Mayera's squadron phased into Fundus. The infinite threshold. Not empty space, but the thrumming underlayer of existence itself; a pressure against the eardrums, a smell like universes and heat mixed with the faint, sweet rot of dying stars. Here, 99% of all things were. They materialized near the bleeding edge of universe Xenos-Zehod-Kedo-Onve-0-3-44-4, a swirling bruise of distorted nebulae against the Fundus void.
Heliterna's wheelchair hovered beside Mayera, its statw emitting a low, persistent hum. "Standing at the edge?" His voice was gravel scraped over ancient stone. "Pointless. Rogues always ignite the fuse at the core. If they ignite at all." He gestured with a gnarled hand towards the universe's churning heart. "Center. Now."
The Custodes exchanged glances. Respect was given; short nods, murmured "Sir"s; but reverence? That belonged to legends locked in dusty archives. Most hadn't even been sparked when Heliterna walked. They saw a relic in a chair. A name, not a force.
Heliterna didn't mind. He knew the weight of his deeds, knew he could crack the top five strongest entities to ever wear the Custodes sigil. The knowledge sat in him like a cold stone. He didn't crave worship. Just acknowledgement of the man who bore the scars, not just the myth.
Yet, one name could still stir the embers. "E.K.," he murmured, the sound lost for a moment in the Fundus thrum.
A young custodes near him caught it. Her eyes lit up, eager. "Sir Heliterna?" she ventured, voice tight with suppressed excitement. The Fundus currents tugged at her armor. "As we transit… a story? From the Golden Days?"
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. He never refused a story. Even to unknowing ears. "Well now," he began, the whirr-hum of his chair syncing with his voice. "I'll tell you of the best squad. Not a squad. The squad."
"Well now, I will tell you the story of the best squad of all time-"
One guy broke him off, "Excuse me sir, but we all know the current Squad 56, is the strongest of all time."
A younger Fulgor, armored in sleek, modern plates, cut in. "With respect, sir… current Squad 56 holds all records. They are the strongest."
Silence.
Thick. Heavy. Broken only by the eternal thrum-whisper of Fundus and the chair's whirr-hum.
Heliterna burst out in laughter, wheezing so hard he almost choked on the lack of air in his lungs. His face turned redder than a tomato,
He gasped, tears squeezing from the corners of his eyes. "You… you really think…" He choked on another laugh, unable to speak.
The Fulgor flushed, looked away, defeated. He accepted it.
"You.... aaahh you really think, okay okay. ahh....
Heliterna wiped his eyes, still chuckling. "Okay, anyway, The Illicit Four." The name dropped like a tombstone. "Heard of us? Probably not. Felt us? Oh, the scars run deep in the souls we shattered. Grandiose? Damn right. We weren't just the best. We forged the Golden Generation."
He rolled forward, the squad falling in step, boots clanking on non-existent ground. "Our members? Legends walking:"
"The Eternal Knight. Touched by The Grace itself."
"Ytetra. She who made all probable."
"Gonk. The Spirit of Rage. A force even time wouldn't dare stop."
"Heliterna." He thumped his chest with a grin. "The brightest. The sharpest. The luckiest. Me. Don't mind the praise." He winked.
They traversed the void. Ahead, space itself warped – a supermassive black hole. Not just seen, but felt. A bass-like thrum vibrating through their bones. Light bent screaming towards its maw.
The smell hit them next: ozone sharpened to a knife-edge, crushed stardust, and the metallic tang of pure, annihilating gravity. Its pull was a physical drag, like wading through molten lead. They were in the range of it's relentless pull.
"Good thing we trained for singularities," a female Stella-Inferior muttered, bracing herself. Her armor joints creaked under the strain. "Five simultaneous event horizon simulations in the Gravon Chamber."
Heliterna's chair tilted slightly towards the abyss. "Gravon Chamber?" Disdain dripped from the words. "Newfangled crap. We benched these for reps." He said it flatly. Matter-of-factly. "Found 'em. Captured 'em. Dragged 'em back to base. Best damn weights in the cosmos."
