A city at night had many faces. Whether it was the beautiful neon lights of the concerts coloring the street, or the view from the highest rooftop.
However, the backstreets of Porcupine weren't so fortunate. The alleyways were dark and filled with the faint stench of trash.
Then suddenly–
THUMP
A chase.
Multiple guards chased after two figures barely visible by the flickering lights of the alleyway.
One of them was a young man in a green hood.
He was carrying a box– likely what caused the chase.
Beside him, his partner. He seemed heavier… healthier, and was barely catching up to the hooded man. It was easy to see that he wasn't as fit for the job.
“Ghady!” the healthier man shouted at the hooded man.
“...What?’”
The healthier man struggled to speak as he was panting heavily.
“I… thought… this was a stealth mission!” he exhaled.
Ghady only replied with a few words under his breath.
“I don't do stealth. Especially with someone weighing me down.”
They turned a corner, then suddenly, they were gone.
“Find them! They couldn't have gone far!” shouted one of the guards.
Beside a garbage bin stood Ghady and his partner who was panting, completely out of breath.
—-------------
Daylight had replaced the neon street lights, yet the backstreets stayed more or less the same.
The same stench of trash lingered in the familiar alleyways. It was a hideout of a gang. Graffiti filled the wall with unique– abstract colors.
Ghady walked his way towards a certain area, along with his partner. He clutched the similar metal box in his hands.
Leaning against a wall was another figure, one who was clearly in charge.
“Here.” Ghady said as he tossed the box casually to the figure, “boss man.”
“Oh!” The man struggled to catch the box and clenched it tightly against his chest.
“T-thank you, Ghad-”
“Yeah, yeah.” Ghady lifted his hand expectedly, “Get to the point.”
“Ghady.” The boss gulped, “You should know better. We’ve been struggling for some a while-”
Ghady quickly interrupted with a loud sigh, “This is the third time this week.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, “Look, I don't do your shit for free. We all got bills to pay.”
Ghady pointed at the other people in the gang, a timid woman with pink hair and a guy, struggling to hold a bat with the correct grip.
“I don't expect much from you. But they need to feed themselves too, don't they?”
He then pointed at his partner who flinched, “Even Bobby has to pay his bills too. They shut off the electricity in his apartment as well.”
“Look, Ghady, I get it. I truly understand and appreciate all your effort but there isn't simply enough money to-”
“I don't wanna hear it.” Ghady interrupted before the boss could finish once more, he was clearly upset with the lack of payment.
There was a short pause as the boss started to think.
“You're the last one we got.” The boss started. “Without you, we are hopeless.”
“You already know this don't you?” The boss sighed, “There… used to be many more people helping this gang. People with real talent. Back then we didn't have to suffer as much as we do now, but you know how it goes. Other associations got jealous and took them for themselves.”
He placed his hand on Ghady’s shoulder.
“I promise you, that if you do the next mission, you and everyone else will get paid.”
It wasn't déjà vu that Ghady was feeling.
He had heard this line multiple times.
There used to be more members, really useful ones but now, you're the only one left
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Bullshit. Just a lie to keep Ghady doing unpaid labour.
But despite all of that, Ghady was willing to give it one final choice.
“I’m not doing this for you.” Ghady spoke, his voice firm and unnerving.
“But you are doing this for us. Aren't you?” The boss asked with a rather wishful smile. He had known Ghady for years.
“Don't act like you know me.” Ghady said, annoyed but not denying it. “Fine, I will, but I better get paid-”
“Oh you will. More than usual.”
He paused. “Because this job… it’s different.”
Ghady’s eyes narrowed. “Different how?”
The boss leaned in slightly, lowering his voice.
“We need you to steal something. Something important.”
A breath. “The Power Core of Darkness. It belongs to the Volvana lineage.”
Ghady blinked.
and then frowned. “Hold on. Back up.”
He looked at the boss. “What the hell is the Volvana lineage?”
The boss stiffened slightly.
“The Volvana,” he said carefully, “one of the most successful families in the underground business. Known for trafficking valuable goods.”
He hesitated. “They mostly dealt in weapons.”
Ghady’s eyes narrowed. “Mostly?”
“There's a word,” the boss continued, lowering his voice, “that they have something else in their possession.”
A pause.
“What people call a Core.”
