Kim swung off the bike first, boots landing with a splash in the filth. Aisha climbed off next, legs wobbly from being jammed between two oversized egos for the entire ride. And then came Dante—slow, dramatic, silver hair practically glistening in the sewer light as if he were born from a shampoo commercial and raised on rebellion. The crowd went quiet.
Hobos, mutants, zwarten, medean—all of them had crawled out from the shadows of Jinjahan for this one moment. Not a single Alben in sight. Of course not. The Alben never needed to hide. The Alben owned everything—streets, headlines, laws. And the sewers? That was where the rest of the world came to breathe.
Dante's red tattered jacket flared as he stretched both arms out to the crowd, grinning like a stage performer at his encore. Two swords crisscrossed his back like a warning label that said: May cause sudden rebellion. "Welcome to the bottom, beautiful people!" he boomed. "Where the lies float and the truth finally gets to swim!"
Kim snorted. "Tone it down, Slayer."
Dante just winked. "Love you too, partner."
Aisha stepped forward, her face already twitching with regret. The moment they parked the bike earlier, she'd seen the looks. The smirks. The whispers. Girl shows up sandwiched between a disgraced cop and a sword-swinging rockstar? Yeah. The gossip was practically writing itself.
Someone near the back of the crowd actually whispered, "So which one's her boyfriend?"
Another followed up with, "Or both?"
She raised a hand. "Let's clear something up before you all turn this sewer into a soap opera. I'm not their doll. Not a girlfriend. Not a lover. Not even a damn Valentine."
A chuckle rolled through the crowd.
"I'm Aisha. Zwarten. Journalist. And professionally sick of this government's hypocrisy."
That shut them up. Kim stepped up beside her, face stern. "They made us hate each other. Zwarten, medean, mutants—hell, even cops like me were fed that poison. We were told the Alben earned their power. Earned their peace. But I was in the JPD. I know what they earned."
He pulled out his badge and tossed it onto the wet concrete. "They earned your fear. Your silence. And now they want you to stay quiet, even when they're locking up mutants and burying your voices."
The crowd murmured. Some nodded. A mutant in the front cracked his knuckles with a grin. "Now that's what I wanna hear."
Then Dante stepped forward, gleaming in full rockstar smugness. "Look, I know I look good. I know Kim looks broody and tragic. And I know Aisha is fine enough to break hearts in three time zones."
Aisha groaned. "Dante, I swear—"
"But this ain't a triangle," Dante went on, spinning once with his arms wide. "This is a spear. And we're aiming it at the throats of tyrants!"
He drew one sword in a fluid, showy motion and stabbed it into the sewer floor, the blade ringing like a war bell. "Tonight, we leak everything. The mutant camps. The Alben bribes. The truth. And when the whole city hears it? We riot."
Aisha shook her head with a tired smile. "I came here for the truth. Not the drama."
"Too bad," Kim said with a smirk. "You rode in with the drama deluxe package."
"And zero refunds," Dante added, flipping his second sword with a grin.
Aisha didn't waste a single breath. As soon as the crowd quieted, she stepped forward, voice low and urgent, eyes burning. "I broke into the CPG base, she said.
The sewer fell silent again. Even the rats held their breath. "I saw it. Files. Footage. Names. Camps."
She paused—like the words physically hurt to say. "They're not just holding mutants. They're experimenting on them."
Gasps. A medean woman in the front covered her mouth. A mutant with glowing eyes clenched his jaw.
"Chemical suppressants. Neural inhibitors. Bio-chains linked to behavior triggers. If you fight back, your brain melts. If you run, your bones freeze. They're rewriting bodies like they own the code."
Dante lowered his swords slowly.
"And the worst part?" Aisha's voice cracked. "They don't even hide it. The files were in a folder called 'Genesis Gate.' Like they're proud of it."
Kim stared at her like she'd dropped a bomb—which, in a way, she had. "And you have proof?" he asked.
"I downloaded everything," she nodded, pulling a tiny chip from her jacket's inner pocket. "This holds the truth. Every horror they've buried."
The sewer murmured—low, rising, terrified and furious. This wasn't just rebellion now. This was damnation turned inside out. But above it all… there was one man. Standing too still. Breathing too calm.
Aisha didn't notice. Kim didn't either. Even Dante, with all his bravado, missed the twitch in the man's wrist—the subtle thumb press against a hidden comm-pad in his coat. No one knew much about him, just that he'd shown up two weeks ago. Said he lost his brother in a mutant raid. Said he wanted justice.
What he really wanted was favor. And his message had already been sent: "Sewer 19-B. Full resistance presence. Aisha Malik, Dante, Kim—confirmed."
And just as the resistance buzzed in fury, and Dante yelled, "Then we take this to the goddamn surface—"
A low whirrrr filled the tunnels. Then the scream of tires. Then the sirens.
Kim's blood froze. "No—"
It was already too late. A pipe above burst open with steam as the sewer ceiling shook—then shattered. JPD floodlights sliced through the darkness like divine punishment. Flashbangs dropped through the holes in the ceiling. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Gas hissed. Screams echoed. The resistance scattered.
"AMBUSH!" someone yelled.
"RUN!"
Dozens of boots hit the ground like a tidal wave. Riot shields. Electro-batons. Tranquilizer rifles. The entire precinct had been unleashed like hell's personal police department.
Dante barely had time to draw his swords before they fired. Kim grabbed Aisha and dove behind a barricade of scrap metal.
"They knew," Aisha breathed. "They knew."
Kim scanned the chaos. "One of ours. Had to be."
Dante spun mid-air, slicing a flashbang out of the air before it detonated. "Remind me to stab the snitch after we survive this!"
