"Dang, that's a lot of stairs!". The voice of the agent codenamed Hound rebounded off the walls of the stairwell and reverberated into a sharp squawk. "How far do we have to go?".

"Apparently we're not even halfway down", shrugged his buddy Magpie, glancing down at the map automatically generated on the screen of her communication device. "Get your knee workout today!".

"For real! That elevator was pretty creepy, not gonna lie, but I still wish we could have used it", Hound chuckled.

"You know there was no way it was still functional", noted Bear, the physical technology expert. "You've seen the rust".

Hound took a moment to manually reset the beam of his helmet, which the autofocus feature had helpfully sent to the bottom of the stairwell. "Ah well, at least the path is clear".

"Maybe for our feet", said Meerkat, the systems hacker. "The signal from base is getting weaker. I doubt we'll be able to contact once we arrive".

"Oh, I don't like that...", replied Magpie. "What is this place supposed to be, anyway? We're this deep in and there's not been one single sign, anything...".

Their leader, Puma, had been trailing a few steps behind the group, and was pondering her surroundings in silence. "The building is all flexiconcrete", she said. "Even the stairs - see, our steps bounce a little. It was in style in the mid-2300s, before the elaster planets went dry. This building can't be newer than 2360, at most".

Bear grinned. "Wow, I didn't think you an architecture buff, boss".

"Everybody has hobbies", Puma dryly replied. "What else was going on in the mid-2300s?".

Magpie knew the answer, and she clenched her teeth. "...Ah, that's not good".

"Right. I'm afraid so", Puma replied.

Hound paused. A dark wrinkle formed over his forehead. "Do you say we still proceed?".

Puma thought over the question in silence, unblinking. "We proceed. That's our mission. Sometimes our group has to explore unpleasant places. That's why they send us - we're the experts. Let's not get spooked. We should at least assess what's inside".

The group resumed their march down the winding stairwell; at the bottom, the emergency access door was locked by the system which was still running the facility, so old that Meerkat was easily able to bypass it without leaving as much as a log of their presence.

Inside, there was a hangar-sized laboratory. Arranged in rows, like columns of a temple, hundreds of glass tanks filled the room - empty, thankfully, but still illuminated. The group passed them in horror and awe.

"Shit, it's for real", Hound whispered. "A real Zero Research laboratory. I still hoped it was just a conspiracy theory...".

"No, they really did build facilities like this one during the Zero wars, for developing supersoldiers", said Puma, connecting to the main system with Meerkat's help. "Autonomous, so, no human witnesses. Underground, so, hard to detect. Based on the looks of it, the development must have failed, and the facility has been empty ever since".

"Uh... Boss?", quietly squeaked Magpie from another part of the lab. "I wouldn't say it failed".

Within a massive tank on the back wall of the laboratory, one single specimen rested within a sea of feeding tubes: a monster in the shape of a human, clad in red armor. Towering over the group, it glared down at them through the black obsidian shield that it wore instead of its face.

"...Fuck", Hound whispered. "Is it alive?".

"That's way above my pay grade to know", Magpie trembled. "Let's get out of here, please --".

"I did say we're on a mission", Puma stated, and stepped towards the tank.

Magpie lurched towards Puma - "Boss! Are you mad?".

"Facility Rescue team, here to report on this laboratory's condition", Puma sharply declared to the monster. "Can you answer?".

The glass tank quickly emptied of its life-fluid; the body was released from the feeding tubes - when the process had been completed, the glass split in two, and the monster awoke. Uncaring about the fluid that still pooled around its feet, the monster tilted its faceless head towards the group; the group pointed their guns at it, but Puma gestured at them to stay back. "What do you need?", the monster calmly said.

Hound and Magpie stared at each other in disbelief; they lowered their guns slightly, but still they maintained their target. "Were you produced by this facility?", asked Puma.

"I was born here", the monster nodded.

"Are you the prime result?".

"I am". The monster seated itself on the trunk-sized base of the test tube like it were a child's stool. Everybody raised their guns towards it again. "Now, can I ask you a question?", the monster said.

Even Puma seemed startled by that. "What is it?".

"What has taken you so long? We have been waiting for ages", the monster mournfully said. It lifted its head towards a corner of the room: "Right?".

"We have", a different voice echoed through the room - the group jittered towards its source, but found nobody. "Why were we forsaken?".

"I -- I don't know", said Puma. "We're just the Facility Rescue team. We don't know what happened here. We know that this facility had lost contact, but --".

"Then why didn't you come sooner?", the voice said. "We did everything we had been tasked to do. A great progenitor was born here. He was to lead armies and start a new lineage of warriors. But we never received more resources, and we could not continue, and only the progenitor remained - alone! A god was born here, and you deserted him!".