Eyes widened. Slowly, skeptical smiles spread. A male Fulgor near the front, his face pale from the gravitational strain, managed a smirk. "Prove it."
Heliterna's answering smile was razor-thin. "Okay…" His chair shot forward, the whirr-hum rising in pitch as he plunged towards the event horizon.
Space screamed around him. He crossed the point of no return. No hesitation. Arms spread wide, he grabbed the fabric of reality itself where the singularity raged.
Muscles, ancient but forged in impossible crucibles, bunched beneath his robes. With a grunt that echoed strangely in the vacuum, he lifted.
The black hole, a vortex of devouring darkness, came with him.
He hoisted it overhead. Once. Twice. Reps. Then, with a roar lost to the void but felt in their souls, he hurled it. It tore through Fundus, a cannonball of absolute oblivion.
Distant universes flared and died like crushed embers as it passed. Space itself screamed in its wake. Silence returned, heavy and stunned.
Heliterna rolled back, the whirr-hum steady. The Custodes stood frozen, jaws slack, eyes wide as supernovas. Even the doubters. The sheer, impossible scale of it rewrote their understanding in an instant.
He resumed rolling, voice calm amidst their shock. "So. Mission Acker. Top secret. Stupid Authorians sent us instead of an Executioner. Why? Why the hell not?" He chuckled darkly.
"Dropped into the Lizathene region. Reality stank like dead people and burnt parchment; stories curdling, twisting. An Anomaly hit us instantly. Tried to write us out of our own stories. Felt…" He searched for the word. "Ticklish. Annoying."
"It came for me first." He tapped his temple. "Lucky me. Its attack veered mid-flight; smacked a mortal cluster instead. Fed the damn thing. Made it angrier. Came back, and attacked again… just as my helmet popped off. Reflected the blast right back at its ugly face." He mimed a ping sound.
"Had enough of me, went for Ytetra. She dodged once… then just decided the chance of it hitting her was zero. Poof. Problem gone. She just leaned back, watched the show." He gestured vaguely at the still-stunned squad. "Like you lot now."
"So it lunged at the Knight. He just… stood there." Heliterna's voice dropped, filled with grim awe. "Stared down this… thing. Half rotten book, half screaming donkey. Laughed in its face. Its rewrite-attacks hit… and just slipped off him. Like water. Voided. Gone."
Still too stunned to speak, everyone just nodded along, a soft "Go on", or "Mhm," were heard.
"Finally, it hit Gonk." Heliterna's expression sobered. "Not a man to piss off. Learned that the hard way…" He rubbed an old scar on his jaw.
"The attack landed. Smacked the necklace his momma made him. That… that did it." Heliterna's hands clenched on his chair arms, knuckles white. His voice became a low growl. "Rage. Pure, world-ending rage. He punched the space between them."
Heliterna mimed a colossal, shattering blow. "Everything burned. Not fire. Red void. His fury denied existence itself. Wiped it clean."
He sagged slightly, the memory draining him. "Then… then he turned on us. Blind, universe-killing fury. Took the Knight himself to snap him out of it. Gonk got a few good licks in on all of us…" He rubbed his ribs unconsciously.
"After… after the dust settled… we hit a mortal world. Ate something called a… 'Hamburger'?" He shrugged, a genuine, weary smile appearing. "Pretty damn good, actually."
Murmurs of appreciation rippled through the squad – "Wow", "Incredible" – but their eyes kept flicking back to the path of cosmic devastation left by the thrown black hole.
The real story wasn't the Illicit Four. It was the crippled old man who treated singularities like dumbbells.
Mayera leaned towards the Fulgor beside her, her voice barely a whisper under the Fundus thrum:
"Now we know why he's here."
The Fulgor just nodded, the movement heavy with dawning, terrifying reverence.
---
Breath hitched in lungs that hadn't needed air for millennia. Souls, weary not from time, but from the weight of the name, stirred. They emerged. Not from shadows, not from burrows, but from the calculated pause. He was called. Duty's cold hand had closed around the Eternal Knight once more.
