Thin, ghost-like trails of soft steam evaporated continuously from his warm skin, rising in elegant ribbons that blurred his silhouette against the dim room, hot humidity rolled out of the open bathroom door as Edgar stepped into the dim bedroom, his brown skin glistening and completely soaked. Droplets of water still clung to his chest, tracing slow, cold paths down his torso and dripping steadily onto the worn floorboards.
Ignoring the chill, he walked straight over to the tall mirror set into the dark wood of the wardrobe.
Staring at his naked, glistening reflection, Edgar looked exactly like what he was: a twenty-six-year-old street criminal trying to survive a meat grinder. The dull, flickering ceiling light did no favors to his features, but it was his eyes that truly gave him away. They were bloodshot, heavily rimmed with a bruised darkness—the permanent shadows that only months of frantic, uninterrupted insomnia could carve into a man's face. He looked like someone who had entirely forgotten what a dream felt like. Right beneath his rib cage, a dark purple discoloration bloomed across his abdomen—a brutal reminder of the night he had been tied to a chair, utterly helpless and alone..
He reached for the pack on his nightstand, tapped out a cigarette, and placed it between his lips.
CLINK..
CLINK..
Whooshh
With a sharp flick of his lighter, an orange flame illuminated the shadows for a fraction of a second. Edgar took a deep, burning drag, exhaling a thick, bitter cloud of tobacco smoke that began to curl lazily across the glass of the wardrobe mirror.
Today was the day. The day Edgar was supposed to be a good little dog and show up for his forced appointment with Lisa Choi's pet project—the Prisma Squad.
Turning back to the bed, he eyed the immaculate black tuxedo layout waiting for him, exchanged with the previous day's beautiful haul of twenty-three gold pieces. It was tailored, sharp, and looked entirely too heavy for a street-level ant like him. Shaking the remaining water from his hair and skin, Edgar stepped into the trousers, buttoning them with a rhythmic snap.
"Somehow, I feel the urge to sing," Edgar muttered to himself. "Hmm... the legendary Maroon 5 song keeps ringing in my head. That will do."
A low hum started deep in his chest, vibrating through the quiet room. His raspy, smoke-strained voice caught on the exhale as he began to sing softly, treating the empty apartment like a private stage.
"Oh yeah..."
"Oh yeah."
"So scared of breaking it that you won't let it bend."
He reached for the crisp white shirt, sliding his arms into the sleeves. As the fabric clung to his damp skin, his feet began to catch the invisible groove of the song. He took a slow, theatrical step to the left, pivoting on his bare heel with a smooth, mocking slide across the floorboards as he neatly fastened the buttons from the bottom up.
"So let me be, and I'll set you free..."
The words bled into the room with a rhythmic. Edgar swayed his hips to the baseline, rolling his shoulders in a slow, dramatic routine before the mirror. A twisted smirk crept onto his face as the melody hung in the air. Misery. It was the perfect anthem. To Edgar, the entire world inside the dome was nothing but a beautifully constructed theater of misery. He envisioned Rai—the legendary giant who traded his humanity for raw muscle building, only to become a bloated mountain of obesity who suffocated just from breathing. He thought of his recently met acquaintance, Captain Samad—blessed with hyper-regeneration, yet cursed to experience the helplessness of trading away his life, his lifespan, or his sanity just to crawl a few inches higher in the dirt..
Standing before the mirror, he looped the black silk tie around his collar, executing a sharp, playful spin on his toes that matched the song's slow, steady pulse.
"I am in a misary"
"There ain't nobody who can comfort me. Oh yeah.."
He pulled the knot tight against his throat, staring directly into his own bloodshot eyes.
"Why won't you answer me.."
"The silence is slowly killing me, Oh yeah.."
The music in his voice grew slightly louder, pacing perfectly with his movements as he slid his arms into the black tuxedo jacket. He smoothed down the lapels, watching his reflection transform. The fabric was immaculate, instantly cloaking his cynical posture in an aura of wealth and absolute confidence he had no legal right to possess.
As he hit the next line, Edgar closed his eyes, letting his Wavelength Detection flared.
"So let me be.. And I'll set you FREEE!.."
WHOOSSSSHH!!
The invisible, ambient frequencies of the room expanded, slowly widening out into the entire building, picturing themselves clearly in Edgar's mind—the distant, anxious Alpha and Beta waves of hundreds of employee waking up to face their own personal miseries. He didn't just hear the building; he felt its rhythm. He had mastered those waves. He knew exactly how to differentiate them, how to align his own intent with their mental friction until his targets gladly handed over their hard-earned silver without a fight.
As his Wavelength Detection pushed past the walls and into the surrounding building, a sharp, metallic tang flooded the back of his throat. A single, dark drop of blood leaked from his left nostril, hot and fast. His vision blurred for a fraction of a second as his brain reeled from calculating hundreds of overlapping emotional frequencies at once. He caught himself against the wardrobe, with a heaving chest.
Then, Edgar paused his dance. wiping out his blood dripping from his nose. He stood perfectly still before the wardrobe mirror, grounding his posture.
He drew in a massive, deliberate inhale. The air rushed into his lungs, and with it, his presence seemed to expand, drawing the very shadows of the room toward him. For a long, heavy moment, he held the breath, letting his power ripple just beneath the surface. When he finally let out a slow, controlled exhale, the thick gray tobacco smoke poured from his lips like a cascading fog, cloaking him in a dense, magnetic field of pure pressure. The sheer, overwhelming weight of his aura settled into the room—sharp, predatory, and deeply deceptive. He was farming the ambient energy of the room, turning a cheap apartment into the dressing room of a king.
