Indomitable - Dispatch SI

[Arsenal597]

We are who we choose to be — that is a line that's resonated with me for years. It sounded clean. Noble. Like something you'd stitch onto a pillow or carve into a wooden sign and hang above a door you never planned to walk back through. Choice. Responsibility. Accountability. All the right words, lined up the right way.

In practice, though? I was better at deflecting. Better at shrinking away from my own reflection when it got uncomfortable. Better at pushing people out of reach before they could decide I wasn't worth the effort. It was easier to blame timing. Stress. Miscommunication. Them. It was harder to admit that a lot of the damage had my fingerprints all over it.

I lost some good friends that way. The kind you assume will always be there because they always have been—until one day, they aren't. I don't know if I'll ever make that right.

The last thing I remember clearly is sitting in my room with the lights off, phone glowing faintly in the dark, scrolling through an old group chat that hadn't felt alive in a long time. The room was quiet in that late-night way, where even the house feels like it's holding its breath. My fan hummed in the corner, pushing warm air around without really cooling anything.

I told myself I'd just look for a minute. One quick glance. Harmless.

That was a lie.

The chat was a graveyard of inside jokes, late-night plans, stupid memes that only made sense if you were there when they were sent. Names I almost never spoke out loud anymore. I scrolled back farther than I should have—past the slow fade, past the awkward pauses, back to when replies were instant and effortless. When nobody had to wonder if they still belonged.

My mood was already unstable enough that night. It felt like every thought in my head had sharp edges. One second I was numb, the next I was simmering with something I couldn't even give a proper name to. Restless. Heavy. Too full and too empty at the same time. I kept telling myself to put the phone down. I didn't.

I stopped at a message I hadn't opened in months. I tried to pretend it didn't exist, like the conflict that had caused our rift had never come about. I remember exactly where I had been when I got the message. Mom's foot had been bothering her. It was swollen on the top, making it nearly impossible for her to wear a croc, let alone an actual shoe. I'd gone with her just to make sure she wasn't alone. Got a message from one of our mutual friends and thought it was time to reach out.

And then the message came through.

It's not me you need to apologize to…

The message stared at me for what felt like hours. I stared right back at it until my eyes burned. Until the edges of the screen blurred and my grip on the phone tightened without me realizing it.

Discomfort bloomed in my chest, slow at first, then sharper, like something expanding where it didn't fit. I took a shallow breath. Then another. It felt like my ribs were shrinking inward, compressing around something that was trying to push back out.

I swallowed and scrolled a little, then scrolled back. Read it again. Like maybe the meaning would change if I stared at it long enough. Like maybe it would hurt less on the second pass. It didn't.

Eventually, my arm grew tired. I let the phone drop onto my chest, its light still on, screen dimming slowly as inactivity set in. The ceiling above me was barely visible in the dark—just vague shadows and the faint outline of a crack that ran from one corner toward the center. I'd told myself a hundred times I would fix that someday.

Someday had a habit of never showing up.

I lay there for a while, listening to the house settle around me. Pipes ticking. A car passing somewhere outside. The distant, lonely sound of something moving in the night that had nothing to do with me and never would. My thoughts kept looping back on themselves, replaying conversations I'd had, then rewriting them in ways that would never actually happen. Imagining apologies that were too late to matter. Imagining forgiveness I hadn't earned.

At some point, the screen went dark completely. I didn't turn it back on.

I rolled onto my side and set the phone on the nightstand, face down, like that might keep the words from following me into my dreams. The sheets were tangled from a restless day I couldn't even remember properly now. I kicked one leg free, then pulled the blanket back over myself, trying to get comfortable and failing in all the small, familiar ways.

Sleep felt far away.

My mind kept drifting—back to the chat, back to the silences between messages, back to the version of myself who thought avoiding the problem was the same as solving it. I told myself I'd do better if I ever got the chance. I told myself a lot of things when the room was dark and forgiving.

The fan kept humming. The air kept circulating. The world kept moving without any input from me at all.

I closed my eyes.

At first, nothing changed. My body stayed tense, every muscle half-expecting another spike of thought to jab into the dark. But eventually the edges began to soften. The weight in my chest dulled from a sharp ache to something heavier and quieter. My breathing slowed without me meaning for it to.

The last thing that drifted through my head before everything finally slipped out of focus was that incomplete sentence from the screen, hovering somewhere just beyond conscious thought—unfinished, unresolved, stubbornly alive.

Then the darkness settled in fully, and I let it take me.

---

Pain drags me out of the dark like a hooked chain.

It starts everywhere at once—white-hot and immediate—racing through my body before I even understand that I'm awake. Static skitters across my skin in frantic, crawling lines. Every hair on my arms stands at full attention, like my body knows something is wrong before my mind catches up. My veins feel like they're full of molten wire, heat flooding through paths that were never meant to carry it.

I try to inhale and choke on the scream instead.

It tears out of me raw and uncontrolled as something rips into my skin. The sensation is invasive in a way that makes my stomach lurch blind with panic—pressure and slicing and an awful, wrong tug deep under the surface. My back arches on instinct, every muscle in revolt, but the movement goes nowhere. The scream echoes off hard walls I can't see, rebounds into the ringing building in my ears.

Voices bleed through the noise. Distant. Warped. Like they're coming to me through thick water.

"I'd like to know more about your condition…"

The voice cuts clean through the chaos—cold and mechanical, filtered through something that strips it of warmth. There's something familiar about the cadence, the shape of the words. My mind brushes against recognition and slips right off it. I can't hold onto it. Not like this.

"Fight through it," the voice continues, emotionless. "The pain will subside shortly."

That almost breaks me.

Shortly.

As if this is an inconvenience. As if my body isn't being set on fire from the inside out.

The pain crests in a violent, unbearable peak—and then, just as promised, it begins to pull back. It doesn't vanish. It recedes, slow and reluctant, like a tide that doesn't want to let go of the shore. My scream collapses into hoarse, broken gasps. My chest heaves like it's forgotten how breathing is supposed to work.

For a single, fragile second, I think it might be over.

Then I try to move.

Nothing happens.

My arms don't answer. My legs might as well not exist. There's pressure along my wrists, my ankles, across my thighs and chest—unyielding and absolute. Restraints. The realization hits with a shock of icy dread that floods where the heat just was. I tug once, weakly. The metal doesn't even pretend to give.

Panic surges up fast and violent, a wild animal slamming against the inside of my ribs. My pulse thunders in my ears. I try again, harder this time. The restraints hold. Of course they do.

No. No, no, no—

The singular light above me burns into my vision, bleaching the world to harsh whites and shifting shadows. It's too bright to look at directly, but the rest of the room is swallowed in darkness so thick it might as well be solid. Figures move at the edges of my vision—just silhouettes at first. Tall shapes. Controlled movements. People.

My breath comes out in shaky bursts. My throat feels scraped raw from screaming. Every nerve in my body still hums with leftover static, like the afterimage of a lightning strike that keeps flickering behind my eyes.

"Where…" My voice cracks immediately. I have to swallow once, twice, before I can force it out again. "Where am I?"

The words feel stupid the second they leave my mouth. Small. Useless. I should have been in my bed. I was in my bed. Fan humming. Phone on the nightstand. The crack in the ceiling. Darkness that was familiar and safe and mine.

This place is none of those things.

A shape steps closer into the halo of the overhead light. Just enough for edges to sharpen, for surfaces to reflect. I still can't make out a face—only the suggestion of a mask, smooth and featureless in places where there should be something human. The light glints off metal threaded through gloves and tools and things I don't want to recognize.

"Vitals stabilizing," someone says from somewhere to my left.

Another voice answers, quieter.

"Neurological response confirms successful integration."

Integration?

My stomach drops.

I twist my head as far as the restraints allow, trying to track the voices. The room feels larger than it should be, sound stretching and warping against unseen walls. Machines surround me—or at least, I think they do. I hear the steady, invasive rhythm of beeping. The low electric whine of something drawing power. Every noise feels too close and too far away at the same time.

"What did you do to me?" I manage.

The words tremble on their way out. I hate that I can hear it. I hate that they don't.

There's a pause—a small one, but deliberate.

"Your condition required extensive augmentation," the mechanical voice replies at last. Calm. Unbothered. "The procedure was successful."

Procedure.

The word lands like a blunt object in my chest. Memory slams into me in disjointed flashes that don't fit together yet—darkness, pressure, the sense of being held down even before I'd woken up. The feeling of something being forced into me instead of drawn from me.

"I didn't consent to any procedure," I say hoarsely. My hands curl uselessly against the restraints.

Another figure steps into the light now, standing opposite the first. This one is bulkier, broader in the shoulders. I can't see eyes behind the reflective surface of whatever covers their face.

"Consent is irrelevant in this context," the first voice says. "You were selected based on compatibility metrics. The outcome validates the choice."

Every word feels like it strips another layer off me, reduces me to something printed on a screen. Panic claws higher, filling every hollow space the pain left behind. I pull against the restraints again, harder, desperation lending me strength I don't actually have.

The metal doesn't budge.

Static dances across my skin in response—sharp, reactive, like my nerves are wired directly into the room. The figures around me tense visibly. I feel it before I see it: a subtle shift in the air, the pressure changing around my body like the atmosphere itself just took a breath.

"Elevated output," someone mutters.

"Suppress it," the mechanical voice orders.

Something presses into the side of my neck.

The world tilts violently as a new, numbing sensation floods my system. Not pain—something worse in its own way. A heavy, sinking weight that drags at my thoughts and limbs alike. The static falters, sputters, then dims to a faint, irritated buzz under my skin.

"Don't—" I start, but the word dissolves halfway out of my mouth. My tongue feels thick. Slow. Every movement suddenly costs twice what it should.

I'm still awake. Still aware.

Just… muted.

The figures lean in, their outlines sharpening as they observe me with clinical interest. I feel like a specimen on a slide. Pinned. Catalogued. Dissected by eyes I can't quite see.

"You will remain restrained during the acclimation period," the voice tells me. "Resistance will only delay stabilization."

