The rig was dead. Half-buried in rubble, wheels still spinning in the dust like dying insects.

Liara kicked the crumpled door open and fell out onto the ground with a grunt, coughing, her side on fire.

Garret rolled out the other side, limping hard, blood streaking down his leg.

He looked up, and his face paled.

Garret: "Damn it... We gotta move, fast. They're turning back..."

Liara looked.

The convoy. Two vehicles had broken formation, circling back.

Fast. Close. Headlights blinding.

They had seconds.

Garret didn't wait. He sprinted toward the wrecked Dominion transport, the one they'd rammed.

The hull was scorched and twisted, but intact. Barely.

He climbed on top, gun in hand, and began kicking at the side panel.

Liara: "Garret, hurry! We don't have time!"

Garret didn't answer. He jammed his boot under the edge of the door, grunted, and yanked with everything he had.

The hatch gave with a scream of metal.

Inside, shadows moved. A flash of silver.

Varek and the two soldiers, bloodied but breathing.
Weapons half-raised, eyes locked, breath held.

Garret didn't hesitate.

Bang! Bang! BangBangBang!!!

He emptied his mag into the compartment like he was exorcising demons.

The bodies slumped forward, twitching, dead.

Liara didn't flinch.

Didn't even blink.

The usual horror wasn't there. Just fire. And fear.

She climbed in behind him, heart racing.

And there he was.

Raiga.

Slumped. Shackled. Blood on his temple.

Eyes half-lidded, breath ragged. A sedative drip still glowing near his neck.

Metal cuffs locked tight across his wrists and ankles. Deep lacerations. He'd been beaten. Drugged. Contained.

Liara: "Oh my god...Raiga—"

She reached for him, but the jagged frame cut deep into her forearm.

She hissed, blood pouring down her sleeve.

Liara: "Dammit! Garret, get the restraints. NOW!"

Garret yanked a knife from his boot and started slicing cables, sparks flying.

Raiga groaned.

Raiga: "The fuck... are you two doing...? You have to run... get out!"

Liara: "SHUT UP! We're getting you out!"

She grabbed a pry-bar from her belt and jammed it under the cuff lock. Sparks flew. The current bit her hand. She didn't care.

Her palm sliced open on the edge of a twisted panel. Blood poured, hot and bright, across the metal. She didn't stop.

Garret tore off the last restraint. Raiga sagged forward into his arms.

Liara: "GO! MOVE!"

Then they froze.

Low hum. Headlights. Stillness.

The APCs ahead had stopped.

Just twenty meters away.

Engines idling.

Headlights burning holes into the night.

No one got out.

No one moved.

Just silence.

Garret stiffened. He smelled something wrong. Old. Heavy.

Garret: "Get him to the rig. Now."

He raised his rifle and stepped forward.

Liara: "Garret, what are you doing?!"

Garret: "They're not here to talk."

She dragged Raiga across the sand. He stumbled, half-conscious, mumbling.

Raiga: "That one... he's different. I saw his... he can use Fragments."

Liara: "Don't talk! Don't you dare die on me now!"

Hydraulics hissed.

A Dominion APC opened like a maw.

A man stepped down.

Slow. Precise. Every movement calculated.

The Inquisitor.

His long coat didn't sway. His gloves adjusted themselves. He didn't look hurried. He didn't look interested.

He looked inside the vehicle.

Inquisitor: "No need to dirty your hands, sir. I'll handle this."

Garret planted his boots.

The Inquisitor studied him.

Inquisitor: "Impressive. Not many have the courage, or the stupidity, to return."

Garret: "I know. Doesn't make sense to me either."

Inquisitor: "Are you aware you're about to die?"

Garret: "Every damn second I'm alive."

The Inquisitor smiled. A tiny thing. Like a knife unsheathed.

Inquisitor: "Charming. Grim. Old-fashioned. You smell like martyrdom."

Garret didn't blink.

He raised his coat sleeve.

A crude, alloy bracer wrapped his forearm. A relic. Its core pulsed red.

Inquisitor:"Oh. Now that's unexpected."

Liara reached the rig and threw Raiga inside.

Liara: "GARRET! GET IN, NOW!"

Garret: "Drive."

Liara: "Don't you DARE—"

Garret: "He wouldn't let you go. I won't either."

He slammed his thumb on the activation node.

The device flared violet. The ground shook.

Inquisitor: "Meteor War tech. Primitive. Dangerous. Obsolete."

Garret: "Same as me."

The Inquisitor unclipped his coat.

Beneath: a sleek obsidian combat suit, webbed with pulsing light. At the center, a Fragment sync harness blinked like a heartbeat.

Inquisitor: "This suit synchronizes me to 87% of raw Fragment capacity. What does yours do?"

Garret: "Keeps me angry. That's enough."

The desert held its breath.

Liara slammed the rig doors shut.

Two powers hummed.

One old. One perfect.

The storm was about to break.

Inside the rig, Liara gritted her teeth, applying pressure to her bleeding arm while trying to stabilize Raiga against the bench.

Raiga:  "You stupid—idiots... you shouldn't have come. You need to run. RUN!"

Liara: "Shut up..."

Her voice cracked from pain and fear.

Liara: "We KNOW it's dangerous! But... I couldn't leave you like that!"

Raiga tried to push himself upright, fury in his eyes.

Raiga: "Even if we get out, they'll track us. There's no escape from them. Not anymore."

Liara froze.

And for a moment, she understood.

They were trapped.

Outside: silence. Too quiet.

Garret stands alone. Backlit by headlights.

A slow hiss.

