Chapter 2: The Art of Breathing
Part I: The "Off" Switch
Night in the Rust-Yards did not bring darkness. It brought a suffocating, bioluminescent purple gloom. The twisted metal skyscrapers cast long, skeletal shadows across the Grind.
Ren and Jax sat huddled in the hollowed-out chest cavity of a rusted giant robot carcass. Outside, the wind howled like a dying animal.
Ren leaned back against the rusty metal wall. His right arm the mass of coiled iron chainsthrobbed. It felt like a toothache that covered his entire limb. Every few minutes the chains tightened slightly, as though they were breathing in time with his heartbeat.
Jax grunted, trying to scratch his nose but forgetting he had massive blocks of obsidian for hands. He smacked himself in the face instead.
"Ow. These things weigh a ton. If I have to carry this rock all the way to Paradise, I'm gonna have scoliosis before we hit whatever passes for a boss here."
Ren watched the way Jax's shoulders stayed tense, even when he tried to relax. The obsidian gauntlets had not disappeared since the fight with the Vendor. They stayed on, heavy and unyielding.
"It's draining us," Ren said quietly. "Every second these things are out, they burn fuel. Look at how fast we're dropping."
Jax squinted at his wrist. A faint, translucent bar hovered there, barely visible unless you focused. It was already lower than when they first woke up.
"Yeah. It drops every time I get annoyed. Which is right now."
Ren stared at his own arm. The chains had not retracted once since they appeared. They stayed coiled and heavy, pulling on his shoulder even when he tried to rest.
"Maybe it's connected to whatever the machine called a 'Driver'," Ren said. "It said mine was Regret. Yours is probably… I don't know. Pride?"
"Pride? Pfft." Jax snorted. "I'm just naturally awesome." He let out a long breath and let his shoulders slump. "Man, I just want a burger. A greasy, nasty, Core-City burger. No fighting. No heavy lifting. Just… chill."
As Jax relaxed, exhaling tension he did not even know he was holding, the obsidian gauntlets dissolved. They turned to black mist that swirled for a second and then absorbed into his skin, leaving a small, dark tattoo of a clenched fist on the back of each hand.
"Whoa." Jax blinked, wiggling his bare fingers. "I'm naked. I mean, my hands are naked."
Ren sat up straighter. "You relaxed. You stopped wanting to fight."
Ren looked at his own arm. The chains were still there, cold and tight. Regret. To make them vanish, he would have to stop regretting. Stop thinking about the parents he could not save, the life he wasted, the girl he abandoned.
He closed his eyes. He tried to think of nothing. He tried to think of blank white paper.
Clink.
The chains did not vanish, but they retracted. They uncoiled from his forearm and slithered up, wrapping tightly around his bicep and shoulder like dense metal tattoos. His forearm and hand were free. The active drain stopped.
"Okay," Ren exhaled, wiping sweat from his forehead. "We can turn them off. That saves our lives."
"Great," Jax grinned, standing up and cracking his knuckles. "Now that I have hands again, I can—"
CRUNCH.
A sound of metal tearing echoed from outside their shelter.
Jax froze. "Please tell me that was your stomach."
Ren stood. The chains on his shoulder vibrated faintly. "No. That was hunting."
Part II: Scrap-Wolves
They stepped out of the robot carcass.
Six pairs of red optic sensors glowed in the purple fog.
The creatures were nightmares of biology and engineering. Wolves the size of motorcycles. Flesh replaced by scavenged car parts. Jaws lined with jagged saw-blades. They drooled black oil that hissed when it hit the ground.
"Puppies!" Jax yelled. His voice cracked.
The alpha wolf lunged.
"Jax, bring it out!" Ren shouted.
"I'm trying! It's not working!" Jax panicked. "I'm too scared to feel pride!"
The wolf hit Jax, knocking him flat. The saw-blade jaws snapped inches from his throat.
"Get off me!" Jax roared. Frustration and anger spiked.
WOOSH.
The obsidian gauntlets slammed back into existence around his hands. Gravity warped around him. Jax did not punch. He just shoved his hand upward. The sheer mass shattered the wolf's metal skull like tin foil.
"Hah!" Jax scrambled up, staring at his fist. "Okay, so I just need to get mad. Easy."
Two more wolves circled Ren.
Ren did not have Jax's brute strength. He focused on the chains. Come out.
The iron links uncoiled from his shoulder, snaking down his arm. He swung like a whip.
It was clumsy. The heavy chain hit the ground, missing the wolf entirely. The momentum dragged Ren forward, throwing him off balance.
Too heavy. I can't control it.
The wolf bit down on his left leg. Pain flared—white-hot and digital.
Ren cried out, falling to the dirt. The wolf snarled, preparing to rip his leg off.
Regret weighs you down.
Ren looked at the wolf. He did not try to lift the chain. He did not try to swing it. He grabbed the chain with his left hand and pulled himself toward the enemy.
He wrapped the heavy iron slack around the wolf's neck and simply let his arm drop.
The supernatural weight of the Penitent Shackle slammed the wolf's head into the ground, crushing its windpipe against the hard earth. The wolf thrashed, but Ren's arm was an anchor. It was not going anywhere.
"Dead," Ren panted. The adrenaline made his vision swim.
Jax finished off the last two with a clumsy but effective double-lariat, spinning like a top and smashing them to pieces.
"We suck at this," Jax wheezed, leaning on his knees. "We really, really suck at this."
"We're alive," Ren said. He retracted the chains again. "Let's move. The noise will attract worse things."
Part III: The Pink Flash
Miles away, the silence was absolute.
Here, the Grind was not messy scrap. It was fine, white dust. The transition to the Burn Zone was close.
Mina moved through the wreckage of a fallen monorail track. She did not stumble. She did not breathe hard.
Her armor was white, but her hair was a beacon long, vibrant pink strands that flowed behind her like a war banner. In the grey world of the Core she had been forced to dye it black to blend in. Here she did not care who saw her.
A Whisper-Stalker detached itself from the ceiling of the tunnel above her. It made no sound.
Mina did not look up. She simply stopped walking.
"I can hear your heartbeat," she said coldly.
The Stalker dropped, claws extended.
Mina drew her weapon. It was not a sword. It was a Vibrational Rapier.
She did not slash. She thrust forward. Her speed created a sonic boom that popped the eardrums of the Stalker before the blade even connected.
Zip.
One clean puncture through the creature's core. The monster dissolved into data before it hit the ground.
Mina sheathed the blade. She checked her wrist.
Kill count: 14.
She walked over to a digital kiosk embedded in the wall a checkpoint for the students. She hacked the interface, scrolling through the list of recent arrivals in the Rust-Yards.
She ignored the Alphas. She ignored the Betas. She filtered by Lowest Potential / Omega.
There it was.
ID: Ren Sato.
Status: Alive.
Location: Sector 4 (South).
Mina stared at the name. Her hand trembled, not from fear, but from rage. She pulled a photo from her pocket—a picture of her, Ren, and her brother, smiling in front of a grey wall. She crushed the photo in her hand.
"You're alive," she whispered. Her eyes narrowed. "Good. That means I get to kill you myself."
She turned toward the South, toward the dangerous Burn Zone.
"System," she commanded. "Plot intercept course."
Warning: Intercept course leads through the Burn Zone. Memory degradation is likely.
"I don't care," Mina said. Her pink hair whipped in the wind. "I won't forget his face. Not until I smash it in."
She broke into a run, a blur of pink and white light heading straight for hell.