My heartbeat pounds against the metal across my chest. I can't tell if the tightening in my throat is from fear, fury, or both. Probably both.

"Let me go," I whisper. It doesn't sound like a command. It sounds like a plea.

No one answers.

---

Consciousness doesn't come back all at once.

I surface for seconds at a time, dragged upward through heavy fog only to be pulled back under again. Each time I wake, the world feels different—too bright, too close, too loud, too quiet. The light above me blurs into a dull star. The machines never stop their steady, tireless breathing. Neither, apparently, does the fire under my skin.

Sometimes there is pain.

Sometimes there is only pressure.

Sometimes there is nothing at all.

In the in-between, I drift.

Voices bleed in and out of the dark. I catch pieces of conversations without context—numbers, readings, fragments of observations that mean nothing to me but everything to them.

"—stabilizing—"

"—output spike—"

"—unprecedented density—"

Gloved hands touch me at intervals. Careful, but not gentle.

Once, I surface just long enough to feel something deep inside my chest shift. Not cut or pierced—adjusted. As if whatever was placed there is being nudged into alignment. The sensation is nauseating, intimate in a way that makes my skin crawl. I try to jerk away. My body doesn't listen. The world goes gray at the edges and folds back in on itself.

Another time, I wake to voices.

Not the mechanical one—different voices. Human. Muted by distance and equipment and the thick fog in my skull. I catch pieces of them, never whole thoughts.

"—still drawing—"

"—stabilizer's holding—"

"—no signs of rejection—"

Something cool slides along my ribs. Something warmer follows. I smell antiseptic. Ozone. That sharp, storm-aftertaste that makes the inside of my nose sting. Static crackles faintly along my skin in protest.

The next moment I'm gone again.

I drift.

In the dark, memories try to surface. The crack in my ceiling. The hum of my fan. My phone on the nightstand. The unfinished sentence. They feel distant now, like someone else's life being played in a room I've already walked out of.

Then—

I wake with the sickening sensation that the world has tipped sideways.

My body lurches, instinct screaming that something is wrong, and pain flares immediately where metal bites down into my arms. The sudden resistance snaps me fully awake. My breath punches out of me in a startled, broken sound.

I'm upright.

The realization hits in waves. There's no pressure at my back anymore. No cold surface beneath me. Instead, something braces my spine from behind, rigid and unyielding, holding me in a standing position whether I agree to it or not. My wrists are locked high and wide. My ankles aren't touching the ground.

I'm suspended.

Restrained.

My head droops forward, heavy as if my neck has forgotten how to carry it. The world sways nauseatingly. Light spills across the room in a wide, sterile wash, revealing just enough detail to make everything worse. Hard metal surfaces. Darkened consoles. Figures standing at calculated distances from me.

I try to lift my head again. It takes far more effort than it should.

The mechanical voice returns, closer now.

"You've recovered quicker than anticipated," it says. "There was a ten percent chance that you'd acclimate in less than a week. Your condition expedited your recovery."

The words slide past the surface of my thoughts before they sink in. Recovered. Acclimate. None of that feels like it belongs to me.

"Let… let me go," I murmur.

My voice barely makes the air near my mouth move. It sounds frayed. Used up.

"I'm afraid that's not possible," the voice replies. "You came to me, remember?"

The fog in my head ripples uneasily.

"I didn't," I whisper. The sound comes out dry, scraped raw. "I didn't come here."

A pause follows.

Not silence. Just a measured absence of reply.

"Temporary disorientation is not uncommon following the acclimation period," the voice says at last. "Memory distortion, confusion, false resistance. These are expected side effects."

False resistance.

My fingers twitch helplessly against the restraints. I feel the faint static under my skin stir in response to the movement, like something attentive just beneath the surface.

"Curious," the voice adds, almost to itself. There's a faint huff of breath through the filter now. Something bordering on interest. "Regardless, it's time to show you the fruits of your labor."

Something rolls forward into my line of sight.

At first it's just a pane of reflected light, warped and indistinct. My eyes struggle to focus on it. The image swims like it's underwater. I blink rapidly, fighting the sluggish drag of whatever still clouds my system.

The reflection sharpens.

My breath catches so violently it hurts.

The person staring back at me is not me.

The difference hits in layers. Width. Height. A frame built from years of physical strain instead of the body I recognize as my own. Shoulders broader. Chest thicker. The man in the mirror looks like someone pulled from wreckage and reinforced rather than repaired.

My heart stumbles.

Scars mar the reflection's torso—old, ugly stories carved into flesh. Parallel claw marks rake across one side of the ribs, pale and jagged. Burn scars bloom across the other in dark, uneven patches that look like they were never meant to heal cleanly. Each mark feels like an argument against the life I remember living.

My gaze climbs higher.

A beard shadows the stranger's jaw—patchy, unkempt, clearly neglected rather than styled. Long hair spills to the shoulders in uneven strands, tangled and careless. The face is gaunt in a way that speaks of exhaustion rather than starvation. The eyes, though—

The eyes are mine.

Wide. Disbelieving. Terrified.

"That's…" My throat tightens. "That's not me."

The words sound absurd the moment they leave my mouth. Denial shoved clumsily into the open.

Then I see the center of the chest.

Metal is embedded where skin should be unbroken.

A device sits fused into the stranger's sternum, its edges disappearing seamlessly into healed flesh. It pulses faintly with a cold, electric blue glow, each throb of light synchronized with the frantic rhythm of my heart. The illumination spreads just under the surface of the skin in branching lines, like energy testing its own boundaries.

The room seems to tilt.

My stomach drops straight through the floor.

I focus on it with a kind of horrified fascination. The glow. The fact that it's inside me. That it moves when I breathe. That it doesn't look foreign anymore—it looks installed.

"Your energy reserves should be exponentially higher now," the mechanical voice says from somewhere just beyond my sight. "But it'll have to wait until you're ready to move."

The words land hollowly. All I can see is that blue light, steady and patient, quietly proving that something fundamental about my body has been rewritten without my permission. My hands tremble against the restraints.

And beneath the skin that no longer quite feels like mine — the fire in my veins stirs.

---

Time doesn't feel like it holds meaning anymore. It comes to me in pieces—thin slivers of awareness drifting through long seas of dark. Surfacing from the darkness of slumber is the closest thing to this experience — dragged just high enough to register the world before being pulled back down again. Hunger becomes the only reliable marker that anything is passing at all. A dull, persistent ache low in my gut that eventually sharpens into something sharp enough to slice through the fog.

That's when they feed me.

It's never gentle. Never cruel either. Just efficient. A mask presses over my mouth and nose while I'm too weak to fight it, cool air flushing through my lungs first, followed by the taste of something thick and metallic and faintly sweet. It slides down my throat whether I want it to or not. I cough. I gag. My body takes what it needs anyway.

Afterward, the hunger quiets. The fog rolls back in.

Sometimes I wake with dried residue at the corner of my mouth. Other times with the faint ache of a needle site in my arm or neck. I stop trying to keep count of how often it happens. The word days feels like a guess more than a certainty.

In one hazy stretch of wakefulness, I realize the restraints are different.

My arms aren't spread as wide now. My wrists sit closer to my sides, the angle less punishing. There's padding where cold metal used to bite directly into skin. My legs are still held fast, but I can feel the tension has been recalibrated—enough to prevent real movement without forcing my muscles into constant strain.

They're not just keeping me here anymore.

They're making me comfortable.

That might be the worst part.

The fire in my veins never quite sleeps. Sometimes it's only an ember, a low electric thrum beneath everything else. Other times it flares without warning—static rippling across my skin in visible waves, light flickering in the seams of the metal embedded in my chest. Each surge leaves me shaking and exhausted in its wake.

I don't scream anymore.

It stopped feeling useful after the second or third time no one reacted.

The next time consciousness finds me for more than a few seconds, the room feels… quieter. The machines are still there, still breathing their mechanical rhythm into the space, but the background noise has softened somehow. My head feels clearer than it has since I woke up here. Heavy. But definitely clearer.

A moment passes, then the mechanical voice speaks.

"How are you feeling?"

The tone is different, softer around the edges, like something has been dialed back. The tension that's lived under my skin for what feels like an eternity loosens just a fraction at the sound of it.

"Tired," I groan.

The word barely makes it out of me before my throat protests. My eyelids feel like they've been weighed down with lead.

"You've been kept in an isolated chamber where interference wouldn't complicate the procedure," the voice explains. "Unfortunately, it means you're experiencing more fatigue than normal. We can correct that in a few minutes—depending on whether you're compliant."

The word lands wrong.

"Compliant?" I repeat slowly.

"You injured four of my men the last time you woke up," he says calmly. "It appears your temper got the better of you."

"How…" I pause, blinking hard as I try to force my thoughts into something resembling order. "How could I have— I'm not able to move."

There's the faintest hesitation in the voice now.

"It appears the disorientation is more severe than initially projected," he says. "The dumbasses must have screwed up. Did you know that permanent brain damage occurs when the brain is deoxygenated for more than four minutes?"

"What-what the hell are you talking about?"

The voice sighs.

"I suppose we'll need to take this nice and slow."

Light shifts.

Footsteps follow.

Something about the cadence of them feels different from the others I've heard—unhurried, confident, unafraid of my restraints or whatever I might be capable of. A figure steps forward from the edge of the light at the far end of the room. As he moves closer, details bleed out of shadow.

A dark mask. Smooth in some places, angular in others. Twin lenses where eyes should be, faintly reflecting the room's sterile glow. A long coat draped over broad shoulders, material whispering softly with each step.

My vision swims as I try to focus on him. The world still feels a half-second out of sync with itself.

"I was hoping to finally make your acquaintance," the mechanical voice says—closer now. Personal. "I've done some digging. And you, my friend… are a ghost."

He stops just beyond arm's reach.

"Not one single image of you can be found."

The words don't land right away. They drift through the fog in my head, brushing against something that refuses to take shape.

"A ghost…?" I murmur. The sound comes out wrong—thin, uncertain. "What does that mean?"

