Late Night. Chinatown, Los Angeles.
In a dimly lit apartment, Hunter Sun stood by the bedside, gazing down at Tally. She was deep in a peaceful, rhythmic sleep. He brushed a stray hair from her cheek—a fleeting gesture of tenderness—before the mask of the cold calculator slid back into place.
He dressed in silence and slipped out into the cool night air.
Hunter knew Stansfield was about to explode. The corrupt agent was a cornered animal, and animals bit when trapped. But that wasn't enough. Hunter didn't just want a bite; he wanted a massacre. He needed to turn Los Angeles into a war zone so chaotic that the FBI would be paralyzed, their resources stretched too thin to even remember his name.
Tonight, he wasn't just a painter or a thief. He was a force of nature.
He moved through the shadows, finding a public restroom blocks away. Minutes later, he emerged with a new face and a new demeanor, heading for his first waypoint.
For the past ten days, while the FBI had been watching him, he had been watching them back. He had memorized the faces of the agents tailing him. He had followed them home. He had tracked the mid-level DEA supervisors who took cuts from the cartels.
And today, with the data from Stansfield's stolen ledgers, he had expanded his hit list: A gang lord who supplied Stansfield's product, and two city officials—a Councilman and a bureaucrat—who were on Stansfield's payroll.
The water was already muddy. Hunter was about to turn it into a swamp.
He retrieved his modified motorcycle from his Inventory and rode to a quiet street in the suburbs. Stashing the bike in a dark alley, he assessed his surroundings.
Across the street stood a three-story apartment complex.
Hunter moved to the opposing building, scaling the exterior pipes and AC units with the unnatural agility of his enhanced stats. He reached the roof of the five-story structure effortlessly.
He pulled a military-grade night-vision scope from his Inventory. Through the green phosphor lens, he scanned the third-floor window of the target building.
Inside, a man was sleeping soundly. An FBI field agent. One of the men who had spent the last week logging Hunter's every move.
"Bad luck," Hunter whispered.
He wasn't killing the man out of spite. He was sending a message. He wanted the FBI to feel fear. He wanted them to know they weren't the hunters anymore.
Hunter summoned the Remington M700 PSS sniper rifle from his Inventory. It was one of the weapons he had liberated from Stansfield's bunker—a DEA-issued rifle, serialized and traceable to the stolen cache.
The range was less than fifty meters. He didn't need the scope, but he used it anyway. Professionalism was a habit.
He lined up the crosshairs on the sleeping agent's chest.
Crack.
The suppressed shot was a dull thud in the night, but the impact was absolute. The .308 round punched through the window and into the agent's chest. The man twitched once, and then lay still.
Lights flickered on in neighboring units. Panic began to spread.
Hunter didn't flee immediately. He calmly stowed the rifle but left the spent brass casing on the roof. It was a breadcrumb. Ballistics would match it to the DEA's missing armory, tying the murder directly to Stansfield's negligence.
He descended the building, sprinted a hundred meters into the darkness, retrieved his bike, and vanished.
Twenty minutes later. A second gunshot echoed in a different district.
Fifty minutes later. A third.
Ninety minutes later. A fourth.
Two hours later. A fifth.
Three hours later. A High-End Residential Complex.
Hunter picked the lock of a luxury apartment and ghosted inside. In his right hand, a suppressed pistol. In his left, a spray bottle filled with liquid Sevoflurane.
He swept the rooms with military precision. Two children's bedrooms. He didn't hurt them; he simply misted the air above their beds with the anesthetic to ensure they slept through the trauma. He was a killer, not a monster.
He moved to the master bedroom. Moonlight bathed the bed where a middle-aged white couple slept—the corrupt Councilman and his wife.
Hunter held his breath and saturated the air around their faces with the knockout gas. Once their breathing deepened into a chemical coma, he picked up a pillow.
He placed it gently over the Councilman's face. He pressed the muzzle of the suppressor into the downy fabric.
Thwip.
Hunter turned and walked out the front door without looking back.
One hour later. A Dilapidated Tenement Building.
Hunter stood on the roof of a seven-story slum tower. He secured a rappelling rope to a vent pipe, tested the knot, and then moved to the roof access door. It was padlocked.
He picked it in seconds and descended the stairs into the gloom.
As he neared the seventh-floor landing, he paused. He retrieved a flash-bang grenade—another DEA souvenir—from his Inventory.
He peeked around the corner. Two hulking enforcers armed with submachine guns were guarding a reinforced door, looking bored and tired.
Hunter pulled the pin, cooked the grenade for two seconds, and lobbed it.
It clattered to their feet. Before they could even register the sound—
BOOM.
The explosion rocked the stairwell, the concussion wave slamming the guards against the walls.
Hunter didn't wait for the smoke to clear. He surged forward, ignoring the groaning bodies on the floor. He stopped in front of the reinforced steel door, now warped from the blast but still holding.
He channeled his strength—three times that of a normal man—into his right leg and kicked.
The door flew off its hinges with a screech of tearing metal.
Hunter raised his pistol and stepped into the breach.
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