Chap 167: Into Prodigy

The Commander’s voice still echoed in their heads from the briefing hours ago.

Inside Primus’s mission base, he stood with the five Sentinels. Around them, banks of glowing monitors pulsed with maps, energy readings, and teleportation schematics. 

Across the room, the tech team worked in a blur—fingers flying over keys, eyes flicking between streams of data, every movement sharp with urgency, as if each passing second might tip the balance between survival and disaster.

“Prodigy dumps their waste above land through short-range teleportation relays,” the Commander said, pointing at a rotating 3D map. “For a fraction of a second, they have to lower their teleportation blocks to do it. That’s our crack in the wall. That’s when we hijack the signal—send you in.”

He paused, letting the weight settle. “You’ll appear inside their upper levels. The window will be tight. The mission’s simple in words, impossible in practice. Find Varrak’s father, kill him, and destroy the facility. You’ll each carry nano-explosives. Scatter them as you move. On your signal, they’ll detonate, reducing Prodigy to ash.”

His eyes moved over each of them in turn. “Don’t count on a return teleport. If their systems lock, you’ll have to make your own way out.”

Tee and her teammates stood together, the weight of the future heavy on their shoulders. Then, in an instant, they were gone.

With the air replaced by something foul, Tee stood in the heart of Prodigy’s upper deck. The instant the light from the teleport faded, her stomach twisted. The air was rancid—stale chemical rot mingled with the metallic tang of machinery that had been running too long without maintenance. The walls, high and oppressive, hummed faintly as if the building itself were alive.

They were in a vast processing room, shadowed overhead by catwalks. A handful of workers in bulky yellow hazard suits moved among vats and pipelines. The moment the Sentinels appeared, a sharp beep-beep-beep blared from somewhere overhead.

An automated voice, hollow and cold, rang out.

“Alert. Strong Ether levels detected.”

Tee’s stomach sank. That wasn’t a normal Prodigy alert—that was tuned to them.

“Varrak’s studied us,” Miko muttered grimly. “He’s tracking more than Ether—he’s measuring Ultramana energy.”

In the silence that followed, the five teenagers stood like specters, their swords unsheathed, eyes glowing with barely contained energy. Even in the dim red hazard lights, their presence was terrifying—five young warriors trained for war, bristling with power.

Miko’s voice cracked the tension. “Project Armageddon. Where is it?” she barked, the sound bouncing sharply off the metal walls.

The workers froze. And then, unexpectedly, they raised their gloved hands in surrender.

From the far wall, a door slid open without a sound, revealing a long corridor lit by the same pulsing red warning lights.

Kie’s eyes narrowed. “Trap,” he said flatly over the blaring alarm.

“But where else do we go?” Miko countered, her voice low but tense.

They didn’t debate further. Instead of walking through the waiting doorway, they bolted in the opposite direction, boots slamming against the grated floor. The alarms screamed over their heads, a constant pulse of sirens and flashing crimson.

The facility responded like a living beast. Heavy slabs of steel slammed down from the ceiling, trying to seal their path. They met the blades of Ultramana-charged swords and shattered, molten edges clanging against the walls.

From the vents overhead, turrets unfolded, their laser muzzles glowing white-hot. Energy forceshields sprang to life around the teens—translucent domes that sparked and warped as bolts slammed into them—until Zod and Saeda retaliated with blasts that shattered the turrets into shards.

The floor ahead yawned open, jagged spears of metal rising from the pit below. One wrong step would skewer them. Tee didn’t hesitate—dark energy erupted from her, forming a black, spiraling bridge of force. They sprinted across, boots thudding on the construct until it dissolved behind them.

The gauntlet went on and on—minutes of relentless traps, each one slowing them down, eating away at the seconds they didn’t have. Every breath was a reminder—fail, and the future collapses into the nightmare Kie had seen.

Miko’s jaw was tight as they ran. She could feel it—the weight of leadership pressing into her spine. Her comrades trusted her to lead them, but in her chest, an awful doubt gnawed. Was she leading them forward, or in circles?

They burst through a reinforced door into a whitewashed lab section. The smell changed—less rot, more antiseptic, but still wrong. A cluster of workers in lab coats crouched behind overturned tables. Their eyes widened as the Sentinels entered.

Kie didn’t slow. Rage burned in him—not the hot, flaring kind, but something cold and unyielding. He knew personally what would happen if they failed. He was already at the front, grabbing a trembling worker by the collar. His Ultramana sword shimmered inches from the man’s neck.

“Where is Project Armageddon?” he snarled, flecks of spit hitting the man’s face.

“I—I don’t know!” he said too quickly. “I’m just a Level Zero worker.” His gaze slid past Kie instead of meeting his eyes.

“He’s lying,” Tee said. Her voice carried an edge that made the others trust her instantly.

