There was no light.
Only the sound of chains rattling against cold metal… and Onyx's breath.
Shallow. Rasping. Trembling.
He awoke in silence, bound to a table by divine restraints that shimmered with a faint, cruel iridescence—threads of cosmic energy woven with intention. Not mercy. Not healing.
Control.
The air was sterile. Not the stillness of peace, but the void of something wrong—of something too clean to be real, too unnatural to be divine. The ceiling above him was endless, white, pulsing slightly like living tissue. No windows. No sun. No sense of time.
Only the endless hum of something ancient and watching.
His voice cracked as he tried to move, but the bindings wrapped around his limbs responded with a shock that seared through his spine.
A whispering tone echoed from the walls, low and inhuman. Not speech. Not language. A resonance that crawled across his bones, as if the room itself recognized what he was. Or… what it was about to make him.
"Where… am I?" he muttered, but the walls said nothing back.
⸻
The Voice of Genesis
The first time Onyx heard footsteps in this place, they weren't hurried. They weren't cruel. They were calm.
Measured.
When the door at the far end of the chamber finally hissed open, he expected a god, a judge, a monster.
Instead, a figure cloaked in a tapestry of shimmering color stepped forward. Their form was fluid, androgynous, and nearly translucent—like they existed between reality and something older.
Their face was almost human. Almost.
But the eyes… the eyes were starless.
Two bottomless wells that seemed to peer directly into the cradle of his soul.
"Who… are you?" Onyx managed, through clenched teeth.
The figure smiled, impossibly wide. Not warmly. But like a teacher admiring a fascinating experiment.
"I am the Voice of Genesis," they answered, tone both melodic and unsettling. "The breath before the word. The design before the sketch. The silence before the scream."
"Let me go."
Genesis tilted their head.
"Oh, no. You are far too rare to let go. You are here… to begin again."
And with that, the restraints glowed.
⸻
Torture of the Mind
They didn't tear his body first.
No.
They tore his memories.
Every day—or what he thought were days—Onyx was shown images crafted from the deepest cuts of his past. Some real. Some twisted.
Again and again, he was forced to relive the moment Terrosia fell—only this time, the gods made sure the illusion lasted longer, felt sharper.
He saw the skies open. The holy fires fall.
And he watched, over and over, as an old man stood between the divine slaughter and two screaming children. One with a short Afro and a bandana, too small to understand the danger. The other with messily cornrowed hair and cracked glasses, holding his brother's hand.
They didn't remember him.
But Onyx did.
The old man had told him stories once, when they crossed into his property. Stories of the three legendary beings who defied the gods in a war lost to history. Stories of how the universe was far older than even the stars admitted.
The man had once whispered:
"If you ever find yourself staring into the eyes of a god, boy… smile. Let them know they'll have to kill you twice."
Onyx smiled when he heard it the first time.
But he didn't smile when he watched the man die—again and again.
Crushed under a divine meteor as the executioners descended like burning angels.
Onyx screamed every time.
And then… they showed him something worse.
A false vision.
Ryu and Luto. Dead. Torn apart.
Their blood soaked in divine symbols, their bodies shattered and left as a warning in the void.
He knew it wasn't real.
He tried to know it wasn't real.
But the pain… it wormed its way deeper. Until doubt bled into the cracks of his mind. Until rage and hopelessness devoured the edges of memory and left only one truth:
He was alone.
⸻
The Facility of the Damned
Few in the multiverse knew what happened to captured rebels.
Most assumed they died.
The smart ones? The scarred survivors?
They whispered of places like this.
Executioner creation facilities.
Pits so deep in the divine realm that even light had to beg permission to enter. Where angels never tread, and the gods sent only their most loyal voices.
This was not heaven.
This was not a palace of judgment or mercy.
This was a forge.
And Onyx was metal to be melted.
"We do not waste resources," Genesis once said, idly drawing a symbol of recursion in the air. "We reshape them."
The gods, in their infinite cruelty, did not destroy the strongest rebels.
They broke them.
Shattered their will.
Ground their souls into obedience.
And from that pit of hollow pain—they built the divine executioners.
Husks in divine armor. Beasts with enough power to cleave through dimensions, but no memories. No names.
No freedom.
Up until now, none had ever recovered who they once were.
Not one.
And so Genesis waited patiently.
Watched.
Measured.
Onyx screamed through broken teeth, trembling with void-energy he didn't understand.
The Voice of Genesis would visit him after each failed test.
Smiling.
Asking questions Onyx couldn't answer.
"Why does your energy shiver with echoes of something… older?"
"You carry the scent of one who followed the Creator. Did you know?"
Onyx didn't respond.
Couldn't.
Because every answer felt like drowning.
⸻
Two Years Later
There was no day. No night.
Only torment.
The bindings had long since become familiar. The pain, routine. The isolation—total.
He stopped screaming months ago.
Now he simply stared.
His once-vibrant violet eyes were pale, dim.
The dreadlocks that once danced in the wind now hung limp with dust and silence.
The soul-scorching heat of void energy no longer lashed out. It sat. Coiled.
Waiting.
He didn't remember how long it had been since he tried to fight back.
He only remembered the last time he cried.
It was the first time they showed him Ryu's laugh.
Falsely crafted. But perfect.
And then ripped it away.
And in that moment… something inside Onyx broke.
Not like a snapped branch.
More like glass cracking… forever.
He didn't scream when the Voice of Genesis returned that day.
He didn't look up.
He didn't breathe any heavier.
He was silent.
Genesis walked slowly toward him, hands behind their back, and chuckled with satisfaction.
"Yes. That's it. He's tame."
The words didn't register.
But the intention did.
To them, he was a beast.
A weapon.
A tool finally hollow enough to be useful.
He was no longer Onyx the Brother. Onyx the Dreamer. Onyx the Reckless Wanderer.
He was now a sword waiting to be swung.
The Voice of Genesis leaned down, brushing their fingers along the restraints with casual reverence.
"And now… the forging may begin."