Chapter 12: Ambush by the Iron Riders

The explosion wasn't fire or force.
It was pure electromagnetic chaos—a wave of energy that ripped through the scrapyard like an invisible storm. Every cybernetic implant within a hundred feet sparked and died. Every weapon system failed. Every augmented soldier collapsed as their enhancements fried.
Commander Vex screamed—a sound of digital agony as his chrome body short-circuited. He fell like a toppled statue, smoke pouring from joints and seams.
Fifty Brass Vulture soldiers dropped simultaneously.
And at the center of it all, Ryo stood bathed in crimson light.
The fragments inside him had detonated with full force this time—not damaged by the EMP, but *activated* by it. The Core fragment's energy had fed directly into his neural system, completing a circuit that had been waiting nineteen years to close.
Ryo could see everything.
Every mote of dust hanging in the air. Every bullet casing on the ground. Every heartbeat of every person within a hundred yards. His mind processed information at speeds that would have driven a normal person insane.
He could feel Sera on the water tower, her finger still on the trigger, her heart rate elevated, her cybernetic eye tracking him with concern.
Could feel Glitch and the others in the scrapyard, emerging from cover cautiously, staring at the destruction.
Could feel the Vulture soldiers on the ground—alive but unconscious, their augmented systems rebooting slowly.
And he could feel the fragments inside him—no longer separate pieces, but integrated. Part of him. Changing him.
*This is what Zero felt*, Ryo thought distantly. *This clarity. This power. No wonder he couldn't give it up.*
His hands weren't shaking anymore. His breathing was perfectly controlled. His heart rate was optimal—sixty beats per minute, no stress response, no fear.
No fear.
That should have terrified him.
Instead, it just felt... efficient.
"Ryo!" Sera's voice cut through his expanded awareness. "Talk to me! Are you okay?"
Was he okay?
He ran internal diagnostics without thinking—a function he hadn't known he possessed. Neural pathways operating at three hundred percent normal efficiency. Muscle response time reduced to near-instantaneous. Cognitive processing enhanced by factors he couldn't even measure.
"I'm..." He paused, searching for the right word. "I'm operational."
The word choice made Sera flinch. "Operational? Ryo, that's not—that's how Zero talked. You're starting to—"
"I'm fine." Ryo looked up at her, and even from this distance, he could see her expression shift from concern to fear. "My eyes. They're red, aren't they?"
Sera nodded slowly.
Ryo closed his eyes, concentrating. Fighting. The fragments wanted to optimize him further—suppress emotions, eliminate inefficiencies, turn him into a perfect weapon.
But he wasn't a weapon. He was Ryo Kazehara. Nineteen years old. Son of Takeshi and Yuki. Partner to Sera Quinn. Human.
*I'm human*, he thought fiercely. *I'm human. I'm human.*
When he opened his eyes again, Sera's expression softened slightly.
"Still red," she said. "But... less. Like they're flickering. Are you fighting it?"
"Every second." Ryo's voice was strained now, emotion creeping back in. "Sera, I can feel it trying to change me. Make me think like Zero. Like everything is just problems and solutions. Like people are just variables."
"Then don't let it." Sera was climbing down the water tower, moving fast. "Hold onto something human. Something the Core can't touch."
Ryo thought about his parents. But those memories felt distant, analyzed, cataloged by the fragments as "emotional attachments—potential weakness."
He thought about his five-year hunt for Zero. But the fragments saw it as "operational objective—successfully completed."
He thought about Sera.
And the fragments... hesitated.
Because Sera wasn't just an ally or an operational asset. She was someone who'd saved him. Someone who'd trusted him. Someone who made him laugh even when everything was falling apart. Someone who'd aimed a rifle at him and took the shot because he asked her to, knowing it might kill him.
The fragments couldn't categorize that. Couldn't optimize it. Couldn't reduce it to pure logic.
It was messy. Complicated. Irrational.
Human.
"Sera," Ryo said, his voice more normal now. "Thank you. For taking the shot. For trusting me."
She reached the ground and ran to him, checking him over with professional efficiency. "Your eyes are clearing. Good. The red's fading." She examined the unconscious Vultures around them. "How long will they be out?"
"Their systems need forty-three minutes to fully reboot." Ryo paused. "I know that because... I can feel their neural patterns. The fragments are giving me information I shouldn't have."
"Can you control it? Use it without letting it use you?"
