Chapter 24
1682words
It was the kind of place the public would expect a world hero to live in, marble floors, transparent ceilings that filtered artificial sunlight through golden glass. The walls were covered in plaques, medals, fan gifts, and paintings of him made by hands that worshipped him. It should've felt comforting.
But none of it made him feel anything.
He had saved worlds, yet the silence of his own home always pressed hard on him. It is the life of a world hero.
He opened a holographic display with a wave of his hand. Data cascaded through the air, glowing blue: reports, witness accounts, archived transmissions.
METAL RIFT — STATUS: DECEASED. CAUSE: CLASSIFIED.
BUNNY BOMBI — STATUS: MISSING. LAST TRANSMISSION: "HE FOUND ME."
FESTER LECRANE INDUSTRIES — SECURITY BREACH DETECTED. THREE ITEMS MISSING.
SUBJECT 07 — CONTAINMENT LOST.
He leaned back, dragging a hand over his face, tired. "Damn it, Rift... What happened?"
They had attended school together in Cyrus Academy For Heroics, a lifetime ago. Rift had been wild back then, uncontrolled, brilliant, fearless. He was the first to have the courage to talk about changing the system that no one else would dare talk about.
And now? Gone.
Bombi too. His student. His legacy.
Hell, that's probably what killed him and took Bombi away... if she is even still alive. The system.
He stared at her last transmission, looping on the corner of the screen. He found me. Her voice was trembling, barely audible over the static.
"Who, Bombi?" he whispered. "Who found you?"
The ache behind his eyes throbbed until it became sharp pain. He pushed back from the couch and walked down the hall to another room, a massive one lined with containment panels and reflective surfaces.
He stepped inside. The door sealed behind him with a hiss.
He raised his hand. His body began to glow.
The glow began softly, his veins lighting up beneath the skin, the air rippling around him as if the room itself bent in reverence. Light poured outward, flooding every surface until the chamber looked like it was holding the sun itself.
The pain dulled. The throbbing slowly going away.
He stood still in the radiance, eyes close, replaying the pattern of everything that had happened so far.
Slyvian's father's file. Deleted the moment it was opened.
The Underbelly. Everyone avoiding to talk about her father.
Metal Rift dead.
Bunny Bombi missing.
LeCrane's vault breached.
Too many mysterious.
It all happened so fast out of nowhere. In all his years of being a global hero, yeah, sure, he had to fly across the entire planet to stop major disasters. Like cosmic storms, demonic invasions, time fractures, flooding, earthquakes, tornadoes, gang violence, outer space threats, large space worms eating other planets, etc, you get the point. All of those didn't happen all at once, not like this.
He exhaled through his nose. "What the hell is going on this year?"
The air became hotter. His light burned bright enough to warp the glass of the containment panels.
Meanwhile,
In the Red Light Sector.
Eris smoked her Nova-Cig, eyes half-closed as lines of data rippled across a dozen holo-screens. Surrounded by her mess, cables snaking across the floor, half-dismantled drones, flickering holo-panels that layered one another until her apartment looked like it was literally made of data.
She'd been awake for thirty-one hours straight. The only sounds were the soft hum of the electronic pulse of the city outside.
Every trail she'd followed to Slyvian Blackbird's father had ended the same way, sudden deletion, blank screens, corrupted fragments of code that erased themselves the instant she decrypted them. Someone was burning the past in real time, and doing it perfectly.
Until now.
A flicker ran through her screens. Lines of code stuttered, then aligned into a single coordinate.
BLACK WAVES CITY — SECTOR 9-Δ.
Eris froze.
Then, slowly, she smirked.
"About damn time..." she muttered, exhaling a cloud of smoke that swirled with holographic light. "Looks like the ghost left a trail after all."
She tapped the side of her comm-band, opening a secure line. The signal crackled, distant solar interference tinting the sound with static.
"Sun," she said. "I got something."
For a few seconds, nothing. Then, a low reply through distortion.
"...go ahead."
"I finally got something. The data that nuked itself? It's still echoing. Whatever wiped it left a trace. I found a coordinate in Black Waves City."
A pause. Then the faint sound of him sighing.
"Send it."
"Already did. And Sun?"
"Be careful. Every time I trace this file, something... looks back. I can feel it. Like the system itself wants me stop digging into it."
Static swallowed the rest of her sentence.
"Sun? You there?"
No answer.
Her screens flickered once, dimmed, then stabilized.
