The second layer stripped away the obvious metal. Magnets and transmuters swept across fabric and bone like unseen hunters. Here he slowed his heart to a steady, unreadable rhythm and tuned the field around him to the frequency of ordinary air. Any metallic glint was refracted into harmless noise. For a brief breath between the ticks of a clock he allowed his outermost atoms to sing a neutral song, a mimicry of empty pockets and common cloth. The machine concluded there was nothing of consequence and moved on.
The third layer reached under the skin, invoking micro resonant probes that searched for implants, grafts, and hidden alloys. The speedster met this assault by becoming a question mark in time. He folded the moment into a thin thread of stilled now and internal signatures flattened into a single, calm note. Scanners that expected the flicker of living systems found instead a steady hum. The probes recorded nothing but routine biology and flagged nothing at all.
The fourth layer dove deeper still, scanning blood vessels, tissues, and subatomic patterns. It was a cathedral of microscopes and quantum ears. Here the speedster offered a trick of scale and will. He scattered his energetic signature across a thousand tiny mirages and wove them into the ambient hum of the facility, so the scanner encountered not one storming presence but a gentle static that matched the room. The readouts smoothed into acceptable curves and the alarms remained silent.
The fifth layer was the cruelest of all. An energy detector stood like a god of threshold, capable of incinerating anything whose signature exceeded a beta human baseline. Confronted with that verdict the speedster performed the simplest and most dangerous feat a living thing could attempt. He quieted himself. He folded the torrent inside into a pearl of will and let it rest. Where others would blaze, he chose shadow. To the detector he presented a calm so ordinary it was invisible. The field sighed and judged him unworthy of destruction.
Then came the Eye of God, the soul scanner that read intent and could harden a person into stone with the whisper of a judgment. No trick of speed or motion would hold here. So Lucian became still in a truer sense. He spoke inwardly, not to hide but to humble. He conjured the memory of small mercies, of debts he had paid, of failures he had owned. He let those honest fragments shine outward like a lantern and the Eye saw not a monster but a man with scars and soft edges. The Eye of God let him pass.
Finally came the mental crucible that tested psyche, temptation, fracture, and the presence of darkness that revels in harm. Lucian did not bluff. He placed his doubts on the table and folded them into a manageable knot. Where the machine searched for ruin, it found a mind that understood ruin yet refused to be shaped by it. The final meter read not a shattered or sadistic will but the fragile resolve of a human who had endured. The last gate sighed open.
Each layer had been a trial. Each trial could have vaporized him. Yet the speedster had bypassed them not by breaking rules but by changing the very questions the system could ask. He blurred perception and tempered energy. He scattered and then gathered. He traded motion for stillness, tempest for a single candle. The scanners recorded no conspiracy, no weapon, no threat. They recorded a traveler who had learned to run with time itself.
And thus, in the smartest way possible, Lucian bypassed all odds and walked free from the scanner. His steps carried him deeper into the heart of Purgatory, until he reached Cell 346.
Inside that cell hung a soul that had surrendered all logic and was now left with nothing but burning hatred and passion. The soul was broken beyond comprehension. It had once tried to free its race, but was betrayed by those it trusted most. Criminal 346 was not just a villain. He was a man who had been misunderstood and treated harshly by both man and God. He had been sent to Purgatory by the hero Quicklightning and abandoned by the one who was meant to save him.
Harrison lay slumped against the wall, his hands and legs bound so tightly he had not stretched them in two years. His body was constantly electrocuted by electricity and lightning that chewed through his nerves. He was tired beyond the realm of flesh, yet his mind burned with a hatred hotter than the sun. That hatred was the single ember that kept him alive for two years without food or water.
"So this is how I die, huh?" Harrison whispered, his voice thin with despair.
"You know you want to die, then die. You are holding me back and you know that," the siren fused into his soul sneered, its tone as sharp as glass.
"What do you care? You just want to possess my body and take control of it. You do not know what I have passed through, how I ended up here like this. Human beings are wicked." His voice cracked as he sobbed.
"Blah, blah, stop being a crybaby and fight for what they took from you. Do you want to die here? Is this where you want your life to end? What about your wife and your daughter? Who will protect them from the evils of this world? Who will create a place for them to survive?" the siren demanded in a harsh tone.
"I remember…" Harrison's voice trembled. "I had a daughter. Her name was Angela… and a son. His name was Rio. I will not let them suffer in this world. I will break free and fix this world. I will kill every last human and burn this planet to dust. Then I will create a world where all xenomorphs, demons, cursed spirits, and other races can live." Harrison's voice rose to a roar as he strained against his chains.
Immediately the prison answered. A laser blast ignited his stomach with the fury of a star. More blasts followed, scalding his body with manga-level heat.
"Ahhhhhh!" Harrison screamed as he was struck over and over, drained of energy by the prison's merciless defense system.
Exhausted, his body trembled, and frustration carved deep lines across his face. His efforts were always in vain.
"Now what?" Harrison rasped at the siren within.
"Well, I had a plan while you were in sleep mode. Two years in this cave, and I was only waiting for my plan to set in motion," the siren replied coldly.
As if summoned by the thought, a figure appeared inside the cell. His expression was colder than ice. His suit was black as night, streaked with shifting multicolored light. His golden hair gleamed, arranged flawlessly, and his hands rested casually in his pockets as he walked toward the broken figure chained before him.
"Sure took you long enough. Thought you had forgotten about me," the siren said, raising his head to stare at the man who had finally come.