The next day , at school.
The fluorescent lights of the classroom hummed with a headache-inducing buzz. Max stared at the clock, willing the second hand to move faster, but time seemed to have engaged its own slow-motion power.
"Maxwell!"
Max snapped his head up. Mrs. Higgins was looming over his desk, holding his abysmal history essay (which he had scribbled in ten minutes on the bus).
"Care to explain why The Great Gatsby ends with a spaceship battle in your version?" she asked, her eyebrow twitching.
"Creative liberties?" Max offered weakly.
"Detention. Tomorrow," she slammed the paper down just as the bell rang.
"Saved by the bell, literally," Edy whispered as they shuffled out into the hallway.
They headed for the boys' restroom, the sanctuary of high schoolers everywhere. Eren was bouncing on his heels, vibrating slightly. "Man, detention? You're on a roll. Maybe you can use your Void power to erase the detention slip."
"Ha ha," Max grumbled. He walked behind them, his hand brushing the metal case in his backpack. The Severance Serum. It felt like he was carrying a bomb. How do I tell them? Hey guys, wanna forget your parents forever?
They pushed into the restroom. Edy was in the middle of a joke about the cafeteria meatloaf when—
BZZZZZT.
All three wrists lit up simultaneously. The sound was sharp, cutting through the chatter.
"Siren!" Eren hissed, checking his watch. "Class 3 Guut. Location: The Abandoned railyard. Two miles out."
"Class 3? A snack," Edy grinned. He tapped his earpiece. "Malina, code red. Railyard. Meet us there."
They pulled out the clay dolls. Click. The dolls expanded, morphing into perfect replicas of the three boys. "Cover for us," Max told his doppelgänger. The doll nodded blankly and walked toward the urinal.
"Let's go!"
They didn't have the teleporter, but they had Eren. He grabbed Max and Edy by the backs of their shirts.
"Hold onto your lunch!"
ZAP.
The world blurred into streaks of color. Three seconds later, they skidded to a halt on the gravel of the old railyard. Malina was already there, having sprinted from the library, her breath steady despite the run.
"Over there!" she pointed.
In the center of the tracks, Harry was dancing—literally dancing—around a creature that looked like a giant, mutated hyena made of jagged bone and shadow. It snapped its jaws, but Harry, moving with surprising agility for an old man, side-stepped and fired his revolver. Bang! A chunk of the creature's shoulder blew off, but it kept coming.
"Harry needs backup!" Edy yelled. "Green Mode!" His eyes glowed neon green as he tried to push a mental command into the beast's brain: Sleep.
The Guut stumbled, confused, shaking its head.
"Now!" Harry shouted.
But the Guut shook off the mental attack. Its red eyes locked onto the new arrivals. Specifically, it locked onto Max. The Void inside Max acted like a magnet for the monsters.
With a shriek, the Guut ignored Harry and launched itself across the tracks, claws extended, aiming straight for Max's throat.
"Max!" Malina screamed, rushing forward to intercept.
She wasn't going to make it.
Max watched the beast flying toward him. Time slowed down again. But this time, it wasn't fear he felt. It was... familiarity. He remembered the feeling of the previous Guut—the one he had absorbed. He remembered how it moved. How it turned into liquid shadow.
Move like the shadow, a voice inside him whispered.
Max didn't jump. He didn't run. He simply... shifted.
As the Guut's claws swiped through the air where Max's chest should have been, Max's body dissolved into a cloud of violet-black mist. He flowed around the attack, immaterial and fluid, reforming solid flesh three feet to the left.
Harry's jaw dropped. "That movement..."
Max stood there, stunned. He could feel the energy bubbling under his skin—not his energy, but the other energy. The energy he had stolen. It wanted out.
The Guut turned, growling, ready to pounce again.
Max raised his right hand instinctively. "Get... away!"
He didn't just shout. He pushed.
VOOOM.
A concentrated beam of solid, oily shadow—the exact same power the Marauder had used—erupted from Max's palm. It hit the Class 3 Guut square in the chest with the force of a freight train.
There was no screech. No fight. The beam enveloped the Guut, and in an instant, the creature disintegrated. It turned to gray dust before it even hit the ground.
Silence descended on the railyard.
"Did..." Edy lowered his hands. "Did Max just shoot a laser beam made of darkness?"
Malina walked over to the pile of dust, kicking it with her shoe. "Total molecular disintegration. One hit."
Max looked at his hand. Smoke was rising from his fingertips. "I... I didn't know I could do that."
