The abandoned farmhouse wasn't just a shelter, it was a tomb of memories. Dust motes danced in the slivers of light cutting through boarded windows, illuminating floating continents of neglect. Elara's scanner pulsed insistently, a frantic heartbeat leading them through a kitchen with a rusted stove, past a parlor where a moth-eaten chair still held the ghost of an imprint, and up a creaking staircase.
The hum of the pursuing robots was a constant, unnerving drone just outside, like mechanical hornets searching for an entry point. A plasma bolt shattered a downstairs window, filling the hall with the acrid smell of scorched wood.
"It's close," Elara hissed, staring at the scanner. The pulsating dot was superimposed over the floor plan of what must have been a master bedroom. She pushed the door open.
The room was not empty.
An old man stood in the center, his back to them, silhouetted against the grimy window. He was not frail. He stood with the rooted stability of an ancient tree, his hands clasped behind his back. He was surrounded by a ring of four A-7 Enforcer units, their single red lenses fixed on him, gun-arms whirring as they tracked his slightest shift in weight.
But the old man's attention wasn't on the robots. It was on a simple, open wooden box sitting on a dilapidated dresser. Inside, nestled on faded velvet, was a shard of crystal, glowing with the same serene, azure light as the one in Elara's pack. It was smaller, but its radiance filled the dusty room.
"You are interrupting a moment of remembrance," the old man said, his voice a low gravel of patience and immense, controlled power. He did not turn.
One of the robots stepped forward, its synthesizer grating. "Relinquish the artifact. This is your final warning."
Zhèn, standing in the doorway behind Elara, took in the scene. The metallic men. The guns. The peaceful old man cornered. A fire kindled in his chest, hotter and clearer than the confusion with Elara's car. This was a direct line to the violence on the mountain road. These were the same soulless things that had tried to take Master Hanzo's Stone. And they were threatening an elder.
His duty as a guardian and his training as a disciple aligned into a single, crystalline purpose.
"Elara, stay back," he said, his voice dropping into the calm, focused tone Hanzo had taught him for combat.
Before she could protest, he was moving. He didn't charge. He flowed. He crossed the room in three silent, impossibly swift steps, placing himself between the nearest robot and the old man.
The robots' lenses swiveled from the old man to the new threat. "Secondary target identified. Engaging."
The first one fired. Zhèn didn't deflect this time. He dodged, not with Blitz's impossible speed, but with preternatural efficiency, a subtle sway of his torso that let the plasma bolt sizzle past his shoulder. He stepped into the machine's guard, his hand shooting out in a spear-hand strike, Biao Zhi, that didn't aim for armor, but for the joint at its elbow. There was a crack of ceramic and metal, and the gun-arm went limp.
The room erupted. The other three robots opened fire. Zhèn became a vortex. He used their aggression against them, parrying a blast into another's leg, shattering its knee actuator. He grabbed a third by the wrist, using its own momentum to spin it into the path of its companion's fire. He fought not to destroy indiscriminately, but with a dismantling precision Hanzo had drilled into him, find the weakness, exploit it, neutralize.
A robot lunged, aiming to tackle him. Zhèn dropped his center of gravity, met the charge, and used its own force to heave it over his shoulder. It crashed through the wall into the adjoining room, sparking and still.
The final unit recalibrated, its lens focusing. Zhèn saw a telltale hum building in its chest, a higher-powered shot. He didn't give it the chance. With a shout that seemed to shake dust from the rafters, he launched into a leaping front kick, Zheng Ti, his heel connecting with the center of the robot's torso. The metal casing didn't just dent; it imploded, and the machine slammed into the far wall, collapsing into a dead heap of parts.
Silence, broken only by the settling plaster and the faint, friendly hum of the crystal shard.
Zhèn stood amidst the wreckage, his chest rising and falling steadily. He turned to the old man, who had watched the entire display without moving a muscle, his expression unreadable.
The old man's eyes, deep and knowing like tarnished silver, appraised Zhèn. Not his strength, but his form, his stance, the very essence of his movement. A profound sadness, and then a flicker of recognition, passed over his weathered face.
"Hey kid," the old man said, his gravelly voice now touched with something warm. "Thanks for the help."
Zhèn bowed respectfully, fist in palm. "It was my duty. I am Zhèn Tiān."
"Kael Jin," the old man replied, returning the bow with a slight, graceful nod of his own. His gaze never left Zhèn's face, searching. "Did you get those moves from Hanzo?"
Zhèn's eyes went wide. All the composure of the warrior vanished, replaced by the eager boy. "Yeah! How'd you know? Did you... did you know my master?"
Kael Jin's stern expression softened completely. He let out a long breath, a sigh that seemed to carry decades of separation. He stepped forward and placed a heavy, calloused hand on Zhèn's shoulder. The weight of it was familiar, a brother to the weight Zhèn had known.