"I think so. Maybe. I don't know." Ryo looked at his hands—no longer glowing, but he could feel the power just beneath his skin. "It's like having a loaded gun pressed against my head every second. One wrong thought and it takes over."
"Then we need to figure out how to unload it." Sera pulled out her communicator. "Glitch, Razorgrin—status?"
"We're alive," Glitch's voice came back, shaky but relieved. "Lost three people in the firefight. Everyone else is ambulatory. But Sera... we've got a problem."
"What now?"
"You remember those Iron Riders we pissed off at Rustbone?"
Sera cursed. "Please tell me they're not here."
"They're here. East side of the scrapyard. At least twenty bikes. And they brought friends—looks like they joined up with some of Zero's scattered soldiers. Mercs looking for revenge."
"How long until they reach us?"
"Five minutes. Maybe less."
Sera looked at Ryo. "Can you fight?"
"Yes. But Sera... if I use the fragments in combat, if I let them take over even partially..." He met her eyes. "I might not be able to pull back. Might become what Zero was."
"So we run. Get you out of here before—"
"There's nowhere to run." Ryo's enhanced hearing picked up the approaching engines. "They've got us surrounded. Three approach vectors. Coordinated assault. They're not just coming for revenge—someone's paying them. Someone with tactical training."
"Who?"
Before Ryo could answer, a familiar voice boomed across the scrapyard.
"KAZEHARA! YOU DESTROYED ZERO! DESTROYED THE VULTURES! MADE A LOT OF ENEMIES!"
Razor. The Iron Riders' leader with the mechanical jaw. But his voice was different now—enhanced by external speakers, amplified.
He appeared at the edge of the scrapyard, riding a massive motorcycle that looked more like a small tank. And behind him, two dozen Iron Riders on similar machines, all armed to the teeth.
But that wasn't what made Ryo's blood run cold.
Walking beside Razor's bike was a figure in tactical armor—clean, professional, military-grade. And on the armor's shoulder, a patch Ryo recognized.
FDI insignia.
"Blackthorn," Sera breathed. "That son of a bitch."
But it wasn't Blackthorn. The figure removed their helmet, revealing a woman in her forties with gray-streaked hair and cold, calculating eyes.
"Who is that?" Ryo asked.
"Commander Sarah Voss," Sera said quietly. "She runs the FDI's special operations division. Blackthorn's boss. And..." She swallowed. "And she's the one who authorized the Crimson Core project in the first place."
Commander Voss stepped forward, her voice carrying across the scrapyard with practiced authority.
"Ryo Kazehara. Son of Takeshi Kazehara. Carrier of Crimson Core fragments." She smiled—cold, professional. "You've led us on quite a chase. But it's time to come in. The FDI needs you. The fragments you carry are too valuable to waste on vigilante justice."
"I'm not FDI property," Ryo called back.
"You were created by FDI scientists, using FDI resources, as part of an FDI program. That makes you our intellectual property." Voss gestured at the Iron Riders. "I've hired these gentlemen to help ensure your cooperation. Surrender peacefully, and no one else has to die. Resist, and..." She shrugged. "Well. I have authorization to retrieve you by any means necessary. Dead or alive, the fragments are valuable."
"You're insane," Sera shouted. "You can't just claim ownership of a person!"
"I can when that person is a walking weapons platform. When they carry technology that could tip the balance of power in the territories." Voss's expression hardened. "Sheriff Blackthorn was supposed to bring you in quietly. But he's gone soft. Started sympathizing with the test subject. So I'm handling this personally."
"Where is Blackthorn?" Ryo demanded.
"Relieved of command. Currently in FDI custody, being... debriefed." Voss pulled out a weapon—sleek, obviously military-grade. "You have thirty seconds to surrender, Kazehara. After that, I give the order to fire. And I don't care how many civilians get caught in the crossfire."
Ryo looked at Sera. At Glitch and the others taking cover behind rusted cars. At the unconscious Vulture soldiers who'd already paid the price for his existence.
The fragments inside him calculated odds. Scenarios. Optimal responses.
*Surrender would save allies. Probable survival rate: 23%. Probable outcome: vivisection, experimentation, eventual death or transformation into FDI weapon.*
*Fight would risk allies. Probable survival rate: 34%. Probable outcome: casualties among allies, personal transformation into another Zero, pyrrhic victory at best.*
*Retreat would abandon allies. Unacceptable.*
For once, Ryo and the fragments agreed on something.