Kie’s expression didn’t change. A twitch of his brow—and the blade swept through the man’s neck. Blood sprayed against the wall in a dark arc. The others flinched, even Tee, who’d seen death before.

“Kie—” Miko’s voice was somewhere between a gasp and a reprimand.

Tee’s thoughts flickered elsewhere. What exactly had Kie seen in that future? Whatever it was, it must have been terrible.

But Kie wasn’t thinking about restraint. That wasn’t about rules or mercy. It was simple math. One death now to prevent millions later.

He grabbed another worker. That one blurted in panic, “Level five! That’s all I know!”

Tee nodded once. “He’s telling the truth.”

“How do we get there?” Miko demanded.

“Elevator!” Zod pointed to a door across the lab.

A quick glance at a wall panel showed Level 10. They were high above their target.

They stepped into the waiting elevator. The moment the doors sealed, the floor dropped out beneath them—the whole cab plummeting like a stone.

Zod blasted the roof open. They leapt as one, forming a single energy bubble hovering in midair. The empty metal coffin that had been their elevator crashed into darkness far below. Around them, massive shafts stretched up and down—the mechanical spine of Prodigy. The air was cold, humming with the movement of other elevators zipping past. None were descending.

They counted the floors—five levels down—before bursting through a thick security door.

The hallway beyond opened into a chamber vast enough to swallow a city block. The air was cold, wet with condensation, and the light was eerily sterile. Glass pods lined the walls, each containing a human shape suspended in some viscous fluid. Beds with sheet-draped forms dotted the floor.

Tee froze. She knew those shapes. Abducted Xeno-victims? Her eyes flooded with inky black, fangs sliding from her gums as her rage rose.

A deep voice rolled from hidden speakers. “Project Armageddon? Here you go.”

Recognition struck them like a blow. The voice belonged to the man in the white battle suit, helmet tinted to hide his face.

“Varrak,” Zod breathed. They’d killed him—or thought they had. Kie’s warning came back in a rush. Varrak had clones.

Fog began to spill across the floor as a glass pod rose from the center platform. Inside, an old man—thin, frail—was half-entwined in tubes. One half of his body was withered flesh while the other, covered in the blackened crust of Xenogene corruption.

“Varrak’s dad,” Zod muttered, raising his palms. But he didn’t blast.

“You mean the MegaSapian,” Kie countered.

“No,” Tee said, voice low. “He’s a hybrid. Like me.”

“Looks like the mutation froze halfway,” Saeda observed. “He’s dead.”

“He is very much alive,” came Varrak’s voice.

They turned—he was walking toward them, stepping into the harsh light, the pod with his father looming behind. The five warriors stared at their reflections in his faceless helmet.

Behind him came seven adults in pristine lab coats. Three had hairs of electric, unnatural colors.

Zod’s gut twisted. Vergants—working with Prodigy.

Varrak tilted his head, voice calm but edged with pride.

“Successfully frozen alive… and the mutation, too. Both preserved—until we find a way to sever the link.”

Tee’s stomach knotted. Impossible. Once the Xenogene was triggered, the victim was as good as dead. How could both the human and their demon survive in one body?

Then her mind flickered to that Vergant scientist—J’nah something—who had experimented on himself. She had once hoped that maybe, just maybe, humanity was clawing toward a cure. But Kie’s prophecy of a dim, blood-soaked future crushed that fragile hope like glass underfoot.

And those shapes beneath the white sheets—Tee had no doubt they were abducted Xeno-victims. Whatever Varrak claimed about “science,” he was no different from the monsters roaming the wastelands.

Varrak spread his arms slightly. “Meet my father—one hundred and ninety-seven years old.”

The Sentinels’ eyes widened. A Xeno-victim, kept alive for nearly two centuries…

Zod stepped forward. “If that’s your father, you must be ancient too.”

“I’m a clone,” Varrak said, almost amused. “Created by the real Varrak—who died one hundred and thirty-nine years ago. He was cautious. Too cautious. Never took the leaps that mattered. So, I removed him. You know what they say. If you want something done right, you do it yourself.” His helmet tilted toward them. “Don’t you agree? Isn’t that why you’re all here?”

Tee’s voice cut through the sterile air. “We’re here because of a prophecy. A doomsday future created by you. Keeping this thing alive for so long… the longer the virus breathes, the stronger it becomes. Darkness only grows when you feed it. What you’re doing is madness.”

Kie stepped forward, his hand tightening around his sword hilt. “We end this now—your father, your operation, all of it.”

Varrak’s tone turned icy. “That’s not happening. We’ve touched the edge of a grand discovery, and you’d throw it away? Foolish. Like everyone else who’s ever stood in my way—you can die.”

