Chapter 57
[Moonbase Helix – Kruger Induction Grounds]
Pablo no longer bore the name El'Vertigo.
Upon arrival at the Kruger Induction Grounds, it had been stripped from him, replaced by a designation: Initiate 7-Delta-Elk. No one called him Pablo. No one cared who he had been before.
The compound was brutal. Gone were the ceremonial duels of nobility, the scholarly lectures, and gemstone blades. Kruger indoctrination was blood, mud, and silence. On the first day, initiates were submerged in vats of blackwater, forced to hold their breath until unconsciousness. On the second, the survivors were electrocuted awake and forced into ill-fitted exosuits. By the fifth, most of them had broken something. Pablo had broken his own nose—and another soldier's jaw.
And yet, something in him hardened. Something found peace in the suffering.
Each night, as lights dimmed and silence returned, Pablo tapped into a sealed communication line. Kiro's encrypted signal was gone. But across hushed whispers and intercepted Kruger comms, rumors had begun to form.
A forbidden world.A man leading those cast aside.The Blood Apostle.
Some claimed it was myth.Pablo knew better.
[Kyros One – Northern Ridge, Redhaven Outskirts]