Chapter 1: Surge of Ash and Armor
The neon sign of the Relic diner flickered weakly against the graying dusk, its vibrant hum replaced by a dead, hollow silence. Henry Niles let his bicycle coast to a stop by the curb, his boots scuffing the gravel. He stared through the darkened glass. Empty. The stool where she usually sat was bare, the counters wiped down with an eerie finality.
“Dammit, Louise,” Henry muttered, gripping the handlebars until his knuckles turned white. “Where are you?”
He turned his bike around, pushing hard against the pedals, navigating the debris-littered borders toward the 16th sector.
Miles away, deep within the choked, industrial belly of that very sector, the air tasted of copper and ozone. A heavy thud echoed through the corridor of the torture building as Jackal’s lifeless body hit the floor. Louise Tindle stood over him, breathing heavily, his hands slick with sweat and grime. He looked down at the grotesque mask that had once belonged to the monster. With a cold, deliberate movement, Louise picked it up and slipped it over his face, the dark eyeholes swallowing his gaze. He walked toward the exit without looking back.
In the grand hall of the crumbling structure, the atmosphere was suffocating. Outlier Officer Shawn York stood firm, his eyes locked on the towering figure before him: Glaux.
Glaux narrow his eyes, a low, rumbling laugh vibrating in his chest. “Well, well. Look at you,” Glaux mocked, gesturing with a heavy, menacing tilt of his head. “Fifteen years ago, a brave little outlier officer took my arms in the heat of battle. And here you are, Shawn York, looking quite successful. Though, looking back...” Glaux stepped forward, his presence shaking the floorboards. “I really should have taken your dominant arm back then. Just like I did with your superior.”
Shawn’s jaw tightened. Next to him, Ivan Klein drew his weapon, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “We can’t let him walk out of here, Shawn.”
“I know,” Shawn replied. He turned his head slightly toward the squad gathered behind them. “All units, fall back! Evacuate the area and finish off the remaining Awning Branch forces. Hillard, you stay.”
“I’m staying too,” Alexander Kyle snapped, stepping forward and defying the order.
“Alex, get out of here!” Ivan shouted, but there was no time to argue.
Shawn and Ivan slammed their fists against their chests, activating their New Armor. The technology roared to life, a blinding crimson pentalogy wrapping around their bodies, locking into place with a mechanical hiss. With a unified roar, they launched themselves at Glaux.
Terrence Hillard and Alex moved like lightning, finding an opening and landing a heavy, synchronized blow across Glaux’s torso. The blade tore through flesh, but before the blood could even hit the floor, the tissue began to knit itself back together, bubbling and sealing instantly.
“It’s regenerating too fast!” Alex cursed, ducking a counter-swing that shattered a nearby pillar.
The battle raged, a brutal cycle of strike and instant recovery. Shawn parried a devastating blow, his knees buckling under the sheer force. He looked at Ivan, his visor flickering. We’re losing, he realized with grim certainty. There’s only one choice left.
“Ivan! Last resort! Do it now!” Shawn roared.
“Are you insane? It’ll kill us!” Ivan yelled back, but seeing Glaux advance, he locked his armor’s secondary drive. “System override. Boost strength!”
The crimson armor glowed an angry, volatile purple. A massive surge of power flooded their veins, but it came with an excruciating price. Shawn screamed as the armor began to eat into his flesh, biological filaments binding to his nervous system, consuming his body to fuel the output.
They managed to push Glaux back, driving him across the shattered hall, but Shawn suddenly stumbled, collapsing to one knee as the armor took too much. The system was consuming him alive.
“Shawn!” Ivan disengaged his drive, rushing over to prop up his partner.
Glaux stopped his advance, folding his arms as he looked down at them with a mixture of pity and disdain. “You people always try to justify the killing,” Glaux said, his voice echoing in the vast, ruined space. “You wrap it in duty, in armor, in survival. But taking away someone’s life is still evil, no matter the banner you fly.” He glanced at the glowing, horrific suits. “If there is a soul trapped inside that New Armor of yours... I have absolutely no plans of helping it.”
Before anyone could move, a violent tremor shook the foundation. The ceiling fractured, and a massive concrete block tore free, plunging directly toward the immobilized Shawn and Ivan.
With a sudden flash of movement, Glaux intercepted the debris, shattering the massive stone into harmless dust with a single, devastating strike. He glanced at the stunned officers one last time. “Live or die. It makes no difference to me today,” Glaux murmured, turning on his heel and retreating into the shadows.
Ivan coughed, spitting blood onto the concrete. “Hillard... Alex... take shelter,” he gasped, fighting the buckles of his suit. “We’ll leave as soon as we get this damn armor off.”
As they worked on the releases, Ivan stared into the dark where Glaux had vanished. “Shawn, about Glaux... I think he—” He paused, shaking his head bitterly. “Never mind. Forget it.”
