Two levels down and past a merchant stall selling synth-meat and unregistered implants, it happens.
“Vrok.”
The voice comes from the side—a sharp, nasal bite that sounds like it was trained in back-alley shakedowns and too many losing fights.
A group steps out from the shadows of a corrugated canopy, five deep. Armored, armed, and not trying to be subtle. Their leader wears a flak vest two sizes too small over a sleeveless tunic, his arms a roadmap of burn scars and gang tattoos. He grins without humor.
“You got a lot of nerve showing your snout here.”
Vrok doesn’t slow. “Then I guess it’s good I’m not here for your approval.”
The leader’s smile drops. “This is Ravel’s turf now. And Ravel says your kind don’t walk in without a toll.”
Weapons come out like punctuation—quick, practiced, deadly. A rail pistol, two modded blades, one scatterbeam shotgun.
I feel the space around us suck in. Bystanders vanish into doorways and behind crates.
I freeze.
Just for a second.
Then something in me clicks. Not courage. Not instinct. Something meaner. A survival mechanism dressed up in borrowed swagger.
I step forward.
Deliberate.
My voice cuts through the tension like a scalpel. “You really want to pull that trigger?”
They blink.
The leader squints at me. “Who the hell are you?”
I let the pause stretch. Let them feel it. Then:
“Ask around. See who else walks with Vrok and doesn’t flinch when guns come out.”
Confusion flickers. One of them glances at the others.
“You heard about Novaria?” I add. “The one who gutted two bounty twins in a club bathroom, then made it to the bar before the blood cooled?”
The man with the shotgun lowers it half an inch.
“Or Voletta Prime,” I say, voice low and steady. “The warehouse massacre. Seventeen bodies. No survivors. No witnesses. Just a trail of blood and a single signature—” I smile, slow and sharp, “—a butcher’s mark carved into the wall.”
The leader swallows.
“I thought she was just a story,” someone mutters.
I tilt my head like I’ve heard that before. “All stories start somewhere.”
Silence.
I can hear my heartbeat in my throat.
One of the gang members shifts their grip. The tension creaks like an overstrained cable.
Then the leader takes a single step back. Just one. But it’s enough. The others follow like dominoes.
