SSS-Rank Corporate Predator System

The office was filled with fear.

Spike was pinned to the wall, his eyes wide and wet, staring at the impossible black blade that hummed with a quiet, hungry energy just an inch from his throat.

He could not move,he was scared.

Miles leaned in.

The pain from his broken shoulder burned like fire, but it felt far away now—something for the future him to deal with.

The here-and-now version had a job to do.

"Now," Miles said, his voice a low, cold whisper that didn't sound like his own.

"We're going to talk."

Spike made a small, choking sound, a mix between a sob and a gasp.

"I-I don't know anything," he stammered, his body trembling so hard the wall behind him seemed to vibrate.

Miles said nothing.

He just pushed the tip of the Phantom Edge a fraction of an inch closer.

The black, smoky energy drifting from the blade licked at the skin of Spike's neck.

Spike screamed, a loud, thin sound of fear.

"Okay! Okay! What do you want to know? I'll tell you anything!"

Miles's internal voice, dry and unimpressed, took over.

Right. Step one of any productive business negotiation: establish a clear and motivated dialogue.

The system, ever the helpful assistant, added its own clinical observation.

[ANALYSIS: SUBJECT 'SPIKE' IS EXPERIENCING EXTREME ADRENAL SATURATION. HEART RATE: 185 BPM. PROBABILITY OF INVOLUNTARY BLADDER EVACUATION: HIGH.]

Oh, fantastic, Miles thought. Just what this evening was missing. Laundry.

"The Crimson Serpents," Miles whispered, his voice cutting through Spike's pathetic whimpers. "You're small-time. Street-level thugs."

"But you're organized," he continued, pressing the point. "You have funding. You have structure."

He leaned even closer, his cold eyes boring into Spike's.

"Who signs the checks?"

Spike's face went completely white.

A new kind of fear, colder and deeper than the fear of the blade, washed over him.

"I can't," he sobbed. "They'll kill me. They'll do things to me you can't even imagine."

Miles felt a flicker of something that might have been pity, but the cold fire of his purpose burned it away instantly.

"Your odds with them are a future possibility," Miles said, his voice dropping to absolute zero. "Your odds with me are right now."

He let that hang in the air for a long, heavy moment.

Spike's resolve shattered like cheap glass.

"Cross Corp!" he finally shouted, the name exploding out of him in a torrent of terrified confession. "It's Cross Corp!"

Miles's heart gave a single, hard thud against his ribs.

He had expected it.

He had known it.

But hearing it confirmed was like having a piece of a puzzle slam into place with brutal, painful force.

"Silas Cross," Spike babbled, the words tumbling over each other. "He uses us. He uses dozens of crews like us all over the city."

"We're… we're deniable assets. Plausible deniability, that's what his guy calls it."

"We handle the dirty work. The stuff that can't be traced back to his shiny corporate tower."

"Intimidation. Vandalism. Making union leaders have 'accidents.' Scaring off business rivals. Shaking down shopkeepers like Mr Leo to expand his territory."

"It's all him!" Spike cried, tears and snot now running freely down his face. "It's always been him!"

The shop owner, Leo, who had been huddled in the corner, forgotten in the chaos, looked up at the mention of Silas Cross, his eyes filled with a dawning, horrified understanding.

It wasn't just a local gang.

It was a monster with a much bigger, much more respectable face.

Miles processed the information, his mind a cold, calculating machine.

This was it.

The first real thread.

The link between the scum in the alley and the man who murdered his parents.

[NEW DATA ACQUIRED: CROSS CORP CRIMINAL UNDERWORLD OPERATIONS.]

[CONNECTING 'SPIKE' TO 'SILAS CROSS'.]

[SUB-QUEST OBJECTIVE INFORMATION GATHERING… COMPLETE.]

The system was all business.

And so was Miles.

He had what he needed.

Spike seemed to sense the shift in the air.

He looked into Miles's cold, empty eyes and saw his own death reflected there.

"Please," Spike begged, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper. "Please, don't. I told you everything. I have money. I can give you money. Whatever you want."

Miles almost laughed.

Money was a tool.

It was not the goal.

The goal was vengeance.

The mission objective was clear.

[OBJECTIVE: ELIMINATE THE SERPENT'S HEAD.]

