Survivor's Gacha; Endless Improvisation

[Pike's POV]

…

"Blood tastes like iron and ash".

That's the last clear thing in my mouth, hot against my tongue as it leaked past my teeth.

The machine yard tilted around me; rusted beams, trucks gutted by fire, sky burning with Rift scars. My body's failing, but my mind? My mind's never been sharper. Death doesn't blur me, it clarifies.

I see the boy with the Wheel watching me, his golden glow flickering like judgment. He thinks he's won. He hasn't, none of them have.

Before all this, I was a soldier. A good one.

I can still smell the diesel fires, I can still taste sand blown into my mouth, and I can feel the bullets stitching the air too close to my head.

I can still see the faces of boys under my command, boys too young, too soft, burned away because someone in an office thought a hill was worth their blood.

That's where I learned the truth.

Men are bullets… you fire them until the chamber's empty.

I disobeyed once, pulled my unit back when command ordered a push that would have erased us. I saved half, but I lost my career.

They called it cowardice, insubordination. They stripped me of rank and spat me out into a world that only smiled at medals.

My family smiled at medals too. My sister's boy, the golden son was covered in them, while I sat silent in the corner.

I stopped pretending then. Morality, justice, honor, they were all masks. Strength is the only order, everything else rots.

So when the sky split and the cities screamed, I didn't break. I didn't feel despair, I felt… vindicated.

"Ah, finally!"

The world admitted what I already knew, that there are no rules except survival. No law but will.

And the Rift gave me exactly what I needed… power.

I remember the burn in my veins, the way clarity sharpened like a blade. Predator's Instinct. I could feel the hum at the edge of every breath, and the way shadows told me where the knife would fall before it was drawn.

I never knew how defective I was till that moment. It's like when a deaf doesn't realize his disability till a miracle happens and he hears for the first time.

I heard for the first time, I saw.

And I felt full, I felt complete, I felt like me.

The Rift didn't save me, it rewarded me. It was proof that I'd always been right all along.

And then they came to me, survivors, desperate faces begging for someone to lead. I gave them what they wanted, command, rules, and discipline.

Not hope, never hope. Hope is rot, hope makes men hesitate.

I told them the truth, the truth of all existence… the truth that strength is reward, and weakness is death.

Awakened who were useful, I kept. The others? I culled.

It was an example to the others to teach them about the truth of life. Weakness is a disease, a plague, and it has to be culled before it spreads.

The first time I slit a throat and the System shimmered, spilling shards and residues into my hand, I knew.

'Ah! I was right all along!'

Mercy is weakness, the System itself agreed.

Drops made me stronger, they made me even more whole. Each kill was proof that the new world wasn't cruel, it was honest. And I was the only one honest enough to obey it.

My soldiers weren't comrades, not friends; friends are weaknesses and weakness is a disease that should not be tolerated.

My soldiers, they were bullets, and I fired them until the chamber was empty.

The monsters? They were never the true enemy. They were just instinct, teeth, hunger, and claws. Predictable, weak.

Humans are worse. Humans are ambition and betrayal and weakness dressed up as virtue.

And the Rift knew it. Kill a man, grow stronger. Kill an Awakener, grow faster. The Rift wanted culling, it wanted blood.

I wasn't a tyrant.

No, I was a shepherd. And the flock was meant to be thinned.

When I looked at Reid, at the gambler boy Ethan, I didn't see enemies. All I saw was inevitability, pretenders, leaders who clung to illusions of compassion.

Just give them time, they'll break. They'll learn the truth, they'll become me. All of them do, if they live long enough.

And I wanted to be there when they realized it.

Even now, broken and bleeding, I don't regret.

I disarmed the fast one, cracked the big one's ribs, nearly took the boy's throat. I fought four against one and made them bleed for every inch.

'Haha!'

I laughed in their faces, because I knew, because I saw it… the cracks in their eyes, the fear, the hesitation. Proof that they're no different, proof they're just steps behind me.

And when Jonas's fist finally shattered my skull's defenses, when the world tilted and blood filled my lungs, I laughed louder. Because they'd crossed the threshold, they'd killed a man. They'd chosen execution.

It always begins there.

My breath rattled. My eyes dimmed. But inside, my thoughts burned bright.

'Enjoy your victory, little heroes'.

'Enjoy the illusion that you're better than me. But when the corpses stack high, when the drops gleam brighter than mercy, when your comrades falter and you spend them like bullets… you'll remember me'.

'You'll curse me. And then you'll understand me'.

I see it, my last memory. Not this yard, not the boy's Wheel.

A desert, the sun baking blood into mud, the faces of my men gone, command feeding lies into dead ears. And me, standing in the middle of corpses, stripped of rank, stripped of meaning, realizing the truth.

Life was always an apocalypse.

The Rift didn't change me, it gave me permission.

My last laugh tore itself from my throat, shredded and wet as the world slipped. My scarred sneer hardened into the mask I earned.

And then there was only quiet.

The machine yard was silent at last.

Pike was dead.

Chains swayed above the pools of blood where Pike had fallen, their rusted links groaning in the wind.

The tyrant lay sprawled in the dust, eyes glassy, his scar frozen in a sneer that refused to die with him. It almost felt like he was mocking them even in death. For a long while, no one moved.

They just stood in the ruin of his domain, catching their breath, listening to the slow drip of blood sliding into cracks in the concrete.

It was Reid who finally broke the spell. "We need to move."

The words were flat, not sharp, but they carried weight. Everyone knew Pike might be dead, but his shadow still stretched across the city.

Not a single one of them wanted to spend a second longer in this city. This city carried memories that they would rather forget as soon as possible.

They left the yard without a word.

Since they were not under pressure this time, crossing the river back to the other side was easier and within a dozen minutes, they were across.

And once again, the Hollow Plains opened before them, gray and endless, a wasteland of brittle grass and cracked earth.

Compared to the chaos of Pike's ambushes and the behemoth's rampage, it felt almost empty, peaceful even. Their boots crunched softly; it was the only sound being made besides the wind.

Jonas walked stiffly, one hand pressed against his side where Travis's healing had sealed but not erased the damage. Every step was stubborn defiance.

Travis trudged beside him, eyes bloodshot from overusing his gift, his jokes buried under exhaustion. Only once did he mutter, "Never thought I'd miss stabbing goblins in a pharmacy," before lapsing back into silence.

No one responded to his joke though.

Kara stayed near Ethan, spear angled loosely against her shoulder.

Her gaze flicked constantly over the horizon, wary, restless, like the fight hadn't left her body. She knew that they couldn't afford to let up till they arrived inside the walls of the quarantine zone.

Mira's hair moved faintly in currents of wind too soft for anyone else to feel. She walked quietly, as if still lingering in the memory of her newfound strength.

And Reid led them from the front.

Upright despite his fading injuries, his rifle was slung steady across his back, his eyes scanning as though the war inside the city hadn't ended, only shifted.

Ethan brought up the rear.

The Wheel pulsed faintly behind his vision, its glow dimmer now, like it too was resting after the storm. His gauntlet flickered in and out of existence in his grip as his thoughts circled Pike.

Not the fight, but the man.

The way Pike had laughed even as he bled, the way his gray eyes had burned with certainty that none of them could escape becoming what he was.

'Is that what we are now?' Ethan thought. 'Killers of men… Executioners'.