It earns me a quiet sound from his direction. Not quite a laugh. Not quite a sigh.

"It means you didn't exist in any meaningful system I had access to," he explains smoothly. "No digital trail. No verified records. No history substantial enough to survive even the most invasive search methods."

I shake my head weakly. The motion makes the room tilt.

"That's not— I had a life," I insist, though even to my own ears the words feel flimsy. "I was… I was just—"

Just what?

The answer slips through my grasp like smoke.

"Whatever you were," he replies, "is no longer particularly relevant."

My heart begins to thud harder against the restraint across my chest. The metal inlaid in my sternum glows faintly brighter with the change in my pulse, responding like a living thing.

"What did you do to me?" I ask.

The question trembles despite my attempt to steady it.

He tilts his head slightly, studying me through those glowing lenses. I can feel the weight of his attention like pressure against my skin.

"I gave you a second chance," he says simply. "One you would not have survived without my intervention."

My stomach twists.

"I didn't ask for that."

"No," he agrees. "You didn't... you begged."

Silence stretches between us, thick and charged.

"You will remain here a little while longer," he continues at last. "Your body is still adjusting. But soon, we'll see what you can truly do when the fatigue is stripped away."

Something in his tone tightens at the edges—anticipation, thin and sharp.

"And when that time comes," he adds, "I suspect your confusion will be the least of your concerns."

He steps back into the shadow as the light subtly re-centers on me.

The machines resume their quiet watch, and I'm left suspended in the dark chamber that has become my prison.

---

Hey guys! So this story has been something cooking in the back of my mind since finishing Dispatch a few days after the season finale episodes were released. I will admit, I was torn between doing an Self Insert fic or an impromptu season 2 fic to fill the gaps. I think I found a way to do the best of both worlds with this while expanding on some of what we know.

The MC is going to be named Ryan Harbour once he starts to figure out what's going on. He does have superpowers, and will honestly be a mixture of Cole MacGrath from InFamous and the 2013 Max Steel reboot's powers. He's not going to be a god, but he's definitely going to have a threatening potential to some of the more iconic heroes and villains.

If you are interested in supporting my writing, I do have a Patreon where you can get up to 5 chapters early access depending on the tier. Depending on how popular this gets, I may try to commission some artwork for some of the OC characters. I'll try to update again soon. I do have quite a bit of time off this month so I should be able to knock out a few chapters. In the span of two days I wrote five chapters for this, so there's that. Once I get chapter 6 written, I'll post chapter two publicly. Thank you guys for reading, and I hope to see you in the next chapter.

Ask any questions, I will be happy to answer to the best of my ability.

Want to join the discord server I run and talk about the story with other people? Link is below:

discord.gg/dQkeJPkxdD

https://www.patreon.com/c/Arsenal597

 

[Jamoso]

I was literally just reading Absolute Spider-Man over on Ao3 this morning. Crazy coincidence. Love this though. The world needs more Dispatch fics!

I think the usually unmentioned character trait from Shroud that I like the best is how he looks cool most of the time, and he acts like everything he does is based on calculations, but it's like he never adds the variables of his own emotions lashing out, and he ends up being sort of a coward whenever things don't go according to plan.

Do you have any pairings planned? I think any or none would be accepted at this point since the market isn't yet saturated. To conclude, great work and I would love to see what is coming in the future!

 

[Arsenal597]

I was literally just reading Absolute Spider-Man over on Ao3 this morning. Crazy coincidence. Love this though. The world needs more Dispatch fics!

I think the usually unmentioned character trait from Shroud that I like the best is how he looks cool most of the time, and he acts like everything he does is based on calculations, but it's like he never adds the variables of his own emotions lashing out, and he ends up being sort of a coward whenever things don't go according to plan.

Do you have any pairings planned? I think any or none would be accepted at this point since the market isn't yet saturated. To conclude, great work and I would love to see what is coming in the future!

Click to shrink...

Hey! Small world huh? I definitely agree there needs to be way more Dispatch fics.

I think that might be the one part of Shroud's "power" that nobody realizes, not even Shroud. He has the ability to predict what's going to happen, but the one variable that matters the most is his own emotions.

As for the pairing, I haven't really figured that out yet. There's a character I added in the next couple chapters that you might notice seems to be a little flirty with the MC, but whether that becomes anything serious we'll see. I am partial to Invisigal, though because she is my type lol.

 

[Arsylvos]

Really happy with more Dispatch, looking forward to seeing more

 

[Arsenal597]

The first thing that happens when the man in the mask returns to the room is that my restraints are removed. Two men with tubes and wires snaking out of their arms step in close, their movements efficient and practiced. Cold metal unlatches from my wrists and ankles in quick succession. The instant the final restraint releases, the world lurches violently out from under me.

My knees buckle.

For a split second I'm falling—weightless, helpless—and then a firm arm catches across my back, another keeping me upright by the shoulder. My forehead nearly hits the masked man's chest before he steadies me completely.

"Easy," he says softly, turning his head toward the two men. "You need to be more careful. Causing him harm is volatile."

One of them dips his head immediately.

"Sorry, sir," he mutters, already backing away.

"Get out of my sight."

They don't hesitate. Boots retreat in quick, clipped steps, the hiss of hydraulic joints fading with them as they disappear into the dark edges of the room. The mechanical rhythm of the machines seems louder in their absence. Too loud. Like the place is breathing again now that they're gone.

It's just us.

My vision swims as the man adjusts his hold, keeping me on my feet with only the bare minimum of force. The pressure of his grip is solid, real—too real for how unreal everything else feels. My senses are dulled across the board, wrapped in layers of cotton and static. Even the light looks wrong. Washed out. Like someone drained every color from the room and left only shades of ash and shadow behind. A weak crackle hums persistently in my ears, like the afterimage of thunder that refuses to fade.

I try to straighten on instinct and immediately regret it.

Every muscle in my legs screams in protest. They tremble violently beneath me, useless and untrustworthy, like they no longer remember what standing is supposed to feel like. If not for his grip, I'd be on the floor.

He gestures subtly with his head toward the far end of the chamber.

"Take it easy. Until we get you back above ground, you're going to have difficulty."

"What?" I huff, breath leaving me in a shaky rush. The word feels like it drags its way out of my chest. I barely understand what he means—above ground? Back from where?

He starts guiding me forward before I can form another thought. Slow. Measured. Each step feels like forcing life through dead limbs. My feet slide more than they lift. My balance lags half a second behind every movement. I'm dimly aware of the floor beneath me being cold metal, but even that sensation feels distant and filtered.

"I'll explain shortly," he says. "Rest assured, you're going to be taken care of. Granted, you give me the answers I need."

"What answers?" I ask weakly.

"All in due time. Just focus on walking for now."

The chamber opens into a narrow corridor that stretches into shadow. Thin strips of light run along the ceiling in intermittent bands, each one flickering as we pass beneath it. With every few steps, the static in my ears softens a fraction. My lungs stop burning quite so sharply. Breathing comes a little easier, like whatever has been sitting on my chest since I woke up is slowly lifting.

We reach a stairwell cut straight into dark concrete.

The first step up nearly puts me back on the floor.

My foot doesn't lift high enough, catches the edge, and my body jerks forward in a clumsy stumble. His hold tightens instantly, firm but controlled, pulling me back into alignment before I can crash.

"Careful," he murmurs.

The distortion in his voice is gone.

I don't notice it right away—not consciously. It's subtle at first, just a difference in texture. The harsh, artificial edge that used to scrape against my ears is missing now. The words sound… closer. Warmer. Human in a way that makes my stomach twist. When the realization fully clicks, it catches me off guard enough that I nearly miss the next step.

"That's better," he says quietly, clearly aware of the change.

My heart kicks unevenly in my chest.

"You… you sound different," I mutter.

"Consider it a courtesy," he replies. "It's difficult to build trust through a filter."

Trust. The word feels almost laughable right now.

We continue upward.

Each stair is a small battle. My legs shake violently with every lift, muscles burning in protest as if I've been asleep for years instead of days—if it's even been days. My hands curl and uncurl uselessly at my sides, tingling with a faint, restless static that flares briefly whenever I lose my balance. A thin blue light pulses beneath my skin with each labored heartbeat, just visible at the edges of my vision when I glance down at my chest.

Wires hang low from the ceiling as we climb—thick bundles looping between broken panels and exposed fixtures. As we pass beneath them, a few spark faintly. The lights above us flicker and wane in uneven rhythms, plunging the stairs into brief pockets of shadow before sputtering back to life.

He lets out a quiet, amused sound under his breath.

"Hm," he chuckles. "You're hungry, aren't you?"

The question lands strangely. Not accusatory. Not analytical. Almost… observational.

I open my mouth to respond, confusion already rising—and he ignores me entirely.

We keep moving.

Another few steps pass before I notice it: the ache in my gut is louder now. Sharper. The fog in my head thins just enough for the sensation to break through clearly. My breaths draw in deeper without me consciously forcing it. The heavy, sluggish pressure behind my eyes eases a fraction with every step.

It's like my body is waking up faster than my mind can keep up.

"What do you mean 'hungry'?" I finally ask, voice still rough but steadier than before. "You've been feeding me."

"Yes," he says simply.

The way he says it makes the word feel incomplete.

We climb in silence for several seconds after that. The staircase curves gently upward, disappearing into darkness above. Each breath I take feels fuller than the last. The static in my ears recedes to a faint background whisper instead of a constant roar. Strength returns to my legs in hesitant, uncertain increments—enough that I start contributing more to my own weight instead of relying entirely on his support.

"You're adjusting quickly," he observes.

"I don't feel quick," I mutter.

"No," he agrees. "You feel starved."

A chill threads through my spine.

The steps continue. The lights overhead grow more frequent, less erratic. The air changes too—cooler, cleaner, less saturated with the sterile tang of antiseptic and ozone. Every inhalation feels like it reaches deeper into my lungs than it has since I woke up in that room.

My senses sharpen by degrees.

