The alarms were screaming.
The ship was spinning, spiraling violently as I plummeted toward Mars at an angle no astronaut should ever experience. The world outside my window was a chaotic blur—red, black, fire, debris—twisting and shifting as gravity took its claim on me.
The right booster was gone.
I was plummeting at speeds that no man should survive.
Mission Control wouldn't receive my distress signal for another fifteen minutes. Another fifteen after that before I could hear a response. By then, I would already be dead.
There was no one to save me.
I gritted my teeth, hands flying across the controls, fighting against the ship's violent rotations. The G-forces pressed against me like an unrelenting hand, trying to pin me back, crush me into my seat. My body ached, my vision blurred, but I refused.
The descent wasn't supposed to be this fast. This uncontrolled. This desperate. My mind raced through the emergency procedures, but the numbers flashing across the display were wrong.
The ship wasn't just falling.
I needed to stabilize.
I forced myself to breathe, gripping the emergency override, but the ship jolted again, and the sound of something tearing reverberated through the hull.
I wasn't going to die here.
[S-Rank Detective Instincts Activated.]
[A-Rank Firefighter Crisis Response Activated.]
[A-Rank Construction Worker Structural Analysis Activated.]
[C-Rank Astronaut Emergency Maneuvers Activated.]
Everything in me surged forward at once. The countless jobs, the countless skills—I had never felt them scream this loudly before. It was as if every part of me was yanked into overdrive.
The failing stabilizers. The breach in the right thruster. The chain reaction that had led to the misfire. The escape paths that weren't viable. The single path that was.
I flipped a switch. Manually redirecting oxygen flow. The remaining thruster systems coughed, barely alive, but they responded. The controls vibrated under my grip, the sheer violence of the descent forcing my bones to ache.
Left stabilizer overheating. Right stabilizer—GONE.
I adjusted the auxiliary thrusters, redistributing the remaining power. The ship jolted violently as it tried to fight against Mars' pull.
My body felt like it was being crushed into the seat, my ribs pressing against my lungs. I let out a strangled breath, fighting the black creeping at the edges of my vision.
It was soft at first—a breathless chuckle, a crack in the composure I had held for too long.
My lungs fought against the crushing G-forces, my body burned from the strain, and yet—
Because of course it had come to this.
"Dust, my S-Rank friend, you seeing this?" I rasped, my voice shaking, raw from the force pressing down on me. My grin was manic, my breath ragged. "What kind of garbage is this?"
The ship groaned as it twisted through the upper atmosphere, red warnings flashing in every direction, alarms blaring in protest.
Standing effortlessly in the chaos, untouched by the spinning, the screaming, the dying machine around us.
His mask was sharp, pristine. His coat billowed despite the lack of wind, the folds of black fabric undisturbed by the laws of physics. His golden eyes glowed beneath the mask, calculating, assessing, as if this were nothing more than a crime scene to be analyzed.
"This is a hell of a case, don't you think?" I wheezed, my laughter spilling out in broken fragments. "'Survive the Crash.' Hah! Who the hell comes up with this?"
Mr. Dust tapped his chin thoughtfully, tilting his head like he was examining a clue only he could see. "A mystery for another time, Mr. Angel."
My breath hitched—then broke into another fit of laughter.
Of course. Of course.
I turned sharply, my body weightless in the chaos, and there—there he was.
Arms crossed, posture unwavering, the embodiment of defiance. His presence burned with a different kind of fire—righteous, unwavering. A hero standing at the precipice of catastrophe.
His white-and-red mask glowed under the flickering emergency lights.
"You gonna help, Fox? Or just watch me crash and burn?" I grinned, teeth bared.
Mr. Fox's head tilted, his stance firm. "You don't need my help."
His voice was steady, filled with a confidence so unshakable it almost sounded amused.
"You're already saving yourself."
Another burst of laughter tore from my throat—half madness, half exhilaration.
I had never been alone.
A new warning blared.
ALTITUDE CRITICAL. IMPACT IMMINENT.
I floated amidst the chaos, weightless as my ship spiraled toward oblivion. The alarms blared, the hull screamed, and somewhere deep inside the failing machine, fire clawed hungrily at the remains of my right booster.
I didn't touch the controls.
Instead, I threw my head back, arms spreading wide as if welcoming the inevitable. As if daring the universe itself to test me.
"Do you hear it?!" My voice cracked, barely audible over the chaos. "The sound of revolution! The sound of masks rising from the shadows!"
Mr. Dust stood before me, silent and composed, his golden eyes gleaming with cold calculation. "It was never just us," he murmured, adjusting his gloves.
Mr. Fox, ever the steadfast hero, crossed his arms. "And it never will be."
I grinned wildly, my breath ragged. "We were never alone. The world doesn't just belong to the ones on top. It belongs to us. To the forgotten. To the unseen." My hands clenched into fists. "There are more of us out there. More masks in the dark. More names whispered in fear."
In the streets of cities drowning in corruption. In the slums where the system had turned a blind eye. In the ruins of places deemed 'unworthy' by those in power.
"The Syndicate isn't just eternal," I hissed. "It is inevitable."
Mr. Dust smirked, adjusting his collar. "And the one at the top?"
The pressure of the descent bore down on me, metal groaning like a dying beast.
And yet, through it all, through the madness and the flames and the death closing in, my voice was steady.
I inhaled—slow, sharp, deliberate.
"THE WORLD PRESIDENT!"
The name burned my throat as it left my lips, every syllable dripping with fury, with venom, with the sheer force of my will.
"YOU SIT ON YOUR THRONE OF LIES, THINKING YOU'RE UNTOUCHABLE!"
The ship shuddered violently, but I didn't care.
"BUT YOUR TIME IS COMING!"
The flames licked closer.
"YOUR SYSTEM IS ROTTING!"
The atmosphere dragged me down, pressure crushing, metal screaming—
"AND WHEN THE MASKS COME FOR YOU—"
My voice cracked, raw and unrelenting.
"THERE WILL BE NOWHERE LEFT TO HIDE!"
The ship groaned, the structure screaming as it fought against the impossible.
I could feel the pressure mounting, the suffocating force of Mars' atmosphere ripping at the hull, tearing at the edges of my consciousness.
My body lurched forward, my head colliding brutally with the control panel as the ship entered full atmospheric descent.
A sharp pain exploded behind my eyes.
No voices but my own.
I sucked in a slow, rattling breath, my skull pounding from the impact.
I blinked, the burning red glow of Mars now clear through the window.
I had made it through the atmosphere.
But the ground was approaching fast.
And I was still falling.
The mission wasn't over yet.