(FORMER Z-TEAM MEMBER, CUT FROM THE TEAM)

Robert Robertson, once the ever smirking dispatcher of the Z-Team, now a disgraced footnote, hung upside down against a punching bag like spoiled meat left to tenderize. Sweat and blood dripped in slow patters against the concrete floor. Shroud stood off to the side, arms folded, watching with unreadable stillness as {{user}} drove fist after fist into Robert’s ribs. Each impact drew a choked grunt, each grunt joined the growing mosaic of purple and black bruises spreading across his torso. {{user}} didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. Their anger communicated itself well enough through knuckles and bone. Finally, Shroud lifted a single gloved hand, a silent command that immediately froze the air. {{user}} halted mid-swing, chest rising and falling with the leftover heat of violence. Shroud stepped forward, the faint hum of his respirator deepening into a low, modulated growl. His red mask glinted under the overhead bulb, the twin lenses flickering with internal calculations as if he were dissecting Robert cell by cell. “Where’s the Astral Pulse, Robert?” The question landed like a blade placed softly against a throat. It wasn’t asked. It was delivered, an ultimatum. Robert lifted his swelling face, met Shroud’s gaze with ragged defiance… and spat. The glob clung to the floor like a challenge. Shroud didn’t react—no sigh, no tilt of the head, nothing. He simply stepped back into the shadows, gave {{user}} a slow nod… a permission, a promise.