Chapter 159 - Infested Warhammer

“Huh, kind of expected you to choose this heavy weapon.” Ardan scratched his chin under his mask as he checked the description on the black case. Felicia had called him down immediately the moment Ceres selected the weapon he wanted, and for good reason too.

The three of them were now in a secluded room – the same room the White Fang used for all his meetings with Bonfire and the other rebellion cell group leaders. The black case rested on the table, seemingly dormant.

However, to Ceres, the weapon was almost alive. He could even see a tinge of colour emitting from the box through his H.T. mode, like purple with a mix of blood red through the thick casing. However, the shape didn’t match any living organism he knew of.

“We got this warhammer when we raided the enforcer’s base in space. Never managed to kill Drone A off, though. We lost a lot of people to this warhammer. Our X-ray scans couldn’t penetrate the material at all.” Ardan continued, reminiscing his fight.

“I think the warhammer is too dangerous to be used. If anything, I’m only here to make sure you don’t screw up when you open it.” Felicia was insistent that she followed the White Fang and Ceres when they opened the case.

Ceres gave a knowing look at the White Fang. “Can we trust her? Is she one of the crazy ones?”

“Not as far as I know. I think Sierra’s the worst of them. I guess it’s time to start slowly spreading your identity, now that we’re so close to the mission. Gets the morale up at least.”

Felica looked between the two of them, her face filled with confusion. “What the fuck are you guys even saying? Is this some sort of inside joke?”

The White Fang turned to face her, his tone suddenly becoming a lot more serious. “I’m going to let you in on a secret, and consider this top priority secret. This even supersedes every other rebel cell group leader’s authority – even ‘Bonfire’.”

“Even ‘Bonfire’?! What kind of secret is this? Are you planning to betray the rebellion?” Felicia exclaimed with a shocked look. Ceres could already see her emotions begin to undergo turmoil.

“No, no, no you can’t betray the rebellion! We haven’t even found the Martyr yet! We need to push on, you can’t lose hope because of this newbie ‘Chaos’, no matter how much he tries to seduce you! Remember our original goal!” Felicia suddenly grabbed the White Fang’s clothes, shaking him vigorously.

“I thought she wasn’t part of the crazy ones.” Ceres sighed.

The White Fang suddenly grabbed Felicia’s hands by the wrist, stopping her. “Do you trust me? After all these years, do you believe in me?”

“I….I… yes I do.” Felicia stopped resisting. She had never once seen the White Fang do something that went against the rebellion itself, so she realized how out-of-character she had been acting. “Well go on then, my lips are sealed.”

Ardan looked at Ceres and nodded, who then began to take off his mask. “N…no way…” Felicia gasped as she immediately pulled out her multi-terminal, scrolling through her saved pictures.

She held up her multi-terminal to Ceres’ face, the pictures scrolling wildly. Some sort of matching program ran in a split second, comparing Ceres’s face to a drawn sketch. “HAHA, I WIN!” Felicia shouted with joy. “SUCK IT SIERRA!”

“Huh? What’s going on?” Ceres was utterly confused, with Ardan shrugging as well.

Felicia suddenly froze, before hiding away her multi-terminal and bowing respectfully. “Welcome back Ceres. I already had my suspicion, but I knew it was you straight away!”

The White Fang was intrigued. “How did you know Agent ‘Dumpling’ was Ceres?”

Felica chuckled with a smug face, explaining her grand deduction scheme. “The first thing that tipped me off was the training centre incident. It was when you punched the strength machine so precisely. The close relationship you had with the White Fang was a dead giveaway too. I haven’t seen the White Fang give that much attention to any other agent apart from Riker, and he doesn’t wear a mask.”

“Secondly, when you came back after defeating the Keeper and enforcer on a low-rank mission, I immediately knew something was off-foot. I checked all outbound mission logs and noticed that ever since Agent ‘Dumpling’ had joined the cell group, there were no more missions allocated to searching for our Martyr, even though we were beginning to narrow down the search in recent months. This gave me about 70% confidence that Agent ‘Chaos’ was Ceres in some way shape or form.”

“Lastly, when Agent ‘Dumpling’ suddenly revealed himself to be an exosuit repairer as well, that was the kicker!” Felica concluded with a satisfied grin.

