The hydra lunged, all eight heads surging forward with lethal precision. The air was torn open by the sheer force, and jaws slammed shut with the metallic finality of a bear trap.

Its speed had doubled—no, tripled—since its last strike. One of the Genesis Squad members hesitated, too slow. In that instant, all they saw were rows of teeth, saliva stringing between them as a massive jaw clamped down.

Then the world blinked.

A sound like fabric ripping echoed through the street—dry, high-pitched, wrong. A shockwave slammed outward, rattling loose debris and shivering windows. It didn't come from the sky. It came from the asphalt.

Derek appeared mid-motion, directly between the beast's converging heads.

His swords sparked with lightning, not flowing, but crackling, as if struggling to escape containment.

The first head didn't fall. It burst, cleaved at the base and blew apart. Wet heat splashed across the street as flesh vaporised and scales cartwheeled through the air. Smoke rolled from the wound. Bits of bone pinged off nearby walls. The hydra screamed, recoiling without even understanding why it was in pain.

The Genesis Squad froze.

"What the—what happened...." Andrew's voice broke, raw with disbelief. "Did… did anyone see that?!"

Felix gritted his teeth, tightening his grip on the warhammer. "Where'd he even come from?"

Another crack. Louder. Deeper. Almost physical.

A second head dropped. Its neck hissed, burned and twitched. The stench of scorched meat filled the air.

Derek was already gone—just the echo of movement, a blur of white and lightning and sound crushed into speed.

Evelyn's voice barely registered. "That's not military-grade. No country has gear like that. This isn't manmade…"

They watched, still and silent, as Derek carved through the hydra's massive form.

His white armour reflected firelight in jagged, shifting patterns. Lightning arced across its plating in unpredictable bursts. With every step, there was the pop of static, the sizzle of current, the tang of ozone so sharp it stung their throats.

Boom.

A third head fell, cleaved in half. Its jaw kept twitching as it bounced, broken, against the pavement.

Derek walked through the aftermath.

His posture was relaxed. Calm. Unhurried.

He leaned aside as the hydra's tail whipped toward him, missing him by inches. The air pressure alone would've broken ribs. But he was already gon, reappearing behind it, footprints still glowing on the pavement where he'd stood.

A fourth and fifth head dropped in near-perfect sync. The cuts were so smooth, the necks didn't bleed for a full second. Then came the spray.

The remaining heads wailed—no formation, no thought, just raw fear and flailing motion.

Derek landed again—quiet, composed. Both blades drawn low, tips angled toward the beast like instruments of sentence.

He stepped forward. A single footfall. The sound cracked like a lightning strike too close to the ground. The entire street groaned.

Then: the final movement. An upward slash—fast enough to drag light behind it. The blades thrummed, vibrating so hard that it made Felix's bones itch.

Both remaining heads separated cleanly, their necks cauterised before they hit the ground. No blast. No splatter.

Just absence.

Then silence.

The hydra stood still for half a breath, as if it hadn't realised it was dead, then dropped. The impact shook the ground. Cars rocked on their suspensions. Chunks of pavement were lifted by the force.

Smoke continued to drift from the hydra's corpse, curling around the debris-strewn street. The stench of scorched rubber and blood hung heavy in the air. Steam rose in slow spirals from the wet concrete, mingling with the sharp, chemical tang of ozone. Every surface nearby carried the charge of recent violence—cracked pavement, scorched walls, flickering streetlights.

Derek turned away from the body. The glow from his visor flickered across his armour as he moved, making his expression unreadable beneath the reflective sheen. His pace didn't change. No glance toward the Genesis Squad. No acknowledgement. Just measured steps through the haze.

The Squad didn't move. None of them spoke right away. The silence dragged out, not for lack of questions, but because none of them could quite form the first one.

Andrew was the first to break. "Who the hell was that?"

His voice wasn't angry. It wasn't even confused. It was cautious. Like speaking too loudly might bring Derek's attention back.

Evelyn tapped her wrist display. The results were as empty as the silence that followed. "No badge. No ping. No record. He's not in any registry—civilian or military."

They kept watching him walk. His blades were already gone, dissolving mid-air into faint mist. Thin arcs of static clung to his armour and boots, crackling softly with every step. The scorched concrete under his feet smoked where he'd passed, but the flames never caught.

There was no message. No contact.

Just the image of a lone figure disappearing into the ruined city, unmarked and unidentified.

And the hydra, still steaming, left behind like a discarded challenge.

After the chaos of Derek's display, the Genesis Squad stood still, momentarily lost in the surreal aftermath. Silence stretched for what felt like an eternity before the voice of Andrew broke it.

"Who the hell was that?" His voice was low, almost respectful in its awe, still trying to process what had just happened.

No one answered, allowing the question to hung in the air, but Andrew was not expecting an answer in the firstplace.

They stood there, processing the sheer impossibility of what they had witnessed, watching as Derek casually walked away. His blades had already dissolved into sparks, as he put it back in his inventory, the last traces of their electrical charge still crackling in the air around him. The ground beneath his boots smouldered where he had passed, but the smoke didn't seem to catch, never rising above the strange hum in the air.

Andrew's voice came again, though this time with a bitter note. "Well, we cant do anything about this, we only need to report this. The brass will want answers we don't have."

Felix snorted. "Well, that's not our problem."

But they weren't the only ones watching.

Above them, high in orbit, the massive satellite station tracked every moment of the battle, including the mysterious figure's intervention. The footage was clean, precise, but no less perplexing.

General Harker leaned forward in his chair, eyes fixed on the live feed. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, skimming through analysis reports from every available source. It was the kind of data crunching that usually took minutes, but this time, the results were immediate.

"Zero ID," muttered his tech officer. " No registration in any other superpower's institution. We don't know his identity, so we can't tell where he is from"

Harker's brow furrowed. "And no one thought to report this earlier?"

"We just got confirmation. He's not in any of the global security databases. No military, no civilian. Nothing."

Harker's lip curled into a smile, one that didn't quite reach his eyes. "No record? No name?" He tapped his fingers to the edge of his desk, the tapping steady and precise. "Then we'll give him one."

The monitor flickered as a string of code processed. A new designation was created. It was quick. Efficient. A simple line of text appeared on the screen.

"Designation: Shadowstrike."

The name echoed through the station like a faint buzz of recognition. Not quite a title, more like an imperative.

"Shadowstrike…" General Harker repeated the name slowly, his gaze still fixed on the feed. "That should suit him just fine."

Back on the ground, the Genesis Squad still stood in stunned silence, watching Derek disappear into the shadows of the ruined city.

They didn't speak about it again, but they all knew. The name had been given, and they'd be reporting it soon enough.

There was just one problem: Shadowstrike wasn't someone they could track, not with any real success. For now, he seemed to be on their side, but who knew if they would be standing on opposite sides in the future.

The same uneasy silence continued, only broken by the quiet hum of their equipment, which flickered intermittently as if still charged by the aftershock of the man who had just carved through a hydra as if it were nothing.

Unseen.

Unstoppable.

And now, with a name.

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