Harry holstered his gun, walking over slowly. He looked at Max with a mixture of pride and deep, calculating concern. "We need to get back to the shop. Now."
An hour later, school was out, and the four friends stood in the familiar dim light of Shop No. 5.
"It makes sense," Harry said, pacing back and forth while the teenagers sat on the counter. "The Void Fluid is not just an eraser. It is a sponge. When the Marauder attacked you, you didn't just destroy its power. You ate it."
He stopped and pointed at Max. "You are a living battery, Maxwell. You absorb the energy of the Guuts, and now, it seems you can discharge that energy as a weapon. You used the Marauder's shadow-shift to dodge, and its density-blast to attack."
"So I can use the powers of the things we kill?" Max asked, eyes wide.
"Theoretically," Harry nodded. "Which makes you the most dangerous weapon we have."
The excitement in the room was palpable. Even Malina looked impressed.
"That is insane," Eren grinned, vibrating slightly. "Max is like a video game character who loots abilities!"
"However," Harry's voice dropped, cutting through the mood. He looked at Max. "This power comes with responsibility. Max... did you speak to them?"
Max froze. The smile vanished from his face. He looked at Edy, Eren, and Malina. They were looking back at him, confused.
"Speak to us about what?" Malina asked sharply. "Max?"
Max looked down at his shoes. "I... I couldn't."
Harry sighed heavily. He reached under the counter and pulled out the metal case again. He opened it, revealing the four vials of clear liquid.
"What is that?" Edy asked. "More power juice?"
"No," Harry said. "This is the Severance Serum."
Harry repeated the speech he had given Max. He told them about the danger to their families. He told them about the Guuts hunting bloodlines. And he told them exactly what the serum would do—erase them from the memories of everyone they loved.
When he finished, the silence in the shop was deafening.
"You're joking," Edy said, his voice devoid of humor. "My dad... he won't know me?"
"He will be safe," Harry said. "But he will not know you."
Eren stopped vibrating. He looked terrified. "But... I just live with my aunt. She's all I have."
Malina was silent. She was calculating. Her eyes darted from the vials to Harry, then to the floor. "The probability of a Class 8 Guut finding our families is 94% once we become active field agents," she whispered. "If they find them... the survival rate is zero."
"Exactly," Harry said softly.
"So we have a choice," Malina said, her voice shaking slightly. "We let them die because we want to be remembered... or we let them live and become strangers."
Max finally looked up. "I didn't want to tell you guys because... because it's unfair. We're just kids. We shouldn't have to give up our lives."
He walked over to the case and picked up one vial.
"But I saw that thing in Eren's house," Max said. "I saw how close it got. If we don't do this... there won't be a world left to remember us anyway."
He looked at his friends. "I'm doing it. I'm joining full time."
There was a long pause.
Then, Edy stepped forward. He wiped a tear from his eye, forcing a smirk. "Well, my dad always said I was forgettable. Might as well make it official." He grabbed a vial.
Eren took a deep breath. "If I have super speed, I can watch over my aunt from a distance, right? Even if she doesn't know me?"
"You can," Harry promised.
Eren grabbed a vial.
Malina looked at the last one. "Logical," she said simply, though her hand trembled as she took it. "It's the only logical choice."
"To the HPF," Max whispered, raising his vial.
"To saving the world," the others replied.
Together, they drank the clear liquid. A strange, cold sensation washed over them, a feeling of threads being cut, of tethers snapping.
Somewhere in the city, a mother looked at a photo on her mantelpiece, blinked, and then frowned, wondering why she had an empty picture frame on display. She picked it up and put it in a drawer, feeling a vague sense of loss she couldn't explain, and went back to cooking dinner.
In the shop, Harry watched the four new agents.
"It is done," Harry said quietly. "Welcome to the shadows."
The empty vials sat on the counter, glimmering under the dusty shop lights. A heavy silence hung in the air—the kind of silence that marks the end of a life and the beginning of something unknown.
Harry closed the metal case with a final, decisive snap.
"It is done," he said softly. "The connection is severed. As of this moment, you are no longer citizens of this country. You are agents of the Human Protection Force."
Max rubbed his chest. He felt... lighter. But it was a hollow sort of lightness, like a piece of his soul had been scooped out. He looked at Eren, Edy, and Malina. They looked pale, staring at their hands, likely wondering what their families were doing right now—and realizing they would never know.
Harry cleared his throat, pulling them back to reality.
