Chapter Text
Lucas Clark must have had the most boring job in the world.
Being a security guard for a Schnee Dust Company outpost in the middle of Solitas's frozen wasteland gave a man a lot of time to think. After several months of listening to howling winds and humming fluorescent lights, Lucas had reached a firm conclusion. His job sucked.
It was his turn for the graveyard shift, which meant another night alone in the security room. The space was little more than a cluster of monitors, a few rolling chairs, a gun locker, and what could barely be called a kitchen. A folding table with a mini-fridge underneath and, on top, a cheap coffee maker beside a microwave currently cooking his dinner.
He stared blankly as his cup of ramen spun in slow circles, the same rock playlist droning through his headset for what had to be the twenty-fifth time. If he'd known there was no Wi-Fi out here, he would've downloaded more music. Maybe an audiobook or two about something smart, like science.
He'd taken the post because it sounded easy. Even with the rise in White Fang activity across Atlas, Outpost 210 was hardly worth attacking. The place just stored spare parts for mining machines. Cogs, treads, wiring. If something broke down nearby, they could ship replacements fast enough to keep Mr. Schnee's mines running without pause. Wouldn't want the old man's profits to suffer, right?
Still, Lucas couldn't complain too much. After all, it was Schnee's overflowing pockets that paid his own. Sometimes you just had to gripe about something pointless to kill the time. The outpost housed maybe eight security guards and twice as many maintenance staff. The concrete perimeter walls were topped with automated turrets, backed by a platoon of security droids. Grimm weren't a real concern; the guards were just there to make sure nobody snapped from cabin fever.
The microwave beeped. Lucas pulled out the ramen with a paper towel glove and started blowing on it as he rolled his chair back to the desk.
He half-watched the monitors while stirring his noodles. Nothing new. Most of the staff were asleep, and anyone still up was either on patrol or fixing something minor. Lucas twirled a forkful of noodles and took a bite, ready for another long, quiet night on the-
"Do you hear me?"
"OH SHIT!" Lucas yelped, nearly launching his ramen across the room as a deep voice crackled through his earpiece. He caught the cup just in time. "Goddamn- don't do that!"
"My apologies," the voice replied, low and gravelly. "I was testing the comms to see if I could get through. I didn't mean to startle you."
Lucas shook his hand, wincing as hot water stung his skin. "Yeah, well, you nearly made me spill noodles all over the console. Would've been both our asses if I fried the keyboards again."
A distorted chuckle answered. "Wouldn't want that now, would we?"
Lucas frowned. The voice didn't sound like anyone he knew. Too deep, too rough, almost... mechanical.
"Who is this? How do you have access to this channel?"
"I borrowed an earpiece from one of your colleagues," the stranger said smoothly. "As for who I am… you can call me Warlock. And you are?"
Warlock? That couldn't be real. And "borrowing" a guard's earpiece? That was a security breach big enough to get everyone fired.
"This is Officer Clark, SDC Security," he said, his tone snapping into professionalism. "Now explain, clearly, how you got hold of another guard's equipment."
"In due time, Clark. But first, I'd appreciate a little help. I'm in Warehouse B, standing next to the maintenance console near Dock C. Can you see me waving toward the camera?"
Lucas blinked. "What-?" He glanced over his wall of monitors, flipping between feeds until he found Warehouse B.
His cup of noodles hit the floor.
Under the glare of an overhead light stood a tall figure in a dark purple winter coat and a gray fedora trimmed in gold. His face was impossible to make out, obscured by a swarm of shifting pixels, like a cloud of buzzing flies. Amid the distortion, two bright aqua lights burned where his eyes should've been.
He was waving at the camera. Next to him, slumped against the wall, was the limp body of a security guard.
"What the… uh, i-intruder in Warehouse B!" Lucas shouted into his comm. "Officer down! I repeat, officer down! All units respond!"
"I'll take that as a sign you can see me. Good."
Warlock's voice was deeper now, distorted by a clear voice modulator. On screen, the figure turned toward a nearby wall console, fingers moving quickly over a hard-light display.
"Now, tell me if something happens when I press... this."
The lights flickered. Then the security room door slammed shut with a thunderous clang, followed by a series of metallic thunks as locks engaged.
Lucas ran to the door and pounded on it. "Shit! Help! All units respond! Why isn't anyone answering!?"
"I've already rerouted the comms." Warlock said calmly. "At the moment, I'm the only one who can hear you. So don't waste your breath calling for backup."
Lucas froze, dread creeping up his spine. He was trapped. Alone, cut off, and surrounded by dead air.
