The hotel room camera flickered. James sat upright, his eyes locked on the monitor. A figure wearing a dark tactical mask had just slipped into the corridor.
It’s Mike,
James thought instantly. He tapped his earpiece, his voice an urgent whisper. "Hope! Perry! Move to the first-floor main hall immediately. The target is moving."
Inside the grand lobby, Hope tapped his earpiece. "What happened, Uncle James?"
"Mike is coming down fast," James ordered over the comms. "If you see a person in a black mask, you must stall him. Buy me some time. I am taking the stairs."
"You are coming by the stairs?" Hope whispered back, looking around. "Why not use the lift?"
"If Mike is in the lift, I will be trapped if I use it too," James snapped. "Just stall him!"
Hope and Perry darted across the lobby. Ahead of them, they saw the black-masked figure already walking toward the hotel exit. They needed a plan, and they needed it now. Hope’s eyes widened as an idea struck. He turned to Perry and whispered the plan.
Perry immediately ran over to the masked man, putting on a terrified face. "Elder brother! Can you please help us? My friend is locked inside the bathroom stall, and we can't get him out. We need help!"
The masked man paused. He did not usually do this kind of work, but in a highly public place like a hotel lobby, he couldn't simply decline a young girl and boy without drawing massive suspicion from security. He gave a stiff nod and followed Perry into the restroom.
Inside the bathroom, the stranger stood before the locked door. "You hear me in there, boy?" the man asked in a low, muffled voice.
Inside the stall, Hope kept his voice small. "Yes..." he whispered. Hope's heart hammered against his ribs.
Does he recognize me? We saw Mike so many times back in the NVA labs...
Without warning, the masked man raised his leg and kicked the door with immense power. The lock broke instantly, shattering the door open.
Hope was wearing his own mask, so the stranger couldn't see his face. The man simply turned around and walked out of the bathroom. At that exact moment, James finally burst into the main hall from the stairwell. The three of them watched from the bathroom doorway as the masked man headed straight for the exit.
"Thank you, elder brother!" Perry called out. The man didn't reply. He stepped outside, got into a car completely alone, and drove away.
James walked up to them, breathing heavily. "Good work, you two. Did he see through your masks?"
"No," Perry said.
James watched the empty driveway, his mind racing. "There wasn't a single guard with him. Think about it—at the house and the bar, all the bodyguards belonged to Marco. Why is Mike completely alone now?"
The Shadow at the Playground
Meanwhile, Aditya was still inside the control room, watching the security cameras. His eyes narrowed as a
second
masked person suddenly appeared on the screen, leaving the room and heading toward the lifts.
That has to be Marco,
Aditya thought with a cold smile.
Because Marco had never seen Aditya’s face before, Aditya could follow him directly. He slipped into the lift, trailing the second masked figure into the main hall and out of the hotel. Marco didn't take a car; he began walking normally down the street.
Aditya followed on foot, maintaining a strict twenty-meter distance. For fifteen minutes, he kept his eyes locked on the target. Eventually, the masked figure turned into an abandoned playground—a desolate place where nobody had come for a very long time.
The man stopped and dialed a number on his phone. Aditya moved closer through the shadows, listening.
"I have arrived at your location," Marco said into the phone.
The voice on the other end crackled.
"Did anyone follow you?"
Marco scoffed under his mask. "I don't think anyone followed me."
The voice on the phone paused.
"Oh... then I think I am wrong. It means that I am the only one who has an opponent tonight."
Hearing this, Aditya knew it was time to strike. Channeling his raw energy, Aditya lunged forward like a striking viper, launching a high-powered punch straight at the back of the man's head.
But right as the punch was about to land, the man spun around and ripped off his mask.
Aditya’s fist froze in mid-air. His eyes widened in absolute shock. It wasn't Marco's face.
The stranger grinned at Aditya's frozen fist.
"You're the handler... the target of James. But who is over there?"
The Ambush at the House
Miles away, James, Perry, and Hope had tracked the first masked man back to a secluded house. They stood outside the perimeter fence, watching the guards.
"Who is the fastest and most silent in a fight?" James whispered.
"Me," Perry answered instantly. "I am very silent, and I am very fast."
"Okay, hear my plan," James said. "Perry, you will enter the house from the main entrance point. Hope, you slide around and enter from the back side. We will attack from both directions at once."
"Yes, okay," Perry nodded.
"I'm ready," Hope whispered.
Perry immediately activated his transformation. Moving like a silent blur, he caught the front guards completely off guard, quietly neutralizing them one by one before they could even scream.
At the back of the house, Hope slipped through a rear door. His mind was in a knot.
I came to the Hero Agency to do some good work... and now I'm sneaking into a house like a common thief. Oh god.
Perry and Hope breached the central room simultaneously from both sides. Standing right in the middle of the room was the masked figure from the hotel.
"Oh god," the man mocked, his voice suddenly changing into a cold, dominant tone. "The little sweet girl and boy from my own NVA labs, standing against me? Okay."
The man reached up and ripped off his mask.
Hope and Perry gasped, stumbling backward in absolute terror.
It wasn't Mike. It was
Marco
. The dangerous, elite A-Tier leader.
Marco sneered at their shocked faces. "I knew your group was spying on me from the bar, to the hotel room, all the way to my house. And I also know that your real target was Mike—that stupid B-tier. No, wait, I ranked him down to a C-tier. You thought you were so clever fitting a speaker bug into my bodysuit? You think I didn't know that?"
Marco took a step forward, his A-tier aura suffocating the room. "I left my room, went to Mike's room, and switched the suits. Your group is completely finished. You fucking people... what did you think you were doing?"
At that exact second, miles apart, the terrifying truth clicked for both Aditya at the playground and the kids at the house:
The NVA had double-crossed them from the very start.