5 YEARS LATER
Ethan clutched his ribs, each breath a knife-twist. The lizard-thing thrashed in the fountain, its acid blood dissolving concrete. He'd won. Barely.
0.11 Entropy.
The number flickered in his vision like a dying bulb. His [Corrosive Grasp] had faded, leaving his hand numb. He needed more, more trash, more decay, more of that cold, stolen power.
He limped toward the crushed pocket watch. Gears glinted in the gloom. As he touched it, purple mist seeped from the dead Retail Zombie nearby, swirling into the broken mechanism. Warmth spread up his arm.
[ENTROPY ABSORBED: +0.04]
[TOTAL: 0.15%]
[MINOR REGENERATION ACTIVATED]
Relief washed over him as fractured bones knit beneath bruised skin. Trash heals. Who knew?
He scanned the ruins: shattered glass, splintered plastic, the lizard-thing's corpse. All fuel. But first water. Aris's squad took his pack, but mall security offices had lockers… and first-aid kits.
The "Staff Only" corridor reeked of stale coffee and blood. Emergency lights cast long shadows. Ethan froze.
Voices.
"—scav rights, Jax! That shield's mine!"
"Shut it. S-Rankers cleaned the valuables. We take the slop."
Two figures crouched by Dave's body. Ragged coats, faces smeared with soot. One ripped Dave's [C-Tier Shield Bearer Bracers] off stiffening arms.
The other tall, with a scavenged riot helmet stabbed a knife into Dave's pocket, fishing out protein bars.
[LVL 2 Scavenger - "Ghost Faction"]
[LVL 3 Scavenger - "Ghost Faction"]
Ethan's pulse spiked. He backed into a doorway "Burger Void" its mascot, a grinning void-black burger, leered with one eye dangling.
Click. A safety clicked off behind him.
"Move slow, F-Tier." The voice was female, raspy with smoke damage. "Hands where I see 'em."
Ethan turned. A woman leaned against a fryer, a jury-rigged pipe rifle aimed at his chest. Her left leg was a prosthetic of welded rebar and hydraulic pistons. [LENA VEX - C-TIER ENGINEER].
"Didn't know ghosts looted their own," Ethan said, voice steady.
Her eyes narrowed. "Ghosts? We're survivors. Solar Legion calls us ghosts 'cause we haunt their scraps." She gestured with the rifle. "What's your play? Begging? Stealing?"
"Scavenging. Like you." He nodded at her leg. "Need parts?"
A flicker of surprise. "What's it to you?"
"I fix things." Ethan tapped his F-Tier status. "Waste Disposer. Specialize in… broken systems."
Lena snorted. "Cute. Try again."
"You're low on ammo." He eyed her rifle's cracked pressure gauge. "That pipe'll blow next shot. I smelled sulfur you're using ground match-heads. Inefficient."
Her finger tightened on the trigger. "How do you…?"
Outside, Jax yelled: "Lena! We got movement! S-Rank scouts!"
Lena cursed, dragging Ethan behind the counter. Through a crack in the boarded window, Ethan saw them: two figures in sleek silver breastplates emblazoned with Aris's sun sigil. They moved like predators, scanning bodies.
[SOLAR LEGION SCOUT - LVL 5]
[SOLAR LEGION SCOUT - LVL 6]
"They're back," Lena hissed. "Cleaning up witnesses. Or fun."
One scout kicked Dave's corpse. "No energy signature. Just another C-Tier carcass."
The other scanned the dead lizard-thing. "Residual entropy decay. F-Tier can't do that. Report possible anomaly."
Anomaly. Him.
"We need to go. Now," Lena whispered. "Before they sweep inward."
"Freezer," Ethan said suddenly. "The walk-in."
"Are you insane? It's a deathtrap!"
"Exactly. They won't check sealed rooms. And cold masks heat sigs." He pointed to her prosthetic. "Your hydraulics leak. They'll track the oil."
Lena stared at him. "...Fine. But you die first, F-Tier."
The freezer stank of spoiled meat. Frost crusted the walls. Lena barred the door with a meat hook. Darkness swallowed them.
"Why help me?" Ethan breathed, fogging the air.
"Didn't. You're bait if they open that door." She tapped her leg; a dim red LED lit her face. "Now talk. How'd you know about my ammo?"
Ethan touched a rotting side of beef. Purple mist seeped into his fingers.
+0.01 Entropy.
"Your rifle's got stress fractures. Classic symptom of volatile loads. Smelled the potassium nitrate."
"Janitors don't know chemistry."
"They do when they've cleaned meth labs." He held her gaze. "Aris abandoned you too, didn't he?"
Silence. Then, bitterly, "I was maintenance for his Legion's gear. Fixed their shiny toys. Then a Gloom Wolf bit my leg off during a dungeon breach." She rapped her prosthetic. "Aris said replacing it wasn't cost-effective. Tossed me a med-kit and left."
[SYSTEM NOTICE: ENTROPY SURGE DETECTED NEARBY]
Ethan's vision flared green. Outside, voices sharpened:
"—anomaly confirmed. F-Tier signature spiked here. Contained?"
"Negative. Scanning… Wait. Life signs in cold storage."
Lena raised her rifle. "Here we go."
Ethan pressed his palm against the freezer door. Frost spread under his touch. Focus. Not destruction… absorption. He pulled at the cold, the decay, the latent fear in this tomb of meat.
[ABSORBING THERMAL ENERGY...]
[ENTROPY CONVERSION: 0.05%]
[SKILL UNLOCKED: FROSTFALL GRASP (TEMPORARY)]
The temperature plummeted. Ice thickened on the walls. Lena shivered violently. "What are you doing?"
