Richard woke to movement this time.
Not alarms. Not pain. Not the sharp panic of coming back wrong.
Movement.
The floor beneath him hummed softly, ice shifting with controlled intention, like the cave itself was breathing. He opened his eyes and sat up in one smooth motion—then froze.
His body responded instantly.
Too instantly.
No lag. No soreness. No phantom pain where his arm had been torn apart or where his heart had been pierced. He flexed his fingers. Rolled his shoulders. Drew in a breath and held it.
Perfect.
That scared him more than the injuries ever had.
"Don't overthink it," a voice said.
Richard looked up.
Zero stood near the far wall of the cavern, arms folded, watching him like a variable finally behaving as expected. The ice around Zero was calmer than the rest of the cave, smoothed and stable, as if the environment itself deferred to him.
"You're alive," Richard said.
"Yes."
"I shouldn't be."
"Correct."
Richard swung his legs over the side of the platform he'd been lying on. Ice mist curled around his ankles as his feet touched the ground. "So either I'm hallucinating, or you fixed me."
Zero nodded once. "I rebuilt you. Cell by cell. You were… inefficient at the end."
Richard snorted despite himself. "That's one way to put it."
He stood fully now. No dizziness. No weakness. Chrome energy stirred under his skin, restrained but present, like a coiled spring waiting for a signal.
"Where are we?" Richard asked.
"Under polar ice," Zero replied. "Far enough north that satellites lose interest. Far enough down that Phantom's sensors lie to themselves."
"Convenient."
"Necessary."
Zero gestured with his chin toward the rest of the cavern.
Richard followed his gaze—and felt it.
Pressure.
Six figures stood scattered across the ice chamber, each distinct, each wrong in a different way. Not hostile. Not friendly. Just… present.
Chrome energy users.
The realization hit him all at once.
"Thirteen," Richard said slowly. "That's the number, right?"
Zero's eyes flicked back to him. "You're learning."
"One of them is Corpse," Richard said, recognizing the tall figure leaning against an ice pillar, blood-red veins faintly visible beneath pale skin. Corpse smiled without warmth.
Another figure blurred and reappeared a few meters away, boots crunching lightly on frost.
"That one's Ghoul," Zero said. "Don't blink when he moves. You'll miss it."
The others were quieter. Subtler. One woman distorted the air around her hands like heat haze. Another man's breath crystallized into geometric shapes that hung unnaturally long before falling.
"Phantom has eight," Richard said. "You have… what, five?"
"Six," Zero corrected. "You make seven."
Richard exhaled. "So this is a faction."
"No," Zero said. "It's a refuge. For now."
That didn't reassure him.
"Why help me?" Richard asked. "You could've left me. You didn't have to—"
"You were never disposable," Zero said flatly.
Richard looked at him. Really looked.
There was something in Zero's expression then—something buried under control and frost and discipline. Something that didn't belong on a battlefield.
Before Richard could press it, Zero turned.
"Training starts now."
Ghoul did not introduce himself.
He didn't need to.
The moment Richard stepped onto the open ice platform carved into the cavern's center, Ghoul vanished.
Richard barely registered the displacement before something slammed into his ribs.
Hard.
He skidded across the ice, boots sparking, barely managing to stay upright before another impact clipped his shoulder. Then another. Then three more, so fast they blurred into one continuous force.
Mach 8.
Not speed—distribution.
Ghoul wasn't moving fast. He was dividing himself into frames, existing in 128 positions across time, each strike landing in a different slice of reality.
Richard tried to react.
Tried to channel chrome energy into his legs.
Too slow.
A kick took his knees out. Another slammed into his jaw. He tasted blood and ice and grit as he hit the ground.
"Again," Zero said calmly from the sidelines.
Richard forced himself up.
Ghoul appeared in front of him just long enough for Richard to throw a punch.
It hit air.
Then the world exploded sideways.
By the end of the session, Richard couldn't feel his arms.
Not broken—exhausted.
Chrome energy leaked uncontrollably, flaring and collapsing as his body struggled to adapt to a tempo it couldn't yet match. He dropped to one knee, gasping, sweat freezing on his skin.
Ghoul finally stopped moving.
"Your output's insane," Ghoul said, voice casual, like they'd just finished a jog. "Your control is trash."
"Noted," Richard wheezed.
Zero nodded once. "Session over."
Richard didn't argue.
He staggered out of the training chamber and into a smaller side alcove that looked… domestic, in a stark, minimalist way. A metal counter. A machine embedded in ice. Two mugs.
A coffee machine.
Richard stared at it.
"You're joking," he muttered.
Zero followed him in. "Caffeine improves focus. And morale."
"You care about morale?"
"I care about efficiency."
Richard leaned against the counter, watching Zero work the machine with precise, practiced movements. Steam rose, briefly fogging the ice walls before freezing into delicate patterns.
Zero handed him a mug.
Black. No sugar.
"Drink," Zero said. "You burned through more chrome than you realize."
Richard took a sip.
It was… good. Rich. Hot. Real.
The normalcy of it almost hurt.
"So," Richard said quietly. "You gonna tell me now?"
Zero didn't look at him. "Tell you what?"
"What Phantom did to you," Richard said. "What made you like this."
Zero was silent for a long moment.
Then he sat across from Richard, mug cradled in both hands. The frost around him stilled.
"I was Experiment Zero-Zero-Zero," he said. "The first."
Richard felt his stomach tighten.
"They didn't expect success," Zero continued. "They expected data. Failure. A corpse."
"They drugged me from the moment I woke," he went on. "Controlled my vitals. My output. My thoughts—or so they believed."
Richard listened. Didn't interrupt.
"By the time I was ten," Zero said, voice flat, "my immune system adapted. The drugs stopped working. The restraints followed."
Richard swallowed.
"They deployed everything they had," Zero said. "Units. Divisions. Tens of thousands. I froze them where they stood. Organs. Nerves. Thought itself."
"And then?"
"They tried to erase me from orbit."
Richard's grip tightened on his mug.
"That's when I learned RCT properly," Zero said. "Reconstruction. From moisture. From vapor. From nothing they could track."
Eighteen years," he added. "That's how long I've had to refine it."
Richard stared down into his coffee.
"So when you fought me," he said slowly, "you weren't trying to kill me."
Zero met his eyes.
"No," he said. "I was making sure you wouldn't die when someone does try."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward.
It was heavy.
Outside the alcove, the ice cave hummed quietly—alive, waiting.
Richard took another sip of coffee, grounding himself in the heat, the bitterness, the moment.
"Alright," he said finally. "When's the next session?"
Zero's mouth twitched.
"Tomorrow," he said. "Try not to break before then."
Richard huffed a tired laugh.
For the first time since everything started going wrong—
He felt like he might actually survive long enough to matter.