Damien groaned awake.
Ah, so bright! He raised his arm to his face. After his eyes adjusted to the sterile light pouring from the overhead lamp… wait, sterile light!
Electricity was a thing of the past. Baldia had always used oil lamps ever since they captured the Oil Island years ago. Even now, oil lamps lined every street and filled every home.
So what am I looking at? How is this possible?
Then Damien's heart sank.
Crap, am I dead? Is this some sick waiting room for the afterlife?
Naturally, he tried rummaging through his pockets for a bottle cap to chew on, but found that he didn't have any pockets at all — or any clothes. His wounds had been tended to, besides the scars left behind from where he'd seared them shut, and he was sitting on some type of surgical table.
After a few calming breaths, he looked around. The room was small, with shadows dancing across the grey walls from the lamplight. Test tubes lined the cabinets, filled with colored liquids he couldn't name.
There were syringes everywhere. Rats squealing in cages. And…
"Ah great, you're awake! An unconscious patient is no fun!"
In the corner, a man sat half-swallowed by shadow, holding a long metal tube and wearing a smile that made Damien feel like prey. It lingered for an unnaturally long time — that smile — before he pushed his rolling chair forward into the light.
"I need you to turn around for me and try not to clench." He tapped the tube against his palm. "I don't like squirmers."
"What! Who are you? Where am I? Why am I here?" Damien's face flushed as he threw himself off the table in a clumsy attempt to escape.
His body was still incredibly weak. He couldn't stand.
The man rolled closer.
"It'll only hurt a little," he chuckled.
Damien had five fears in life, and well, anything involving going in or around his ass was one of them.
"What are you, the ass Devil?! Stay the fuck away from me." He backed against a cabinet, grabbing a syringe to defend himself.
Then the man broke into uncontrolled laughter.
"Ha! You're right, that was funny." He set the tube down. "You can come in now."
The door shot open and a familiar blonde idiot burst in, grinning.
"I know, right? It's weird what gets him going." Luka tossed Damien something thin and rectangular, wrapped in foil. "It's called gum. Chew on it — I know how you get with your oral fixation."
Damien was silent for a moment, looking between Luka and the strange man in the doctor's gown. Then, once his heart stopped pounding out of his chest, he said,
"So I'm not dead…"
"The opposite, actually." The man leaned back in his chair. "I brought you back from the brink with my healing magic, and now here we are."
For the first time, Damien saw clearly the golden ink beneath the man's left eye: 7045
Luka's count: 736.
How did I not feel them?… Why can't I feel any Particles at all? Not even my own?
"To answer your earlier question, I'm Steven — Raider in charge of the Science and Healing sect." He picked up a syringe filled with purple liquid and flicked it twice. "And you, my friend, are at Raider headquarters."
***
After receiving a shot in the ass, Damien's Particle senses had returned and he could even stand again. Apparently he'd been saved by Captain Jaelyn and dropped off at HQ without any explanation whatsoever.
Steven had turned around from injecting a rat with frost Particles to find Damien sprawled across his table, "looking like a heap of lion feed," his words.
He healed him. But not knowing if Damien was friend or foe, he'd been ordered to inject him with a special toxin that forcibly drained his Particles and dulled his senses.
A day later, Luka showed up and explained that they'd awakened just the day before and had been planning to turn themselves in when the Island break occurred.
Now dressed in a green training cloak and pants, Damien was walking down a long white hallway, chewing on a delightful piece of cherry gum, Luka beside him. Both were looking at the light fixtures above, sterile light reflecting off the floor and the walls.
"It's really amazing," Damien said in disbelief.
"I know, right." Luka was more accustomed to the anomaly. "When I asked why they were hiding all of this technology, they told me there wasn't enough power to share with all of Baldia, so they've kept it to HQ."
Damien shrugged. "Makes sense. They need it to protect everyone."
"Yeah… after this meeting, we should explore more. You haven't seen half the cool shit they have here."
Damien and Luka stopped in front of a wooden door. As Damien raised his fist to knock, a stern voice cut through from the other side.
"Come in."
