"Heeeeh??" The sound ripped out of him, high-pitched and raw, turning every head within a twenty-foot radius. "What do you mean the machine malfunctioned - I clearly won the game!"
He stabbed a finger at the screen, where the golden dragons still danced in silent mockery. His voice, once booming with victory, was now tight with a desperate, rising fury.
Henderson took a slight, instinctive step back, his hands coming up in a placating gesture. "The win is void, I'm afraid. We can offer a credit for your initial—"
He didn't get to finish. The word "void" was the trigger. The betrayal was too absolute, the fall from grace too violent. Vel moved without thought. His hand, the one that had so triumphantly hit the spin button, shot out and fisted in the pristine, expensive silk of Henderson's tie and collar, yanking him forward.
The manager let out a sharp, startled squeal. "Eiiik, sir please - behave yourself!"
He was close now, close enough for Vel to see the panic in his eyes, the way his carefully styled hair was now ruffled, the faint sheen of sweat on his brow. The scent of the man's overly sharp cologne mixed with the smell of his own fear.
"Behave?" Vel snarled, his voice a low, dangerous tremor. He gave the collar a slight, threatening shake. "You just stole a million credits from me with a lie about a 'malfunction,' and you want me to behave?"
The world had shrunk to this: the crumpled silk in his fist, the terrified face of the manager, and the cold, sickening realization that the machine hadn't just broken. It had broken him. The confetti on the screen looked like a funeral shroud.
The word "behave" was still hanging in the air, a toxic challenge, when a new weight settled on Vel's shoulder. It wasn't the harsh, restraining grip of security, but something softer, yet firm. A familiar presence.
"Brother, please..." came Mikaze's voice, low and steady, a quiet stream trying to cool molten rock. "Don't cause trouble..."
Vel could feel the heat of his own body through the fabric of his shirt, a stark contrast to the calm, cool pressure of Mikaze's hand. His knuckles were still white, twisted in the manager's collar. Henderson's eyes, wide with terror, flickered from Vel's enraged face to the newcomer, a silent, desperate plea for intervention.
Mikaze's hand didn't pull or yank; it simply rested there, a grounding weight. "Vel," he said, his voice dropping even further, becoming a private murmur meant only for his brother's ear amidst the public spectacle. "Look at what you're doing. This isn't the way."
Mikaze's hand was a steady weight, his voice a low, calming murmur meant to drain the fury from Vel's veins. "Look at what you're doing. This isn't the way."
The words were a lifeline, a thread of sanity trying to pull Vel back from the cliff's edge. Vel could feel it working, the white-hot rage beginning to cool into a hard, heavy lump of shame and defeat. His grip on Henderson's collar loosened another crucial inch.
Then, a new voice, sharp and bristling with youthful indignation, cut through the tension from behind them.
"Why is the blame on Vel Bro?"
Ace shouldered his way into the tight circle, his eyes flashing not with calm reason, but with fiery allegiance. He was all sharp angles and impulsive energy, a stark contrast to Mikaze's solid composure. He pointed a accusatory finger at the flustered manager, who flinched as if it were a weapon.
"The manager clearly talks bull, and he must be confronted about this!" Ace's voice was louder than Mikaze's, drawing the attention that had started to wane. He turned his glare to his older brother. "Stop your stoic advice, Mikaze! This isn't the time for being calm! They're stealing from him!"
The effect was instantaneous. The embers of Vel's rage, already smoldering, were doused in gasoline. Ace was right. Why was he being made to feel like the criminal? The shame evaporated, replaced by a fresh, justified anger. His hand, which had been easing open, snapped tight again on Henderson's collar, twisting the silk anew.
"Get your hands off me, Mikaze," Vel growled, his focus snapping back to the terrified manager. Ace's intervention had reframed the world: Mikaze wasn't trying to save him, he was trying to silence him.
Mikaze looked pained, his hand still on Vel's shoulder but now feeling less like an anchor and more like a chain. "Ace, you're not helping—"
"Helping him roll over?" Ace shot back, stepping closer, his presence creating a fractured front. "Look at him! He's not a kid. He knows he was cheated and they need to get that through their thick skulls".
---
Mikaze's plea for reason was drowned by Ace's fiery support, creating a split in their world that the manager, Mr. Henderson, saw as his only chance. His eyes, wide with a rodent's panic, darted between the three brothers. "Security! Now! Restrain them!" he squeaked, his voice cracking with a fear that was now contagious.
It was the wrong move.
The sound of heavy, purposeful footsteps hammered against the cacophony of slot machines. Not one or two, but a half-dozen figures in dark uniforms swarmed from the periphery, their faces set in grim, professional masks. The space around the "Dragon's Gold" machine, once a stage for Vel's triumph, then his humiliation, was now a tightening ring of polished badges and nightsticks. It was 3 vs. Many.