Alex didn’t hear him. His eyes were glued to a broken window looking down at the lower courtyard. A silent figure was walking through the smoke, wearing a freshly claimed mask. “Is that... the outlier I saw back then?” Alex whispered to himself. “Has he been fighting this whole time too?”
In another wing of the complex, the high-ranking officers were facing a nightmare of their own. Simon Tiberge unleashed his red organ, the fleshy, parasitic weapon whipping through the air and striking Kursed dead-center. The impact was loud, but Kursed didn’t even flinch; the flesh simply absorbed the blow without a scratch.
“What the hell is this guy made of?” Simon hissed.
“Out of the way!” Uriel roared, appearing like a ghost behind Kursed. With a brutal thrust, Uriel drove his bare hands straight through Kursed’s stomach, tearing a hole clean through. But Uriel’s triumph turned to horror. Kursed simply stood there, looking down at the hands protruding from his abdomen with completely blank, unbothered eyes. “No... no reaction at all?!”
“Hold him right there, Uriel!” Xander shouted, sprinting forward. Xander threw a devastating, kinetic kick directly into Kursed’s torso. The sheer force severed Kursed’s upper body completely from his shoulders, sending his torso spinning through the air.
But the celebration was short-lived. Before the severed upper half could hit the ground, thick, crimson tendrils exploded from the wound, catching the torso, pulling it back, and seamlessly reattaching it. Kursed blinked, completely whole once more.
“Astonishing...” Simon muttered, his eyes wide with a sick fascination. “This is far beyond the healing abilities of any outlier I’ve ever seen.” He licked his lips, a twisted smile forming on his face. “I wonder what he tastes like...”
Kursed didn’t bother to engage them further. He simply turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing down the hall.
Xander watched him go, wiping sweat from his brow. “Leave him. We have bigger problems. Move forward.”
Further down into the detention levels, Simon split off, kicking open a heavy steel door. Inside the cramped cell, Benji Keller and his remaining goons—Joe, Thomas, and Sam—were huddled in the corner.
“Is this it?” Sam had been whimpering. “Is this how we die?”
“Shut up,” Benji growled, though his own hands were shaking.
The door flew off its hinges. Simon stood in the doorway, giving them a sharp, cynical grin. “Lucky day, boys. You’re coming with me.”
On the rain-slicked roof of the crumbling base, a different kind of tragedy was unfolding. Tyler Klein stood facing her older sister, Aaron Klein.
“The Awning Branch is nothing but a plague, Aaron!” Tyler screamed, his voice cracking over the sound of distant explosions. “It’s not good for anything! Look what it’s doing to you!”
Aaron looked at her young brother with cold, dead eyes. “You still don’t get it, do you, Tyler? Outliers can never coexist with humans. We are built to fight. We are built to survive them.”
With a burst of speed, Aaron closed the distance, overpowering Tyler instantly and slamming him hard against the concrete. Aaron stared down at him, pinning his chest with a heavy boot. She looked at Tyler’s manifesting red organ. “So weak,” Aaron sneered.
With a sickening tear, Aaron ripped the red organ from her brother’s body and bit into it. She chewed, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor. “Foul. Absolutely foul,” she spat. She leaned down close to Tyler’s pale face. “The world is run by power, Tyler. Nothing else. You are weak, and that is exactly why you lose.”
Aaron turned to walk away, leaving her brother bleeding out on the roof.
“Father...” Tyler whimpered into the concrete, his voice small and broken. “Father... please...”
Aaron froze. Her shoulders tense, and a wave of pure rage washed over her face. “Don’t you dare call for him!” she roared, spinning around and lunging at Tyler with lethal intent.
Before her strike could connect, a shadow dropped from the upper ledge. Louise Tindle intercepted the blow, parrying Aaron back with a heavy grunt and stepping between her and the fallen girl.
“Nikki! Take Tyler and get out of here!” Louise yelled over his shoulder as Nikki Neuman rushed out from the stairwell, scooping up the weakened Tyler.
Aaron lunged again, her movements a blur of feral rage. She managed to slice deep into Louise’s side, sending him crashing to the ground.
Aaron stood over him, laughing. But Louise, coughing up blood, managed a grim smile from the dirt. “I know why you really joined the Awning, Aaron,” Louise wheezed, staring right through her. “It wasn’t for power. It was for protection. You were scared.”
“Shut up! You don’t know anything about me!” Aaron shrieked, denying it instantly as she raised her weapon to finish him.
But Louise wasn’t done. Relying on pure adrenaline, he forced himself up and drove a brutal, heavy kick straight into Aaron’s stomach. Aaron stumbled back, clutching her midsection, her eyes burning with murderous intent. “I am going to tear you apart!”