Ghady blinked. “…What?”
The boss swallowed. “A Core. I don’t know how it works—I just know what it looks like.”
Ghady crossed his arms. “Then start talking.”
“It’s small,” the boss cupped his hands. “About the size of a baseball.”
“Some… gold-like light. Orb-like shape. It’s separated into fragments– or layers, and it seems to resemble our planet. Crust, mantle, inner and outer core. It pulses– as if it’s breathing.”
He swallowed. “You’ll know it when you see it.”
Silence followed.
Ghady raised one eyebrow. “That’s it? No alarms, no guards, no curses?”
The boss hesitated. “…There will be guards.”
Ghady sighed. “Of course there will.”
“Don't be reckless this time, okay? I mean it.”
He turned away, already walking. “Send me the location. And don’t lie about the pay.”
The boss let out a breath he’d clearly been holding.
Ghady didn’t look back.
A Core, he thought.
Whatever the hell that is.
—------------
Of course, getting something with such a big name and value was never going to be easy.
Ghady didn’t exactly know what to expect. Traps? Complicated contraptions?
But it happened to just be a vault in the outskirts of the backstreets.
No towering compounds, no excessive displays of power. Just a vault that looked extremely old, almost forgotten.
However, the place was heavily guarded, patrol routes overlapping with mechanical precision.
Although, with years of experience behind him, Ghady slipped through a narrow backdoor entrance he wasn’t entirely sure the Volvana even knew about.
A tunnel followed through the door, it was an abandoned shaft, far away from the vault.
Ghady navigated through the narrow hallway, going up stone steps and the squeezing past rubble that had blocked the path.
Finally, when he reached the vault, the pathway was by an old brick wall that didn't look too strong.
Ghady’s first instinct was to break it, but then he remembered what the boss had told him– to not be reckless this time around.
“Tch.” Ghady clicked his tongue. “This'll take a while.”
Ghady removed each brick by hand, making sure no guards would notice.
Eventually, he made a hole big enough to enter and silently crept into the heart of the vault.
Inside, a guard moved through the vault, passing shelves lined with priceless artifacts that were deemed illegal by the government. The Volvanas being able to keep a place like this without getting shut down made little sense, but that wasn't any of Ghady’s concern.
Ghady trailed behind him silently, careful, measured—
A faint sound escaped him.
The guard stiffened and turned sharply, hand already reaching for his weapon.
But Ghady had already moved.
In the split second the guard spun around, he slipped past him and disappeared into the shadows, leaving nothing but silence behind.
“Must've been one of those rats.” The guard shrugged.
Ghady sighed behind a wall. That was the riskiest move he’d done. He wasn't much of a stealth person, so this took quite the toll on him.
As Ghady sneaked his way around the place, he noticed all the valuable items that he could grab.
He was hesitant, “It's so worth it, but… Ah, screw it.”
Ghady took a silver necklace that belonged to– who knows, and he slid it into his backpocket.
It took a while, but Ghady had finally reached the room holding the rarest loot.
And in the center—there it was.
The Power Core of Darkness.
It looked just as described. There was no doubt about it.
Even dimmed, a faint gold-like aura surrounded it, while the inside remained completely dark. Its exterior flickered with a red, almost fiery glow.
Ghady didn’t hesitate.
Slowly—carefully—he reached out and took it from its display.
For a brief moment, it felt like something screamed.
A sharp, unnatural screech—
One he could only hope no one else heard.
He slipped the core into the pocket of his jacket.
Now was the difficult part, heading out.
Ghady knew he could not go through the way he came in, the guard had almost caught him while he was there.
The same trick won't work twice.
Then suddenly, he realized something
He was being watched the entire time. By the surveillance camera.
It would be only a matter of time before-
It was too late.
Alarms started blaring the room.
The cacophony of tramping from the guards, as they shouted, “Find the intruder! Find ‘em and kill ‘em!”
Ghady ran as he avoided guards chasing him.
Then, he dropped something– the necklace.
He needed that. But there's no time. He kept running.
At last, he found where he came from, the hole in the brick wall.
He quickly snuck through and hid behind a wall, panting heavily as the guards ran past since the wall was shrouded in darkness, being the saving grace from Ghady being caught.
He could only hope that nobody heard him panting, or the core whirling in the pocket of his jacket.