“How the hell do you know so much about me? I don’t even know you… “ Ceres was astounded by the level of consideration others had put into him.

“Well you completely destroyed me in the qualifiers, but I suppose you don’t remember seeing it’s already been six years since then. I’ve been working to catch up to you ever since, and now we’re here! So quickly, tell me! What happened to you in the vat?!” Felica answered with rapid-fire speech, catching Ceres off-guard.

Ceres was not proud to admit that he had absolutely zero recollection of her during the qualifiers. He only recalled Gwen and Chad as his major opponents, no one else.

“Alright, that’s enough.” The White Fang intervened. “We can chat on history later, but since you already know that he’s Ceres, just know that he’s somehow related to the development of the Keepers.”

“Like he used to be a Keeper or…?” Felicia tried to ask, but the White Fang cut her off.

“Let’s focus on figuring out this weapon first. If Ceres has a reaction to it, it might be something important within. Let’s try to crack the thing open.”

Felicia nodded, returning to her usual work demeanour, not that it was any much different. Internally she was still celebrating her victory against Sierra. They had competed on what their Martyr would look like after the rescue, and they each drew a hundred sketches.

Felicia felt validated that one of her sketches actually matched what Ceres looked like right now. Well, a 70% match at least. That’s probably better than anything Sierra drew. Suddenly, a thought struck in a flash of realization.

“Doesn’t Sierra have something out for him? If she knew that he was the Martyr and she’s been hamstringing him all along, she might just go into depression!” Felica exclaimed.

“So don’t tell a single soul about this, got it? At least not until I approve of it.” The White Fang solemnly said.

“Yes sir. Okay, let’s open this case.” Felica stepped up to the case, keying in her code while the White Fang did the same. With both codes verified, the case began to hiss as it disengaged the locks, opening up to reveal a 1.7-meter-long warhammer.

It had almost no design, and it looked as though it was cast out of the same singular sliver-toned metal. No engraving, no bezels, no embellishments. Ceres was almost disappointed, expecting some sort of ornamental weapon.

“The fight with the Keepers occurred while they were still in their infancy. No doubt this is a prototype weapon. The question is what’s inside the head.” Ardan pointed to the head of the warhammer.

Ceres placed his hand on the surface of the head, his palm started to be wrapped in black goo as Felicia gasped. Instead of worrying about showing off to Felicia, he was more concerned with what he was feeling from the warhammer.

Unlike the Keeper’s spine which seemed to hold a sentient portion of the black goo, this black goo seemed more compliant and malleable. However, Ceres wasn’t about to take the risk of opening it here in an unprotected room. He could protect himself for sure, but he wasn’t about to endanger Ardan or Felicia.

The three sealed the case and moved to a testing room, where Ceres was the only one inside the protected chamber with the warhammer resting in the opened case. “Okay, you can wield it anytime you want, Ceres,” Ardan spoke into the microphone.

Ceres breathed in deeply. The last time he did something like this, he was knocked out for three days. If that happened to him here, he would probably have lost the duel against Riker and the Azure Tiger for sure.

He gingerly grabbed the handle, expecting something to happen. However, nothing happened at all. Ceres lifted it up with a single hand, noticing it was extremely light and could be swung as easily as a hollow metal pipe. “Huh, easier than I thought.”

He turned to see Ardan’s slightly impressed face, with Felicia being completely shocked. “That weapon is over nine kilograms, how are you twirling it like a baton?!”

“Guess I’m built different.” Ceres almost blurted out but decided to keep it to himself. While he swung it, he noticed that he could still sense the black goo embedded deep in the hammer. “Maybe if…”

Ceres closed his eyes, letting the gnawing hunger that always sat at the back of his mind to surface. The black goo slowly emerged from his pores, oozing out of every seam on his skin to form around his right arm that held the warhammer. Unfortunately, the black goo seemed to only cling to his body, instead of enveloping the weapon as he expected.

Felica had already ran out of excitement at this point, merely soaking the sight of the black goo in. “Well Ceres, anything?” Ardan asked.

“Nothing yet. I’m going to try something new.”

“Okay, as long as you don’t blow up the place.”

Ceres began to try and guide the black goo. “Come on, what magic word do I have to say this time? Advance? Merge? Haki? Meld? Just MOVE!”

