The commander took a slow breath of the unfamiliar air, turning to survey his surroundings. They were surrounded by towering, eerie trees and thick, thorny vines that crawled across the landscape like bloated veins. Overhead, the sky was choked with fog, and a dense, low-hanging mist clung to the forest floor, giving the clearing an unsettling atmosphere.
Glancing down at his wrist-comm, the commander muttered:
"Now that that’s done... this seems like a decent place to work."
He turned back to the crowd trailing behind him and shouted.
"Alright, Group 3! Prepare to mine. But first, you’re going to clear out these trees so the transport ships can actually land!"
The crowd was divided into two starkly different groups. On one side stood the troopers, armored in their uniforms, their faces completely obscured behind the featureless masks.
On the other side stood the miners, a massive, miserable crowd dressed in tattered rags.
Ash stood among the rags. He stared at the carcass of the giant moth, then at the ominous terrain. Letting out a heavy sigh that drew the attention of those around him, he spoke.
"Hey... don’t you think the easiest way to get rid of us would be to just shoot us dead?"
People who hadn’t noticed him earlier turned to look, their eyes wide with shock. But Ash simply shrugged and continued.
"I mean, am I wrong? We’ve been marching for hours across this death trap of a planet, and now you’re telling us to chop down massive trees and mine the earth right after. Isn’t dying just easier at this point?"
A suffocating silence fell over the clearing.
Slowly, the commander began walking toward the young man. When he stopped a few feet away, Ash let out a small smile. Gathering every ounce of spite left in his dehydrated body, he spat.
In his head, it was a glorious, legendary act of rebellion. In reality, the spit drifted lazily to the left, landing with a pathetic splat directly on the commander’s pristine left pocket.
The crowd gasped.
Ash stared at the pocket. It wasn’t exactly where he’d been aiming, but it would probably have the same effect. Smiling, he looked up at the commander.
"Sorry about that... I just needed to empty it out, that’s al—"
The butt of a rifle struck his face before he could finish his apology. The brutal force of the blow sent him crashing into the dirt. Ash gritted his teeth, struggling to stand, but a swift kick quickly followed, sending him skidding backward into the soil.
The commander stepped forward, tapping his wrist as a holographic screen flickered to life in front of him.
"So you are the one... Ashley Burns. Age sixteen. Son of Flame and one of only four fire core wielders alive."
He studied Ash for a moment. The boy was still wincing in pain.
"Mm. Black hair and crimson eyes... Strange. For someone born into the Burns family, you sure look nothing like them."
He deactivated the screen and looked down at Ash.
"You should count yourself lucky. If it weren’t for the higher-ups, you’d have been dead long ago."
He turned away, wiping the spit from his uniform with a look of disgust.
"Tsk. I don’t know why we were asked to keep a foolish child like this alive."
Ash said nothing. There was nothing worth saying to a man who’d already decided he was garbage.
Turning back to the rest of the miners, the commander’s voice hardened.
"If any of you still have complaints, speak up now. It will only make my job easier by letting me remove the worthless ones."
The miners remained dead silent.
"Alright. Like I said... you will all stay here and mine. Do your best, do what you’re told, and you might actually leave this place alive."
He snapped his fingers, pointing at three nearby troopers.
"I’m leaving the three of you in charge here. Your job is to watch them and report back to me if anything notable happens. The rest of you are with me."
The three troopers nodded in unison. But just as the commander turned to leave, a fourth trooper stepped forward hurriedly, the same trooper Ash had noticed after waking up from that dream.
"Sir... I would also like to stay behind."
The commander frowned, looking over the trooper’s armor.
"And why would I let a recruit stay in a place like this? You and the rest of your squad are only here to observe. Keep your mouth shut and fall in line."
The recruit bowed his head respectfully.
"Please, sir. It’s been my dream to explore an uncharted planet like this. Please, give me this chance."
The commander sighed, waving a dismissive hand.
"Fine. Who cares what you do? If you want to die out here, be my guest. The rest of you, with me."
