The lobby of the Aethelburg Grand Stock Exchange was a cathedral of commerce, all soaring ceilings, polished marble, and the frantic, ceaseless hum of capitalism. On a normal day, it was filled with shouting traders and anxious investors. Tonight, it was silent, occupied only by thirty of Commander Rex's Praetorians. They were arranged in perfect tactical formations, clad in state-of-the-art combat armor, and armed with assault rifles that fired caseless, armor-piercing rounds. They were the best private military force money could buy, and they were guarding the gateway to their master's sky-high tomb.
The main entrance, a set of revolving doors made of ballistic glass, began to turn.
Commander Rex, observing from a command post on the mezzanine level, zoomed in with his helmet's optics. His breath caught in his throat. It was Kael, walking in alone, his hands in the pockets of his fine black suit. He moved with a nonchalant grace that was a profound insult to the military precision arrayed against him.
"Target acquired," Rex's voice, cold and professional, echoed in the Praetorians' earpieces. "He is to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Rules of engagement: fire at will. Annihilate."
The moment Kael stepped fully into the lobby, the air erupted. Thirty rifles opened fire simultaneously. The sound was not the chaotic rattle of a firefight, but the unified, deafening roar of a single weapon, a testament to their elite training. Hundreds of armor-piercing rounds converged on Kael's position, a storm of metal moving at hypersonic speeds, designed to shred a light armored vehicle to pieces.
The marble floor around Kael exploded, pulverized into a cloud of white dust by the sheer volume of fire. The ballistic glass doors behind him shattered into a million sparkling fragments. The Praetorians didn't let up, pouring round after round into the kill zone, determined to erase the target through overwhelming force.
The firing lasted for ten full seconds. An eternity in a gunfight.
When it stopped, the silence that followed was thick with the smell of cordite and ozone. The dust cloud slowly began to settle. The soldiers held their positions, rifles raised, scanning for any sign of movement in the wreckage.
"Target neutralized?" a squad leader asked over the comms.
Before Rex could respond, a calm voice spoke from the center of the dust cloud.
"My suit," the voice said, tinged with a faint, chilling note of annoyance. "This was custom tailored."
As the dust settled completely, the Praetorians saw a sight that broke their minds. Kael stood untouched in the center of a small crater of shredded marble. Not a single bullet had hit him. They were all hovering in the air around him, frozen in a dense, shimmering sphere, their tips pointed harmlessly inward. He had not erected a shield; he had simply commanded reality to stop in a three-foot radius around his body.
He plucked one of the bullets from the air, holding it between his thumb and forefinger. He examined it with mild curiosity before letting it drop to the floor with a soft tink.
"My turn," he said.
With a sweep of his hand, the sphere of hundreds of bullets reversed course. They did not fly wildly. Each round turned and shot back towards the man who had fired it, guided by an unseen, perfect intelligence.
The Praetorians, disciplined to the last, had no time to even scream. For them, the world ended in a symphony of wet, percussive impacts as their own armor-piercing rounds tore through their high-tech armor and into their flesh. In less than a second, all thirty elite soldiers collapsed, their bodies riddled with holes, their training and technology rendered utterly meaningless.
Commander Rex watched from the mezzanine, his professional calm shattered, replaced by a cold, primal dread. He had seen combat in every hellhole on the planet. He had fought augmented soldiers and rogue psychics. He had never seen anything like this. This wasn't a man. It was a physical law.
Kael looked up, his obsidian gaze meeting Rex's through the commander's advanced optical sensors. Rex felt as if the man was looking directly into his soul.
Kael then walked towards the express elevator that led to The Vault, his footsteps echoing in the cavernous, body-strewn lobby.
Rex finally found his voice. "Seal the shaft! All units, converge on the elevator! He's heading for The Vault!" He turned and ran, not away, but towards the fortified elevator banks. He was a soldier, and he would die on his feet.
Kael arrived at the elevator. A heavy, titanium blast door had slammed down, sealing the entrance. He didn't bother with the controls. He simply placed his palm on the solid metal.
The titanium didn't melt or buckle. It unraveled. At a molecular level, the bonds holding the metal together simply dissolved. The solid door decayed into a shimmering cascade of gray dust, pouring onto the floor like sand from an hourglass.
Kael stepped into the elevator car, which was now just an open shaft leading up into darkness. He looked up, and then he began to rise, levitating upwards through the shaft as if gravity were a polite suggestion he was choosing to ignore.
In The Vault, Lord Valerius watched on his security monitors, his face a mask of terror. He saw Kael rise through the elevator shaft. He saw the automated turrets pop out from the walls and unleash a torrent of fire, only for their rounds to freeze in the air around Kael before being crushed into useless pellets. He saw the laser grids activate, their crimson beams bending and warping around Kael's body as if he were a black hole in space-time.
"Impossible... impossible..." Valerius whimpered, shrinking back in his throne.
Commander Rex and his last ten Praetorians made their final stand at the top of the shaft, right before the final vault door. They were armed with the heaviest weapons they had: plasma casters and concussion grenade launchers.
As Kael floated into view, they opened fire. Globes of incandescent plasma and explosive shells detonated, filling the shaft with a blinding, roaring inferno hot enough to melt steel.
The fire raged for a full thirty seconds. When it cleared, Kael was still there, floating, completely unharmed. Not a single thread of his suit was singed. He hadn't shielded himself from the heat; he had simply commanded the space around him to be a perfect, absolute zero. The raging plasma had been instantly frozen and then sublimated into nothingness.
"You have been resolute," Kael said to Commander Rex, his voice calm and devoid of malice. It was a simple statement of fact. "You have upheld your contract. You may leave."
He was offering mercy. A way out.
Commander Rex, his face grim, his hands trembling slightly, shook his head. "I am a Praetorian. I do not retreat." He raised his plasma caster for one last shot.
"A pity," Kael said. He flicked his wrist. The air between him and the soldiers compressed into a solid, invisible wall and then slammed forward. It wasn't a gust of wind; it was a physical hammer blow of pure force. The last of the Praetorians were swatted from their perch like flies, their bodies slammed against the far wall with enough force to liquefy their insides. Their armor crumpled like tin foil.
Kael floated the last few feet and stepped out into the antechamber of The Vault. All that remained between him and Lord Valerius was the main door—a two-foot-thick slab of bonded carbon-titanium alloy, the strongest material known to man.
Valerius watched on the monitor, tears of terror streaming down his face as he frantically pressed a large red button on his console. "The purge! Activate the purge!"
A voice from the command center, filled with panic, crackled over the intercom. "My Lord, that will vent the entire Vault's atmosphere into space! You'll die!"
"I don't care! Just kill him!" Valerius shrieked.
Kael placed his hand on the final door. He did not unravel it this time.
He simply pushed.
With a groan that shook the entire skyscraper to its foundations, the massive vault door, with its dozens of locking bolts and immense weight, was torn from its hinges. Kael pushed it inward, holding it up with one hand as if it were a cardboard shield. He walked into The Vault, the colossal door held aloft, and saw the small, terrified man cowering on his throne.
He let the vault door fall. It crashed to the floor with a deafening BOOM that cracked the reinforced concrete.
"Lord Valerius," Kael said, his voice a low, final judgment. "Your accounts are closed."