"There is one more thing," Harry said, his tone shifting to business. "While you were fighting at the railyard, the sensors in your watches were transmitting biometric data. specifically, Max's data."
He looked at Max. "The energy reading when you fired that shadow beam... it was unprecedented. I sent the report to High Command immediately. It flagged instantly."
"Flagged?" Max asked nervously. "Like, in a bad way?"
"In a 'highest priority' way," Harry corrected. "I just received a transmission. The Supreme Commander—the Head of the HPF—is coming here. Tomorrow morning."
Edy choked on air. "The big boss? The guy with the eyepatch? Coming here? To Shop No. 5?"
"He wants to meet the team," Harry said, eyeing Max. "And specifically, he wants to inspect the Void vessel. It is a rare honor, and a significant pressure. Do not embarrass me."
Harry gestured toward the back of the shop. "Since you have no homes to return to, you will live here from now on. The base extends far deeper than the cavern you've seen. Follow me."
They followed Harry into the elevator. He pressed a button marked B-4: Residential.
The doors opened to reveal a long, sleek corridor lined with metal doors. It looked less like a home and more like a submarine or a high-tech bunker. The air was recycled and cool.
"This is your new home," Harry said, walking down the hall. "These are not luxury suites, but they are secure. No Guut can breach this level."
He pointed to four doors. "Malina, Room 401. Eren, 402. Edy, 403. Maxwell, 404."
"Go inside. Familiarize yourselves. There are uniforms in the closets. Showers are en-suite. Sleep well, agents. You start at 0600 hours."
Harry gave them one last nod and headed back toward the elevator, leaving the four teenagers standing in the hallway.
"Well," Edy said, his voice echoing slightly. "This is it. Dorm life."
"It's better than getting eaten," Malina said, though she sounded like she was trying to convince herself. She opened her door. "Goodnight, guys."
"Night," Eren mumbled, vibrating slightly less than usual as he disappeared into his room.
Max opened the door to Room 404.
It was small. A single bed with grey sheets, a metal desk, a small wardrobe, and a narrow bathroom. It was perfectly functional and completely impersonal.
Max walked in and sat on the edge of the stiff mattress. He looked at the blank walls.
Yesterday, his room had posters of rock bands and piles of dirty laundry. His mom had shouted at him to clean it up.
Mom.
He closed his eyes, trying to picture her face. He could see it—the worry lines, the warm smile. But he knew that right now, if he were to walk into his old house, she would look at him with polite confusion, like he was a salesman or a lost tourist.
A lump formed in his throat. He pulled his knees up to his chest.
"I did it to save you," he whispered to the empty room. "I hope you're happy, Mom. Even if you don't know why."
He lay down, staring at the grey ceiling. The exhaustion of the day—the fight, the fear, the serum—finally crashed over him.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The alarm on the wall terminal blared at 6:00 AM sharp.
Max groaned, rolling out of bed. He felt different today. The sorrow was still there, tucked away in the back of his mind, but there was also a steely resolve. He was an agent now. He had a job to do.
He opened the wardrobe. Inside hung a sleek, black tactical uniform made of a material that felt like Kevlar but moved like silk. It had the HPF insignia—a shield and a sword—stitched in silver over the heart.
Max put it on. It fit perfectly. He looked in the mirror. He didn't look like a high school student anymore. He looked dangerous.
He walked out into the corridor just as Malina, Eren, and Edy emerged, all wearing identical uniforms.
"Sharp," Edy whistled, checking himself out. "I look like a ninja."
"Let's go," Malina said, adjusting her collar. "Harry said 0600."
They took the elevator up to the main cavern—the Chamber of Echoes.
Harry was already there, standing at attention near the black stone table. But he wasn't alone.
Standing next to him, flanked by two heavily armored guards, was the Supreme Commander.
Up close, the Head of the HPF was terrifying. He was a mountain of a man, wearing a long trench coat adorned with medals. A jagged scar ran from his forehead, through his eyepatch, and down to his jaw. His remaining eye was a piercing, electric blue that seemed to scan their very souls.
Harry stepped forward. "Sir. This is the new unit. Agents Malina, Eren, Edy... and Maxwell."
The Supreme Commander didn't speak at first. He walked slowly down the line of teenagers, his heavy boots echoing on the stone floor. He stopped in front of Max.
He towered over Max, staring down with an intensity that made Max want to shrink into the floor.
"So," the Commander's voice was a deep rumble, like thunder. "This is the boy who eats shadows."
He leaned in close, his one eye narrowing.
"Show me."