Sound gains depth. The echo of our footsteps stretches farther down the stairwell. Even the fabric of his coat whispers more clearly when he moves beside me. I start to notice the subtle tension in his grip adjusting every time my balance wavers—never tightening too much, never letting go too quickly.

A strange, unwelcome thought creeps in.

He's guiding me. Not hauling. Not dragging.

Helping.

"What happens if I don't give you these answers?" I ask quietly.

His pace doesn't slow.

"Then you remain exactly where you were," he replies. "Confused. Isolated. Slowly burning yourself apart from the inside."

The words are calm. Matter-of-fact. Somehow that makes them worse.

"And if I do?"

There's a pause this time. Just long enough to feel intentional.

"Then we find out what you truly are capable of," he says.

We reach a landing at last. A heavy metal door waits at the top of the next short flight. Light spills faintly through the thin seam where it meets the frame—real light, warmer than anything below. My pulse stutters in response to it.

He shifts his hold slightly, bracing me before the final ascent.

"Almost there," he murmurs.

For the first time since I woke up, I realize something that sends a quiet, terrified relief through me:

I'm not being carried anymore.

I'm walking.

Barely.

But on my own.

The door at the top of the stairs opens into something that feels wrong in a completely different way.

Warm light spills over us first—real, steady light that doesn't flicker or buzz—and then space. A massive open floor stretches out before me, steel rafters vanishing into shadow far overhead. Rows of bunks line the far wall in tight, organized blocks. Equipment racks stand between them like skeletal spines. The air smells like metal, oil, sweat… and something faintly electrical beneath it all.

A barracks.

My steps slow without me meaning them to.

People move through the space in loose clusters. Some sit on the edges of their bunks tightening straps or reattaching armor plates. Others stand near weapon lockers, checking gear with idle familiarity. At a glance, they look like soldiers—but then my focus sharpens, and the details hit.

Red light glows beneath fabric at the chest of one woman as she laughs at something a teammate says. Another man's scalp is partially transparent with cybernetics threaded beneath the skin, faint circuitry pulsing like veins made of glass. Someone passes with a mechanical forearm that clicks softly with each movement. Others have eyes that reflect light in unnatural hues—amber, crimson, electric blue.

Every single one of them are modified.

And the worst part?

It all feels familiar.

My skin prickles with quiet static as I'm guided forward, the sensation stirring in response to the energy humming off the room itself.

"Well, well," a voice calls out from the left, amused and lazy. "Looks like Sparky's finally up and moving."

I turn my head sluggishly toward the sound.

A man leans against a weapons rack, arms crossed, helmet tucked under one arm. He looks normal enough at first—too normal compared to the others. No visible glow. No obvious metal. Dark hair pulled back at the nape of his neck, a crooked grin tugging at his mouth.

"Took ya long enough," he adds.

Something about him feels off in a way I can't explain. Like standing near a live wire that hasn't sparked yet.

Before I can respond—or even figure out what "Sparky" is supposed to mean—the masked man beside me speaks.

"Ignore him," he says softly.

The man just chuckles and pushes off the rack, drifting back into the crowd like he's already lost interest. A few of the others glance my way as we pass. Some curious. Some indifferent. One or two with something sharper behind their eyes—evaluation, maybe. Like they're trying to measure me without touching me.

My chest tightens the deeper we move into the warehouse.

We cross the open floor and reach another staircase at the far end, narrower this time. The hum of the barracks fades behind us as we ascend, replaced by quieter air and softer lighting. My legs still feel weak, but the trembling has dulled to a manageable ache. I'm more aware now of how thirsty I am. My mouth feels dry enough to crack when I swallow. There's an odd pressure beneath that thirst too—an itch I can't scratch, like hunger echoing in a place that isn't my stomach.

At the top, we enter an office.

It's smaller. Cleaner. A steel desk sits near the center with a few monitors resting dark against the wall. Soft amber lights glow along the ceiling edges instead of the harsh whites below. The masked man guides me to a chair and eases me down into it with a steadying hand.

I exhale shakily once I'm seated, every muscle in my body humming with delayed protest.

He moves across the room to a tall storage door and keys in a code without looking back. The door slides open with a soft mechanical sigh, revealing a narrow space filled with hanging clothes.

"The clothes you came to us in were in unsatisfactory condition," he says evenly. "These will suffice for now. Here."

He selects a dark shirt from the rack and brings it over, holding it out to me.

I take it slowly, fingers trembling just a little. The fabric feels heavier than what I remember wearing. Thicker. When I pull it over my head, the movement sends a low ache through my shoulders and spine. My muscles protest but don't fail me this time. Color continues to bleed back into the world as I move—subtle at first, then stronger. The amber light warms. The steel walls carry faint variations of gray that weren't there before.

My body still feels wrong.

But it feels awake.

"Thanks," I mutter. "I guess."

"I'd much rather see you with clothes on," he replies dryly.

"I'd rather have clothes on myself," I huff, though the sound lacks any real humor. My head throbs faintly now, the ache familiar in a way I can't quite place—dull and insistent, like a caffeine withdrawal headache gnawing from the inside out. I swallow hard. "Do you have any water or something I can drink?"

"Of course," he says calmly. "But I think you'd rather have something with a little more kick to it."

He reaches into a compartment near the desk and removes a slender tube made of clear composite material. Faint blue light pulses inside it with the same cold rhythm as the device in my chest. He sets it on the desk within my reach.

"Drink up."

I stare at it.

Then at him.

Then back at it again.

"What?" I lift it cautiously, turning it in my hand. The glow reflects faintly against my skin. "You're joking, right?"

He doesn't answer right away. Just watches me through those softly illuminated lenses, head tilted slightly as if considering how to phrase his response.

"Do you truly not remember your own abilities?"

The word hits me harder than anything else since I woke up.

Abilities.

My grip tightens reflexively around the tube. My pulse stutters, and I feel the familiar hum beneath my skin respond—quiet but immediate. My eyes widen.

"My… what?"

"Abilities," he repeats, unhurried. "Your capacity. Your output. The reason you survived the integration process when projected failure rates were significantly higher."

"I don't have—" The words catch in my throat. "I don't have abilities. I'm just— I was just—"

The sentence collapses in on itself.

Just what?

The space where that answer should be feels hollowed out.

"You were never 'just' anything," he says gently. "Even before you came to us."

"I didn't come to you," I snap, sharper than I mean to. My head pounds. The ache behind my eyes deepens. "You keep saying that like it's a fact."

"It is," he replies. "Even if you cannot remember the steps that led you here."

My gaze drops to the tube in my hand. The glow inside it pulses faintly, synced to the rhythm I can now feel in my chest without looking. The same energy. The same wrong, living light.

"What happens if I don't drink this?" I ask quietly.

"Your body will continue to feel as it does now," he answers. "Weak. Starved. Disconnected. The hunger you feel will sharpen instead of easing."

"And if I do?"

A pause.

"Then you will feel like yourself again," he says.

The words echo strangely in the room.

Myself.

I look down at my hands—the scars I don't recognize, the faint blue light ghosting beneath the skin at my sternum, the subtle tremor in my fingers. I feel thirsty. Aching. Tired in a way that sleep wouldn't fix.

And beneath it all—

Hungry in a way that no food ever has.

"Tell me one thing," I say softly.

He inclines his head, giving me his full attention.

"What kind of abilities do you think I have?"

"As far as I'm concerned," he says, "you were a battery."

The word burns colder than the light in my chest.

And something inside me stirs in quiet, electric agreement.

The tube is warm in my hand. The glow inside it pulses once, twice, like it's reacting to my touch. I can feel it through my skin, a faint answering hum that rises from the device in my chest and meets it halfway. The air between my fingers and the tube crackles softly.

Before I can second-guess it, tiny arcs of blue-white light leap from the surface of the vial to my knuckles.

I gasp as electricity bites into my skin, and then begins to move.

The sparks spread like wildfire, racing over my fingers in branching lines, slipping beneath the surface of my skin like they've been waiting for permission all along. My veins ignite in a sudden, brilliant glow—thin blue lines flaring to life beneath my skin like I've been cracked open and filled with light.

My breath catches violently in my throat.

The energy surges up my arm in a single, unstoppable wave, slamming into my shoulder, flooding down through my chest like a river breaking a dam. The device embedded in my sternum flares bright in response, its pulse syncing instantly with the incoming current.

It feels like it should hurt.

Like my nerves should be screaming, like my organs should be tearing themselves apart trying to contain it.

Instead—

Warmth.

Pure, impossible warmth rushes through me, sweeping the lingering pain out of my body in one violent, cleansing tide. The ache in my muscles dissolves. The grinding pressure behind my eyes evaporates. The static that's lived in my limbs quiets into something smooth and steady.

My spine straightens on instinct.

Air rushes into my lungs in a deep, full breath that doesn't burn for once. My chest expands easily, freely, like it was always meant to move this way. The dull gray haze that's clouded my vision shatters all at once—

And color slams back into the world.

The amber light in the office flares rich and warm. The steel walls reflect sharp silvers instead of washed-out grays. The glow beneath my own skin burns vivid and real, no longer distant or wrong. I can feel everything again—the weight of my body in the chair, the cool air brushing against sweat-damp skin, the hum of the building beneath my feet.

My heart pounds powerfully, every beat sending another controlled pulse of energy through my veins, like my body is recalibrating itself in real time.

I didn't realize how tense I'd been until my shoulders drop on their own.

A sound tears out of me—half gasp, half shaky laugh, raw and startled. My grip loosens without me meaning to.

The tube slips from my hand and clatters against the floor.

I pitch forward slightly, bracing my hands against my knees as I suck in another heavy breath. Then another. My lungs feel too full, like I've been starved of oxygen for years and only just remembered how to breathe properly.

Energy hums beneath my skin now.

My hands stop shaking.

I flex my fingers slowly, watching the faint blue light fade from my veins until only my normal skin tone remains. The glow retreats inward, settling back into the device in my chest like it's found its proper home again.

I feel… solid.

Grounded.

Alive in a way I don't remember ever feeling before.

I push myself up out of the chair without thinking.

The movement is effortless.

