The world had grown too quiet.
Ken Chagol walked alone now—his boots crunching over broken glass and brittle moss. Shadows bent strangely along the ruin's twisted geometry, where buildings once stood upright but now leaned like drunken giants whispering secrets into the wind. What remained of the sky was nothing more than a pale film, flickering softly like dying screen light above him.
Emilia had gone east, vanishing between the towers with a manic laugh and a careless wave. "Don't die, serious boy," she had said. "At least not before me. That'd be rude."
Ken had said nothing in return. He'd only nodded, because words were too heavy lately. And now, he regretted that silence.
A distant moan echoed through the hollow city—whether wind or beast, he couldn't tell. But it wasn't what haunted him.
His pace slowed.
The ache returned.
It started like a whisper behind the eyes. Then a throb. Then fire.
Ken stumbled forward, hand pressed against a rusted beam for support. His breath caught in his throat as the pain flared. Something inside him was breaking.
He reached for the old detective hat strapped to his belt.
Trembling fingers brushed the brim. Worn, torn, stained with soot and memory. He placed it gently atop his head. The world spun.
Flashes.
A train station bathed in golden light.
A room full of ticking clocks.
A girl crying in the dark.
A gun. A scream. A silver coin falling.
Then nothing.
Ken gritted his teeth and dropped to one knee. His pulse hammered in his ears. Every heartbeat echoed like a war drum.
"What… is this?" he muttered, the words falling like gravel.
The hat hummed. Not aloud, but inside his skull. It remembered—more than he did. A fragment of something long buried. The role of a detective wasn't a choice, it was a reminder of who he was… or who he had been.
He clenched his jaw. Forced himself to stand.
No. He couldn't lose it now. Not again.
The pain dulled barely but it dulled. The fragments faded back into the void of his fractured mind. The hat sat firmly on his head now, like a crown made of ghosts.
He looked ahead.
The path twisted into a narrow street choked with cables and bone-like branches. Buildings leaned in as if to eavesdrop. Far off, he saw a door flicker open, then shut again—no wind, no sound.
Emilia was gone. But she had Jelly. She would survive… in her own reckless way.
Ken had something else to do. Something older than the mission. Older than memory.
He adjusted his hat. Let it anchor him.
And then, without a word, he stepped into the narrowing corridor alone, but no longer lost.
....
The air beneath Vanguard Station was thick with iron, ink, and fire-oil. The research lab, hidden four levels below the central plaza, hummed with the unnatural light of glass flame-lamps and copper-wired leylines that ran through the stone walls like veins. The ceiling dripped with condensation, and the floors rattled every few minutes, a reminder of the unstable world above.
A group of researchers stood around the central scrying table, a large obsidian slab enchanted with crystal glyphs and bound by runes harvested from the minds of dead prophets. The faint blue glow of its surface flickered with shifting images.
"Something's moving in the Eastern Slums," whispered Apprentice Quill, eyes wide. His fingers traced an arcane path across the table. The image cleared revealing a silent, grainy projection of a sleek, metallic creature racing across the broken streets. It blurred as it moved, a silver blur slicing through debris and overgrown tentacle roots.
"F~31..." muttered Head Alchemist Drelvon, his voice cracking like a hinge in the dark. "Saints preserve us."
The beast on the screen looked like a fox twisted into a steel chimera. It had no paws. Only wheels, finely crafted and powered by steam-core engines. The body shimmered with overlapping armor plates, like fish scales forged from dark iron. But its most dangerous feature were the arms: two sharpened limbs shaped like shears, spinning and slicing as it ran.
The projection showed the creature tearing through a tangle of corrupted flesh—tentacles erupting from a broken chapel severing them mid-motion. It didn't stop there. As it turned, it crashed through a watchtower's wall, slicing beams and stone alike.
"It has no distinction," Quill muttered. "It marks all moving things as hostile."
"Because it's blind to cause," Drelvon said grimly. "The F~31 batch never understood intent. Only motion. And in their minds, motion means threat."
"But that model was sealed," said Archivist Elana, pulling a scroll from the side rack. "I have records. It was buried in the old city, shut with five seals, runes burned into its soul-casket."
"Then something broke the casket," Drelvon growled. "Or someone opened it."
Elana's face went pale.
An alarm bell clanged overhead—low, rhythmic, like a heartbeat. The scrying slab pulsed red.
"F~31 accelerating. Projected entry into North Wall District: Fifteen minutes."
"Too close," Quill said. "There are still civilians in the old water mills. Workers. Children."
Elana looked up. "We need to deploy a team."