His old mechanical bracer activates. The hiss becomes a growl. Steel plates slide into place. The veins in his neck bulge as the device forces his muscles into overdrive.

Garret: "This damn thing's running out of time... and so is my arm. So let's make it count."

Pain radiates through his shoulder. Bone grinding. Flesh blistering under the pressure.

The Inquisitor chuckles softly, watching.

He places one hand over the circular node on his chest harness and presses.

A low hum echoes.

His coat slips off, falling weightless into the sand.

Beneath it: the kinetic sync armor glows alive. Black plates flex. Blue circuit lines flare.

The shard embedded between his scapulae pulses with energy.

Inquisitor: "Fragment 07. S-Class. Physical Reinforcement: Type-Velox. Enhanced muscle tissue. Accelerated neural feedback. Sensory overclock."

He smiles.

Inquisitor: "87% sync. Almost perfect."

Garret doesn't flinch.

He shifts stance.

Raises his reinforced arm.

Points it back to the rig.

Garret: "GO! NOW!"

Liara is frozen. Terrified.

Liara: "Garret, no. Don't do this. Don't make me—"

Garret: "MOVE!"

Garret moved first.

A blur of violence wrapped in steel. His bracer hissed—joints locking, pistons kicking. He hit the sand running, arm cocked, power building.

BOOM.

He launched forward like a missile.

A straight punch aimed at the Inquisitor's head.

But—

Nothing.

The Inquisitor tilted his neck.

The punch missed by centimeters.

Garret's follow-up came fast.

Knee to ribs. Elbow to throat. Palm strike to chin.

Blocked. Evaded. Redirected.

The Inquisitor didn't even look concerned.

His movements were clean, minimal—barely steps. Just weight shifts. Calculations.

Garret's breath caught. He growled and drove in again.

Faster. Meaner. Desperate.

He swung wide—an arc meant to cleave skull.

The Inquisitor leaned back. The punch sliced through air.

Counter-strike—wrist flick, two fingers extended.

CRACK.

A nerve shot.

Garret's arm spasmed.

He snarled and used the momentum—spinning kick, vertical smash, feint-jab-feint—

All missed. All read. All dodged.

The Inquisitor moved like water. Like thought.

Garret's rage met nothing.

Then—

The Inquisitor struck.

One palm to the chest.

BOOM.

The kinetic force lifted Garret off his feet.

He smashed backward into the dirt, bracer flaring, lungs emptying.

He coughed blood. Got up anyway.

Garret: "I'm not done."

He slammed his fist into the sand. A shockwave rippled outward—a brute-force pulse from the bracer, meant to disorient, blind, crack bone.

Dust exploded.

For a moment, everything vanished.

Silence.

Then the dust cleared.

The Inquisitor stood exactly where he'd been.

Not even touched.

He raised one eyebrow. Almost bored.

Inquisitor: "If you're hoping to impress me, try harder."

Garret charged again.

No technique. Just fury.

The sand explodes beneath his boots.

Garret: "...Hit him low. Make him block. Create a gap..."

He swings.

Left hook to the flank.

The Inquisitor leans sideways.

Dodges.

Garret steps in.

Right jab. Uppercut.

Knee strike.

All avoided.

Garret: "Tch... No openings. Dammit. I need to outthink him."

From inside the rig, Liara watches, trembling.

Fingers flying over the drone panel.

Liara: "We must help him..."

She launches a Volture drone.

Sends it high.

Garret tries again.

Feint left.

Spinning elbow.

The Inquisitor dodges, until—

Liara:

"Come on... come on... line up..."

FLASHBANG LAUNCH

The drone dives.

Bursts.

BLINDING LIGHT.

The Inquisitor stumbles. Sensory overload.

Garret roars.

Brings his full strength down into a punch.

Connects.

CRACK.

The Inquisitor staggers.

Blood down his lip.

Eyes wide.

Garret: "Gotcha."

The smile fades.

Inquisitor: "You shouldn't have done that."

He vanishes in a blur.

BOOM.

Ground shatters.

He reappears in front of Garret and grabs him by the throat.

Liara: "GARRET!"

Raiga struggles up, opens the rig door.

Raiga: "No—don't!"

Liara: "HEY! GET BACK!"

Garret laughs, blood in his teeth.

Held mid-air.

Garret: "You're right. I'm insane. But I've fought stronger men."

Inquisitor: "You lost every time."

He punches Garret like a cannon.

Garret flies.

Crashes into the rig.

The whole thing lurches.

Liara screams.

Raiga snarls in pain, shoulder wound tearing open.

The Inquisitor walks.

Slow.

Measured.

Inquisitor: "Last words?"

Garret coughs. Blood.

Grim smile.

Garret: "Nope."

He staggers, blood pouring from the wound in his side, his hand clamped tight over it.

With a grimace, he turns, slowly, painfully, toward the vehicle where Liara and Raiga watch, frozen.

He smirks.

Crooked. Bloody. Proud.

Garret: "You two psychos... I've put up with you long enough."

He coughs, and lets out a dry laugh.

Garret: "Best damn thing that ever happened to me..."

A ragged breath escapes him.

Garret: "Stay alive..."

His head lowers slightly, but the smirk stays—

ugly, stubborn, honest.

Liara: "Wait..."

Garret winks at them, then reaches into his coat.

The Inquisitor steps closer.

Raises a fist.

Inquisitor: "Goodbye."

Garret: "Catch."

BOOM!!!

A cryo-grenade detonates.

Light. Frost. Silence.

Garret is gone.

The Inquisitor, frozen mid-step, steam rolling off his limbs.

Trapped.

Liara: "NOOOO!"

Raiga: "...Damn it..."