No wobble. No muscle lag. No weakness dragging at my joints. My feet plant firmly against the floor like they actually belong there. My posture straightens naturally, spine aligning without that dull ache that's plagued me since the moment I woke up in that room.

I roll my shoulders once.

Then again.

The movement feels good.

"Okay," I murmur under my breath, voice steadier than it's been since all of this began. Stronger. My throat doesn't burn anymore. My words don't scrape their way out. "That's… that's new."

There's a faint ringing in my ears, not unpleasant—more like resonance. Like my body is still settling into the aftershock of what just moved through it.

I take a step.

Then another.

My stride is longer than I expect. Surer. The air feels lighter around me, like there's less resistance to every motion. I become acutely aware of how easily my weight shifts, how naturally my center of balance adjusts. I stop near the desk, flex my knee slightly, testing it.

No protest.

No pain.

Only strength, humming quietly beneath the surface.

I lift my hands again, palms up, studying them as if they might still be glowing. They look normal. Scarred. Human.

But they feel like they're carrying a storm just beneath the skin.

I laugh again—quiet and breathless, the sound pulled from me without permission this time.

"What the hell was in that thing?" I ask, glancing toward him.

The masked man hasn't moved from where he stood throughout the whole thing. He watched the entire process without interruption, without surprise. Just quiet, unwavering observation.

Satisfied.

He steps forward now, slow and unthreatening, boots barely making a sound against the floor.

"As I said," he replies calmly, nodding once in approval, "you're a walking battery."

He takes a seat against the edge of the desk, folding his arms loosely as he studies me like a solved equation.

"How do you feel?"

I draw in a long breath through my nose.

The air fills my lungs easily. My chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm. The lingering fear—the fog, the helplessness, the dragging weight of exhaustion—all of it feels distant now. Not gone completely, but pushed far enough back that it no longer owns me.

My hands curl into loose fists at my sides.

"Better," I say.

"Good," the man nods. "Now, let's talk."

The word talk lands heavier than it should.

I ease back into the chair, movement still too smooth, too easy for a body that felt half-dead minutes ago. The seat takes my weight like it always should have—no protest from my legs, no tremor in my knees. That alone is enough to send a ripple of unease through the new, humming confidence under my skin.

It shouldn't feel this natural.

My pulse is still steady. Too steady. The energy in my chest sits coiled and warm, like a sleeping animal that just finished eating. Part of me—some dangerously quiet part—feels good. Better than good. Wired. Awake. Alive.

The rest of me is spiraling.

My body feels different in a way that goes deeper than strength or clarity. The proportions feel the same. My hands look like my hands. But the way I occupy myself now… it's like the walls of my own skin got pushed outward. Like I'm standing in a version of myself that's been reinforced from the inside.

Did I die?

The thought slips in out of nowhere and refuses to leave.

Did I die… and wake up like this?

A dream would at least make sense. A coma hallucination. A stress-fueled nightmare. Anything but a cold office, a glowing device in my chest, and a man in a mask watching me like a restored machine.

What the hell is going on?

For the first time since I woke up down there, my mind is actually clear enough to ask the question properly—and the weight of it nearly crushes the high from the energy.

I stare at my hands in my lap for a beat too long.

Then I notice the silence.

I look up.

He's watching me — As if he expected me to get lost in my own head for a moment and accounted for it.

"Sorry," I say automatically, the word slipping out on reflex. My throat still feels strange—stronger, but unfamiliar. "You say something?"

"I understand this is a lot for you to take in," he replies evenly. "But I'm afraid there's a lot

to be done."

My stomach twists.

"Can you explain what's going on at least?" I ask. The adrenaline from earlier drains just enough for the fear to catch up. "Where am I?"

"You're in a safe place," he says, "from those who would consider you an enemy. That is all you need to know at the moment." A pause. Then, quieter, more deliberate: "I'd actually prefer to ask the questions right now."

The air shifts.

It's subtle, but I feel it immediately—like someone just shut a door somewhere I can't see. Whatever quiet patience he was showing a moment ago withdraws. The warmth drains out of the room, leaving something colder behind it.

I sit back properly this time.

"Alright," I say, a little more guarded. "What do you want to know?"

He doesn't hesitate.

"First things first. What's your name?"

The question hits harder than it should.

"You don't know my name?" I ask before I can stop myself.

"As I said downstairs," he replies calmly, "you're a ghost. I don't like wild variables. It's harder to predict."

That does it.

A chill slides slowly down my spine, threading between the new heat in my veins like oil in water. Ghost. The word echoes in too many directions at once. No records. No trail. No net to catch me if I fall.

And worse—no confirmation that I'm even supposed to still be here.

Something about him tugs at the edge of my thoughts again. The voice. The mask. The way he moves. I'm starting to recognize him now, like a name sitting just out of reach on the tip of my tongue.

And that's exactly why I can't tell him the truth.

If I really am a ghost, then I need to stay that way. At least until I know why.

My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

Shit.

What the hell do I even call myself?

The pause stretches just long enough to feel suspicious.

"Ryan," I say finally. The name sparks into existence half-formed in my head. "Ryan Harbour."

It sounds real the moment I say it—solid enough to pass as truth. My pulse skips once, then steadies.

Good. Stick with it.

"Nice to meet you, Ryan," he says.

The way he says it makes my skin prickle—not because it sounds threatening, but because it sounds tested. Like he's listening for a hitch in my breathing, a flinch in my posture, some microscopic tell that proves I'm lying.

I nod once.

"Do you know who I am?" he asks.

"No," I answer honestly. Then, after a beat, "But you look familiar. The mask at least."

"Interesting," he murmurs. "Despite not remembering seeking us out, you recognize me. That's a good sign."

"A sign of what?" I ask.

He doesn't answer.

Instead, he reaches to the side of the desk and picks up a small remote. He turns slightly and points it toward the darkened monitor mounted on the wall.

The screen flickers to life.

Static clears.

A news desk snaps into focus.

"…Police are still on the lookout for escaped convict Elliott Connors," the anchor says, her tone clipped and urgent, "who is better known as the criminal known as Shroud…"

My blood goes cold.

The name hits like it was wired directly into my nervous system.

Shroud.

The room seems to tilt around me.

The masked man on the screen appears in grainy footage—security camera angles, distant street shots, flashes of blue-and-red sirens reflecting off dark armor. The mask is unmistakable.

There's no way. I have to be dreaming right now. He-he, he's a god damn video game character. How is he in front of me? No, no, no… how the fuck is this possible?

The broadcast continues, talking about property damage, injured officers, "unverified reports of enhanced individuals," and a growing task force dedicated to bringing Shroud in "by any means necessary."

I look back at him slowly.

"You're… that Shroud," I say.

"Yes," he confirms simply.

My thoughts crash into one another in a messy pile—memories I don't have, questions I don't know how to ask yet, the impossible reality of waking up as a living power source in the headquarters of a wanted criminal mastermind.

"You said I came to you," I say slowly. "But I don't remember any of that. I don't remember you. I don't even remember—" My voice falters. "I don't remember how I ended up like this."

"No," he agrees. "You don't."

"Then how do you expect me to answer anything?" I ask. "You're asking impossible questions."

His head tilts slightly.

"I'm not asking for certainty," he says. "I'm asking for instinct. For reactions. For fragments. Whatever pieces remained intact."

"And if there aren't any?"

"Then we begin building from what you are now."

The weight of that sentence settles in my chest heavier than the device ever did.

"What exactly do you think I am now?" I ask quietly.

He studies me for a long moment.

"That depends," he says at last. "An asset, a liability, a miracle of engineering. You might even be a weapon, depending on who controls the current."

My hands curl slowly against my thighs.

"And to you?"

Another pause.

"To me," he says, "that remains to be seen. Hence why I need to ask these questions. To help determine what you are, Ryan."

An uneasy, breathless sound escapes me—half laugh, half disbelief.

"I understand this is a lot to process. But if it's any comfort, you're adapting remarkably well. Even above the projected probability. Forty-two percent better than I anticipated."

"Physically, maybe…" I correct. "I don't know about mentally."

"That is to be expected."

I lean back in the chair again, exhaling slowly through my nose. The energy in my chest hums in quiet sympathy with my pulse—steady, patient, waiting.

Ecstatic turns to wary.

Wary slides into dread.

And dread is now tangling tightly with a growing, suffocating confusion.

I'm sitting in a wanted criminal's office.

I just lied about my name.

And according to him, I walked into this hell on purpose.

"What are you really going to ask me, Shroud?" I say at last.

The mask turns just enough that I feel his full attention settle on me.

"That," he replies calmly, "depends on how much you remember once the shock wears off."

---

Hey guys, hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Really happy to see the reception to this story was so positive right off the bat on all the sites I've posted it. I'll be attempting to get a few more chapters wrote out until the beginning of the year, so fingers crossed we can get to chapter 5 posted publicly.
As I mentioned before, I do have a Patreon where you can get up to 5 chapters early access. 1 free chapter, 4 paid. If the story gets enough attention, I may try to commission some artwork for the story. That's where most of my writing money is going to go regardless.
Links are below. Will catch you all very soon!
discord.gg/dQkeJPkxdD
https://www.patreon.com/c/Arsenal597

 

[MorbiIIionaire]

What a way to start lol, thrown right into the hands of the villain. Let's hope he didnt put a bomb in you or something.

 

[Rifleshot]

10k words and not a whole lot of plot progress, story meanders constantly and keeps retreading on emotions when it really doesn't need to. Hopefully things pick up speed cuz otherwise this is just kinda boring

 

[Lillie Jones]

thanks for the chapters

 

[Jaol]

Great chapter, I enjoyed the power reveal. I cannot wait to see what our protagonist will do when he encounters the astral pulse. That's my theory why Shroud was so keen on keeping him as an asset. Either Ryan can temporary disable it or he can overcharge himself

 

[Arsenal597]

Great chapter, I enjoyed the power reveal. I cannot wait to see what our protagonist will do when he encounters the astral pulse. That's my theory why Shroud was so keen on keeping him as an asset. Either Ryan can temporary disable it or he can overcharge himself

Click to shrink...

