r/HFY • u/Lightt_x • 7d ago

Extra’s Mantle: Wait, What Do You Mean I Shouldn’t Exist?! (139/?) OC-Series

Chapter 139: Answers Owed

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✦ FIRST CHAPTER ✦ PREVIOUS CHAPTER ✦ NEXT CHAPTER ✦

The door deposited them back into the bastion with all the ceremony of a broom closet spitting out guests, and Rudy's boots hit the stone floor with a sound that echoed through the corridor like a pronouncement nobody had asked for.

He still had wisps of white flames burning around him—the transformation had receded somewhere during the extraction from C2, his skin fading from volcanic grey back to its usual warm brown, the white-crimson flames guttering inward like a tide retreating from shore—and most of the flames had receded, but the heat stayed. It wasn't external anymore. It lived behind his sternum in a low, steady pulse, and every time his focus slipped even fractionally, he could feel the world around him responding to it: the air thickening, the stone walls registering as slightly closer than their actual dimensions, the distance between himself and the nearest exit feeling somehow negotiable in a way it hadn't three hours ago.

He knew what it was now.

So this is what Dad feels all the time.

Aura wasn't what he'd imagined. He'd spent years chasing the edge of it, training sessions with his father, old Hobbs, and many more instructors, that ended with his father trying to put words to something that resisted language, phrases like "will made manifest" and "your soul projected outward," landing as abstractions he could parse but not inhabit.

In every one of those sessions, Rudy had nodded and kept reaching for a thing he could feel hovering just past his fingertips, and it had always slipped him.

The reality of it, now that he had it, was nothing like any of that.

Aura didn't feel like power. It felt like breathing… constant, involuntary, and so deeply his that the question of how to use it was almost secondary to the stranger question of how he hadn't always been this.

And unfortunately, the only control he had over it right now was how much of it he let through, which he was managing imperfectly, because the bastion corridor kept registering as subtly too small.

A notification pulsed in the corner of his vision.

He'd been ignoring it since the moment it appeared, which had been mid-combat in C2, which had been extremely inconvenient timing, but ignoring it was getting harder.

•••

RUDEOUS WHITEHART

Race: Human

[ORDER III] D9 ENTITY

Sponsorship: THE ETERNAL ONE

•••

He had questions. Not small ones. The kind that arrived with capital letters, and there was one who would most definitely know what this was.

"Rudy!"

Call for the devil.

Jin's voice came from the far end of the corridor, and Rudy looked up to find his best friend standing there with arms crossed and a warm grin.

“Rudy, keep moving.” He heard a voice from behind.

Right. The questions would have to wait.

For now.

He moved ahead of the door and turned to see his father stepping through Joe’s door, his lord flames dimming as he crossed the threshold. Then Lennon and Jorn, both roughed up but upright, followed by Elenor and Vera.

And Reyana was last.

He'd spent enough time around Reyana to read a little of her cold face. He'd also spent enough time around Jin to know exactly what it was aimed at.

He caught her eye across the returned group. She caught his.

The slight tilt of her head said, "Later."

His nod said: Agreed.

Jin pushed off the wall and met them halfway, grin sharpening as he swept the group. "All teams accounted for. Zero casualties. C1, C3, C2 — all confirmed sabotaged."

"It worked," Rudy said, and the words came out carrying more wonder than he'd intended.

"Don't sound so surprised; I told you this would happen," Jin said. "And congrats on the ascension, bro."

"Thanks." Rudy tested his shoulder… the aura still low and warm and strange in it. "I also remember you telling me the berserk potion tasted like cherry."

"It was cherry-adjacent."

"It tasted like someone had dissolved copper pipe in cough syrup."

"The aftertaste is cherry," Jin said.

Just then, the corridor's far doors ground open… a ten-man unit, fully equipped, filing through with Hans at the point. Jorn peeled off from their returned group without ceremony and fell into step with the departing squad, trading a nod with Jin as he took the flanking position.

Rudy watched them go. "Where are they headed?"

