A few hours ago, I was speeding down a highway, chasing the faint hope of meeting someone in the city. Now, here I am—standing in a high-rise penthouse, surrounded by strangers who claim I’m the key to taking down a corporation I’d never even heard of. After the briefest of introductions, I sat with them in the sparsely furnished living area. They talked about their mission to find me and how my arrival marked a turning point for Solai. While they spoke, I drifted to the window, gazing out at the sprawling city below, the neon glow of the skyline pulsing like a heartbeat. Their words hummed in the background as I tried to piece together how I’d gotten here. Locke, clearly fed up with my silence, stomped over and grabbed my shoulder, yanking me around to face him. “Don’t you give a shit about this place?” he growled, his face inches from mine, his frustration radiating like heat. Before I could find the words, Caine’s voice cut through the tension. “You fucking idiot,” he snapped. “What do you expect? He says he remembers nothing.”
Locke’s anger turned to Caine, and in seconds, the two were squaring up in the middle of the room. Locke’s glare was sharp enough to cut steel, while Caine’s expression carried a smug defiance. Data, perched behind his desk, chuckled quietly to himself. Clova, however, wasn’t amused. She stepped between them, her voice sharp and commanding. “Again?! If you’re so desperate to beat the crap out of each other, do it in Zone 4. Got it?” Caine scoffed but relented, backing toward the window. With a mischievous grin, he swung the glass door open and stepped onto the balcony. Turning back, he taunted Locke. “Hey, asshole! Let’s go!” And with that, he vaulted over the railing, scaling the building’s side like a spider. Locke’s face darkened with rage as he stormed toward the elevator. Muttering, “Go to Zone 4,” he stepped inside, and the doors slid shut with a mechanical hiss. I was still processing the absurdity of what I’d just seen when Data spun around in his chair to face me. “You should go with Clova,” he said casually, as if this were all completely normal.
Clova and I stood waiting for the elevator. As we waited, she explained that Zone 4 was Shadowtask’s private combat training area, a rooftop arena surrounded by a 150-foot wall made of concrete, steel, and some classified material she’d developed in her lab. It was a place for testing weapons, refining strategies, and blowing off steam—safely. When the elevator doors opened, they revealed a small observation room with a panoramic view of the rooftop. The space felt like a command center, its walls lined with monitors displaying every angle of the training grounds. Below, I could see Caine and Locke standing at opposite ends of the rooftop, sizing each other up. Locke slid a metallic ring onto his bat, his expression calm but determined. Caine, meanwhile, rolled up his sleeves to reveal his bionic arm, glowing with an ominous red light. Then, without warning, the silence shattered. Locke swung his bat, releasing the ring in a blur of motion. The projectile shot toward Caine, exploding on impact and enveloping him in smoke.
Locke wasted no time loading another ring, but as the smoke cleared, Caine emerged unscathed, a massive metal shield now replacing his arm. He smirked, the glow of his bionic enhancements shifting back to their original form. “Eager, aren’t you?” he taunted, and the fight was on.
What followed was a blur of violence. Caine dodged Locke’s projectiles with inhuman speed, closing the distance between them. His bionic fist glowed bright blue as he aimed a devastating punch at Locke, who barely managed to duck in time. The two clashed in a whirlwind of strikes—Locke’s bat whistling through the air while Caine’s fists slammed into walls and deflected blows.
For a moment, it seemed like Caine had the upper hand. His flurry of punches forced Locke to retreat, leaving him gasping for breath. But then Locke’s expression shifted. He began to laugh—a low, unsettling sound that made Caine pause. “What’s so funny about getting your ass kicked?” Caine demanded, his confidence faltering. Locke straightened, his voice steady, almost instructional. “Combat isn’t just about strength, kid. It’s about strategy.” He turned his bat upside down, thumb hovering over a hidden button. “Maybe next time, you’ll learn.”
As Locke pressed the button, a faint beeping sound pierced the air. Caine froze for a moment before frantically patting his pockets. His hand closed around one of Locke’s earlier projectiles, now glowing with an ominous green light. He barely had a second to react before it detonated in his metallic hand, engulfing him in a thick cloud of smoke. Locke seized the opportunity, letting his bat clatter to the ground as he lunged forward. Out of the haze, a powerful right hook connected, and Caine’s unconscious body flew backward, landing with a heavy thud at least six feet away.
The fight was over. Caine was down for the count. Locke approached him, rolling his limp body onto its side before retrieving his bat and heading toward the elevator. Clova sighed deeply, shaking her head in frustration as she made her way to the training grounds to check on Caine. I hesitated for a moment, watching her leave. For a brief second during the fight, I had actually believed Caine might win.
As I turned toward the elevator, Data’s voice broke through the intercom, laced with amusement. “Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? Make no mistake—Caine’s strong. But this fight wasn’t just about fists; it was a battle of wits. Come, take a look.”
The monitors in the observation room lit up, replaying the fight from every conceivable angle. Data scrubbed through the footage, slowing down the moment he considered most critical. “Here we go,” he said, pausing the video. “Pay attention to this.”
The screen showed Caine ducking under one of Locke’s swings to deliver a flurry of punches to his opponent’s left side. At full speed, it seemed like Caine had the upper hand. But then Data switched to a different camera angle, revealing a detail I had missed. As Caine delivered his blows, Locke’s free hand had slipped one of his projectiles into Caine’s pocket, using his bat to shield the manoeuvre from view. The entire exchange had lasted barely two seconds, too quick to notice during the chaos.
“That’s why Locke won,” Data explained, leaning back in his chair. “No matter how angry he might seem, he’s always in control. He played Caine like a game of chess—made him think he was losing his cool, but it was all calculated.”
He went on to dissect Locke’s strategy in detail. Normally, Locke gripped his bat with both hands to maximize the power of his swings, but during the fight, he had deliberately switched to a one-handed grip, thrashing wildly as though consumed by rage. “What he was really doing,” Data continued, “was baiting Caine. By leaving his left side exposed, he lured Caine into attacking with his right arm.” Data’s tone grew more serious. “Locke knows exactly how dangerous Caine’s bionic arm is. If he’d exposed his right side instead, Caine’s strikes would have been devastating. But by manipulating the fight’s flow, Locke turned Caine’s strength into a weakness.”
As the analysis concluded, I boarded the elevator to return to Zone 2. The replay of the fight looped in my mind, each moment revealing more about the level of skill, intelligence, and raw power on display. Locke’s victory wasn’t just physical—it was tactical. And for the first time, I began to understand the depth of what Shadowtask was capable of.