"Buying time." He poured entropy into the door's lock. Frost crawled up the scouts' gauntlets as one touched the handle.
"Shit! Cryo-feedback!" The scout recoiled, his sensor array glitching. "It's a trap! Seal the room!"*
A sizzling thunk echoed, a plasma welder sealing the door shut.
Lena lunged. "No! They're burying us alive!"
Ethan grabbed her arm. "Stop! They want you to waste ammo." He pointed up. "Ventilation shaft."
Above, a grille led into darkness. Lena stared, then barked a laugh. "You're full of surprises, Trash Man."
They crawled through icy ducts, Lena's metal leg scraping loud in the silence. Below, the scouts' voices faded.
"—contained. No anomaly detected. Probably just a rat."
"Report to Knight Thorne. He wants this sector sterilized by dawn."
Sterilized. Ethan's jaw tightened. Aris wasn't just abandoning people, he was erasing them.
They dropped into a stockroom. Lena immediately scavenged: batteries, duct tape, a half-crushed toolkit. Ethan absorbed entropy from moldy crates (+0.03).
"Why'd they call you 'anomaly'?" Lena asked, wrenching open a locker.
"I killed that lizard-thing. With pizza."
She paused. "Bullshit."
"Decayed its decomposition potential. Made a rot-bomb."
Lena stared at him, then tossed him a dented canteen. "Drink. Then show me."
As Ethan gulped warm, stale water, she dismantled a broken cash register with terrifying speed. "Your F-Tier's broken. Or you are."
"System called me trash. I'm recycling."
A ghost of a smile touched her lips. "Cute. I'm Lena."
"Ethan."
"Okay, Ethan. We need to move. Ghosts won't stay gone, and S-Rankers patrol in threes." She slung her repacked kit over her shoulder. "There's a junkyard north west. Old auto yard. Defensible. We call it the Scrap Pile."
Hope sparked. A base. Somewhere to *build*. "Lead the…"
A scream cut him off. Distant. Human.
Lena's face hardened. "Jax."
They ran.
The food court was a slaughterhouse. Jax lay sprawled near the fountain, his riot helmet cracked open like an egg. The other scavenger, a kid no older than sixteen, was backed against a wall by three new figures. Not Solar Legion.
These wore scavenged tactical gear spray-painted with ghostly white handprints. One held a spiked bat crackling with stolen mana. Their leader, a hulking man with a melted face, gripped the kid's throat.
[RAZOR - LVL 4, GHOST FACTION ENFORCER]
"…told you, runt! Hand over the shield-bracers! Or join Jax!"
The kid sobbed. "Boss said—!"
"Boss isn't here!" Razor backhanded him. "We're taking the Scrap Pile! And F-Tier trash like you? You're either workers… or worm food!"
Lena aimed her rifle. "Damn it. Razor's making his move."
Ethan's eyes locked on Razor's bat, a repurposed [S-Rank Shock Baton] its core leaking sparks. Wasted energy. Trash.
"Don't," Lena warned. "He's got muscle enhancers. And that bat's…."
Ethan was already moving.
He scooped up a shattered "Burger Void" sign plastic, wiring, half-melted LEDs. [JUNK - LOW-YIELD ENTROPY SOURCE].
Razor turned. "Well? Another F-Tier hero?"
Ethan slammed his palm onto the sign. Not decay, absorption.
[CORROSIVE GRASP: MAX OUTPUT!]
[DRAINING ENERGY...]
The sign crumpled. Razor's bat flared, its sparks surging toward Ethan like iron filings to a magnet. The enforcer stumbled as his weapon dimmed.
"What the—? My bat!"
Ethan didn't stop. He funneled the stolen electricity and the sign's decay into a single point a discarded soda can at Razor's feet.
[ENTROPY IGNITION!]
The can imploded, then detonated.
Not fire. A concussion wave of pure decay. Razor flew backward, his enhancers sputtering. His two thugs clutched their ears, screaming as rust bloomed across their weapons.
The kid scrambled free. Lena's rifle barked once, a warning shot that shattered tiles near Razor's head.
"Next one's between your eyes, Meltface!" she yelled.
Razor scrambled up, face contorted with rage and fear. "Freak! You're dead! Ghost Faction owns this sector!" He fled, his thugs stumbling after him.
Silence fell, heavy and sharp. The kid stared at Ethan like he'd grown a second head. Lena lowered her rifle, eyes wide.
"You… ignited entropy?" she breathed.
Ethan flexed his tingling hand. [ENTROPY LEVEL: 0.27%]. "Told you. I recycle."
Suddenly, the kid pointed past them, trembling. "L-Lena… look."
Across the ravaged food court, scrawled in fresh blood on a toppled pretzel stand, was a symbol:
A white handprint.
And beneath it, words:
"F-TIERS REPORT OR DIE. SCRAP PILE BELONGS TO GHOSTS."
Lena's face paled. "Razor's not just thieving… He's building an army." She met Ethan's eyes, dread hardening into resolve. "And they're hunting F-Tiers."
Ethan stared at the bloody handprint. At the promise of enslavement. At the rising Entropy in his veins.
Aris wanted him erased.
Razor wanted him enslaved.
He picked up a broken tile shard, its edge sharp. Slowly, deliberately, he scraped it across the wall beneath Razor's message. Two words:
"TRY ME."
Lena's grin was all teeth. "Auto-yard's thirty minutes north. Try not to blow us up on the way… Entropy Man."
The hunt was on. But now?
Ethan wasn't prey.