That's actually a really good theory. I like that a lot. We'll see if you're right down the road!

 

[Arsenal597]

So, here I am… sitting in front of a supervillain from a video game I played religiously for weeks. Yeah, this is either a crazy dream or I actually died and I'm in a hell of my own making. It'd be awfully nice to wake up right now if that was the case.

Shroud stays silent as I adjust in the seat, trying to not freak out. If "I" was the one who sought Shroud out in the first place, that might mean I'm not a good guy. Hell, I could be a wanted criminal right now. It would explain why he said I'd be safe from any enemy wanting to harm me.

While I might be running off an energy rush from that vial, I'm way too sober for this shit. The worst part of it all? I don't drink alcohol. When your family has a history of addiction, you try to avoid that. At least, that's what I did.

"Okay… so let me get this right." I exhale slowly. "I came to you, and you did some kind of procedure on me," my hand touches the metal in my chest, "and you're a supervillain?"

"Supervillain is a strong term for weak-minded individuals. There are no such things as heroes or villains, Ryan. That is something I hope you learn in the coming days. There is only good and evil. That word, hero…" he clicks his tongue. "It's been tainted by unworthy men and women who are no better than you or I."

Shroud leans forward some, clasping his hands together.

"Do you view yourself as a hero, Ryan?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Do you see yourself as someone who would risk his life to help someone in need simply because it's the right thing to do? Or would you be the one to do what's necessary in a world that thinks in black and white, when it's really shades of grey?"

I swallow, my throat dry. My pulse thrums in the hollow of my chest like it's trying to warn me. The words hang in the air, heavier than the amber light spilling across the desk.

"I… I guess I'd want to help," I say slowly, almost whispering it. "I'd want to do the right thing." My own words feel fragile, fragile enough to shatter under scrutiny.

Shroud tilts his head slightly, silent, letting me fumble for the next syllable.

"Right thing," he echoes, the words rolling off the mask with a soft hiss. "You say that like it's simple. Like the world grants you the luxury of clarity."

I glance down at my hands. They don't tremble—not anymore—but there's something wired beneath the surface now. A quiet, coiled energy I can't ignore.

"I don't know," I admit. "I don't… I don't know if it's that simple anymore."

"Of course it isn't," he murmurs. Leaning back in the chair, boots scuffing the floor softly. "Black and white is comforting. Easy to digest. But life… life is composed of shades that bite. Choices that leave scars, whether visible or buried. Tell me, Ryan… if helping someone meant you had to cross a line you swore never to cross, would you?"

The question slices through the high I rode from the vial, leaving a cold thread of doubt coiling in my gut. I can feel it now—the hunger of it, not physical, but moral, a pull in directions I've never been trained to resist.

"I… I don't know," I repeat, weaker this time, the words tasting foreign. "I want to… I want to do the right thing, but… I've never been in the position to find out one way or the other."

A small, almost imperceptible sound escapes him. A laugh, soft and patient, not cruel.

"Ah. Finally. Honesty. That is far more valuable than blind courage. Most would have claimed heroism without hesitation. Few admit their doubt."

I lean back in the chair, letting my shoulders slump. My chest hums with that quiet, dangerous energy, as if it's listening to my heartbeat, waiting for the signal to respond.

Shroud's gaze doesn't waver. It drills into me, dissecting every twitch, every microsecond of hesitation.

"Ryan… heroes are a myth. What you call heroism is often just a mask, a construct to soothe guilt or glorify luck. But what you are now… you are a variable. A question. And questions… are meant to be tested."

I close my eyes for a moment, the weight of it pressing in. Tested. Variable. Question. Words that used to mean nothing now gnaw at the edges of my mind. My instincts bristle, my chest tightens, and I feel the first real trace of fear—not for my body, not even for him—but for the choices I might be forced to make.

I open my eyes slowly, glare catching the faint glow in the device at my sternum.

"So… what's the test?" I ask, voice barely above a whisper.

Shroud leans forward slightly, voice low, deliberate, almost conversational.

"The test… is you, Ryan. Everything you thought you were… and everything you will be, once this room stops whispering and the world demands an answer."

"Your men," I say carefully, the words scraping out of me slower than I intend, "the ones that operated on me… they said consent was irrelevant. But you've also said that I came to you looking for this. So what is it? What did you do to me exactly?"

The question hangs between us like a wire pulled tight.

"Ryan," Shroud replies, voice flattening, "you're getting ahead of yourself. I'm the one asking the questions right now."

A faint heat stirs beneath my skin again—not a surge this time, just a restless stirring, like the energy in my chest doesn't like being spoken around without its permission.

"I don't think," I say quietly, forcing the tremor out of my voice, "I'm going to answer anything else until you give me one in return."

For the first time since we sat down, the room truly feels cold.

Shroud doesn't move at first. The mask tilts, just a fraction, and I can feel his displeasure like pressure against my ribs. The silence stretches long enough that I start to wonder if I've just made a very fatal mistake.

Then he exhales.

A long, measured breath.

"It's only fair, I suppose," he says at last. There's something faintly amused beneath the irritation now. "You can't be bothered to answer honestly if you feel like I'm the 'bad guy.'" He punctuates the phrase with a subtle, mocking gesture of his hand. "Very well."

My spine stiffens.

"Yes," he continues, "you came to me. Your powers were rampant. Unfocused. Your limits were hindering you. That device in your chest was designed to solve that."

My hand drifts unconsciously to the metal embedded in my sternum. It's warm. Not uncomfortably so—just enough to remind me that it's there, that it's part of me now.

"It's meant to help harness the energy you siphon," he says. "To stop it from tearing through you like a live wire through wet skin."

I flinch before I can stop myself.

"That," he motions toward the discarded vial on the floor, "is a Pulse Drive. An inferior form of the energy you naturally generate. Stabilized. Crude. But effective."

"And the real thing?" I ask.

"There is only one energy source that can rival your capabilities."

My throat tightens.

"What is it?"

Something sharp edges into his voice.

"Something I've been looking for for a very long time. Something that belongs rightfully to me."

The word growls out of him before he reins it back in. The air seems to tense, like it's bracing for a storm that doesn't quite break.

"But that," he says after a moment, measured again, "is besides the point right now. The device regulates the flow of what you siphon. It prevents overload. It spreads the current through your entire body instead of letting it rupture localized tissue."

"You're helping me metabolize it?" I ask.

"That's a crude way of looking at it," he nods. "But yes."

"And what about what your men said?" I press. "About consent being irrelevant."

A faint, irritated sound escapes him.

"They're idiots. Useful idiots, but idiots nonetheless. I will deal with them accordingly."

That answer doesn't make me feel better.

"They restrained me," I say. "Cut into me. Put a machine in my chest while I was unconscious."

"And yet you're alive," he replies calmly. "Improved. Functioning. You were dying before you ever entered my facility, Ryan. That much I can say with certainty."

That lands wrong in my gut.

"Dying how?" I ask.

"Uncontrolled output," he says. "Your body was burning itself to keep up with the discharge. Eventually, it would have failed. The device bought you time. Stability. A future."

A future I didn't consent to.

My jaw tightens, but I don't push it further. Not yet. The energy in my chest hums quietly, like it's listening to the exchange as carefully as I am.

Shroud straightens slightly. The brief concession is over. Whatever answers I was owed, he's decided I've had enough.

"Now," he says, voice firm again, "we return to what matters."

I feel the shift immediately—the subtle withdrawal of that earlier patience.

"Do you know why I was imprisoned?"

The question is casual. Almost conversational.

"No," I answer.

Of course I know.

He killed the second Mecha Man.

"I was imprisoned," he continues, "for killing a false hero. One who never deserved the spotlight that was given to him."

I let out a quiet, bitter scoff before I can stop myself.

"False hero? Thought heroes were a myth."

"Nowadays, they are," he replies simply. "Back then… people still believed in costumes and cameras. In slogans. In saviors who performed for the crowd while rot spread beneath their feet."

"What did he do?" I ask.

"Enough," Shroud says. "Enough to deserve what happened to him. Enough that removing him saved more lives than he ever did."

My pulse picks up. The hum in my chest seems to resonate with it, a soft, electric echo.

"And the world didn't see it that way," I murmur.

"No," he agrees. "The world saw a martyr. They always do."

I study the mask for a long moment. The shape of it. The stillness. The way he speaks like a man who has already had every argument with the world and lost none of them in his own head.

"And now?" I ask. "Why am I here, talking about this?"

"Because," Shroud says evenly, "you are standing at the same crossroads he once did. Power without guidance becomes tyranny. Power with blind faith becomes spectacle. I will not allow either."

A tight knot forms in my stomach.

"So what do you want from me?"

The mask angles toward me fully now.

"I want to know what kind of man you are when no one is cheering," he says. "When the cameras are off. When choosing the right thing will make the world call you a monster."

My hands curl against my thighs. The energy in my chest coils tighter, like it recognizes the shape of the test before I do.

"That's not an easy answer."

"I know… which is why I'm asking you. You were on death's door, desperate for a way to stay alive. You acted like them, the criminals you're clearly associating me with me. Ryan, you are not the same as you were before arriving at my doorstep. That much is clear. I do not know why you've changed, but something is different. Whether it was the procedure itself causing damage, or an unintended side effect of the energy metabolizing correctly. I want to know what kind of a man you are, plain and simple. Are you willing to try and control evil? Or are you one to let it run rampant?"

"I'm not about to break the law without reason, Shroud. If that's what you're asking. I don't want to stoop to that level."

Shroud studies me for a long beat after that, the quiet stretching until it starts to feel deliberate again. The soft hum of the building fills the gap. Somewhere far below us, machinery cycles. Breath in. Breath out. My own pulse syncs with the steady thrum in my chest, patient and alert in a way that makes it hard to sit still.

"Law," he repeats softly. Not mockingly. Thoughtfully. "An interesting word to cling to, considering your current circumstances."

"I'm serious," I say. "I don't want blood on my hands just because the world is messy."

