Charly tumbled into the track pit, dragging Francisco down with him. The veteran rolled heavily to the right while the Italian was deflected to the left. Pushing himself up painfully, Charly felt strangely light. He quickly tapped his back: the briefcase was gone. Lifting his eyes, he spotted it immediately, sitting on the ballast right between them.
Francisco, scrambling back to his feet, eyed the artifact with pure greed. A short distance away, Techno Rider did the same. At that exact microsecond, Dark Wolf's words echoed in Horace's mind: « If it ever turns into an ambush, snap your fingers seven times in a row, with your left or right hand. We will deploy instantly. »
Discreetly, shielded inside his armor, he did just that.
Snap! Snap! Snap…
Barely had the seventh snap resonated when Charly and Francisco simultaneously lunged for the case. Being closer to the objective, Techno Rider executed a desperate slide and snatched the handle on his way through.
His two formidable opponents converged on him at breakneck speed. Francisco thrust his hand out to rip the container from his fingers, but the Rider hoisted his arm up to keep it out of reach. Driven mad with rage, the Italian unleashed a three-punch combination supercharged with electricity. The young hero ducked in the nick of time, backing up rapidly to buy some breathing room.
That was when Charly surged forward, brutally tearing the briefcase out of the Rider's hands while roaring:
« Give me that! »
At the exact same time, a violent, lightning-infused kick struck the veteran flush in the chest. The shockwave was so massive that Techno Rider, caught in the wake of the impact, was blown away and slammed heavily against the tunnel wall.
The duel between the two monsters then took an ungodly violent turn. Francisco tried to reclaim his prize, but Charly stood like a fortress. Trapping the Italian's arm with his left limb, he used the heavy briefcase in his right hand to smash his face three times.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The impacts echoed heavily through the subterranean vault, like the deep thuds of a gong struck in a monastery.
With a swift motion, Charly threw the briefcase behind his back, where it instantly locked into place. Francisco returned to the offensive with a destructive right hook, but this time, the old soldier seemed to lose all patience. He parried the assault with his forearm, growling in a low, resonant voice:
« Aaaaah, enough! »
The counterstrike he unleashed was lightning fast. Seizing the Italian by the arm, he jerked him violently forward. Francisco's sternum impaled itself directly onto Charly's steel elbow, shattering his combat momentum instantly.
Lying in ambush, Techno Rider pulled himself up, wielding a heavy metal pipe he had scavenged from the tracks. He brought it down with all his might onto Francisco's ankle.
The Italian buckled slightly, his leg numbed by the pain. The Rider capitalized on the opening to move back in front of him. Cocking his right fist, he drove a brutal uppercut upward, knee bent, while his left hand struck the ground to stabilize his stance. The shockwave of the blow made the surrounding air vibrate.
Francisco stumbled back several paces, reeling, his hands pressed against his chest. In the blink of an eye, Charly was on him again, liberating a veritable hurricane of striking lines.
Pah! Pah! Pah! Pah! Pah!
A combination of surgical speed and precision, visibly lethal. Charly targeted highly specific vital points: the temple, the plexus, the left flank, the right flank, the navel, and both shoulder joints. He relentlessly hammered these seven zones, alternating his attack patterns at a dizzying velocity.
His gaze had shifted; his eyes were wide open, bloodshot. Despite the fury of his movements, his breathing remained perfectly rhythmic, betraying the experience of an elite killer pushed to his absolute limit.
Francisco was in full retreat, his eyes rolling back, slowly slipping into unconsciousness. Charly contracted his muscles one final time and, with a raging roar, delivered a definitive knife-hand strike right to the carotid artery.
His eyelids half-closed, the Italian swayed before collapsing backward. The world seemed to warp around him as a trickle of blood flowed simultaneously from his nose, mouth, and ears. He hung frozen for a second, then crashed flat out.
BOOM!
Charly watched him fall, took a massive breath, and exhaled slowly to bring his adrenaline down.
Hearing someone painfully catching their breath beside him, he turned his head. The Rider looked up, but only had enough time to see the veteran barreling toward him with a clenched fist. Horace crossed his arms to shield himself, but the raw power of the impact catapulted him violently against the concrete wall.
Charly granted him zero respite. Exploiting the moment the Rider bounced off the wall, he drove his fist with herculean force down onto the young man's left forearm. A sickening snap echoed through the tunnel.
CRACK!
« Aaaaaaah! » the Rider screamed, overcome by agonizing pain. His left arm had been broken clean through.