And that was the trigger.
The last vestiges of reason, the calming weight of Mikaze's hand, the very concept of consequences—all of it evaporated in a single, crystalline moment of pure, unadulterated instinct. The universe narrowed to a single objective: put them all on the ground.
Vel released Henderson's collar, not in surrender, but to shove him backward. The manager stumbled into a security guard, a tangle of expensive silk and panic. Every eye was on Vel now. The air grew thick, charged with the ozone-scent of imminent violence.
A cruel, terrifying smile stretched across Vel's face, devoid of any warmth or mirth. It was the grimace of a predator.
"You dare threaten me," he began, his voice low, almost a whisper, yet it cut through the room like a shard of ice. "After rigging the game..."
He took a single step forward, and the circle of security guards instinctively tightened, their hands going to their belts.
"For that..." Vel's voice rose, booming now, a declaration that silenced the entire arcade. "I will personally make you all gaze upon the scrutinizing eyes of death!"
He didn't mean literal death. In the hot, wired furnace of his mind, it was a metaphor for the utter defeat he was about to deliver. To "gaze upon the eyes of death" was to be laid out on the cold, sticky floor, broken and helpless, forced to confront their own powerlessness as he stood victorious over them all.
Mikaze let out a strangled "Vel, no!"—a sound of pure despair.
Ace, in contrast, dropped into a tense, ready crouch, a wild grin spreading across his face. "Now you're talking, Bro!"
Then Vel moved.
It wasn't a brawler's charge; it was a hurricane's onset. He pivoted, his leg sweeping out in a low, devastating arc that caught the first two guards by surprise, sweeping their legs out from under them. They crashed to the ground in a clatter of equipment and shocked grunts, truly seeing the floor for the first time.
Gaze upon it.
The third guard lunged. Vel caught the outstretched arm, used the man's own momentum, and hurled him over his hip. The guard landed with a breath-stealing thud, his eyes wide, staring up at the flashing lights on the ceiling as the world spun.
Scrutinize it.
A nightstick came down. Vel blocked it with a forearm, the impact a solid, painful crack that only fueled the fire. He drove his other fist into the guard's solar plexus, and the man folded, his eyes rolling back in his head as he gasped for a breath that wouldn't come.
The eyes of death.
For a breathtaking moment, Vel stood amid the chaos he had authored, chest heaving, surrounded by groaning bodies. He had done it. He had put them on the ground. He turned, his furious, triumphant gaze finding the cowering form of Manager Henderson, who was now staring, truly and utterly, into the scrutinizing eyes of his own ruin.
For a single, suspended second, Vel stood as a conqueror amid the wreckage of his own making. The groans of the security guards were a symphony to his rage, the terrified whimper of Manager Henderson a final, satisfying chord. The fire in his veins was still white-hot, urging him to finish it, to ensure every last one of them was staring at the ceiling.
But then Ace was at his elbow, yanking hard. "Vel! We gotta dip! That's enough—sirens!"
The distant, rising wail of police sirens cut through the adrenaline haze, a cold dash of reality. It was the one sound loud enough to overpower the roar in his head. The flashing lights of the slot machines now seemed to pulse in time with the approaching cruisers.
The conqueror vanished, replaced by the fugitive.
"Yeah," Vel grunted, the word a puff of spent fury. "Let's go."
He didn't need to be told twice. Ace was already moving, a lithe shadow dodging a gawking tourist. Vel shot one last, venomous look at Henderson—a promise of unfinished business—then spun on his heel.
Mikaze was still standing there, a statue of despair amidst the chaos. His face was a mask of conflict, every instinct screaming about the terrible mistake they were compounding.
"Ace, Vel, we can't—" he started, his voice thick with reason.
"Now or never, Mikaze!" Ace yelled back, not even breaking stride.
It was Vel who answered, grabbing Mikaze by the arm with a grip just as firm as the one he'd used on the manager. "We're leaving. Now."
The contact jolted Mikaze into motion. With a final, helpless glance at the scene—the downed guards, the gathering crowd, the irrevocable line they had crossed—he let himself be pulled. The three brothers became a single unit, a desperate bolt of motion through the stunned casino floor.
They weaved through a forest of slot machines, past wide-eyed players who shrank back from their path. The main doors, once a gateway to potential fortune, were now an escape hatch. They burst out into the cool night air, the sirens deafeningly close, their footsteps pounding a frantic rhythm on the pavement as they vanished into the labyrinth of the city, leaving the golden lie of the "Dragon's Gold" machine far behind.