The moment he put his all into wanting the black goo to move, it complied, snaking up the shaft of the warhammer before enveloping the warhammer’s head. Ceres suddenly felt a cold shiver run down his entire body from his arm to his feet, but otherwise, he was fine.

“Well, that wasn’t so bad.” He turned to look at Ardan, but he was no longer in the chamber. Instead, he was in an unknown room, where there were thousands of cryo pods lined up in sequence, with researchers and lab technicians running to and fro.

“Are you sure about this? The goo is not known to adhere to any metallic object or being.” A young man suddenly spoke from behind Ceres, causing him to turn in fright.

“Who the hell are you? Where am I?” Ceres asked as he wielded his warhammer into a ready stance, but he soon noticed that the young man’s eyes were staring far past him, or rather, through him!

“Of course I’m sure. That’s why I designed the warhammer in collaboration with Doctor Theria. If my hypothesis is right, we can easily manipulate it to boost the combat strength of the Keepers even further!” An old doctor with greying hair grinned in a sinister fashion before resuming his work.

Ceres immediately recognized the doctor: It was Doctor Wu. “You! What did you do to me in the Thorn Chamber.” Ceres was enraged and tried to use his left hand to grab the Doctor, but his hand merely went through, as though he didn’t exist. “What the…”

The doctor placed his arms into two long tubes that extended into a glass cabinet, allowing him to manipulate the head of the warhammer in a controlled environment. “Behold, the miracle of biomedical science! I have bought the strongest metal I could have gotten my hands on for this.”

“It seems a bit overkill for a weapon, doctor.” The young man replied as he watched the warhammer without an ounce of emotion.

“Nonsense! Every known transcendent in the Loeric Empire has a dedicated weapon. If we can mass produce a weapon that can go toe-to-toe with such a force, the Keepers will become unstoppable. Only then would my project see it’s true potential.”

“What if the warhammer doesn’t work?”

“Oh but it will.” The doctor smiled.

Ceres tried to get a closer look at the warhammer, walking forward to peek behind the doctor and the young man. However, the moment he saw what was in the cabinet, he began to gag and choke, stumbling back and falling onto his butt.

“CERES! CERES! Are you okay?” Ardan was in the chamber now, checking on Ceres who was sitting on the floor. He grabbed the warhammer out of Ceres’s hand, flinging it onto the floor to clear some space, assuming that it was the weapon causing the current seizure in Ceres.

Without warning, Ceres turned over and puked on the floor a whole mess of undigested nutri-paste.

“What the hell happened?” Felicia asked worriedly as she ran into the chamber as well, checking the warhammer that was dropped. Before she could touch the weapon, Ceres yelled hoarsely.

“DON’T! Don’t… don’t touch that.” Ceres gasped for air as he tried to get up shakily. “We need to open the head of the weapon now! He needs our help!”

“What? Why? Explain it to us!” Ardan grabbed Ceres by the shoulder, checking his eyes when Ceres swatted his hands away. “Just do it, please! Someone is trapped in there!” Ceres begged.

“What?!” Ardan was shocked. He immediately motioned to Felicia, who immediately ran outside to get a series of heavy-duty metal cutting tools in. The material was resistant to radiation scanners, but it wasn’t anything a plasma cutter couldn’t cut through given enough time.

“When you cut the head, don’t cut any deeper than three centimetres. Grind through the tail end of the hammer first.” Ceres stood unsteadily, supported by Ardan.

Felicia nodded, grabbing her safety mask and gloves before placing the warhammer on the table with help from Ardan. Clamping it to the table, she wielded a plasma grinder, immediately grating against the head.

The material proved to be extremely resistant, but against the high heat and friction of the plasma, the head began to melt and give way over the course of an excruciating five minutes.

Ceres could feel the severe fluctuations in emotions coming from the head of the warhammer, his head throbbing in pain.

As though a button was clicked, the entire head of the warhammer began to crack and fall apart, with Felicia gasping at the sight, though she tried to keep her cool.

The White Fang took a closer look, his demeanour solemn. “Goddamm it, they put a brain into the warhammer? What the fuck?!”

In the head of the warhammer was half a human brain, but instead of being pink and reddish, it was slightly greyish, with a tinge of black continuously pulsating through the creases of the meat. It was encased in a glass-like container, with a metal interface that connected it to a small little battery that apparently powered the brain, though the battery had long run out of power.