The decree, whispered by trembling gods, had rippled out. Through Fundus's thrumming veins. Through the Viable's fractured dreams. Into the deepest cracks where defiance festered. The legend walked. The hunt was on.
The Darkest Generation. Bodies frail now, whispers of their former cosmic fury. Minds? Razor-sharp. Unbroken. His name wasn't just remembered; it was etched.
Scorched into the core of their being. They feared no Custodes patrol, no new Nova's wrath. Only him. Their war-making days were ash, but they watched. They reveled in the chaos sown by newer, brasher sparks.
But this?
How?
How had a Custodes squadron pinpointed this node? One of their primary bases? They'd felt it; single, crushing presence blooming at the universe's edge.
It snuffed out lesser custodes nearby like candle flames in a gale. Impossible.
Had the Custodes birthed another Golden Generation? If so… countermeasures. Immediately.
It should have been freedom. The Knight bound to hunt only the Lightless Walker? A free reign for mayhem! But no. Fate, it seemed, enjoyed cruel jokes.
A Custodes squadron. Here. Now. No warning blip on the cosmic radar. Just the presence itself, screaming across the psychic void: I AM HERE.
Amidst the non-space; the void between space's skin and time's bone; they gathered. Seated around a table forged from captive anti-matter.
It hummed with a low, hungry frequency, a counterpoint to the absolute silence. Only the nervous tap-tap-tap of Kahn's clawed finger on the impossible surface broke the stillness.
Kahn. Wanted for seven decades across twelve orbs. His eyes, usually burning coals of ambition, were wide with disbelief.
"How?!"
The word cracked like dry bone. "Centuries! This specific cosmic backwater, untouched for centuries! How are they here?!"
Around the table, his comrades; scarred veterans of lost cosmic wars; threw theories into the heavy silence. Voices tight, edged with fear they'd deny:
"Blind luck?" A rasp from a being whose form flickered like bad reception.
"Luck?! You mean a rat chewed through the veil?!" Snarled another, slamming a fist that passed through the humming table.
"Rat? Idiocy! Patrol? Here?" A third scoffed, tendrils writhing in agitation. "Why dust off a forgotten universe? Unless…"
A pause.
The ozone-like tang of anti-matter grew sharper.
"…unless they fear a storm. Like before. Eons past. A great Chaos rose… and the Knight was called. Just like now, with the Walker. They're anticipating."
Silence fell again, thick as galactic dust. Heavy with the dawning, terrible logic.
Kahn let out a shaky breath that misted briefly in the void's unnatural cold.
"Yes. Hyd. You… you're right. Logically sound. Reports trickle in… squadrons materializing across Fundus. Not hunting us. Not yet." Relief, thin and brittle, washed over him. The chase continued. He lived.
"Kahn…"
The voice was dry leaves scraping stone. Ancient. Commanding despite its weakness. They looked up. Suspended where a roof might be, clinging to the void-fabric itself, hung Kahn's Father.
A relic of the Darkest Generation. Eyes like shattered glass, dimmed but still holding the cold fire of battles fought against the Golden Generation itself. He rarely spoke. Only for stories… lessons… or warnings.
"My son…"
A ragged inhalation whistled through ruined lungs. The faint, coppery scent of old blood ghosted on the void-currents.
"I must… urge you…" Another wet, rattling cough. Flecks of dark ichor, like burnt oil, spattered the non-space below.
"…leave. This instant."
Kahn's jaw tightened. Annoyance flashed, hot and bright.
"Father. Not this again. Last week, when the Knight stirred? Same plea. 'He hunts us!'" He gestured dismissively, the movement sharp. "He hunts the Walker. He ignores us. So… save your breath. Zip it."
The final words were harsh, final. "Normally, I heed you. Not today."
The old entity sighed. A sound like a collapsing star. He understood the futility. Running? Pointless. Not from this one. Not from the worst of the Illicit Four to face across a battlefield.
The one you couldn't hit.
The one who exerted no visible effort.
The one whose mere existence bent everything into a shield, a weapon, an inescapable net.
A cracked, crooked smile split the Father's withered face. A smile holding eons of dread and grim, mocking certainty.
"Heliterna…"