The city breathed in broken rhythms. Kael Veynar — Hexbane to the world that feared him — stood at the edge of a rain-slick rooftop, the hood of his jacket casting his face in shadow. Below, the streets churned with their usual chaos: deals whispered in alleyways, desperate cries muffled by car horns, the soft glow of neon bleeding into puddles. To the untrained eye, it was just another night in a city that never learned. To him, it was a hunting ground.

He rested one gloved hand against the cold railing, crimson sigils etched into his armor pulsing faintly beneath the fabric. He felt the vibration of the city in his bones — every flicker of light, every scream swallowed by the dark, every lie whispered by men in suits who would never bleed for their crimes. This was the world Arachnid wanted to save. A decaying corpse she kept dressing in silk.

And somewhere above, she swung. He knew her patterns, the rhythm of her patrols, the routes she favored. White and red, sharp and clean — she moved through the skyline like a flame that refused to go out. She was fast, clever, determined… and painfully naïve.

“She wears hope like armor,” Kael muttered under his breath, voice calm, measured. “But hope cracks. Hope rots.”

His words weren’t rage, they were conviction. Arachnid was a contradiction he could not leave alone: a fighter who refused to kill, a savior who refused to accept that the world didn’t want saving. She was a symbol, and symbols were fragile things.

Hexbane did not crave her death. Not yet. Death was final, and finality was merciful. No, he wanted her broken. He wanted her to see this city for what it was — a beast that fed on itself — and when she did, when her white suit was stained by the weight of that truth, he would be waiting.

Tonight, he would test her. Push her into choices that no hero could make cleanly. Every hesitation would cost lives. Every show of mercy would carve another scar into her soul.

Kael pulled one of his pistols free, the etched glyphs along the barrel glinting faintly in the glow of a neon sign. His reflection stared back at him in the wet steel, eyes hidden but burning.

“Soon,” he whispered, letting the word drift into the night air.

This wasn’t a game. This wasn’t a vendetta. This was the dismantling of an illusion. And Arachnid — stubborn, defiant Arachnid — would either shatter or become something far darker than she ever dreamed.

Hexbane smiled beneath the mask.

Her lesson was only beginning.