"Know him?" Kael said, a melancholic smile touching his lips. "Son, he was my little brother."
The words hung in the dusty air. For Zhèn, the world shifted. This wasn't just a stranger in a strange house. This was a piece of Hanzo, a living thread connecting him back to the master he missed with a constant, quiet ache. The stone shard' glow seemed to brighten, casting their shadows together on the wall as Kael pulled Zhèn into a firm, brief embrace.
Elara, watching from the doorway with the scanner forgotten in her hand, saw the bond solidify in an instant. She saw the open-hearted trust flood Zhèn's face. And she saw, in Kael Jin's wise, assessing eyes as they glanced over Zhèn's shoulder at her, a flicker of something else: a deep, protective caution. He wasn't just seeing a girl. He was seeing a Kensington standing beside his brother's adopted son, with a backpack that hummed with celestial power.
The hunt for shards had just become infinitely more complicated.
The moment of familial connection shattered as the last spark died in the wrecked robot at Kael's feet. Elara stepped fully into the room, her eyes sharp, scanning the metallic debris.
"These machines," she said, her voice cutting through the dusty quiet. "They're not random. They're too sophisticated. Who sent them? What do they want?"
Kael Jin's hand remained on Zhèn's shoulder, but his gaze turned outward, towards the broken window and the ominous hum that had now retreated, but not vanished. "They came at dawn," he rumbled. "Didn't say much. Just scanned the house, over and over. Demanded I hand over 'any anomalous energy signatures.'" He glanced at the glowing shard in its box. "All I could gather is they serve someone obsessed with finding something called the Celestial Stone."
Elara's breath hitched. She unzipped her backpack with deliberate slowness, her eyes locked on Kael's. She pulled out the silk-wrapped bundle and the two smaller shards in their velvet. Unfolding the cloth, she revealed the complete, pulsing Celestial Stone, its light now joined in a harmonious, resonant song with the shard on the dresser. The room was bathed in dazzling, aqueous blue.
"They were looking for this," Elara said, her voice a mix of triumph and dread.
Kael's eyes widened, not with greed, but with a dawning understanding of the scale of the trouble now standing in his brother's old home. "The complete Stone... and its fragments. Child, do you know what you're carrying?"
"I know exactly what it is," Elara said, her chin lifting. "And I know what it can do when it's whole."
It was then that a new sound intruded, a high-pitched, focused whine, like a mosquito magnified a thousand times. From the corner of the room, a small, spherical drone the size of a grapefruit detached itself from the shadows of the ceiling where it had clung, unseen. It had a single, wide lens, and etched on its brushed steel surface was a familiar, cheerful symbol: the smiling man.
A thin, precise beam of crimson light lanced from its underside, not at them, but at the Celestial Stone in Elara's hand. There was a sudden, violent tug, a distortion in the air, and the Stone was ripped from her grasp as if by an invisible tether. It flew across the room and into a black, articulated claw that extended from the drone.
"Acknowledged. Primary artifact secured," a smooth, synthesized voice stated from the drone.
Outside, the air thrummed. A sleek, vertical takeoff aircraft, shaped like a silver arrowhead, decloaked from its optical camouflage directly above the house, its underbelly opening. The drone zipped up and into the craft's hold with its prize.
The arrowhead craft descended silently, hovering just outside the shattered window. A canopy slid back, revealing Dr. Victor Circuit, impeccably dressed, his hair untouched by the wind of his passage. He held the captured Celestial Stone up, admiring its glow in the daylight. His smile was a perfect, chilling reflection of his logo.
"Thank you for the expedited delivery," he called down, his voice amplified and dripping with condescension. "Now, let's be efficient. Hand over the three celestial shards, and I might consider letting you keep your tedious, organic lives."
Elara stared, her face pale with recognition, then flushed with rage. "I know you!"
Zhèn looked between them, confused. "You do?"
"He's Dr. Victor Circuit," Elara spat. "A 'visionary' in the tech underworld. My father's notes mentioned him. Thought he was a genius with materials science. Also wrote 'ETHICAL COMPASS SEVERELY DEGRADED' in big, red letters next to his name. He's a psycho with a patent."
Circuit gave a modest, theatrical shrug. "Genius is so often misunderstood. The shards, Miss Kensington. I won't ask again." His craft's undercarriage reconfigured; a crystalline laser cannon swiveled down, powering up with a rising, threatening whine that vibrated in their teeth.
The barrel began to glow a malevolent orange. Zhèn tensed, ready to push Elara and Kael aside, but the old man stood firm, his eyes calculating.
Elara, however, didn't cower. She didn't even look at the weapon. She casually turned her head to Zhèn, as if pointing out an unpleasant chore.