He looked at Spike, at this pathetic, cruel, whining little man who hurt people for a living, who broke bones and shattered lives for a paycheck.

He felt nothing.

No pity.

No remorse.

Just a cold, quiet finality.

"Thank you for your cooperation," Miles said, his voice flat.

And with a single, fluid motion, he pulled the Phantom Edge back and drove it forward.

The blade made no sound as it slid into Spike's chest, a slice of pure darkness extinguishing a worthless light.

Spike's eyes went wide, a final look of shocked disbelief on his face.

A small, surprised gasp escaped his lips.

And then he went still, his body dropping against the wall, held up only by the dark blade that had ended him.

Miles pulled the Phantom Edge free.

It came away clean, without a single drop of blood, the dark energy that formed it seeming to consume everything it touched.

The blade dissolved back into a thin trail of black smoke, which was then absorbed into the back of Miles's hand, leaving nothing behind.

Spike's body slid down the wall, leaving a dark mark, and crumpled to the floor in a heap.

The Serpent's head was gone.

[SUB-QUEST COMPLETE: ELIMINATE THE SERPENT'S HEAD.]

The system's text scrolled across his vision.

[CALCULATING REWARDS…]

[MAJOR SUB-QUEST COMPLETION BONUS AWARDED.]

[UNLOCKING MEMORY FRAGMENT 2/25.]

Suddenly, his mind was ripped away from the bloody office.

The world around him faded until there was only light and noise.

He was six years old again.

He was running down a plain white hallway, his bare feet slapping against the cold floor.

Alarm bells were screaming, a high-pitched, frantic wail.

Red lights flashed, painting the walls in strokes of blood.

His father, Dr. Alaric Vane, scooped him up.

His father's face was serious, his eyes burning with a fierce, desperate fire.

"It's not an end," his father's voice echoed, not a memory of a voice, but the voice itself, real and present in his mind. "It is a new beginning."

He saw his mother, Mira Vane, her face streaked with tears but her hands steady.

The Echo Protocol.

"We made you to defy death itself," she whispered, her love a tangible force in the chaos.

He saw flashes of blueprints on a screen.

Complex equations.

And a project title, written in bold, stark letters.

PROJECT: REVENANT

Then, a final, clear thought, a shared broadcast from both of his parents, a final prayer and a final command fused into one.

"Live, Miles. Live to be our justice. Live to be the child who would defy death."

The vision shattered.

He was back in the warehouse, the smell of blood and death heavy in the air.

He was gasping for breath, his heart hammering against his broken ribs.

Project Revenant.

That was him.

He wasn't just a boy who had been given a system.

He was the project.

He was a living weapon, forged by his parents' genius and baptized in their murder.

He was their ghost.

Their revenant.

A cold, terrifying clarity washed over him.

He finally understood.

[NEW DATA INTEGRATED,] the system announced, its digital voice pulling him the rest of the way back to reality. [PRIMARY DIRECTIVE RE-AFFIRMED.]

[COMMENCING SECONDARY REWARD PROTOCOL: ASSET ACQUISITION.]

A new window popped up in his vision, showing the contents of Spike's phone, which the system was now accessing remotely.

It bypassed the password in less than a second.

[ACCESSING FINANCIAL APPLICATIONS… IDENTIFYING OFFSHORE ACCOUNTS… INITIATING TRANSFER.]

Lines of code scrolled by at an impossible speed.

[TRANSFER COMPLETE.]

[NEW ASSETS ACQUIRED: $50,000.]

[TOTAL LIQUID ASSETS: $52,000.]

Miles stared at the number, then at the three dead men on the floor.

He looked at the terrified shop owner, who was still huddled in the corner, shaking like a leaf.

He had just committed murder.

He had just stolen fifty thousand dollars.

And he had never felt more like himself in his entire life.

He walked over to the shop owner.

The man flinched, shielding his face with his hands.

Miles reached into his pocket and pulled out the wad of cash he had won from the decathlon.

Two thousand dollars.

He dropped it on the floor in front of the man.

"For your daughter," Miles said, his voice quiet. "And for your silence."

He turned and walked toward the office door, the pain in his shoulder starting to return with a vengeance.

He had won.

But as he looked at Spike's computer, sitting on the metal desk, he knew his work was far from over.

He had to erase the ghost.