Henry didn't wake up to a soft light. He woke up to the screech of metal on metal.
He came to with the taste of rust and ozone in his mouth, his body aching like it'd been used to knock down a building. The floor beneath him was a cold, uneven steel grate. Faint daylight leaked through gaps in a scrap-metal ceiling a hundred feet up, painting the thick, dusty air with stripes of sickly yellow.
Fragments of last night hit him. The snap of bone. The smell of black blood. An ecstatic laugh that was his and wasn't his. They felt like fever-dream memories—too vivid to ignore, too terrifying to accept.
"Morning, Cinderella."
Tsukuyomi's voice made him jump. She was perched on a heap of discarded servomotors, swinging her legs with the carelessness of a kid. Her form was solid, real, the sick light of the place seeming to bend around her, refusing to touch her moonlit skin. The black katana rested across her lap.
"Where… what is this place?" Henry rasped, his voice shot. His body screamed in protest as he pushed himself into a sitting position.
"Where you wanted to be," she answered with a smirk. "Well, where he wanted to be. Gotta admit, he's a hell of a carrier. Hauled you for miles while you were drooling in your sleep." She gestured widely. "Welcome to the edge of the Obsidian Heart."
Henry looked around. It wasn't a crater, not like he'd pictured. It was a city. A colossal wound in the earth, miles across, filled not with rock and dust but with the bones of a dead civilization. Broken skyscrapers jutted out like rotten teeth. Rivers of oily, iridescent sludge flowed through canyons of concrete and twisted steel. A low, constant hum hung in the air, an energy that made the hair on his arms stand up. Nanites, he realized. Billions of them, an invisible mist left over from the war that killed the gods.
"This is hell," Henry whispered.
"For you, maybe. For him, it's a playground," Tsukuyomi corrected, sliding off her scrap-heap throne. "And right now, if we want to live to see sundown, I suggest we find something to fill that pathetic stomach of yours."
The market was an assault on the senses. A cacophony of shouts, haggling, and the sizzle of unknown meat frying in oil. The smell of hot metal, mutant creature-flesh, and chemical disinfectant mashed together into a nauseating perfume. The people here weren't like the ones in Kha'thox. They were a patchwork of flesh and machine. A man with piston-arms haggled over rusty gears. A woman with glowing optic eyes sold vials of luminescent liquid. They were scavengers, cyborgs, mutants. Monsters. And Henry, with his white hair and plain clothes, stuck out like a dove in a murder of crows.
"They're watching us," Henry said, his body tense. Joseph's voice echoed in his head, a ghost of tactical instruction: identify threats, locate exits. But there were threats everywhere.
"Of course they are," Tsukuyomi chirped, clearly enjoying herself. "You look like an easy meal. And I," she spun, striking a pose, "look like a prize."
That's when they saw them. Three figures blocking their path. The leader had a metal jaw and an arm replaced with a pneumatic claw that hissed with every twitch. His eyes were cold, dead, and locked on the katana Tsukuyomi carried so casually.
"Nice sword," the cyborg growled, his voice like gravel in a garbage disposal. "Looks heavy. Let us carry it for you."
Henry stepped in front of Tsukuyomi. "We don't want any trouble."
The cyborg laughed, a hideous, mechanical noise. "Trouble already found you, meatbag. The sword. Now."
Let me out, a voice hissed in the back of Henry's mind, cold and furious. I'll rip his spine out through his throat.
"No," Henry whispered to himself, fighting the wave of homicidal rage threatening to drown him. He fell into the fighting stance Joseph had taught him, a fluid, defensive style. "You're not getting it."
The leader's claw shot out. Henry dodged, metal hissing inches from his face. He countered with a jab to the cyborg's elbow, but it was like punching a brick wall. The cyborg grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off the ground. The air crushed out of his lungs. Black spots danced in his vision.
Weak! You're pathetically weak! the voice screamed in his head. Let go of the reins!
As Henry struggled, Tsukuyomi sighed, an exaggerated sound of boredom. She held up one delicate hand. "Such naughty boys. You shouldn't fight over toys."
She didn't move, but the shadow of the cyborg holding Henry twisted. It stretched, sharpening, becoming monstrous. The shadow turned on its owner, its shadowy arm plunging into the cyborg's chest.
The cyborg froze. His eyes widened, not in pain, but in sheer terror. He looked down at his own chest, then at his partner to the left. With a roar of paranoia and rage, he dropped Henry and launched himself at his ally, claw hissing. "You betrayed me!"
Chaos exploded. Tsukuyomi's illusion spread, and in seconds the gang was tearing each other apart, each one seeing the others as a shadowy traitor.
Henry collapsed to the ground, gasping, clutching his throat. The internal struggle had left him more winded than the actual fight. He looked at Tsukuyomi, who was examining her fingernails with an air of total indifference.
"See? No stress," she said.
"You..." he choked out. "What did you do?"
Before she could answer, a new figure stepped out of the scattering crowd. A tall, slender woman in a leather duster that shimmered with fiber-optic circuitry. Half her face was polished chrome, and a single red eye glowed with analytical intensity.
"That was… interesting," the woman said, her voice a smooth hybrid of human tone and digital synth. She glanced at the men now groaning on the ground, then at Henry and Tsukuyomi. "Shadow-based mass hysteria. Not a tech I'm familiar with. And you," she fixed her gaze on Henry, "you withstood Iron-Jaw's grip for 3.7 seconds longer than an un-augmented human should. You two aren't from around here."
"Who are you?" Henry asked, getting to his feet unsteadily.
"I'm an information broker. Name's Vex. And I see potential. Potential breeds profit." Vex's optic eye whirred. "You need a place to stay. Food. Intel. I can provide all of it. In exchange for a small favor."
"We don't do favors," Henry said, wary.
"You'll do this one," Vex stated with iron certainty. "In the center of the crater, there's a pre-Fall data spire, 'the Pinnacle.' It's guarded by autonomous war drones. My clients would pay a fortune for a data drive from inside. You two," she looked from Henry to the smirking goddess, "are the perfect blend of brute force and… finesse. You can get in."
She wants us to fight. Yes, the voice in his head agreed with a chilling pleasure.
Henry looked out into the depths of the crater-city, at the nanite haze that hung over everything. Joseph's plan, school, a normal life… they felt like fairytales from another lifetime. This was his world now. A world of monsters, machines, and bored gods. A world where his other half would thrive.
"We'll do it," Henry said, the decision tasting like ash in his mouth.
Vex smiled, a barely-there twitch of her human lips. "Excellent."
As she led them through the maze-like streets, the sun began to set, casting long, ominous shadows across the junkyard city. Henry felt the change begin. A coldness spreading from his marrow, the ache in his muscles turning into a promise of power. The fear in his chest was replaced by an electric anticipation.
He closed his eyes for just a moment, and when he opened them again, the sick light of the Obsidian Heart was reflected in a crimson gleam.
A slow, predatory smile spread across his lips.
War drones, he thought, the voice no longer a whisper, but a triumphant roar in his own mind. Finally, a real challenge.