The metallic clang of a wrench hitting the floor, the screech of screwdrivers, and my own groans of frustration filled the heavy air of the Blakk Industries workshop.
Officially, it had been three months since I signed my "deal with the devil" and joined the doctor's ranks. And if I'm being honest, the life of a corporate villain involves way more grunt work than the movies make you think.
Aside from a couple of major missions, my routine had been stuffed with classic open-world video game filler quests: guard a strategic building over here, escort a supply drop over there. Boring, but safe.
To kill time, I'd become a regular at the base's gym. I spent at least two hours a day there. When it came to raw brute strength, I was still pretty average; I barely cracked the Top 20 of the heavy lifters (and that's my ego being generous). But when we stepped into the sparring ring, it was a completely different story.
To this day, nobody in all of Blakk Industries has managed to knock me out in a bare-knuckle brawl. Honestly, nobody's even managed to land a hit.
Thanks to my Tactical Hyper-Perspective, watching a six-foot-tall enraged mutant throw a punch is like watching an instant replay in slow motion. My hand-to-hand combat style evolved around a simple premise: the best defense is not taking any damn damage.
Dodge, redirect, and counterattack. And, above all, use the legs. I quickly figured out I liked kicking more than punching; my arms didn't have the juice to drop a Cave Troll in one hit yet, but the momentum of a spinning kick to the jaw worked wonders.
But violence aside, when I wasn't out on missions or crushing the egos of veterans in the ring, I hung out in my new personal sanctuary, a place I discovered less than a month ago: the massive Mecha Beast workshop at Blakk Industries.
As a hardcore gearhead in my past life, I was obviously itching to know how these underground engineering marvels ticked and how they were put together.
So, without asking for anyone's permission, I claimed a Bull-model Mecha Beast that was gathering dust in a corner, grabbed a heavy-duty toolbox, and started stripping it down piece by piece.
The problem is, taking things apart is the easy part.
Right now, I was elbow-deep in grease, holding a technical schematic stained with black oil, trying to figure out how the hell the heavy joint of the Mecha Beast's hind leg went back together.
"You're too slow at putting that together. Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
The bored-sounding voice came from about fifteen feet to my right.
I lowered the diagram a couple of inches to look at my companion. Valentina was in the shop with me. She wasn't helping, though. She was sitting in an old, worn-out leather armchair... or rather, she was sitting upside down in it.
Her legs were propped up on the top of the backrest, and her head was hanging down, staring at the ceiling while she held her tablet upside down. Her brown hair was practically sweeping the filthy workshop floor. The Commander of Intelligence, the most feared woman in the administrative hallways, looked like a bored bat.
I sighed and wiped the sweat off my forehead with my forearm, leaving a smear of grease across my face. "Deep Cavern engineering is a delicate art, Val," I replied, looking back at the manual. "And for your information, I have two extra screws left over and zero idea where they go, so no, I'm not sure what I'm doing."
The silence in the workshop was only broken by the faint hum of the ventilation systems. Valentina let her head drop a little further back off the edge of the chair, letting her hair brush the ground, and let out a dramatic groan.
"Booooring..." she sang, dragging out the vowels as she turned off her tablet screen and tossed it aside. "I'm tired of watching you wrestle with that hunk of metal. Why don't you tell me something about your mysterious life on the Surface? A childhood story or something."
I froze, wrench half-turned. "What do you want to know about me, Val?" I asked, keeping my eyes glued to the mechanical leg joint I had just disassembled for the third time.
Valentina rocked a bit in the chair, looking at me upside down. Her brown eyes lost their mocking glint and turned more analytical. "I remember a while back you told me you were in a 'correctional facility'," she said, her voice softer, almost cautious. "You explained what it was: a juvenile prison. But you never told me why you ended up locked up in there."
The metallic clatter of the wrench hitting the floor echoed through the cavernous workshop.
I stopped working. I grabbed a dirty rag from the bench and started slowly wiping the grease off my hands, stalling for time. A cold knot formed in my gut. It wasn't a story I liked to tell, not even in my original world, let alone this one.
I turned around, leaned my lower back against the cold workbench, and looked her in the eyes. The sarcasm was gone from my face.
"Ahhhh..." I let out a long, heavy sigh, letting the exhaustion of those memories wash over me. "I was fifteen. My older brother, Michel, was nineteen."
Valentina didn't say a word. She shifted slightly, giving me her absolute, undivided attention.
"We weren't rich, not by a long shot. But we were stupid and ambitious," I started, tasting the metallic flavor of the past in my mouth. "We wanted a car. A real car, all to ourselves. And at that age, with that mindset, the only quick way to make money we could think of was stealing."
Valentina raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the confession of a crime so mundane compared to the corporate wars of Slugterra.
"At first, it was small stuff," I continued, staring at my hands. "We started swiping tires, hubcaps, old radios. The adrenaline was addicting. But soon we got bolder... and more arrogant. We started stealing whole cars straight up. My brother taught me how to crack the steering lock and hotwire the ignition in under thirty seconds."
I closed my eyes for a second, remembering the smell of asphalt and the wind in my face. "We'd take the stolen cars out to an empty lot on the outskirts of the city, in the dead of night. Under the moonlight, we'd strip the engines, the seats, anything we could fence on the black market. We were good at what we did. Real good."
"But you made a mistake," Valentina deduced in a whisper, knowing exactly how these rookie criminal stories usually end.
"Greed got the better of us," I nodded bitterly, opening my eyes. "We already had enough cash to buy the damn car we wanted, but we decided to pull 'one last job'. It was a luxury ride. Way too easy. The cops set a trap for us."
