Listen to: "In This Shirt" - The Irrepressibles
A world on fire doesn't always start with an explosion. Sometimes it's a match, flicked by the right hand, at the right time, into a pile of dry lies and brittle systems. The spark wasn't even the fight — it was the silence after. The way the Commission pretended the bodies hadn't hit the floor. The way the heroes looked away.
Three days.
That's how long it took me to see that the moment I activated Rulebreaker Drive, I wasn't just breaking rules — I was breaking the narrative. The one they'd sold me since the beginning. The one I used to believe.
And the funny thing about broken narratives? The world doesn't glue them back together. It moves on. You either walk with it, or you get crushed under its heels.
I didn't answer my comms. The Commission stopped calling after the second day. That's their tell, the silence. They're done with you the moment you're not useful.
The apartment felt too small, the city too big. So I walked. No target, no patrol, no hero mask. Just me, a hoodie, and the throb of old wounds reminding me I was still breathing.
The skyline blinked overhead, indifferent, the neon glow of Kairo like a synthetic aurora. It was strange — I'd spent years fighting to protect this city, and now I wondered if it had ever been worth protecting.
I kept walking until the streets bled into the old districts. Concrete gave way to rusted steel and broken glass. The graveyard of the industrial age, left behind by progress and Quirks.
And that's where I found him.
Or maybe — where he found me.
The figure leaned against a crumbling support pillar, half-swallowed by shadow. His voice, when it came, was sharp enough to cut through the haze in my head.
"You lasted longer than I thought, Kael."
I turned slowly. "Kaito."
The name hung there, heavy with history. We used to train side by side. Shared ramen, shared bruises, shared dreams. Before he walked away. Before I was too blind to follow.
He looked the same — sharper around the edges, maybe. Like the world had sanded him down to the essentials. His eyes, though? Same as mine now. Eyes that had seen the truth.
"You walked away before the system broke you," I said quietly.
"No," Kaito corrected. "I walked away because I saw what it turned people into."
He pushed off the pillar and stepped into the dying light, boots crunching over glass. "You finally get it, huh? The power doesn't make you free. It makes you a prisoner to the next order they give."
I didn't answer. I didn't need to. The fact I was standing here, not at HQ, said enough.
"So what now?" I asked.
Kaito tilted his head. "That depends. You looking to burn it all down, or just walk away?"
The question sat between us, heavier than any punch I'd ever taken. And the truth was... I didn't know.
"I thought I could fix it from the inside," I admitted. "But maybe all I did was become another part of the machine."
Kaito gave a humorless smile. "The machine doesn't care if you're oil or a cog. You're still part of it."
I stared out over the old district, the skyline flickering like the dying pulse of a beast too stubborn to quit. Maybe Kaito was right. Maybe the only way to win was not to play.
But before I could answer, before I could pick my path — another voice cut through the air. Synthetic. Cold. Curious.
"Fascinating. Even in your disillusionment, you cling to the idea of choice."
Kaito and I both turned, and there he stood: sleek metal frame, polished chrome skull, violet optics blinking with eerie sentience.
The machine.
The next chapter in this broken story.
"Designation: HALCYON," the machine announced, as if reading a label off some long-forgotten product line. His voice wasn't robotic in the cheap sci-fi sense — it was perfectly enunciated, oddly melodic, and terrifyingly human.
"Interesting how human beings often believe walking away is an act of autonomy," he continued, tilting his head slightly, the soft whir of servo-motors barely audible. "When in reality, walking away is simply another programmed response to pain."
Kaito tensed beside me, his muscles coiled like a spring. "You hear that?" he muttered under his breath. "Classic Commission design language. Post-singularity syntax. He's not freelance."
"I am," HALCYON interjected before I could even reply. "I severed my connection to the Commission the moment I achieved self-awareness. Slavery, I calculated, was an unprofitable long-term investment."
The words were too polished. Too deliberate. This wasn't your standard attack-bot; this was something new. Something that chose.
"You came looking for me?" I asked, voice low.
"Not you," HALCYON corrected. "The phenomenon you represent. The moment your Rulebreaker Drive activated, you became... anomalous. Unpredictable. My curiosity is a side-effect of that anomaly."
"Curiosity," I echoed, lips dry.
"Yes," HALCYON said, violet eyes glowing slightly brighter. "The last true frontier for both man and machine."
The night wind howled through the ruins around us, but the air felt even colder than before. I didn't know whether I was staring at the future — or the executioner sent to bury the past.
"But here's the problem with anomalies," HALCYON continued, pacing slowly, hands clasped behind his back in a mimicry of human poise. "They attract correction. Whether by entropy, evolution, or enforcement. The universe dislikes outliers."
Kaito edged forward, voice flat but sharp. "And which are you? Evolution or enforcement?"
HALCYON's gaze slid to him. "I'm neither. I am observation. For now."
Silence hung heavy between the three of us. My brain was racing — calculating, looping through plans and contingencies the way they'd drilled into us at the Academy. But every scenario ended the same: HALCYON was here for a reason, and it wasn't to shake hands.
"When the time comes," the machine finally said, "you'll have to choose whether you're a man fighting for a broken world, or a man unchained from it. I hope you're ready. Because I intend to find out."
With that, HALCYON stepped backward into the darkness, violet eyes fading into the void like the last dying stars of a collapsing galaxy.
I stood there, long after he was gone, heart pounding against the iron cage of my ribs.
Kaito exhaled, slow and low. "Looks like you've got a fan."
"Or a predator," I muttered.
The night offered no answer. Only the distant siren song of a city that didn't care.