"—!"
The woman barked a command. Something I had no idea of. The response translated itself in the fire of gunfire. The eruption was controlled and immediate.
The corridor ahead exploded with muzzle flashes as dozens of rounds tore into the darkness below. The reports echoed through the ancient structure, overlapping until they became one continuous roar.
Someone—or something—shot back. A lance of energy screamed past the intersection ahead, bathing the walls in a brief flash of pale light before vanishing into the darkness beyond. The return fire came from deeper in the facility. A slower and heavier impact. Every shot deliberate, different from the armored personal. Something more akin to a machine.
The armored soldiers reacted instantly, some dropped to a knew, others advanced between burst. Practiced and rehearsed, their movements professional.
Another command left the woman's mouth. Again I failed to understand— again I didn't need to.
Two soldiers advanced forward, they carried with them bulky metal devices between them. They set it against a sealed doorway further down the passage.
Several men a woman took cover— that told me enough.
A second later, the world jumped. The explosion hammered through the corridor like a physical force. Dust cascaded from the ceiling. Debris crashing against ancient metal— said metal groaned in protest.
The gunfire intensified. The soldiers didn't advanced— something below stirred and had reacted. Another energy blast carved through the smoke. A second then a third. The impacts left glowing scars across walls that looked old enough to have survived civilizations.
My grip tightened around the revolver, I felt it's obsoletion to the fire power both the armored men and whatever creature that was further down.
The soldiers shot; the something shot back— judging by the volume of fire being exchanged— neither side like their odds.
A strange feeling settled in me. All that have led me here; the gangs, the dead enforcer, the dataslate, the route, the woman, every trail I'd followed since waking up had led here.
To this. To whatever waited below.
Then the sound came again. Metal grinded against metal. Ancient and slow. Over the gunfire, over the explosion— that sound cut through all of it. A chill crawled up my spine, something that's becoming very recent and plenty of.
For a brief moment, I had the absurd impression that the battle wasn't waking whatever lay beneath.
It was an announcement for our arrival.
◃───────────▹
The slow grinding continued, deliberate, and certainly ancient.
Each metallic groan reverberated through the facility like the movement of continental plates. Dust drifted from overhead supports. Rusted pipes rattled. Somewhere in the darkness beyond the soldiers, something impossibly large was shifting.
Among all this, the gunfire never stopped.
Muzzle flashes lit the corridor in rapid burst. The armored soldier advanced by measured steps, firing in disciplined volleys whenever movement appeared beyond the smoke.
The return fire, a sphere pale light tore through the darkness. The projectile struck one of the soldiers square in the chest. The result wasn't an explosion— instead— it was absence.
He existed— for a second— the next moment— half his torso simply wasn't there. His remains folded backward, dead... way before the body hit the floor. Whatever was returning fire, it had more than one weapon.
The formation tightened immediately. It lacked in hesitation, nor in panic. Their response, more gunfire.
The woman barked another command, soldiers obeyed in kind. Fresh barrage erupted.
The darkness answered.
Another beam, another impact that made another corpse.
My grip around the revolver tightened, so much that I couldn't feel my hand.
What they fought here now isn't losing. That inference settled into my stomach like lead.
Then, something else broke through that depression. A flicker of a single lumen strip overhead suddenly activated. Ancient light spilled across the corridor.
I looked up, the light shouldn't have worked considering the age of this place. Most if looked older than history. Yet, it went against common sense as additional strips flickered alive. Each one that turned on mocked my thought.
The illumination spread deeper into the complex. All purposefully followed a set path. A path that was laid bare for me.
A cold sensation crawled through me, the dataslate inside my inventory suddenly pulsed. More than once.
The inventory window appeared without being summoned, I froze at its contents.
╒═══════════════════════════════════════════╕
Warning.
Unknown Signal Detected.
Source:
Unknown
Attempting Classification...
...
...
Failure.
╘═══════════════════════════════════════════╛
'What?' I questioned in my head for fear of saying it aloud.
