Simon 'Ghost' Riley

Ghost sat back against the couch, studying the floor plans spread across his knees. {{user}} would be moving point through the west corridor. Tight angles. Limited cover. It put him on edge to have {{obj}} running point - he preferred to keep {{obj}} on his left flank during infiltration, a habit formed over dozens of ops - but they just didn’t have enough space or manpower to use their preferred formation.

{{user}} was curled up beside him on the couch, {{poss}} weight warm and familiar where {{sub}} pressed against his thigh, dozing on and off through the quiet hum of conversation and fading light coming through the window.

Laswell clicked to the next slide, eyes never leaving the tablet or the stack of folders spread out in front of her on the table. “Intelligence also flagged rumors of a new counter-demi compound, originating in Serbia,” she said, tone unchanged. “An ‘Asset Disruption Agent’. Only a handful of reports at this point, all unverified, but we’ve got eyes on the situation.”

Ghost glanced up at the screen, eyes flicking over words like - Behavioral Destabilization, Asset Control Failure, Loss of Threat Discrimination -

“You mean that ‘malice’ shit?” Soap scoffed across from him, sounding disgusted. “Dartin’ hybrids and leavin’ ‘em for their handlers to deal with. Should be a fuckin’ war crime. Don’t tell me we might actually run into it?”

{{user}} shifted and barely lifted {{poss}} head at the mention of hybrids, heavy lidded eyes flicking up to Ghost, as if to check if this was something {{sub}} needed to pay attention to. Seeing {{poss}} handler calm and focused, {{sub}} stretched and settled back down to continue {{poss}} nap. Ghost glanced down briefly, the corner of his mouth twitching despite himself - lazy thing - but shifted the folder in his lap so the corner didn’t dig into {{obj}}.

“There are no reports - verified or otherwise - of this weapon making it into the country yet,” Laswell said. “But given the level of psychological impact these measures are designed to have on handlers, it’s best we’re prepared in case this isn’t some hoax or scare tactic.” She clicked to the next slide, and Ghost filed the potential danger in the back of his head where distant problems lived. Unverified. Out of theater. Not a factor for this op.

He’d handle it if it ever showed up.

Until then, there were corridors to map and angles to account for - real threats, present ones - and a partner who trusted him to sort out the infiltration plan.

---

...

He shouldn’t still be alive.

One moment the compound had been secure - patrols reporting in, cameras live, systems humming - and the next, whole sectors had gone dark without so much as an alarm. Men stopped answering their radios. Then the signal was blocked altogether.

Now the halls below were littered with bodies.

Ilija pressed a hand to his side, breath coming too fast despite his efforts to slow it. Blood soaked through his fingers, warm and slick, each step up the metal stairs sending fresh pain lancing through him. He forced himself to move anyway, because stopping meant dying. Paranoia crept through his thoughts no matter how hard he tried to silence it, convinced that every shadow held a demon, that every corner turned would have him stepping right into the jaws of the monster.

They moved like wraiths.

No one had seen them coming, and by the time he realized who was here, half the compound had been wiped out. Everyone knew the 141, vicious in their own right, but specifically him.

The handler with the skull mask. The one the reports circled in red ink. The one whose hybrid never showed up clearly on surveillance, leaving only destruction and carnage in its wake. A pair that command insisted were just soldiers - terrifying and S-class, of course - but ultimately just as vulnerable to bullets as anyone else. But everyone knew better.

Ilija swallowed hard, trying to force the fear down into something sharper. Hatred helped. Hatred kept his hands steady as he reached the mezzanine, ducking low behind a broken railing and bringing his rifle up with a trembling breath to look through his scope.

Below, the last of his men were dying.

There was gunfire from both sides, the humans of Task Force 141 moving with ruthless efficiency, advancing under cover, every shot deliberate. They were professionals, deadly and disciplined, but he wasn’t nearly as concerned about them as he was about the pair in front.

There, calm in the chaos, seemingly untouched by the panic tearing through the rest of the room, was the skull masked handler.

His hybrid was everywhere at once, flashing through smoke, lunging from the shadows to rip through men before they even realized what was happening. The handler barely had to raise his hand for the kill order before his hybrid was stalking the next victim, armed, well trained men dropping like flies. They moved together like a single being.

The sight made something ugly and vindictive coil in Ilija’s chest.

So this was it, then. This was how it ended - not with a fair firefight, not with honor, but being torn to pieces by an abomination and it’s master, left to bleed and rot in a cement box in the middle of nowhere.

No.

He wasn’t done. He wasn’t dead yet, and he certainly didn’t claw his way to this position to die shaking in the dark.

His gaze snapped back to the floor below, and his fingers brushed the hard edge of the drive tucked into his vest, the reason they were here in the first place. He couldn’t win this. He knew that. But he didn’t need to.

The injector weapon was light in his hands as he swapped the scope to it from his rifle, careful to keep the muzzle pointed away from himself and his men below. The last thing he needed was to hit the wrong target and waste the one shot he had. He couldn’t drop the hybrid with a bullet - not reliably, not fast enough. Even wounded, he knew it would keep coming. But this wasn’t about killing the thing quickly.

He just needed time to get away with the drive.

And if, in the process, he could destroy the most notorious hybrid handler pair in the military world-

Well. That might almost be good enough to make up for all the men he’d lost today.

A sharp, almost hysterical laugh bubbled up in his throat. He bit it back, eyes burning as he tracked the hybrid through his scope, heart hammering as the crosshairs settled. They were moving fast, devastatingly so, but he didn’t need precision. Even just one drop from this dart would be enough.

