A slow, suffocating fog clung to their minds. A heavy weight pressed against their limbs, their bodies numb, distant—like they weren't their own anymore. Then—a metallic hum.
Dim, flickering lights buzzed overhead, casting sickly green glows across sterile, metallic walls. The Brotherhood awoke, one by one. Strapped down. Chained. Bound.
The beds beneath them were cold, lined with steel restraints locking their wrists, ankles, and necks into place. Their bodies wouldn't move. Even breathing felt… unnatural. Too controlled. A rhythmic beeping filled the room—machines monitoring something.
Then, shadows moved. Figures, faceless beneath reflective visors, glided through the room. Clad in long, sterile coats, they whispered to one another in hushed tones, their voices muffled by thick, black masks.
Gloved hands reached for needles, scalpels, syringes filled with opaque liquids. Tubes ran from the walls, feeding into their veins. The thick, viscous fluid inside wasn't just medicine. It was something else.
Razhaan's dragon scales cracked as one of the surgeons pressed a scalpel against his arm, extracting a fragment of his mutated flesh. The moment the tool touched his skin, a low, electronic whine echoed—some kind of dampening field. His body wouldn't heal.
Vaelith's head jerked slightly, but his mind was a hollow void. Something had torn into his consciousness, ripped it apart and left him with only static. He could feel something missing, like a limb that had been cut away—his power, his essence, his very self had been hollowed out.
Magnar watched in horror, unable to move as mechanical arms extended toward his chest. The metal beneath his skin shivered, struggled— but it obeyed them. Not him. A long needle plunged in, extracting liquid metal straight from his bloodstream.
Every one of them was being dismantled, piece by piece. Their blood, their DNA, their very mutant nature—extracted, studied, repurposed.
Malak awoke to pure agony. Unlike the others, he wasn't just strapped down. He was suspended. Thick, barbed chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles, keeping him stretched midair over a circular platform. The metal links glowed with an eerie golden light, humming with an energy that felt holy—divine.
It burned. It boiled his flesh, searing deep into his bones. Every second was an eternity of white-hot pain.
His demonic blood rebelled, trying to heal—but the moment it did, needles jabbed into his spine, injecting a thick, black fluid. His veins froze, his muscles seized, and a sharp, bone-deep ache replaced his power.
A figure in crimson robes stepped forward, different from the others. Not just a scientist—something else. He lifted a gleaming scalpel.
Malak snarled—or tried to. His throat was raw from screaming. The scalpel pressed against his chest. The pain was instant, sharp, but it wasn't the worst part. No, it was the sensation—something beneath his skin shifting, crawling, resisting.
His soul. The blade wasn't normal. It was pulling something out of him. His infernal essence. Malak thrashed, struggled—but the chains pulled tighter. The golden glow surged, frying his nerves, burning his body from the inside out.
The robed figure watched, fascinated, as his dark blood oozed from the wound. But instead of dripping to the floor, it rose. Tendrils of black-red energy curled from his body, spiraling into a glass vial held by a mechanical arm.
Malak howled, but the walls swallowed the sound. The others—Razhaan, Magnar, Vaelith—were still in their own torment, but none suffered like this. Malak felt something fracture inside him. His fire. Piece by piece, they were ripping Hell out of him.
The robed figure finally spoke. A cold, detached whisper. A command. The chains tightened once more. Malak's vision blurred. His breath shuddered.
The chamber doors hissed open. A gust of sterilized, ice-cold air drifted through the corridor as the robed figure emerged, his crimson robes stained black from the Cambion's blood.
Beyond him, the harvest room remained eerily silent. The only sounds left were the soft beeping of machines and the faint, shuddering breaths of the mutants who survived.
The robed figure adjusted the vial in his grip, lifting it slightly. Inside, the dark, shifting essence swirled like smoke, pulsing with an otherworldly light. A piece of Malak.
At the end of the hall, Silas waited. Standing with his hands clasped behind his back, the Supreme Commander of the Capitol Patrol Guard studied the approaching figure with his usual cold detachment. His uniform—impeccable as always—contrasted sharply against the bloodied robes before him. Without a word, he extended a gloved hand.
The robed figure didn't immediately comply. He glanced at the vial, then at Silas, his expression unreadable behind the metallic mask. A silent hesitation. "Did you succeed?" Silas finally asked, his voice level.
A pause. Then, the robed figure tilted his head slightly. "Define 'success.'"
Silas's jaw tensed. "The extraction. Is it complete?"
The figure let out a low chuckle—dry, humorless. Amused. "You humans," he mused, rolling the vial between his fingers, watching the liquid essence shift. "Always reducing the unknown into something simple, something you can contain."
Silas's gaze hardened. "You're avoiding the question."
