Kael walked away as he opened the door; the barber's cape still draped around his shoulders. "Stay here, Clarissa," he ordered.
He opened the glass door and took a look around outside his gaze catching on a familiar figure. The man had shiny golden hair, piercing blue eyes, thick eyebrows, and high cheekbones marked by a neatly groomed mustache. Standing at around 178 cm, he was leaner and slightly shorter than Kael. Leon Voss, a Decryptor in the Aegis Task Force part of the intelligence division who leads his own unit, whom Kael have gotten close with since they both went to the same academy.
"Oi! Leon!" Kael shouted, catching sight of Leon deep in conversation with a shimmering hologram flickering from his Neuroband. Leon turned, his blue eyes narrowing with recognition.
Leon shocked to see his old friend, he shouted "What're you doing!? Start running!"
Kael with his honed instincts grabbed Clarissa by the shop and started running with her along with Leon, he then asked "Which nation is attacking us? Aurionis? Solaris? Nythera?!"
"Nation? We're not under attack by any Nation, at least I like to think so… they were individuals…" Leon tried recalling what he saw.
Kael replied "Whoever they are, there must be something wrong with their brains-"
Leon cut him off, his voice edged with confusion. "No, that's just it… they weren't even thinking, Kael. I don't think they could."
"What?" Kael asked, frowning as he helped a civilian who nearly stumbled.
Kael looked at Clarissa and told her "Keep running in this direction, you follow the crowd, and stick together with other people. If you can, go find a man who is wearing a white tank top, middle aged, balding, always holding an alcoho–"
Clarissa stopped in her tracks, her eyes darting between Kael and the crowd. "W-What? I—I can't just run off! What the hell is happening?"
"I don't have time to explain," Kael said, locking eyes with her. "But if you find Mr. Morgan, you might survive this."
She looked like she wanted to argue—her jaw clenched, fingers trembling—but something in Kael's voice rooted her.
"...Mr. Morgan? The old man who's always rambling about the war?
"Yes. Trust me, he's not what he seems."
Clarissa swallowed hard, gave a shaky nod, and whispered, "Okay. Okay…"
Then she turned and sprinted into the crowd.
Kael asked Leon "What did you mean they weren't capable of thinking?"
Leon continued "I was there when it occurred, at the other side of the town, 3 km away from here, a man was being arrested for resisting the police officers when he twisted his arm to get them off him and bit the police holding the gun. The gun was fired towards the man who bit him… the surprising part was the man was shot in the chest, yet he kept on mauling the officer until the officer died. I pulled out my service-issued machete and swung at him, I cut off its limbs, yet it still went at me as if they never felt pain. However…after I severed its head, only then it stopped moving."
Kael said "A drug that numbs the entire nervous system and dulls the pain receptors… that's nothing new, but still moving even after getting shot…"
"That's not the surprising part.. the officer it bit, it's skin turned grayish and his eyes turned red and he stood up breathing as he resurrected from the dead!" Leon clenched his teeth.
"What?" Kael exclaimed
Leon continued "It tried to pounce at me so I slashed him with the blade out of instinct, and the blade… it bit through it, those weren't humans, those creatures… they were monsters!"
"Creatures? Monsters? And they multiply that easily?" Kael got even more confused.
"I tried to reach my unit earlier, but they weren't responding" Leon said quietly. "So I tried calling the Aegis Headquarters directly and it turns out the same reports are coming in all over the country."
"I'm not sure what exactly we're up against," Kael said, his gaze locked on the baseball shop across the street. "But I know this much—if we stand here doing nothing, people are going to die. If the same reports are flooding HQ, then we can't count on any backup. We're still part of Aegis—this is our job."
Leon scratched the back of his head and muttered, "...yeah, sure. A Decryptor who usually sits behind a desk, and an Overseer who's been out of action for a while…"
He gave a wry smirk as they were walking. "Be that as it may, we were still top of the class at the academy in terms of physical ability."
Kael went by the baseball shop, Davis' sports & memorabilia's front window
Leon came up behind him, eyeing the display.
"Baseball, huh… a sport of the past. Before The Collapse."
Kael gave a small nod.
'Yeah. The Collapse.'
The Collapse
They called it a phenomenon. But it wasn't a single moment. It was a cascade—a long, slow death knell for Earth, one headline at a time.
Glaciers melted, swallowing coastlines like breathless tides.
AI systems—once tools—surpassed their creators, making them obsolete in their own industries.
Nations imploded, their economies scorched into servers and server farms.
Then came the famines.
The riots.
