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The remnant: a broken man

Chapter 1: the broken file

Rain battered the city like an unending war drum. It didn’t wash away the grime—it made it cling. Neon signs flickered weakly behind sheets of mist. Somewhere in the distance, sirens cried, already too late for someone.

Tom Cole stood in the alley behind an abandoned tenement, staring into the heart of a fire.

The barrel in front of him hissed and spat as rain met flame. Inside, an old file curled and blackened. The papers had once borne his name, his service, his missions. His torture.

Now it was ash.

He didn’t blink. Didn’t move.

He watched the last of it burn until the flames ate even the edges. His past had been redacted. Hidden. Buried. Tonight, he buried it himself.

Behind him, footsteps approached—light, deliberate.

Layla stopped two feet away. Her auburn hair was soaked under her hood, and her eyes carried that same fire they always had: smart, tired, and deeply worried.

“You really going to do this?” she asked.

Tom didn’t turn. “Already started.”

“This isn’t like before. It’s not a warzone.”

He looked over his shoulder. “Isn’t it?”

She didn’t argue. She just stared at him. The shadows carved sharp edges across his face—his jawline, the healed scar under one eye, the hollow look in his gaze.

“What do I call you now?” she asked quietly. “Because you’re not just Tom anymore.”

He turned back toward the flames. “Not Tom. Not anymore.”

“Then what?”

“…Remnant.”

One Hour Later – Southside Alley

A scream tore through the city’s throat—short, sharp, panicked.

Tom moved before Layla could stop him.

He ran through the alleyways with the practiced stride of a soldier, ducking under rusted pipes, dodging puddles that reflected dying neon signs.

He saw the scene as he turned the corner: a man twice the woman’s size, shoving her against a brick wall, one hand on her throat, the other gripping a bag.

She struggled. Weakly. Her eyes wide.

Tom didn’t yell.

He didn’t threaten.

He moved.

Three strides. A single punch. Bone cracked beneath his knuckles.

The mugger dropped like a bag of cement, dazed, moaning.

Tom caught the woman as she staggered. “Go,” he said flatly.

She stared at him—soaking wet, breathing hard, wrapped in a hoodie that barely concealed his build.

“Who are you?”

But he was already gone.

Later That Night – The Safe house

A converted mechanic’s shop beneath an old train depot. Quiet. Hidden. Armed with tech that shouldn't belong to anyone outside the Pentagon.

Tom sat shirtless on a metal slab, steam still rising from his body. Dried blood cracked along a bruise near his ribs.

Layla walked in, med kit under one arm. She didn’t speak at first. Just moved to clean the fresh scrape on his shoulder.

“You’re not sleeping,” she said eventually.

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look it.”

“I’m not here to look good.”

Layla pressed harder than necessary with the gauze. He winced.

“You’re going to burn yourself out,” she said. “You think you’re fixing things, but you’re just bleeding slower.”

Tom didn’t answer.

“I saw what you did tonight. The footage’s already online.” She turned her tablet to show him. Grainy phone video. A figure in a dark hoodie flooring a man with one punch. “They’re calling you a vigilante.”

“Good.”

“You’re not scared someone will trace it back to you?”

“I want them to. I want them to know I’m coming.”

Layla paused. “What happens when they shoot back?”

Tom looked down at his bruised fists. “Then I bleed.”

Across the City – In the Shadows

A phone rang in a warehouse on the waterfront.

“Yeah?” a man said into the receiver, wiping blood off a knife.

“You hear about that guy in East Alley?” a voice crackled through the line. “The one who took out Jax?”

“Who?”

“They say he just appeared. Dropped the guy with one hit. Didn’t even take her purse.”

“Guy’s an amateur.”

“Nah. Not from what I heard. Didn’t speak. Didn’t stop. Just walked back into the dark. Some say he used to be black ops or something’. Goes by Remnant.”

“…Tch. Sounds like a myth.”

“Well, tell that to Jax. He’s eating through a straw.”

Click.

Back at the Garage

The barrel was long since cold.

The file was gone.

But the fire hadn’t died.

It had just moved—from paper to purpose. From memory to mission.

Tom stood before the mirror inside the bunker.

He stared at his reflection—scars, shadows, and all.

He pulled the hoodie over his face, just enough to cast the mask of intent.

“I’m not here to save them,” he muttered. “I’m here to remind them.”

And with that, the man named Tom Cole faded into the shadows.

Only the Remnant remained.