"Whom?" Drelvon snapped. "The knight-regiments are across the river fighting the Bloomspawn. The Blood Priests are sealing the chasm near Hollow Ridge. And the Vanguard Elites—"
"—are dead," Elana finished.
Silence fell.
Only the bell rang.
Then Drelvon turned and moved swiftly toward the weapons cabinet. He unlocked it with a drop of his own blood, and the metal creaked open to reveal enchanted gear: lightning flasks, soul-thread ropes, and a few unstable arc-sabers built during the Siege of Greywall.
"We'll send researchers," Drelvon said.
"They're not soldiers."
"They're alive. And they know what they're facing."
Quill stepped forward, fear in his voice but steadiness in his hands. "Then we fight. Or that thing'll cut its way straight through the city and won't stop until it's standing in the heart of the Station."
Elana pulled her robe tighter. "We'll need dampeners null glyphs to confuse its pathfinding. Perhaps a soul-signal disruptor?"
Drelvon nodded. "Yes. And a distraction team. We buy time. Just enough to get the civilians out."
The bell tolled again, faster now.
"Estimated contact: Ten minutes."
Drelvon raised his hand, and the flame-lamps dimmed. "As of now, the lab is under Battle Protocol. Gather only what you can carry. Ward your minds. Burn your names if necessary."
Quill swallowed. "Will it bleed?"
Drelvon looked at the glowing slab where the F~31 blurred like a demon of silver fire.
"No," he said softly. "But it remembers pain."
And with that, the lab scattered into movement—papers flying, gear clanking, and half-learned incantations chanted in desperation as the people of Vanguard prepared to face what should have never awakened.
....
Ken was wandering.
Not walking, not scouting—just wandering. Like a man who had nowhere to be, no plan, and too many regrets to bother making one. If aimlessness were an art, he'd have a gallery named after him.
"Ah yes," he muttered dryly, stepping over a half-buried skull. "Another fine day of meaningful wandering. Truly, I'm a modern philosopher."
He kicked a can. It clinked, rolled, and fell into a crack.
Silence.
Then came the screech.
Metal on stone. Fast. Unnatural.
Ken froze mid-step, eyes narrowing.
From the misted edge of the ruined alley, they rolled in—two F~31s.
Like mechanical foxes dipped in nightmare fuel. Their bodies gleamed with steel, legs replaced by whisper-silent wheels that moved too smoothly over the rubble. Blade-arms spun at their sides—sharp, surgical, twitching with excitement.
The first one let out a distorted, garbled whine. The second's thermal eye locked onto Ken.
"...Of course," Ken muttered. "Not one, but two. Because why suffer moderately when you can suffer abundantly."
They lunged.
Ken leapt back, just in time as a spinning blade cut through the ground where his leg had been. Sparks flew. The second one zipped behind him, aiming to flank.
Ken rolled, pulled a jagged baton from his coat, and slammed it against the nearest wall. It hummed—activated. Crackling arcs of energy danced across its surface.
"Let's see if your ancestors taught you how to bleed."
He swung.
The first F~31 blocked with its blade-arm, but the baton discharged, sending a jolt through its frame. It shrieked—more annoyed than hurt.
The second one came faster. Ken ducked, barely dodging a strike that sliced a support beam behind him in half. The building creaked ominously.
Ken gritted his teeth, backing up. "Right. Two hyper-aggressive, building-destroying murder-wheel foxes. And I have a stick."
The baton flickered. Its charge nearly spent.
"Great."
The F~31s circled him, their blades spinning, reflections dancing in their glassy eyes.
Ken lowered his stance.
"Fine. Let's wander into hell, then."
And with a cry, they clashed again in the crumbling alley.
Ken's body slammed into a wall, the crack of impact echoing through the ruins. Dust burst into the air. Blood dripped from a cut above his brow, trailing down his cheek. He coughed once, tasting iron.
The two PCS units—F~31s—didn't relent. One revved its wheels and zipped forward, its bladed arm slicing through a chunk of concrete beside him. The second flanked wide, circling like a predator reading his breath patterns.
Ken rolled, narrowly dodging another lunge. His baton sparked in his hand, its charge weakening. He tried to swing again, but one of the F~31s intercepted with a high-speed spin, crashing into him shoulder-first and sending him sprawling across the cracked ground.
His back hit a rusted pipe. It groaned, snapped, and collapsed beside him.
Ken groaned too, dragging himself upright with one arm. His breaths were shallow, his ribs bruised. Another second and one of them would carve him into clean slices.
So he whispered it.
"Inventory."
