Episode 1
The first thing Kael registered was the vibration.
A low, continuous thrum that ran up his spine, a sound that seemed to be traveling not through the air, but through the very bone of the world.
Then came the cold. A biting, sterile chill that permeated the liquid-filled chamber.
His lungs were burning, but instinct—a primal, terrifying instruction—told him not to breathe.
He was submerged, his eyes sealed shut by heavy, chemical-laced goo.
He knew he was drowning. He knew what his body was trying to do.
Yet, the same dark well of reflex that forbade him from inhaling also commanded his hand to move.
A surge of energy—not muscle power, but a deep, vibrating heat that felt like a star had just flared in his chest—raced to his fingertips.
His hand snapped to the emergency release panel, a motion too fast, too precise for a drowning man.
It wasn't him making the choice. It was the training, the ghost of a thousand practiced movements echoing in a mind that was otherwise blank.
Kael.
The name felt like a piece of rough glass in his throat. It was the only thing he knew about himself.
With a grinding shriek, the stasis pod seal blew. The nutrient-rich liquid flushed out, carrying the foul chemical sludge with it.
Kael hit the floor, coughing up the last of the fluid, gasping in a lungful of air that tasted like ozone, dust, and decay.
He was in a subterranean vault, a burial chamber for technology that spanned millennia.
Massive, crystalline lattice frames—the remnants of the Sundered Star—loomed overhead, casting geometric shadows in the dim, pulsing emergency lights.
The air shimmered with fine, faintly purple motes: Star-Dust.
He pushed himself up, his muscles aching but instantly responsive.
He wore only a sleeveless under-suit, his skin covered in fine, black etchings that looked like circuit pathways under the dim light.
They pulsed with the purple Star-Dust settling on his skin, absorbing it like ink.
His eyes swept the vault. No memory of this place. No memory of the pod. But his gaze fixed on a distant, barely audible click.
Four meters, right. Two hostiles.
He didn't think it; the information simply was. His head whipped to the source of the sound—a narrow ventilation shaft.
Two figures were rappelling down, their movements silent, their gear black and segmented. Cinder Syndicate. The name surfaced from the same strange, echoing void as Kael's own.
They were professional.
They hadn't expected him to be out of the pod, but their reaction was instantaneous: two specialized stun rifles snapped up, targeting his chest.
Kael didn't wait. He didn't have a plan, only the terrifying, exhilarating reflex.
The Star-Dust in the air around him, thick and heavy, suddenly obeyed a silent, violent command. He pulled it inward, and the black etchings on his skin flared a violent cyan.
Focus. Stabilize. Burst.
He launched himself into a dead sprint, not towards cover, but at the nearest assassin. The movement wasn't just fast; it was a localized warp of physics.
He was a cyan blur, tearing the air as he moved.
The first assassin, a woman with a mirrored visor, fired.
A crimson laser beam tore through the air where Kael's head had been a tenth of a second before.
Before her weapon could cycle, Kael was on her. He didn't use a graceful move; he used efficiency.
His hand shot out, not to strike, but to lock the joints of her armor. The Star-Dust energy crackling over his fingers fused the plates together just long enough to paralyze her arm.
Then, he delivered a crushing, hammer-fist blow to the temple. The woman slumped, the Star-Dust-fused armor useless as protection.
The second assassin was already retreating, calling for backup on a wrist-mounted comms unit.
"Subject is awake! Code 7! Send—"
Kael felt the panic rise—not his own, but a cold calculation of the situation. He couldn't fight more of them here. He needed to get out, and he needed a weapon.
He ripped the rifle from the first assassin's paralyzed grip. As he did, a vivid, fragmented Echo struck him:
A field of white snow. A ritual blade slick with blood. A voice, hoarse and demanding: "You are the Guardian. You must forget the code to survive the war."
The flash was gone. Kael staggered, the psychic impact momentarily staggering him.
Guardian? What war?
A mechanical thud sounded from a reinforced hatch twenty feet away. More Syndicate were arriving.
Kael didn't hesitate this time. He pointed the stolen rifle at the hatch controls and blasted a hole through the lock.
With another burst of cyan Star-Dust, he slammed his shoulder into the hatch, wrenching it open just as he heard the hiss of pressurized air and the shouted orders of his pursuers.
He dropped down the dark maintenance shaft, plunging into the labyrinthine depths of The Sprawl.