As the pair steps through the door their aether transforms the unassuming trinkets on their bodies into weapons that materialize in their hands.

Stepping into the light their appearance comes into view.

The man named Drystan was tall, standing at a height of 6 feet 2 inches. His body was strong and muscular, earned through years of rigorous training and battles with a bronzed skin that came from long hours spent under the sun.

The striking, chiseled features of his face were framed by a dark brown rugged beard that hinted of his seasoned experience. A horizontal scar ran above the tip of his nose and across his right cheek, giving him a fierce and battle-hardened appearance. His short-cropped hair was the same shade as his beard.

His companion Fiora was no less of a striking and formidable figure. Standing at 5 feet 10 inches, she possessed a toned and athletic build. Similarly to Drystan, her body was sculpted through years of rigorous training and battlefield experience.

She had sun-kissed bronze skin, a testament to her time spent under open skies. Her dark brown hair was tied back, revealing a warrior’s intensity in her hazel eyes.

They were both wearing full bodysuits with armor plating similar to the boy, except their colors were different.

Their suits were varying shades of gray, the bodysuit a shade darker than the composite material armor plates covering their vitals.

On their backs, they wore white cloaks with generous width and length, adorned with the insignia of a full circle and a flaming ring surrounding it in sharp gray.

Despite their matching uniforms, they were each carrying a different weapon.

Drystan was carrying a heavy-set sword with a broad straight double-edged blade. The blade itself was dark gray, a stark contrast against the dull red color of the grip and fuller at the center of the blade.

In addition to supporting the blade, the fuller was also designed as a path for his aether to pass through. Down at the hilt, the cross-guard had a reddish/brownish shade and was curved upward on both sides of the grip like daggers.

Fiora was carrying a spear that had a straight brown shaft with a silver tanged spearhead. Just like Drystan’s sword, the spearhead had a dull red fuller for channeling aether through the blade. At the end of the shaft's length, there was a silver counterweight used for balance during attacks and for striking unlucky opponents.

Shielding their eyes from the intense brightness inside the containment chamber, they stood at the entrance, looking at the smooth polished white shapes placed in an arch around the door.

A minute passes as they stand but nothing happens.

“…are they broken?” Fiora asks.

Just as the words leave her mouth, the smooth white shapes silently float upward into the air. Without making any noise they levitate toward the pair.

Faint outlines on their sides split open and two energy rifles extend outward on both sides from inside the oval shaped drones.  

As they fix their rifles on the pair and close the distance between them, a mechanical automated voice booms out of the security drone closest to them.

“YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO ENTER THIS FACILITY. YOU ARE NOW BEING DETAINED. DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND LIE FACE DOWN ON THE GROUND WITH YOUR HANDS TIED BEHIND THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD. FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN LETHAL FORCE.”

The pair simply stare at the floating drone, not moving an inch.

“Try the round key thing on them.” Fiora breaks the silence.

“I told you it’s not going to work.” Drystan replies.

“How do we know for certain until you use it?”

“Did you not hear a single word of what I just told you?”

“No I heard you, but last time I checked you had 0 education in artificing since you’re just a random muscle head. What the fuck makes your opinion so expert?”

“……If you had bothered to listen then you would know it’s not my opinion, those were the words of the artificer who gave me the key.”

“Yeah, and he said that the cybercode was a thousand years old which means there is a large margin of error.”

Drystan could feel his frustration bubble at her words. He turned toward her to give her a piece of his mind but she abruptly cut him off by raising a palm.

“No time for bullshit, heads up they’re attacking.”

“TIME FOR COMPLIANCE IS OVER, ENGAGING LETHAL FORCE.”

The sixteen energy rifles on the sides of the eight drones begin charging power, getting ready to fire.

Holding back his indignation at Fiora’s words, Drystan raises his sword, while she takes her stance with her spear in hands.

The fight starts as the drones fire their energy shots at the duo and they react instantly.

The two warriors split up, dashing in opposite directions at the speed of a fired bullet, just as the drones' energy shots strike the now-empty floor where they had been standing.

Following their movements, the drones split into two groups of four to engage the separated warriors.

Dashing onward to the left of the chamber, Fiora suddenly stops, letting the group of drones get close to her.

They fly toward her in a neat file while charging their second shot. Zeroing in on her, the group fires but they only hit the empty floor again as she disappears into thin air right before their sensors.

Her speed was such that the drones failed to register her swift jump that was dozens of feet in the air, nor could they perceive the arc of her spear slicing through all four of them in a single wide swing, as if cutting through butter.

The cut drones crash to the floor as their bodies ooze transparent liquid out of their sliced openings.

Meanwhile on the right, the second group fires their shots at Drystan who does not bother to dodge out of the way.

The eight energy shots hit his torso and explode in a surge of plasma and energy, their temperature enough to melt steel.

But Drystan withstands the impact and power of the blasts and emerges without a single scratch.

The hovering drones instantly recharge their energy rifles for a second shot while he shifts his stance for an attack.

With his feet planted on the floor, he swings his sword in the empty air toward the four floating drones that were clearly out of his range.

Despite his sword never making contact with the drones’ bodies, they slice apart in the air as if cut with a sharp blade before tumbling down.

They crash to the floor with a burst of sparks and flames, transparent fluids leaking out of their open cut sections.

Fiora walks over to him, flicking her spear to get rid of the transparent fluid coating the blade.

“These were the security drones? Really? The punch they pack is pathetically weak.”

Scanning the containment chamber for any more security measures, Drystan answers.

