The second fight wasn't accidental.

  Kam walked into it knowing exactly where it would go.

  His footsteps landed too hard. Concrete dust puffed up with each step, fine cracks webbing outward from where his boot struck. Heat was already bleeding out of him in thin, shimmering waves, warping the edges of the street.

  Ahead, the Vanguard checkpoint waited.

  Temporary barriers. Portable generators humming like anxious insects. Black-armored units standing too straight, too still—hands tight on their weapons, eyes tracking his approach.

  They saw him.

  Weapons snapped up in perfect unison.

  "Subject identified!"

  Kam didn't slow.

  Inside his arm, the lining hissed its last warnings—a vibration that pulled at muscle and bone, overstressed, thinned to translucence, sacrificial layers trembling like a cable pulled too tight. His skin prickled. His breath steamed, then fogged, then burned.

  A system alert flickered across his vision.

  Containment margins: non-recoverable.

  Kam kept walking.

  "Stop!" The voice cracked high and thin, breaking halfway through.

  Kam didn't.

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  The first stun round hit his shoulder.

  A sharp, metallic thunk—followed by a surge that tore through the lining like a fist through soaked insulation. Electricity flooded inward, uncontrolled. His muscles locked for half a breath.

  The second round slammed into his ribs.

  Another surge. Raw. Unfiltered.

  Both dumped straight into a system already past tolerance.

  Kam screamed.

  Not in pain.

  In release.

  The sound ripped out of him, deep and feral, as containment finally failed. Heat detonated outward in a white, roaring plume—a blinding flash that lit the street like an arc welder gone mad. The air around him compressed, shimmered, distorted. Pavement shattered beneath his feet, concrete fracturing in wild, branching lines. The nearest barrier folded inward as if struck by something ancient and furious.

  Kam charged.

  One Vanguard unit held position—feet planted wide, shoulders squared, baton angled up. Training fighting panic for half a second longer than the rest.

  Too long.

  Kam caught the baton arm mid-swing.

  The armor felt wrong in his grip. Brittle. Overconfident.

  He pulled. His stance shifted, weight dropping low.

  Metal tore with a shriek. The man flew backward, tumbling end over end before skidding across the ground in a spray of sparks. Alive. Broken. Out.

  Another unit fired.

  Kam slapped the round aside. It ricocheted off a barrier with a sharp, ringing ping. He pivoted and drove his fist straight into the generator housing behind them.

  The metal buckled. He saw it coming half a breath before it happened.

  The generator detonated.

  Fuel. Heat. Shrapnel.

  BOOM.

  The blast punched the air flat. Kam was hurled backward, slammed into the ground, rolled hard. He came up on one knee, smoking—steam peeling off him in frantic, curling sheets.

  His arm screamed.

  Coolant streamed from a rupture along his sleeve, thin and iridescent, hissing violently where it struck the ground.

  The lining was gone now. Not failing.

  Gone.

  Kam didn't slow.

  He waded into them. The first step left a scorched print on the pavement.

  Every strike was short. Brutal. Final.

  He caught a helmet with both hands and twisted. The unit dropped.

  End-of-fight violence.

  No flourish. No wasted motion. No hesitation.

  He broke weapons. Folded armor. Dropped bodies where they stood.

  No kills.

  Just certainty.

  The checkpoint collapsed into fire, alarms, and overlapping screams. Barriers buckled. Streetlights flickered, then died. The air tasted like burning plastic and ozone.

  Civilians scattered.

  Some ran. Some froze. Some raised phones with shaking hands.

  A cyclist abandoned his bike—it hit the pavement with a metallic clatter. A mother dragged her child behind a bollard, the child gasping for air. Someone sobbed. Someone whispered, "Oh my God," like a prayer that had already failed. A phone case cracked in trembling fingers.

  Footage hit the net in real time.

  Steam. Fire. A figure moving through it like an engine finally allowed to redline—heat-blurred, unstoppable, inevitable.

  By the time Kam staggered away, barely upright, the world felt soft under his feet. He swayed, caught himself against a wall. His vision tunneled—all he could see was the pavement ahead, the rest bleeding into grey static.

  His left arm wouldn't cool.

  No matter how hard he tried, the heat wouldn't bank. It just leaked.

  Behind him, the Guild was already losing control of the narrative.

  They couldn't blur this.

  They couldn't soften it.

  This wasn't an "incident."

  It was a battle.