Year 2082
2 years after what is now called the Academy Slaughter Incident.
Renny stood in front of his Coffin, freshly graduated from the Academy as a Front Scout.
His kit consisted of light armor and a small sword and shield.
It didn’t feel light.
He looked around.
His teammates were entering their Coffins too.
He had found a team not long after graduating.
They had taken him in as their last Front Scout had retired.
The mission at hand: Experimentation.
The Vanguard, Ploo, was tasked with testing the properties of mysterious dark chains in the Void and against Voidspawn.
He had wrapped the chains around his armor, being careful not to be in direct contact with them.
Renny felt a weird sensation from the chains; his skin crawled when he looked at them.
They looked like ordinary chains but were pitch black and gave off a bad vibe.
They looked suspiciously like the Voidmatter he had seen on Voidspawn.
Earlier, he had been against taking the job.
Experimentation jobs were rare and few, often having a very wide range of tasks, but most importantly, they paid a lot.
This was considered one of those jobs that one would be lucky to get.
He didn’t feel lucky.
Like something wasn’t right.
His memories of the Academy Slaughter Incident still haunted him, even after all those therapy sessions and through his studies.
It was different this time, he kept telling himself.
He wasn’t a student anymore.
He flexed his lean muscles, toned from relentless strength, combat, and cardiovascular training.
They'd been practicing for this Dive.
Once everyone was in their Coffin, the Door Gatekeeper signaled that the Door was opening.
The Door fizzled open.
It was like a crack in the fabric of space, engineered to open and close as and when necessary.
The Coffins Dived.
The sky blackened.
The Coffins landed shortly after, thrusters slowing their descent.
The lids opened, and he stepped out.
He was back.
Valerie, the Pacer, spoke through the comms: “Comms check, 1 2 3.”
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Yue, the Zoner, nodded, “Loud and clear.”
Renny acknowledged, “Heard.”
The others echoed his sentiment.
All except one.
Valerie, “Whitewake, check in.”
Silence.
Renny glanced around frantically.
Whitewake was nowhere to be found.
No trace of him.
His weapons, his body, his armor.
His Coffin stood there, opened, untouched, empty.
Goliath's words from 2 years ago began echoing in his head:
GET BACK TO THE COFFINS NOW!
He took a step back toward his Coffin.
Then another.
Valerie noticed, “Renny, focus up. We need to find Whitewake. His VitalLink is still up, so he’s got to be alive. It’s a little elevated, though.”
The silence before he answered was too long.
“Krrhhh… krhhh… Whitewake, over.”
Valerie sighed in relief.
“Whitewake, thank goodness. Where are you? Report your location, stat.”
No.
He had felt this sensation before.
Every cell in his body telling him something wasn’t quite right.
That wasn’t Whitewake.
“To your left.”
Valerie’s VitalLink flatlined.
Whitewake’s VitalLink flatlined.
Renny lost count after the third death.
Bodies collapsed lifelessly.
Blood seeped into the Void floor.
He had never actually seen it.
The carnage following a fight.
He could hear the others shouting gibberish over the comms.
It was all a blur.
One by one, they flatlined.
Renny felt a cold, sharp pain in his side.
The mysterious Voidspawn didn’t even look at him.
It just moved on, as if he was already dead.
Well, he would be soon if he didn’t do something.
His body refused to move.
The blood thumped harder and harder in his head.
His side felt warm and wet with blood.
Two years working hard, recovering from the trauma.
Changing.
Becoming someone who could do something.
No.
He refused to let it end like this.
As Ploo fell, the chains dropped to the floor.
The Voidspawn in front of him was moving fast and killing fast.
He didn’t stand a chance with his current weapons, and alone.
These chains…
He felt an ominous sensation from them.
Every part of his body was screaming at him not to touch them.
They had been instructed not to touch them directly.
Yet his brain was telling him this trump card was the only chance they had.
Two more fell.
Four left.
The combatants were now completely wiped out.
He had to try.
He was sick of watching people die, unable to do anything.
A strange, cold feeling ignited in his palm as he grabbed the chains with his bloodied hand.
A shudder rocked his body.
He could feel a strange energy emanating from the chains.
It felt hollow, heavy, cold, pulsing.
It felt like the opposite of Heartlight.
He wrapped the chains around his fist, struggling with their weight.
He still couldn’t really stand.
He pushed Heartlight into the chains, trying to make them lighter.
Nothing.
He forced more into them.
This time, it worked.
He flung the chains at the Voidspawn.
It dodged and lunged, claws flashing. Instinctively, he shoved Heartlight into the chains again.
The coils around his fist hardened, forming a crude gauntlet. The blow landed—and stopped.
He barely felt it.
The Voidspawn hesitated.
The two surviving Regulators stood behind him.
He couldn’t let them die.
Heartlight surged. Wind tore past his ears as he hurled himself forward, fist first.
The Voidspawn struck again. He twisted aside.
The chains moved on their own.
They coiled around his body, wrapping tighter and tighter—armor forming where there had been nothing.
Eventually they wrapped sparingly around his entire body but his face, covering everything and serving as a secondary skin.
Then they dug in.
Pain exploded as the chains stabbed into his skin all over, deep and sharp.
Pain, but no blood.
He staggered back.
The Voidspawn attacked again.
Metal clanged.
The impact sent him flying. He hit the ground hard, scrambling back to his feet, barely standing.
Then he saw it.
A Coffin descended from the Void sky.
As it was midair, a figure jumped out.
It was huge for a human, hulking and tall.
An armored suit?
No, a human in heavy armor.
He held a small cube in his right hand and a sledgehammer-like weapon in his left.
"Territory Open: Cube."
As he fell in between Renny, the Voidspawn, and the Regulators, the cube expanded in size, phasing through everything as it grew larger and larger, encompassing them all inside.
Then it turned solid.
Everything froze for a second.
Then suddenly, Renny was next to the Regulators, and they were behind the mysterious man, as he stood against the Voidspawn.
He raised his hammer and brought it down in front of him with extreme force… on nothing?
It wasn’t nothing a second later, as the Voidspawn suddenly appeared beneath his hammer, a split second before it got squashed.
A deafening boom sounded, the shockwave shaking them.
Complete overkill.
Like an insect being stomped on by an elephant.
It melted into the Void, leaving no trace.
Renny was still dealing with the chains and his wound.
A glance behind told him the Regulators were still alive and well.
The bodies littered around caught his eye.
Was it finally over?
Suddenly, the figure turned toward them.
His eyes glowing.
Renny saw a red eye mark on his right shoulder.
Where had he seen that before…
Their saviour dragged his hammer behind him, scraping it against the Void floor.
He spoke, calm and authoritative,
“This is Warden. Target secured. What do I do with the others?”
Warden’s comms responded,
“Leave them. Return with the target.”
The cube suddenly shrank down, again phasing through objects, the Regulators, Warden himself.
And then suddenly,
it was big again.
Wasn’t it shrinking?
Or did it shrink, with Renny inside?
Renny tried moving.
He screamed at every part of his body to move.
But no.
He remained motionless,
like a statue.
Warden spoke over his comms, “Target secured.”