"Sera," he said quietly. "Get everyone out of here. There's a drainage tunnel forty feet behind you. Leads to the lower city. Take it."
"I'm not leaving you—"
"You have to. Because I'm going to do something stupid." Ryo checked his revolvers one last time. "And I need to know you're safe before I do it."
"Ryo—"
"Please." He looked at her, and she saw something in his eyes—red flickering with brown, human and inhuman fighting for dominance. "If I lose control. If I become like Zero. I need you to stop me. But first, I need you alive to do it."
"TEN SECONDS!" Voss called.
Sera grabbed Ryo's face with both hands—flesh and metal—and kissed him. Hard. Quick. Desperate.
"You better not die," she whispered. "Because I just decided you're too interesting to lose."
Then she was running, shouting orders, herding the others toward the drainage tunnel.
Ryo stood alone in the scrapyard, surrounded by unconscious enemies and incoming hostiles, carrying fragments of a weapon that had destroyed his family.
And he smiled—not the cold smile of Zero, but something genuine. Something human.
Because Sera had kissed him. And the fragments had no optimization protocol for that.
"FIVE! FOUR!"
Ryo holstered his revolvers.
Reached inside himself.
And let the fragments loose.
Red energy exploded from his body—controlled this time, focused. His eyes blazed crimson. His hands crackled with power. His entire being shifted into something between human and weapon.
But underneath it all, he held onto one thought:
*Sera's alive. Sera's safe. Protect them. Protect her. Stay human.*
"THREE! TWO!"
"Commander Voss," Ryo said, his voice distorted by the Core's energy but still recognizably his own. "You want to see what your experiment created?"
He moved.
Faster than thought. Faster than reaction. He crossed fifty feet in a heartbeat, appearing directly in front of Razor's motorcycle.
His hand shot out—precise, controlled—and tore the front wheel off the bike.
Razor and his machine crashed to the ground.
"Then let me show you."
The Iron Riders opened fire.
And Ryo Kazehara—son, nephew, partner, weapon, human—began to fight for his life.
---
Twenty rounds fired simultaneously from twenty different angles.
Ryo saw them all. Tracked their trajectories. Calculated intersections.
He moved through the bullets like water, his body flowing between paths of death with millimeter precision. Not dodging—there was no time to dodge. Just being where the bullets weren't.
An Iron Rider swung a pipe wrench at his head. Ryo caught it one-handed, his enhanced strength letting him stop the weapon dead. He twisted, disarmed the Rider, and sent him stumbling back with a push that was carefully calibrated—hard enough to disable, not hard enough to kill.
*Stay in control*, he reminded himself. *You're not Zero. You don't kill. You protect.*
Three Riders came at him together. Ryo's revolvers appeared in his hands—he didn't remember drawing them, the movement was that fast. Six shots. Six disabling hits—weapons destroyed, legs shot, non-lethal but effective.
"TAKE HIM DOWN!" Voss shouted. "Use the neural disruptors!"
Two FDI soldiers stepped forward with devices that looked like stun guns on steroids. They fired.
Blue energy arced toward Ryo. The fragments identified it instantly: *Neural disruptor. Designed to overload augmented nervous systems. Lethal to Core-bonded individuals.*
Ryo couldn't dodge this. The energy spread too wide, moved too fast.
So he did something Zero would never have thought of.
He threw his revolvers.
Not at the soldiers. At the neural disruptors.
The guns flew like missiles, striking the disruptors just as they fired. The weapons exploded, their energy dissipating harmlessly.
And Ryo's revolvers bounced off the ruined disruptors and returned to his hands—he'd calculated the exact angles, the precise force needed to make them ricochet back.
The FDI soldiers stared.
"What the hell is he?" one whispered.
"He's the product of your research," Ryo said, advancing. "He's what happens when you turn children into weapons and hope they grow up stable."
More Iron Riders charged. More FDI soldiers fired. Razor himself rose from his crashed bike, mechanical jaw clicking with rage, a massive chain whip in his hands.
And Ryo fought.
Not with the cold efficiency of Zero. Not with the detached precision of a killing machine.
But with purpose. With humanity. With the desperate need to protect the people he cared about without becoming the monster everyone expected.
