By day, Damien Thorne fought his greatest enemy yet: academics.
He slouched in his seat like it was a battlefield, eyes half-lidded, fingers drumming against the desk. Equations blurred into nonsense. History dates refused to stick. Even basic cybernetics theory made him want to put his head through a wall.
But sitting beside him was someone who refused to let him spiral.
Mila Evermeere.Top of the robotics class. Daughter of an engineering family. Known for her precise logic, clean code, and zero tolerance for mediocrity.
She had no patience for Damien's wild energy, sloppy handwriting, or half-baked answers. But she owed him.
Two months ago, a malfunctioning rogue automaton broke containment during a campus tech trial. It went berserk. Most students ran.
Damien ran toward it.
He saved her with nothing but a broken chair and a rage-fueled tackle. Didn't even know her name. Just shrugged it off and walked away.
Now she was his tutor. Begrudgingly.
"Focus," she snapped, dragging his pencil back to the formula."I am," he grunted, scratching his head."You're drawing a tank. That's not calculus.""…Yeah, but it's a nice tank."
He infuriated her. But slowly—painfully—he got better.
Mila's frustration melted into cautious respect. He might not understand circuits, but he could memorize pressure systems. He couldn't recite the God King's timeline, but he could quote every street fight he'd been in like gospel.
Grades: rising. Still messy. But above average now. That was a miracle.
But that was only during the day.
At night, Damien became someone else.
When the lights of Xyprus dimmed and the city's arteries pulsed with illegal activity, he donned his mask once more. Not for money this time—but for something else.
Fusion criminals were growing bolder. Underground labs producing unstable fighters, experiments gone wrong. Street-level enforcers enhanced beyond reason, preying on the weak.
Damien hunted them.
He didn't ask why they turned. He didn't care who sent them. All he knew was that someone had to stop them—and the police didn't show up fast enough.
He didn't wear armor. Just wraps. Cloth mask. Golden eyes.
The streets began to whisper:"The boy with the broken halo.""The Thorne in their side.""He doesn't fight for money anymore."
He wasn't a hero. Not yet. But something was taking shape in the dark.
Meanwhile, Mila noticed.
He came to class limping. Bruised. Distracted.
And when she asked, he always replied the same way:
"Just training."
But she was a technologist. She read movements like schematics.And Damien's secret?Wasn't going to stay buried forever.