Before she could strike, a massive, grotesque red organ erupted from the shadows, wrapping around Aaron’s torso and lifting her cleanly off her feet. It was Kursed. He dragged the thrashing, enraged Aaron back into the darkness, leaving Louise standing alone on the trembling roof.
From a distant hill overlooking the chaos, Henry Niles held his binoculars tight against his eyes, watching the smoke pour from the facility. “Louise... what have you gotten yourself into?” he whispered.
Not far from him, Elise watched the grand destruction with a twisted sort of fascination. She turned to the stoic man beside her. “He’s grown quite a bit stronger, wouldn’t you say, Thiago?”
Thiago didn’t answer, his eyes fixed on the collapsing architecture.
Henry watched in horror through the lenses as the lampposts around the perimeter began to sway violently. With a deafening roar, the foundation gave way, and the 16th Sector Base started to crumble into dust.
At the command center, Isaac Miller slammed his hands onto the desk. “Give me the casualty reports! Now!” he barked into his comms.
A crackling voice responded. “Sir... roughly half of the officers made it out alive. The rest are...”
“Dammit!” Isaac roared, ripping the earpiece from his head and smashing it against the floor. “Curse you, Glaux!”
Amidst the falling debris of the main plaza, Sunny Jinks was completely unbothered by the falling concrete. They’re happily dragged Jackal’s heavy, dead body through the dust, humming a cheerful little tune as if they were walking through a park.
Nearby, Nikki was sprinting through the fallout, carrying Tyler’s limp body. He ran right into Helena Ferguson and Ivy.
“Nikki! What happened?” Helena gasped.
“We have to go, now!” Nikki shouted over the roar of collapsing stone. “The whole place is coming down! It’s not safe!”
Suddenly, Louise, who had been running alongside them, split off and ducked into a smoke-filled alleyway.
“Louise! Where are you going?!” Nikki yelled, but Louise was already gone, leaving Nikki with a deep sinking feeling in his chest.
On the outer perimeter, Elise looked up at Thiago. “Do you think the others are coming? How many do you think died down there?”
Thiago stared at the settling ash. “About 250.”
Elise’s smile turned razor-sharp. “Then for the sake of those 250... I guess we’ll have to do our fair share of killing too.”
On a parallel ridge, Kiara and Nina Yates silently watched the final spire of the base collapse.
“It’s over,” Nina whispered.
“Not yet,” a deep voice called out from behind them. They turned to see a man in a long coat stepping out from the shadows, his eyes unreadable. “Come. We’re done here.”
In the lower city plazas, away from the dust, Mikey sat heavily on a public bench, staring at the distant smoke. “My love nest... completely ruined,” he lamented dramatically.
Jacob stepped up beside him, crossing his arms. “Don’t forget about ‘them’ as well, Mikey. We have work to do.”
Mikey pulled his jester mask from his coat and slipped it over his face, a distorted chuckle escaping his lips. “Oh, I know,” he said, turning his head slightly, catching the reflection of a dark, looming figure in the left eye of his mask. “The Maniacs always get the last laugh.”
Louise walked through the graveyard of debris, his boots stepping over the bodies of fallen officers. Through the thick haze of smoke, he saw Elise standing atop a pile of rubble, smiling down at him with an ethereal, haunting expression. He blinked, and she vanished into the gray fog like a phantom.
On the far edge of the sector, Henry Niles finally lowered his binoculars. He walked slowly back to his bicycle, casting one final, lingering look at the ruined wasteland that used to be the Awning Branch’s primary hideout.
Louise eventually made his way back to the extraction point where Nikki and Tyler were resting. Tyler was propped against a wall, pale and breathing shallowly. He looked up at Louise, his eyes catching Louise’s reflection.
“Louise...” Tyler whispered, trying to smile. “When we get back... you really need to do something about your hair. That blood-red color... you’re going to stand out way too much.”
Louise stopped, looking down at Tyler from behind Jackal’s mask. His voice was flat, devoid of its usual warmth. “I’m not going back to the Relic, Tyler.”
Tyler froze. “What?”
“I’m joining the Awning.”
He turned around and began walking away into the settling mist.
“Louise! Wait! You can’t!” Tyler screamed, forcing his broken body off the ground. He took two agonizing steps forward, but the fatigue and the loss of his red organ were too much. His knees buckled, and he collapsed heavily onto the asphalt, consciousness slipping away.
At the edge of the sector clearing, the sub-leaders of the Awning Branch stood waiting. As Louise approached, Elise stepped forward, waving her arms enthusiastically with a bright, welcoming cheer. Next to her, Aaron Klein stood rigid, her arms crossed, her face twisted in a look of pure, agitated malice.
Louise didn’t say a word. He adjusted his mask, stepped into line with them, and followed as the shadows of the Awning swallowed them whole.
To Be Continued…