The casino's clamor was swallowed by the vast, indifferent hum of the city below. Up here, above the neon-lit streets, the world was made of shadows, sharp angles, and the cool kiss of the night wind. Three figures moved across the urban canopy, their silhouettes cutting against the hazy glow of the light-polluted sky.
They were ghosts in the machine now, their escape a fluid, vertical poetry.
Ace led the way, a natural in this element. He was all explosive energy and fearless joy. He hit the edge of a gravel-covered roof at a full sprint, his feet barely seeming to touch the ground before he launched himself across a four-meter gap. He landed in a forward roll, coming up smoothly, a wild, breathless laugh stolen by the wind. The bag on his back, stuffed with who-knows-what from their rushed grab at their lockers, barely seemed to hinder him.
Vel was right behind him, a study in controlled power. Where Ace was a ricochet, Vel was a piston. He vaulted a low-rise HVAC unit, his movements efficient and brutal. When he met a gap, he didn't leap with Ace's flamboyant grace; he punched off the edge, propelling himself across with raw strength, landing with a solid thud that dislodged a puff of concrete dust. His jaw was still clenched, the adrenaline of the fight not yet cooled, just channeled into this relentless, forward motion. Every landing was a punctuation mark on his rage, every grip on a ledge a stranglehold on the memory of the manager's face.
And then there was Mikaze. He brought up the rear, the anchor, the conscience. His parkour was not joyful or furious, but necessary. He moved with a precise, economical grace, calculating every handhold, every footfall. He was the only one who glanced back, his eyes scanning the streets for the flicker of red and blue lights. When he cleared a gap, it was with a clean, functional technique, his landing silent and stable. He wasn't running for the thrill or the rage; he was running from the consequences, and the weight of that made his movements seem heavier, more deliberate.
For a few minutes, the only sounds were their rhythmic breathing, the scuff of shoes on tar-paper, and the distant wail of sirens that were, blessedly, not getting any closer. They were a constellation of motion, leaping from one island of concrete to the next, the bags on their backs bouncing with their strides—tangible proof of a life they'd just left behind in the casino's wreckage.
Finally, they reached the familiar fire escape of their own building, a rusted iron skeleton grafted onto the brickwork. Ace slid down the last ladder with a clatter, Vel dropped down after him, and Mikaze descended last, his hand pausing for a moment on the cold railing, as if steadying himself not just physically, but morally.
They stood there for a second in the alley's darkness, chests heaving, the scent of ozone and distant rain on the air. The city sprawled around them, a kingdom of unknowns. They were home, but nothing was the same.
The metal door groaned shut behind them, the heavy clang echoing like a gavel in the sudden stillness. The three of them stood panting in the dim, cavernous space, the only light coming from a few dangling bare bulbs and the hazy glow of the city through grimy, high-set windows. The air was thick with the scents of old concrete, engine grease, and spray paint.
And they were not alone.
Scattered across the repurposed warehouse floor—lounging on worn-out couches, tinkering with a scavenged motorcycle, huddled over a low-stakes card game—were about twenty kids. All around their age. The sound of the door had frozen them all in place.
Heads turned. Not all at once, but in a slow, deliberate wave of attention. Eyes, sharp and assessing, cut through the gloom, tracking the three new arrivals. The casual chatter and clinking of tools died, leaving a silence that was heavier than the night outside.
They saw Ace first, buzzing with leftover adrenaline, a smirk playing on his lips. Then Mikaze, his posture tense, his gaze already scanning the room, calculating the mood.
But it was Vel they focused on.
Vel stopped in the center of the room, the bags they'd carried slung from his shoulder. He dropped them to the concrete floor with a solid thud that echoed in the quiet.
"Had a disagreement with Fortune," he said, his voice rough but calm, cutting through the silence. "Turns out, she's a cheater."
A slow grin spread across the face of the tattooed girl by the workbench. Someone else let out a low, appreciative whistle. The tension broke, not into noise, but into a low, collective hum of anticipation. They saw the blood on his knuckles, the fire in his eyes, and the defiant set of his shoulders. Their leader was back.
The low hum of anticipation that had filled the lair held for a beat longer, a silent question hanging in the dusty air. Then, a lanky kid with electric blue hair and a grin that was all sharp angles and mischief detached himself from a group near a rusted-out van. It was Riot, their best scout and a magnet for chaos.
He sauntered forward, his eyes flicking from Vel's bloody knuckles to the heavy bag at his feet, then to the tense set of Mikaze's shoulders.
"Sounds like you boys ran into a bit of weather," Riot said, his voice a low, knowing tease. He stopped just in front of Vel, his head cocked. "From the look of you... it seems something fun happened out there. Hehehe."