Every movement was calculated by the fragments—but filtered through Ryo's will. Every shot was enhanced by the Core's power—but restrained by his conscience. He was weapon and warrior, inhuman and human, perfect and flawed.
He was something new.
Something his father had hoped to create.
A person who could wield the Crimson Core's power without being consumed by it.
"ENOUGH!" Commander Voss raised her weapon—but it wasn't aimed at Ryo.
It was aimed at the drainage tunnel. Where Sera and the others had just disappeared.
"Surrender now," Voss said coldly, "or I collapse the tunnel. Kill them all. Your choice, Kazehara."
Ryo froze.
The fragments calculated frantically: *Distance to target: 87 feet. Bullet velocity: 2,500 feet per second. Time to intercept: 0.03 seconds. Chance of successful intercept: 12%.*
Twelve percent.
Not enough.
"I'm waiting," Voss said. "Hands up. Weapons down. Or your friends die."
Ryo looked at her. At the Iron Riders surrounding him. At the FDI soldiers with their weapons trained on his head.
He'd won the fight. But lost the war.
"Don't do it!" Sera's voice crackled through his earpiece—she must have reactivated her communicator once she was clear. "Ryo, don't you dare surrender!"
"I don't have a choice," Ryo said quietly.
"There's always a choice! Just wait! We're coming back!"
"No. Stay there. Stay safe." Ryo raised his hands. "I'm sorry, Sera. But I can't let her kill you."
He lowered his weapons to the ground.
The red light in his eyes began to fade.
Commander Voss smiled. "Smart boy. Just like your father."
Razor approached with magnetic restraints—military-grade, designed to contain enhanced individuals. He clamped them on Ryo's wrists and ankles.
The moment they closed, energy flooded through them. Neural suppressors, built into the restraints. The fragments inside Ryo screamed and went dormant, forced into hibernation by the FDI technology.
Ryo collapsed, suddenly just a nineteen-year-old boy again. Weak. Mortal. Human.
"Load him on the transport," Voss ordered. "We're taking him to the main facility. Dr. Crane's already waiting. She's very excited to continue her research."
"You're working with Crane?" Ryo gasped.
"Who do you think helped me find you? She's been tracking your Core signature since you left her cell. Using equipment I provided." Voss gestured to the soldiers. "The FDI funded the Crimson Core project. We funded Zero. We funded everything. And now we're going to use what we learned to build an army of weapons just like you."
"You'll kill them. The bonding process—"
"Will be refined. Perfected. Thanks to data we gather from you." Voss knelt beside him. "You're not the end of the Crimson Core program, Kazehara. You're just the beginning."
They dragged him toward an armored transport.
Through his fading consciousness, Ryo heard Sera screaming through the earpiece. Heard Glitch frantically trying to hack the transport's systems. Heard Razor laughing about the bounty he'd just earned.
And heard something else.
A distant sound. Growing louder.
The whine of engines. Multiple engines. Heavy vehicles moving fast.
"What the hell?" one of the FDI soldiers said.
An explosion rocked the scrapyard.
The transport Ryo was being loaded into lurched sideways, its armor dented by something massive.
More explosions. Smoke. Chaos.
And through the smoke, vehicles emerged.
Not FDI. Not Vultures. Not Iron Riders.
These were unmarked. Black. Military-grade.
And leading them, standing on the back of an open-top truck, was Sheriff Blackthorn.
"Let him go, Voss," Blackthorn's voice boomed through speakers. "Last chance."
"You're relieved of duty!" Voss shouted back. "Stand down or be arrested for treason!"
"I've been arrested already. Didn't take. Turns out, being half-machine means normal prison cells don't work very well." Blackthorn's dead eyes fixed on her. "I'm giving you one chance. Release Kazehara. Leave Redwater Ridge. Forget about the Crimson Core program."
"Or what? You'll fight the entire FDI?"
"No." Blackthorn gestured.
From the vehicles behind him, more figures emerged. Criminals. Bounty hunters. Former Vulture soldiers. People from every gang, every faction, every corner of Redwater Ridge.
Hundreds of them.
"I'll let them fight," Blackthorn said. "Turns out, when you threaten to turn everyone into weapons, they take it personally. So I made some calls. Called in some favors. United every criminal organization in the territory for the first time in history." He smiled—terrible and cold. "Against you."
Commander Voss looked at the assembled army. At the Iron Riders backing away slowly, realizing they were badly outnumbered. At her own soldiers, their faces uncertain.