If the world was a miserable, rigged game, Edgar was going to be the finest street criminal hypnotist it had ever seen. If Lisa Choi and her Prisma Squad thought they could tie him to a chair and tax his life away like Rai and Lucy did, they were dead wrong. He will survive. And becoming strong. He would become strong. Strong enough to never bend his knees again.
He took one final, deep drag of his cigarette, blowing a dense wall of smoke straight at the wardrobe glass, drowning his own reflection out as he belted the final lines of the verse.
"Girl.. You really got me bad.. You really got me bad..."
"Now I'm gonna get you back.. I'm gonna got you back."
With a fluid snap of his wrists, Edgar adjusted his cuffs and finished the song.
He checked the remaining cigarettes in his pack and slid it back into his pocket.
Six sticks left... need to restock soon. With that, Edgar left his room and headed to the location assigned by Tayley on their way back to the quarters.
---
By 1:53 p.m., Edgar had reached the designated meeting place. He easily spotted Tayley, the giant Prisma, and two other squad members he didn't recognize.
"Wow, you look diffrent, Mr. Edgar. That attire really suit you." Prisma spoke suddenly, her eyes locking onto Edgar the moment he walked up. "Just sit wherever and take a moment with the greenery here. We're waiting for one more person. I assigned him a mission this morning."
Edgar didn't voice his thoughts, but looking around, the scenery truly wasn't bad. Towering oak trees stood over ten meters tall, circling the area like a natural wall. The lush grass and manicured smaller trees created a perfect pocket of nature. Who would have guessed that the east side, right next to the industrial research buildings, held such a comfort for the eyes?
They waited for about fifteen minutes, but the last person failed to show his face. Edgar internally applauded the guy's bravery. Daring to make a giant female squad leader wait for you was an impressive gamble.
Ting...!
Prisma pulled a sleek communication orb from the tactical pouch strapped to her thigh. Suddenly, a blue hologram flickered into existence in front of her.
"An urgent report for Squad Leader Prisma," a voice transmitted from the projection. "Your man, Daniel, was found dead near the District 7 outer lingkar by the Outer Police. The authorities report his heart was punctured by a blunt weapon, leaving a wound twenty-three centimeters wide. His corpse will arrive tonight after receiving formal recognition from the department related. Please head to headquarters for further details."
"Those MTHRFCKRS!!!" Prisma roared. "How dare they touch Daniel! Screw this, I'm going to fucking wreck them! Just you wait!"
Edgar's vision strobed. In his mind's eye, Prisma's frequency didn't just spike—it shattered. The neat, rhythmic Beta waves of standard human anger collapsed, replaced by a jagged, blinding storm of pure Gamma state screaming at 630 Hz. It was a frequency that shouldn't exist in living tissue. To maintain that level of mental friction without her brain liquefying meant her biology had completely discarded regular human anatomy. Edgar instinctively took a step back, his own waves dropping into a suppressed, cold Alpha state just to avoid drawing her attention.
By comparison, an ordinary person experiencing a fit of pure rage peaked in the high Beta wavelength at around 40 Hz.
"Squad Leader Prisma, we need to take revenge for Daniel," said one of the unknown men, his tactical gear pulled tight and flush against his body. "We already know who did this. Just give us the command, and we'll take those bastards' heads tonight."
"We will," Prisma snarled, her jaw tight. "But I need to get official affirmation from HQ first. Let's move. Ari, Nina—you're with me."
She paused, her sharp gaze cutting back to Edgar. "No, someone needs to prep Edgar for his job. Hmm... Nina, stay. Dump the new guy at Admin and get him papered. He's tagging along tonight at 10:00 p.m. If he steps out of line, let him end up like Daniel."
"Yes, ma'am. I'll do my best," Nina replied. Her response was sharp, disciplined, and entirely devoid of hesitation. She was the perfect example of a loyal underling.
"All members, dismiss!" Prisma shouted. Without wasting another second, she rushed toward the headquarters building, with Ari tailing just behind her.
Once the dust settled, Nina stepped closer to Edgar and offered a firm, professional handshake. "It's Nina. Just Nina. Tier 2 Receiver, Sensory Reaction trait. Follow me; I'll bring you to the administrative building. You need to file your incorporation paperwork for our squad and receive a special briefing on your operational duties."
She turned and led the way. Watching her from behind, Edgar noted that Nina was the absolute epitome of ordinary. She possessed an average build for a girl, standing roughly 160 centimeters tall. Thankfully, she lacked the bulging, unnatural muscles of the heavy combatants. With her short black hair, pale skin, and slight, narrow eyes, it was easy to tell she shared the same Far-East lineage as the squad leader Liu that I've met before.
I wonder why she didn't give a family name, Edgar thought, falling into step behind her. Trauma? Hidden past? Whatever. Better to just follow along and perform my very first job flawlessly.
As Edgar and Nina disappeared down the path, a lonely figure remained standing under the shade of the oaks.
"Am I really being forgotten here?" Tayley muttered to the empty air, sighing heavily. "Just my luck..."
Shaking his head, the giant squad support member turned and walked back toward his own quarters entirely alone.