Dorian jumped awake the instant his alarm went off and stumbled his way to the bathroom. A bath of cold water had him fully awake and alert. Dorian was about to walk out when he spied his unkempt hair and face in his bathroom mirror. Letting out a resigned sigh, Dorian lathered his cheeks and run a razor through the stubble there. He hacked his hair short and found his work adequate.

Dorian bent to wash his face and rose to stare at a face he barely recognised staring right back at him from the mirror. With thick black hair, a slightly prominent nose and grey eyes. Eyes that were a bad day from turning dead. In some other world he might be called handsome but not in this one. His sunken cheeks and a many time broken nose were the look most if not all hunters currently wore.

As Dorian pulled on his 'liberated' suit he thought back to what started him on this current path. Something that could be a mistaken feeling or worse, a hallucination conjured by his breaking mind. Whatever it was Dorian was going to see it through.

Appropriately dressed, Dorian quickly scarfed down his ramen breakfast when a van honked outside. His ride was here. Before he left though, Dorian swiped the depleted core and slipped it into his pocket. The essence stone, the other part of whatever mystery Dorian was trying to unravel was always around his neck tucked away.

Dorian waved at Dan his chauffeur for the day and got a non committal grunt in return. Another of those days. Dorian slammed the van door shut and it took off to Kowloon City.

As the van drove through the bumpy streets of The Lodge, Dorian pulled up his terminal and looked over the message he'd gotten from the Power Plant. The message was short and straight to the point. It also had a temporary pass attached which meant the people running it took security seriously.

Hoping against hope, Dorian pulled up the website selling monster cores and found them still firmly out of his reach. It seemed his current course was the only one he had. With nothing else to do and Dan lost in his own head, Dorian leaned his head against his seat and closed his eyes to make the long drive go faster.

The van suddenly jolted to a halt and Dorian jumped awake, his mind had been in that state between wakefulness and sleep, he looked out the window confused— they couldn't have made it could they? Looking out the car door and at the featureless landscape bordering the road, they hadn't. Dorian looked out the windshield at whatever had made them stop and his blood run cold. Standing in the middle of the road was something all hunters secretly dreaded to see and burned to stick their weapons into.

A Steward. Four of them.

The people's answer to when the hunters minds broke when the system left. It was supposed to be a temporary position till the hunters got back on their feet, hence their name. That all changed when ehcho was discovered. Now the former rag tag bunch of men and women now donned nearly impervious imposing armour and carried guns that fired rounds so fast they appeared as beams of light. And powering all that tech and displayed proudly from their chest was a monster core. Cores that hunters had fought and bled to harvest. At first Dorian and the other hunters had seen the stewards as children playing in their parents clothing, civilians playing at being hunters. That all changed when the first battalion of stewards wielding echo powered weapons put the few rioting hunters down, hard.

And now four of them stood in the middle of nowhere on the only road leading to The Lodge, one of the few remaining hunter towns.

'This doesn't look good.' Dorian thought silently.

Wordlessly the occupants of the van openeded the van doors and stepped out approaching their waylayers. “What the hell are you swine doing here?” Dan snarled.

Dorian looked over and saw how his friend was rearing up to take a swing at the smug faces of the bastards. Consequences be damned. Dorian was debating helping or stopping him when one of the Stewards spoke.

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“We're here investigating the disappearance of one Victor Dawson and his entourage. Have you seen them around?”

The question threw Dorian for a loop, he and everyone else knew the Stewards jurisdiction ended at the borders of all major hunter settlements, their being on the only road leading to one was pushing the envelope on that law. And they knew it. And yet they had the gall to question hunters. The same thought must have been going through Dans mind because he roared and pulled back a first to swing.

An eager smirk and a hungry look in the eyes of one of the Stewards clued Dorian in to what was going on. To what the Stewards wanted, to what Dan was about to give them. An excuse.

Snake like, Dorians arm shot out and arrested his friends elbow stopping it from making contact with the chiselled chin of the Stewards speaker and their apparent leader. Dan fought the hand holding him back, forcing Dorian to yank his elbow back and set his friend off balance, a sweep to his heels saw him stumbling and dropping to the seat of his pants.

With Dan momentarily out of the way, Dorian flicked his wrist and activated the video recording function on his terminal. He panned the camera across the Stewards before him and the dilapidated buildings of The Lodge in the distance behind him. The rage in the formerly smirking ones eyes told Dorian he'd done the right thing. The leader with the chiselled jaw nodded in respect to Dorians actions. A Steward who fancied himself honourable, the thought made Dorian sick.

With a gesture the armoured leader shut down Dorians recording and erased the footage. And without a word the four turned and activated jets in their feet and back, and just before they activated one of the Stewards, a woman turned and smirked— “Nice suit.” With that the jets activated with a whoosh and launched the Stewards skywards and back wherever they came from.

Crisis averted.

Dorian looked down at his terminal and wondered what else the Stewards could do. The man had bypassed all the security locks Dorian had placed on his terminal with a wave of his hand. And that was the least the armour and those wearing them could do.

Dan got to his feet and dusted himself off and got back in the van with a violent slam of it's door. The rest of the ride towards the city was in a tense awkward silence.

Hours later they pulled up to the security checkpoint of the Kowloon power plant and Dorian made to get out when Dan cleared his throat, “Thanks for what you did back there.”

Dorian smiled and replied, “We'll get em back on day brother. And say hi to Sandra for me. Who knows what she sees in your dumb ass.” Dan roared with laughter and drove off to meet his girl and Dorian focused to do battle. With an interview.

As he approached the checkpoint, the guards tightened their grips on their weapons. Dorian flicked his wrist and projected his pass to be scanned. And for a moment he feared the Steward had altered it somehow and was prepared to dive out the way of bullets when the scan beeped a relief granting green. Dorian was given a physical pass that read visitor and ushered into the plant.

Dorian walked up the driveway to a squat ugly building that in no way looked like his mental image of a power plant. He was met by a slightly heavyset man who vigorously shook his hand and introduced himself, “I'm Stevens and you're Dorian right? Pleasure. ”

“Uh yeah I am and thanks for the opportunity to work at such a…”

Stevens waved away Dorians prepared speech and ushered him towards the ugly building. “Non of that now, you're sorely needed here. We need workers who are particularly resistant to echo in such large amounts.”

He meant hunters which clued in Dorian that they might have attempted to run the plant with ordinary people. Dorian guessed it hadn't worked out. Echo in large amounts was poison and insidious though Dorian would never know since he was immune to the energy.

Dorian let Steven rumble on as they approached the ugly building he scanned his palm and ushered Dorian in, continuing to speak about benefits and the gratitude of the city of Kowloon. They walked into an elevator which jolted and begun to descend. It was faint at first but Dorian could vaguely feel Echo, and the lower they got the stronger the Echo got.

They jolted to a stop and the doors opened with a ding, opening to a scene that stole Dorians breath away. Before him was a giant sphere with a million wires and cables coming out of it and through the sphere's glass panels, Dorian could see the blinding light of the dragon core within. Wearing brown overalls with the Kowloon City crest were what Dorian knew were hunters carrying cables and making some sort of repairs. The air was alive and electric with Echo.

Dorian looked to see how Stevens was handling it only to see the heavyset man almost running for the elevator. A hunter with an overseer badge and a hard hat approached Dorian and gripped his fore arm in a traditional warrior greeting. The man was an old guard.

“So son, how soon can you start?”

“How about now?” Dorian replied with a smile.

He was finally here. And couldn't wait to start.