The heat of destruction still hung in the air. Echo walked quickly, nearly stumbling through the rubble. The dried blood on her arms no longer bothered her. The metallic taste of battle didn't either. What ate at her was the horror she'd seen minutes ago.
Fifty-seven bodies. Lying like discarded trash. And in the center, the unwavering figure of Elysian.
She approached, anger in her eyes. But inside… she still felt the chill. "What was that, Elysian?" she snapped, her voice wavering between fury and disbelief. "Did you lose control? You… killed all those—"
"They weren't human," he replied, cutting her off. His voice was like a blade cutting through the air. Cold. Pointed. Without hesitation. Echo froze for a second. "What are you talking about?"
Elysian didn't answer right away. He extended his hand, and graphene threads shot out like ethereal needles, precisely slicing through the bodies before him. One by one, limbs tumbled to the floor—but instead of blood or exposed flesh, the insides of each revealed metal structures, cables, hidden sensors, hydraulic systems, and a few integrated human organs. Isolated hearts, real retinas, portions of brain matter... fused with circuitry.
Cyborgs. Hybrids. Abominations. The silence weighed heavily. Echo clapped a hand to her mouth, taking a step back. "My God..."
"They weren't people. They were reconstructed bodies. A blend of advanced technology and human matter. A high-efficiency model, with no outward signs of modification. If I hadn't met three of them before... I might not have noticed."
She blinked. "What...?" Elysian then pointed to a corner of the devastated room. Three similar-looking bodies, thrown together. "Striker. Voltblade. Sentinel. They were heroes. All killed months ago when Nikolai, Hana, and I invaded Dante Vasquez's containment facility."
"What? You—" She paused, putting the pieces together. "Yes. I killed them personally. And now they were here. Or rather… copies of them. Recreated. Cyborgs."
"How did you find out?" Elysian turned to face her. His eyes were as cold as the abyss. "As soon as I noticed the resemblance, I considered three hypotheses. The most likely was genetic cloning, but their movements were too robotic. So I calculated: a 67% chance they were cyborgs with real organs to evade biological tracking. I tested the theory. And as you can see, I was right."
He walked back among the dismembered bodies. With the movement of his hands, he collected the pieces one by one, piling them in the center of the destroyed room. A silent, methodical ritual. Echo just watched him, still stunned.
After minutes, the pile was ready. Elysian approached. A single snap of her fingers released a bluish spark that ignited upon touching the bodies. Within seconds, the fire consumed everything. The flames danced between wires, flesh, and metal, generating an acrid, almost unbearable smell. "They deserve to rest," he said, not as a consolation... but as a sentence. Echo stared at the flames, lost.
It was then that he spoke again, this time with the aura around his body flickering, a dark pressure, dense as the deepest night. "Disgusting. Despicable. The 'heroes of justice' used the bodies of their own dead comrades. And worse: civilians too. There are parts here that don't belong to anyone with a combat record." "You mean they… are experimenting on civilians?"
"Yes. And using the cloak of morality to do so." Echo took a half step back. It wasn't conscious. She… felt something. A presence. Or rather… several.
Distorted shadows, shrouded in brief distortions of light, seemed to form behind Elysian for an instant, tall figures, impossible to clearly identify. As if… the very space around him was shaping into visual echoes of something that shouldn't exist. But it lasted less than a second. When she blinked, it was gone. She swallowed hard. "Did you see?" she murmured.
Elysian stared at her for a moment. But she didn't answer. The fire consumed the last remnants. And then, without another word, they both walked through the corridors of the collapsed base. Only their footsteps echoed, the memory of vibrations, and the silent promise of retaliation.
Hours later in Eden Zion, the heart of the Ruin Remnants beat beneath layers of technology, secrecy, and hope. The gigantic underground base, with its organic domes and corridors that resembled living galleries of information, was both shelter and battlefield.
In the central meeting room, the Heralds were gathered. Elysian stood behind the table. Echo was at her side. On the holographic panel in front of them were the recovered mission data. Reports, intercepted transmissions, videos of the destroyed facilities. All the Heralds were present, except Seraphina, who was still on the infiltration mission.
Avelar watched the data with a frown, arms crossed. Nyx drummed her fingers on the chair's headrest. Gaea kept her gaze alert. Ignis smoked silently. Vespera twisted a ring on her finger, as if containing her anxiety. Orion and Luna shared discreet, watchful glances.
"So..." Gaea began, breaking the silence. "...you're telling me these cyborgs didn't just have human parts... but parts of dead civilians?"
Echo nodded, still serious. "And dead heroes too. We saw copies of Striker, Voltblade, and Sentinel. All deceased on previous missions."
Vespera spoke with disdain in her voice. "And what does the Alliance gain from this? Cloning soldiers? Replacing people with machines?"
"Control," Orion replied dryly. "Androids don't question orders. They don't have moral crises. And they can be tracked."
Luna spoke soon after. "But using civilians... that crosses any ethical line."
"Heroes don't follow ethics," Ignis said, crossing his arms. "They follow power. And convenience."
Nyx looked at Elysian. "How were you sure? How did you know they weren't just implants?" Elysian replied emotionlessly. "I disassembled them. I analyzed the structure. I tested the internal microcodes. I've only seen this before in the rejected experiments of Alfheim's Shadow Beta. Similar patterns. Stolen or replicated technology."
Avelar remained silent for a moment. Then, without taking his eyes off the panel, he spoke. "This changes everything. If they're creating soldiers from the dead… we need to find out where. And why."
