Chapter Title: Awakening Amidst Ruins
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The boy opened his eyes amid a terrifying quake.
Thunderous roars grew from distant to near, blood-red cannon fire lit up the night sky, and the ground trembled faintly under the massive shadow of the descending warships. Explosions echoed one after another in the distance.
Struggling upright from the liquid-filled culture vat, the boy realized he was completely naked. Around him stretched an empty wasteland, with shattered instrument parts and severed wires jutting from the soil, sparking blue electric arcs with a sizzling hiss.
It was like an abandoned graveyard.
The boy stared trembling at his hands, his mind a total blank as countless questions surged forth.
—Who am I? Where is this place?
—Why am I here?
"Test Field 2 cleared. Proceeding to East Sector. Proceeding to East Sector…" A human voice suddenly rang out nearby. The boy whipped his head around to see several soldiers in black hazmat suits leading dogs toward him.
In that instant, there was no time to think. He clambered clumsily out of the vat and spotted an old white lab coat draped over its edge—left there who knew when. He snatched it up and hastily wrapped it around himself.
"What's that… Someone! Don't run!"
The massive hounds bayed furiously. The men spotted the movement at once and charged after him. The boy glanced around in panic and bolted in the opposite direction—only to hear a "bang!" after two steps as a bullet whizzed past his heel!
"Stop! Or we'll shoot!"
The boy had no idea why he was running. Blind panic consumed his entire mind. He could sense the hounds arrowing after him, their fangs a mere breath from his nape—
Boom!
Thanks to the countless massive discarded instruments littering the ground, the boy dodged into cover at the critical moment. The hound smashed headlong into a shattered metal panel.
The soldiers bellowed in rage. "Halt!" "We've got a missed target here!" "Notify B Squad sweepers, now!"
The boy panted in tension and spotted several sharp metal shards on the ground. He lunged for them, clutching them tight.
The instant he rose, two more massive hounds came howling in!
Time seemed to stretch infinitely in that moment, every motion slowing to an excruciating crawl—the boy swung his arm back, slashing the makeshift metal dagger diagonally across from the hound's gaping, snarling maw!
—Thud!
Blood erupted in a spray as the hound shrieked and crashed to the ground!
Before the boy could steady himself, the final terrifying black behemoth lunged, its three-meter frame plummeting from above, jaws locked precisely on his throat.
It happened in a flash. With no time to turn and evade, the boy dropped to his knees and arched back at the last second, his body forming a perfect ninety-degree U against the ground. Clutching the dagger, he twisted his wrists and stabbed viciously upward!
With a squelch, the blade sank into flesh. The hound's momentum was too great to halt; it sailed right over the knife in midair!
A earth-shaking roar followed as the beast's gut was sliced open mid-leap. Tough muscle and bone resisted the blade fiercely, instantly gashing the boy's palms down to the bone—then a torrent of hot beast blood poured down, drenching his head and face!
"This… this…" The soldiers were stunned speechless by the gory scene. One quick to react gave chase, roaring, "Don't move! Or we really will shoot!"
The boy flung off the hound's corpse and staggered onward. Bullets peppered the ground inches from his feet. Utter terror drove him to scan desperately for cover amid the open field. Several wrecked metal instruments lying about were instantly riddled into sieves by a hail of shots.
"You can't escape! Stop! Surrender!"
The boy gasped in despair and glimpsed a deep trench cutting across the field's end. Without a thought, he leaped in.
But he regretted it at once.
The trench bottom was barren, offering not even a scrap of shelter—utterly exposed from above.
The boy hastily tightened his lab coat, gritted his teeth, and clambered up the rubble toward the opposite bank.
Blood streamed from his mangled palms, but the agony didn't slow him. Panting fiercely, he seized a rock and hauled himself up, nearly cresting the edge—when a hand shot down from above and clamped his arm.
"No…"
The grip was immensely strong, yanking him bodily from the trench and slamming him onto the dirt with a thud.
Countless hands pinned him at once. Cold gun muzzles jammed against his temple.
"No… let go! Let me go!"
His voice, unused for years, came out hoarse and warped into a shattered screech. But his struggles were futile against the trained soldiers. Soon rough hands wrenched his arms behind him and cuffed them, slamming him face-down.
"Let me go… please! Let me go!"
The colonel who'd cuffed him stood, signaling his men to keep their guns trained, then turned respectfully. "General Aaron."
The man who'd hauled the boy from the trench stood at the pit's edge, brow furrowed.
"A Team found him in an abandoned culture vat at East Sector test field. No clue if he's tied to the fugitives, but he looks like… a test subject."
Glancing back, the colonel signaled. His men roughly flipped the boy over, exposing his pale, disheveled face.
"What's your name?"
Blinded by flashlight beams, the boy turned away, trembling faintly from fear and shame. The lab coat barely covered his huddled form amid the struggle.
The colonel opened his mouth to bark again—only for General Aaron to raise a hand, silencing him. "General…?"
Aaron took the flashlight. The beam fell on a gleaming nameplate pinned to the lab coat's chest—engraved with letters: Gavin.
"Gavin," the general murmured. "Haven't seen that name in ages."
The colonel's gun twitched as he looked to his superior for orders, but Aaron shook his head firmly.
"Why? If he's a test subject…"
"He's an Omega. Can't you tell?" Aaron said. "Per the Empire's new Vulnerable Gender Protection Act, no Omega captured on the battlefield may be harmed—especially not a minor."
The colonel blinked in realization, at last detecting the faint trace of Omega pheromones in the boy's blood.
But it was so faint—only nonstop massive inhibitor doses could suppress it that much. And with him slathered in thick-scented beast blood, not a single Alpha soldier present had clocked his scent.