Ash watched from the dirt as the commander and the bulk of the force disappeared into the thick forest. Once they were gone, one of the three supervising troopers stepped forward. A mechanical hiss echoed from his helmet as his visor slid open, revealing a stern, severe face.
"My name is Kelvin, a Manifested working under Apex."
He looked back at the other two troopers.
"Starting now, I am the one overseeing this site. Is that clear?"
The other two troopers hesitated for a moment before nodding.
Kelvin turned his gaze back to the miners, unimpressed.
"And like the commander said... you are all to clear the trees. Since the vegetation isn’t too dense over there, some of you can start mining the exposed materials immediately."
No one moved fast enough for his liking.
"We need this done fast. What are you waiting for, you idiots? Move!"
The crowd erupted into frantic motion. Some grabbed heavy chainsaws from a metal equipment cart, roaring them to life as they attacked the eerie trees. Others grabbed drills and set to work on the rocky earth.
Ash pushed himself up and walked over to the cart. He looked over the various high-tech equipment inside, but bypassed the drills entirely, opting instead for a heavy pickaxe.
Turning to leave, Ash glanced over the groups one more time. He hated being near anyone, so he decided to carry his tool further into the woods, away from the noise. To the others, choosing a pickaxe might have seemed foolishly primitive. But Ash knew better. In a world as dangerous as this one, walking around without something that could double as a weapon was a death sentence. A pickaxe wasn’t perfect, but it was far better than a drill or a shovel in a real fight.
As he walked deeper into the woods, Ash realized he wasn’t actually alone. The recruit who had volunteered to stay behind was slowly trailing him from a distance.
’What is this now?’
This was unusual. Troopers never paid this much attention to individual miners. If a prisoner wandered into the woods without protection, the guards usually just let them go to die. So why was this one following him?
Ash’s jaw tightened. Hoping to shake the trooper off, he bent down, pretending to inspect a strange, crown-shaped stone on the ground.
A brilliant plan.
Unfortunately, the trooper was apparently capable of noticing a sixteen-year-old prisoner suddenly becoming fascinated by a rock. When he saw that the trooper had stopped to observe him, Ash immediately stood up and quickened his pace. The trooper kept up, staying right behind him.
Unable to take it anymore, Ash spun around.
"Hey, why are you—"
"Don’t you find it strange?" the trooper asked, cutting him off.
Ash’s eyes narrowed.
’What does he mean...?’
He followed the trooper’s gaze, which was fixed on a massive skeleton lying just a few meters away.
Ash spoke, keeping his guard up.
"What’s so strange about seeing the ancient bones of some lost civilization?"
The recruit turned to him.
"And you don’t find that weird? They’re mining strange rocks on a foggy planet like this. Don’t you think something weird is going on? I mean, why would a giant corporation like Apex worry about a no-name planet?"
Ash looked at him. It was strange hearing an Apex trooper question the organization’s activities, but the man wasn’t wrong. Ash still didn’t understand why they were mining a dangerous planet like this, but it didn’t matter to him. He had no reason to think about something so pointless.
Ash turned and continued moving.
"Well... I actually don’t care. Maybe they are just clearing out this planet to make it their own, or using it as a way to torture their captured prisoners. I don’t really want to know. As long as I remain here, I’m good."
"So you think... running away to Apex can free you from your fate?"
Ash’s eyes widened. He froze.
"What?"
He immediately spun back toward the trooper, his heart hammering against his ribs. He didn’t know how this recruit could possibly know about his past, let alone his fate.
’Could I be dreaming right now?’
Ash instinctively turned his head around, half-expecting the strange woman in red from his nightmares to appear at any second. But a sharp mechanical hiss cut through his panic, drawing his attention straight back to the recruit.
The trooper’s visor slid open, revealing the painfully familiar face of a young man with vibrant red hair and matching red eyes. He gave Ash a warm smile.
Ash’s breath caught in his throat.
The man sighed softly, his expression filled with a mixture of relief and gentle reproach.
"Ashley, my littlest brother. When is our little game of hide and seek going to end?"
Ash stared in disbelief.
"Max...?"