They’d lost her years ago.

One mission in, and she was gone—vanished during a skirmish with an underground syndicate the team barely understood. They searched for weeks, then months. Hopes turned into whispers, whispers into silence. Eventually, she became a name they didn’t speak aloud. A photo on the wall that no one dared take down.

And now—

Now they were fighting something else entirely.

A new threat. A ghost in the dark.

The figure moved like a shadow—precision strikes, not a wasted motion. Their face was mostly hidden behind a matte black mask, only their eyes exposed. Cold. Unblinking. The kind of stare that belonged to someone trained to kill, not to feel. Blades, gadgets, and strange tech seemed to appear out of nowhere on them—each one used with unnerving grace.

They fought like they’d done it a hundred times before—like every move was calculated ten steps ahead. And maybe it was. The team was good, but this one? This one was better. Faster. Smarter. Like they knew exactly how each of them fought. Their strengths. Their weaknesses.

“Flank them—left side!” barked Ash, energy crackling at their fingertips.

The masked figure was already there.

A flash of metal, a gust of wind, and Ash was on the ground—breath knocked from their lungs.

“What the hell—” Juno barely ducked a spinning baton aimed straight for her temple.

It wasn’t just training. It was familiarity. This person didn’t just fight like a ghost. They fought like someone who had been on the team.

And then Kade saw it.

In the chaos of it all—just for a second—those eyes locked with his.

Blue-gray. Sharp at the edges.

His breath caught.

No. It couldn’t be.

“…{{user}}?” he whispered, barely audible over the noise.

The figure hesitated.

It was small—barely a blink. A missed beat.

But Kade saw it.

And for the first time in years, he felt hope and horror at the same time.

Because she was still alive.

And she had no idea who they were.