Edge woke up at 4:47 AM to the sound of a air horn.
Not a normal air horn. This was an air horn that had been awakened, which meant it was louder than any air horn had the right to be, and it somehow contained undertones of disappointment and judgment.
"RISE AND SHINE, YOUNG MASTER."
Sir Reginald Barksworth III stood at the foot of Edge's bed, one paw on the awakened air horn, his bowler hat perfectly positioned, his suit immaculate despite the ungodly hour.
"What the f—"
"LANGUAGE. A gentleman does not curse before breakfast. Or after breakfast. Or, ideally, ever." The dog set down the air horn. "Training begins in thirteen minutes. I suggest you use them wisely."
Edge—and he was Edge now, fully and completely, the name Marcus feeling like a distant memory, a past life, someone else's story—stared at the dog with the kind of hatred usually reserved for alarm clocks and people who spoil TV shows.
"It's not even five AM."
"Correct. We're starting late. I wanted to give you time to adjust after yesterday's revelation. Consider this a kindness."
"This is not a kindness."
"It is compared to the alternative, which was waking you at 3 AM with the awakened megaphone." Sir Reginald adjusted his bowler hat. "That one causes temporary hearing loss and existential dread. Very effective, but I felt it might be excessive for your first day of remedial training."
"Remedial?"
"You don't remember three years of combat experience. You killed a Level 2 corruption with a slipper. You are, by any reasonable metric, a danger to yourself and others." The dog's eyes gleamed with something that might have been anticipation. "This will be corrected."
"THE DOG IS ENJOYING THIS," The Abyss observed from where it was draped over a chair. "I FIND IT CONCERNING AND ALSO SOMEWHAT ADMIRABLE."
"Whose side are you on?"
"WHICHEVER SIDE RESULTS IN YOU BECOMING MORE COMPETENT. CURRENTLY, THAT IS THE DOG'S SIDE."
Edge dragged himself out of bed. The Shack, apparently sensing his distress, had helpfully placed a cup of coffee on his nightstand. It was still hot. He didn't question how.
"Fine. Training. What kind of training?"
Sir Reginald smiled.
It was not a comforting smile.
The training room was located somewhere in The Shack's infinite interior, past the library, through the armory, down a staircase that seemed to go sideways, and through a door that hadn't existed until Edge needed it to.
It was massive. A gymnasium crossed with a combat arena crossed with what appeared to be a torture chamber designed by someone with excellent taste.
Training dummies lined one wall—the awakened kind, Edge noted, the kind that fought back. Weapons racks covered another wall, displaying everything from swords to guns to objects that defied easy categorization. And in the center of the room, a large open space that was currently occupied by Sir Reginald, who had somehow changed into a different suit—this one more athletic, with subtle armoring and reinforced joints.
"First," the dog said, "we assess your current capabilities. Remove The Abyss."
Edge hesitated. "Remove it?"
"The coat has been compensating for your lack of skill. We need to see what you can do without it."
"HE IS CORRECT," The Abyss admitted reluctantly. "I HAVE BEEN... ASSISTING. MORE THAN I SHOULD."
"You've been controlling my body?"
"GUIDING. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE. BUT YES. IN COMBAT SITUATIONS, I HAVE BEEN TAKING OVER CERTAIN MOTOR FUNCTIONS TO ENSURE WE DON'T DIE. THIS IS NOT SUSTAINABLE LONG-TERM."
Edge shrugged off the coat, feeling strangely naked without its weight on his shoulders. The Abyss slithered to a nearby rack, draping itself there and somehow managing to look judgmental despite being a piece of clothing.
"Good," Sir Reginald said. "Now. Attack me."
Edge stared at the dog.
The dog stared back.
"You want me to attack you."
"Yes."
"You're a dog."
"I am a Full Bonded awakened companion with three years of combat experience, enhanced physical capabilities, and a complete lack of hesitation when it comes to defending my charge." Sir Reginald adjusted his bowler hat. "I am also wearing an armored suit and have been training for this moment since you came home smelling like confusion and fried potatoes. Attack me."
Edge attacked.
It went poorly.
"Again."
Edge picked himself up off the floor for the seventeenth time. His entire body ached. He was pretty sure he had bruises on his bruises. And Sir Reginald hadn't even broken a sweat—did dogs sweat? Edge couldn't remember—while systematically dismantling every attack Edge had attempted.
"How are you so fast?"
"I am awakened. My Full Bond is with the suit, which enhances my physical capabilities far beyond normal canine limits." Sir Reginald demonstrated by performing a backflip that would have made an Olympic gymnast weep. "Also, you are very slow. This is a problem we will need to address."