“Remember, these drones were prepared a thousand years ago. It’s not that they’re weak, their power was optimally designed to deal with the darklings of that time period.”

 Fiora’s eyes widen at his words.

“….then that means.”

“It’s the darklings that have gotten a hell of a lot stronger during this whole time.” He completes her sentence.

“What the fuck are these bugs hunting and killing that they’re growing so powerful. There is literally nothing else on the entire planet!”

“When they don’t find anything to kill, they start fighting and devouring each other. Not in large numbers of course, just enough to boost the quality of their top hitters.”

“Are they really that smart?! Looking at them it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot going on upstairs.” Fiora exclaimed.

“That is a mystery, the individual darkling is nothing more than a feral beast but when you put them together in the thousands like the dark hive then things start to get weird.”

He begins walking toward the door at the end of the containment chamber as he talks, Fiora following close behind him.

“The hive in its entirety displays an intelligence that is staggering. It breeds specialized darklings, designed for each and every role as if it’s keeping a record of what it needs. Also, scouts have told us that there are routine patrols along its borders, just imagine that.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of that.” She agreed.

  “That’s not all, they also routinely test our borders. Each night a patrol of those damned dark bugs come in to test our protective barrier and not just on one side, I mean every side simultaneously. Relentlessly searching for any weakness or opening. Every. Single. night.”

Fiora shuddered at his words, remembering the living black cloud of claws, fangs, and legs.

“…..I didn’t know it was every night…..why haven’t I heard of this?” she asks, showing a mixture of surprise and anger in her tone, even a tinge of fear.

Drystan answers without looking back at her, his eyes fixed on the nearing door.

“Lord Alfzaar and the council decided that for the sake of the people’s mental peace and security it would be better to not publicize the darklings’ daily sightings and reports. Besides, it’s an open secret, they’ve been doing this for about more than 800 years now. It has been happening every single day for the past 800 years. I’ve seen the earliest report entries myself.”

Hearing this piece of information, Fiora’s steps faltered as she struggled to digest what he had told her.

“….You’re kidding…”

“I wish I was.” Drystan answered in a matter-of-fact tone before continuing.

“If that’s not enough, I’ve also read all the reports of the skirmishes against the hive and there are a lot. There have been on and off fights against the dark hive throughout the years. There was even a time when lord Alfzaar and the council were strategizing different ways to end the hive.”

“….and they all failed?! Even lord Alfzaar?!” Fiora asked with a loud voice, getting more surprised with each bit of information.

“According to the reports, at first the extermination was going smoothly. The dark hive had gathered a bit of territory sure, but they were quickly driven back. In fact, the hive’s territory had fallen to just one hundredth of the scale it is today.“

“And then what happened?” Fiora asked, clearly invested in the history lesson.

“The darklings began to mutate.” Drystan answered, reaching the door at the end of the long containment chamber.

He brings out the round lens like key and starts scanning the hidden panel on the door’s left before continuing.

“It was roughly four hundred years ago according to the entries. Almost all the records before this four-hundred-year mark were victories but after that it was all heavy losses on our side. The mutation created the new darkling class we all know as hunters today and when they hit the battlefields it became a massacre.”

The key finishes scanning, prompting an affirmative beep from the door as it slides open. Drystan puts it back inside his cloak and steps into the narrow gray corridor inside, continuing the historic tale.

“A single hunter darkling had enough aether coursing inside to level an entire brigade and there were more than enough of them. The nature of the fight changed after they showed up, it was no longer a war but a meat harvest for the bugs to feast on. It was a brutal loss in which hundreds of thousands of the strongest warriors died.”

Fiora gulped, seeing the bloody scenes of war in her imagination.

Spotting the door at the end of the gray corridor, Drystan takes the key out of his cloak again.

“After that there were two more attempts to fight the dark hive but they all ended in similar failures. The high number of casualties only seemed to provide food to fuel their growth so lord Alfzaar and the council finally decided to give up. The strategy changed to starving the hive to extinction by not giving them anything but as we’ve both just saw, it’s not working as well as everyone believed.”

Having finished his tale and reached the door, he begins to scan the hidden panel on its side to unlock it.

Fiora stood behind him, stewing over everything he had told her.

As the door lets out an affirmative beep she asks him a question.

“So, the hunter class darklings we fought today, they were the same class that fought in the wars?”

Drystan steps through the door and into the central control chamber of the facility. Observing the floating white chairs and ring like table, he answers her.

“No, the old records contained the hive’s military capabilities of that time, namely their aether counts and strata levels. Both of those values were pretty high but compared to the darklings we saw today? It’s like day and night. Despite facing no military aggression from us their power has grown tremendously. The darklings today were far more powerful.”

“…….and we’re facing such a threat at a time when we’ve lost lord Alfzaar.” Fiora added with a disillusioned tone.

“That is precisely the reason why we’re here. If we retrieve our mission objective then lord Alfzaar will be with us again, more powerful than that rotten council can ever imagine.” Drystan replies with a tone brimming with hope and resolution.

He approaches the floating white table with his key mechanism in hand and scans a semi-circular orb sticking out of its smooth polished surface.

A faint hum of machinery resounds out of the hidden panels around them as all the orbs along the table’s circular boundary activate. Glowing white lines flow throughout the edges of each orb and the entire room brightens.

In the middle of the gap of the ring like table, a woman wearing a long flowing white robe with silver hair and eyes materializes.

“Hello my name is Arya, nice to meet you.”