Yes! Finally Tycoon

The mist crept thick over the black rocks of Umbriom's coast.

Clara parked the armored car between two stone pillars. The engine shut off with a whisper, and nature's silence was restored for a few brief seconds.

She stepped out of the car with agile movements, hair tied in a rushed braid, breath heavy, gaze hardened. In her right hand, the small metallic device containing the stolen data from Tycoon.

She looked to the horizon, where a dark silhouette approached over the waters — the automated submarine, her escape route. Clara sighed in relief. She had outwitted the SH4DØW agents. She was almost free. Almost.

"We regret interrupting your escape," said a voice behind her.

Before she could react, Clara felt the air crackle around her. The shadows moved. Three figures emerged from between the rocks like specters. Cerberus.

Aeson stepped forward. Armed, visor lowered, posture firm. Beside him, Liora and Darius already encircled Clara in a precise semicircle.

"Hands up. Device on the ground. You know you won't escape again," said Liora, voice sharp.

Clara let out a dry, almost disdainful laugh. "Tycoon really does have a flair for drama… But unfortunately, you're late."

She threw the device to the ground with force. On impact, it activated and fired a burst of data in fractal encryption. Aeson and Darius immediately tried to capture the signal with their tools, but the action served as distraction. Clara pulled a small metal capsule from her belt and hurled it against the rocks.

Explosion.

A cloud of black smoke and sparks engulfed the coast. Liora recoiled, shielding her face, Aeson pivoted and tried to aim at Clara through the haze, but when the HUD focused again — she was running. Not toward the sea, but toward a drop in the rock where another vehicle waited.

At the top of the road leading to the beach, Clara's allies appeared — hooded, clad in dark uniforms bearing the insignia of radical groups. They opened fire without hesitation. Automatic rifle rounds sliced through the air, ricocheting off rocks and vehicles.

Aeson shouted orders and rolled into cover. Liora pulled two pulse grenades and hurled one toward the right flank. Darius ran in a zigzag, trying to reach the device on the ground before anyone else.

But Clara… Clara ran straight for her support vehicle. Behind her, chaos exploded. Metallic sounds, bullets cutting through the sky, and muffled screams over comms.

"Aeson, we have to secure the device!" Darius shouted, but his eyes lingered for a moment on Clara's silhouette retreating.

"Then shoot!" Aeson replied.

And he shot.

The world went into slow motion.

The bullet cut the air like a lethal whisper.

It struck Clara on the side of her head.

She fell.

Abruptly.

Like a lifeless puppet.

The body rolled twice in the wet sand before stopping face-down, blood mixing with the sea lapping the shore.

The battlefield froze for a second.

Clara's death was a catalyst.

Cries erupted among the hooded fighters.

Fury was unleashed.

Clara's allies unleashed a hailstorm of bullets against Cerberus. A fragmentation grenade exploded near Liora, forcing her to fall back while clutching her shoulder, hit by shrapnel.

Darius, ignoring the crossfire, ran to Clara's body and pulled the device from her dead hand. His helmet's visor confirmed the data was still active.

"We need to leave NOW!" he shouted.

Aeson pulled a tactical smoke screen from his belt and activated it, shrouding the area in a thick, ionized fog. Behind it, the three Cerberus members began their retreat, Darius guarding the small metallic container with everything he had.

The gunfire intensified as Tycoon support drones arrived in the region's airspace. Clara may have been dead, but the data was still the top priority.

Elsewhere in the world, at Nikoly's hidden headquarters, a red light blinked.

"Signal lost."

Nikoly rose abruptly from her chair, face pale with tension.

"Clara is dead…" she murmured. "But the device was recovered."

She pressed a button and summoned Luna. "We have Clara confirmed as dead. Cerberus got the artifact, but the data is fragmenting for security. We don't have the full copy yet. Could take hours, or days."

On the other side of the screen, Luna remained silent. Her eyes fixed on the image of Clara's corpse projected on the panel.

"Burn what's left of the operation," she said at last. "And prepare Clara's digital funeral. She may have betrayed us… but she was ours."

Hours later, storm clouds were filled with the sound of blades, engines, and shouts echoing through the narrow streets of the coastal city. Somewhere between the village and the abandoned corridors of the industrial docks, the Cerberus group raced against time.

Clara's death had set off a hornet's nest.

Her allies — dissident groups, insurgents, and dark-market defectors — were already heading for the coast. They knew Cerberus had the device. They knew that if Tycoon kept that data, their own names would be on the corporation's top priority kill list.

"Two drones down on the southern flank, and we intercepted radio chatter from at least four armed vehicles coming down the mountain road," Liora reported, her voice tense but controlled, as they crossed an abandoned container-loading zone.

"They don't just want the device — they want revenge," said Aeson, eyes fixed on the holographic route projected on his wrist panel. "Our extraction point is compromised. We'll have to improvise."

Darius, carrying the device with the stolen data in a black briefcase wrapped in three layers of bio-coded authentication, clenched his jaw as he ran. "We can hold in a tall building. I activated the emergency beacon. If Luna or Nikoly are still watching us, they'll send air evac."

Aeson nodded.

They turned into an alley, and seconds later, the sky exploded.

A barrage of homemade rockets rained down on the previous street. Flames rose like fingers of hell.

From atop the rooftops, hooded, armed figures opened fire. Rounds ricocheted off rusted container metal and abandoned vehicles.

Liora turned, raised her left arm, and fired a counter-shock pulse. Two shooters were electrocuted and fell. Another was approaching with a black, energized katana, leaping between buildings like a rabid beast.