“My god, we should have opened this weapon the moment we got it. If we had earlier, we could have toppled the enforcers with this revelation!” Felica frowned.

“No, that’s unrealistic. The Five Families have tight control over the media, and no one is going to believe a ragtag bunch of disgruntled outers like us. Even now we have no power in the media. Any hard evidence we present is either going to get discredited or mired in legal debates. We tried it before.” The White Fang shook his head.

“I’m not using this weapon. We should destroy it immediately.” Ceres wiped some of the vomit off his face. He might have killed humans before in cold blood, but using such a weapon was going too far.

The White Fang ignored Ceres and turned to Felica, his tone serious. “You think you can hook this brain up to a nerval interface?”

An awkward moment passed in silence as Ceres was stunned. “You can’t be serious! The ‘man’ has been alive trapped inside the warhammer for decades and the first thing you want to do is interrogate him?!” Ceres said with a tinge of simmering anger.

Felicia replied without much emotion, instead treating it as a serious question: “We don’t have any nerval interface experts on hand, let alone any who can deal with the remainder of half a brain.”

“Okay, then we send the brain to central command. They got the manpower; they’ll figure it out from there.” The White Fang reached for the brain with certainty, but Ceres grabbed his wrist firmly, preventing him from moving.

“I don’t think you understand this situation. You are subjecting a living being to even more torture!”

“Oh, I think I understand the situation very clearly.” The White Fang said sternly, grabbing Ceres’s hand and shaking it off.

“Do you really?” Ceres pressed, squeezing Ardan by the shoulder.

“DO YOU?!” The White Fang suddenly burst into anger, spinning around and swatting Ceres’s arm away. “Do you comprehend how much information this gives us about the early phases of the Keepers? Do you realize the insights this will provide into how the Keepers function? Do you realize that everything I DO is to ensure that the rebellion succeeds!?”

Ceres didn’t reply, instead slowly taking it in. This wasn’t his first argument with Ardan, the very first being the morality of releasing every prisoner.

“If we stooped to immoral means just like our enemies, we’re no different from them!”

“Then you haven’t fought in the real world long enough. To defeat a monster you have to be a monster to! Do you think I like, or enjoy doing this?!” The White Fang jabbed his finger angrily on the table.

“For every ‘immoral’ action I take, I save countless more lives! You have no qualms killing humans who threatened to oppress us. What if I told you that they had dreams, aspirations, a family to look forward too? Maybe even siblings to protect from the ‘evil’ rebellion? Would you not fight them any longer? Would you?”

“What if the Keepers show up with an improved version of this weapon on Haui’s Moon?! What if we find out Lisa and Braton has been subjected to the same fate? Would you immediately kill them, or would you not try to find out how to save them?!” The White Fang simmered down after his rant, breathing heavily before turning to face the brain.

Ceres could tell that Ardan was also conflicted within, but he could see that the years of leading the rebellion had hardened him far beyond what Ceres remembered of the young naïve Ardan from before.

The White Fang sighed. “This is pointless, I don’t need to justify myself to you. I’m your overall superior, and my orders are final. I will take this brain and deliver it to central command. Do what you want with the remainder of the weapon.” He snatched the brain and accompanying battery, storming off out of the chamber.

Ceres didn’t really have an answer. His first instinct upon seeing the abomination was to kill it. He was extremely sensitive to emotions and he could tell that the brain, no matter how badly disfigured or modified it was, was clearly experiencing emotions like fear, despair and rage.

Ardan probably couldn’t see it, but he suspected that even if he told Ardan what he saw, Ardan might have done the same thing. That’s how dedicated the White Fang was to the cause.

Felicia didn’t get angry, simply packing the tools she had brought in to crack open the warhammer. “Looks like even the Martyr has no power in the rebellion, huh?”

“I don’t think the Martyr ever did. I was more like a tool used to ‘inspire’ people. You don’t seem to disagree with his actions. Don’t you think it’s immoral?” Ceres questioned her.

Felicia just eyed him like looking at a small ignorant naïve kid, despite the difference in height.

“At least you’re living up to your namesake. However, I’ve seen my own fair share of shit down here in the rebellion. You can cry for morals all you want, but at the end of the day it isn’t morals that kept me alive all this time.” Felica smiled sadly as she slung the plasma cutter on her back, walking away.