(TWO WEEKS BEFORE STORM)
Meanwhile, in a darker corner of the city.
Location: Unknown
Areum, the one with blonde haired and soft facial features, pressed two fingers to her earpiece, jaw clenched as blood trickled down her side. She didn't slow down. The target was already fleeing, and hesitation wasn't in her vocabulary. Her breath came steady, measured. She didn't speak. Helena wasn't there, but her silence was.
Behind her, a body dropped-clean, quiet. Harin stepped out from the shadows, wiping her blade on the man's coat. Her eyes flicked up, unreadable, before she vanished again into the dark like a whispered threat. Just a glimpse of her purple hair was caught by the man before death. No words exchanged. No need. Everyone knew the plan. Helena had made sure of it.
Static buzzed in their comms, then cleared. "All feeds down," came Hana's voice, lazy but sharp. She sat cross-legged in an abandoned control room, cables snaking across the floor, cold coffee at her side. Surveillance footage looped seamlessly, locking them into invisibility. "You've got six minutes before backup arrives. Clock's ticking."
Soyeon's scope clicked into place. From the rooftop, she twirled a bullet between her fingers, then slotted it in without looking. "Marked," she said, voice like a hum. A flash, a soft recoil-and a man dropped in the alley below, his cigarette still burning. No chaos. No scream. Just stillness.
Down near the shipment trucks, Minji closed the lid on a crate of rifles, scribbling a symbol onto its side. She didn't flinch when a rival broker shouted her name. Instead, she raised an eyebrow, pulled a pistol from her coat, and fired a single shot into the man's kneecap. "Negotiations over," she said coolly, turning her back as his screams echoed behind her.
No one mentioned Helena. They didn't need to.
She wasn't there, but every move they made was sharpened by her lessons, every silence shaped by her presence. They weren't following orders tonight. They were honoring them. Carrying out the mission not because they were told to-but because they'd been taught how.
Helena didn't need to show up to lead. She was in the way Harin's blade never trembled, in the code Hana whispered into firewalls, in the bullet Soyeon kissed before each shot, in the way Minji never missed a deal.
And in every drop of blood Areum left behind without complaint.
As the backup sirens wailed in the distance, the five women melted into the shadows, slipping away from the scene like ghosts. They regrouped behind the abandoned hideout-the one they had marked on their map days ago, a crumbling structure tucked deep in the alleyways, soaked in the scent of rust and damp concrete.
They pulled off their masks only once it was just the five of them. Each mask bore the insignia of the Black Panther-a bold BP encircled by a green serpent. Designed to conceal their identities, the masks covered their entire faces, leaving only the eyes and lips visible. Most of them wore colored contact lenses too, just another layer of deception.
Soyeon dropped onto the dusty ground with a sigh, her back hitting the wall with a soft thud. She didn't care that her black pants were coated in grime. A teasing smile danced on her lips as she stretched her arms overhead. "My back hurts," she mumbled into the air.
"You never change." Areum chuckled under her breath, the sound light and fleeting, almost out of place against the tense air. "You're too young to sound that old."
Minji, sharp-eyed and always too serious for comfort, flicked her pixie-cut hair out of her face and stuck out her tongue. "Don't you remember? Boss is landing in Seoul today-"
"Already landed," Hana cut in smoothly, eyes glued to the glowing screen of her laptop. The rhythmic clack of her fingers never faltered, nor did the steady sipping of her lukewarm coffee. The bitter aroma drifted between them. "Her call is coming any minute."
At those words, the atmosphere shifted like a snapped wire.
Everyone straightened, shoulders squaring, spines stiffening. The playful haze vanished. Business mode: engaged.
Moments later, Harin's phone buzzed against the cracked wooden crate beside her. The screen lit up-'Boss'.
She didn't hesitate. She picked up, pressing the cool glass to her ear. There were no greetings. No wasted breath. Helena hated pleasantries.
A pause. Then, a voice emerged-smooth like velvet, but colder than ice.
"I'm back. Call an urgent meeting in one hour."
Each syllable sliced through the silence like a blade.
Even though only Harin held the phone, the other four straightened further, as if Helena's voice had seeped into their bones.
