Ascending from the wreckage of the games room, Ramon and his dwindling command group continued their relentless climb up the concrete stairs, eventually pushing through the heavy doors into the Fortis Media Room.
Advertising materials, presentation boards, and promotional flyers were scattered in disarray across the floor. To their genuine surprise, out of all the sprawling office spaces they had breached so far, this specific room actually had the fewest conscious Gilt Rat and Black Hound members. Almost all of the Syndicate grunts were already incapacitated, groaning in pain on the carpet.
Standing amidst the fallen was a single, exhausted defender wearing a green jacket.
"That one over there... another troublesome Altered?" Ramon sneered, looking down his nose at the panting Ranger. "No wonder the Billion Bloodline group was acting so remarkably confident."
Without breaking his stride, Ramon casually gestured, sending another one of his elite lab coats forward to permanently deal with the person.
Charging in, the towering enforcer closed the distance. Joe looked up at the mechanical behemoth coming toward him and quickly stepped back. A steel-reinforced fist was thrown, tearing through the air and nearly crushing his face, but Joe was able to miraculously weave and narrowly avoid the lethal strike.
’Not good, not good!’ Joe screamed in his own head, his heart pounding against his ribs.
He wasn’t fast enough to dodge the follow-up. The very next hydraulic punch slammed directly into his stomach. The staggering impact launched Joe completely off his feet, sending his entire body flying backward until he crashed heavily into a large, wall-mounted flat-screen TV.
His face cracked harshly against the display, shattering the glass, and dark blood immediately started dripping from his forehead onto his green jacket.
"Maybe I was wrong to assume he was a threat," Ramon said dismissively, not even bothering to stop. "But just make sure he is fully dealt with before you come up to join us."
Although Ramon thought absolutely nothing of the green-jacketed man after witnessing that brutal, one-sided exchange, Darius was actually a little curious, his tactical mind racing.
These were the exact same elite fighters that were able to successfully take over the highly defended Black Hound venues just weeks prior. They absolutely had to possess some incredible skill. And not just that—if it wasn’t this seemingly fragile person in the green jacket who had taken out so many heavily armed people in this room... then who did?
Darius narrowed his eyes. Maybe this battered Ranger wasn’t anywhere near as easy to put down as Ramon arrogantly assumed. No normal person could have survived taking out that many Syndicate thugs alone.
And the lab coat enforcer who had been left behind to finish the job was now seeing exactly why. Through the sparks of the shattered TV, Joe was already stubbornly pushing himself back to his feet.
"Seriously... seriously?" Joe groaned, wiping the blood from his eyes as his fractured ribs began to knit themselves back together in agonizing fashion. "Why couldn’t I get some type of rapid healing ability that came with no pain, at the very least? I can tell already that this fight is seriously going to hurt."
Joe rolled his shoulders, a strained smirk crossing his face as he stared down the mechanical suit.
"Well, at least I can look forward to one good thing today. When I finally beat you... I’m completely taking that damned exoskeleton for myself!"
Leaving the media room behind, Ramon and Darius continued to head up the stairwell. They could inherently tell they had to be nearing the absolute top of the tower soon. They had a rough, calculated idea of exactly how large the Billion Bloodline group’s roster was. The sheer volume of resistance was slightly bigger than they had originally imagined, but they couldn’t possibly fathom Max having too many more people left to throw at them.
The next heavy door they approached led directly into the Legal Department.
Immediately as they crossed the threshold into the room, a glowing, golden leg swung in a devastating arc right at their heads.
Darius, relying on his honed street instincts, reacted in a split second. He grabbed Ramon by the collar and aggressively yanked him backward. The lethal kick whistled mere inches over both of their heads, narrowly missing the bosses. Instead, the heavy strike landed squarely on the chest of the very last lab coat enforcer walking right behind them.
As the golden kick connected, the armored man tumbled backward, completely losing his balance, and started falling uncontrollably down the steep concrete stairs they had just climbed.
Wolf landed gracefully on the ground, his glowing golden jacket illuminating the dim office space.
"Quite an entrance for a special Ranger, if I do say so myself," Wolf quipped with a sharp grin.
Right after striking his pose, however, Wolf didn’t hold his ground to fight the leaders. As soon as he stood up, he sprinted forward and bolted right past the doorway. It almost looked exactly like he was cowardly escaping from the room, but the tactical truth was much sharper: he was diving straight down the stairs, eagerly chasing after the armored man he had just kicked, isolating his target from the group.
"I was going to stomp that arrogant fool myself!" Ramon claimed, his face red with anger.
But his stubborn refusal to turn around and head back down the stairs just to chase after a retreating subordinate made him quickly decide to keep pushing forward. He wouldn’t let a distraction delay his ultimate prize.
As Ramon moved further up the corridor, it was now solely him and Darius. The entire formidable squad of exoskeleton lab coats had been perfectly, systematically peeled away, all of them now fiercely fighting their own separate battles on the lower floors.
"Well, there honestly only needs to be one of us to effectively execute the Chairman. But if there are two of us, that’s certainly not a problem," Ramon commented, straightening his tie.
Darius remained silent, quietly thinking about the very first time he had formally met the Chairman of the Billion Bloodline group. He had never truly thought the tense rivalry would escalate this far, bringing them to this exact, bloody climax.
However, rather than seeing the Chairman’s executive suite at the end of the hall, the two Syndicate bosses realized they had to pass through one more major area first: the Fortis gym.
Ramon paused outside the double doors, a sudden realization hitting him.
"Come to think of it... where the hell is Skull?"