"I was a thirty-four-year-old burger flipper in my past life. I've never been in a real fight."
"Then we will teach you. Again."
Edge attacked again.
He ended up on the floor again.
"Your instincts are good," Sir Reginald observed, circling Edge's prone form. "When The Abyss guides you, your movements are fluid and effective. But without it, you hesitate. You second-guess. You think too much."
"Thinking is generally considered a good thing."
"In combat, thinking gets you killed. You need to react, not analyze. Your body knows what to do—Edge's body, which you now inhabit, has three years of muscle memory. But your mind is blocking it."
Edge groaned and sat up. "How do I stop blocking it?"
Sir Reginald sat down in front of him, his expression thoughtful beneath the bowler hat.
"You need to stop being two people. You keep thinking of yourself as Marcus-who-became-Edge. But you are Edge now. Fully. Completely. Marcus's memories are part of you, but they don't define you." The dog's voice was gentle. "Let go of who you were. Embrace who you are. The muscle memory will follow."
"That's very philosophical for a training session."
"I am a very philosophical dog." Sir Reginald stood. "Now. Again. But this time, don't think. Just move."
Edge closed his eyes.
He thought about Marcus. About the burnout, the failures, the decades of disappointment. The man who had dreamed of creating worlds but ended up flipping burgers. The man who had wanted so desperately to matter and never did.
And then he let it go.
Not forgotten—he would never forget. But set aside. Acknowledged and released, like baggage he'd been carrying too long.
He wasn't Marcus anymore. He was Edge. A Cleaner. A fighter. Someone who had power, purpose, a place in the world.
He opened his eyes.
And moved.
The training session lasted four hours.
By the end of it, Edge was exhausted, battered, and more than a little impressed with his own capabilities. Once he'd stopped overthinking, the muscle memory had started to kick in. Not perfectly—he was still rusty, still making mistakes—but the foundation was there. Edge's body knew how to fight. It just needed the mind to get out of the way.
Sir Reginald, for his part, seemed satisfied.
"Adequate," the dog declared as Edge collapsed onto a nearby bench. "You have much work ahead of you, but the basics are present. With continued training, you should be combat-ready within a few weeks."
"A few weeks?"
"Optimistically. Realistically, given your tendency toward distraction and existential crises, perhaps a month or two."
"Great. Wonderful. Can I sleep now?"
"No. You have a shift in New Dawn City starting in two hours. Standard patrol duty—monitor for corruption activity, respond to any incidents, maintain public confidence in the Cleaner organization."
Edge stared at the dog. "You scheduled a patrol right after four hours of training?"
"Of course. Combat readiness requires the ability to perform under fatigue. This is an additional training exercise." Sir Reginald smiled. "You're welcome."
"THE DOG IS DEFINITELY A SADIST," The Abyss observed as it slithered back onto Edge's shoulders. "I APPROVE."
"I hate both of you."
"NO YOU DON'T."
Edge sighed and dragged himself toward the shower.
New Dawn City was beautiful in the early morning light.
The sun—visible here, unlike in the perpetually gray Outskirts—cast everything in shades of gold and pink. The holographic advertisements were dimmer now, replaced by soft ambient lighting that made the city look almost peaceful. Almost normal.
Edge walked the streets with Lucy and Brick, The Abyss comfortable on his shoulders, his body aching pleasantly from the morning's training. Sir Reginald had stayed at The Shack—apparently even sadistic dogs needed their rest—leaving Edge to navigate the patrol without his aristocratic guidance.
"You seem different today," Lucy observed, bouncing along beside him. Her pistol was holstered but ready, her eyes scanning the crowds with practiced efficiency. "Good different! Focused different! Less confused different!"
"Training with Reggie. He's... thorough."
"Oh, I know! He trained with me for a month when I first joined the team! I couldn't sit down for a week after the first session!" Lucy paused. "That sounded weird. I meant because my legs were sore. From the running. So much running."
Brick laughed, the sound like distant thunder. "Sir Reginald is an excellent trainer! Very demanding! Very painful! But the results speak for themselves!" He flexed, muscles rippling. "I credit thirty percent of my current physique to his regimen!"
"Only thirty percent?"
"The other seventy percent is from my own training philosophy, which I call 'Lift Heavy Things Until You Can Lift Heavier Things.' Very simple! Very effective! The science is questionable but the results are undeniable!"