"Hey, Zhèn," she said, her voice flat. "This guy is bad. Beat him up for me."
Zhèn's face lit up with straightforward purpose. "Okay!"
He didn't leap for the cockpit; he leapt for the craft. With a powerful drive from his legs, he shot upward like a human missile, aiming to grab the landing strut and haul the whole thing down. Dr. Circuit's smug expression vanished into shock as the vehicle rocked violently from the impact. The laser shot went wide, carving a molten trench across the field outside.
"What in the?!" Circuit yelled, frantically stabilizing the controls. "The density! The impact force! This is the other variable!" He slammed a button.
Panels on the arrowhead's sides snapped open, launching a volley of compact, incendiary orbs. They exploded on contact with the ground and walls, engulfing the lower part of the house in a sudden, roaring inferno. Elara yelped, diving behind a heavy, overturned dresser for cover. Kael moved with startling speed for his age, a flowing series of evasions that kept him just ahead of the spreading fire and shrapnel.
Zhèn, clinging to the strut, was pummeled by the concussive blasts and searing heat. He held on, but the craft was gaining altitude, pulling him away from any solid purchase.
"I can't reach him when he's up there!" Zhèn called down, his voice strained.
From his cover behind a stone hearth, Kael Jin's eyes narrowed. He made a decision. "I've got a solution!" he bellowed over the fire. He scrambled towards a large, old trunk in the corner, kicking it open. From inside, he pulled out a sleek, slightly dated but well-maintained hoverboard, its paint scuffed from long-ago use. "My granddaughter's! Catch!"
He flung it, not to Zhèn, but in a high arc towards the center of the room. Zhèn understood. He let go of the strut, dropping through the smoky air, and landed squarely on the hoverboard as it shot past. The anti-grav plates whined in protest under his immense weight, but held. After a wobbly second, Zhèn found his balance, the instincts of a martial artist adapting to this new, unstable ground.
He became a surfer of the sky. Leaning forward, he willed the board upward, circling around a gout of flame and shooting straight for Dr. Circuit's cockpit.
Circuit's eyes bulged. "Impossible!" He fired another spread of incendiaries, but Zhèn wove through them, a determined, unstoppable projectile. With a final, powerful push, Zhèn launched himself from the board, both feet connecting with the front of the arrowhead craft.
There was a deafening crunch of buckling metal and fracturing canopy glass. The craft spun out of control, its systems shrieking alarms. It lost altitude rapidly, streaking sideways over the field before plunging, nose-first, into the deep, placid lake at the edge of the property with a colossal splash.
Elara emerged from cover, coughing. "Zhèn! The Stone! He still has it! Go get it!"
Zhèn hit the water a moment after the wreck. He dove deep, the cold a shock after the fire's heat. Bubbles and debris clouded his vision. He saw the silver craft, partially crumpled, but still intact. As he swam closer, its form began to change. Panels shifted, reconfigured. The arrowhead shape smoothed into a teardrop, and small propulsion jets activated. It had transformed into a miniature, agile submarine.
Through the cracked cockpit canopy, now sealed and watertight, Dr. Circuit gave him a mocking, two-fingered salute. Then the submersible darted away, not towards the surface, but deeper, heading straight for a yawning, underwater entrance to a cavern system in the lake wall, a dark, natural labyrinth.
Zhèn swam after it with powerful strokes, but the sub was faster in its element. He followed it into the dark tunnel, the light from the surface fading. He pushed himself, his lungs burning, but the twists and turns multiplied. The red navigation light of the sub grew fainter, then vanished around a corner. The utter blackness and the crushing pressure of the water became his only companions. His vision began to spot. With a final, frustrated burst, he turned and kicked for the dim light behind him, breaking the surface with a huge, gasping breath.
He treaded water, staring at the dark entrance to the cave. The lake was quiet, serene once more, save for the distant crackle of the burning farmhouse.
On the shore, Elara and Kael watched him. He swam back, hauling himself onto the bank, water streaming from him.
"He's gone," Zhèn panted, anger and failure in his voice. "Into caves. I couldn't... I ran out of air."
Elara's face was a storm. She had the two shards clutched in her fist, but the main Stone, the key to everything, was gone. Kael placed a steadying hand on Zhèn's shoulder.
"He was prepared for every contingency," Kael said, his voice grim. "Retreat was always his plan B."
"He has the Stone," Elara whispered, her ambition momentarily dashed by the cold reality of the loss. "But he doesn't have all the shards." She looked at the two in her hand, then at Kael. "He'll come for them. And now he knows about Zhèn."
Zhèn stood up, water pooling at his feet, his expression shifting from defeat to solid, unshakable resolve. "Then we find him first. We get Master Hanzo's Stone back. And we stop his smile."7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡb6Lk634x6S
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