The Vergant scientists with neon-bright hair moved instantly, warping the air as they pulled static from the walls. Bolts of raw, compressed energy erupted toward the five Sentinels. Shields shimmered into place, absorbing the assault before the Sentinels countered with blasts of their own.

The lab became chaos—flashes of color, arcs of energy slamming into steel. A blow caught Varrak’s helmet, sending it skidding across the floor. His face was young—eighteen, at most—golden-brown skin framed by dark brown hair.

Varrak snarled. “The curse of not aging.” He thrust out a palm, firing a lance of white-hot energy. It missed, detonating against the ceiling and showering them in sparks.

A sword strike hit the glass tube containing Varrak’s father. Cracks spidered across the surface, the hiss of pressure filling the air before it shattered entirely. Fog curled out, followed by a rush of liquid. The frail, half-infected body slumped to the ground with a wet splash.

Warning. Warning. Warning.

The automated voice blared as yellow emergency lights strobed on and off.

From the corpse, black bubbles swelled—thick, glossy, and tar-like. They grew rapidly, pushing equipment aside. One burst, drenching a Vergant scientist in black fluid. The man’s scream tore through the air as claws erupted from his fingers, his face shriveling, skin sagging from his jaw. Drool dripped in strings from his mouth, his eyes now solid black. The sound he made next was not human—it was a shriek that drilled straight into the bones.

Kie froze for a split second. The prophecy. He had seen those creatures—mutated, savage. He would not let that future unfold. Before the transformed scientist could strike again, Kie carved the air with his Ultramana sword, and a colossal wave of energy thundered forth, annihilating the monster in a deafening blast.

But the bubbles kept bursting, transforming the remaining scientists, who then turned on Varrak himself.

Androids stormed in, spraying chemical suppressants and firing on anything moving. Their programming didn’t care—every living thing had become a contaminant.

Then the air shifted. A massive tar-coated branch swung across the room, sending androids, equipment, and shattered pods flying. Glass exploded, liquid cascaded onto the floor, and beds were crushed under the force.

The Sentinels dodged, staring into the mist where Varrak’s father had fallen. From the haze rose two towering spikes, each ending in a wicked point. Four glowing red eyes opened above them.

Kie’s chest tightened. The death ball tactic… explosives inside its mouth. But would their nano charges be enough? Even if they were, they had no escape with Prodigy’s teleportation locks still held.

Saeda swapped a glove for her Ether dagger—the same one they had planned to use to free her from the Vergant Vulture possession. Though it was Miko who had freed her instead, through sheer Ultramana power.

They slashed at the creature’s black appendages, but every strike that turned them to smoke was wasted—they regenerated instantly.

“Maybe we need to get closer—inside,” Saeda gritted out.

“I’ll do it,” Tee said.

“What?!” they all barked.

“You can’t—”

“Have you forgotten what you are?”

“We can’t fight two MegaSapians!”

Tee clenched her jaw. That thing wasn’t yet a world-ending threat. That’s why they had to act now.

Miko’s laugh was shaky, masking the tears in her eyes. “Oh, that was a joke—ha ha.”

Zod, straining against an onslaught of tentacles, shot Tee a glare. “Why are you even here? What if you mutate right now?”

The black tar kept spreading, the creature growing as if it meant to swallow the entire room. The Sentinels’ energy shields began to crack under the pressure.

All except Tee.

The darkness recoiled from her, as though afraid. Her teammates saw it too—and their expressions turned uneasy.

Tee’s eyes flooded black. Her horn burst through her hair, nails lengthening into talons. Ash-dark mana seeped from her skin as she stepped forward. The tar parted for her, curling back like smoke.

She walked until she stood over the half-body of Varrak’s father. The voices came then—low, overlapping, drilling into her mind. AlfaZion… AlvZion…

She wanted a cure more than anything. Light and darkness could not coexist—she knew that truth all too well. The memory of her last battle with Lilith burned in her mind, a clash so devastating it might have ended Lilith’s life, all because she had unleashed Ultramana. She could still feel the weight of that choice. She would not repeat it. Not now. Not against Varrak’s father.

There had to be another way. A cure. A way to tear the darkness from its host without destroying what remained.

She lowered her Ether dagger, unclenching her grip. Instead, she raised both fists, steady and resolute. The body before her shuddered, then unraveled into roiling smoke. It twisted and coiled, forming a vast, gaping maw that screamed without sound—then surged forward, lunging straight for her.

Darkness coiled around her, pouring into her body. Pain ripped through her as she absorbed it, freeing her comrades.

When the others turned toward her, their swords were drawn. Her horns, fangs, and black eyes screamed danger.

“Tee?” Miko’s voice wavered.

Tee dropped to her knees, struggling against the force inside her. Black tentacles tore from her back, making the others flinch.

“A mutation!” Zod yelled.

“Wait,” Miko said sharply.