They continued their patrol, passing through shopping districts and business centers and residential areas. The city was waking up around them, people emerging from their homes, starting their days, completely oblivious to the corruption that could manifest at any moment.
It was strange, Edge realized. These people had no idea how close they were to disaster at any given time. They went about their lives trusting that someone else would handle the monsters, would clean up the messes, would keep the darkness at bay.
And that someone was him. Was them. Was the Cleaners.
It was a heavy responsibility. But also, somehow, a comforting one. Purpose. Meaning. Something he'd spent his entire previous life searching for.
"Edge?" Lucy was looking at him curiously. "You're doing that thing again. The staring-into-space thing."
"Just thinking."
"About what?"
"About how weird this all is. But also how... right it feels."
Lucy studied him for a moment, then smiled. "That's good! Feeling right is good! Feeling wrong is bad! This is basic emotional literacy!" She patted his arm. "I'm glad you're okay. After the Level 3 thing, I was worried. You seemed so... lost."
"I was. But I'm finding my way back."
"Good! Finding ways is what we do! Also, killing corruptions! But finding ways is a close second!"
Brick suddenly stopped, his head tilting like a dog hearing a distant sound. Which was appropriate, since he'd told Edge once that his enhanced hearing was one of the side effects of his awakening.
"Something's wrong," the big man said, all traces of his usual cheerfulness gone. "I hear screaming. Three blocks north. Multiple sources."
Lucy's pistol was already in her hand, transforming into something larger. "Corruption?"
"Unknown. But the screaming is... intense."
Edge felt The Abyss shift on his shoulders, responding to his sudden tension.
"I SENSE IT TOO. CORRUPTION ENERGY. SIGNIFICANT. POSSIBLY LEVEL 3."
"Level 3? Already?"
"THEY DON'T FOLLOW SCHEDULES. MOVE."
Edge moved.
The corruption was in a plaza—one of those open public spaces that New Dawn City used as gathering points, complete with fountains and benches and artistic sculptures that were probably worth more than Edge's entire previous life.
It had been a musician, once. Edge could tell from the fragments—the twisted remains of instruments fused to its body, the discordant sounds emanating from its form, the way its mouth had become a speaker that blasted pure sonic devastation.
The thing was massive. Easily fifteen feet tall. Its body was an amalgamation of drums and guitars and keyboards and things that shouldn't have been instruments but were now, forced into the role by corruption's twisted logic.
And it was loud.
The sound waves it produced were visible—shimmering distortions in the air that shattered windows and sent people flying. The plaza was chaos, civilians running and screaming, emergency barriers flickering as they tried to contain the threat.
"LISTEN TO ME!" the corruption screamed, its voice a hundred instruments playing at once. "NOBODY EVER LISTENS! BUT NOW YOU'LL HAVE NO CHOICE! I'LL MAKE YOU HEAR! I'LL MAKE YOU ALL HEAR!"
Lucy opened fire immediately, her weapon spitting energy rounds that exploded against the corruption's body. They left marks—scorch damage, visible wounds—but the thing barely seemed to notice.
Brick charged, his body igniting with thermal energy. He slammed into the corruption like a meteor, sending it staggering back—but it recovered quickly, unleashing a sonic blast that sent Brick tumbling across the plaza.
Edge watched, his mind racing. The corruption was Level 3—maybe higher. Its sonic attacks were devastating at range, and its size made close combat dangerous. Traditional tactics weren't going to cut it.
He needed something else. Something that could match its power on a fundamental level.
And then he remembered.
"The guitar," he thought. "I have a guitar. A Full Bonded instrument that can manipulate the Beat."
"YOU REMEMBER," The Abyss said, surprised. "GOOD. REACH INSIDE. FIND IT."
Edge reached into the coat. Not randomly this time—not grabbing whatever happened to be there. He focused on what he needed. An instrument. A weapon. A tool that could turn sound against sound.
His hand closed around a neck. Strings. Familiar weight.
He pulled.
The guitar that emerged was beautiful in a terrifying way. Black body, silver strings, designs etched into its surface that seemed to move when you weren't looking directly at them. It was sleek and deadly and utterly wrong in all the right ways.
Edge had designed this guitar during a late-night study session in high school, when he should have been doing homework but was instead imagining the coolest weapon his protagonist could wield. He'd spent hours drawing it, detailing its abilities, imagining the scenes where it would shine.
Now it was real. And it was his.
"THE BEAT," The Abyss reminded him. "EVERYTHING HAS A RHYTHM. FIND THE CORRUPTION'S RHYTHM AND BREAK IT."