Gas filled the tunnel. Screams turned to gurgles. A mutant tried to fight—his powers surged—and suddenly his body froze. The neural inhibitor. Just like Aisha said.
"MOVE!" Kim shouted. "Evac route C! Back tunnel!"
But the snitch… he stayed behind. He calmly stood as JPD officers stormed in, raising his hands like he was greeting old friends.
One officer saluted. "Commissioner Roderik Vaele sends his regards."
He smiled. "Tell him I want a front-row seat when they hang the rebels."
Sirens howled like the wailing of a damned city. Bullets ricocheted off rusted pipes. Muzzle flashes turned the tunnels into strobe-lit nightmares. The air reeked of gas, gunpowder, and burning flesh. The JPD wasn't here to arrest—they were here to erase.
"NO MERCY!" one of the officers bellowed, unloading into a fleeing mutant's back.
Screams. Screeches. The thunder of boots. Everyone panicked. Resistance members ran in every direction, bumping into each other, slipping in sewer water, getting gunned down mid-sprint. The scene collapsed into chaos. And in the eye of the storm… Dante smiled.
"Typical," he muttered, stretching his neck, swords already drawn. "They send the whole damn precinct just to stop the party."
Aisha turned to him, grabbing his arm. "We have to go! Now!"
He looked at her—really looked. Her lips trembling, eyes sharp, furious, terrified. Beautiful in that wild, storm-born way he always liked.
Kim skidded in behind them, dragging a bleeding medean boy by the collar. "Evac route's blocked! Too many bodies!"
Dante cracked his neck, eyes gleaming under the flicker of gunfire. "Then we make our own exit."
He looked at Kim, solemn for once. "Save who you can. You're better at it than me."
Kim's brows knitted. "What are you talking about—?"
But Dante had already turned. And then, without warning, without asking, he kissed Aisha. A deep, maddening kiss—quick and bold like a war cry. She went wide-eyed, froze for half a second, then shoved him. "You cocky son of a—"
But her voice cracked. Because she knew. "Don't you dare die, Dante!" she snapped, tears pooling in her fury.
Dante smirked, stepping back. "Can't promise that. But I'll make sure they remember my name."
He launched himself into the chaos. Two swords, one man, a hurricane of death and defiance. He spun through the JPD lines like a storm made flesh, slicing through riot shields, ducking under gunfire, roaring in defiance. His red tattered coat flared like a banner soaked in fire and rebellion.
Kim dragged Aisha behind him, half-carrying the medean boy. "MOVE! Now!"
Behind them, Dante screamed like a madman, cutting down an entire unit with a single, spinning arc of steel.
"COME ON THEN! I'M RIGHT HERE! DANTE ALIGHIERI, YOU UNWASHED BASTARDS!"
Aisha looked back once—just once—and saw him disappear into a swarm of uniforms. And as the tunnel collapsed behind them from a well-placed JPD explosive, cutting off the way back—All she could whisper was, "Idiot…"
The sewers were no longer tunnels—they were slaughterhouses. Blood pooled in shallow water, painting the concrete crimson. Shouts and screams echoed like a broken choir. Bullets zipped through the air like angry bees. Limbs fell. Lives ended. JPD officers pushed forward like a wall of judgment, unrelenting, expressionless beneath their visors. And yet—there was Dante.
In the middle of it all. Shirt ripped. Face bleeding. Hair silver, wild, and radiant under the hellish lights. A living storm in tattered red, blades dancing through air and bone with a rhythm no man should command.
He moved like poetry. He was poetry. Sharp. Unapologetic. Loud. One bullet came. He sliced it mid-flight. Three officers rushed him. Three heads rolled in one stroke.
"YOU CAME TO KILL A GHOST?!" he bellowed, laughter spilling from his lips. "I'VE BEEN DEAD SINCE THE DAY I WOKE UP!"
He was buying time. Every second soaked in blood. His own and others'. But even gods fall when outnumbered. Aisha, Kim, and six others broke through a maintenance hatch behind a collapsed duct. They ran—dragging wounded, tripping over debris, chased by the sounds of Dante's roar echoing behind them.
They crawled into an old cistern chamber—quiet, foul-smelling, and far enough to catch their breath.
That's when Toma—a young mutant barely past twenty, trembling and wide-eyed—froze. Everyone turned to him.
His breathing hitched. His body seized. And then—his mouth opened "I saw it," he whispered. "I saw… him."
Aisha's heart dropped. "Who?"
Toma didn't blink. Eyes glazed. Voice hollow. "Dante."
Everyone went still. Kim's jaw tightened. "What did you see?"
Toma swallowed hard. "He… got shot. From behind. Twice. Spine and neck. He—he dropped. And they didn't stop. They kept firing. I saw it. I felt it."
Silence. No sobs yet. Just raw disbelief. Then Aisha's legs gave out. She sank to the floor, shaking her head violently. "No. No, that can't be real. He—he's Dante. He's too stubborn to die."
Kim pulled her close. She fought his embrace at first, fists pounding his chest—but then collapsed into it, trembling. Tears fell freely now.
"I didn't even tell him…" she gasped. "I didn't even tell him how I—"
Kim wrapped both arms around her, eyes red, voice low. "He knew, Aisha. He knew. That's why he kissed you."
One of the medean girls began to sob. Another punched the wall, bloodying her knuckles. The air was heavy with mourning. A sacred quiet in the aftermath of chaos.
Dante—loud, brilliant, infuriating Dante—was gone. But his final cry still echoed in their minds like an immortal flame.
And Aisha, with her face buried in Kim's chest, whispered through clenched teeth. "I swear… if he's really dead… I'll make every one of those bastards will pay."