I swallowed hard, feeling that same tightness in my chest from that night. "I remember the red and blue flashes of the cruisers blinding me out of nowhere. The wail of the sirens. The shouting. We tried to run, but they cornered us. They slammed me onto the asphalt, and I felt the cold metal of the handcuffs biting into my wrists and a cop's knee crushing my spine."
The Blakk Industries workshop felt immensely quiet for a moment.
"I got 'lucky'," I said, throwing up air quotes with my grease-stained fingers. "Since I was a minor, the justice system went easy on me. They sent me to juvie. A glorified cage for troubled teens. But my brother... Michel wasn't so lucky."
I gripped the edge of the table, knuckles turning white. "He was already a legal adult. The judge wanted to make an example out of him. They gave him a choice: maximum-security prison or forced military service. Michel chose the army. They shipped him off to the worst part of the country, basically as cannon fodder. All because of me. Because I didn't stop him, because I played along."
I looked at the floor, lost in the guilt I'd carried for years. "Thank God, he survived. He came back home with a hollow look in his eyes, but he was alive. And I promised I would never let ambition destroy my family ever again."
The weight of the confession hung between us. Valentina had gone completely quiet, watching me with an unreadable expression. She had seen past my arrogant mask, past the untouchable Commander. She had seen the scared, guilty kid from the Surface.
To keep the moment from getting too vulnerable, I shook my head and flashed a crooked grin, drastically shifting the tone as a defense mechanism.
"And look at us now..." I said, spreading my arms out at the workshop. "Three years and some change after that night, I'm miles underground, covered in motor oil, trying to put a robotic bull's leg back together, hanging out with an incredibly bossy and whiny woman. I guess the universe has a pretty sick sense of humor."
I wrapped up the story, picking the wrench back up off the table.
Valentina slowly sat up from the armchair, finally sitting upright. Her brown hair cascaded over her shoulders. She stared at me for a long second, processing the intimacy of what I had just shared. There was no corporate mockery, no sarcastic comments about my tactics.
"Hey..." she finally spoke, her voice strangely gentle. "Completely ignoring that last part where you insulted me... that's a pretty deep story. It helps explain why you are the way you are."
And just when I thought we were about to have a moment of genuine emotional connection, the Commander of Intelligence grabbed an empty plastic water bottle off a nearby table and chucked it at me with lethal precision, pegging me right in the forehead.
Smack!
"Ow!" I complained, rubbing my head.
"That was for the 'incredibly bossy and whiny woman' comment," Valentina declared, crossing her arms, though a small, warm smile tugged at her lips.
The next morning, my internal clock woke me up at the exact same time as always.
I kicked things off with my typical military routine: a long, hot shower to scrub off any leftover workshop grease, brushing my teeth in front of my luxury suite's mirror, and throwing on my flawless black-and-red Blakk Industries tactical uniform.
I adjusted my belts, double-checked that my Ghouls were cozy in their vials, and walked out the door. Mentally prepping for the day, I had to head over to Val's office to get my new mission assignment and the operational briefing.
The walk to the Intelligence Wing was a solid reminder of how much things had changed over these past three months. As I marched down the wide metallic corridors, the guards and grunts in my path immediately stopped, pressed themselves against the wall, and threw me a stiff military salute.
"Commander!" they'd bark with respect—and a hint of fear—as I walked by. I just tossed them a slight nod in return. Power felt pretty damn good.
I reached the heavy armored doors of the Intelligence department. They slid open automatically with a soft hiss.
"Morning, Val. How'd you sleep...?" I started to say in my usual laid-back tone as I strolled into the room.
But the words died in my throat. I froze in the doorway, blinking a few times, entirely convinced I'd walked into the wrong room.
The office, which up until a week ago was the textbook definition of a biohazard, was spotless. The pigsty was gone. The precarious towers of soda cups had vanished. The protein bar wrappers no longer blanketed the floor like a rug. The cables were zip-tied, the desks were shining, and the air even smelled like industrial disinfectant instead of electrocuted rat.
"Who are you and what have you done with my friend?" I asked, looking around with exaggerated suspicion.
Valentina was sitting in her swivel chair, posture perfect, uniform impeccable. She shot me a look that was equal parts amused and threatening.
"Good morning to you too, 'A'," Valentina said, blatantly ignoring my comment about the cleaning spree. "Ready for the next mission?"
I sauntered over to the desk, still scanning the room for hidden trash, and leaned against the edge with a smug grin. "Sure thing, Val. You know I'm always ready for whatever. There's no op this tactical genius can't handle."
Valentina let a sharp little smirk slip. She grabbed a black folder stamped with "CLASSIFIED" and held it out to me. "Glad to hear it."
I took the file and flipped it open confidently. My eyes quickly scanned the header, the objectives, and the target's location.
My cocky grin vanished in a heartbeat.
"Wait... hold on a damn second," I said, slowly lowering the folder and looking Valentina dead in the eye. "Are you serious right now?"
Valentina's smile grew wider, genuinely thriving off my suffering. "Didn't you just say you were 'ready for whatever'?" she reminded me, her tone sickeningly sweet.
"Yeah! But 'whatever' didn't include sneaking into a maximum-security underworld prison to bust out a mad scientist!" I snapped, staring in absolute disgust at the prisoner's mugshot in the file.
I slammed the folder shut, a shiver running down my spine. After getting so used to my luxury suite, the hot water, and the decent food, the mere thought of crawling into a damp, reeking, sweat-filled prison for a jailbreak made my stomach turn.
"Tell me this is a joke," I pleaded.
"Dr. Blakk's orders are never jokes, Commander," Valentina replied, swiveling her chair back to her monitors. "Prep your Mecha Beast. You leave in an hour. Enjoy your stay in the clink."
I sighed heavily, rubbing my face with my free hand. The universe definitely hated me.