** Squad 100**
The room was cold. Not just from the frost creeping along the metal walls, but from the presence of the white-haired boy lounging in the center of it all.
Dexter.
His hair was the color of fresh snowfall, stark against the dim lighting of the derelict ship's hold. His eyes—unnaturally bright orange, like twin embers in the dark—flicked lazily toward the man sitting too close to him. The man, a burly colonist with a scarred face, shifted uncomfortably but didn't move away fast enough.
A mistake.
Dexter's fingers twitched. Ice crystallized in his palm, forming a jagged bat in an instant.
The man barely had time to flinch before Dexter swung.
***CRACK.***
The ice bat shattered the man's kneecap, bone and cartilage splintering under the force. A scream tore through the room, raw and guttural, but Dexter didn't stop. He brought the broken shard down again, this time *caving* the joint inward, grinding frozen fragments into the ruined flesh.
**"Ahhhh! P-please—!"** the man howled, clawing at the floor.
Dexter tilted his head, his lips curling into a slow, serpentine smile. **"This Mortal Rank body really is strong,"** he mused, voice smooth as poisoned honey.
Then he reached out, pressing his palm against the man's sweat-slicked forehead.
A pulse of cold.
The man's screams cut off abruptly. His skin turned blue, veins darkening like ink spreading beneath ice. His eyes bulged, frozen tears crystallizing on his cheeks—before his skull *ruptured* from within, brain matter flash-frozen into jagged shards.
Dexter exhaled, watching the corpse topple with detached amusement.
Then his gaze slid to the woman huddled against the far wall.
She was trembling, her knuckles white where they gripped her knees. Her breath came in shallow gasps, her eyes wide with the kind of terror that made Dexter's pulse quicken.
He stood, unbuckling his belt with deliberate slowness. The metallic *clink* echoed in the silent room.
**"You,"** he said, pointing at her.
She shook her head, scrambling back, but there was nowhere to go. The other colonists—fifty of them—kept their heads down, their postures hunched in submission. No one moved. No one even *breathed* too loudly.
Dexter's grin widened.
He took a step forward—
—and the ship's intercom crackled to life.