"He wants to claim dominance and bend all to his will; the darker the world and its inhabitants become, the more alive and powerful he will feel." ― Marie Montine (Mourning Grey: Part Three The Guardians of the Temple Saga)

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The first light of dawn spilled across the broken landscape like a cautious whisper, as though even the sun hesitated to shine its warmth upon this place. Zone 0 had never welcomed daylight—not truly.

Even now, after six months of work to make it liveable again, it still carried the weight of what it once was.

Rex sat atop the watchtower, a silhouette against the bleeding horizon, one hand resting on the rusted steel railing as his gaze swept the glistening surface of the water in the distance. The tower groaned faintly beneath him, a quiet, uneasy sound in the wind. The land below was slowly breathing again—overgrown and reclaimed in some parts, scorched and dead in others.

But this… This was where it all ended. And where it would begin again.

The air still carried a faint scent of ash and iron, no matter how many rainstorms came. The ghosts of this place clung to the soil, the concrete, and even the walls. But Rex didn't flinch from them. He welcomed them like old companions. They were the only ones who remembered. The only ones who hadn't lied.

He closed his eyes, letting the breeze tug at his coat. It was heavy with dust, as was his soul.

Ten years.

More than ten years since the cries had fallen silent in those sterile, humming hallways. Since the doors slammed shut behind them. Since she vanished.

Seraphina Kroix.

He hadn't known her long—not by the measure of time, but she had burned bright, even in that hellish place. Like a candle flame flickering defiantly against the darkness of a world that wanted nothing more than to snuff her out.

Even as a child, she was headstrong. A force of nature. Rex remembered watching her stand up to the researchers, even when she couldn't stand at all. Beaten, sedated, stripped of food and name and worth—but still, she burned. Her eyes, steel and storm, never stopped fighting.

That kind of will doesn't vanish. It roots itself into the world. It grows.

So when whispers of someone named Zero began surfacing, leading a rogue vigilante group that was moving faster than the ESA could keep up with, he knew. No one else could've forged something like Aegis. Not without first surviving the fires of Project Nona.

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And by the Goddess, had they burned.

Rex's fingers curled slightly against the railing as the memories rose—vivid, cruel, and refusing to stay buried.

The white corridors of the Project. The sterile scent of bleach and blood. The echoing screams. The way the lights always buzzed—low and insidious, like they were alive and watching. That place had never been built to study. It had been built to break.

Rex had seen it all—the cages they called rooms, the false promises of 'enhancement' when they came for them with needles and restraints. The children who never returned from the black wing. The laughter of the doctors as they watched pain unfold, as if they were gods moulding clay.

And the hunters—those monsters in uniform, who paraded the halls like devils on holiday. Testing new weapons. Training for war.

But it wasn't until Chris died that Rex learned what hopelessness truly tasted like.

Chris, with his warm grin and terrible jokes, had been the only light in that place besides Seraphina. An older boy, protective to a fault. They'd caught him sneaking food to the younger ones. And when the white-coats ordered his execution as a warning, he still tried to shield them.

Rex could see it clear as day—Chris on the floor, blood blooming like a rose from his gut, whispering with his dying breath: "Live on."

It wasn't a plea. It was a command.

And Rex had. With fire in his lungs and grief in his bones, he had clawed his way out, carving a name into the world one corpse at a time. Mercenary. Ghost. A hound of the old world.

But beneath it all, the purpose remained.

He had seen the shift coming before others did. The way the public turned on the Gifted. The way propaganda whispered venom into ears. The way Nicolosi rose, charismatic as he was cruel, turning hate into a movement, a firestorm.

And so Rex rebuilt this place.

Zone 0—hidden, hollow, and forgotten.

No one would look for the Gifted here, because no one wanted to remember what had been done here.

The irony wasn't lost on him.

Rex opened his eyes again, watching as the light intensified, spilling like gold across the lake. The rebuilt encampment below was quiet, not yet stirring. A handful of survivors roamed about—Gifted who'd escaped the witch hunts, refugees from shattered towns, and even children who'd lost everything.

Some were soldiers. Others were barely standing. But all of them had nowhere else left to go.

The government had turned its back. The ESA was fracturing, bleeding from within, and was too tangled in its own shadow games to stop what was coming. Some of its agents still had hearts, maybe. But most just obeyed orders. And with the recent purges, even the Gifted hiding within the ranks had gone silent. Or worse, missing.

And the hunters? They were no longer just an organisation. They were a movement. Fuelled by blood and fear. Their supporters no longer even pretended to see the Gifted as human.

Rex had seen it.

Towns where Gifted children were strung up and burned like witches. Where mothers were dragged into the streets for "concealing corruption". Where even defending a Gifted neighbour could mark you as a traitor.

He had seen men laugh as they poured gasoline over a sobbing doctor. Children made to watch. Hunters filming it. Uploading it.

Nicolosi was a creature of myth to some, a hero to others—but to Rex, he was a butcher with a silver tongue. And worse, he believed he was right. That his cruelty was justice.

There was no compromise with men like that.

Only the grave.

Rex's thoughts were interrupted by movement below. A figure waving up at him from the base of the tower.

"Rex?" The watcher called, her voice echoing softly in the still air. He leaned forward slightly, squinting down. The woman—Mara, if he remembered right, shouted again. "There's been some movement on the waters. Some kind of boat."

Rex raised a brow, the wind brushing through his hair as he straightened.

A boat. They're early.

"Enemy?" Mara called again, her hand resting instinctively on the gun strapped to her hip.

Rex shook his head slowly. "No," he called down. "I'm expecting them. Tell the others to be on standby, though, just in case it isn't who I'm expecting."

He turned back to the horizon, where the faint outline of a vessel was beginning to take shape through the morning mist.

His jaw tightened. His heart was quiet and steady.

If it was Aegis as he suspected, then everything was about to change.

He could feel it in his bones. In the very soil of this cursed place.

Project Nona had never truly ended.

And now, its final players were returning to the board.

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