A low hum sparked beneath his feet. Glyphs blinked into existence on the fractured ground, glowing with ghostly blue light. A compass materialized at his feet, etched into the stone itself. Its needle was jagged, four big ones at four directions and small ones at the corner, thorned point that turned silently—searching, measuring.
Ken's eyes fluttered shut.
The world dulled. No wind. No noise. Just the shifting weight of motion within the compass's reach.
Then—pulse.
He moved.
In one fluid motion, Ken pivoted and slammed his elbow backward, striking the first F~31 right in the neck joint just as it approached from behind. The impact wasn't strong enough to destroy, but it staggered the machine, knocking it off balance for a split-second.
He didn't waste it.
Ken twisted his body around the staggered machine, ducking beneath a spinning blade. His movement flowed like liquid, guided not by sight but by the needle's silent alerts. Every time a PCS entered the compass radius, he knew. His body responded instinctively.
One of the F~31s lunged at his flank. Ken somersaulted over a slab of broken tile, pushing off the wall with a half-spin. His heel struck the head of the other PCS mid-air, stunning it again.
He dropped low, skidding.
Both machines reoriented with a piercing screech.
Ken stood. His hands raised into the shape of pistols, fingers out, thumbs cocked like hammers. He aimed at the sky, then slowly turned the imaginary barrels toward the PCS units. His eyes narrowed.
"Luck Points. Split."
Energy danced around his fingertips. Thin streaks of gold etched their way through the air, like celestial threads wrapping around two invisible bullets.
He fired.
Nothing left his hands.
But the golden trails shimmered and vanished mid-flight, absorbed into the air like water into ink.
For a breathless moment, nothing happened.
Then the atmosphere shifted.
Two golden dots shimmered back into existence—one behind each F~31, both aligned perfectly with their skull-cores. They moved faster than any visible bullet, curving through the air as though dancing with gravity.
The PCS units sensed them too late.
Both bullets exploded simultaneously.
A flash of gold.
Two heads burst apart in synchronized ruin. Steel and circuitry scattered across the broken alley. Their limbs twitched once, twice… then fell still.
Silence returned. The compass beneath Ken dimmed, its glow fading into ash.
Ken exhaled sharply, dropping to one knee. Sweat trickled down his neck. His pulse still raced, but it was done.
He looked at his hands. The fingertips smoked faintly, tingling from the surge of energy.
Then he looked at the remains of the F~31s.
"Tough bastards," he muttered. "But luck's still got rhythm."
One of the twitching limbs sparked nearby. He kicked it away.
He sat down on a collapsed bench, eyes closing for a second.
Wandering might've gotten him here, but precision had carried him out.
The wind had gone still.
Ken sat alone amid the scattered remains of the two F~31s. Bits of molten steel steamed around him. The battle was over, but something inside him hadn't settled. His fingers twitched.
Then came the ache.
Sharp. Deep. It wasn't a headache—it was a fracture from the erased past.
He clenched his teeth and grabbed his head, stumbling backward against a cracked pillar. The world blurred. Reality stretched thin like fabric pulled too tight.
His breath hitched.
And then—
Flash.
A hallway of mirrors.
All of them shattered.
Each reflection showed a different version of him—some bloodied, some smiling, some wearing masks.
Flash.
A hand reaching for his in a burning field.
A voice screaming his name.
But the sound was always drowned—always.
Flash.
A gun in his palm.
A promise carved into stone: Don't forget the face.
He fell to his knees. The pain surged behind his eyes, white-hot. Then came the voice.
It wasn't spoken aloud. It screamed within.
"Who are you, identityless?"
It was a strange voice. Old. Genderless. Cold as winter rain. But not mocking. Curious. A being who saw through names and skin.
Ken's breaths were shallow. The question popped in his mind again, louder this time, like it came from the walls of his own mind.
"Who are you, identityless?"
His hands dug into the dirt. Blood dripped from his lip as he bit down, steadying his senses. He looked up, even though there was no one there.
Then he stood.
His foot pressed gently on the glowing sigil of his shattered compass. The light flickered back to life for just a second. A whisper of balance.
Ken reached to his belt. Slowly, with quiet purpose, he took the tattered, dusty hat from its loop. He placed it on his head.
The shadows adjusted around him.
His body took its stance—shoulders loose, knees bent, weight ready. Not for battle… but for truth.
He stared into the unseen void and answered, voice steady.
"I am Me."
The wind returned, brushing past him like a nod from something ancient.
And just like that, the ache subsided. The vision faded. But something hadn't changed.
He didn't remember his past, not yet.