, blood spattered lightly—then the wounds… closed. Not instantly, but fast enough to make every jaw clench.
The man holding the gun stood frozen, eyes wide.
"…Ho-ho," he breathed, stunned. "What in the devil's balls…"
Around the table, silence.
Then another muttered, "Jesus."
Liliya exhaled slowly, stepping back into the shadows with a predator's poise.
"Now," she said softly, "shall we discuss quantity?"
The bidding resumed. Faster. Louder. Hungrier.
And beneath it all, her smile remained.
...
THUD.!!!
The body hit the floor with a meaty finality—face-first, nose broken, limbs splayed like a ragdoll thrown by a god in a foul mood.
Steel stood center-stage.
Breathing steady. Suit flawless.
Forest-green. Tailored to kill. Literally.
Blood sprayed across the front, some drying, some still warm. A few bullet holes marked the sleeves—but the smart-weave suit had sealed around the impact points like a second skin. Not a scratch on him.
In his ear: Ordinary by Alex Warren, chorus just kicking in.
> 🎶 "And I know I'm not perfect, but I swear I'm not the worst..." 🎶
Steel adjusted the cuff of his left sleeve, revealing a hint of glowing circuitry beneath.
"You're right, Alex," he muttered. "I'm not the worst. Just... wildly misunderstood."
Then came the bullets.
Doors burst open from both ends of the corridor.
Russian gunmen in full suits—some in tactical black, others looking like they'd come straight from an oligarch's gala. All of them yelling in furious Russian:
"Убей его!"
"Он псих!"
"Чёртов американец!"
Translation: "Kill him!" "He's insane!" "F*ing American!"
Gunfire erupted.
Steel moved like a dance—chaos choreographed. He rolled forward, using a corpse as a shield, kicked a sidearm from the floor, caught it mid-air, and fired it back with a wink.
Two to the knees, one to the throat. Down they went.
A guard screamed, unloading his clip.
Steel flipped over a bulletproof coffee table, grinned like a man late for nothing. A stray bullet grazed his temple—he laughed, blood dripping, then dove into the fray with a snarl and spinning heel-kick that sent a man's jaw into orbit.
> 🎶 "I don't wanna be ordinary…" 🎶
He was anything but.
He ducked under a knife swipe, headbutted a man hard enough to shatter his glasses, then tore off the guy's necktie and used it to garrote the next attacker while still humming to the chorus.
A flashbang exploded behind him—he didn't flinch.
Instead, he slid across the marble floor, dual pistols in hand, and unleashed a flurry of shots that danced perfectly with the beat.
"Woo! You hear that, comrades?" he shouted. "This song slaps harder than your mom with a wooden spoon!"
Another Russian charged.
Steel side-stepped. Spun him. Shot him twice in the butt and shoved him face-first into a wall-mounted portrait of Liliya Volnova.
POW.
"Oops. Sorry, boss lady," he quipped, spinning his guns.
He popped a bullet into the kneecap of a man screaming for backup in Russian, then tackled two others through the conference glass door, body-slamming them to the floor with a thunderous crash.
> 🎶 "I try my best, but nothing ever works…" 🎶
Sweating. Grinning. Blood and bullets and unbothered swagger.
One final guard stood.
Steel walked slowly toward him.
The man fired. Steel dodged.
Fired again. Missed.
Steel stepped forward—calmly, murder in his eyes—and uppercut the man so hard he flipped and crashed through the snack bar.
"Now that's how you open a minibar," he said, cracking his neck.
He looked down the empty hallway, dozens of groaning bodies twitching on the floor.
> 🎶 "I just wanna be… me." 🎶
He flicked his blood-slicked hair back, drew a long breath.
"…And that, gentlemen, was your daily dose of ordinary."
He turned toward the elevator again, adjusting his tie.
Scene Freeze.