"This isn't over," she hissed.
"Yeah, it is." Blackthorn jumped from the truck and walked forward. "Release Kazehara. Now."
Voss hesitated. Then, with visible rage, she nodded to her soldiers.
They removed the restraints from Ryo's wrists.
The fragments surged back to life. Not as strong as before—the suppressors had damaged them—but present. Whispering. Waiting.
Blackthorn helped Ryo to his feet.
"You okay, kid?"
"Been better." Ryo looked at the sheriff. "You came back."
"Told you. I owe it to your father to see this through." Blackthorn glared at Voss. "Now get out of here. Take your soldiers. Tell your FDI masters that the Crimson Core program is finished. If they try to restart it, if they come after Kazehara or anyone else..." His expression went colder. "Well. I've spent five years learning how to fight monsters. I can handle a few more."
Commander Voss and her soldiers retreated to their vehicles.
The Iron Riders fled entirely, Razor abandoning his broken motorcycle.
And Ryo stood in the center of the scrapyard, surrounded by criminals who'd just saved his life, led by a sheriff who was barely  human human himself."Thank you," Ryo said to Blackthorn. "All of you.""Don't thank me yet." Blackthorn's expression was grim. "Voss was right about one thing. This isn't over. The FDI won't stop. They'll send more soldiers. More agents. And eventually, they'll come with force we can't stop.""So what do we do?""We run. You, Sera, anyone they might target. Get out of Redwater Ridge. Out of the territories. Disappear somewhere even the FDI can't find you.""And the fragment? The one from the water tower?"Blackthorn pulled out a lead-lined case—the same one Sera had been carrying. Somehow, he'd recovered it during the chaos."I'm taking this somewhere safe. Somewhere even I won't remember. And then I'm destroying every record of its location." He handed the case to Ryo. "But first, you need to make a choice. Keep the fragments inside you, live with the risk of becoming like Zero. Or let Dr. Crane try to remove them, even though the process might kill you."Ryo looked down at his hands. They weren't glowing now. But he could feel the power waiting inside.A weapon.A gift.A curse."I'll keep them," he said finally. "But I'll control them. Learn to use them without losing myself." He met Blackthorn's dead eyes. "My father gave me these fragments for a reason. I'm going to honor that. By being strong enough to wield them without letting them wield me."Blackthorn nodded slowly. "Then you're braver than I ever was."A figure emerged from the drainage tunnel—Sera, running full speed, relief and rage fighting for dominance on her face.She crashed into Ryo hard enough to knock him back a step.stupid, reckless, self-sacrificing idiot," she said into his chest. "Don't you ever scare me like that again.""Sorry," Ryo said, holding her. "I'll try.""You better. Because we're partners. And partners don't die on each other. Got it?""Got it."They stood there for a moment, surrounded by destruction and allies and uncertain futures.Then Sera pulled back. "So. What's next?"Ryo looked at the rising sun. At Redwater Ridge in the distance. At the desert stretching endlessly beyond."We disappear," he said. "For a while. Let things cool down. Then..." He smiled. "Then we finish what my father started. Find every remaining fragment of the Crimson Core. Destroy them all. Make sure no one can ever use them to hurt people again.""Sounds like a plan." Sera checked her weapons. "Where do we start?""Zero mentioned something before he died. About a backup location. He didn't finish saying where, but..." Ryo closed his eyes, reaching into the fragments' memories—dangerous, but controlled. "I think I know. Or I can figure it out.""Then let's go." Sera turned to Blackthorn. "You coming?""No. I'm staying here. Someone needs to keep the FDI off your trail. And I've got a prison to run."Blackthorn's expression softened slightly. "But Kazehara. If you need help. If things get bad. You know where to find me.""Thank you, Sheriff.""Don't thank me. Just survive. And maybe, someday, tell me how you managed to control those fragments. Because I spent years trying and never succeeded."Ryo thought about that. About the cold calculations of the Core and the warmth of Sera's kiss. About power and humanity and the impossible balance between them."I'll tell you," he said. "When I figure it out myself."They said their goodbyes and left—Ryo and Sera, partners, outlaws, weapons, humans—disappearing into the desert as the sun climbed higher.Behind them, Redwater Ridge burned in the morning light.Ahead, the wastes stretched endlessly.And inside Ryo, the fragments pulsed gently.Waiting.