She stared at them for a long moment before muttering, "...shit."
Night came.
I walked beside Mr. S'dala, still processing everything that had happened after we left the casino, the meeting with Ash, the cube, the gem pulsing like a heartbeat.
They'd said its glow meant I "belonged" in the Special Armed Forces. That every new recruit had to go through the test.
I wasn't sure if that was a valid system or just some of their strange rituals, but... I wouldn't question Mr. S'dala. He always knew what he was doing. He was doing this for me.
Ash had shown me projections of what my role would be, schematics, models, blueprints hovering in the air. I'd be building gadgets for heroes to use, which I already knew. But then she added that I'd also be helping maintain and re-engineer the Wraithwings, which I learned about in history class. Those wings are deadly, and the fact that I'll be helping to maintain them is... joyous.
That part alone made something spark in my chest.
I realized I might actually enjoy this more than being a hero myself.
Mr. S'dala walked ahead of me, hands behind his back, his steps always precise and unhurried. The streets of the Underbelly stretched out before us, narrow, damp, breathing faint fumes from vents above.
I glanced down an alleyway and caught the usual sights: a mugging, two silhouettes trading blows for scraps. Nothing new.
Then, ahead, a man was chasing another down the street. The one in pursuit looked familiar. I squinted,
The man from my apartment building. The same one who'd stabbed someone in the lobby.
It seems he caught his prey, tackled him, and drove a knife down once, twice. A scream. Then silence,
V.E.I.L. bots arrived.
Their synchronized voices echoed through the night.
"ILLEGAL ACTIVITY DETECTED. EXECUTION AUTHORIZED."
They didn't even pause to determine the guilty.
Gunfire cracked, sharp and final. When it ended, both men lay still. The bots scanned their bodies in unison, their lenses glowing red, then turned and marched away.
The moment they disappeared around the corner, the killer, who was supposed to be dead, sat up.
Blood flowed backward through his wounds, closing them. He grabbed his knife, muttered under his breath "damn bots getting in the way of my kill," and limped off into the dark.
Mr. S'dala had seen everything. I knew he had. But he didn't comment, didn't even show a hint of slowing down. He simply kept walking.
So I followed.
When we reached the corner near my apartment building, he finally stopped. I was... relieved. I didn't want him to see where I lived.
He turned toward me, smiling gently.
"Here we are," he said, cheerfully.
"... Thanks," I murmured, looking away.
I didn't want the night to end. I wanted to keep walking beside him, listening to his calm voice. But I couldn't. Tomorrow is school, and that means I'll have to deal with Nathaniel. Great.
His hand landed gently on my shoulder, which startled me. His fingers were cold, but his tone was warm as he bent close and whispered in my ear:
"You are destined to become something greater than a mere hero."
Then he straightened, smiling again.
"See you at school, my favorite student." And he walked away.
When I got home, the apartment was silent.
Mother and Lucius were gone, probably another drug run.
I went into my room and dropped onto the floor. I grabbed the crow plushie from my closet. Its black eyes caught the flicker from the holo-ads outside, staring back at me without blinking.
Does he really think that highly of me?
My chest warmed at the thought. Then the air turned cold.
"Tu es venari. Quem pater requiir. Quem Octavian vult."
The whispers. Back again. I gritted my teeth. "Not now..." I murmured. I want to think about Mr. S'dala.
I sighed as I looked at the corner of my room.
The clay woman appeared again, cracked and silent, her body barely holding together. Her hollow eyes were fixed on me. This time, she raised an arm and pointed.
Toward my mother's room.
My pulse quickened. "No..." I whispered. I'm not allowed in there.
But my body moved on its own, feet dragging me forward, the crow plush clutched tight. The air grew heavier with each step, thick with rot, alcohol, and burnt chemicals.
As I opened the door, it creaked open.
Inside were bottles. Syringes. And Nova-Cigs. The stench of the room is strong but it didn't bother me.
I kept walking.
I felt the whispers coiled around me. They led me to the in the room closet.
I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't open it. But no matter how much I told myself this. I didn't stop.
My fingers reached for the handle. The door slid open with a soft scrape.
Inside is the box. The one I saw mother held in her hand. But it wasn't just one of them. There were...
Seventeen of them.
All identical. Small. Labeled with etched numbers I don't recognize, old numerals that are clearly ancient.
The whispers spun faster, pressing against my ears.
"Open them." it said in common language.
My breath hitched.
Before I could stop myself, my hand reached for the first box.
