Chapter 77: When Griffin Defies the Master

He raised an eyebrow—slowly.

“Seriously? That long for decontamination?” He pursed his lips. “You’ll have to explain what kind of microbes you brought back from that planet… because if it requires that many sighs, tremors, and suspicious noises, I think we need to reprogram the entire sanitation protocol.”

Evelyn turned scarlet. Vykhor raised an eyebrow... then closed his eyes for a fraction of a second to keep his composure.

But Zeynn, ever himself, added with a softer tone beneath the sass:

“…That said…” He locked his feline gaze on Vykhor. “She doesn’t look broken, so I guess that’s something.”

Then he turned to Evelyn and, to everyone’s surprise, held out a dried fruit:

“Here. You must be exhausted. Exercise is treacherous.”

She burst out laughing. A bright, vibrant, liberating laugh. She took the fruit, winked at him, and ruffled his hair—a gesture he allowed with a suitably grumpy expression.

Vykhor merely sighed. But deep down, he felt something shifting, growing stronger.

A pack. Chaotic, cheeky, imperfect. But his.

And as he closed the decontamination cell door behind him, a final glance exchanged with Evelyn brought him back to the heart of it all.

She was here. Zeynn too. And somewhere, Blue was probably already sensing that he’d have to share his territory.

The Narak’Tharr wasn’t just a ship anymore. It was home.

**Meanwhile — Ghoran-Tau**

The scientific base had fallen silent.

The acidic winds of Ghoran-Tau swept over the still-warm ashes of a research lab hastily abandoned, its doors gaping, modules gutted. A place that, only days ago, buzzed with scientists, engineers, guards... executioners.

Now, only silence remained.

Standing over the ruins, a hooded figure watched.

Dr. Alan Griffin.

The targeting lenses of his visor displayed the aftermath of the sabotage. Every red dot on the holographic screen marked one of the Master’s failures—a seed of doubt sown in the monstrous web of experiments.

He had acted alone, as always. No witnesses. No trace. Only the faint memory of a breeze and a series of perfectly timed detonations.

Griffin should have been a thinker, a builder—not a saboteur. And yet, the infiltration blade on his arm, the EMP charges on his hips, the micro plasma detonators in his pouch—those were now his daily tools.

All of it… because of her.

He closed his eyes.

Evelyn.

His mind replayed that first day, in the glass cell of the Earth-based lab. The girl they had created, isolated, mentally tortured under the guise of scientific progress. The one he had first observed with the clinical detachment of an expert. Until she spoke to him. Until she really looked at him, with those bright blue eyes full of intelligence… and loneliness.

She had awakened something in him. Something he thought long dead.

A heart.

He hadn’t fled to save her. No.

He had fled because she saved him.

And even now, as he completed a dangerous mission, his heart beat in sync with the intel flowing in.

A light press on his glove’s neural link triggered a private, encrypted display.

Test complete — Subject A-011 — Full success.
Behavioral analysis: evolving. Attachments confirmed.
Group cohesion: strong. Threat response: synchronized.
Recommendation: continue monitoring.
Observer emotional state: calm.

Griffin smiled. A sad smile.

“She found her pack…”

A Kael’tarian. A young Nytherian. And a feline with teeth too small for his destiny—for now.

Griffin had no doubts about their worth. He had seen Vykhor stand against a combat drone. He had seen Zeynn rise, adapt. He had seen Blue… no—he had seen what Blue would become.

But more than anything, he had seen Evelyn grow.

Where he had long feared she would carry the Ashcroft Project like a curse, she had made it her strength.

He gently closed the display and straightened. The orbital cameras he’d mapped out in advance had been disabled. In two minutes, he would leave this world without a trace.

But in his heart—in that soul forged from numbers and logic—something still shone.

A bond.

“We’ll meet again, Evelyn. Not yet. Not now. But… someday.”

He planted one last tiny charge in the debris. Then turned away, soundless.

Behind him, the ruins collapsed, swallowed by a silent burst of light.

And in the echo of that light, the promise of the invisible protector lingered.

**Flashback**

The harsh neon lights reflected off the glass walls of the lab. Everything was too white. Too sterile. Too dead.

Dr. Alan Griffin, still a respected name at Galactic Consortium conferences, stood before a monitoring interface, his fingers mechanically tapping out the vitals.

Subject A-011. Neural stimulation level 7. Controlled overload threshold maintained. Empathy inhibitors active. Cognitive resistance measured at 86%.

A success, on paper. A breakthrough for research.

But that day… something went wrong.

The neurological overload spiked, suddenly and violently. Silent alarms lit up. The other researchers, focused on data, dismissed it as a minor artifact. Nothing alarming.

But Griffin—he looked. Not at the curves. Not at the numbers.

At her.

Evelyn.

Strapped down. Weak. Barely older than a child. Her wrists bruised by restraints, forehead damp with cold sweat. Her gaze…

That gaze.

Two blue eyes, brimming with tears, stared at him through the glass. No begging. No screams. No pleading.

Just a silent question: Why?

And that day, Griffin didn’t have an answer.

He couldn’t hide behind statistics. He couldn’t justify cruelty in the name of progress. He saw, in that gaze, a brutal truth: This wasn’t science.

This was cruelty dressed in data.

He discreetly aborted the procedure. Altered the logs. Injected a mild sedative without alerting the others.

Then he sat in his office, alone, staring at a blank wall for hours.

That day, Dr. Alan Griffin, the cold scientist, died.

And the man who would become the shadow in the dark—the invisible protector—was born.

**Somewhere in the Galaxy**

On an unknown planet, deep within a buried stronghold, the Master screamed.

His bloodshot eyes fixated on the holodisplay listing, one by one, the sites destroyed or infiltrated by some unseen hand. One by one, his labs fell. And with them, months—sometimes years—of work.

“Who dares defy my will?!”

His voice rang out—cold. Inhuman.

Beside him, the Emissary—an androgynous figure draped in black robes—bowed slightly.

“No signal yet. The saboteur erases every trace. Not even our AIs can detect his imprint.”

“Lies! Nothing is invisible. Nothing!”

The Master slammed a fist down, shattering the control panel. His crazed eyes lit with manic fury.

“It’s him. Griffin. I recognize the style. The meticulous care… This is his work.”

He rose, his long silhouette floating inches off the ground.

“You thought you could defy me, Alan? You thought you could save her? Evelyn is mine. Every cell in her body. Every byte of her thoughts. Every heartbeat… belongs to me.”

A pause. Then:

“It’s time the stars remembered that human intelligence… does not tolerate traitors.”