Elden Subway Station

The tall, black valiant Mecha stood like a sentinel amid the wreckage—its chassis gleaming with fresh battle scars, steam rising from the scorched grooves in its armoured plates. Around it, the ruins of Elden Subway Station groaned. Twisted steel beams jutted from the ground like broken ribs, shattered glass crunched underfoot, and flickering emergency lights bathed the desolate platform in crimson hues.

The once-bustling hub had become a tomb for the brood.

The cockpit hissed open with a faint hydraulic sigh, releasing a puff of pressurised air laced with the sharp tang of ozone and burning lubricant. Derek leapt down from the hatch, boots striking debris with the satisfying crunch of victory—splintered carapaces, oozing insect ichor, and the occasional twitching antenna still spasming with post-mortem nerve signals.

He took a step back, craning his neck.

For the first time, he truly saw it.

His Mecha.

The Phantom Cloud-1.

It loomed above him like a mechanical titan, jet-black with pulse-blue lines glowing faintly across its frame. Plating like overlapping armour scales shimmered with residual energy, and its twin plasma blades were still smoking from overuse. The missile pods on its shoulders hissed faintly, venting pressure.

It looked alien. It looked invincible. It definitely looked like his.

"Damn," Derek whispered, hands on his hips. "You really are beautiful."

A soft chime from his System rang in his ear.

System Notification: Self-repair mode: Engaged

[ Please put it in the inventory to accelerate repair.]

" Cool, I thought I was gonna repair that myself "

Derek tapped his wristband.

The Mecha shimmered, broke into particle fragments, and condensed into a dense obsidian cube that dropped into his palm with a heavy clunk.

With a thought, Derek slid it into his inventory.

He exhaled, finally still.

No more chittering screams. No more bio-plasma bursts threatening to melt his face. Just broken rails, twitching brood corpses, and the soft hum of the city trying to remember what silence sounded like.

His fingers brushed against a gouge on his side—blood crusted around the wound. Nothing fatal, but enough to remind him: this wasn't a game.

Still, despite the aches, the pain, and the exhaustion, Derek smirked. Not because he'd won… but because people were still alive.

Elden Subway Station – Moments Later

Just as the last remnants of steam curled into the air and Derek's presence dissolved like a ghost in the aftermath, the Genesis Squad arrived.

They didn't drop in with flashy exosuits or a sky-reaching mecha—no, their entrance was far more grounded... and somehow cooler. Boots slammed down onto twisted beams and shattered rooftops with the grace of seasoned warriors. The wind stirred as three figures landed in near-perfect sync, hopping the last broken column like it was a stepstool.

Andrew, tall and broad-shouldered, his matte crimson armour chipped but proud, surveyed the ruined battlefield. His eyes narrowed behind a cracked visor.

Evelyn floated down beside him, violet hair fluttering unnaturally even without wind, subtle evidence of the telekinetic hum surrounding her. Rubble shifted gently in her presence, parting respectfully.

Felix rolled onto the scene with zero urgency, snacking on a ration bar like this was just another Tuesday.

Then they saw it, or rather, didn't.

No mech, or pilot.

Only a crater of exploded broodlings, molten rail lines, and clawed walls seared with plasma fire.

Andrew knelt, brushing fingers across a gouged impact trail.

"It just disappeared from this spot", he muttered. "Less than three minutes old."

"Are you kidding me?" Felix huffed, jerking a thumb at the devastation. "We missed the damn fireworks again."

Evelyn floated forward, her gaze lingering on the charred ground where the mech must've stood. She said nothing, but her brows furrowed as if peeling back the scene in her mind.

"There was someone here, probably the pilot of the mecha," she finally said. "He took down a Broodmother... solo."

Andrew stood, arms crossed. "Shadow Strike?"

"Possibly," Evelyn nodded, but frowned. "Or someone new. I'm getting déjà vu from the civilian rescue reports."

Felix looked up, chewing thoughtfully. "Wasn't in a mech back then, though—just fast, quiet, and cold suit, I still don't believe that guy was just a high school student "

Andrew's eyes hardened. " Anyway, the pilot and Shadowstrike should have a connection, even if they are not the same person "

" It should be easier to find Shadowstrike "

_________________________________________________

Paleview College Shelter – Main Building Interior

Derek slipped through the half-collapsed hallway like a draft of wind, his boots crunching over broken tiles and loose wiring. Fluorescent lights overhead flickered weakly, casting harsh white shadows over concrete walls still stained with dried blood and burnt soot. The stench of antiseptic barely masked the rot of decay coming from the lower levels.

Outside, the city's horror was mechanical and monstrous. Inside the shelter, it was quieter—but no less brutal.

He passed the outer barricade unnoticed. Two scavengers hunched near a power relay barely looked up. One had half his face bandaged in gauze and was trying to siphon battery charge from a busted drone. The other just muttered to himself, hands trembling as he adjusted a homemade bandolier stuffed with canned peaches and bolt cutters.

Derek walked by without a word.

His hoodie was dust-caked, frayed at the sleeves, and stained with something brown-red that wasn't rust. He looked like any other survivor. Just another body trying to stay moving.

But when he turned the corner into the central hallway, a girl, a tiny thing no older than eight, froze mid-step. Her hands were clutching a cracked plastic toy with a missing head. Her mouth opened, and for a moment she just stared.

Then she screamed—not in terror, but with absolute certainty.

"That's him! The lightning man!"

Derek's eyes flicked up in alarm, but it was too late. The words bounced off the walls like dropped marbles, rolling through the crowd of wounded and weary like a chain reaction.

First came a murmur. Then footsteps.

Then recognition.

The low ceiling did nothing to muffle the cascade of voices.

"He was the one who pulled my brother out from under the rubble—his arm was gone, but this guy stopped the bleeding."

"No, that was the one who handed me a potion and said, 'Don't die, I'm busy.' I thought he was kidding—he wasn't."

"His eyes—look at them. That glow... It's him."

"That hair. It looked weird back then, but I remember thinking it looked like sunlight through broken glass."

"And he smells like ozone. Like lightning after a storm."

Suddenly, Derek was surrounded. People were stepping out of side rooms, pushing aside makeshift curtains, setting down supply crates and even crawling from cots they'd been resting on.

They weren't afraid.

They were grateful.

A middle-aged woman limped forward, clutching a little boy against her hip. "You fed my son. When everything collapsed and no one could get through, you showed up. You handed me two ration bars, and when I tried to give one back, you said to shut up and eat."

A grizzled man with a gauze-wrapped knee stepped forward. "I saw you pour potion into a kid's mouth while dragging another on your back. You didn't ask for thanks. You just ran."

Derek stood there, frozen. His pulse was steady from the fight at Elden, but here? It stuttered.

A woman with grey streaks in her braids hugged him suddenly, her arms thin but strong. Her voice cracked as she whispered, "My granddaughter's alive because of you."

He didn't hug her back. Not because he didn't want to—but because he didn't know how.

His arms hovered, awkward and unsure.

His breath caught in his throat. His entire body had been moulded to survive, fight, adapt, and kill if necessary. But this? Being seen, being thanked?

He didn't know what to do with that.

He'd fought insectoid horrors that bled acid and screamed like dying engines. He'd survived ambushes in collapsed tunnels and taken plasma burns to the side without flinching.

But a room full of people calling him a hero?

That was terrifying.

Author's Note:

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