The rain sluiced off the streets of Neo-Tokyo, illuminating the flashing lights of the billboards. The ozone tang of the air mingled with the smell of exhaust as Jax and Ryk sped their worn hoverbike toward the orphanage. Jax controlled the bike, his cybernetic arm thrumming quietly. His scarred fingers tapped out their own rhythms. Ryk rode beside him, the buzzing of his neural implants vibrating behind his gaze, a crazed grin on his face from their illicit mission they'd just completed—and the crates of purloined tech slung hidden beneath the bike.
Smoke billowed across the horizon before they made it to the last hill. The orphanage loomed like a torch on fire, flames consuming the rusting structure, orange fingers curling toward the polluted sky. Jax turned off the engine a block before they got out, landing together. Heat distorted the air, tongues of screaming transforming into gurgles. Bodies dotted the lawn, limbs awkwardly posed, anguished faces contorted.
Jax's gut turned, but his tone remained icy. "Family," he said, gazing upon the aftermath. Ryk kicked through the wreckage, the crunch of his boots shattering glass and bone. There was a survivor huddled on the periphery, chest heaving, the shape of a new tattoo evident through the ripped skin: a jagged "2" dripping blood. It was the sign of the Syndicate. Our sign.
Ryk crouched, pulling the man up by the collar. "Who?" Jax asked, the whir of his cybernetic arm a stark contrast as it gripped the thug's jaw. The thug gasped for air, "Voss. Draven Voss. Loose ends. The twins. said twins, too dangerous." Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes clouded.
The words struck Jax sharply. He released the prisoner, who slumped into the mud. Ryk's fists clenched, and the implant flared into heat. "Vengeance," they both said simultaneously, their voices clashing like thunder. They locked eyes—the mirrors of their angry selves, unbreakable.
The sirens were distant, but the twins moved together, their bodies turning towards the local arms depot. Gunfire will meet gunfire, and blood will call for blood.
The depot crouched in the city's guts, festering like a wound nobody wanted to heal—ugly slabs of corrugated metal stitched together by rust and neglect, razor-wire fences trembling whenever the patrol lights swept past. The air reeked of oil, ozone, and fear, the kind of stink that seeped into your bones. Jax went over first—cyber-arm whispering through the mesh, wires and servos slicing as easy as a blade through silk. He reached back, eyes flickering cold with focus, and yanked Ryk up after him, the two moving with the silent urgency of predators who had done this a hundred times. They landed in the shadows, boots rolling soundlessly across the gravel, hearts thundering out a rhythm only brothers know. Inside, crates were stacked in careless towers—each one stamped with Voss's insignia, each one packed full of illegal firepower. Black market paradise, if you had the guts and the guns.
As soon as they slipped inside, Ryk's neural implants flared to life. His vision sharpened, pupils dilating, and his nostrils twitched with the chemical scent of fear and gun oil—three guards on the prowl, their boots dragging as they circled the perimeter. To Ryk, every heartbeat, every shallow breath was a signal. Jax glanced over, flashing a flurry of hand signals—quick bursts of code, a language born from years of shared danger. Without a word, they split, moving like two halves of a single thought. Jax drifted left, pistol cradled in his palm, while Ryk sank right, body coiled tight and hungry for violence.
Jax found his first target behind a crate, the guard's attention caught by a flicker in the distance. One squeeze and the silenced shot punched through the man's skull—gray matter blooming across the crate like some obscene flower. No time for hesitation. Ryk caught his own prey mid-step, his augmented arm snapping out, forearm crushing the windpipe with a wet, ugly crunch. The guard's hands clawed at Ryk's sleeve, but he twisted, driving his knee up hard into the man's gut, feeling the life stutter out of him. The last guard spun at the noise, panic in his eyes, gun barking wild shots that shattered concrete and sent splinters flying. Jax was already moving—one fluid leap, grabbing the man by the neck and slamming him against the wall. The crack of spine was sharp, brittle, final. The body slid down, trailing a smear of blood.
But quiet never lasts. The alarms shrieked to life, red lights spinning across the depot, painting everything in frantic color. Jax and Ryk didn't flinch—they'd expected worse. They ran for the vault, boots pounding out a promise of violence. Jax's hack-tool danced over the lock, fingers flying in a blur, and within seconds the vault hissed open, revealing its forbidden bounty. They stuffed bags full—rifles, plasma coils, grenades, enough firepower to level a city block. Ryk's grin flashed sharp as a blade as he hefted a chain-fed autocannon, its weight familiar and comforting in his hands. "Loaded for gods," he growled, voice echoing with the thrill of the fight.
Suddenly, the front gate exploded inward, metal shrieking as it folded beneath the force. Six syndicate goons stormed in on hover-scooters, neon tracer fire slashing the darkness. Their war cries were drowned out by the roar of engines and the staccato hum of energy weapons. Jax and Ryk broke cover as one, the brothers moving in perfect, brutal harmony. Ryk's cannon spat death, rounds tearing through the first two riders—bodies and machines ripped apart in a storm of blood and sparks. Jax's pistol barked, his shots finding the weak points in armor, one bike erupting in a fireball that painted the yard in flickering orange.
