[LOCATION: THE FORGE - SECTOR ZERO (SUB-BASEMENT)]
[DEPTH: 500 METERS]
The elevator shaft was a throat of darkness. The car itself had rusted away decades ago, leaving only a gaping hole and a single, swaying cable.
"Long way down," Kain whistled, dropping a glow stick into the abyss. It fell for ten seconds before hitting water.
"Tank," Lucas said. "The winch."
Tank hooked his Gravity Hammer to the cable mechanism. He reversed the polarity of the weapon. Instead of crushing, it pulled. The cable groaned, becoming a makeshift repelling line.
They descended.
The air grew colder with every meter. The smell of ozone and rot was replaced by something sterile. Something chemical.
"My suit sensors are picking up interference," Elena warned over the comms. "There's a dampening field down here. It's suppressing the virus."
Lucas felt it. His ghostly right arm flickered like a dying lightbulb. The Phase-Shift ability was unstable here.
"They didn't want the virus to get out," Lucas whispered. "Or they didn't want it to get in."
They reached the bottom.
[THE PRISON WARD]
They landed on a steel grate suspended over black water. The hallway ahead was lined with heavy blast doors, each marked with a biohazard symbol.
But the doors were open. The cells were empty.
"Looted?" Kain asked, shining his flashlight into a cell. "There's nothing here. Just bones."
"Not looted," Lucas said, looking at the scratch marks on the inside of the doors. "Eaten."
He walked to the end of the hall. There was one door that was still sealed. It was massive—ten feet of solid titanium, etched with warnings in Russian, English, and Japanese.
[WARNING: SUBJECT 001.]
[DO NOT ENGAGE.]
[DO NOT SPEAK.]
[DO NOT LISTEN.]
"Subject 001," Elena read the plaque. "The first test subject? But that was... 1980. He should be dead."
"Open it," Lucas ordered.
Tank stepped forward. He placed the head of the Gravity Hammer against the door seam.
THUMP.
The gravity pulse warped the metal. The locking mechanism screamed and snapped. The door hissed, sliding open inches at a time.
A voice drifted out from the darkness.
"Did Alexander send you?"
It wasn't a monster's roar. It was a cultured, raspy voice. Calm. Almost bored.
Lucas signaled the team to hold fire. He stepped into the room.
[THE CAGE]
The room was a sphere, lined with white ceramic tiles. In the center, suspended by heavy chains and pierced by dozens of glowing intravenous tubes, hung a man.
He was emaciated. His skin was grey, stretched tight over his bones. He had no eyes—just empty, scarred sockets.
But the terrifying part was his chest.
It was open. The ribcage had been surgically spread and fused with gold braces. Inside, where his heart should be, there was a Black Crystal.
Not blue. Black.
It didn't glow. It seemed to suck the light out of the room.
[TARGET ANALYSIS: UNKNOWN VIRAL STRAIN.]
[PROPERTY: ABSORPTION.]
[THREAT LEVEL: ???]
"You're not Alexander," the man whispered, tilting his eyeless head. "You smell... fresh. Like blue sky. Like hope."
He smiled. His teeth were made of jagged obsidian.
"And you smell like him."
"Who are you?" Lucas asked, his phantom arm humming.
"I have many names," the prisoner rasped. "Patient Zero. The Eater. But Marcus... Marcus called me The Heretic."
The prisoner pulled slightly against his chains.
"You are Lucas Thorne. The Ghost. I've watched you in my dreams. The virus connects us, boy. It's a network. I hear the song of every infected soul on this planet. And yours... yours is very loud."
"Why are you here?" Lucas asked.
"Because I wouldn't bend the knee," The Heretic spat. "Marcus wanted Order. He wanted a world of beautiful, frozen statues. But I... I liked the Chaos."
The black crystal in his chest pulsed.
"So they locked me here. They used me. Where do you think they got the serum to suppress the virus, Lucas? Where do you think the 'Cure' comes from?"
He laughed.
"They milk me. My blood eats the Blue Virus. I am the antibody."
Elena gasped. "The inhibitors. The serum we use to keep Lucas from crystallizing... it's synthesized from him?"
"Bingo," The Heretic grinned. "You've been shooting my blood into your veins for years."
Lucas felt a wave of nausea.
"We're here to take the island back," Lucas said, steeling himself. "If you're an enemy of the Syndicate, then you're an ally."
"Ally?" The Heretic threw his head back and laughed. "I am not an ally, little ghost. I am a hunger."
Suddenly, the chains rattled violently.
[WARNING: ENERGY SIPHON DETECTED.]
Lucas felt his strength drain. The blue light of his Phase-Arm dimmed.
The black crystal in The Heretic's chest flared. He wasn't breaking the chains with strength. He was draining the energy from the room to power himself.
