It began during a routine mission.
The crew had tracked a rogue warbeast to the jagged canyons outside the city — nothing out of the ordinary. The creature was huge, armored in rock-like scales, but together they'd handled far worse.
Prime led the charge, silent as always, his hood casting shadows over his face. He moved like a blade, precise, efficient. For a moment, everything felt normal.
Then the beast's tail slammed him into the canyon wall.
Dust exploded around him, swallowing his figure.
Stream shouted, "Prime! You good?!"
Omega raised his mini cannon, charging a shot, ready to cover him.
But before anyone could move, something shifted.
The rocks where Prime had landed began to melt. A slick, black substance seeped outward, hissing as it ate through stone. The smell was sharp, metallic, wrong.
From within the haze, Prime emerged.
But it wasn't just Prime.
The black ooze clung to his arm, writhing like it was alive, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. Each pulse sent a ripple across its surface, and his veins glowed faintly with the same oily blackness, creeping up his neck, toward his eyes.
The warbeast roared and lunged again — but Prime didn't dodge.
Instead, the ooze surged forward, forming a jagged claw that caught the beast's jaws mid-snap. The canyon shook with the impact.
And then, in a voice layered and distorted, Prime whispered:
"Break."
The ooze obeyed. With a sickening crack, the beast's jaw snapped clean in two.
The crew stood frozen.
Stream muttered, "That… that ain't him…"
Omega narrowed his eyes. He could feel it, the wrongness. The Prime he knew never used power like this.
Typhoon, usually brash, finally said it aloud:
"That's not Prime. That's something else."
Prime turned, his hood falling back just enough to reveal his eyes. One was his usual silver-grey. The other burned black, swirling with an abyssal glow.
The ooze pulsed again, crawling higher over his body like it wanted to consume him whole. For a moment, it looked unstoppable — until Prime suddenly gripped his own arm, shaking, forcing the claw to retract.
The black receded reluctantly, hissing like an animal denied its prey, before vanishing beneath his skin.
Prime fell to one knee, panting. "…I'm fine."
But no one believed him anymore.
That was the night the crew stopped fearing the warbeast.
And started fearing the abyss inside Prime.
---
The nightmares had been growing worse.
Prime hadn't told the others, but every night the whispers came — sharp, jagged voices echoing in his skull, promising strength, chaos, freedom. He could feel something inside clawing at his mind, trying to break loose.
And tonight, it did.
The mission was supposed to be simple: cleanse a corrupted citadel that had become overrun with shadowspawn. The group split, covering ground. Prime pressed forward alone, deeper and deeper, until he reached the heart of the ruin — a throne room dripping with darkness.
The shadows here weren't just creatures. They were alive, a sea of writhing limbs and gnashing teeth. They swarmed him in waves, clawing, biting, tearing. Even Prime, as fast and brutal as he was, began to falter.
Blood dripped from his lip. His hood was shredded. His chest heaved.
And then he felt it.
The hunger.
It bubbled up from within, the ooze he had been holding back for days, months. His vision blurred, his body convulsed. He dropped to his knees as a hiss escaped his throat.
"Y̷o̷u̷ ̷a̷r̷e̷ ̷w̷e̷a̷k̷,̷" a voice growled inside his head.
He slammed a fist into the ground. "Shut… up…"
But the voice only laughed.
"Y̷o̷u̷ ̷c̷a̷l̷l̷e̷d̷ ̷m̷e̷ ̷h̷e̷r̷e̷.̷ ̷N̷o̷w̷ ̷l̷e̷t̷ ̷m̷e̷ ̷o̷u̷t̷.̷"
His body jolted, and then it began — the ooze spilling from his mouth, his eyes, his wounds. It wrapped around him, suffocating, reshaping. His scream warped into a distorted roar as white liquid engulfed his frame, streaked with black lightning that cracked across his form.
And then he stood.
EXE.
A towering humanoid monster, skin slick and gleaming white, antlers jagged like blades of bone, and those empty black-ringed eyes glowing with endless malice.
The shadows that had cornered Prime now cowered.
EXE didn't hesitate. He moved, faster than the eye could follow, his strikes splitting monsters apart with ooze-forged weapons — blades, hammers, claws, whatever his rage imagined. Every impact shattered stone, every roar tore the air.
It wasn't a fight. It was slaughter.
The citadel shook under the onslaught, until nothing remained but dust and the echo of EXE's laughter.
Then, silence.
The others arrived too late. They found Prime lying in the wreckage, unconscious, body slick with traces of ooze that slithered back into his skin. His breathing was shallow, his eyes flickering open just enough to mutter one word:
"…help…"
But deep inside, EXE wasn't gone.
He was waiting.
And next time, Prime might not come back.
---