The "hehehe" was a spark on dry tinder. It wasn't a challenge; it was an invitation to bask in the glory of whatever trouble they'd caused.
Vel's stern expression didn't break, but a flicker of dark amusement crossed his features. He flexed his injured hand, wincing slightly at the sting, a testament to the "fun" they'd had.
Ace didn't bother with restraint. He clapped a hand on Riot's shoulder, his own grin wide and fierce. "Fun? You have no idea, man. Vel made a whole squad of casino rent-a-cops kiss the floor. It was a masterpiece."
Mikaze let out a quiet, weary sigh from behind them, the sound barely audible but heavy with the weight of future problems.
Vel finally spoke, his voice cutting through Ace's exuberance. "Fun had a price." He nudged the bag with his foot. "And we brought back the receipt."
He looked past Riot, his gaze sweeping over the rest of the crew, who were now leaning in, their earlier silence replaced by murmurs of interest. They saw the bag. They saw the blood. They saw the unshaken authority in their leader's posture.
"The casino tried to cheat us," Vel announced, his voice rising to fill the space. "So we renegotiated the terms."
A wave of laughter and sharp, approving whistles rippled through the crowd. Riot's grin widened. "Now that's my kind of negotiation." He looked down at the bag, his curiosity burning bright. "So... what's the payout on a renegotiation like that?"
Vel finally allowed a slow, dangerous smile to touch his lips. "Let's find out."
-----------------------------------------------
The frantic energy of the lair had bled away into the deep, quiet hours of the night. The city below was a tapestry of scattered lights and the distant, humming lullaby of traffic. Up on the rooftop, the air was cooler, carrying the scent of concrete dust and distant rain.
Vel sat on the ledge, his back to the bustling world, a single lit cigarette glowing like a dying star between his fingers. The smoke curled into the darkness, a silent testament to the storm still raging inside him. The adrenaline was gone, leaving behind a hollow, jangling restlessness. As he shifted to flick ash, the open collar of his shirt and the shorts he wore revealed a tapestry of old scars and a massive, intricate tattoo that covered his back, spilling over his shoulders and down in half-sleeves on his arms, and creeping down his thighs. The ink was dark, a chaotic, beautiful pattern of interlocking thorns and obscured faces, a piece of art he'd woken up with years ago, its origins and artist a complete blank in his memory. A permanent ghost on his skin.
The scrape of the rooftop access door broke the silence. He didn't turn. He knew the footfalls.
Ace emerged first, his usual explosive energy tempered into a wary quiet. He came to lean against the ledge a few feet away, following Vel's gaze out into the nothingness. He didn't speak, just offered his presence.
Then came Mikaze, his steps slower, more deliberate. He stopped a pace behind Vel, his arms crossed. The worry was a physical aura around him.
The third set of footsteps was lighter, precise. Rez, one of Vel's most trusted aides, moved to stand beside Mikaze, his sharp eyes taking in the scene.
For a long moment, the only sound was the whisper of the wind.
"It's quiet now," Mikaze began, his voice soft but firm. "But it won't stay that way. They'll have cameras. Faces. The police—"
"The police can choke on their own rules," Ace cut in, a defensive grumble.
Rez finally spoke, his voice cool and factual. "The initial buzz is minimal. No names yet. But the casino is a Titan asset. They don't let insults slide. They'll be looking."
Vel took a long, final drag from his cigarette, the ember flaring brightly in the dark. He exhaled a slow, deliberate stream of smoke.
"Let them look," he said, his voice a low rasp. He let the silence hang for a beat, his mind already chess-boarding moves ahead. Then, without turning, he asked, "Rez, what's the situation between the Grey Fog and the Wrecking Crew?"
The question landed heavily. The Grey Fog and the Wrecking Crew were the two other major players in the district's underworld, a constant, grinding rivalry that kept the power of Vel's squad, the SXV, in a precarious check. A wrong move could tip the entire balance.
Rez didn't hesitate, his mind a database of territorial disputes and shifting alliances. "Cold. A few skirmishes over the west-side docks last week. Nothing major. They're both watching each other, and they're both watching us. Why?"
Vel finally turned his head, his eyes, cold and calculating, meeting Rez's. The raw anger was now a weapon being sharpened.
"Because if Titan is going to come looking for a fight," Vel said, his gaze sweeping over Ace and Mikaze before returning to the city, "we make sure they find a war already in progress. Let's see how they like stepping into a hornet's nest."
Ace's grin returned, sharp and understanding. Mikaze's frown deepened, seeing the terrifying scale of the gambit Vel was proposing.