Chapter 11: Ashes in Motion

Part 1 – Assembly

(Villains don’t rise. They are summoned.)

Interior – Vance Enterprises Tower – Private Elevator – Night

The elevator ascended without sound, walls of polished obsidian reflecting a man already soaked in power. Vance stood at its center, clad in a graphite-grey suit with a single blood-red tie—clean, sharp, surgically chosen. His hands were clasped behind his back.

Behind him, Caleb leaned against the wall, arms folded. Still wearing the scarring of his last battle with Tom Cole. The staff that had once cracked bone rested in a carry case slung across his back—but inside, it had changed. Reinforced. Enhanced. Engineered for war.

Ø  VANCE: “You’re not just here to fight him again, Caleb. You’re here to lead the others.”

Ø  CALEB (dry): “Don’t confuse me with a general. I’m a weapon. You point. I break.”

Ø  VANCE (smirking): “Then it’s time you met the rest of the artillery.”

Interior – Apex Lounge – Vance Tower Top Floor

Glass walls overlooked the entire city—lit like a map of nerve endings. In the center of the lounge: a table of monsters.

One leaned forward, massive and thick-necked, bald head tattooed with death counts. “Brutus.” The same brute Tom had fought early in his vigilante war. Back from recovery. Angrier.

Next to him: a woman draped in black with eyes like wet knives. “Vesper.” Sniper. Mercenary. Addicted to pain—her own or others’.

The last sat still, perfectly composed, one hand made of polished cybernetic steel. “Silas.” Hacker, drone master, and killer of silence. He smiled like a razor.

Vance entered. Caleb walked behind him, each step echoing like a countdown.

Ø  VANCE: “This is the kill team. Designed for one target. The Remnant.”

He gestured to Caleb.

Ø  VANCE: “This is Caleb. Our blade.”

Ø  BRUTUS (grinning): “He’s the one who got gutted?”

Caleb stepped forward.

Ø  CALEB (quietly): “Want to find out what it felt like?”

Brutus chuckled but didn’t rise. Vesper simply watched Caleb—eyes glinting with something between curiosity and hunger.

Ø  VESPER: “He’s broken. Good. Broken things don’t hesitate.”

Ø  SILAS (typing): “Already running simulations. Facial recognition. Behavioral maps. I’ve pulled every video on Remnant. He’s growing, fast. But so are we.”

Ø  CALEB: “We don’t just match him. We end him.”

Ø  VANCE (nods): “You’ll have funding. Gear. Locations. If Remnant dares to stand in the way of this company again—”

He smiled.

Ø  VANCE: “We’ll turn him into a ghost without a legend.”

Montage – City Underground

Brutus bench-pressing a rusted car shell in a scrapyard gym.

Vesper lying prone atop a skyscraper, tracking a civilian through her scope for twenty minutes without blinking.

Silas in a dark room with hundreds of monitors, designing AI countermeasures, voice disruptors, and anti-suit EMP traps.

Caleb, alone in a dark hall, spinning his upgraded staff, attacking metal dummies shaped like Tom. Every strike breaking bones, slicing soft armor, going for vital spots.

Interior – Vance Tower – Later That Week

Ø  VANCE (addressing them): “Each of you will lead a different front. Draw him out. Bleed him. And when he’s weakest…”

He looked at Caleb.

Ø  VANCE (quietly): “You cut the mask off.”

Interior – Bunker – Same Time

Tom, Layla, and Manners stood around a holographic table.

Ø  MANNERS: “There’s movement in the city. Real movement. Arms deals, underground routes. And Vance… he just bought another robotics company. That makes five this year.”

Ø  LAYLA: “It’s a build-up. Like a silent siege.”

Ø  TOM (clenching jaw): “Then it’s time we push back.”

Chapter 11: Ashes in Motion

Part 2 – The Trap on Newbury

(They walked into the dark. Not knowing it was waiting to swallow them whole.)

Interior – Bunker Ops Room – Night

The digital map glowed on the screen. Red pulsing dots surrounded a central sector: Newbury Avenue.

Ø  LAYLA: “Human trafficking ring. Shipment supposed to pass through this alley. Multiple heat signatures.”

