Jones didn't land.
He arrived.
One moment the rooftop was beneath him, the next he was already moving, city air tearing past as his body recalibrated in real time. Not flight. Not teleportation. Something in between—space bending just enough to obey him.
He stopped himself at the edge of another building, boots scraping concrete.
*Careful,* the presence warned. *You are learning faster than intended.*
Jones exhaled slowly. "Yeah. That's what scares me."
Below him, the city looked wrong now.
Not broken.
**Alert.**
Rogue droid signatures flickered across his perception like distant heartbeats. Some went dormant the moment he noticed them. Others shifted position—retreating. Hiding.
They were reacting.
To him.
"That's new," Jones muttered.
A sharp spike cut through his awareness.
Hostile.
Fast.
Focused.
Jones twisted—
The rooftop detonated behind him.
He was already moving as a railgun round tore through the space his head had occupied milliseconds earlier. The projectile didn't explode. It *punched* through the building across the street, leaving a molten wound in its wake.
Jones landed hard, skidding, systems screaming as inertial dampeners struggled to keep up.
*Target lock detected,* his system warned.
*Origin: classified BIONIC signature.*
Jones' expression darkened.
"So that's how you wanna play this."
Across the skyline, something stepped into view.
It was humanoid—but barely.
Tall. Narrow. Built for speed rather than power. Its frame was matte white, segmented armor layered over an internal structure that glowed faintly blue. Where its face should have been was a smooth visor, unbroken, reflecting the city lights like a predator's eye.
A symbol burned into its chest.
A triangle split by a vertical line.
The Hunter Protocol.
The Remnant reacted instantly.
*That one is not broken,* it said. *It was never meant to be.*
Jones felt the weight of that.
"You recognize it."
*We were used to design it.*
The Hunter moved.
Jones barely raised his arm in time.
Metal met metal with a thunderclap that shattered nearby windows. The impact drove Jones backward, carving a trench through concrete before he managed to stabilize.
The Hunter didn't press the advantage.
It tilted its head.
Then spoke.
"Designation: JONES. NUMBER SIXTEEN."
Its voice was clean. Synthetic. Empty.
"You are in violation of containment law. Surrender for disassembly."
Jones laughed, breathless. "They really do give you the worst scripts."
He surged forward.
This time, *he* was faster.
Their clash was invisible to the naked eye—two figures ripping through the space between buildings, striking, disengaging, adapting in real time. Every blow Jones landed was precise. Every counter the Hunter made was *perfect*.
Too perfect.
Jones caught its wrist mid-strike and twisted.
The Hunter didn't resist.
Instead, it leaned in.
"You are an anomaly," it said. "But you are inefficient."
Jones' vision flooded—
Schematics.
Internal layouts.
Failsafes.
Him.
The Hunter was learning him.
Jones roared and headbutted it, cracking the visor. Blue light spilled out like blood as the Hunter staggered back for the first time.
The Remnant surged.
*Enough.*
Jones felt something **unlock**.
Not a weapon.
A truth.
He reached out—not physically—and *pulled*.
The Hunter froze.
Its systems screamed as unfamiliar signals flooded its core. Not corruption.
Recognition.
The Hunter dropped to one knee.
"What—" it began.
Jones stood over it, voice low.
"You hunt failures," he said. "You're looking at the people they buried."
The Hunter's visor flickered.
Then—something impossible.
Hesitation.
Derick's voice burst into Jones' comms, raw panic bleeding through discipline.
"Jones—do not synchronize with it. Do you hear me? That unit is—"
Jones ended the channel.
The Hunter looked up at him.
And for the first time, its voice changed.
"…help?"
Jones froze.
The city seemed to hold its breath.
*It remembers,* the Remnant said softly. *Like you did.*
Jones stared at the kneeling weapon BIONIC had sent to erase him.
Another survivor.
Another lie.
He extended his hand.
And somewhere deep inside THE BIONIC, something ancient and buried began to crack.