Edge lifted the guitar. Positioned his fingers on the strings. Took a deep breath.
And played.
The first note was wrong—discordant, uncertain, the product of someone who'd never actually played guitar in his life. But Edge pushed past it, trusting not his skill but his intent. He wasn't trying to play music. He was trying to weaponize sound itself.
He thought about the song. The one he'd imagined as Edge's theme during particularly boring classes. A driving beat. Aggressive guitars. Lyrics about being too big, too powerful, too important to fail.
Too Big to Fail.
The song exploded from the guitar, not as sound but as force. Reality bent around the music, the Beat manifesting visibly—glowing lines of rhythm that spread out from Edge like ripples in water.
The corruption staggered, its own sonic attacks suddenly disrupted. Where before it had been screaming chaos, now it was fighting against a competing rhythm, a beat that refused to let it dominate.
"WHAT—WHAT IS THIS?!"
Edge didn't answer. He let the music speak for him.
The song built, crescendoed, each chord hitting the corruption like a physical blow. The Beat wrapped around the monster, finding the cracks in its rhythm, exploiting the discord at its core.
Lucy added her firepower, her shots now synchronized to Edge's rhythm. Brick recovered and charged again, his movements flowing with the Beat, enhanced by it.
They were playing together. Fighting together. Moving as one.
The corruption tried to fight back. Its sonic attacks were still powerful, still dangerous—but they were being drowned out, overwritten, replaced by the song that Edge was forcing into existence.
The final chord hit like a thunderbolt.
The corruption shattered. Not dissolved, not dispersed—shattered, like glass breaking, its form fragmenting into a thousand pieces that dissolved before they hit the ground.
Silence.
Edge lowered the guitar, breathing hard. His fingers ached. His ears were ringing. But he was alive, and the corruption was dead, and holy shit that had actually worked.
"EDGE!" Lucy tackled him from behind, wrapping her arms around him—and, predictably, shoving his face directly into her chest. "THAT WAS AMAZING! THAT WAS THE COOLEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN! YOU PLAYED GUITAR AND THE MONSTER EXPLODED!"
"Can't—breathe—"
"Oh! Sorry!" She released him slightly, but kept her arms around his shoulders. "But seriously! That was incredible! I didn't even know you could do that! When did you learn to do that?!"
"I didn't," Edge admitted. "I just... knew."
"INSTINCT," The Abyss observed smugly. "I TOLD YOU. STOP THINKING, START DOING."
Brick had rejoined them, his thermal glow fading. The big man was grinning from ear to ear.
"That was excellent! Musical combat! Very artistic! Very destructive!" He clapped Edge on the shoulder. "You have hidden depths, my friend! Dangerous, guitar-shaped depths!"
Edge looked at the guitar still in his hands. The Beat hummed through it, resonating with something deep in his chest.
This was his power. Not just The Abyss, not just the objects he could pull from its depths—but this. The ability to manipulate rhythm itself. To turn sound into a weapon, music into destruction, the Beat into whatever he needed it to be.
It was terrifying.
It was awesome.
"Alright," Edge said, slipping the guitar back into The Abyss—which accepted it with an almost affectionate squeeze. "Let's wrap this up and head back. Our shift is almost over anyway."
Lucy checked her phone. "Oh, you're right! Time flies when you're fighting musical monsters! The next team should be arriving in about—"
Her phone buzzed. Then buzzed again. Then started buzzing continuously in a way that suggested something was very, very wrong.
"Uh oh."
"Uh oh? What uh oh?"
"We're being recalled. Not just off shift—recalled to the Outskirts immediately. Emergency priority."
Brick's expression darkened. "What kind of emergency?"
Lucy read the message again, her eyes widening.
"It doesn't say. It just says to get to the nearest transit point as fast as possible. And that..." She looked up, her face pale. "And that we should brace for dimensional displacement."
"Dimensional what now?"
The transit point was a small building near the edge of New Dawn City, unremarkable on the outside but containing technology that Edge only vaguely understood. Something about the Outskirts connecting to everywhere, about paths that folded space, about travel that wasn't quite travel.
They arrived to find chaos.
Cleaners from multiple teams were gathered, all looking confused, all checking their phones, all trying to figure out what was happening. Edge spotted Alex and his aquatic team near the back, the scuba-masked man looking as unsettled as everyone else.
"Does anyone know what's going on?" Edge asked, pushing through the crowd.
"Nobody knows anything!" someone shouted back. "We all got the same message! Report immediately, brace for displacement, no other details!"
"THE OUTSKIRTS ARE MOVING," The Abyss said suddenly.