Ø  MANNERS (from the chair): “Odd pattern. Spread too wide. Like they want us to notice.”

Ø  TOM (adjusting mask): “Then we notice louder.”

Exterior – Newbury Avenue – 1:42 a.m.

The street was nearly abandoned. Flickering streetlights. Graffiti-coated shutters. A van sat parked outside a closed garage with its back doors cracked open.

Tom and Layla moved through the shadows. His armor heavier. Her suit sleek and silent. Both sets of boots kissed pavement without sound.

Ø  LAYLA (soft over comm): “Too quiet.”

Ø  TOM: “Maybe they’re already running.”

Ø  MANNERS (voice in ear): “No. They’re waiting.”

Ø  TOM: “For what?”

Ø  VOICE (booming from a rooftop): “You.”

Suddenly, spotlights flared—from rooftops, alley corners, drones buzzing overhead. Laser dots lit up their armor.

Ø  MANNERS (shouting): “AMBUSH! Get out!”

Too late.

Vesper dropped from above like a shadow wrapped in silk, her twin daggers spinning. She aimed straight for Layla.

Tom raised Ghostfang, blocking the first barrage of bullets fired by Silas’ drones, slicing two out of the sky.

Brutus charged through a warehouse wall, his shoulder like a wrecking ball, slamming into Tom. They crashed into a pile of crates.

Ø  BRUTUS (grinning): “Round two, tin can.”

Ø  TOM (wincing): “You got heavier.”

Ø  BRUTUS: “And you got a bigger mouth.”

Layla vs Vesper

Layla ducked, spun, and kicked upward—using a burst of compressed air to vault over a garbage bin. Vesper leapt off the opposite wall and met her mid-air, slashing a dagger across Layla’s shoulder.

Ø  VESPER (laughing): “You’re quick. But I cut quicker.”

Ø  LAYLA: “Guess we’ll test that.”

Layla unleashed a shock burst from her gauntlet—blue lightning sparking through Vesper’s torso. She screamed, stumbled, and vanished into the dark.

Tom vs Brutus

Tom rolled from under Brutus’s crushing stomp and drove his elbow into the brute’s ribs. It barely phased him.

Ø  TOM: “What did they feed you, concrete?”

Ø  BRUTUS: “Pain.”

Brutus swung a crowbar. Tom blocked with Ghostfang—metal sang—then dropped low and sliced behind Brutus’s knee, drawing blood.

The brute growled, backed up, but didn’t fall.

Ø  MANNERS (in Tom’s ear): “Two more closing in! Get Layla and pull out!”

Roof Above – Caleb Watching

CALEB stood still, staff in hand. Mask pulled low over his face. He watched the chaos unfold—arms crossed.

Ø  CALEB (quiet): “Not yet. Let him suffer first.”

Behind him, Tammy leaned on the railing, smirking, arms folded.

Ø  TAMMY: “My father wants him alive, you know.”

Ø  CALEB: “He won’t be for long.”

Back on the Street

Silas’s drones closed in, firing stun blasts. Tom deflected with his blade, spun, and cut three down in one motion.

Layla regrouped beside him, blood trickling from a cut over her eyebrow.

Ø  TOM: “Ready?”

Ø  LAYLA (gritting teeth): “Let’s dance.”

Together, they charged.

Layla used air bursts to vault off a dumpster, knocking out a drone mid-air and sending it crashing into Brutus’s face.

Tom struck clean, slicing through Brutus’s thigh. The brute fell, screaming.

Ø  TOM (to comm): “We’re pulling out.”

Ø  MANNERS: “Coordinates incoming—south alley, now!”

They ran, shoulder to shoulder, disappearing into the dark as drones exploded behind them.

Interior – Rooftop, Moments Later

Tammy watched them vanish. She sighed.

Ø  TAMMY (to Caleb): “He’s stubborn.”

Ø  CALEB: “That’s why he bleeds so well.”

Ø  TAMMY (softly): “That’s why I kind of like him.”

Caleb turned to her, one brow raised.

Ø  CALEB: “You’re going to get us all killed.”

Ø  TAMMY (smiling): “Maybe. But wouldn’t it be a beautiful ending?”