Behind me, the Salvage Team's scanner painted the floor in sweeping blue pulses.
I ran.
The corridor outside the test bay was not the same industrial grey I had crawled through before. This was older. Maintenance level. Pipes ran along the ceiling, some lagged with crumbling insulation, others bare and sweating condensation. The air was warm, thick with the smell of hot metal and circulated lubricant.
I needed distance. I needed cover. I needed to stop leaving bloody handprints on every surface I touched.
The glove lining was already darkening at the fingertips.
Twenty meters. Thirty. I forced my legs to pump harder. My lungs, still raw from the furnace, protested with each breath.
A junction ahead. Left or right. I hooked left without thinking.
The temperature dropped twenty degrees in one step.
It was like running into a wall of ice. My chest seized. My diaphragm locked. I stumbled, caught myself on a cold pipe, and dragged in air that burned. A vent grille on the wall was rimed with frost, its housing vibrating with the outflow of a cryo-storage unit. Cold exhaust washed over me in continuous waves.
I pushed off the pipe and kept moving.
"Test bay is empty. He's in the maintenance spine, heading toward Sector 6."
Vasquez. Calm. Methodical. His voice carried through the corridor like he was reading a checklist.
"Cut him off at the pressure bulkhead. Kessler, you're closest."
"I see his thermal trail. He's leaking heat like a ruptured core."
That was Kessler. Aggressive. Impatient. His footsteps were heavier, faster, closing.
I needed to change my thermal signature. I passed a floor grating that pulsed with warm exhaust from below. I dropped to my knees, pressed my body against the metal, and let the heated air wash over me. It burned my damaged skin. But it also blurred my outline on whatever scanner Kessler was using.
"Lost him at the grating junction. He's playing games."
"Patience. He can't hide his blood trail."
I looked down. My gloves had left wet, dark prints on every surface I'd touched. The ceramic lining wasn't absorbing the fluid; it was channeling it to the seams, leaving a perfect transfer pattern.
I tore a strip from my shirt, ripped it in half, and wrapped it around both gloves as tight as I could. The fabric turned red almost instantly. But it slowed the drip.
I stood and ran.
The corridor dead-ended at a T-junction. Two directions. Two choices.
Left: A vent shaft, narrow, dark. The schematic in my memory placed it near a maintenance exit. I could fit. I could escape. But the interface plate was too wide. I would have to leave it behind.
Right: A maintenance crawlway, half-obstructed, marked with warning stripes. Hot. The air shimmering above the floor panels. It would burn. But the plate would fit.
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I went right.
The heat hit like a returning enemy. This wasn't the furnace, but it was close. The crawlway ran parallel to a primary exhaust conduit, its casing radiating enough energy to warp the paint. I dropped to my hands and knees—my screaming hands—and pulled myself forward.
The interface plate, strapped to my chest, clicked against the metal floor with every movement.
"Contact. He's in the hot crawlway."
"Kessler, wait for drone support."
"I don't need a drone. I need two minutes."
Boots on grating. Closer.
I reached the end of the crawlway and emerged into a small equipment alcove. Pipes, valves, a maintenance terminal. And a dead end.
No. Not dead end. A service ladder, leading up into darkness.
I grabbed the first rung. My right hand slipped. The fingers wouldn't close fully. I grabbed again, using my palm, using my forearm, pulling myself upward.
Below me, Kessler's helmet appeared in the crawlway opening.
"Got you."
I climbed. Three meters. Four. My grip failed twice. Each time I caught myself with my elbows, my chin, anything that would hold.
Then I reached a maintenance platform. And I still had the transponder chip.
It was dead. No power. The battery had given its last pulse hours ago. But the chip itself was a passive RFID tag, its ID code etched into a ferromagnetic core. Even powerless, it could be read by any scanner within ten centimeters.
I palmed it, pressed it against the platform's edge, and waited.
Kessler's gauntlets appeared on the ladder rungs. Then his helmet. Then his shoulders.
He hauled himself onto the platform, breathing hard.
"You're done. That plate is tagged asset recovery. Hand it over and you get processed standard. No extra pain."
I didn't answer. I slapped the transponder chip against the back of his shoulder pauldron, where he couldn't see it.
