The sedative's effect finally overcame Foxy's resistance. Her head lolled to the side, strands of hair covering her pale face as she slipped into an induced void. The silence that followed in the basement was broken only by the metallic click of the collectors' knives.
— Start with the face — the leader ordered, moving closer to the chair. — I want her father to feel every scar when we send the photos.
Before the blade could touch Foxy's skin, the heavy sound of a metal door sliding on its tracks echoed through the warehouse. A shaft of moonlight cut through the dust, revealing Michael's thin, unremarkable silhouette. He entered slowly, hands in his coat pockets, with the expression of someone looking for a misplaced section in a library.
— You're occupying a space that isn't yours — Michael said, his voice a cold whisper that raised the hairs on the men's necks.
Ronald, the Stalker, leapt from the beam with feline agility, landing between Michael and Foxy. He didn't hesitate. He launched a rapid sequence of strikes, targeting Michael's vital points with a precision that would drop any elite agent.
Michael didn't back down. With a movement that defied human perception, he dodged the first punch by millimeters, caught Ronald's wrist and, using the attacker's own weight, spun his body. The sound of Ronald's arm bone snapping was sharp. Michael delivered a palm strike to the base of the stalker's skull, flinging him against the concrete wall as if he were a rag doll. Ronald fell, unconscious before he even hit the floor. Humiliated in a matter of seconds.
The three collectors advanced simultaneously, their knives arcing lethally. Michael moved like a macabre dance. He disarmed the first with a precise touch to the forearm, sending the knife spinning into the air; he caught it by the blade and drove it into the wooden table, inches from the second man's hand.
He shifted between the fluidity of Tai Chi, the brutality of Krav Maga, and the precision of Systema. Every counterattack wasn't just defense—it was applied anatomy. He struck nerves, tendons, and balance centers with an ease that bordered on the supernatural.
The leader of the collectors stepped back, panting, seeing his companions writhing on the floor with dislocated joints. He looked at Michael with absolute terror, letting his knife drop.
— You… — the man stammered, blood running from his nose. — I've seen men fight all over the world… but you… you know every single fighting style. You don't fight to win… you fight as if you're correcting an error in reality. Who are you?
Michael didn't answer. He simply walked up to the man, who fell to his knees under the weight of that oppressive presence. With a gentle touch to the collector's forehead, Michael pushed him aside, and the man fainted, his nervous system overloaded by shock.
Michael's wristwatch showed a little more than one hundred seconds had passed since he'd crossed the door. The warehouse was silent again.
He walked over to Foxy. With almost tender delicacy, he brushed the hair from her face and checked her pulse. It was steady. He untied the ropes with agile fingers, then took out his phone and sent an anonymous message to HQ with the location coordinates.
— The problem with trying to break a pawn — Michael whispered, looking at the bodies around him — is forgetting that the Architect always protects his pieces.
He slipped back into the warehouse shadows seconds before the first sirens were heard in the distance. When Michell and his team burst in, they'd find only a rescued agent and four criminals destroyed by a "ghost" who left no traces—only the perfection of a surgical intervention.