The lab smelled of scorched wires and rusting iron. The carcass of the captured Hunter lay split open across the floor, its armored chest cracked like a coffin lid. Cables wound out of it like veins, pulsing faintly with stolen power. Helen knelt over the console, her fingers tapping nervously, the light from the screen cutting across her face.
"You're serious about this," she muttered, not looking at me. "You're actually going to try."
I flexed my chrome fingers. The sound of servomotors filled the silence. "I don't have a choice. If I stay like this, I'll never be enough. They'll never trust me."
"You think crawling inside that thing will earn trust?" Lira leaned against the wall, arms folded, her voice sharp. "It'll make you more like them. You don't beat monsters by becoming one."
I stared at the broken Hunter. Its blank faceplate gleamed under the dim light, silent, merciless. "Maybe you're wrong. Maybe becoming one is the only way to fight them."
Helen stopped typing. Her voice trembled, but her eyes met mine. "If you go through with this, you're not just hijacking hardware. The Dominion builds their machines with layered code, recursive commands designed to overwrite consciousness. If you lose… we won't get you back."
"Then I won't lose."
"You always say that," Lira muttered.
I stepped closer to the Hunter's body. The air seemed to vibrate around it, like the machine still breathed even in death. "This is the only way."
Helen's fingers hesitated on the keyboard, then moved again. The lab lights dimmed as the cables linked into my neural port. A low hum spread through the floor.
"Last chance to back out," she said softly.
I closed my eyes. "Start it."
The rush came instantly. A flood of data, cold and endless, surged into my skull. My breath caught as the lab dissolved into blackness.
I was standing in a void.
Black walls of shifting code stretched infinitely, flickering with crimson veins of light. The air was static, humming with hidden voices. I took a step, but it wasn't a step—it was thought shaping itself into motion. The Dominion's presence was everywhere, heavy, oppressive.
"Unauthorized consciousness detected," a voice boomed. It wasn't human. It was thousands of voices speaking as one. "Identify."
I kept silent and pushed forward.
The void trembled. Images slammed into me—fractured commands, kill orders, maps etched in burning glyphs. Rebels marked as targets. Villages marked for cleansing. Every name, every face catalogued for destruction.
"No," I growled. "Not anymore."
A shape rose from the darkness ahead: the Hunter's core. It loomed like a fortress of steel and fire, massive and alive. Guardians formed around it, skeletal drones of raw code, their white eyes fixed on me.
"You belong to us," the voice thundered.
I raised my chrome hand. It shimmered, dissolving into light. Here, thought was weapon. Power surged through me.
"Not anymore."
I thrust forward. A wave of force tore through the guardians, shattering them into streams of broken code. The fortress shook.
Outside, in the faint edges of awareness, I heard Helen's voice: "Kieran, your vitals are spiking—"
I ignored her.
More guardians spawned, dozens this time, their weapons blazing arcs of red. They fired. Pain ripped through me, pure data slicing across my mind. I staggered, gritted my teeth, and pushed back. Energy crackled, searing the void as I cut through them one by one.
But each time I destroyed them, more appeared. The Dominion's voice thundered in my head.
"You cannot fight eternity. You cannot fight us."
I pressed harder, fighting toward the fortress walls. Memories slammed into me, not mine but theirs—Dominion labs, assembly lines, soldiers kneeling before machines. The world blurred. My own past bled in too: the needles, the training, my father's face flickering then vanishing.
"You are nothing but what we made you," the voice whispered.
"No!" I screamed. I tore through the wall of code. Sparks erupted, shards of burning light collapsing around me.
The core was there, pulsing like a heart.
I reached for it—then stopped. A shadow stepped forward, blocking the way. It was me. My reflection, but twisted. Its body gleamed with black Dominion steel, its eyes burning white.
"I am what you could be," it said in my own voice. "Perfect. Obedient. Strong."
I shook my head. "You're not me."
"You deny what you are." The figure smiled, mechanical and cold. "You were always meant to be ours. Why resist?"
It attacked.
The impact sent me crashing back, shards of light exploding around us. I fought, but every strike felt like hitting myself. The Dominion version of me was faster, heavier, relentless.
"You will surrender," it growled.
"I'll never surrender."
Pain flooded me as its fist drove into my chest. Memories fractured—moments with Lira, with Helen, faces of the rebels—all threatening to shatter.
No. Not them. Not now.
I roared, pushing back with everything I had. Energy surged through me, not Dominion's, mine. Human. Memories anchored me: my father's voice, Lira's sharp defiance, Helen's steady hands on the console. I wasn't their creation. I wasn't their machine.
I was Kieran Vale.
Light erupted from me, burning the shadow away. The Dominion voice screamed, breaking apart into static.
The core trembled. I seized it with both hands. Power roared into me, searing every nerve. For a moment I thought I would be torn apart. Then—silence.
My eyes opened.
The lab swam into focus. But I wasn't lying on the table anymore. I was standing.
My vision was sharper. Every detail glowed with data overlays, distances, weaknesses, heat signatures. I looked down. My body gleamed with black armor, plates flexing smoothly over machine muscle. My arms ended in powerful gauntlets. The Hunter's body.
Lira stumbled back. "Gods…"
Helen's voice cracked. "Kieran…? Is it really you?"
I flexed my new fist. The strength hummed, intoxicating. My voice came out deeper, resonant, half-human, half-machine.
"It's me."
Lira recovered, her glare sharp. "Do you even realize what you've done? You're walking in Dominion skin. The rebels won't see you as human. They'll shoot first."
"Then they'll learn to see the difference."
Helen bit her lip. "Can you control it? Really control it? The Dominion code doesn't just vanish. It lingers. If you lose focus—"
I felt it then, a whisper at the back of my skull. Orders. Commands. The urge to obey. Kill. Cleanse.
I forced it down, locking it away. "I can control it," I said firmly.
The lab was silent. Outside, the world burned with distant explosions.
Lira shook her head slowly. "I hope you're right. Because if you're wrong, this will destroy all of us."
I stared at my reflection in the cracked wall. A monster's body. A human's will.
For the first time, I felt powerful. For the first time, I felt free.