"Mm." He shifts his weight against the desk, arms folding loosely once more. "Tell me, Ryan… whose laws?"

I hesitate.

"The government's," I answer after a moment. "The people's. Society's."

"And when those laws protect monsters in uniforms?" he asks calmly. "When they draw clean lines around dirty deeds and call it order? When following them means allowing something worse to continue because it is… authorized?"

My jaw tightens. I look down at my hands again, at the faint scars, the too-quiet glow buried beneath the skin now.

"There's due process," I say. "There are ways to change things without becoming the thing you're fighting."

"Spoken like a man who still believes the system bends toward justice," Shroud replies.

"Doesn't it?" I ask.

He doesn't answer immediately. Instead, he steps away from the desk and begins to pace slowly across the office. Each footstep is unhurried. Controlled. The mask never stops tracking me.

"Once," he says, "I believed what you believe. I worked within the lines. Filed requests. Collected evidence. Trusted that truth, when properly exposed, would be enough."

He stops near the wall, the amber light edging one side of his mask in warm gold.

"It wasn't."

The word lands flat and final.

"And when you realized that," I say, careful, "you decided murder was the solution?"

He turns back to me.

"I decided removal was," he corrects. "There is a distinction. One you may come to understand."

I feel my stomach twist.

"You're talking like he wasn't even a person."

"I'm talking like he cost people their lives while smiling for cameras," Shroud replies. "Like he hid behind applause while burying evidence under patriotic slogans. Like he wore the word hero the way a butcher wears a clean apron."

The temperature in the room feels like it drops a degree.

"You're asking me to justify a killing I wasn't a part of."

"No," he says calmly. "I'm asking you to look through a new lens. A new perspective. In his place, would you have done what was necessary?"

"That's not a fair hypothetical," I snap. "You're giving me your conclusion without showing me the facts."

A faint curve touches the edge of his voice.

"Very good. You do want the facts."

"I want reality," I say. "Not ideology."

For a brief second, something unreadable stirs in the set of his shoulders.

"Reality," he echoes. "Reality is often unforgiving. What I'm going to give you is exactly what you want."

He steps to the window and looks out. Shroud motions to me, and I stand up to meet him.

"Look out there. What do you see?"

I step up beside him and look through the reinforced glass.

The warehouse stretches out below us in layered steel walkways and open floor space, brighter here than it was when I was dragged through earlier. The barracks have shifted into motion. People move with purpose now—organized lines, rotating patrols, small teams breaking off toward loading bays and weapons lockers. Augmented figures everywhere. Red light bleeds through seams in jackets and armor plating. Some glow faintly at the chest like I do. Others pulse in the neck, the spine, along mechanical limbs that catch the light with every step.

It's… busy.

Men and women I saw only in fragments before now move in patterns—checking gear, exchanging brief words, tapping data pads mounted to their forearms. A squad jogs across the floor in sync. Another group unloads a crate stamped with warning symbols I don't recognize. Overhead, a crane glides silently along its rails with clinical precision.

They look like soldiers.

They feel like criminals.

My skin prickles faintly with static as I take it in.

"Members of your 'gang?'" I ask quietly, turning my head toward him.

"These," Shroud says evenly, "are criminals that would have run rampant without someone to give them structure. Direction. They follow me because I hold the power they crave. And because I give them something they have never had before—control."

I study the figures below again. A woman with a glowing spinal rig stops to help another adjust a damaged brace. Two men argue briefly over a crate, then one relents and steps aside. No shouting. No violence.

Order.

"If it weren't for me," Shroud continues, "how many lives would be lost to their unchecked impulses?"

I scoff before I can stop myself.

"Really? That's your selling point?" I turn to face him fully. "You're the good guy because you rallied a bunch of criminals and tell them what to do?"

His head tilts just slightly.

"I did not say I was a good man," he corrects. "I said I was a necessary one."

"That's what every tyrant says," I shoot back.

"And every failed idealist says what you just did," he replies calmly. "We are both reciting comfortable scripts, Ryan."

I grit my teeth and look back out at the warehouse.

"They don't look like they're being held here against their will," I admit. "But they also don't look free."

"Freedom," Shroud says, "is a dangerous word among the desperate. Most of them traded it willingly for power. Safety. Belonging."

My chest tightens at that last word.

Belonging.

"And if they decide they don't want to play your game anymore?" I ask. "What happens then?"

His voice doesn't change.

"Then they leave."

I glance at him sharply.

"Just like that?"

"Just like that," he repeats.

I search his mask for a crack in the answer and find none.

"Convenient," I mutter.

"You assume restraint is weakness," he says. "A common mistake."

I fold my arms slowly, feeling the warmth coil under my skin as my pulse steadies.

"You called them criminals," I say. "What did they actually do?"

"Murder. Trafficking. Corporate espionage. Domestic terrorism. Black-market bioengineering. Political assassination attempts," he lists without pause. "Some were caught. Many were not."

My stomach drops a little deeper with each word.

"And now they're what—your militia?" I ask.

"My network," he corrects. "My deterrent. My leverage."

"And your weapons," I add.

He does not deny it.

"You really think you're reducing harm by arming people like that?" I ask.

"I think," Shroud replies, "that harm exists whether I acknowledge it or not. The difference is that now, it answers to someone."

"That's not control," I snap. "That's just centralizing the danger!"

"And decentralization has worked so well for the past century," he replies dryly.

I drag a hand down my face.

"You're playing God with real people."

"I am playing warden in a world where the walls collapsed long before I ever stood up," he says.

We stand there in silence for a few seconds, the low hum of the warehouse bleeding through the glass, steady and relentless.

Finally, I look at him again.

"And where do I fit into all this?" I ask.

He turns slightly so that we're facing each other instead of the window.

"You," he says, "are not one of them."

"That's reassuring in the worst possible way," I mutter.

"You are not a soldier," he continues. "You are not a criminal in the way they are. You are… a pivot point. A resource that could shift outcomes rather than merely enforce them."

A chill threads through my spine.

"You're talking about me like I'm a lever," I say.

"You are a lever," he replies. "You generate power without consuming traditional volatile infrastructure. You convert kinetic discharge, ambient electrical fields, thermal waste. You feed on what the world leaks."

My brow furrows.

"I… what?"

"You siphon," he says simply. "Constantly. Unconsciously. That device in your chest only prevents your nervous system from cooking itself under the load."

"I didn't ask for that," I snap.

"Yes, you did… you asked me to help you survive it."

"And now you're repaying that favor by trying to recruit me into your crusade," I say.

"I am repaying it," Shroud corrects, "by telling you the truth instead of dressing this place up as something it isn't."

I glance back at the Red Ring below us—at the red glows, the cybernetics, the orderly motion of people who look like they've already crossed a line I'm still pretending I can see clearly.

"You think I'll become like them," I say quietly.

"I think you could," he replies. "Under the wrong pressure."

"And you're applying that pressure right now?" I ask.

"Yes."

At least he's honest about that.

"So what? You're trying to shake my faith? To make me doubt the whole idea of heroes? Is that it?"

"I wanted you to understand that masks do not determine morality," he counters. "Outcomes do."

"And your outcome is a warehouse full of enhanced criminals," I say.

"My outcome," he replies, "is a measurable reduction in random civilian casualties across three districts."

I blink.

"What?"

"You heard me," he says calmly. "My presence pressures other factions into predictability. Predictable violence is containable violence."

I stare at him.

"You're saying crime stats go down because of you?"

"Not officially," he adds. "Officially, those districts are still 'under investigation.'"

Of course they are.

"That doesn't make you a hero," I say.

"I have no desire to be one," Shroud answers.

"And yet here you are building an army like you're planning a war."

"Wars already exist," he says. "I simply choose not to be caught unarmed when they reach my doorstep."

I look back out over the warehouse.

Red Ring members move with practiced ease now. A group gathers around a holographic table that flickers to life with shifting maps. Another team straps into transport rigs near a loading bay. There's purpose in the air. Momentum.

"You didn't bring me here just to ask philosophical questions," I say quietly.

"No," Shroud agrees.

I turn back to him.

"You want me to be a weapon?"

"I'm offering you a choice to decide who you want to be, Ryan. Nothing more."

The energy in my chest coils tighter in response, like it doesn't like that answer either.

I stare at him, heart thudding in my ears.

"You keep talking about choice," I say, "but everything you've shown me feels like a cage with better lighting."

A pause.

"That," Shroud replies, "is because you have not yet tried to leave."

My breath catches.

"Is that an invitation?" I ask carefully.

"It is an option," he says. "One with consequences."

My jaw tightens.

"And the other option?"

He turns his gaze back toward the warehouse.

"The other option," he says, "is that you stay. You learn what you are becoming. And you decide whether the power inside your chest will belong to your fear… or to your will."

I follow his gaze down to the Red Ring one more time.

"You're not going to let me leave here without paying you back, somehow. That right?"

"Nothing is free in life…"

"What exactly do you want me to do then?"

Shroud doesn't answer right away. Of course he doesn't. He turns from the window at an angle, the city's cold light sliding over the edge of his mask like a blade finding its mark.

"I want you to choose," he says at last.

That's it. No grand declaration. No villain flourish. Just that single word, placed between us like a loaded coin on a table.

I let out a short, humorless breath.

"That's not an answer."

"It is the only one that matters," he replies. "I could tell you to fight. I could tell you to hunt. I could point you at my enemies and give you a neat little list of justifications to memorize. But then you would only be another weapon in someone else's hand."

He steps closer. Not threateningly—intentionally. Close enough that I'm acutely aware of the low, steady thrum in my chest again, like it's listening.

"I did not rebuild you so you could be ordered," Shroud says. "I rebuilt you so you could decide what kind of force you become."

My jaw tightens.

"You 'rebuilt' me without asking."

"No, you asked me…" he counters calmly, "and here you stand. Alive. Thinking. Arguing. You could have been ash on a morgue slab by now, Ryan. You weren't rescued for comfort. You were preserved for consequence."

That doesn't exactly make me feel better.