No time to celebrate. They vaulted onto their own hoverbike, engines screaming as Jax punched the throttle. The depot blurred beneath them, shrinking to a chaos of flashing lights, burning metal, and the dying cries of their enemies. Tracer rounds chased them into the night, but the brothers rode as one—two halves of a single storm, a force of nature that nothing could touch. Every turn, every maneuver was a conversation, a memory, a promise. They hadn't just come for vengeance; they were vengeance, and the number "2"—twin souls, twin triggers—became their war cry, seared into the city's memory in lead, fire, and the echo of their names.
Rain hammered their faces, each drop stinging like shrapnel as the hoverbike roared through the labyrinthine canyons of rusted hab-blocks. Neon veins pulsed overhead, flickering and fractured, casting feverish light across puddles that reflected a world gone mad. Jax gunned the throttle, his cybernetic arm fused to the grip in a vice of flesh and steel. Every vibration thrummed through him, nerves singing with adrenaline. Behind him, Ryk twisted, coat whipping in the wind, autocannon booming—a relentless war drum echoing off concrete and iron. Syndicate scooters swarmed around them, a hive of snarling machines, their engines shrieking and their riders' faces hidden behind mirrored visors. Bullets ricocheted off the hoverbike's armored flanks, tracing lines of death in the rain.
One scooter veered in too close, muzzle flashing. Instinct and muscle memory collided as Jax jerked the bike sideways, tires screaming, fishtailing through a market stall. The world exploded in chaos—crates bursting like veins, sparks showering, hunks of scorched meat and shattered tech spinning through the air. The shouts and curses of vendors blurred into the cacophony, another layer of noise swallowed by the storm.
Ryk's implants surged, time stretching until seconds became syrup. He could hear his own heart, the whirr of servos in his spine, the wet rasp of each breath. Everything slowed—the neon, the rain, the glint of a rival's helmet in his scope. He exhaled, squeezed the trigger, and the autocannon's recoil juddered through his frame, threatening to rip his shoulder apart. The shot ripped the lead scooter's cockpit to ribbons, a storm of depleted uranium turning man and machine into a whirling pyre. Flames licked at a noodle stand, igniting broth, oil, and plastic in a greasy inferno that painted the alley with flickering orange. Ryk spat blood, a savage grin splitting his face. "One less dog." Jax didn't bother to look back, his eyes cold, reflecting the city's endless war.
They dove into a service tunnel, the walls so tight the hoverbike's paint scraped off in sparks, rust and mildew thick on the air. Darkness pressed in, broken only by the blue-white glare of their headlights. Two scooters followed, guns rattling as muzzle flashes stitched fire across the narrow space. Ryk sprang up, crouched wild and feral on the saddle, his mind a blur of targeting data and vengeance. He fired—one, two, three shots—and the first scooter disintegrated, fragments of flesh and synthbone streaking the walls in a grotesque mural. The second scooter swerved, clipped a beam, and teetered on the edge of control. Jax was already moving, yanking a plasma coil from his pack, fingers working in brutal efficiency. He flung it back; the shot hissed, green fire lancing through the gloom. The pilot's scream was brief, cut off as body and bike became nothing but heat and wreckage spinning away in their wake.
The tunnel spat them out into the open sprawl, a patchwork of rain-slick streets and crumbling towers. Sirens keened somewhere distant, echoing through alleys drowned in shadow and secrets. Jax eased off the throttle, guiding the hoverbike into the warren of backways and forgotten corridors, slipping between piles of refuse and the blinking eyes of scavenger drones. Their packs seemed to grow heavier with every heartbeat—stuffed not just with stolen tech and creds, but with the memory of death, the weight of what they'd taken to survive.
The number "2" scorched itself behind their eyes, a phantom pain that would never fade. Not just a mark, but a brand—proof of what they'd endured, and what they still owed. Voss's name echoed between them, sharper than any blade, a promise rooted in the ashes of the orphanage where their lives had first been broken. Every job, every kill, every frantic escape was just another step toward settling that debt.
Ryk scanned the skyline, his implants humming with warning, senses tuned to every flicker atop the rooftops, every shadow that lingered too long. The city was restless tonight, hungry in its own way, watching them with a thousand electronic eyes. Jax's voice cut through the rain, low and certain. "We drew first blood. Depot's ours. Now we hunt the head."
There was no need for more words. The city itself seemed to recoil as they melted into its guts, swallowed up by the tangle of alleys and forgotten tunnels. Two shadows, stitched together by violence and necessity, weapons still warm, hearts pounding with the memory of fire. Whatever storm waited ahead, they would meet it together—predators in a city that would never let them sleep, always one step from oblivion but never turning back.