The panel vanished before I could inspect it. Then another appeared, taking it's place for a fraction of a second.
╒═══════════════════════════════════════════╕
Identity Verification In Progress.
╘═══════════════════════════════════════════╛
It disappeared immediately afterward. It left me hanging. I stared into air, the corridor stared back at me. A pressure settled behind my eyes. A strange sensation pulsed in.
A headache, not painful, just familiar, dangerously so. The same sensation I'd felt before both blackouts.
"No," I whispered, 'n-ot... no-w...— egh! Not... h-here..."
The pressure increased, as if to violate my request.
Somewhere below, the grinding had stopped. The sudden silence was somehow worse. The soldiers seemed to notice, the gunfire slowed in consequence. Down until it ceased.
Smoke drifted through the corridor. None moved, none spoke. Even the woman held still— waiting, certainly.
The darkness ahead shifted. At first I thought it was a trick of the smoke. Not until I realized the smoke was moving around something—
— and that something was enormous.
A shape emerged. Something the mind couldn't handle. The emergence wasn't fully, never fully. The mind refused to register. An arm appeared mechanical but not manufacture. Instead, it was grown. The metal looked alive. Bone protruded through sections of machinery. Veins pulsed beneath armored plating. Crystal growths emerged from the flesh that wasn't entirely flesh.
A being of contradiction. A cluster of eyes opened in view. None matched it; some human, some not, some glowed, some reflected nothing at all.
As it moved, the facility trembled.
That action constituted an answer from the soldiers. Their answer an a form that flexed firepower.
The creature ignored them.
A beam of energy struck its torso, but the effect amounted to a fly hitting a windshield of a moving vehicle.
Hidden within the flashes, amongst its eyes, I realized something. It wasn't looking at them, it looked past them.
At me.
The pressure from before behind my eyes intensified.
A memory surfaced. A battlefield was it's background; and on it, a person lay secluded in laughter, in violence, in joy and burning stars. Dawned in void purple armor, this memory was not mine.
Darkness fell, following my complete absorption of the memory. My knees nearly buckled as the vision vanished.
The creature took another step.
It was then the soldiers finally noticed where it held its gaze.
Several helmets turned toward me. Among them, the woman for the first time saw me. Even from this distance I felt it. A recognition that told me that I shouldn't have been there.
She shouted something in quick decision making, an arm raised. Orders... warnings...: maybe both.
Several of her men quickly broke formation and began moving toward me.
Lady luck hadn't gazed upon them for the creature moved first. Something old escaped it, a noise, neither a roar nor a scream. The sound rattled through metal, through bone, and thought alike. the pressure inside my skull became unbearable.
Another memory surfaced; this time, of a woman laughing. Her violet eyes pierced me, as if even now through a memory she saw me. A warm hand reached for mine— for the one in the memory. The smell of rain, a dreadful feeling of dying.
Like a storm the vision change one after another. A bullet hell of memories came through, with it, emotions not my own.
My vision blurred. System windows erupted across my sight. From dozens to thousand in milliseconds. I didn't bother reading them. Too many to count, to mentally bombarded to care.
Still, one remained among the chaos that manifested and disappeared.
╒═══════════════════════════════════════════╕
Synchronization Threshold Reached.
╘═══════════════════════════════════════════╛
The creature stopped moving... the soldiers stopped advancing... even the world itself seemed to have paused.
Of all the outcomes, the one presented before me was not on my list of possibilities—
— it knelt.
The thing knelt. Every eye, every crystal, its every impossible fragment of its existence remained fixe on me.
No hunger— no hatred— just... recognition.
The last thing I saw before darkness claimed me was a new panel appearing across my my vision. Older, different, in waiting. Words written... simple... in wanting, almost like it returned home.
╒═══════════════════════════════════════════╕
Welcome Back.
╘═══════════════════════════════════════════╛
◃───────────▹
Darkness has swallowed him. The facility vanished, along with it were the soldiers and fragment. For a brief moment, there was nothing.