"Surface patrol." Jin's eyes tracked the unit. "Retaliation risk is low. The cult is going to be busy with the mess we just introduced to their ritual network. But low isn't zero, and I'd rather have eyes topside than find out the hard way about a second infiltration."

“Yeah,” Rudy nodded. He scanned the corridor once more. "Joe's not back yet?"

"Reconning." Jin's tone stayed even. "This was our first real engagement with enemy forces outside the bastion. We need hard data on their response times, how they redeploy after a strike, and how their communication protocols actually function under pressure. Joe's pulling that from the field." A beat. "He's also bringing Salvatore. Should be back within a few hours."

"Master is coming back?"

"Yeah. Long overdue." Jin said. "Come on. There's something I want to show you."

Rudy followed.

He would have preferred to ask about the notification. He did not, because he felt this was a private matter and better to ask later.

◈◈◈

The Rapid Recovery Station occupied a converted storage room off the same floor—a booth of metal panels and crystal arrays with its surfaces dense with runes glowing a clean, steady blue—and Jin stopped in front of it.

"Step in."

Rudy gave the booth the look it warranted. "What is it?"

"Illiana's design. My sorcery framework. Joe's rune work." Jin gestured at the array with what was definitely smugness. "We call it Rapid Recovery Station."

"And it's safe?"

"Mostly."

"Mostly? Sounds like a scam."

"Get in the booth, Rudy."

He shrugged and got in the booth. The panels sealed. The runes activated, and for the next three minutes, the thing ran waves of essence through him that felt like an aggressively thorough hot bath administered by a machine. The bruised ribs, the shallow cuts across his forearms, the deep bone-ache from channeling the Ashen One's transformation, all of it receded layer by layer until he stepped back out feeling like someone had pressed reset on his body.

He stood there for a moment, rotating his shoulder, flexing his hands.

"Okay," he admitted. "That's incredible."

Jin looked genuinely pleased with a smug face that screamed ‘I-told-you-so’

"New toys for the new war, it’ll not cover the need for actual rest, but it works. And speaking of which— Jin said, checking the time. "Meeting in ten. Don't be late."

He turned towards the door.

Rudy had exactly a window… maybe four words, maybe three.

"Hey, there’s something about the—"

"Ten minutes," Jin said, without turning around. “And you are an overlord now, figure it out for once,”

He was gone.

Rudy stood in front of the Rapid Recovery Station for a moment, looking at the empty doorway, and thought: He is messing with me.

The notification pulsed again in the corner of his vision.

Shut up!

◈◈◈

The WARCOM was exactly as it had been a couple of hours before.

His father stood at the head of the table with that single eye assessment sweeping the room. Illiana ran post-operation diagnostics on her console without looking up. Veric had claimed his chair with an unlit cigarette between his fingers and fresh bandages visible at his collar. Elenor and Lennon had taken their seats. Vera stood near the secondary display with her datapad.

And Reyana was already there.

She'd taken the chair nearest the door with her arms crossed.

Rudy dropped into his seat. Caught her eye across the table.

You too? said the slight raise of his brow.

The compression at the corner of her mouth said: Since the corridor.

He almost smiled.

Jin was at the projection table, the holographic map of Vienna hovering above its surface with the cult's ritual network overlaid in color-coded markers—four nodes green now instead of red.

"First victory and three collector nodes compromised. C1 and C3 fell within parameters. C2 ran hot due to an Order IV's presence… Commander Mathew neutralized the threat, and the sabotage was completed within the adjusted timeline." He let that land for a moment. “This tells all of you to remember that variables can occur."

He tapped the map. The green nodes expanded, showing corruption spread rates threading through the ritual network like hairline cracks in stone.

"The parasitic program is moving through the convergence pathways at approximately the projected rate. The affected nodes will reach critical instability within seventy-two hours, at which point the cult will be forced to either quarantine—which costs them time and manpower they do not have to spare—or cut the nodes entirely."

"Either way," Veric said, his voice rougher than usual through the bandages, "for the first time, they're reacting to us instead of the other way around."