He couldn't call anyone; he didn't have their personal numbers. The fire alarm was out in the hallway, and the base-wide emergency trigger was on the head of security's keychain.
Why the hell didn't they put an alarm inside the security room?
"You don't need to worry about your colleague," Warlock continued, his tone almost reassuring. "He's merely unconscious. He'll recover. Eventually. As for you, Clark..."
The pixelated eyes on the screen glowed brighter, staring straight into the camera.
"Just sit tight and enjoy the spectacle. We wouldn't want you breaking anything trying to play hero. I'll be seeing you soon enough."
Warlock turned back to the console, pressing a few final keys before pulling out his scroll. He held it to the glowing interface, transferring data in silence.
When the download finished, he reached into his coat and drew out a small golden locket on a brass chain. He opened it, turning the contents away from the camera.
Lucas could hear his breathing over the comm. Harsh. Unsteady. For a moment, the intruder seemed to buckle, one hand braced against the wall as if the air itself had grown heavy.
Then, slowly, he straightened. The breathing leveled. With one quiet click, he closed the locket in his fist.
"No more hiding," he whispered.
He tapped a button on his scroll. Instantly, the entire outpost flared crimson as alarms blared through the storm.
Lucas could only stare at the screen, frozen, as the stranger drew his pistol and walked deeper into the facility. Sounding off the alarm himself…?
"W-what...?" he muttered.
"Clark? Do you read? What's going on?"
Lieutenant Irving's voice came over the comm. Tired, rousted awake, but urgent enough to snap Lucas back to work.
Lucas started to warn him, but a warped version of his own voice beat him to it. "There's an intruder in the building, sir! He took down Bloomstein in Warehouse B. He's heading to the main lobby. Toward security. One intruder, armed. I repeat: intruder armed!"
"Got it. Group on security. Keep eyes on him and update."
"Yes, sir."
"NO!" Lucas toppled his chair. He was leading them into a trap. On the monitors the outpost was erupting into motion. Workers scrambling to shelter, security throwing on coats and slinging sidearms over pajamas. Irving himself was moving like a freight train: ammo bandolier over a sweat-stained undershirt, shotgun in hand, the one he'd kept mounted by his bed instead of in the weapons locker.
Irving punched his scroll as he ran through the snow toward the main building. Around the base, charging pads spat out security droids which clattered off their mounts and fell into formation, following unseen orders as they swarmed the halls. All of it funneled into a single target: the intruder, who walked the corridors like he owned them.
"This is Milo and Sandra. We're moving through the south wing toward the warehouse. We'll try to catch him by surprise. What's his position?"
Warlock's shadowed figure glanced up at a wall map. "You just missed him. He slipped past the south wing toward the center. You can catch him from behind if you hurry."
"Roger that, Clark."
"It's a trap!" Lucas shouted at the screen, but his warning vanished into static as Milo and Sandy closed on the junction where Warlock waited.
On camera, Warlock pressed a small circular device to the wall, then palmed another. When the guards rounded the corner, he tossed one disc at the back of the closest guard and put a round straight through the other's knee. The bullet punched clean through, Milo's aura must have been down.
Milo went down, howling. Sandra spun, raised her weapon, and slammed face-first into the wall where the first disc sat. Both discs glowed purple, their field snapping shut around her and knocking her out cold.
Warlock kept walking toward security, booting Milo's pistol away with his foot and giving the wounded man a pistol-whip for good measure. He tapped his comm. "I've lost contact with Milo and Sandy. Must've taken them out of camera range."
"Fuck," Irving hissed. "That bastard's going to pay."
A dull thud reverberated against the blast door. Lucas switched to the foyer feed: Irving, three other guards, and a dozen droids were massed outside. "Open the door, Clark! It's us, we need the weapons locker!"
"I'm afraid I can't do that, sir."
"It's not me- I can't open it!" Lucas yelled, louder, heart pounding.
Irving's gruff voice was laced with confusion. "What? Why the hell not?!"
Silence on the radio. Then that warped duplicate answered in his own voice, flat and close. "...He's coming your way."
Lucas stayed by the door, waiting for the lieutenant's reply, but none came. He sprinted back to the console, eyes darting across the monitors. On-screen, Irving was barking orders, flipping furniture into makeshift barricades while two-thirds of the droids stormed into the south wing. The rest stayed behind, weapons raised, guarding the foyer.
Down the hall, the camera feeds showed eight droids advancing in formation, two lines of four, machine guns deployed, sweeping the corridor. On another screen, Warlock peeked around a corner just a few doors down.
