Joey "The Gridwalker" DiMarco was supposed to be at the 10-year ceremony. His name had been listed among the attendees, but that didn't matter anymore. Since waking in a hospital three weeks after the asteroid, Joey hadn't been reliable for anything. He wasn't there when they dedicated the monument, raised the flags, or unveiled the inscriptions. Instead, he drifted—drinking until the memories blurred, sleeping in ditches far from those who once knew him as Blue, the Ranger who had led the charge through the breach.
"The Broken Ranger," they called him now—when they were being nice. It was the polite term the press, diplomats, and commanders used in public, acknowledging his fall without delving too deep. But Joey had heard the other words, the ones they used behind closed doors. They spat them like venom when they thought he wasn't listening. "Whiskey warrior," they sneered, mocking how he drowned his pain in alcohol. "Casket crawler," they said when they caught sight of him stumbling, half-dead in the streets, like a man too stubborn to stay in his grave. The cruelest ones cut deepest—"gridstain" and "gridwhore," slurs that ripped at the core of who he had once been. Once a protector of the Grid, now he was seen as a disgrace to the very power that had made him.
Joey could feel the disdain in the eyes of soldiers, commanders, and even civilians. Those who had once stood beside him in admiration now avoided him. They no longer saw him as a hero. He was just another casualty, a broken man who should have died with his team. Some called him a "graveyard reject," as if the only reason he was still around was because the dead didn't want him.
It hadn't always been this way. Joey had been a hero once, revered for his role as Blue, leading his team through the breach. People had looked to him as a symbol of strength and resilience, someone who could carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. But now, that image was long gone. He was no longer the man they cheered for. The weight he carried was different—heavier, filled with the guilt of surviving when no one else had.
The truth, stark and immutable, left Joey hollow. Denial had led to rage, and rage to desperation. When the anger subsided, all that remained was a man driven to find something—anything—that might give him hope. He couldn't just let it end. Not like this. So when he finally made it back to Ranger Operations in Cincarion, Joey threw himself into his search. He pored over sensor data, fleet telemetry, helmet cameras, and personnel accounts, working until exhaustion blurred his vision. He wanted to find the proof he needed—that his team hadn't just disappeared into the abyss. That they hadn't died while he had lived.
Days turned into nights, nights turned into weeks, and still, Joey found nothing. He studied the footage until he could barely stay conscious, his eyes bloodshot from the strain. Each frame, each snippet of data, brought him no closer to his team. There was no miraculous escape, no missed signal, no overlooked trace. The data was cold, clinical. The reality of it was unflinching. His team was gone.
But for Joey, that truth was never enough. He refused to let it end in silence. He would find them, or he would make the Elvenarus pay until there was no one left to extract his vengeance upon. His desperation morphed into something darker—an obsession that consumed him entirely.
Once he was cleared for duty, Joey didn't hesitate. He launched himself back into the fray, leading missions with a newfound intensity that bordered on madness. He wasn't just searching; he was hunting. He moved through the Sol system like a plague, backed by the full force of the alliance's military might. The fleet, infantry, and armor brigades were right behind him, driven by the same thirst for vengeance. Every surviving Elvenarus became a target. Joey led his troops into battle after battle, each mission aimed at purging the enemy from every corner of the solar system.
No one questioned his orders. No one spoke up about the brutality of the campaign. Mercy was never an option for the Elvenarus—not in Joey's eyes. Yet, there were rare moments when he paused, when he offered a fleeting chance of survival to those who might hold a sliver of hope for him. He interrogated them, seeking any fragment of evidence that could prove his team was still out there. It was a fool's hope, but it was all he had. But each time, the answers were the same—there were no survivors, no escapes, no hidden miracle. And each time, the failure to find his team chipped away at whatever part of him still held onto hope.
Joey's desperation hardened into something colder, something far more dangerous. The more he searched, the more ruthless his tactics grew. Each battle became an exercise in fury—calculated, relentless. He led his troops with unwavering intensity, eliminating every Elvenarus that dared stand in his path. His pursuit of them was not just about revenge; it was about drowning out the emptiness that consumed him. Every enemy slain was a step further away from the silence that haunted him.
The alliance generals, foreign dignitaries, and soldiers followed his lead, not out of loyalty but out of fear. They had seen what he had become—a relentless force, driven by something they could barely understand. He wasn't just a Ranger anymore. He was a man fueled by loss, and that made him dangerous. None of them dared to intervene, to countermand his orders. They feared him as much as they feared the Elvenarus, perhaps even more.
In those final days of the purge, Joey moved like a machine, his face devoid of emotion, his eyes cold and distant. He led the alliance forces to the farthest reaches of the Sol system, to the last hiding places of the Elvenarus. There was no escape. Asteroids, hidden moons, deep space—wherever they ran, Joey found them, and with the full force of the alliance behind him, he ensured they paid the ultimate price. His orders were carried out without question. The soldiers under his command knew better than to hesitate. In Joey's eyes, hesitation was weakness, and weakness was something he could not abide.
By the end, there was nothing left of the enemy. The Elvenarus were wiped out, their ships destroyed, their soldiers left as lifeless husks scattered across the battlefield. But the one thing Joey had hoped for—some sign, some shred of evidence that his team had survived—never materialized.
And when Joey finally realized there was nothing left to do, nothing more to fight for, he stepped down. The fires that had fueled his rage and driven his crusade had burned out, leaving him with nothing but exhaustion. He relinquished his command, handing the reins back to the alliance generals, the dignitaries, and the Imperator of Earth. They accepted it with relief, though they did so cautiously, as if they hadn't truly expected him to ever step away.
Collectively, they felt a weight lift off their shoulders. Joey's presence had been a double-edged sword—essential for their vengeance, but a constant source of fear and unpredictability. They had followed him because they knew he would stop at nothing, but now, as the burden of leadership returned to them, there was an unspoken gratitude that it was over.
They watched as he stepped away, a shadow of the Ranger they had once known. Joey walked out of the command center without a word, his head down, his steps heavy. The soldiers saluted as he passed, but he didn't acknowledge them. He moved through the halls like a ghost, a man with no purpose left. He had fought, he had purged, and now there was nothing left to fight for.
Joey "The Gridwalker" DiMarco had been a hero, a legend, a nightmare to his enemies. Now, he was just a man—broken, empty, and alone. And as he left Ranger Operations behind, the people he left in charge couldn't help but feel that, in stepping down, Joey had finally surrendered. Not to the Elvenarus, not to any enemy—but to the silence that had haunted him all along.
All he had left was his morpher. It was not just a tool—it was a lifeline, a connection to who Joey had been at his peak, a reminder of the friends who had died on Ceres, and the shattered legacy of the Grid. Whatever else might happen, Joey would never willingly let them take it from him.