Chapter 14 – Project Solar Dawn
The rain hadn't stopped when Titan Hawk landed on the restricted platform.
He keyed his wrist-pad, bypassed the biometric lock, and entered the archive wing no one was supposed to know existed.
The room smelled of ozone and secrets.
Holo-screens flickered to life, washing his armor in blue. Files scrolled past—mission reports, energy readings, names erased by black bars.
One folder pulsed red at the bottom of the list:
CLASSIFIED // PROJECT SOLAR DAWN
He hesitated.
Then opened it.
Lines of alien script bled into English. Images of Amara—Ultra Buff—standing beside high-ranking Weg envoys, shaking hands under a treaty banner. But deeper in the file, the images changed: she was alone, surrounded by blinding light, tearing open something that wasn't space and wasn't time.
Audio logs played, her voice cracked with exhaustion:
"If this fails, the treaty dies with me. They'll come for Earth next. But maybe… maybe one day someone will find the frequency and pull me back."
The feed cut to static.
Titan Hawk stared at the final note:
Subject entered displacement field voluntarily to seal Weg Rift Gate Alpha.
Status: unknown.
He clenched his jaw. "You didn't run, Buff. You saved us again."
A new line of code flashed at the bottom of the screen, one he hadn't opened.
It read: BACKUP PROTOCOL—GENESIS VARIANT—AUTHORIZED TO DEPLOY IF HUMAN SYSTEM ACTIVATES.
The console beeped. A red alert symbol appeared beside the phrase.
Foreign signal detected. Human System active. Counter-System upload initiated.
Cutscene – The Villain System
Miles away, under a flickering streetlight, Jalen Price—Tim's oldest friend—balanced his skateboard on the curb, scrolling through his phone.
He'd been trying to text Tim all week. No reply.
"Guess dying and coming back makes you too cool now," he muttered.
Then the sky blinked. Not lightning—something digital. A pattern of symbols fell across his vision like invisible rain. His phone glitched, screen glowing green.
Weg Protocol initializing…
Host Candidate #447 accepted.
Welcome to the Villain System.
Jalen laughed nervously. "Okay, that's a new filter."
A translucent interface unfolded in the air: numbers, stat bars, challenges.
It looked like a game.
He poked at one: Quest #1 – Test Human Strength. Reward: Power Adaptation +5.
"Sure," he said, playing along.
A surge shot through him. His veins lit black. The lamppost beside him bent like rubber.
He stumbled back, heart pounding. "Yo—what the hell?"
Congratulations, Host. Aggression Index +10.
He felt the air vibrate, like anger had a frequency. He clenched his fists just to stop them from shaking.
"This is wild…" He tried to smile. "Kinda cool, though."
Then a whisper echoed inside his skull—flat, alien, emotionless:
Human resistance detected in your sector. Eradicate or be erased.
Jalen froze. The "game" tone was gone.
It felt like a command.
He looked up at the same sky Tim had looked at days ago.
The same Weg satellites blinked red above the clouds.
He whispered, "Maybe I don't like this game."