Chapter 6: The Wolves at the Gate
Part 5 – The Recovery
(Steel can be reforged. Flesh can heal. But the soul—that takes more than stitches.)
Interior – Bunker Medical Bay, Late Night
The room smelled like antiseptic and burnt circuitry.
Tom lay shirtless on the steel table, his armor peeled off in layers—cracked, blood-stained, dented where Caleb’s knife had found its way into a weak seam.
His breath was shallow.
The stab wound in his side had stopped bleeding, but only just. Red stained the wrappings like rust bleeding through snow.
Layla hovered over him, hands firm but trembling as she worked.
Ø LAYLA (softly): “He aimed for the gap. Like he knew your blueprints.”
Ø TOM (through gritted teeth): “He probably did. We were both projects.”
Ø LAYLA: “And you still went out alone.”
Ø TOM (quiet): “He wanted me to. That was the point.”
Across the room, Manners was pacing—shoulders hunched, jaw tight, muttering under his breath. Tools clinked on metal.
Ø MANNERS: “This can’t keep happening. I’m patching your body and your suit like duct tape on a bullet wound.”
He turned, eyes flashing.
Ø MANNERS (frustrated): “Every fight, you push harder. Every time, he cuts deeper. And you still don’t say a damn word about what you want from us—from yourself.”
Silence.
Then—
Ø TOM (exhausted): “What do you want me to say? That I’m scared? That every time I put on that mask I wonder if I’m still me underneath it?”
Layla froze.
Tom’s eyes were glassy.
Ø TOM (cont’d): “He’s not just a ghost. He’s what I could’ve become. What I still might.”
Ø LAYLA (gently): “You’re not him, Tom.”
Ø TOM: “But I was built in the same fire.”
Interior – Manners’ Lab, Later
Tom sat in the corner, shirtless, stitched and bandaged.
Manners had pulled the armor pieces apart completely. His gloves lay beside a new gauntlet prototype, the palm housing a shock coil.
Ø MANNERS (explaining): “You’ve got two types of enemies: the ones who hit like trucks… and the ones who make you doubt everything.”
Ø TOM (flat): “And which one is Caleb?”
Ø MANNERS: “Both.”
He passed Tom a small vial of nanite salve. “You’re healing on the outside. But if you want to survive the inside… you’re going to need more than tech.”
Tom nodded slowly.
Ø TOM: “I need to train.”
Ø LAYLA (from doorway): “Not tonight, you don’t.”
She stepped in holding a hot compress, dragging a chair beside him.
Ø LAYLA: “You’re staying down. For once. Orders.”
She pressed the heat pad to his side. Tom flinched.
Ø LAYLA (softer): “He got under your skin. That’s not weakness. That’s humanity.”
Ø TOM (barely audible): “He said he killed twenty people to escape. They made him do it.”
Ø LAYLA: “And you didn’t.”
Ø TOM: “No. I just left him behind.”
A long silence.
Then, Layla took his hand.
Ø LAYLA: “You lived. That’s not betrayal. That’s survival.”
Ø TOM: “He doesn’t see the difference.”
Ø LAYLA: “Then show him.”
Interior – Simulation Chamber, Next Morning
The lights flickered to life. A new environment loaded: the rooftop.
Caleb’s staff. His movements.
Over and over, Tom fought the hologram. And lost.
Ø FINN (watching from the console): “That wound’s slowing him. He’s favoring his right side.”
Ø MANNERS: “Let him. He needs to fail here. Not out there.”
Tom growled, swung his katana—and this time, cut through the staff in one clean arc.
Victory.
He collapsed to one knee, panting.
Ø LAYLA (entering): “That’s one.”
Ø TOM (smirks): “How many do I need?”
Ø LAYLA: “As many as it takes.”
Interior – Workshop, Evening
Manners finished upgrading the armor’s lower plating — reinforcing the sides, replacing the seam Caleb exploited.
Ø MANNERS: “You won’t get that lucky again. But now he won’t either.”
He slid Tom’s helmet onto the charging dock.
Ø MANNERS (cont’d): “Your mask... it’s not just armor anymore. It’s a symbol. And symbols can be dangerous.”
Ø TOM (softly): “Good.”
Ø MANNERS: “No. Not good. They can inspire or destroy. You have to choose which.”
