SSS-Rank Corporate Predator System

The clone arrived first.

It didn't bother with the locked doors.

It simply smashed through a massive, plate-glass window on the ground floor, a walking, talking explosion of righteous fury.

The sound of shattering glass was like a gunshot in the silent, marble-floored lobby.

Julian and his two bodyguards spun around, their faces a mixture of shock and confusion.

The clone, a perfect, furious copy of Miles Vane, stood there amidst the sparkling, ankle-deep ruins of the window, its eyes glowing with a faint, dangerous light.

"You," Julian spat, his smug confidence momentarily faltering. "How did you…?"

The clone didn't answer.

It just moved.

It launched itself at the two bodyguards, a silent, black-clad blur of motion.

The first bodyguard, a mountain of a man, barely had time to raise his hands.

The clone's fist, glowing with the faint, blue light of a [Pulse Break], slammed into his chest.

*THUMP.*

The impact was like a cannonball hitting a brick wall.

The man's eyes went wide with shock as he was lifted off his feet, flying backward through the air to crash into the far wall with a sickening, bone-jarring crunch.

He slid to the floor in a boneless heap, unconscious.

The second bodyguard, seeing his partner get taken out like a piece of trash, let out a roar of rage and charged forward.

He was faster, smarter.

He threw a punch aimed to take the clone's head off.

The clone sidestepped it with an almost casual grace and drove its elbow into the man's side, right below the ribs.

The sound was a wet, sickening crack.

The man let out a strangled gasp and crumpled to his knees, clutching his side, his face pale with agony.

The fight had taken less than five seconds.

While the clone was busy redecorating the lobby with his hired help, Julian turned his attention back to his real target.

His face was a mask of pure, desperate rage.

His plan, his perfect, brilliant plan, was falling apart.

He lunged for Clara, his arrogance replaced by a raw, animalistic need to control something, anything.

He grabbed her arm, his fingers digging into her skin like a vise.

"You're mine!" he snarled, his voice a low, venomous hiss.

He backed her against the cold, marble wall, his face just inches from hers.

His eyes were wild, unhinged.

"You are going to learn to respect me," he growled.

Clara stared back at him, her own eyes wide, not with fear, but with a cold, defiant anger.

She was not a prize to be won.

She was not a pawn in his sick game.

Just as she opened her mouth to tell him exactly where he could shove his respect, the main doors of the lobby burst open.

It wasn't the clone this time.

It was the real Miles.

He stood there, his chest heaving, his face a mask of pure, unrestrained fury.

He saw Julian.

He saw Julian's hand on Clara's arm.

And in that instant, his entire world, the cold logic of the system, the carefully constructed walls of his self-control, shattered into a million pieces.

The system in his head, the voice of his parents, the ghost in his machine, screamed a final, desperate warning.

[OVERLOAD. OVERLOAD. SOUL SHARD INTEGRITY COMPROMISED.]

He didn't hear it.

He didn't care.

All he saw was red.

His eyes began to glow, not with the faint, controlled light of his system, but with a raw, terrifying power.

Arcs of silver and black energy, unstable and chaotic, began to crackle across his skin.

He took a step into the lobby, and the marble floor beneath his feet cracked under the sheer pressure of his rage.

He looked at Julian.

And he spoke.

His voice was no longer his own.

It was a low, distorted, and deeply inhuman growl, a sound that seemed to come from two places at once.

"Get your hands off her."

The clone, its own work finished, simply dissolved into a shimmer of light, its energy flowing back into its overloaded master.

Miles was whole again.

And he was coming apart at the seams.

Julian, seeing the raw, terrifying power radiating from Miles, finally felt a flicker of genuine, primal fear.

He let go of Clara's arm and stumbled backward, his face pale.

Miles didn't wait.

He didn't plan.

He just attacked.

He blurred forward, a storm of pure, uncontrolled kinetic energy.

He didn't just use [Pulse Break].

He became it.

He slammed into the second bodyguard, who was still kneeling on the floor, and the man simply ceased to be a problem, launched across the lobby like a ragdoll to join his unconscious friend.

The force of the impact sent a shockwave through the room, shattering the remaining windows.

Miles turned his glowing, furious eyes on Julian.

Julian let out a high-pitched, terrified shriek and turned to run.

He didn't get two steps.

Miles was suddenly there, a phantom of pure rage appearing in front of him.

He grabbed Julian by the front of his expensive shirt and lifted him off the ground with one hand, slamming him hard against the wall.

"You… you don't scare me," Julian stammered, his voice cracking, tears of fear welling in his eyes.

Miles just stared at him, his face a twisted mask of fury.

He pulled back his other fist, raw, untamed energy swirling around his knuckles.

He was going to kill him.

He was going to erase him from existence.

And then, his system, pushed far, far beyond its limits, finally broke.

"OVERLOAD," it screamed, the voice no longer calm and digital, but a distorted, panicked shriek in his mind.

"SOUL SHARD INTEGRITY… CRITICAL."

A wave of pure hot agony, a pain that made Spike's attack feel like a gentle tap, exploded in his skull.

His vision flickered, the world dissolving into a storm of digital static and screaming code.

The raw energy that had been focused on Julian erupted outward, arcs of silver and black lightning that ripped through the lobby, shattering chunks of marble from the walls, tearing the expensive art from its mountings.

He screamed, a raw, ragged sound of pure torment, and let go of Julian.

He stumbled backward, clutching his head.

He collapsed to the floor, his body convulsing, trapped in a prison of his own unstable power.

He was losing control.

He was losing himself.

His body began to flicker, like a broken hologram, phasing in and out of reality.

One moment he was a boy, writhing in agony on the floor.

The next, he was a being of pure, chaotic energy.

He was a dying star, and he was about to go supernova, taking the entire city block with him.

He was a weapon, and his own safety protocols had just failed.

He was going to die.

And he was going to take the one person he was trying to protect with him.