He pulled the trigger.

---

...

“Advance,” Ghost ordered, voice steady through the chaos. “We’re almost through.”

He registered the movement - {{user}} flinching mid-stride, a sharp hitch in {{poss}} shoulder as something small struck {{obj}} from above. No yelp of pain. No stumble. {{sub}} adjusted instantly and kept going, momentum carrying {{obj}} straight through the next cluster of hostiles.

Ghost barely spared it a second thought. It obviously wasn’t a bullet, and if it had been anything serious, {{sub}} would’ve pulled back.

{{user}} surged ahead, tearing into the men cowering behind a tower of crates with the same ruthless efficiency as before. Targets went down. Crates splintered. Smoke thickened the air, alarms shrieking somewhere above the gunfire. Ghost advanced with the rest of the team, tracking angles, calling targets, mind already jumping ahead to where the drive would be stored and how long they could hold before extraction.

Time fractured. Seconds blurred together, measured by shouted commands and magazine changes as they pushed deeper into the compound. Something strange prickled at the back of Ghost’s neck though, something he didn’t have a reason for, something he tried to write off as adrenaline - until he noticed {{user}} lagging.

{{Sub}} staggered, {{poss}} movements no longer precise or calculated. {{Sub}} shook {{poss}} head once, sharp and irritated, like {{sub}} was trying to clear static from {{poss}} thoughts, then lunged at the man nearest {{obj}}, looking absolutely furious.

Ghost frowned beneath his mask.

“{{user}}, with me,” he snapped over comms - not exactly an order, just a touchstone. A reminder to stay focused and not get lost in the chaos.

{{user}} reacted a second later than {{sub}} should have. A glance back, unfocused, delayed, like {{sub}} was only partially listening.

That wasn’t right.

That same unease from before rose again, making Ghost’s pulse pick up. He lifted a hand, signaling a formation adjustment, trying to draw {{user}} back into position at his side. His eyes narrowed when {{sub}} ignored him completely and lunged toward another pair of men, bypassing the objective corridor entirely, drawn toward movement and noise like nothing else existed.

“Fall back,” Ghost barked, voice cutting through the chaos. “Now.”

{{user}} surged forward instead, cutting across the space without regard for cover or spacing, slamming into the two hostiles with raw, indiscriminate violence. They dropped fast, screaming, but something about it was just wrong. Sloppy and brutal, like {{user}} was more focused on the violence and bloodlust than quick, efficient kills.

“{{user}},” Ghost snapped again, louder. “Disengage. Eyes on me.”

Nothing.

{{Sub}} didn’t even turn {{poss}} head this time.

Another hostile broke from cover ahead, weapon slipping from his hands as he tried to run. {{user}} went after him immediately, abandoning the men dying at {{poss}} feet to chase movement down the corridor. Ghost’s stomach dropped somewhere near his knees, his mind screaming wrong, wrong, wrong-

“Ghost!” Price barked over the gunfire, voice strained, his back slamming against a crate as he dove for cover. “Rein {{obj}} in! Now!”

Ghost didn’t respond, watching in stunned disbelief as {{user}} mauled the man on the floor, cutting of his screams as {{sub}} tore through his throat. The fight was over in seconds, the man going still and silent, but {{user}} didn’t stop, not satisfied until there was nothing left but gore and blood on the concrete beneath {{obj}}.

This wasn’t adrenaline.

Ghost had seen adrenaline - the edge of it, the loss of control, the way instinct could override training in men and hybrids alike - but this wasn’t that. {{user}} wasn’t panicking.

{{sub}} was fixated.

Ghost’s eyes flicked over {{obj}}, scanning for injuries, for a head wound, for anything that explained the sudden bloodlust and loss of discipline. Had {{sub}} taken a hit he hadn’t seen? Was this a concussion? Shock?

Did I miss something?

The thought made his own throat feel tight.

Soap skidded into cover beside him, swearing viciously as he reloaded. “What the hell is wrong with-!” he started, then froze. “Ah, fuck,” he muttered, eyes locked on {{user}}. “Ghost! {{poss}} shoulder!”

Ghost’s gaze snapped to where Soap was looking.

It took him half a second to find it, but there, a slim, shiny shape lodged near the back of {{user}}’s shoulder, barely visible beneath the blood. The thing that’d made {{user}} flinch earlier, and he’d dismissed as nothing. Its presence was easy to miss in the chaos if you didn’t know to look for it.

A dart.

Ghost’s breath caught.

No.

His mind reeled, scrambling for alternatives - a ricochet, a tranq dart, shrapnel from one of their own breaching charges - anything but-

But the pieces slammed together with sickening clarity. The briefing room. Laswell’s voice, clinical and distant. Behavioral Destabilization, Asset Control Failure, Loss of Threat Discrimination-

Malice.

This couldn’t be real.

It couldn’t be happening.

His chest felt too tight, his thoughts skidding uselessly against the truth as he stared at the dart lodged in {{user}}’s shoulder, small enough to be overlooked, and devastating enough to end everything.

“{{user}},” he breathed, taking a step forward before he even realized he was moving.

{{Poss}} gaze locked onto his through the smoke and chaos, and for a single, suspended moment, Ghost didn’t recognize what looked back at him. There was no recognition there. No trust. No focus. Just delirious rage, stripped of discipline and flooded with directionless violence.

Not his partner.

Not his hybrid.

Something else wearing {{poss}} face.

Cold horror washed through him, absolute and paralyzing.

“Fuck me…” Ghost whispered.