The bioplague—a drifting, invisible haze that painted death across the sky like falling ash.
And Earth?
It stopped being called Earth. Because it had stopped being home.
It became Solara—a sun-scorched husk, barely livable, kept breathing through artificial seasons and orbital coolers. A planet where one could survive, perhaps, but no longer live.
Humanity, hungry and fractured, did what it always did when faced with collapse.
It left.
The United Nations—clinging to relevance—spearheaded the Exodus Project alongside NASA. Ships launched. Colonies were seeded on Mars. And as the elite fled, consolidating power behind crimson skies, those left behind gave them a name:
Martians.
And Earth's new name—Solara—was not just a mark of history. It was a scar.
From its ashes rose the new titans:
The United Federation of Eldara.
The Republic of Aurionis.
The Solaris Union.
The Nythera Empire.
And the Ostelia Coalition.
These weren't nations born of land. They were forged from technology, genetics, and the sheer will to survive. The superpowers of a shattered world—cold, brilliant, and relentless.
And yet...
Kael stared at that baseball for a moment longer, as if he could still hear the crack of a bat echoing through a stadium filled with cheers.
Maybe some things didn't survive The Collapse.
Maybe they weren't meant to.
He turned to Leon and said quietly, "Still, not everything that fell… stayed down."
They exchanged no more words. Just the crunch of glass beneath their boots as they moved on.
Without another word, Leon approached the entrance and tugged at the door. It didn't budge.
"This door runs on biometrics and retinal scans," he muttered. "No chance unless you're registered—"
TSSHHK!!
Glass exploded inward in a controlled burst. Kael lowered his elbow and straightened, dusting shards from his sleeve.
Leon stared, deadpan.
"…This barbarian," he whispered.
Kael shot him a smug glance. "You were saying?"
He stepped inside and scanned the cluttered interior. Near the back wall, two untouched steel bats stood propped against a fallen shelf.
Kael grabbed them, tossed one to Leon.
"It's old-school. No charging required."
Sigh…
Leon sighed, "…always so reckless."
"But we could use a little reckless right now." Leon added as he took the other bat from Kael.
"While we're at it, let's grab whatever else we can from here," Kael said, eyeing the shelves.
"It's a shame there aren't any gunsmiths in this town," he added with a hint of frustration.
Leon raised an eyebrow. "The Federation learned decades ago that handing civilians' access to guns never ended well. It's also why shooting incidents between civilians are nearly a thing of the past."
He gestured to the empty streets outside. "Besides, this town only has about 3,000 people at best, it's already a good thing we have a weapon we can use."
Kael gave him a look.
"Still, this situation calls for real weapons. Don't you have any at your place?" Leon teased.
"I've got everything from sidearms to sniper rifles," Kael replied, cracking a grin. "But if you're talking about Pulsecasters, I've got two Titan V7s."
Leon impressed, "Pulsecasters? The Titan V7s?"
"Yeah. Magnetically accelerated rounds. Sorn's masterpiece."
A minute had gone by of gathering useful items, Leon told Kael "You know, this is theft right?"
"…don't sweat it! anyways how many were there?" Kael asked to change the topic as they went outside the shop.
Leon recalled "I only saw 7–10 of them before I had to bail. Could be more…"
"Do you remember that old series we used to watch in the academy? The Walk King Dead?" Leon asked.
Kael glanced at Leon and said "I do…what were they called? Walkers? Zombies? Those mythical creatures like vampires and stuff?"
"Yeah…undying, relentless, bloodthirsty, killing machines, multiplying once you get bit. I think it's the closest I can use to call them" Leon said.
"Do you think it's connected to the bioplague?" Kael asked.
"…I don't know…" Leon solemnly replied.
Fwoom
A cold breeze ran through them as they stood still in the middle of the road waiting for whatever those creatures was, they positioned traffic barricades to form a single defense line, standing behind those barricades, they were hoping to buy time for the escaping citizens of the town.
"Hm!" Leon and Kael exhaled as they felt them drawing near
The ground was shaking, the stones and pebbles were trembling, the streetlights went out, they knew that this was much more dangerous than they were expecting.
"I see them!" Kael exclaimed.
"You said there were at most 10 of those zombies or whatever right?" Kael asked calmly.
Leon answered "I'm positive it was 10 at most…at least I was."
Kael sarcastically answered "If 10 was more than 30, then you're absolutely right"
Sigh…
"Fine, let's crack some heads." Kael said, slamming the helmet on and cracking a grin as he braced himself, his Amber eyes locked ahead with a lethal glint.