"It appears the ruse is up, Clark."
"You're outnumbered, Warlock," Lucas said, his voice steadier than he felt. "You've got nowhere to run."
"Then let's even the odds."
Warlock tossed a small metal sphere that rolled to a stop between the first four droids. Its red lights blinked faster and faster until glowing solid. The machines froze, then rebooted with their visors blazing crimson.
The newly turned droids twisted their torsos toward their uninfected counterparts. For a heartbeat, the two groups stared each other down. Then the hallway erupted.
Gunfire tore through the feed. Tracer rounds filled the corridor with a storm of sparks and ricochets. One by one, the cameras went black under stray fire. The last image Lucas saw was Warlock walking calmly into the carnage, another device in hand, before the screen cut to static.
With the feeds gone, Lucas switched to the foyer view outside the security room. Irving stood at the center of the barricade, three guards on each side, four droids positioned along the flanks. All guns trained on the double doors to the south wing.
The silence stretched. Even from behind the monitors, Lucas could feel the tension pressing down. Then, at last, Warlock made his move.
The explosion hit like thunder. Even through the sealed door, the blast rattled the room. The monitors flared white before showing the aftermath: the foyer doors had been blown clean off their hinges, spinning through the air like shrapnel before slamming into opposite walls.
As the guards scrambled to their feet, the droids opened fire. Five machines, scored with battle scars, visors burning red, charged through the smoke, some shooting, others sprinting in with arm blades extended.
The foyer dissolved into chaos.
Lucas watched as one guard tried to stand his ground, only to be flung backward by a droid's swing that shattered his aura. Irving parried another's blade with the butt of his shotgun, flipped it, and blew the machine's head off at point-blank range. Another guard wasn't as lucky, pinned down and riddled with bullets as his aura gave out and slammed through his shoulder.
The loyal droids fared better at first, mowing down a few of their corrupted twins, but the balance shifted again as Warlock strode into the smoke. A hardlight shield shimmered in his left hand, a revolver sparking with Dust rounds in his right. Each shot cracked with precision. One bullet, one target.
He moved with surgical focus, every blast of his revolver dropping another droid in a shower of sparks. Within seconds, the room was littered with scrap metal and wounded men.
The last conscious guard swung a baton at a hacked droid before taking a slash to the leg, collapsing beside his comrades. Now only Warlock and a single red-eyed droid remained amid the wreckage.
Then Irving roared.
The lieutenant vaulted over the barricade, charging the last droid. He slammed into it with the full weight of his body, lifting the machine clean off its feet and driving it forward. With a grunt, he hurled it toward Warlock.
The hacker dodged aside as the droid crashed into the floor in a heap of twisted steel. Warlock raised his gun, but Irving was already on him. The burly man wrenched his shooting arm into a lock, headbutting him hard enough to send the intruder sprawling. Warlock's aura flared lime green under the impact, barely absorbing it, and his revolver clattered across the floor.
Warlock scrambled backward as Irving leveled his shotgun. The intruder raised his hardlight shield just in time, the impact of the shot spiderwebbed cracks across the barrier.
He retreated further until his back hit a broken droid. Thinking fast, Warlock slapped one of his purple discs onto the machine's severed arm and another onto Irving's chest.
Lucas barely processed what happened next.
Both discs pulsed violet, and the arm ripped free, shooting across the room like a javelin. The blade punched straight through Irving's chest. His aura shattered in a flash of dark green light before the color drained from his eyes.
He looked down at the spreading blood, exhaled once, and fell.
Lucas felt his stomach drop with him.
For a moment, Warlock didn't move. Through the static haze of his pixelated face, Lucas couldn't tell if the man was horrified or just… empty. Around him were the broken remains of the security team, some moaning in pain as they covered their wounds, others lying unconscious. Then Warlock rose and straightened his coat. Breathed in. Breathed out. Then walked over to retrieve his revolver.
And then, he turned toward the security room.
Panic surged through Lucas. He stumbled to the weapons locker, punching the code in wrong, twice, before the door finally opened. He grabbed a shotgun, spilling shells across the floor, loading them one by one with shaking hands.
That's when a calm voice came through the comm.
"Officer Clark?"
"S-stay away!" Lucas's voice cracked. "I've got a gun pointed at the door, so piss off!"
A pause. Then Warlock's calm reply. "I need to come inside, Clark. I can't leave until I do."
Lucas stood, cocked the shotgun, and made sure the sound carried through the mic. "I. Said. Leave! Step one foot inside and you're dead!"