"Moving? What do you mean, moving?"
"THE TRANSIT PATHS. THEY'RE SHIFTING. SOMETHING IS PULLING THEM TOWARD... SOMEWHERE."
The building shook.
Not an earthquake. Something different. Something that felt like reality itself was being twisted, folded, reorganized.
The air filled with light—not the normal light of the transit system, but something wilder, something that hurt to look at directly.
"EVERYONE HOLD ON!" someone shouted.
Edge grabbed Lucy and Brick, pulling them close. The Abyss wrapped around all three of them, trying to protect them from—
EVERYTHING WENT WHITE.
Edge opened his eyes to a sky that was the wrong color.
Not gray like the Outskirts. Not blue like New Dawn City.
Red.
The sky was red. A deep, bloody crimson that suggested something had gone very, very wrong with the local reality.
Edge sat up slowly, his entire body aching from whatever had just happened. Lucy was beside him, groaning and holding her head. Brick was already standing, his expression grim as he surveyed their surroundings.
They were in the Outskirts. That much was clear—the industrial architecture, the ambient corruption energy, the general atmosphere of barely-contained chaos.
But this wasn't their Outskirts.
The buildings here were different. More weathered. More damaged. Signs of combat everywhere—scorch marks, impact craters, the remains of corruptions that had been destroyed but not cleaned up.
And the sky was red.
"Where are we?" Lucy asked, finally recovering enough to stand.
"Unknown," Brick said. His muscles were already starting to glow, ready for combat. "But the corruption levels here are... extreme. I can feel it in my bones."
Edge felt it too. The wrongness pressing against his senses, heavier than anything he'd experienced in New Dawn City. This was a place where corruption wasn't just present—it was dominant.
"WE HAVE BEEN DISPLACED," The Abyss confirmed. "FAR DISPLACED. THIS IS NOT THE AMERICAN OUTSKIRTS."
"Then where is it?"
"BASED ON THE AMBIENT ENERGY SIGNATURES AND THE ARCHITECTURAL STYLE..." The coat paused. "AUSTRALIA."
Edge blinked. "Australia?"
"SPECIFICALLY, WHAT USED TO BE THE MELBOURNE METROPOLITAN AREA. NOW DESIGNATED AS CORRUPTION ZONE AUSTRALIA-7. ONE OF THE HIGHEST-CONCENTRATION AREAS ON THE PLANET."
"Why would the Outskirts send us here?"
"THERE ARE THEORIES THAT THE OUTSKIRTS THEMSELVES ARE SENTIENT. THAT THEY SEND CLEANERS WHERE THEY'RE NEEDED, NOT WHERE THEY'RE REQUESTED." The coat's voice was grim. "IF THOSE THEORIES ARE TRUE... THEN SOMETHING VERY BAD IS HAPPENING HERE. SOMETHING THAT REQUIRES IMMEDIATE INTERVENTION."
Lucy had her phone out, trying to get a signal. "Nothing. We're completely cut off."
"Of course we are," Brick said with forced cheerfulness. "That would be too easy! We are stranded in one of the most dangerous places on Earth with no backup, no communications, and no idea what we're supposed to do!" He cracked his knuckles. "This is either going to be a great adventure or a very short one!"
Edge looked around at the devastated landscape, the red sky, the oppressive weight of corruption pressing in from all sides.
Australia.
Of all the places he could have ended up.
He'd designed Australia as one of the worst corruption zones in his manga—a place where things had gone so wrong that most of the continent had been abandoned, left to the corruptions and the handful of Cleaners insane enough to keep fighting there. The wildlife was bad enough normally; add corruption to the mix, and you got nightmares that made Level 4s look friendly.
And now he was here.
Stranded.
With his team.
"Alright," Edge said, reaching into The Abyss and pulling out the guitar. The Beat hummed through his fingers, ready for whatever came next. "Let's figure out what we're dealing with. Stay close, stay alert, and—"
Something roared in the distance. Something big.
"—and let's try not to die."
"INSPIRING WORDS," The Abyss observed.
"Shut up and get ready for combat."
"ALREADY READY. ALWAYS READY. THAT IS MY PURPOSE."
The three of them moved forward into the corrupted wasteland, toward the roaring, toward whatever fresh hell awaited them.
Because that was what Cleaners did.
They cleaned up messes.
Even messes in Australia.
Even messes they had no business being anywhere near.
Edge tightened his grip on the guitar and started walking.
The Outskirts had sent them here for a reason.
Time to find out what it was.
TO BE CONTINUED...