Ethan's pov
The lab was cold.
Not just in temperature—but in design, in purpose. The walls were a dull, sterile white, reinforced with materials stronger than steel. The air was thick with the scent of chemicals, the kind that burned the inside of your nose and left a metallic taste on your tongue. No windows. No escape.
Perfect for what they were about to do to me.
I had heard the rumors. The Apex Program was the government's response to the rise of Titans—an attempt to create their own monsters. A desperate gamble to control the uncontrollable. Most who volunteered never made it out alive. Those who did were either crippled beyond repair or mindless, broken husks.
But I didn't care.
I had nothing left to lose.
A man in a white coat studied me from across the room, adjusting his glasses with a disinterested expression. He looked more like a bureaucrat than a scientist. Another man, dressed in a black military uniform, stood beside him, arms crossed. His presence was a reminder that I wasn't here as a free man.
"You understand what this entails?" the scientist asked.
I nodded.
"You will experience pain beyond anything a human body can endure."
I didn't flinch.
"There's a high probability of death."
"I don't fear death," I said. "I fear weakness."
The man in the military uniform smirked at that. "Good."
With a simple nod, the scientist motioned to the guards standing behind me. Their hands were on me before I could react, forcing me onto the cold metal table in the center of the room. Thick restraints locked around my wrists, my ankles, my neck.
A machine whirred to life beside me.
"Begin the procedure."
And then the pain started.
---
Rebirth in Fire
They injected me with something first. A burning, liquid fire that tore through my veins like molten steel. My muscles locked, my vision blurred, and every nerve in my body screamed.
I had been beaten before. Cut, burned, broken. But nothing—nothing—had ever felt like this.
The scientist's voice was distant, drowned out by the sound of my own blood roaring in my ears.
"Subject's cellular structure is breaking down at an accelerated rate."
"Heart rate spiking—250 BPM and rising."
"He's not going to last."
I clenched my teeth, refusing to scream.
This was nothing.
Compared to the pain of losing my family, compared to the helplessness I felt that night—I welcomed this agony. If pain was the price for power, then I would endure it.
The second phase began. Electrodes were attached to my skin, sending pulses of energy through my body. My muscles spasmed violently, bones threatening to snap under the force. I felt my body changing—something deep inside me shifting, breaking, and rebuilding itself.
The restraints shattered.
The room erupted into chaos as alarms blared. I barely registered the scientist shouting for containment. My body moved on its own, driven by something primal. My vision sharpened, the world slowing down as I took in every detail—the fear in their eyes, the way their hands trembled as they reached for weapons they knew wouldn't save them.
I had become something else.
The guards opened fire. The bullets barely stung.
I tore through them like paper.
One swing of my arm sent a man crashing into the reinforced walls, his body crumpling instantly. Another tried to run. I was faster. Before he could take a second step, my hand closed around his throat, lifting him off the ground.
The scientist stumbled backward, his face pale. "This… this is beyond expectations."
The man in the black uniform was the only one who didn't look surprised. He simply nodded. "We've succeeded."
I dropped the corpse in my hands and turned to face him. I could hear my own heartbeat, slow and steady now, despite the carnage around me. My muscles no longer ached. The pain was gone.
I felt… unstoppable.
The man in uniform stepped forward. "Ethan Kael," he said. "Welcome to the Apex Program."
---
A Titan Rises
The following months were a blur of tests, training, and missions. They pushed me harder than any soldier, any Titan before me. They wanted to see how far they could take me. How much I could endure.
The answer? More than they ever expected.
I was faster than their top operatives, stronger than their enhanced warriors. My reflexes bordered on precognition, my body adapting to any form of combat thrown at me. Weapons became extensions of myself—blades, my preferred choice, moving with a precision no machine could match.
But it wasn't enough.
Power alone wasn't what I sought. I needed more.
I needed to be feared.
The world had taken everything from me. Now, I would take everything from it.
And I would start with the Titans who stole my family.
This was the moment Ethan Kael, i ceased to be human.
This was the birth of the Apex Titan.
---
I used to dream of my family.
My father standing tall, his hand firm on my shoulder as he spoke of duty and honor. My mother's gentle touch, the warmth of her voice as she hummed old lullabies. My sister, her laughter ringing through our home, untainted by the horrors of the world.
But those dreams had long since died.
Now, when I closed my eyes, I saw only fire.
Their bodies broken, their voices silenced, their blood staining my hands—not because I had killed them, but because I had failed to protect them.
That failure would never happen again.
Not now. Not when I had the power to stop it.
The first Titan on my list was Marek Vallis.
He was the one who had slaughtered my family that night. The one who had taken everything from me. A Prime Titan, not the strongest, but still feared. His name was whispered in war zones, spoken with reverence by those who believed in strength above all else.
I would carve that name into my blade before I erased it from existence.
And so, the hunt began.
---
Marek wasn't easy to find.
Titans didn't live like ordinary men. They moved between battlefields, selling their strength to the highest bidder. Some worked for governments, others for crime syndicates, and a few lived only for destruction, wandering from war to war, killing for the thrill.
Marek was the latter.
It took months of digging, chasing whispers across war-torn cities and desolate wastelands. The world had become a battlefield, and Titans were its rulers.
I followed trails of devastation—villages burned, bodies torn apart, survivors too terrified to speak. Each time I arrived, I was too late. But the stories were always the same.
A man with crimson eyes. A towering figure draped in black. A warrior who never lost a battle.
Marek.
I found him in the ruins of what was once a city.
The place had been erased from existence, reduced to rubble and corpses. The smell of death was thick in the air, the sky darkened by the lingering smoke of a battle long finished.
And in the center of it all, standing amidst the wreckage, was the man I had hunted for years.
Marek Vallis.
He hadn't aged a day.
Tall, broad-shouldered, his presence alone suffocating. His body was wrapped in a dark combat suit, reinforced with Titan-grade armor. But it was his eyes that I would never forget—deep crimson, glowing faintly even in the dim light.
The moment he saw me, he grinned.
"Another one come to die?" His voice was like gravel, filled with amusement. "Or are you here to beg for your life?"
I didn't respond. Words were pointless.
I drew my blade.
For a moment, he just stared. Then, something flickered across his face—confusion, maybe recognition. He took a step forward, tilting his head.
"…I know that face," he murmured. "I've seen it before."
He didn't remember me.
Of course, he didn't.
To him, my family had been nothing. Just another handful of bodies in the endless war.
That made me hate him even more.
I launched forward.
Marek reacted instantly, shifting into a defensive stance. But he was too slow. In the past, I wouldn't have been able to touch him. Now, I was stronger.
My blade sliced through the air, aiming for his throat. At the last second, he twisted, avoiding a fatal strike, but the edge of my sword caught his shoulder, slicing through armor and flesh.
He stumbled back, eyes wide with shock.
He bled.
He hadn't expected that.
Good.
Because this time, I wasn't here to lose.
I was here to kill.
---