His eyes go wide.
His mouth opens.
But no sound emerges.
Because his chest is locking now, the cascade spreading through his torso, his bio-engineered musculature failing in a chain reaction that turns his entire upper body into a frozen, paralyzed mass.
He drops.
Not slowly.
Not with any semblance of control.
He justdrops, his knees buckling, his frame hitting the marble floor with a heavy, resonant thud that echoes through the crimson-lit corridor.
One down.
Three remaining.
The second enforcer charges from my right, his augmented fist driving toward my jaw in a calculated strike designed to exploit my exposed position.
I do not block.
I pivot, my frame rotating with surprising speed, and drive my left fist into his right shoulder with the same brutal precision.
The same targeted angle.
The same catastrophic result.
His deltoid locks.
His trapezius freezes.
His entire shoulder girdle cascades into rigid paralysis.
He drops beside the first enforcer, his body hitting the marble with another heavy thud.
Two down.
The third and fourth enforcers hesitate.
Not out of fear.
Out of tactical recalibration.
They have just watched two of their heavily augmented colleagues drop like stone pillars under strikes that should not have been effective. They are reassessing. Analyzing. Attempting to identify the vulnerability I am exploiting.
They will not have time.
Because I am already moving.
I close the distance to the third enforcer in three massive strides, my wings folding tight against my back to allow for maximum mobility in the narrow corridor. He raises his arms in a defensive posture, his augmented forearms crossing in front of his chest to block the anticipated strike.
I do not strike his chest.
I drive my fist upward, under his guard, directly into the exposed anchor point where his left deltoid meets his clavicle.
The impact is sharp.