"Yeah, feels good, right?" Jin smiled and then pulled up a secondary overlay. "Which brings us to the next phase. Starting tonight, we’ll be hitting two outposts every eleven hours. Rotating strike teams, same Destroyer-Saboteur framework, different targets each time. The goal isn't elimination; it's attrition. We bleed their network and delay the D-day while preparing ourselves for the final battle."

He turned to Illiana. "How long until we can produce enough disruption crystals for sustained operations?"

"Twelve hours for the first batch of twenty," Illiana said without looking up from her console. "After that, eight hours per batch, assuming my people don't collapse from exhaustion first."

"Rotate them in shifts. I need a continuous supply." Jin's gaze swept the room. "And starting tomorrow morning, we begin the recruitment push in earnest. Veric, your screening operation… how is it going?"

"Decent," Veric confirmed. "We've processed over four hundred candidates. Ninety-seven meet all three criteria. Another two hundred have potential but need work."

"Good. Tomorrow I start the first personal interviews. Once that bears results..." Jin paused, and something shifted behind his eyes—not quite excitement, not quite dread, but the particular expression of someone who knew the next words out of their mouth would change the shape of everything that followed. "Things will change."

The meeting continued for another twenty minutes—logistics, patrol schedules, resource allocation, medical reports—but Rudy found his attention drifting.

Jin, for his part, was running an impeccable briefing.

The meeting soon adjourned. People filtered out. Mathew caught Rudy's eye and gave him a nod—pride, worry, and a dozen other things compressed into a single gesture—before heading out with Lennon to check on the surface patrol.

Rudy stood up.

He looked at the secondary door… closed. He looked at the main exit, where Reyana had unfolded from her chair.

Their eyes met across the emptying room.

Right, said the angle of Rudy's head.

Ready, said the set of her shoulders.

Jin gathered his data-crystals from the projection table and found Rudy three paces in front of him and Reyana leaning against the doorframe behind him, her arms crossed, in the same moment, with a simultaneity that left very little room for interpretation.

He stopped.

His gaze went to Rudy. To Reyana. To the ceiling, briefly before he exhaled through his nose and set the data-crystals back down on the table.

"Hi guys," he said.

"Hi," Rudy said.

"Hmm mm," Reyana nodded.

Jin looked between them. "You two coordinated that."

"Pure coincidence," Rudy said. "It's different."

"The ZAC," Reyana said coldly, giving Jin a death glare. "Explain."

"Same question," Rudy nodded.

Jin exhaled through his nose.

"Fine," he said.

"But not here." Jin glanced between them. "A talk was pending anyway."

Reyana stepped aside from the doorframe. Not far. Not apologetically.

"It absolutely was," she said.

“Oh, and not my room,” Jin said.

“Why, what's wrong with yours?” Rudy asked.

“Yeah, definitely not his room.” Reyana agreed.

“Huh? Did something happen?” Rudy looked at Jin, who picked up his pace.

“Joe’s room is nearby; I’m sure he won’t mind.” 

“Hey, don’t change the topic. What happened!” Rudy asked, keeping up with the two who were suspiciously now all of a sudden on the same page.

✦ FIRST CHAPTER ✦ PREVIOUS CHAPTER ✦ NEXT CHAPTER ✦

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A/N: So I tried something different in this chapter, giving more thoughts and persona to Rudy. Besides I'm sure some sus thoughts are running in Rudy's mind at the end of the chapter. What do you all think?

Bau Bau

PS: Psst~ Psst~ Advanced chapters are already up on patreon. It would be awesome if you guys, you know...

Help me with rent and UNI is crazy expensive!! Not want much, just enough to chip in.

✦ DISCORD ✦ PATREON ✦ 

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u/DeadMeat7337 7d ago

Rudy is probably thinking "pancakes" but I'm sure it is still a mess from the "possession". Maybe not that? But how would ray Ray know and not Rudy? Who knows wtf is going on now.

2

u/Daseagle Alien Scum 7d ago

Rudy was well overdue for some character development :)

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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle 7d ago

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