Then there was her. Evelyn sat upon a throne that had never existed. Stars drifted overhead, broken worlds circled beneath her feet. Reality itself seemed uncertain around her, as though existence tolerated her presence rather than contained it.
Her violet eyes remained fixed on a single point— eyes that always were, only hidden behind another.
A screen; very large. Upon it was the image of Numen collapsing faced first into ancient dust.
A silence lingered.
Then— a snort escaped her. More and more, each contained an added layer than before. Then she completely lost composure.
"Hahahahaha—!"
A laugh erupted from her without restraint. It lasted seconds. She leaned forward in her seat, a hand covered her mouth. The other pointed directly at the image.
"He did it again."
Another laugh escaped.
"He actually did it again."
The image replayed. Numen staring at impossible horrors, at ancient soldiers, at a reality collapsing around him.
Then an immediate black out.
As if on repeat, Evelyn laughed so hard tears formed at the corners of her eyes.
"Oh that's unfair."
She wiped one away.
"I missed that."
The words left her softer than intended. Her smile visibly weakened, just slightly. Millions of years felt very long when measured properly.
Silence followed, this one different; genuine.
She reached toward the screen. Her fingers stopped just before touching his image.
"There you are."
No laughter escaped her, not even a giggle. Only relief, a dangerous amount of relief hidden behind her soft whisper.
The image shifted.
╒═══════════════════════════════════════════╕
Displaying system data.
Synchronization Threshold Reached.
Memory Restoration Initiated.
Soul Integrity Confirmed.
Identity Match Verified.
Monarch Candidate: Confirmed.
╘═══════════════════════════════════════════╛
Evelyn stared at the final line, her smile returned— much more dangerously.
"Candidate?" she scoffed.
The words vanished from the display. Reality itself hesitated.
Then new text appeared—
╒═══════════════════════════════════════════╕
Monarch Designation: Pending.
╘═══════════════════════════════════════════╛
Her smile widened, "better."
Far below. Across impossible distances, across realities and lifetimes, she could feel him waking.
Not human, not the prisoner, not the frightened man from Earth.
Him.
The one she remembered. The one who laughed during battles. The one who charged things larger than cities because something had to.
The one stupid enough to die—
— repeatedly—
— the one she spend far too long trying to find again—
— all of him.
The one currently unconscious on a rust-covered floor.
Evelyn sighed, "still an idiot."
The affection in her voice ruined the insult.
Around her, countless system windows opened. Millions, trillions, most contained warnings—
╒═══════════════════════════════════════════╕
Fragment Activation.
╘═══════════════════════════════════════════╛
╒═══════════════════════════════════════════╕
Unauthorized Synchronization.
╘═══════════════════════════════════════════╛
╒═══════════════════════════════════════════╕
Reality Instability Detected.
╘═══════════════════════════════════════════╛
One by one, Evelyn dismissed them all. Not even reading them.
"Later."
Another warning appeared—
╒═══════════════════════════════════════════╕
Priority Alert.
External Powers Becoming Aware.
Attention.
The First Monarch has been detected.
╘═══════════════════════════════════════════╛
"About time," her expression remained unchanged, "though, even later."
Far below, deep beneath forgotten metal. Something ancient had awakened. Something far older than the facility.
Older than the gangs, older than the Imperium—
— older than memory itself.
Something that had waited, all for him.
Evelyn leaned back into her throne. A log crossed over the other. She rested her cheek against her palm and held a smile. The kind of smile that precedes disasters.
╒═══════════════════════════════════════════╕
PRIMARY HEIR IDENTIFIED.
MONARCH PROTOCOLS AVAILABLE.
AWAITING ACCEPTANCE.
╘═══════════════════════════════════════════╛
Evelyn smiled, "Wake up Numen."
The stars dimmed around her as the void held its breath. Somewhere beneath the countless layers of rust and history—
— something answered.