Charly grabbed him by the collar of his armor and hoisted him up at arm's length, roaring:
« Shut your freaking mouth! I can tell this broken arm isn't going to kill you! You are a Sigma, and on top of that, you are a member of the DHA! Those are two excellent reasons for me to arrest you right now! »
He glared at the Rider for several long seconds, his eyes burning with anger, before his expression softened significantly.
« But you know what? I'm going to let you slide. And you want to know why? For four reasons. First: you helped me secure this briefcase. Second: I have a grandson who is tangled up in the exact same mess as you, and I wouldn't want to see him rot in a cell. The third one is simple… »
He released him abruptly, turning his back on the injured hero.
« Because I am officially retired, and I no longer have any legal right to arrest you. »
Groaning in agony, Techno Rider pushed himself up with difficulty, cradling his broken arm with his valid one. Charly observed him from the corner of his eye and added:
« That was very brave, what you just did. I guess even you super-terrorists from the DHA possess some sense of justice. »
Suddenly, dull and ominous thuds originating from the upper level captured their attention.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
It sounded as though a heavily armored structure was being pulverized into splinters. At that exact moment, the tunnel walls illuminated with an intense fluorescent blue: the signal light indicating the imminent approach of the STGV.
Charly faced about to climb back onto the platform. But just as he reached the breach, a massive wave of brown earth surged into the tunnel at an insane speed. At its crest stood Francisco's sister. She dove toward her unconscious brother, grabbed him by the arm, and bolted toward the wall. With a simple wave of her hand, she opened a fissure in the solid rock, vanished inside with him, and the stone wall instantly sealed shut behind them.
Charly scrambled over the debris to escape the pit, but abruptly remembered he was leaving someone behind. Spinning back toward the tunnel, he extended his arm toward the young man, shouting:
« Grab my hand, kid! Move fast! »
Techno Rider tried to move forward, but the fracture in his arm paralyzed him with pain. The blinding headlights of the oncoming train were already illuminating the depths of the track.
« Come on, hurry up! »
Behind Charly, the station's containment wall collapsed in a construction-site din. Through the breach, a unit of elite Armored soldiers stormed inside. The Rider was trapped between the high-velocity train and the law enforcement forces invading the premises. His end seemed inevitable.
Before Charly could attempt anything, the STGV materialized in the tunnel with a piercing shriek. The Rider desperately extended his valid hand. The moment their fingers were about to lace together, Saul materialized behind the old marshal, grabbed him by the jacket, and yanked him violently backward onto the platform. A fraction of a second later, the metal behemoth roared into the station, cutting off the path for good.
Charly stood open-mouthed, petrified by horror, as Saul steered him away from the platform's edge. He stared at the ground for a long moment, deeply shaken, before turning his eyes toward the rest of the station. The platform was littered with bodies. The newly arrived Armored units were deploying methodically to examine survivors and secure the perimeter.
Charly let out a heavy sigh and straightened his posture. An Armored officer in massive plating, sporting a chronometer insignia on his breastplate, stepped toward him with a heavy stride.
« Hello, Invisible Marshal. It is an immense honor to meet you », the officer declared, extending a respectful hand.
Charly shook his hand with a weary, exhausted air:
« It's been a good twenty years since I last answered to that title, General Chronos. Just call me Charly, that will be more than enough. »
Chronos cast a suspicious glance toward the tracks where the STGV was still rushing past, then asked:
« When we entered, you were trying to haul someone out of the pit. Who was it? »
Charly stared at the moving train cars before answering:
« It was a member of the DH ARMY. I tried to pull him up, but the train was faster than me. He got crushed… foolishly. »
« Mhh… Do you think he was in league with the attackers? And what was his code name? » Chronos inquired, crossing his arms thoughtfully.
Charly shook his head negatively:
« No, he wasn't one of their accomplices. On the contrary, he did everything he could to stop the terrorists from getting their hands on the briefcase, at the peril of his life. But from what I know of their roster, it wasn't Dark Wolf, nor Ghost, nor Odin. I will explain all of this to you in detail at the DGB headquarters. I need rest. »
The old soldier walked away, joining Saul and Hotk. Chronos cast one final, pensive look at the tunnel, deeply intrigued by the existence of this mysterious DHA member whose premature death he had just learned of.
Further down the tunnel…
The STGV continued its frantic race through the depths of the city, slicing through the air at such a phenomenal velocity that the lit stations appeared as nothing more than brief flashes of light.
Yet, right ahead of this steel monster tracking at over 340 km/h, a scarlet silhouette was tearing through the darkness at an even more surreal pace. It was Infinity. And securely strapped to his back, Techno Rider lay unconscious, his broken arm dangling into the void.
The emergency signal had worked.