The ferromagnetic backing held.
Kessler didn't notice. He reached for me.
Then his suit comms squawked.
"Kessler, your biometrics just flagged as a contaminant. The system thinks you're the Variable. Sanitization drones inbound, ETA twenty seconds."
"What? That's—"
A new sound. High-pitched, multiple rotors. Two sleek white drones rounded the corner, sensor arrays glowing red.
Kessler turned. The drones locked onto the chip on his shoulder.
[CONTAMINANT IDENTIFIED: UNIT 734-CC]
[SANITIZATION PROTOCOL ACTIVATED]
"I'm not the—this thing is stuck on my armor—"
The drones fired. Not lethal. Adhesive foam. Kessler's arm locked against his torso as the spray hit. He stumbled backward, clawing at the hardening mass.
I didn't wait. I swung off the platform, caught a lower rung, and dropped the last two meters to the floor.
Then I ran.
I ran until the sounds of the pursuit faded. Until the only thing I could hear was my own breathing, ragged and wet. Until I found a maintenance junction, a small alcove behind a deactivated power distribution unit, and I collapsed into it.
I sat there, back against the cold metal, and tried to feel my fingers.
The index and middle fingers on my right hand were numb. Not asleep. Not tingling. Just absent. I could see them moving when I told them to move. But I couldn't feel the surface of the interface plate when I touched it. I couldn't feel the texture of the thermal wrap. I couldn't feel the pulse in my own wrist when I pressed for it.
The nerves were gone. Maybe permanent.
I pulled the plate from my chest strap and looked at it. Warped, scorched, its circuitry exposed. A component for a weapon I didn't know how to use.
I had chosen this. Kept it. Burned my hands for it. Lost two fingers for it.
I tucked it back against my chest.
The service bay was cold, but it was shelter.
Marcus positioned the two injured survivors near the bay's secondary entrance. The woman with the gash in her thigh. The older man, coughing blood. He gave them the flare. He gave them the spare transmitter.
"When the enforcement team reaches this position, trigger the flare and broadcast on this frequency. It will draw their attention to this entrance."
The woman nodded. The older man's eyes were wet, but he nodded too.
"We'll hold them as long as we can," he said.
Marcus didn't answer. He didn't say goodbye. He simply turned and led the remaining five deeper into the bay, toward the maintenance tunnels that connected to the relay tower's foundation.
The Rival walked beside him. Silent. Calculating.
The woman followed a step behind. Her voice was flat.
"They agreed fast. They knew what you were asking."
Marcus didn't respond.
"It was the right call," she said. "We should have done it sooner."
The Rival said nothing. But his gaze lingered on Marcus's hands, clenched into fists at his sides, the knuckles white and bloodless.
The maintenance junction was quiet. No footsteps. No scanner sweeps. No drone rotors.
I allowed myself three more breaths.
Then the wall screen beside me flickered to life.
[VARIABLE SEVEN: TAGGING AUTHORIZATION APPROVED]
[TAG DELIVERY: INBOUND]
The text was white. Clinical. Final.
Not a warning. A confirmation.
Kaelen had escalated. The facility itself was now hunting me.
I pushed off the wall and forced my legs to move.
FALLEN MAGE REGRESSOR
"Death makes exceptions for all the wrong people."
Updates Daily @ 8:02PM EST
170k+ Words Prewritten
Malfrasius wasn't trying to destroy the world. Even as everyone called him a Dark Lord, he fought to save them. Unfortunately, the Heroine didn't believe him, and his life ended with a blade between his ribs.
six years in the past on his way to magic school, he decided that he was going to do things the right way—and without attracting attention.
F-grade core. And his loyal maid is getting suspicious of his sudden personality shift.
Malfrasius wasn't trying to destroy the world. It’s just a shame the world seems so intent on destroying him.
[ Story Elements ]
- Academy Setting / Westernized Regression
- Grounded, Steady Progression (Weak-to-Strong)
- Dysfunctional Dynamics & Hidden Identities
- Slow Burn, Character-Focused Storytelling
For fans of: Regressor Sect Master, The Regressor and the Blind Saint, Trash of the Count's Family