Tee felt an alien force clawing at her from the inside, trying to take control of her body. Her mind reeled as the words repeated relentlessly, cold and insistent---AlfZino… AlfaZion… Each echo felt like a hammer striking her thoughts, drowning out reason, hope, and even her own voice.

Around her, her teammates froze in shock. Varrak’s father was gone—vanished completely, erased into nothing. So much for a cure. The thought pressed on  Kie’s chest, but there was no time to dwell on it.

“It’s time,” the deep voice whispered in her mind, smooth, inescapable, like ice running through her veins.

But Tee clenched her fists and fought back. No. Not me. She refused to let the darkness take her. She wasn’t ready to die. She wasn’t weak. She was the superior force there—and she would prove it. Rage and determination coiled together in her chest, a living fire that refused to be snuffed out.

The air around her shattered.

A crimson wave of energy erupted from Tee, roaring outward with a force that slammed her teammates against their shields. The explosion was blinding, deafening, and overwhelming. For a moment, the world seemed to twist, pulling her and everyone else back to the bloody devastation of the park after the last catastrophic blast, to the nightmare tunnels of past Harbinger missions. Chaos and fire danced around them, stretching the moment into an eternity of raw power and terror.

When the light finally faded, silence returned. Tee lay on the ground, motionless. Her monstrous features were gone, stripped away as if they had never existed. A deep gash carved a line down her back, blood spilling slowly, pooling on the earth beneath her. A dark, skin-tight substance clung to her body. She was unconscious. 

The entire lab lay in ruins. Darkness stretched endlessly in every direction, swallowing walls, ceilings, and floors alike. The only points of light were the eerie glow of their eyes and the shimmering hum of their force shields, casting ghostly reflections across the wreckage. Every shadow seemed alive, and the silence between the sparks of light carried a weight that pressed on them from all sides.

But the distant alarms, picked up through their super hearing, shifted in pitch. The structure groaned as metal warped and water began forcing its way in.

“Set the explosives,” Miko ordered.

“And how do we leave?” Kie shot back.

Water surged in from all sides. The alarm’s final words chilled them—Self-destruct initiated.

They huddled into one shield—Tee still outside, her body already half-submerged. Kie dove out, pulling her into his arms before the current could sweep her away.

The water crashed in, but together they blasted upward, punching a path through collapsing steel. Outside was worse—roiling black water and bursts of fire as Prodigy’s remains imploded.

They pushed downward to ride the currents to the surface until they burst into open air.

An energy construct bloomed beneath them, carrying the gasping group. Tee lay still, her hair plastered to her face.

“Is she alive?” Zod asked.

“I’m pretty sure she is. She’s not dying that easy,” Kie said through clenched teeth.

The moon shone cold over scattered wreckage.

Jets arrived minutes later, and the Sentinels disappeared into a teleport vortex, leaving the blackened sea behind.

Back at Primus, Tee had awakened and the Commander called the mission a success.

But the word rang hollow.

In every mind, the same thought lingered—Only the future would decide.

“All because Miko was leading,” Zod said, smirking just enough to get under her skin.

“That’s not true,” Miko shot back. She didn’t even blush—because she meant it.

The truth was, Tee hadn’t done what she did, who knew how it would’ve ended. The Ether daggers wouldn’t have been enough. …and then there was Kie, slicing the worker’s throat without hesitation to get the information they needed. Miko knew—without a doubt—she could never bring herself to do something like that.

Zod patted Saeda’s shoulder. “Well, Saeda’s test leader now.”

“I’ll pass,” Saeda replied without hesitation.

“That’s not how it works,” Zod countered. “We all take turns before deciding on our next official leader.”

“Since you like bossing people around so much, why don’t you do it?”

Zod stepped back with a shrug. “Oh, sorry.”

“I’ll be the next test leader,” Tee said, stepping forward.

They all turned toward her in silence.

“I was kidding,” she added quickly—though in her head, she wasn’t.

“You don’t get a turn,” Zod said flatly.

Saeda didn’t even glance at Tee. “Why don’t we make Kie leader again?”

“What?” Tee snapped. “After he kept my misconduct from the Commander when he was leader?”

Kie’s jaw tightened. Tee needed to keep her mouth shut.

For a split second, he remembered future Tee—and couldn’t fathom how they’d ever ended up together. She was a manipulator and liar. But the timeline had shifted. Nothing was set in stone. No way that could happen. That was a different Tee. It had to be. 

In the end, it was settled—Saeda would lead next. She, Zod, and Miko drifted away down the corridor.

Tee muttered, “What’s so great about being Team Tool anyway?”

“You’ll never get a chance to find out,” Kie said.

She turned to him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Remember my offer?” He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall leading out the mission base. “I could ask the Commander to let you travel before you get the Balance Seal. See the world like you want.”