"Damn," Darius growled, recognizing the style and weaponry.

Aeson drew two retractable wrist blades. "They'll join any faction for money. But this time, they'll die for sport."

Close-quarters combat erupted.

Blood splattered over the weathered graffiti on the walls.

Gunfire turned to screams.

And in the center of the chaos — the device.

From atop an abandoned tower, a sniper with gray hair and ebony eyes observed everything.

She aimed at Darius.

Inhaled.

Prepared to fire.

But before pulling the trigger, her rifle jammed.

"You should change brands. That gun has outdated firmware," said a serene, feminine voice behind her.

Syrah turned, but not fast enough.

A punch to the sternum, a thin bluish blade pierced her side.

The assassin fell, seeing Mara's face last — SH4DØW agent — calmly cleaning the blade.

"Target eliminated," she reported over comms.

Meanwhile, Aeson finally reached an old landing zone marked on the map. It was an open, damp field, surrounded by abandoned radio towers and rusted poles. A perfect place for ambushes… or rapid extraction.

Liora, bleeding from her shoulder, kicked open the main hangar door.

Darius followed close behind, guarding the case.

"Air flare activated," said Aeson, tossing an orange smoke grenade into the sky. "If anyone's listening, we've got five minutes."

From the other side of the hangar, the sound of tires.

An armed vehicle approached at high speed. Three insurgents fired from within with mounted machine guns.

Liora cursed and pulled Darius behind a metal structure. "We're pinned."

And then, the sound that changed everything: rotor blades.

A tactical helicopter appeared above the mist, coming from the east like a war angel. It bore Tycoon's emblem etched into its fuselage.

Two missiles launched.

The enemy vehicle exploded in flames before it reached the hangar.

Unmanned aircraft took position in the sky, firing at the last remnants of the insurgent bands.

Five minutes later, Aeson, Darius, and Liora were aboard — wounded, exhausted, but alive.

The case containing the device was secured.

Darius exhaled deeply, casting one last glance at Umbriom's dark coast fading beneath them.

—Days later — Phoenix Empire — 8 a.m.—

In Tycoon's council chamber, Luna rested her chin on her hand while observing encrypted data projected above the table. Her eyes scanned line after line, exhaustion masked by a serene expression.

Beside her, Nikoly, with visible dark circles but a proud smirk, typed furiously on her personal console.

Lumine stood with arms crossed, silent, gaze thoughtful.

Victória flipped through a tablet filled with Cryon reports.

In the center of the table, the device recovered from Clara floated in a containment field with dual biometric lock.

The door to the room opened quietly.

Aeson, Liora, and Darius entered and stood before the council. There was no ceremony — only nods exchanged.

Luna nodded back, formally.

"Congratulations on the operation," she said, her voice cold and professional. "The device was recovered. Clara is… dead."

Darius sighed. "Mission accomplished."

Nikoly stood and connected her tablet to the holographic projector at the center of the table. Lines of code rose like verticals of blue light.

"The data Clara stole was fragmented but intact. She didn't have time to sell it, fortunately. We recovered 87% of the original orbital project and AI platform data."

"And the remaining 13%?" Victória asked bluntly.

"She encrypted it before dying. I'll need about two more days to fully decode. But at least, it's not in anyone else's hands."

Luna leaned back in her chair. "Good. But this incident proved one thing: Tycoon can no longer operate solely under media scrutiny and diplomatic veils."

All eyes turned to her.

But it was Lumine who stepped forward. She stood, heels echoing softly in the room, and activated a new hologram — a 3D globe of Earth and its continents. Small red dots emerged at strategic locations: forward bases, intelligence centers, hidden embassies.

"Our military force is fragmented. We have Cerberus, Phantom Unit, Blue Lotus, Glass Angels, Team Rubrum, CyberNox… dozens of names. All effective, but scattered."

She spun the globe with her fingers, eyes firm. "I propose the complete unification of these units. A single identity. A global ghost group, operating in the shadows, without flags, without traces, without flaws. An invisible arm of Tycoon. And I want that name to be… SH4DØW."

A silence fell.

Luna raised an eyebrow, surprised by the proposal coming from Lumine.

Nikoly, meanwhile, widened her eyes and began typing frantically.

Victória smiled with narrowed eyes, as if savoring the idea.

"You want to turn Tycoon into an invisible superpower," said Lisa, leaning back.

"She wants to turn it into an invincible entity," Nikoly corrected. "And I like that."

Lumine spoke again. "SH4DØW would have full autonomy for global actions, intelligence gathering, neutralizations, and protection of classified projects. I want all other cells merged into a single operating system. Nikoly…"

Nikoly raised her eyebrows, still typing. "I'm already designing the network. It'll be a dark net encrypted with dimensional hop protocols. Untraceable even for AIs like ÆVA."

"And funding?" Victória asked, practical.

Luna gave a lazy smile. "I've got a few trillion sitting in offshore accounts. Use whatever you need."

The others smiled.

Of course Luna would say that.

She never cared about money.

"From today on," Lumine continued, "none of our secrets will ever be stolen again. Our enemies won't even know they're being hunted. SH4DØW will be the nightmare of every traitor, every faction, every corrupt government that dares infiltrate our borders."

"A force with no face. No name. No fear," Aeson murmured, reverent.

"Then it's settled," Luna said. "Unification of all covert forces under the name SH4DØW. Full council approval?"

"Approved," they all said in unison.

The globe at the center of the table vanished. In its place, the new emblem appeared: SH4DØW's icon.

And beneath it, the phrase:

"We see everything. We are nothing. We act in silence."

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