SSS-Rank Corporate Predator System

The alarm was a frantic, screaming thing that seemed to make the very air in the hidden lab vibrate.

On the main holographic display, from the data from Julian's phone,Silas Cross appeared to them.

"What is that?" Leo asked, his voice a high-pitched squeak of pure panic. "How does he know we have the phone".

"Of course he knew, Leo," Clara said, her voice tight, her eyes locked on the screen.

The image on the display changed, the data broadcast cutting away to a live feed.

It was a room.

A sterile, white, and horribly familiar room.

It was The Nursery.

And in the center of the room, seated in a high-tech, metallic chair that was bristling with wires and restraints, was Gideon Thorne.

He was bruised.

He was bloodied.

But he was alive.

And he was defiant.

His gray eyes stared into the camera with a look of cold, unshakeable contempt.

Then, a figure stepped into the frame, moving with a calm, predatory grace.

He was dressed in a ridiculously expensive, perfectly tailored suit.

His face was a mask of cool, corporate confidence.

His smile was a thin, cruel line that did not reach his cold, gray eyes.

Silas Cross.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Miles hissed, his hands clenching into white-knuckled fists.

Silas didn't address the camera like a politician or a CEO.

He addressed it like a king speaking from his throne.

He addressed it like he was looking right through the screen, right into their hidden lab, right into Miles's soul.

"Hello, boy," Silas said, his voice a smooth, polished purr that was more terrifying than any shout.

He didn't need to say a name.

He was talking directly to Miles.

A monster and the ghost he had created.

Clara let out a small, choked gasp, her hand flying to her mouth as she saw her father, captured and displayed like a trophy.

Leo just stared, his face a pale, ghostly white.

"You have something that belongs to me," Silas continued, his voice a low, conversational murmur. "A piece of technology."

"A legacy, you might even say."

"A legacy you cannot possibly comprehend."

He gestured to one of his assistants, who stepped forward holding a velvet-lined case.

Silas opened it.

Inside, resting on a bed of black silk, was the Ancient Soul Crystal.

It pulsed with a soft, internal light, a captured star that seemed to suck the very warmth from the room.

His men had recovered it from the arena.

"And I," Silas said, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face, "have something of yours."

The camera zoomed in on Gideon's weary, defiant face.

The message was clear.

The ultimatum was set.

"Let's arrange a trade," Silas said, his voice the calm, reasonable tone of a man closing a business deal.

"The Crystal for the mentor."

He picked up the Soul Crystal, holding it up to the light, its facets glittering like a thousand tiny, greedy eyes.

"This artifact is the key to unlocking your true potential," he said, his voice a sweet, seductive poison. "The power you felt in the arena? That was just a whisper. This is the roar."

"I am offering you the one thing you want most in the world."

"Power."

"Absolute power."

He then turned his gaze back to the camera, his smile vanishing, replaced by a look of cold, hard, and absolute authority.

"The terms are simple," he said.

"You will come to the Cross Corp tower."

"Tonight."

"Alone."

He let the words hang in the air, a series of impossible, non-negotiable demands.

"If you accept," he said, "your mentor will be released, unharmed. And you will be given the key to becoming a god."

He paused, a flicker of something, a cruel, theatrical pity, in his eyes.

"If you refuse," he said, his voice dropping to a low, chilling whisper, "your new father dies."

"And not quickly."

The camera panned back to Gideon, and the sterile, white wall behind him dissolved, revealing the horrifying, high-tech machinery of the dissection lab.

"My experiments on him will be… thorough," Silas continued, his voice laced with a chilling, scientific curiosity. "The data I will extract from his broken body, from his very soul, will give me everything I need to hunt you down anyway."

"Either way, boy," he finished, his voice a final, absolute declaration of his victory. "I get what I want."

"The only question is how much your friends have to suffer first."

The broadcast cut out.

The screen went black.

But the image of Silas's smiling, predatory face was burned into the back of Miles's eyelids.

He was trapped.

It was the most brilliant, most cruel, and most perfect trap he had ever seen.

There was no escape.

No third option.

If he went, he would be walking into the lion's den, alone and outmatched. Silas would get the Echo Protocol. He would get everything.

If he refused, Gideon would die a horrible, agonizing death. And Silas would still get everything he needed to hunt him down, to capture him, to dissect him.

Clara was openly sobbing now, quiet, racking sobs that shook her entire body.

Leo was just staring at the black screen, his face a mask of pure, helpless rage.

Miles looked at his friends.

His team.

His family.

He looked at the image of the Soul Crystal in his mind, the promise of a power that could save them all.

He looked at the image of Gideon, weary but unbroken, a father figure he had only just found and was now about to lose.

The system in his head was silent.

There were no probabilities.

No risk assessments.

This was not a tactical problem.

This was a choice.

And in the quiet, sterile silence of the hidden lab, surrounded by the ghosts of his past and the fears for his future, he made one.

He walked over to Clara and placed a hand on her shoulder.

She looked up at him, her eyes red-rimmed and full of a desperate, pleading hope.

He looked at Leo, who met his gaze with a look of grim, unwavering loyalty.

He finally looked back at the blank screen, at the ghost of Silas Cross's monstrous ultimatum.

A slow, cold, and deeply dangerous fire began to burn in his eyes.

"Okay," Miles said, his voice a low, cold whisper that cut through the silence of the lab.

"He wants a trade."

He took a deep, steadying breath.

"Let's give him a war."