"There's no need to be afraid," Warlock said evenly. "I don't want to kill you."
"Bullshit! You murdered Irving!"
"No." The word came quiet and flat. "It was me or him. I chose him. That wasn't murder, it was war. I wish I could tell you it was an honorable death, but it wasn't. Tell me, Clark, what do you think he was fighting for? Atlas? The innocent?"
Warlock's tone hardened.
"No. He died for money. For orders from a man who doesn't even know his name. He died protecting scraps that belong to someone who already owns everything."
The anger beneath Warlock's modulated voice began to crack through. "Lieutenant Irving didn't die a hero. He died as Jacques' lapdog."
Lucas's throat tightened. He wanted to scream, curse, pull the trigger, but couldn't.
Warlock wasn't wrong. Jacques Schnee didn't know or care who they were. Irving had probably never even met him. The lieutenant had died defending a warehouse full of spare parts… cogs and wires, because someone said it was his job.
Was that all Lucas would die for too?
Would anyone even care?
"Clark." Warlock's tone cooled again, precise, mechanical. "In three seconds, I'm opening this door. I'll walk in, and I'll ask you to surrender. Do the smart thing. Don't make the same mistake."
Lucas' hands shook, but he kept his shotgun trained on the door.
Then, with a heavy hiss, the blast door slid open.
The man who stepped through looked almost spectral. Tall, framed by the flickering lights, his teal eyes glowing beneath the brim of his hat. His gun hung at his side, ready but not raised. The pixels that had once obscured his face were gone, replaced by teal-tinted goggles and a patterned bandanna covering his mouth. The geometric designs almost looked like code, something to scramble his face on camera.
For a long moment, neither spoke. Their guns stayed locked on each other.
Lucas swallowed hard and slowly lowered his shotgun.
"Drop the gun," Warlock said. "Handcuff yourself to the mini-fridge."
The command wasn't loud, but it left no room for argument. Lucas obeyed. The click of the cuffs echoed in the small room.
Warlock holstered his pistol. "I'm glad you could see reason. There's been enough death tonight."
He stepped over to the bank of monitors. "You know," Lucas muttered, voice flat, "I don't even get what you're after. The outpost's yours, but there's nothing worth stealing here, unless you plan on hauling a few crates of industrial parts back through the snow."
"True," Warlock said, fingers flying across the console. "But what this outpost lacks in valuables…"
He pulled up multiple feeds, the carnage of his attack playing out across every screen.
"…it makes up for in high-definition cameras."
Before Lucas could ask what he meant, Warlock held his hand over the terminal. A green shimmer pulsed up his arm as streams of glowing ones and zeroes lifted from the hard drive and spiraled into his palm. One by one, the monitors blinked to error messages before resetting to the Schnee Dust Company logo.
"What did you just do?"
"I got exactly what I came for."
"All this… for security footage?" Lucas stared at him, dumbfounded. "You attacked a supply depot just to steal camera feeds?"
Warlock gave a short laugh. "When you say it like that, it does sound absurd. But think, Clark, what's on those recordings?"
Lucas blinked, realizing. The footage. Every angle. Every second of Warlock's assault. Broadcast-quality proof of what he'd done.
"You wanted to record yourself."
Warlock snapped his fingers. "Smart man. This…" he gestured around the room "...is my declaration of war. A warning to my enemies. And an invitation to those who'd stand beside me."
A war. Lucas thought back to what Warlock had said earlier, about not committing murder in war. This lunatic wasn't just attacking the Schnee Dust Company. He was declaring open rebellion.
"Why?" Lucas asked quietly. "Why do any of this?"
Warlock went still. One hand drifted to his coat pocket, the same one that had held the locket. His reply came soft.
"To undo a mistake."
He let the words hang a moment, then tilted his head.
"By the way, Clark. Left or right-handed?"
"What?"
"It's a simple question. Which hand's dominant?"
"I'm left-handed, but what does that-"
The gunshot cut him off. Pain exploded through his right shoulder. "FUCK! You shot me!"
"You're welcome." Warlock holstered the smoking revolver. "If investigators find you completely unharmed, it'll look suspicious. This way, it looks like you put up a fight."
Clark clutched his shoulder, eyes wide. "You're insane!"
"Maybe," Warlock said, turning toward the door. "But I'm also free."
He paused at the threshold. "Get out of this business, Clark. Go back to school. You're too sharp to waste on guard duty."
With that, the masked man tipped his hat and tapped his scroll.
The monitors flickered. Schnee logos dissolving into a new symbol: a single golden, cursive W gleaming against the dark.