End of Chapter 1

Chapter 2: Silent Return (Expanded)

The city didn’t sleep. Not truly.

It pulsed at night. Breathed in crime and exhaled despair.

From his perch atop a hollowed-out fire escape, Tom Cole watched the alleys below. Trash drifted in the wind like paper ghosts. Far below, a couple argued in hushed, frantic tones. A siren cried four blocks west, its voice already ignored.

Tom’s mind wasn’t here, though.

Not entirely.

He was back in the dark. Back in the cell.

Flashback – The Facility

No clocks. No windows. Just echoes.

Tom knelt in the corner of a damp cement box. His wrists were swollen from bindings. His ribs—at least three of them—felt cracked. Every breath hurt.

Across from him, another man sat cross-legged, eyes closed. Scarred, wiry, his skin stretched taut over bones. A number tattooed behind his ear: 13.

“Still alive?” the man muttered, without opening his eyes.

Tom didn’t answer.

“Didn’t think you’d make it past day ten,” 13 said. “Most break around eight.”

Tom spat blood onto the concrete. “Still got things to do.”

13 chuckled—dry, bitter. “You’ve got that ‘I can fix it’ look. Seen it before. The idealist’s curse.”

Tom blinked slowly. “You don’t believe in fixing things?”

“I believe in surviving. There’s a difference.”

A metal door screeched open down the hall. Footsteps. Fast. Heavy.

Both men tensed.

They came for 13 first. Dragged him out screaming.

Tom sat in the silence afterward, surrounded by echoes.

He wasn’t sure what hurt more—the pain…

…or the waiting.

Present – The Garage Bunker

The old auto shop smelled like rust and coffee. Tools hung from the walls in obsessive order. Somewhere deep in the back, a small server rack hummed, feeding off a custom generator that Manners had stolen—or “repossessed,” as he called it—from a derelict tech firm.

Elliott Manners stood hunched over a workbench, thick goggles on his face, sparks dancing under his gloved hands.

“You’re welding indoors again,” Layla said, arms crossed.

“Welding is indoors work, genius.”

“There’s a burn mark on the ceiling.”

“Then the ceiling needs to toughen up.”

She smirked and tossed a folded schematic beside him. “The glove design’s off. Tom keeps saying the knuckle plates shift mid-punch.”

“Tell him to punch straighter.”

Layla rolled her eyes. “You know he can’t sleep, right? He’s up every night.”

“He’s been through hell. That mess doesn’t drain out overnight.”

She nodded. Then: “He’s changed.”

“So have we.”

Tom’s Room – 4:13 A.M.

He sat in the dark.

No mask. No armour. Just sweatpants and scars.

The wound on his side pulsed dully—a souvenir from a memory he hadn’t earned.

On the table in front of him, a black spiral notebook sat open. Inside, handwritten names. Some crossed out. Some circled.

All guilty.

He didn’t shake. Didn’t cry.

He was past that.

Instead, he wrote one more name.

Caleb.

He remembered the voice. In the dark. In the cage. When hope had broken, Caleb had kept talking. Had kept them alive.

And then… nothing.

Just fire. Smoke. And an escape.

Tom didn’t know if Caleb was dead. But something deep in his chest told him he wasn’t.

And if he was alive…

He’d need to know what Tom had become.

Training Room – The Next Morning

Manners stood with a clipboard as Tom lifted weighted plates, sweat dripping down his jaw.

“Suit’s too heavy,” Manners said. “You’ll collapse mid-fight.”

“Then I won’t collapse.”

“Physics don’t care about your man-pain, Tom.”

Tom grunted and slammed another rep.

Layla sat on the bench beside the gym bag. “Maybe we add a stabilizer in the back plate?”

“Weight would shift forward,” Manners muttered.

“What if we offset with kinetic dampeners?”

“That tech doesn’t exist.”

Layla smiled. “Yet.”

Later – A Quiet Walk

Tom and Layla walked the train tracks behind the bunker. Weeds grew through the cracks in the rails, swaying in the warm dusk wind.

Layla held a thermos. “You ever think about getting out? Like—really out?”

Tom didn’t look at her. “No.”

“Not even for a second?”“I can’t stop. Not until they stop breathing.”

“That’s not justice, Tom.”

“I’m not looking for justice.”

She looked down.

“Why do you stay?” he asked.

Layla took a sip from her thermos. “Because no one else would patch you up when you get shot again.”

He smirked, faintly.

