The War Room was a tomb of failure. The city map on the glass table pulsed with a sickening sea of blue, the encroaching tide of Marco's coalition overwhelming the weak red that represented Corvini territory. The air was thick, not with smoke or anticipation, but with the sour, metallic scent of dread.
John Corvini stood at the head of the table, his posture still, his face an unreadable mask. Sam sat beside him, his charm entirely stripped away, replaced by a grim, focused fury. Asrit, usually the picture of cold logic, paced the perimeter of the room, his movements jerky, his face tight with suppressed rage. Gautham was attempting to re establish some semblance of order on the tactical displays, his fingers flying across the keyboard with a desperate, frantic energy. Sanvi sat on a bench, her knife now idle, her eyes fixed on the flickering city map, a predator denied its hunt. Sathwik, battered and bandaged, remained a silent sentinel in the corner, his eyes watching the unfolding disaster with a passive, weary resignation.
Kevin, however, was a storm.
He burst into the room, not with his usual swagger, but with the desperate, ragged energy of a man cornered. His silver suit was still stained from the aborted mission, his hair a wild mess. His eyes darted around the room, burning with a frantic, volatile light.
"We have to hit them," Kevin declared, his voice too loud, too high pitched. "All of them. We hit Vargo's supply depots. We hit Volkov's operations in the docks. We hit Chen's front businesses. All at once. Tonight."
Sam looked up from the tactical display. His face was a mask of disbelief. "Kevin, are you insane? We are losing ground. We are depleted. We don't have the manpower for a multi pronged assault."
"We don't have the option!" Kevin countered, his voice rising. He walked to the table, his hands planted on the cool glass, leaning over it like a child demanding a toy. "This is the James way! Total annihilation! Show them we're not afraid! Show them we're not just a name on a ledger!"
He looked at Pranav, who had been quietly observing, trying to find a logical thread in the chaos.
"Pranav, you know the systems. You can create the diversions. We hit them hard, fast, and everywhere. We don't give them time to think. We don't give them time to react. We just… burn it all down."
Asrit stopped his pacing. He turned to Kevin, his eyes glacial. "You are proposing a strategy of pure, unadulterated chaos, Kevin. You want to attack their strengths because you have no concept of their weaknesses. This isn't the James way. This is the act of a lunatic."
Asrit's voice was dangerously low, each word a precisely aimed dart. "James was a precision instrument. He was surgical. You are a blunt object. You are a wildfire that burns everything it touches, including itself."
Kevin's face contorted. He felt the familiar surge of shame and anger that always accompanied criticism. He looked at Asrit, the man who had dismissed him as rust, and he felt the familiar urge to lash out, to prove him wrong.
"James was a legend because he was ruthless!" Kevin retorted, his voice cracking. "He was a hero because he cleaned house! You all celebrated it! You built him up! Now you're telling me I'm the monster because I want to do the same thing?"
He looked at Sam, his own uncle, who had always treated him with a mixture of pity and annoyance. "You talk about rules, Sam! You talk about the sanctity of the family! You think James followed rules? He broke every damn one of them, and you lauded him for it!"
Kevin's voice rose to a desperate, ragged scream. He was no longer trying to be a strategist. He was a cornered animal lashing out.
"I did what had to be done! I did what James would have done! Why is he a legend for it and I'm a monster? You all love it when James does it! Why is it different when I do it?!"
The question hung in the air, raw and unanswered. It was the ugly mirror reflecting their deepest hypocrisy. They worshipped James's effectiveness, his cold, precise butchery, his capacity for absolute annihilation. But Kevin's clumsy, desperate attempt at the same, driven by his own gnawing insecurities, was met with disgust and condemnation. The crime wasn't the violence. It was the incompetence. It was the mess.
John Corvini finally moved. He rose from his chair, the movement slow, deliberate, each action carrying the weight of his authority. He walked to the glass table, his shadow falling over the glowing city map.
He looked at Kevin, not with anger, but with a profound, crushing disappointment.
"James was a storm, Kevin," John said, his voice quiet, measured, but carrying the chilling finality of a death sentence. "He could not be controlled, but he had a purpose. He was the tempest that cleared the air, the necessary correction to imbalance."
John picked up a stylus from the table. He tapped the screen, highlighting the sector where Kevin had operated. The blue lights there seemed to flicker, momentarily vulnerable.
"You are not a storm, Kevin," John continued, his voice hardening. "You are just a child playing with matches in a munitions factory."
He turned the stylus in his fingers, the metal catching the light.
"James was the fire that refined us," John said, his gaze sweeping over the recruits, over Sam, over Asrit. "He burned away weakness. He burned away impurities. He forged strength from chaos."
John looked at Kevin, his eyes like chips of ice.
"You are the uncontrolled burn. You are the detonation that destroys the entire operation. You are not a fire, Kevin. You are just… soot."
Kevin flinched as if he'd been struck. The finality in his father's voice was absolute. He was not a son. He was not an heir. He was a failed experiment. A contamination.
"You will not attack," John said, his voice low and firm. "You will not initiate any offensive action. You will remain within the compound. You will provide support. And you will learn the difference between a legend and a liability."
John turned his back to Kevin, his gaze returning to the city schematic, his attention already moving to the next strategic calculation. The rejection was not a debate; it was an execution.
Kevin stared at his father's back. He stared at the indifference etched into John's posture. He felt the familiar rage surge, but this time it was accompanied by a new, terrifying realization: his ambition, his fury, his desperate need to prove himself, it all meant nothing here. It was all just… noise.
He didn't get to burn the world down. He had only managed to set himself on fire.
With a choked cry, Kevin spun around and stormed out of the War Room. The heavy door slammed shut behind him, the sound echoing like a final judgment. He was dismissed. He was rage. And he was now more dangerously determined than ever to prove that he was not soot, but the spark that would ignite the whole damn thing.