Interior – Bunker Lounge
Later that night, Tom sat on the couch, stitched, bruised, but present.
Layla sat beside him, shoulder to shoulder, warmth shared in silence.
A storm brewed outside.
Ø TOM: “If I fall, if I ever become like him…”
Ø LAYLA: “You won’t.”
Ø TOM: “If I do—promise me you’ll stop me.”
She looked at him, eyes sharp, serious.
Ø LAYLA: “Only if you promise to stop yourself first.”
They sat there for a long time.
No masks.
No mission.
Just two people in the quiet before another storm.
Chapter 7: Echoes in the Smoke
Part 1 – The Night He Spoke
(A new suit. A new edge. But the city’s still the same. Tonight, the shadows whisper a new name into the cold.)
Exterior – East District, 1:03 AM
Detroit’s East District never truly slept.
Its neon signs flickered with old debt. Steam hissed from sidewalk grates. And in the alleys—justice had long since packed up and fled.
A scream tore through the air.
A woman, maybe early thirties, was dragged backward into an alley by two men. One had a switchblade. The other, a shaky laugh like broken glass.
Ø MAN 1: “Come on, girl, ain’t nobody comin’.”
Ø WOMAN (screaming): “Let me go—PLEASE!”
Ø MAN 2 (grinning): “Shh... quiet now—”
Then the lights flickered.
The shadows lengthened.
And the sound of something heavy landing behind them echoed.
Ø MAN 1 (turns): “Who the—”
They saw him.
A figure in black armor — angular, sleek, layered in reinforced plating. The mask was smooth, almost blank, but its glowing eyes bore down through them.
A voice—low, synthetic, altered—cut through the silence like a guillotine.
Ø REMNANT: “Run.”
One of them charged instead.
Mistake.
Tom moved.
Faster than before—not perfect, but smooth, deadly, learned. He caught the first man’s wrist mid-swing, twisted it until bones cracked, and drove a knee into his chest.
He crumpled.
The other tried to bolt.
A compressed snap—Tom fired his new grapple.
The hook shot around the fleeing man’s ankle and yanked hard—slamming him backward into the alley wall.
Lights flickered again.
Smoke hissed from beneath Tom’s arms as he stepped forward, blade sheathed but fists clenched.
The woman crawled back, terrified—then realized he wasn’t approaching her.
Ø REMNANT (to her, voice still cold): “You’re safe now.”
She didn’t move.
He looked at the two men groaning on the ground—disarmed, stunned, humiliated.
Ø REMNANT (low): “Tell them what you saw. Tell them something woke up.”
Then he vanished—grappling into the fog above.
Tom landed softly, crouching. Breathing hard. Not from exertion—but from the weight of the mask.
Ø TOM (in-ear): “You see that?”
Ø LAYLA (through comm): “Every second. You looked like something out of hell.”
Ø MANNERS (grinning): “The grapple looked damn good. Hook speed’s clean.”
Tom didn’t speak.
He walked to the edge of the rooftop—and looked down.
The woman had stumbled into the street. People gathered. A few bystanders were filming.
One of them—phone aimed high—shouted up:
Ø BYSTANDER: “Yo! WHO ARE YOU?”
Tom paused.
The city waited.
He stood tall.
Eyes glowing.
Smoke coiling around him.
Ø TOM (synthetic, thunderous): “I’m the Remnant.”
Then he launched the grapple—vanishing into the skyline.
Interior – The Bunker, Shortly After
Layla, watching the footage from their monitors, slowly removed her earpiece.
Manners leaned back, arms crossed.
Ø LAYLA (softly): “He said it.”
Ø MANNERS: “And now the world knows he’s real.”
On the screens behind them, headlines exploded:
VIGILANTE IN BLACK STOPS MUGGING
WHO IS “THE REMNANT”?
MYTH OR MONSTER? EASTSIDE STREETS SHAKEN BY NEW FORCE
They stared at the growing storm.
Ø MANNERS (quiet): “He’s not just a mask now.”
Ø LAYLA: “No. He’s a movement.”
And deep in the city—somewhere between man and myth—Tom crouched on a ledge, overlooking it all.
Still breathing. Still bleeding.
But something had changed.
Tonight… the world heard him.
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