They didn't need to be told twice.
Areum was already halfway through texting the head guard of their main base in Seoul, instructing him to clean the meeting room and prepare it to Helena's exacting standards.
They had all been broken once-shattered by pasts that no one dared to speak of. Each bore invisible wounds stitched together by rage and redemption.
But Helena had seen what others missed. She had reached into their wreckage and pulled them out.
And now, for her, they would burn the world down-quietly, beautifully, without mercy.
"Yes, boss," Harin replied, her voice firm, unwavering.
Only her voice reached Helena through the line.
But the other four? They whispered it too, in perfect unison.
As if Helena could hear them through the very air itself.
~•~
Location: Black Panther Main Base - The Meeting Room
The room was massive-spacious enough to torture ten men if needed. Despite the wooden table and chairs, and the neatly arranged weapons on the rack (each one used to perfection, inhumanely), nothing about it felt ceremonial. One entire wall was a digital board-covered with notes and analysis.
Five women sat calmly around the table. Do not mistake their appearance for fragility.
Lee Areum-the deadly silent right hand-sat beside the empty head chair, her spine straight, her gaze unreadable. The chair beside her was sacred. Vacant now, but soaked in the weight of presence.
Taking a bullet for Haseul wasn't just a duty-it was a ritual. Even the lowest-ranking recruits had done it without hesitation.
But for Areum, loyalty wasn't just in bleeding for her leader. It was in every breath, every deal, every silence held when it would've been easier to scream. She wore loyalty like armor-but it had torn her open more than once, carving scars into skin and soul alike.
The others-Harin, Hana, Soyeon, and Minji-were no different.
Choi Harin, the assassin, moved like shadow and struck like regret. Her kills were never messy, never loud. She was artful in her violence, precise and terrifyingly calm. She never spoke more than needed, and never missed. Every heartbeat that stopped at her hand was a message: don't touch what belongs to Black Panther.
Seo Hana was their eyes, their ghost in the wires. The hacker who could breach a government firewall in under five minutes while sipping cold coffee and humming to lo-fi beats. Her tech wasn't just advanced-it was years ahead of the world. Drones, surveillance, AI programs that could manipulate entire security systems-Hana crafted the invisible leash around every enemy's neck.
Baek Soyeon, the sniper, ruled the rooftops. Young, seemingly carefree, and deceptively innocent-until her finger curled around a trigger. She killed from distances where most couldn't even see the target. Headshots were her signature, and she left calling cards with every bullet-clean, clinical, poetic.
Jang Minji handled chaos like it was her playground. Drugs, weapons, black-market trade-every deal, every shipment, every crate of fire and poison passed through her hands. She was ruthlessly smart, impossibly confident, and ran the underworld's arteries like a queen. If someone crossed her, they either ended up addicted, broke, or buried.
And then there was Helena.
Helena was the boss - the unyielding leader and the ruthless mastermind behind Black Panthers. Not just a commander, but the heart of the syndicate's darkness and its sharpest mind. She was known as the inhumane torturer, yes, but her inner circle didn't follow her out of fear. They followed because she had once saved each of them. Pulled them out of the abyss, given them purpose, and forged them into a family bound not by blood but by unbreakable loyalty.
The six of them - Helena and her five closest women - were the inner circle. The pillars holding Black Panthers together.
The one who'd return not just to lead, but to set fire to the world that had dared to forget her.
For them, taking a hit would be mercy. Their loyalty required something far more brutal: endurance, silence, sacrifice without witness.
And now, anticipation filled the air. What would the Queen's next move be? Would she dig up buried secrets and expose traitors? Or worse-would she erase those who played even a minor role in the tragedy of eight years ago?
Measured, calm taps of heels echoed.
The Queen walked in—masked, suited, untouchable. Unlike others her held a red serpent. No one but the five knew the truth: Helena had returned. But none knew the Haseul behind the mask.
"Boss... finally, after three months," Soyeon said, her voice calm. Yet Soyeon's voice held relief, though she addressed only the mask. Relief that their leader was back. That she'd make the right move. Clean the mess with ruthless precision-no matter how harsh the outcome.
The warm scent of wood lingered, but nothing about the meeting was warm.