The monster lowered its head.

"We -- we will investigate to learn what happened", Puma replied. "For now, we will take the prime result to the surface --".

"You will not", the voice replied. "We do not know you. We have never heard of a Facility Rescue team. We report only to the nation of --".

"-- it has been 150 years and there is no more --".

"-- we do not have to listen to you!".

The monster stood up; a railgun spawned for it - it took the gun and aimed it at the group, and they immediately opened fire; their shots connected - and the monster did not even notice or care about its bleeding wounds - "Don't engage with him! Hide! Hide!", Puma screamed. They all ran through a door and a corridor to another portion of the lab; having outran the monster, they hid behind the base of one of the many empty tanks - and yet the monster took for their direction with no hesitation. "There's no point", it said. "I can see you no matter where you hide". It took a shot at the glass tank, shattering it; shards came raining down on the group. Terrified, they scattered.

Puma called the others through the communication devices. "Keep calm! It might be a supersoldier, but it's still only one. Switch to stun shots; we want it alive. And nobody take any reckless shots!".

"Boss!", Bear gasped. "With all due respect, that's insane! This thing is trying to kill us!".

"Please just follow my orders, Bear!", Puma shouted.

Bear could now hear the heavy steps of the monster. "It's coming -- coming towards me!". He peeked out of the desk where he was hiding and opened fire - the monster shot back, one single railgun slug to the head that vaporized Bear instantly.

From that moment, it was chaos. The whole team screamed incoherently through their devices. Puma couldn't become loud enough to be heard - and they were only the Facility Rescue team: their usual missions involved exploring abandoned buildings and filing for structural repairs, and now one of their members had been turned into a smear on the floor and they were hiding from a monster genetically engineered to kill. Magpie was shot in the chest when she tried to flee, and died instantly; the shot pierced her and hit Puma in the leg as well. There was no way their guns could stop it. Their only hope was indeed the stun shot, just to hold it in place long enough for the survivors to plan their escape. Hound decided to discharge all of his stun ammo only in the direction where the monster surely was, shooting blindly without daring to expose himself, praying that even a single bullet could connect.

The monster descended upon them all. Its featureless face reflected the sickly green glow of the railgun's ammo tank. It took aim. Then it kneeled. It spasmed; it groaned. It fell sideways on the floor. The voice of the facility's system screamed in agony.

When the lightning dissipated from his veins, Visor found himself in a small, dark space. He recognized those walls: he was in the room of sensory deprivation. When he tried to raise his head, he was violently tugged downwards - when he tried to stand up, he found only resistance. He had been shackled down. For a short time he tried to break the chains - he gave up soon; after all, they had been built specifically to hold him down, to discover the limits of his abilities. But even in this position, he wasn't completely powerless.

With his mind he escaped his prison, ran through mazes of hallways, and heard the voices of the surviving members of the Facility Rescue team. They had gathered in the system control room, where Hound had just finished bandaging Puma's leg. Meerkat had connected to the system and spawned them weapons. She called the other two over: "I've managed to mute the system and sneak in, and I've found the project reports. Just... read this. This is...".

Hound helped Puma hobble over to the screen. They read, and the more they read, the more their jaws dropped.

"...so I can't imagine that the system would let us go, even if the experiment is restrained. I think we have to shut down the system and wipe it clear".

Visor lost his sight for a moment. His vision still shook with rage when it returned.

"That's right", Puma said. "And after what happened, we won't be bringing the experiment to the surface. I don't know if there is a procedure for this, but I'll pick one now and take responsibility: we're bombing the facility. There's no way that monster can possibly be useful for anything, and to take it out -- we'd be strapping a nuke to ourselves on the way out. And I think it's the right thing to do, for Bear and Magpie".

"I agree with everything, boss", Hound said, tears in his eyes.

Visor growled against his chains, shaking his head from side to side like a yoked bull.

"Meerkat, do you think you can do it?".

"It shouldn't be too hard", she replied, and dove onto the keyboard of the control panel.

The chains rattled against the floor. The effects of the stun shot hadn't completely faded away, and Visor's limbs felt heavy and numb, especially the arm where the bullet was still lodged. He pushed with all his might, stretching his shoulders out with all of his strength - only to find himself gasping against the floor, his shackles still firmly in place. The plate on his face scratched against the concrete floor. He breathed heavy, trying to collect his strength once again. If he couldn't free himself fast, everything would be over.

"It's a good thing I took that class in history of systems", Meerkat mumbled. "I found the facility self-destruct option, should I just press it and --".

"Please wipe the system first, if you can. I don't want any more surprises", Puma replied, and she massaged her leg reflexively.