They walked in silence after that, the last rays of sunlight glinting off the worn metal of the tracks.

Downtown – Late Evening

A man sat in a dark SUV with tinted windows. He watched a screen showing fuzzy security footage: a shadowy figure intercepting a mugging. One punch. One vanish.

He sipped from a paper cup and picked up the phone.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s him.”

Pause.

“He’s back.”

Click.

Back at the Bunker – Final Scene

Tom stared at the armour.

It hung on a rack like an empty shell, matte black and silent. The mask sat on a table beside it—its reflective eyes blank, waiting.

Layla entered behind him.

“Thinking of putting it on?”

“Thinking of what I become when I do.”

She stepped beside him. “You’re not what happened to you, Tom.”

“No,” he said softly. “I’m what happens next.”

He picked up the mask and turned it over in his hands.

For the first time, he slipped it on—not just to fit, but to become.

The lights on the HUD flickered to life.

Ø VOICE MODULATOR: “Active.”

Ø COMM SYSTEM: “Link established.”

Layla’s voice crackled in his ear. “You there, Remnant?”

He looked into the mirror. At the shadow staring back.

“…Yeah.”

Chapter 4

Part 1: Beneath the Static

The city didn’t scream anymore.

It hissed—a low, endless whisper of neon, exhaust, and footsteps too quick to follow. Even the rats seemed anxious.

Tom crouched on a rooftop overlooking Wesley Street, the visor of his helmet down, internal comms linked.

Ø LAYLA (in his ear): “Surveillance picked up chatter. Something big going down near Greeley Plaza.”

Ø MANNERS: “Weapons exchange. Mid-tier gang. Not cartel, but heavy firepower. You’re going in alone?”

“Better that way,” Tom muttered.

Ø LAYLA: “No backup?”

“Don’t need backup.”

Ø MANNERS: “He says, with three broken ribs.”

Tom stood, cloak brushing the rooftop gravel. In the distance, headlights flicked between alley gaps like probing fingers.

“Patch me in. I’m moving.”

Ø LAYLA: “Copy. Be safe.”

On the Ground – Greeley Plaza

Five men stood under a flickering lamppost, weapons crated and ready. They laughed like hyenas who’d never been hunted.

Until a pipe fell behind them with a clatter.

They turned. One reached for his pistol.

But a shadow dropped from above like a guillotine.

Tom landed with a thud, armour absorbing the impact. Before the closest thug could react, a fist met his throat. He dropped, choking.

Another swung a crowbar—Tom ducked, spun, and drove an elbow into the man’s temple. Bones cracked.

One remained.

He turned to run.

But Tom’s grappling hook fired from his wrist, wrapping around the man’s legs mid-stride. He fell, screaming.

Tom walked over.

The man scrambled backward. “W-Wait, man! I didn’t sign up for—”

Tom raised the gauntlet. It hummed with magnetic charge.

“I’m not here to talk.”

Ø LAYLA (softly): “Remnant… someone’s coming.”

Tom paused.

And then the stairwell door at the edge of the plaza exploded open.

Part 2: The Brute Returns

He was taller than Tom remembered.

The man from the stairwell. The one who had nearly crushed his ribs weeks ago.

He stepped out from the shadows, pipe still in hand, grin sharper than any blade.

“Remember me?” the brute called.

Tom didn’t answer.

“You didn’t finish the job. That was a mistake.”

Tom stepped forward. “I don’t make mistakes twice.”

The brute growled and charged.

Tom sidestepped and threw a low kick—caught.

The brute grinned and slammed Tom into the wall with a roar. The concrete cracked.

Ø LAYLA: “He’s too strong! Hit and move!”

Tom shoved off the brute’s chest, landed a blow to the throat—barely staggered him.

The fight became a blur of impact—metal on bone, pain on instinct. Tom fought smart, using every gadget, every technique. Smoke bombs. Shock pulse. Elbow feints.

But still, the brute adapted.

Stairwell – Close Combat

They tumbled into the narrow stairwell.

Tom ducked a swing, rolled beneath a pipe swing, and landed two clean punches to the side of the brute’s head.

The man snarled. “Getting tired?”

“No.”

Tom launched himself up the wall, kicked off, and drove both boots into the brute’s chest.

It worked.

The brute stumbled down the stairs.

Tom didn’t let him recover—he leapt, straddling the man’s chest, and delivered punch after punch until the helmet cracked.

Ø LAYLA (whisper): “Tom—stop. He’s done.”

Tom stopped.