"I haven't fed in forty years," The Heretic growled. "And you brought me a buffet."
SNAP.
The chains holding his left arm rusted and shattered in seconds, drained of their molecular cohesion.
"Back!" Lucas roared.
The Heretic swung his freed arm. He didn't hit them. He swiped the air.
A wave of black force—Anti-Resonance—slammed into them.
It didn't push. It deleted.
Tank raised his Gravity Hammer to block. The black wave hit the weapon. The hammer turned grey, rusted instantly, and crumbled into dust in Tank's hands.
"My hammer!" Tank yelled. "He aged it!"
"He's draining entropy!" Elena shouted. "He accelerates decay!"
The Heretic tore his other arm free. He dropped to the floor, landing on all fours like a spider. He turned his eyeless sockets toward Lucas.
"Give me your light, Ghost."
He lunged.
Lucas tried to Phase-Shift.
[ERROR: INSUFFICIENT ENERGY.]
The Heretic grabbed Lucas's throat.
The cold was absolute. Lucas felt the virus in his blood screaming as it was sucked out of him. His crystal arm began to flicker, threatening to vanish entirely.
[HUMANITY INDEX: RISING... 60%... 70%...]
"He's curing me," Lucas realized in horror. "By eating my power."
"Lucas!" Kain yelled. He threw a flashbang.
BANG.
The bright light did nothing to the eyeless monster. The Heretic tightened his grip.
"Die human," The Heretic whispered.
Lucas's vision blurred. He was losing. He couldn't overpower a creature that ate power.
He needed to feed it something it couldn't swallow.
"Alexander," Lucas choked out.
The Heretic froze. "What?"
"Alexander Vane," Lucas gasped. "He's alive. He's outside."
The grip loosened slightly.
"Alexander..." The Heretic hissed. The black crystal pulsed erratically. "The Traitor. The one who locked the door."
Lucas saw his opening.
He didn't use viral energy. He used the suit's hydraulics.
He activated the Emergency Purge on his cooling system.
PSSSHHHH.
A cloud of liquid nitrogen exploded from Lucas's chest port, directly into The Heretic's open ribcage.
The black crystal froze.
The Heretic shrieked—a sound of pure frequency agony. He recoiled, dropping Lucas.
Lucas scrambled back, gasping for air.
"Tank! The door!" Lucas yelled.
"Way ahead of you!" Tank grabbed the heavy titanium blast door. With a roar of effort, he slammed it shut.
CLANG.
Kain jammed his energy daggers into the locking mechanism, fusing it melted shut.
From inside, The Heretic screamed. The metal of the door began to rust rapidly in the center.
"He's eating through the door!" Elena cried.
"We have to go!" Lucas ordered. "Now!"
They sprinted back to the winch cable.
[THE ATRIUM - 10 MINUTES LATER]
They collapsed on the floor of the command center. The elevator doors were sealed, but they could still feel the faint vibration of the monster below.
"What was that?" Tank asked, looking at the dust that used to be his favorite weapon.
"That," Lucas said, checking his arm (which was dim, but stabilizing), "is the nuclear option."
The burner phone in Lucas's pocket rang.
Lucas answered. "Alexander."
"I see you found the basement," Alexander's voice was calm. Too calm.
"You knew," Lucas said, his voice cold. "You didn't just know about the island. You knew he was down there. You put him there."
"Subject 001 was dangerous, Lucas. Uncontrollable. A black hole of ambition."
"He called you a traitor," Lucas said. "He said you locked him in."
There was a pause on the line.
"I did what was necessary to save the Syndicate," Alexander said. "And now, you have a choice. You can leave him down there to rot... or you can use him."
"Use him?"
"The Banker is attacking the global economy, Lucas. You can't shoot a stock market crash. But The Heretic... he consumes energy. All energy. Including the data streams of the Banker's digital empire."
Lucas looked at the sealed elevator doors.
He realized the game Alexander was playing. He wasn't just building a team. He was collecting monsters.
"If I let him out," Lucas said, "he kills us all."
"Only if you don't feed him first," Alexander replied. "I'm sending you the schematics for a containment suit. Build it. Bind him. And then... point him at the Banker."
Lucas hung up.
He looked at Elena. She looked terrified.
"We're keeping it?" she asked.
Lucas looked at his ghostly hand. He clenched it into a fist.
"We're not keeping it," Lucas said. "We're weaponizing it."
[SYSTEM ALERT: NEW BLUEPRINT ACQUIRED.]
[ITEM: THE VOID COLLAR.]
Lucas turned to the massive main screen of the base. He plugged in the drive from the Alchemist.
"Wake up, Julian," Lucas said to the sleeping boy. "We have work to do. Class is in session."