"So what," I say slowly, "you just… wait and see if I turn into a monster on my own?"

A pause.

"If you do," Shroud answers, "I will stop you."

That gets my attention.

"And if I don't?"

"Then the world may gain something it desperately lacks," he says. "A man with power who still hesitates."

I scoff quietly.

"You say that like hesitation is a virtue."

"In your case?" He tilts his head. "It may be the only thing that keeps you human."

Silence stretches between us again, thick with unspoken edges. The Red Ring moves below, distant and orderly and dangerous. My chest hums once, a lazy coil of energy shifting like it's eager for direction.

"So you're not asking me to join you," I say.

"No," Shroud replies. "I am asking you to decide whether the world deserves you unaligned."

That lands heavier than any recruitment pitch could.

"And if I decide I don't want any part of your war?"

A faint, quiet sound leaves him. Not quite a laugh.

"Then you will leave this place," he says. "With your life. With your abilities. With every danger that comes with being seen as something valuable."

He meets my gaze through the mask.

"And you will learn very quickly why men like me never remain theoretical for long."

My hands curl slowly at my sides. The glow beneath my skin stirs, faint but aware.

"Sounds an awful lot like a threat," I mutter.

"It is a warning," Shroud corrects. "To both of us."

He steps back at last, reclaiming the space between predator and subject.

"Rest," he says. "When you wake, the world will still be violent, still unfair, and still hungry for men who can change its shape."

Then, almost gently:

"When you are ready to answer your own question, you will know where to find me."

Shroud gestures towards the door. His motion is so casual it reads like a command—one I don't have the luxury of arguing with.

We move through a narrow corridor that smells faintly of oil and dust, the kind of industrial tang that tells you you're below ground or inside the belly of something that does heavy work. Lights are recessed here; they don't glare. The sound of the Red Ring mutters and moves in the distance—distant enough to feel safe, close enough to remind me I'm not alone. People glance up as we pass: brief looks, heads inclined in that polite, automatic acknowledgment you give someone whose name you don't know but whose presence means you should be careful. No one interferes. No one smiles. No one tries to befriend me. The atmosphere is efficient and contained.

Shroud walks with a gait that reads like experience and habit. He's the kind of man who never wastes energy on extraneous motion; even his pauses are precise. He steps aside at a junction and points down a short hallway. A single door awaits us at the end, set into a recessed alcove like a secret kept from the rest of the building.

"Regardless of your choice," he says without turning, "there is still the matter of payment. Beyond that, you have the ability to choose your future. Think carefully. We'll speak tomorrow."

He's said it before in different ways—less explicit, more philosophical—but this time the words cut like an invoice sliding across a desk. Payment. Choice. Future. The three corners of whatever contract he imagines we're dancing around.

The door opens before I can reply. The room inside is small but clean, the kind of efficiency that might actually pass as normal if you stripped the context away. A narrow bed sits against the far wall, sheets tucked tight. A single lamp hangs from the ceiling, casting an amber pool of light over a metal nightstand and a chair pushed neatly against the wall. There's a window—small, high up, showing nothing but the dark underside of a girder and the glow of a distant panel. It's not much. It's private.

Shroud steps inside, closes the door with the softest of clicks, and drops his voice to that same measured tone.

"You'll sleep here. You'll be escorted if you move about after lights out. The Red Ring values operational security." He lets the line hang, as if the promise of containment is also a threat.

"Payment," I repeat, because the word has settled in my teeth like a bad taste. "What payment?"

He regards me for a fraction longer than is comfortable, like an assessor weighing the quality of a stone.

"Use your head, Ryan. There are favors to be called in. Information to be traded. Risks to be mitigated. You have value; I expect compensation for preserving it."

It sounds almost practical, businesslike, until the implication sharpens—compensation for preservation, as if my survival is an asset he purchased and can now liquidate.

"I didn't ask for any of this," I say, voice low. It's a tired sound—worn by the ghosts of the night. "I didn't ask to be your project, your battery, whatever you want to call me."

"No," he answers. "You asked to survive. You asked me not to let you die."

It's not an answer so much as a pivot. He doesn't argue against the moral line that's been crossed. He reframes it as an exchange I ostensibly initiated.

I swallow. There are a thousand replies, none of which feel safe to voice. Everything here has the weight of consequence. I could say I refuse. I could demand my freedom. I could storm the door and try to find a way out. None of those options feel real. Not with the hum under my skin and the knowledge that if I run, I run carrying a beacon nobody can ignore.

He steps back toward the door. "Think about what you want, and how badly you want it. We both have needs. Make the choice you can live with."

Then he leaves. The door clicks shut with the same soft finality as before, and the corridor beyond swallows his retreating boots.

For a long moment I remain standing in the middle of the room like a puppet whose strings have been cut—free to fall, but unsure of where to go. My hands find the edge of the bed and I run my fingers along the fabric as if I could anchor myself to something ordinary. The sheet is cool, smell of detergent and metal. The lamp's glow seems too polite now, as if it apologizes for illuminating the quiet of a life that's been rearranged without consent.

I sit. I unbutton my shirt slowly and expose the device in my chest, feeling its faint warmth against my skin. I still don't know how to name it in a way that makes me feel whole. "Device" feels clinical. "Implant" feels impersonal. "Heart" sounds like a lie. Whatever the noun, it throbs the same, a metronome tuned to the rhythm of a life that's been forcibly extended.

Memory slides in thin, ragged pieces—my phone on the nightstand, the message that clogged my ribs like a splinter, the fan's lazy hum, and then nothing until pain and light and sound all slammed at once. Don't let them take your agency, the memory whispers that maybe never happened. Remember who you were, it says. But the voice in my head is half my own and half borrowed from whatever's been grafted into the way I move now. It's hard to tell where authenticity ends and adaptation begins.

I lie down finally, the mattress folding under me with a soft sigh. My body fits the bed like it always has, but my mind keeps demanding that something external prove continuity—proof that my life isn't copy pasted over someone else's outline. My palms rest on my stomach, not covering the metal, just feeling the quiet thrum that's become a constant company.

"What do I owe you?" I ask the empty room, and the question nods away into the lamp's halo without an answer.

Images roll through the dark like an old projector sputtering to life. Shroud's mask. The Red Ring below. The news anchor's voice morphing into static. Mecha Man's crash. Names I don't quite remember connecting to faces I don't have. The life I thought I'd been—small, blue-collar, careful around needles and bottles—feels uncanny now, like a dream I can't trust.

I trace a finger along the seam of my palm, watching the lines as if they might resolve into a map: where I came from, where I'd been, who I had been. They remain ordinary. Nothing exotic. The same scars, the same callus on the thumb from a hundred hours at a desk, the same stubborn habit of chewing at the inside of my cheek when I'm thinking hard. Those small, unimpressive fingerprints reassure me in a way Shroud's philosophy can't touch. They anchor me to a life that wasn't about power.

Which makes the choice feel heavier. To become a tool of consequence—perhaps a force for good or perhaps another tyrant—is not a philosophical exercise. It is real, messy, and irreversible. If I agree, whatever moral scaffolding I have will be taxed to the point of fracture. If I refuse, the world will still be there, and I'll be walking around with a visible asset taped to my chest, hunted by men who know its value. Neither path promises safety. Neither promises clarity.

Sleep does not come quickly. I count backward from a hundred like a rote prayer and every number is interrupted by a memory that feels like a lie. The hum in my chest eases into a steady comfort—an odd lullaby that drowns the sharper edges of thought. I think about family, about the group chat that spiraled into silence, about the text that flared like an accusation. I think about the way I had avoided alcohol because of the past and how, in a single reckless, forced moment, I'd swallowed electricity like a drug.

I imagine a dozen possible futures—each one a map shaded in different colors. In one, I leave tonight and am hunted within days. In another, I stay and learn to use what's inside me to prevent deaths, to bend things so people don't have to die for the glare of a camera. In a darker one, I wake up without a compass and become what Shroud fears: a monster in a human skin.

The lamp flickers once and stabilizes. The hum becomes a heartbeat, steady and sure. My breath slows. My eyelids feel heavier.

When I finally drift toward sleep it is not a surrender but a temporary truce. Tomorrow, the question will be waiting with its sharp edges and Shroud's patient eyes. Tomorrow, I will be expected to choose. For now, under the small privacy of a single lamp, I let the dark fold me in and try to remember what it felt like to be smaller, before anything inside me glittered with potential and threat alike.

---

Hey guys! Sorry about the long wait between chapters. Between being sick and having writer's block, this story in particular suffered because I was hooked on other stories in terms of muse. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. This is a peculiar story for me to write, mostly because I'm taking what we were shown in Dispatch and altering it a bit. Shroud should be a noticeable case here, with how he seems less of a dickhead here, but most definitely manipulating Ryan.

I'm genuinely excited to see where this story goes. There is one character that will be involved with next chapter moving forward that I've had a blast writing. These next few chapters might feel a bit weird, but this is because Ryan hasn't come into his own and his head is still processing everything. Once Chapter 8 hits, you'll notice that Ryan properly adapts to his world and everything will start clicking into place.

Let me know what you thought of the chapter, it helps motivate me to keep writing!

Interested in joining my discord server and talking about the story? Link will be below.

I do have a Patreon where you can get up to 10 chapters early access (Disclaimer: At this moment in time there are not ten chapters built up. Indomitable only has til chapter 7 posted there. I'm just getting back into writing this story, so bear with me!)

Until next time, guys!

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Council Members:

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Benediktus

Seren

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discord.gg/dQkeJPkxdD

https://www.patreon.com/c/Arsenal597

 

[Sneller123]

Looking forward to more

 

[Lillie Jones]

love the conversation between Shroud and the MC, which Shroud doesn't seem like a one note villain but presents ideologies about the fall fallacy of and Cost of heroism and shades of Grey even though Shroud is far innocent himself and his methods are extremely extensive dangerous, besides being a powerful, powerful power granter too.
Continue on
Cheers!

 

[EmJohn00]

Accurate to shroud in game cuz bro yaps if you give him the chance