Chapter 202: Dividing The Board
The abandoned subway depot beneath St. Jude’s Plaza was cold, damp, and thick with the scent of rust and old iron.
Overhead, through the thick reinforced concrete ceilings, the faint, heavy vibrations of Malik Vance’s broadcast equipment hummed like a low mechanical heartbeat. Emergency utility bulbs along the maintenance tracks flickered dimly, casting long, wavering shadows across the shattered tiles.
Nicholas sat on an overturned wooden crate, calmly disassembling the bolt of his precision rifle. He ran an oiled rag along the firing pin, inspected the clean steel, and slid it back into battery with a sharp, muted snap. His face showed neither exhaustion nor adrenaline. To him, this was simply the quiet hour between reconnaissance and execution.
Across from him, Julie sat cross-legged on a dry patch of concrete, nursing a cup of lukewarm thermos tea while furiously rebuilding her mobile transmission hub. Beside her rested a secondary portable rig, smaller than the ruined Aero-Specter but fitted with three rugged, ground-level lens pods.
"Sniper almost blew my head into orbit," Julie grumbled, though her hands moved across the circuit boards with steady focus. "I had to duck so hard I scraped my knees. If we survive this, Nicholas, I’m billing your tournament prize pool for hazard pay and emotional damages."
"You can invoice Dr. Cho," Nicholas said without looking up. "He likes detailed bills."
"I’d rather jump into the spider pit again," Julie muttered, snapping a fresh high-gain antenna into place. "At least the spider doesn’t charge interest."
Selena stepped up to the rusted steel maintenance table in the center of the depot, unrolling a large architectural schematic of St. Jude’s Plaza. She pinned the edges down with spent shell casings, her expression sharp and intensely focused.
"Let’s look at the reality of the board," Selena said, tapping the center of the blueprint where the raised execution platform sat. "Malik Vance has entrenched his inner circle. On the high terrace, Sniper covers the long sightlines. On the ground perimeter, Zayx and Hexi hold the primary choke points. Shadow is drifting beneath the staging structure, covering the blind spots. And Malik himself remains on the platform with Joan, protected by the psychological barrier of his speech."
She looked directly at Nicholas.
"Even with our weapons and scent-masking, we are three unpowered individuals against four veteran combatants and an architect who planned this down to the minute. If we walk into that open square together, Sniper pins us from above, Hexi floods the approaches, and Zayx crushes whatever reaches the stage. A direct assault is suicide."
"Hitmen don’t charge fortresses," Nicholas replied calmly, setting his rifle down and resting his elbows on his knees. "We don’t fight five people at once. We break the board into five separate rooms and kill them one by one."
He leaned forward, tapping the western quadrant of the map where the plaza’s main concrete support pillars anchored into the subterranean sewer line.
"The goal isn’t to brawl with them on their terms," Nicholas continued. "The goal is to force them to react to false threats. If we create controlled chaos across the perimeter, their defensive formation fractures. When a team loses its formation, individuals default to their natural instincts. That is where you come in, Selena."
Selena straightened, her eyes narrowing as her supervisor training took over. For years, her job had been cataloging the habits, mental frailties, and combat mechanics of high-threat individuals. Without active abilities in play, those baseline human traits were all that remained.
"Zayx is a brute-force brawler," Selena said, pointing to the northern barricade on the map. "He relies entirely on overwhelming mass, forward momentum, and intimidation. Because he’s used to shrugging off physical trauma, he has terrible defensive discipline. When an explosion or sudden breach occurs, he doesn’t check his flanks or wait for orders. He charges directly toward the source of the noise to crush whatever made it. He cannot stand being ignored."
"Then we give him something loud to chase," Nicholas said. "I have two non-ability thermite charges left in the field kit. If we detonate the secondary support pillar beneath the northern transit stairs, it will sound like a full rescue squad attempting a subterranean breach. Zayx will drop into the dust blind."
"And when he does, you don’t trade blows with him," Selena added, her voice chillingly analytical. "His center of gravity is high, and his reach is wide. Use low-tension trip lines to break his ankles, then take the cervical vertebrae from his blind side. He won’t have the speed to pivot without his impure kinetic boost."
"Noted," Nicholas said smoothly. "What about Hexi?"
Selena tapped the eastern approach. "Hexi is the opposite. She is deeply paranoid and relies on zone control. Even without her full impure range, she carries biological toxins, chemical canisters, and pressurized delivery tools. If she feels threatened, she creates a perimeter screen and hides behind it while trying to poison the air. Her fatal flaw is her reliance on visual concealment. She assumes nobody can fight inside her smoke."
A thin, dangerous smile crossed Selena’s lips.
"In the underground range earlier, you showed me how to read foot placement through obscured air. If she drops her chemical screen, she expects us to fall back. Instead, we use high-intensity phosphorus flares. The sudden thermal spike will burn away the organic vector compounds in the air, blind her night vision, and expose her while she thinks she’s hidden."
"Good breakdown," Nicholas said, nodding slowly. "That leaves Shadow and Sniper. Sniper will be watching for muzzle flashes from the high ground. Once the northern pillar goes, his scope will lock on the debris. That leaves the library blind spot open for four seconds. Enough time for a second suppressed shot through the terrace railing."
He turned his gaze toward Julie.
"And while we dismantle their perimeter," Nicholas said, "the world needs to watch every second of it."
Julie blinked, pausing her work on the transmission rig. "Wait, me? You want me to broadcast the fight?"
"Malik’s entire power right now doesn’t come from his fists," Nicholas said, his single visible eye cold and unyielding. "It comes from the narrative. He told the entire planet that heroes are weak, pathetic hypocrites who fall apart the moment their shiny toys are taken away. He wants the world to watch their saviors beg for mercy so humanity gives up on resisting."
He pointed a gloved finger at Julie’s portable camera pods.
"You are going to take the auxiliary cameras, mount them on the secondary ventilation grates around the plaza rim, and tap into the master broadcast relay. When we hit that stage, you show the world that people don’t need magic to put monsters in the dirt. You strip Malik’s story bare before he can even turn the next page."
Julie looked at the camera lenses in her hands, then at the bruised, determined faces of Nicholas and Selena. The lingering fear from her close call with Sniper seemed to melt away, replaced by the sheer, unhinged thrill of delivering the single most important livestream in human history.
"A live, unedited takedown of doomsday villains by unpowered hitmen," Julie breathed, a wide, predatory grin spreading across her face. "Do you have any idea what the concurrent viewer count will be?! The servers might literally melt!"
"Just make sure the focus is clean," Nicholas said dryly, standing up and sliding his twin suppressed sidearms into their holsters. "I don’t work well in low resolution."
Selena racked the slide on her suppressed nine-millimeter, securing her combat blade along her belt. "The thermite is primed. The scent-masking has twenty minutes left before degradation. The stage is set."
Nicholas pulled his tactical gloves tight over his knuckles, the cold professional mask fully settling over his features.
"No speeches," Nicholas said quietly, turning toward the dark access tunnel that led straight up into the foundations of St. Jude’s Plaza. "No heroics. Just clean execution. Let’s go get our money."