"Do we have any suspicions?" Gaea asked. Elysian projected a map in the air, with five red dots in different locations. "Possibilities. Abandoned bases. Hidden laboratories. One of them crossed an energy frequency compatible with the synthetic regeneration cores. We need to investigate."
"Split forces?" Luna suggested.
"Or launch a joint strike," said Vesper.
"Perhaps infiltration and data extraction?" Orion opined.
And while the meeting took place on the other side of the world, the sky above the Aegis of Olympus, the Heroes' Union base, vibrated with blue pulses, lines of code dancing like living constellations above the base's technological towers. Inside the command core, in a dark chamber bathed in translucent panels and augmented reality interfaces, Ironclad stood motionless before dozens of projections. The complexity of data surrounding him would be impossible for any other being to interpret, but for him, it was like breathing.
His pupils reflected patterns of screens connecting events and reconstructing erased records. Reports flashed before his eyes. Thermal anomalies, torn EVP fields, structures melted by extreme combustion. Everything pointed to an inevitable conclusion.
Until the room door opened. The assistant hurried in, holding a data crystal sealed by three layers of authentication. Her face was tense, as if the words were burning in her throat. "Sir... news from Omega-Kappa Base. Cinder Knight... is presumed dead."
Ironclad didn't respond immediately. He simply extended his hand. The crystal was handed to him, and within seconds, it dissolved between his fingers, the data being absorbed directly into his screens, floating in the room.
The screens reacted, images of the destruction beginning to overlap. Flames frozen in real time. The recording of vibrations. Acoustic patterns incompatible with anything in his database. Then, he spoke. Slowly. Quietly. As if each syllable weighed tons. "Location of the body?"
The slightly frightened assistant answered him. "Totally destroyed. The organs were destroyed, and the muscles were incompatible with attempted reconstruction. No EVP traces... as if the data had been erased at the moment of death."
Ironclad clenched his fist. The sound of crystal cracking beneath his fingers filled the room. Gleaming fragments fell like incandescent dust to the metal floor. "I want a complete analysis of everything. Thermal, acoustic, biostructural. If it's necessary to mobilize the entire Aegis, so be it. I want this report within seven days."
"Yes, sir." When the door closed, the hero was silent for a few seconds. Then he whispered to himself. "Whoever did this... will learn that messing with the Hero League isn't a smart move."
Meanwhile, in the secure Eden Zion base, the echo of the meeting still filled the circular room. The atmosphere was less tense, but no less charged. Echo remained standing beside Elysian, as if they were pieces of the same indecipherable puzzle. The other Heralds remained focused on the three-dimensional projection that now displayed details of the internal architecture of the cyborgs they had encountered.
Elysian slowly rotated the data on the screen with a movement of his hand, as if sculpting possibilities in the air. "We need to find an unstable specimen," he said. "One that demonstrates preserved human reactions. Emotions, memories, hesitation. This will make it difficult for the heroes to identify and track, and will allow for an in-depth study of the interactions between the residual EVP and the central circuits."
Everyone seemed to be silently evaluating the logic of the plan. Avelar, his gaze lowered and thoughtful, broke the moment. "Elysian... the experiment you mentioned earlier. The 'Beta Shadows of Alfheim.' Tell me about it. In full." Echo looked directly at him, surprised. Elysian didn't hesitate.
"It was a project led by a consortium of laboratories affiliated with governments allied with the Aegis. A dark experiment conducted under the pretext of preserving memories and exceptional abilities in fallen warriors. The idea was to create hybrid soldiers who would never age, never tire. But... it failed."
He paused briefly, his gray eyes fixating on the holograms of bodies reconstructed with metal components and human tissue.
"The first prototypes, the Alpha Shadows, suffered a complete loss of identity. Those in the Beta series... retained remnants. Human reactions, hazy memories. But they became unstable. Many collapsed, freaked out, entered an existential loop. And those who didn't go mad... were considered a threat. The project was officially deactivated. But never destroyed."
A silence fell for a few seconds. Nyx, who had been sitting silently until then, stood up abruptly. Frustration filled her voice. "And you've kept this to yourself this whole time, Elysian?! You knew about it, and you thought it wasn't worth telling us?!"
He turned to her with complete neutrality. "At the time, it was a hypothesis. Isolated information. If you had brought it to this table, it would have created internal chaos. And without anything concrete, it would be an unnecessary risk."
"That's our decision!" she shouted, glaring at the others. "Do you think this is normal?!"
None of those present responded immediately. Then, calmly, Gaea shook her head. "He's not like us, Nyx. And you know it." Nyx became even more enraged by the comment and asked, somewhat irritably, "And that's why you accept it? So easily?"
Ignis crossed his arms. "Because with Elysian... wrong decisions are rare. He calculates, tests, concludes. He's cold. But efficient." Orion just closed his eyes, murmuring. "He does what needs to be done. No more, no less."
Nyx looked around, stunned. She was the only one with clenched fists. The only one conflicted. "You've lost your mind..." But then Avelar's voice rang out firmly. "No. We're just adapting. He doesn't act out of ego, Nyx. He acts so that no one here has to die for nothing."
The room fell silent again. Elysian remained still. The data floated before him, spinning slowly like moons trapped in the gravity of his gaze.
"Elysian," Avelar said finally, with authority. "The plan is yours. You will be in full command of this operation. Arms, soldiers, resources... even us, if necessary."
"As long as no member is put at unnecessary risk of death." Ignis finished seriously. Elysian nodded. "That will be the priority. Efficiency without waste."
The holograms were erased. The fate had been sealed. The Remnant's next move would be a hunt. And Elysian's cold gaze already traced every possible possibility... and those no one else dared even imagine.