Stepping away from the bloody stairwell, Ramon and Darius pushed through the heavy double doors and officially entered the Fortis gym. It was an expansive, sprawling space, and it absolutely had to be. It was specifically designed to comfortably accommodate the entirety of the Billion Bloodline security staff whenever they wanted to train, and given the harsh nature of their corporate security business, a vast majority of those staff members spent hours in here every single day.
Because the room was so incredibly large, the very first thing the two Syndicate bosses noticed wasn’t what they saw through the maze of heavy machinery, but rather what they heard echoing across the room.
There was the distinct sound of several strained grunts overlapping one after the other, followed by heavy, desperate panting. And then, the unmistakable, ear-piercing CRACK of hardened metal striking metal rang out.
"What on earth is going on in here?" Ramon asked, his brow furrowing as he scanned the rows of treadmills and weight racks.
Suddenly, a blur of dark leather came hurtling through the air from the back of the gym. A man flew across the open matting and hit the ground hard right in the center of the room, skidding across the rubber floor until he came to a painful halt.
"Ah... that freaking hurt," Skull groaned, clutching his bruised ribs beneath his torn leather jacket.
"Skull," Ramon said coldly, stopping a few feet away and looking down at his prized, highly-paid assassin. "What exactly are you doing lying on the ground?"
Skull snapped his head toward Ramon and Darius. His eyes widened, and relying on pure, ingrained survival instinct, he quickly rolled sharply to the side.
A split second later, a heavy steel baton came crashing down from above, viciously striking the exact rubber tile where Skull’s head had just been resting. Standing over the cratered floor, stepping fully into the fluorescent light, was a man wearing the exact same distinct uniform as the other Rangers—but this one was wearing a gleaming Silver Jacket.
’This one... we don’t have a single file of information on him,’ Darius thought, his tactical mind racing as he evaluated the man’s flawless posture. ’I heard all about the other specific Rangers from Jett’s infiltration report, but why don’t we have any intelligence on this silver one?’
Refusing to stay pinned, Skull quickly lashed out from his position on the floor, throwing a sweeping kick aimed directly at Aron’s knees. Aron simply lifted his foot with practiced ease, letting the sweep pass harmlessly beneath him.
The moment Skull scrambled back up to his feet, Aron instantly went on the offensive. He unleashed a blinding flurry of precise, calculated strikes with his batons. A bunch of the rapid hits were desperately blocked by Skull’s brass knuckles, sparks flying with each deflection, but the assassin’s guard eventually slipped. Aron drove a harsh, front-push kick squarely into Skull’s chest, sending his body crashing backward into a heavy iron squat rack.
"I’m incredibly sorry, Boss!" Skull rasped, coughing as he desperately weaved through the surrounding workout equipment to put distance between himself and the Silver Ranger. "I never would have thought... that there would be another operative like me hiding in this building! That’s exactly why this is taking a little bit longer than my promised fifteen minutes!"
Both Darius and Ramon intimately knew the terrifying depths of Skull’s strength and his lethal pedigree. So, to actually see him pushed onto the back foot and physically struggling like this instantly caused a dark reaction in the two leaders.
The Bloodline group was undeniably far more dangerous than they had ever calculated, and they needed to completely eradicate them right now before this resistance sparked a city-wide rebellion.
Ramon looked to his immediate side, spotting a rack of cast-iron free weights. He casually reached out with his mechanical arm and grabbed a heavy, 10-kilogram dumbbell. The hydraulic servos in his pristine white lab coat whirred to life. With a flick of his wrist, the heavy iron was hurled effortlessly through the air, traveling with the terrifying speed and kinetic force of a cannonball.
As Aron saw the blur of black iron rocketing toward him, his elite reflexes took over. He quickly dove sideways, taking cover behind a thick, stationary chest-press machine.
CLANG!
The 10kg dumbbell crashed devastatingly into the equipment, completely bending the thick steel frame inward before clattering heavily to the rubber floor.
’That raw power... I can see already that the output is significantly stronger than the other grunts wearing those suits downstairs,’ Aron calculated, peering through the bent machinery. ’My guess is that the man with the glasses must be the absolute head of the entire Syndicate.’
Wasting no time, Aron quickly used a reinforced bench press directly in front of him as a tactical foothold. He leaped over the equipment, sprinting aggressively forward through the maze of iron.
He could clearly see the man in the white lab coat casually plucking more heavy dumbbells from the rack and hurling them his way with terrifying precision.
Each time the heavy iron projectiles were thrown, Aron moved with fluid, supernatural grace. It was almost exactly like avoiding high-caliber bullets; each time, he had to acutely read Ramon’s shoulder movements and perfectly predict the trajectory of where the weight would be thrown to step out of the fatal path.
Eventually, though, Aron had successfully closed the gap. He spun his body to generate maximum torque and swung his heavy steel baton in a lethal arc, aiming directly for Ramon’s unprotected face.
Ramon didn’t even flinch. He simply lifted his mechanical arm up, effortlessly blocking the bone-crushing strike with his armored forearm. The metal rang out, but Ramon held his ground. Right after absorbing the impact, his other hydraulic hand snapped forward like a viper and clamped firmly down onto the center of the steel baton.
Aron was instantly trapped. Sensing the overwhelming mechanical grip, he had absolutely no choice but to let go of the leather handle, spinning backward into an open space to avoid being pulled into a lethal counter-attack.
"These little, primitive blunt objects, huh?" Ramon sneered, looking down at the stolen weapon. "Well, let’s see exactly how you fare without them."
Ramon tightened his mechanical grip and effortlessly bent the thick steel baton, completely folding the weapon in half before casually dropping it onto the floor.
That’s exactly when Skull appeared from the shadows, stepping quietly behind Aron to cut off his only escape route.
"Alright, I’ll admit it... it’s quite clear that I might be a little bit out of shape," Skull said, cracking his bleeding neck. "I didn’t leave that hellish training camp too long ago, but it’s glaringly obvious from your textbook skills that you’re either a highly trained new recruit that came after my time, or... you’re a Single Digit operative, exactly like me."
The grim reality of the standoff settled in. Now, Aron had only one single steel baton left in his hand. Standing directly to his front was Ramon, fully equipped with his top-tier exoskeleton suit. And standing directly to his back was a lethal Single Digit member of the Black Hand.
But as Aron scanned the room, a chilling realization washed over him.
"What... you finally realized someone is missing?" Ramon asked, a dark, victorious smirk spreading across his face as he noticed Aron’s eyes darting toward the empty doorway. "I heard Darius had a rather brutal scuffle with your beloved boss before, and it didn’t turn out too well for him. He’s gone upstairs to settle the score while we keep you busy. But I honestly think you have to worry about surviving yourself before you start worrying about Max."