From Bullets To Billions Chapter 610: The Silver Jacket

Departing the blood-stained staircase, Ramon and Darius pushed open the massive double doors to step into the Fortis gym. The facility was vast and cavernous, a design necessity given its purpose. It was constructed to accommodate the entire security team of the Billion Bloodline during their training sessions. Since their corporate security operations were notoriously brutal, most of the staff spent the better part of their days sweating inside this arena.

Due to the building's immense scale, the two Syndicate leaders were not first struck by the sight of the heavy equipment, but by the symphony of noises echoing off the walls.

Rhythmic, strained grunts overlapped with the sound of ragged, heavy breathing. Then, the sharp, unmistakable CRACK of tempered steel colliding with steel resounded through the air.

"What on earth is transpiring here?" Ramon questioned, his brow furrowing as his gaze swept across the lines of weight racks and treadmills.

Suddenly, a streak of dark leather hurtled from the rear of the gym. A man flew across the mat, slamming into the center of the room and skidding along the rubberized flooring until he came to a jolting, painful stop.

"Ah... that certainly hurt," Skull grunted, clutching at his bruised ribs beneath his mangled leather jacket.

"Skull," Ramon articulated coldly, halting a few strides away to stare down at his prized, exorbitantly paid assassin. "Why are you wallowing on the floor?"

Skull whipped his head toward Ramon and Darius. Upon seeing them, his eyes widened, and guided by raw survival instinct, he executed a sharp, desperate roll.

A split second later, a heavy steel baton descended from above, slamming into the exact rubber tile where Skull’s head had rested a moment prior. Towering over the dented floor and stepping into the stark, fluorescent light was a man clad in the same distinctive uniform as the Rangers, though this one wore a radiant Silver Jacket.

’We possess absolutely no intel on this one,’ Darius thought, his tactical mind processing the man’s flawless posture. ’Jett’s infiltration report covered every known Ranger, so why is this silver-clad operative missing from our archives?’

Refusing to remain cornered, Skull lashed out from his prone position, launching a sweeping kick aimed at Aron’s knees. Aron simply elevated his foot with practiced ease, allowing the sweep to pass harmlessly beneath him.

As soon as Skull scrambled back to his feet, Aron launched a counter-offensive. He unleashed a blinding barrage of calculated, precise baton strikes. Skull managed to deflect several rapid hits with his brass knuckles, sparks flying with every impact, but the assassin’s defense eventually faltered. Aron landed a powerful front-push kick squarely into Skull’s chest, launching him backward into a massive iron squat rack.

"I apologize profusely, Boss!" Skull gasped, coughing as he wove through the exercise equipment to widen the gap between himself and the Silver Ranger. "I never anticipated... finding another operative of my caliber hidden within this building! That is the sole reason this is exceeding the fifteen minutes I promised!"

Both Darius and Ramon were intimately familiar with the terrifying depth of Skull’s lethality. Seeing him driven onto the defensive caused a dark, shifting reaction in both leaders.

The Bloodline group was clearly far more dangerous than their initial assessments suggested, and they needed to be eradicated immediately before this resistance ignited a city-wide uprising.

Ramon glanced to his side, spotting a rack of cast-iron free weights. Extending his mechanical arm, he plucked a heavy 10-kilogram dumbbell. The hydraulic servos housed within his pristine white lab coat whirred to life. With a flick of his wrist, he launched the iron weight through the air with the velocity and kinetic force of a cannonball.

When Aron caught sight of the dark projectile rocketing toward him, his elite reflexes engaged. He dove to the side, taking sanctuary behind a thick, stationary chest-press machine.

CLANG!

The 10kg dumbbell smashed into the equipment, crushing the heavy steel frame inward before clattering onto the rubber floor.

’That sheer power... the output is significantly higher than those grunts wearing the same suits downstairs,’ Aron analyzed, peering past the mangled machinery. ’The man in the glasses must be the head of the entire Syndicate.’

Wasting no time, Aron utilized a reinforced bench press as a foothold. He vaulted over the apparatus, sprinting aggressively through the maze of iron.

He could see the man in the white lab coat pulling more heavy dumbbells from the rack and hurling them with deadly precision.

Aron navigated the heavy projectiles with fluid, almost supernatural grace. It was akin to dodging high-caliber rounds; he had to read the minute shifts in Ramon’s shoulders to predict the trajectory and narrowly sidestep each fatal blow.

Eventually, Aron closed the distance. Rotating his body to generate maximum torque, he swung his steel baton in a lethal arc, aiming for Ramon’s exposed face.

Ramon did not flinch. He raised his mechanical arm, blocking the bone-crushing blow with his armored forearm. The steel rang out, yet Ramon stood firm. Immediately after taking the impact, his other hydraulic hand snapped out like a viper, clamping onto the center of the baton.

Aron was trapped. Sensing the overwhelming strength of the mechanical grip, he had no choice but to release the handle, leaping backward to avoid a lethal counter-attack.

"These primitive, dull objects?" Ramon sneered, examining the stolen baton. "Let us see how you manage without them."

Ramon tightened his grip and effortlessly bent the thick steel in half, tossing the ruined weapon to the ground.

That was when Skull emerged from the shadows, stepping quietly behind Aron to cut off his retreat.

"Fine... it is clear I am a bit out of practice," Skull muttered, cracking his aching neck. "I left that hellish training camp not long ago, but it is blatantly obvious from your textbook technique that you are either a fresh, highly trained recruit, or... you are a Single Digit operative, just like me."

The grim reality of the standoff set in. Aron was left with only one steel baton. Before him stood Ramon, encased in his top-tier exoskeleton, and behind him waited a lethal Single Digit member of the Black Hand.

As Aron scanned the room, a chilling realization occurred to him.

"What... you have finally noticed someone is missing?" Ramon asked, a dark, triumphant smirk widening on his face as he watched Aron’s eyes move toward the empty doorway. "I heard Darius had a brutal scuffle with your beloved boss before, and it did not end well for him. He has gone upstairs to settle the score while we occupy you. I suggest you worry about your own survival before you concern yourself with Max."