They pushed open the door to find a burly woman in a suit and tie sitting behind a desk, gesturing for them to take a seat. Her nameplate read:
Head director Voss.
Damien and Luka took their seats, gulping. Though the woman wore a kind smile, her red hair neatly tied up in a bun, she gave off an aura that was difficult to place.
Her Particles... she's strong. Maybe as strong as Captain Jaelyn. As Damien focused harder on her Particles, he noted they were fire-type, like the ones that had caged the lightning birds.
Particle count: 40,010.
Boom!
"AGH!" Damien shouted as the head director flicked his forehead with the force of a horse's kick.
"Next time, ask before you go poking around." She opened her cabinet, pulling out a stack of papers and flipping through them. "I've already read through your full body exams from Steven..."
Damien lowered his hand from his throbbing forehead. Great... who knows what that creep did to me.
"So... what did you find?"
She set the papers down, her stern expression softening. "That you're an anomaly, Mr. Crowe. When your friend told me you two had awakened only days before coming here, I didn't believe him. But the science doesn't lie. You're both still in the first realm — and on top of that, you both have soul abilities."
Damien glanced at Luka, who was grinning ear to ear. "It's true, we're really something. Tell him how much!"
She smacked him on the head. "Didn't I tell you yesterday to drop the hotshot act? Hotshots die."
Damien stifled a laugh and raised his hand cautiously.
She nodded. "Go on."
"Realms, soul abilities... I don't really know what any of that means. Could you explain?"
She sighed.
"I figured as much. This one didn't know either." She shot Luka a look, and he straightened immediately. "Raiders have five realms — we keep it simple and call them one through five. The first belongs to the newly awakened. I'm guessing you noticed that when you absorb a beast's Particles, they don't all go toward your count?"
Damien nodded after a moment.
"Yeah. I didn't catch it at first, but after Luka absorbed a beast, his count only went up by about a tenth of what he'd taken in."
The director gave him an approving look. "Finally, a smart one. Correct, ninety percent of the Particles a Raider absorbs are stored in what we call a locker: a space between the heart and lungs where Particles sit and accumulate. Once enough have built up, the Raider can push into the next realm. When that happens, it's similar to the initial awakening — the body reforms, and the Particle count surges."
"Okay," Damien said, ignoring Luka's barely contained excitement beside him. "But how does any of that make me an anomaly?"
"Let me put it this way." She folded her hands. "Your friend here would already be considered a prodigy with an initial count of 707. But you? An initial count of 999, we've never seen that before. You're both already D-rank within the first realm." She paused. "Particles can choose to leave during a realm push. The higher the initial count, the fewer that go."
"Told you we were special." Luka raised his eyebrows twice. "Now tell him about the soul abilities!"
The director's expression didn't waver. "I assume you've already sensed that your Particles are different from other Raiders', given that you were reading mine just seconds ago."
"I have." Damien looked at his hands, feeling the beast's lightning Particles humming beneath his skin. "I just don't understand why."
"When a Raider is truly unique, the Particles form around them, not the other way around." She leaned forward slightly. "So you don't have a magical affinity for fire, as I do, or for any other element. What you have is an ability entirely your own, one no one else can replicate."
She let that settle before continuing.
"Your Particles don't devour a beast's and convert them. They absorb them whole — magic and all — and make them yours. That's also why you're more sensitive to Particles than other Raiders. Beasts are too."
Damien was silent for a moment, taking it all in. He liked to think of himself as a smart man, having built a successful business and all, but it was almost too much to process at once.
Still, he was glad he was special. Not entirely for himself, though maybe a little. But if what she said was true, his goal of helping the Wastelanders had just become a lot more attainable.
The director stood and gestured toward the door.
"It's been a long day. I'm sure you both need rest before your training with the other newly awakened tomorrow morning. I've already given Luka the details, he can fill you in, Damien."
After shaking her hand, the two exited the office and stood outside her door for a moment, neither saying anything, each lost somewhere in their own head.
Then Luka slapped Damien on the back.
"You hungry? Let's go check out this thing they call a microwave."