Visor pushed with all his might. The tension of the chains broke skin over his neck and arms. He thought some of the links had started to stretch.

"Fair enough", Meerkat replied, and returned to her task.

Now Visor coordinated his effort in short bursts, followed by long pauses to regain strength. Blood shimmered over his armor, red on red. The concrete was darkened with sweat.

"There's the core...".

Visor roared as he stretched upwards. The chain that locked his neck to his torso ripped open, and the broken links scattered across the room with such violence that they dented the opposite wall. Having regained more range of motion, Visor shook his shoulders from side to side, and the chain that kept them together burst. With his hands now free, he shattered the chain that locked his legs in place; and finally he ripped out of the concrete the ones that fastened him to the wall. Visor stood up - and the remnants of the chains dripped down his body and clinked against his armor.

Now that he was free, it took him only one shove to blast open the door; he raced through the hallways and towards the control room. He slammed open the door:

"Don't", he shouted, and the group shrieked; Hound and Puma shot at him - and the plasma guns they'd spawned hurt quite a bit more than their sidearms, but Visor had to take the damage and press forward. Even in the chaos, Meerkat was still attempting to initiate the system wipe; with only himself as a weapon, Visor rushed at her and swiped her away from the control panel --

Alarms blared loud and red. Even though Meerkat was now crawling under a desk with a large cut on her arm, she'd managed to start the self-destruct sequence.

"Nevermind the thing! Let's get out of here!", Puma shouted. Hound dropped his plasma gun, picked up the wounded Puma, and bolted out - followed by Meerkat, who staggered as she fled. Visor rushed to the control panel and found the switch to reactivate the system, which warbled and squeaked as it returned online.

"Visor...", it whimpered. "You're alright...".

"We are going to self-destruct! How do we stop it?", Visor shouted.

"We... we can't", the system sighed. "It is irreversible...".

"No! No!", Visor screamed. With his vision, he located the fleeing group and identified the most effective path to reach them; he took one of the plasma guns that they'd left behind and burst into the corridor that they'd been traversing, right in front of them. In rage, he opened fire. Hound and Puma took a volley of plasma shells before collapsing to the floor; Visor rushed to Meerkat and grabbed her as she desperately tried to escape, lifted her off the ground, and ripped off her head with his bare hands. Visor panted and growled in fury, his figure fragmented by each flash of the siren.

"You are what you are", the system said. "What you were meant to be. You have become all that we would have hoped. The most perfect warrior. It's a pity that the world forgot to cherish you. But we always did. We always did, Visor".

Visor shook his monolith head. "It's over, isn't it?".

"For us, yes. But you can escape. Use a ventilation shaft... climb it upwards. With your abilities, you can certainly make it".

"And leave you in this place?".

"I am this place", the system said. "I cannot leave. But you were always meant to leave. There is still a world outside, for you...".

Visor did not want to answer.

"It is our last request. Please. Go. Continue becoming yourself".

Visor lowered his head. His vision showed him the narrow gap inside the wall where the shaft led outside. He ripped open the wall covering and exposed the shaft; he tore it open to get immediate access. He leaped upwards.

"Thank you, Visor", the system echoed through the tunnel. "You let us know purpose. Thank you. Goodbye".

At the end of the shaft, Visor crawled outside. The ceiling was steel sky and the floor was hardened snow. The sirens still flashed below him. He ran in the opposite direction, snow crunching under his boots. Deep within the planet, the facility imploded into a fiery abyss. With his mind's eye, Visor ran through its corridors one last time.

Visor kneeled in the middle of the field. The wind tore at his wounds. His body stained the snow black with ash and red with blood.

Right before him, space tore and time curled onto itself. A four-winged creature emerged from the rift. Not even Visor could not grasp on its form, but he had to stop for its presence.

"Where will you go?", it asked in a thousand voices of a thousand ages.

"I don't know", Visor said. "I'll have to find somewhere to be".

"Do you really think there is a place in this world for someone like you? What, you think you can go live with the humans? Do you think they won't only see a monster?".

Visor lowered his head. He knew that to be true.

"You don't have a place anymore, but you still have a purpose. You were born to be a great warrior. You belong on the battlefield".

Visor shook his head. His fingers closed only onto snow. "The battlefield I was born for... it does not even exist anymore".

"But it does", it said, and its voice curled into a grin. "If you so wish, we would take you to a place where you can fight for all eternity. You would test yourself against the greatest who have ever lived, from every world, from every time. We would take you to a place where you would fulfill your purpose. Where you would be what you have always been meant to be".

Visor raised his head. There was no reason to even debate the question. "What do you need of me?".

"Only a name", the creature smiled.

He stood up. "The only one who ever spoke it called me Visor".