The room was a ruin. Walls were scorched black, the floor cracked and strewn with debris. The faint smell of ozone lingered in the air. Emac and Paps sat slumped against a fallen support beam, their breathing labored. Spam stood motionless, staring at the lifeless bodies of his copies.
Adam, dragged back to the central hall, couldn't shake the image of Spam snapping his duplicate's neck. The memory replayed in his mind, accompanied by the sound—a sharp crack that made his stomach churn.
"Sit here. Don't move," the man ordered, planting Adam on a bench near the medical bay before walking off.
Adam's hands trembled as he looked around. Alarms still blared faintly in the background, and people rushed past him, their faces a mix of panic and determination. He caught fragments of hurried conversations.
"Damage to Sector C… we'll lose power if it's not contained."
"Are the outer defenses still active?"
"Where is Havok headed?"
The urgency in their voices only heightened Adam's fear. He felt like a piece of driftwood in a storm—completely out of place, tossed about in forces far beyond his understanding.
Back in the wrecked chamber, Emac winced as Paps patched a gash on his shoulder.
"What the hell was that?" Paps muttered, his voice tight with frustration. "You said he was dead. Then how could he come back."
Emac shook his head. "He was. I don't understand it. That energy… it's different. He's different."
Spam finally spoke, his voice flat. "He's stronger. Smarter. Whatever brought him back, it's not just Havok anymore. There's something else inside him."
Paps slammed a hand against the beam. "Great. Just what we need. A rogue alien powered by—what? Some interdimensional god? We can't keep fighting like this, Emac. We're barely holding together."
Emac's gaze dropped to the ground. "I know."
Spam knelt beside one of his fallen copies, carefully turning the body over. The others watched in silence as he examined the lifeless face of his duplicate.
"They died fighting him," Spam said quietly, almost to himself. "They died because I wasn't enough."
Paps frowned. "Spam—"
Spam stood abruptly, his expression unreadable. "I'll double my training protocols. Next time, I won't need backup." He turned and walked toward the exit without another word.
Adam sat on the bench, staring at his hands, when Emac and Paps approached. Their presence pulled him from his thoughts, and he instinctively straightened.
"What happened out there?" Adam blurted, unable to keep quiet any longer.
Emac exchanged a glance with Paps before speaking. "Havok wasn't supposed to be a problem anymore. He's… an old enemy. One we thought we'd eliminated."
"I didn't even know you abducted him too. He was one of the strongest people on my planet." Adam said, his voice trembling. "And he's not human. Neither are you, are you?"
Paps raised a brow. "You're quick to catch on."
"I've seen the way you fight. The way Spam—" Adam stopped, the image of Spam snapping his copy's neck flashing in his mind again. "What are you people?"
"We're soldiers," Emac said, his tone firm but not unkind. "Fighters trying to protect this planet from things you can't imagine. Things like Havok."
"Then why am I here?" Adam demanded. "I'm just a kid! I don't belong here, in your war."
Paps crossed his arms. "Because we thought the entity was in you. I guess we were wrong."
The room seemed to tilt as Adam processed the words. "Me? Why?"
Paps leaned closer, his gaze intense. "Did you touch the baby? The package. The one the man gave you?"
Adam hesitated. "The Baby…No."
Emac and Paps exchanged a sharp look.
"That wasn't a baby," Emac said grimly. "It was a core. Something that turned him into a god now that he has absorbed it."
"But it dissolved," Adam said, his voice rising. "It turned to liquid and disappeared."
"Not disappeared," Paps corrected. "Absorbed. By you. "
The weight of the revelation hit Adam like a sledgehammer. "What?, No I didn't absorb anything. I did not touch the baby core."
Paps and Emac stood in the dimly lit room, their voices low but charged.
"If Havok is the entity, Adam can't be," Emac said, his tone measured but uncertain.
Paps shook his head, his eyes narrowing. "There's something off about him. I can feel it. I'm surprised you and Spam don't. Just keep him here."
He turned toward the doorway. "Raptor."
The man who had escorted Adam to safety earlier stepped into view, his expression unreadable.
"Take him to the common area."
Raptor frowned. "You mean the emergency assembly point?"
"No," Paps said sharply. "I mean the common area."
With a slight nod, Raptor obeyed.
Adam sat on a bench in the common area, his head in his hands as he tried to piece together the whirlwind of events. The air was heavy with unspoken tension, and his chest tightened with unease. He barely had time to process his thoughts before something slammed into him, knocking him off the bench.
He skidded back across the floor, clutching his chest. A metallic taste flooded his mouth as he coughed up blood.
"What's going on?" he rasped, his voice raw. "I'm not the entity!"
He looked up to see Paps, who was slowly approaching, his expression cold and resolute.
"I know," Paps said, his voice like steel. "But I'm going to kill you anyway. It's safer that way."
"Paps, stop!" Emac shouted, rushing forward. But Paps intercepted him with brutal efficiency, grabbing him by the arm and hurling him aside like he weighed nothing.
Before Adam could react, Paps seized him by the neck, lifting him effortlessly off the ground.
"Let's test something," Paps growled.
He slammed Adam into the concrete floor with enough force to make the ground crack. Adam gasped, his vision blurring as pain radiated through his body.
"No human should've survived that," Paps muttered, his voice laced with grim satisfaction.
He tightened his grip on Adam's throat, cutting off his air. Darkness crept into Adam's vision as his body went limp.
Then it happened.
Adam's hair turned stark white, the change rippling through him like a surge of electricity.
"Knew it," Paps said, a crooked grin spreading across his face. He released Adam and took a step back, watching intently.
Adam's body rose, weightless, until he hovered thirteen feet off the ground. His once-unfocused eyes were now filled with a glowing, unearthly intensity.
In a blur of motion, Adam slammed his head into Paps with incredible force, sending him hurtling through the concrete floor.
Dust and debris filled the air as Emac stared in stunned silence, his mind racing to make sense of what he'd just witnessed.
Paps staggered to his feet, brushing dust and rubble from his shoulders. His gaze locked on Adam, still floating ominously in the air, hair white as frost and eyes blazing with otherworldly light.
"What are you?" Paps demanded, his voice tinged with both awe and unease.
Adam's lips curled into a faint, almost detached smile. "I have no name," he said, his voice resonant and otherworldly. "But I am known as the Invisible Hand."
Emac stepped forward, confusion and panic written across his face. "What is going on?"
Paps didn't take his eyes off Adam. "At the brink of death, a creature's true nature is revealed," he muttered, as if reciting some long-forgotten wisdom.
Emac turned to him, frustration boiling over. "Why didn't you tell me your plan?"
Paps finally tore his gaze away from Adam, his voice low and deliberate. "If you weren't surprised, he might have caught on."
Before Emac could respond, Adam's glowing form began to flicker. His body trembled, his energy sputtering out like a flame in the wind. His head tilted back, and with a sudden, violent drop, he plummeted from the sky.
Paps lunged forward, catching Adam mere inches before he hit the ground.
For a moment, everything was still. Adam's hair slowly returned to its original color, and the tension in his body eased as he slipped into unconsciousness.
Paps looked down at the young man in his arms, his expression unreadable. He exhaled sharply, then turned to Emac.
"Now," he said grimly, "we need answers."