The colonel inwardly reeled. He'd nearly killed a rare healthy young Omega—a capital crime anywhere, let alone on a battlefield.
"Take him to the medics. I want to know what the fugitives were experimenting on here." Aaron rose and shrugged off his uniform jacket, tossing it over the boy.
"—Bundle him up tight."
2.
Gavin woke again to find himself on a hospital bed, left hand cuffed to the cold iron bedframe.
He struggled halfway up. The room was clean and spacious, its snowy alloy walls gleaming with a chilling pallor.
"You're awake?"
Gavin jerked his head around. The door slid silently open as Aaron entered with a tray.
The general looked unusually young and robust—some perfected result of countless gene tweaks. His pitch-black Imperial uniform was thick and somber, silver stars on the shoulders and pistol at his waist starkly prominent, radiating overwhelming menace.
He set the tray gently on the bed's stand. "Eat something."
The contents were surprisingly fresh and abundant—even rare battlefield in-season fruit. No doubt special treatment for an Omega.
But Gavin had zero appetite. He stared coldly at Aaron, jet-black eyes glinting with calm, mechanical detachment. After a long pause, he asked, "Who are you?"
"Gemini Empire Admiral General." Aaron paused, then asked leisurely, "And you?"
"…"
Aaron dragged a chair to the bedside, utterly at ease. "Do you know where this is?"
"…"
"I'll tell you. This is one of the Empire's most remote territories: Ophiuchus Redsoil. Tech level lags the capital by half a century. Nine years ago, a fugitive squad snuck in for top-secret human experiments. When it leaked, His Majesty dispatched the Imperial Fleet under my command for half a month of indiscriminate bombardment on Redsoil's northern hemisphere."
"The fugitives are all dead." Aaron leaned in, locking eyes with Gavin's pretty ones. "—We don't kill Omegas on the battlefield. But if you resist, I've got ten thousand ways to make you wish you were."
Gavin's pupils dilated slightly. After a beat, he said, "I'm not a fugitive."
"Then what are you?"
"I don't know."
"What's your family name?"
"Don't know."
"Then why were you here?"
"Don't know. I don't remember anything."
Aaron stared him down, weighing the truth in his words.
Gavin clenched his jaw, muscles aching from tension. At length, Aaron murmured with veiled menace, "You'd better not be lying… This is a military camp. Know how many Alphas here have never laid eyes on an Omega in their lives?"
Compared to "ten thousand ways to make you wish you were dead," this threat was far more vivid, practical, actionable. Outside a camp, it'd be straight-up sexual harassment.
"…Are you threatening me?"
"If that's how you see it," Aaron said, eyeing the boy's pale face with satisfaction as he rose. "Then yes."
As if.
Aaron exited. The alloy door sealed silently behind him.
As he'd said, in this era of wildly imbalanced ABO ratios, plenty of Alphas might never glimpse an Omega their whole lives. But that sure didn't apply to Aaron, one of the Gemini Empire's founding admirals general.
Single and proud (pitiful) diamond bachelor though he was, he knew exactly how frail, sensitive, timid, and fragile Omegas were. Their constitutions were soft as jelly—normally, forget three military-grade hounds; a common cold kept them hospitalized half a month.
Since the Empire's founding, Omegas had been cursed: infant mortality climbing yearly at horrifying rates. Last census pegged the ABO ratio at a terrifying 25:5000:1—that 1 for newborns, with at least a quarter of young Omegas dying en route to adulthood from all causes.
Omega numbers dictated population quality. Betas had low fertility, offspring mostly Beta. When AO ratio hit 10:1, elite Alpha births went negative. At 20:1, total population declined.
For an Empire fresh off losing billions in the founding war, it was an unbearable burden.
Military scientists tried everything to cut Omega infant deaths. Nothing worked. Experts gloomily warned: In forty years, AO hits 50:1—crime control alone a nightmare, forget births.
Even without expertise, Aaron knew the future was grim.
And this boy Gavin offered new hope.
Unquestioned Omega, yet his base genetics nearly matched peer Alphas. Bloodwork confirmed: fertility untouched.
The fugitives had cracked Omega gene enhancement here—and succeeded.
For a population-shrinking Empire, it was a heaven-sent savior.
Aaron ordered without looking back, "Surround this med bay. No orders from me, not even a fly gets in. Boost Redsoil defenses too. Marshal's fiftieth death anniversary in a week—no mistakes!"
"Yes!" The colonel saluted crisply and marched off.
By Imperial Constitution, "marshal" meant either the Emperor—or the one fallen fifty years ago on Redsoil: Alliance's last war god, Gavin Celia.
Aaron was a loyal soldier, Empire devotion beyond question. But as a soldier, his reverence for Marshal Celia was absolute.
—No shame there. Empire-wide, it was an open secret. Every founding general who'd fought with the Emperor had defected from Celia's direct troops. Before openly betraying the Alliance, they'd all been Celia's diehard subordinates—the Emperor himself once his guard captain.
Post-Alliance defeat, Commander Celia refused surrender and suicided. A massive military psyche scar, unchanged in half a century.
In mourning, they held decennial secret rites on Redsoil—pilgrimages for the founding generals.
So when word hit of fugitives running illegal human tests on Redsoil, the whole Imperial military raged:
"Who dares mess on Redsoil? Bomb their whole clan!"
"Wipe the fugitives! Erase them from the galaxy!"
Founding admiral general Aaron led Capital Ninth Fleet—the Empire's sole all-Alpha elite combat unit—thundering to Redsoil. Half a month later, endless barrages flattened the planet.
—Touch my eyeball, I'll rip out your root! The bold (brainless) Imperial military proved it to the universe once more with action.