The robed figure took a step closer. The golden symbols along his robe dimly pulsed, remnants of whatever ritual had just been performed. He held up the vial, observing how the substance fought, struggled— as if it were still alive. "A Cambion," he murmured, "is not merely a mutant."
Silas arched a brow. The figure continued, voice slow, deliberate. "You think in terms of classifications—Level One, Level Two, Level Five. But Malak was not born from genetic mutation alone. He is the result of something older. Deeper. A fusion of infernal lineage and mortal flesh. He is not just strong—he is cursed. A walking blasphemy against nature itself." His fingers tightened slightly around the vial. "And yet, here it is. Stripped away."
Silas regarded the swirling black-red essence for a long moment. Then, a smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I don't believe in magic," he said evenly. "Only science we haven't classified yet."
He took the vial, holding it up to the dim, artificial light. "This," he muttered, watching the dark liquid churn inside, "isn't a curse. It's just an advanced form of unknown energy. And like all things, energy can be harnessed."
The robed figure tilted his head. "And if you're wrong?"
Silas met his gaze without hesitation. "Then I'll be the first to control it."
The robed figure's fingers twitched at Silas's words. He hated men like Silas. Men who thought everything could be dissected, classified, and controlled. "You're a fool," the robed figure spat, his voice sharper than before. "You think because you've put Malak in chains, because you've extracted a fragment of his essence, that you've won? You think because you hold a vial of something you do not understand, you now have power over it?"
Silas barely blinked. His grip on the vial remained steady, his smirk unwavering. "I don't need to understand it," he said, calm as ever. "I only need to know how to use it."
His hands curled into fists beneath his robes. "You mistake arrogance for intelligence, Supreme Commander. You play with forces that predate your entire civilization. If you think you can turn this into some tool of war, then you are no better than the kings of old who thought they could chain the gods."
Silas took a slow step forward. "Watch your tongue, Doctor," he murmured, his voice dropping to a quiet, lethal tone. "You seem to forget why you're still breathing. Why your precious Arcaneum Academy still stands, untouched by CPG enforcers. Why your little magical school hasn't been raided, its students dragged into our labs like the Brotherhood mutants we just captured. You work for us."
Silence. A long, seething silence. He exhaled slowly through his nose, reigning in his temper. "I work with you," he corrected, voice measured. "Not for you."
Silas chuckled, turning the vial slightly so the dark essence inside swirled ominously. "Keep telling yourself that, Doctor."
Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away, while Silas stepped into the elevator, the metallic doors hissing shut behind him. The hum of machinery filled the silence as the lift descended, deeper, lower, past levels known only to the highest-ranking CPG officials. This was the heart of their dominion.
The control panel glowed with restricted clearance symbols, but no input was needed—the system recognized him. The air grew colder, the pressure heavier, as the elevator came to a stop. The doors slid open to a corridor unlike any other.
Flanking the passage were S-Class Guardians, towering figures clad in obsidian exosuits, their glowing visors scanning everything with inhuman precision. Each stood motionless, but Silas knew they could tear through steel in seconds.
Alongside them, CPG Blackguards stood at full attention, their armor plated with anti-mutant alloy, weapons outfitted with adaptive countermeasures for every known mutant ability. Their gauntlets hummed with suppression tech, and their plasma carbines were linked directly to combat AI.
Each guard was handpicked—only the most ruthless, unwaveringly loyal CPG operatives were stationed here. But even they had never seen what lay beyond the final door.
The passage led to an imposing, reinforced gateway, embedded with layers of kinetic shielding and runic inscriptions—not magic. Just another science waiting to be classified. Silas placed his hand on the biometric scanner.
The door rumbled. Gears twisted, mechanical locks disengaging with a sound like distant thunder. The energy field rippled, then collapsed inward, and the massive gateway groaned open.
Inside, bathed in flickering, ominous light. Five towering cylinders stood in absolute silence. Each one filled with a swirling energy of immense, terrible power. Silas stepped forward, his eyes reflecting the glow of the five figures suspended within.
Zeus—A massive, armored figure, its form crackling with golden lightning, arcs of wind energy coiling around its plated limbs like a living storm.
Hades—Cloaked in black and crimson, its mechanical frame pulsing with dark fire, shadows licking from within its core, as though the void itself hungered inside.
Poseidon—A sleek, fluid construct, its form shifting between liquid and ice, the very air around it shimmering with unearthly cold.
Cronos—A being of gravity and void, its metallic body subtly distorting space around it, as though it existed in multiple realities at once.
Athena—The most refined of them all, elegant yet absolute, its core radiating pure mana, tendrils of raw energy weaving in synchronized patterns—the very essence of controlled power.
The tanks pulsed in unison. The chamber hummed, each containment pod glowing in its respective element. Silas's lips curled into a slow, satisfied smirk.
He placed a hand on the nearest cylinder, the glass warm with potential. "Welcome to the Olympus Protocol."