The training yard of A.R.C.’s R-Division was a place that smelled of steel, gun oil, and fear.

Ed stood among rows of armored operatives, their visors gleaming beneath the fluorescent lights. For the past few days, he had been learning how containment squads moved, how they breathed—synchronized, silent, efficient.  

He was still an outsider, watching the rhythm of professionals who lived on the edge of the impossible.

“Rookie Relven,” barked a voice.  

Ed turned to see **Captain Harlan Voss**, the Capture Unit commander—broad-shouldered, scars tracing down his jaw like lightning bolts. “Forget the classroom. You’re coming with us today.”

Ed blinked. “A live mission?”

Voss nodded grimly. “ARC-027. Code name: *Fire Man.* We’ve got visual confirmation of the anomaly in Sector 9—an abandoned industrial complex. Reports indicate he can turn himself into living flame. We’ve lost two reconnaissance drones already.”

Around them, the containment team began gearing up—heat-resistant suits, magnetic suppressors, nitrogen grenades, and portable isolation cages etched with containment sigils. The air buzzed with tension.

“Listen well,” Voss said, his voice low but cutting through the noise. “This isn’t like your library incident. This one moves, thinks, and kills. Once we secure him, he goes directly to **S-District**, isolation chamber A-01. Analysis Division will take over from there.”

Ed nodded, heart pounding. “Understood.”

“Good. Keep behind me and don’t do anything stupid.”  

The captain turned away, and for a moment, Ed caught sight of the unit’s insignia—an iron serpent wrapped around a flame. Beneath it, the motto: **“We Burn the Fire Before It Burns Us.”**

The industrial ruins loomed against the dusk—half-collapsed towers and twisted cranes. The ground was blackened, melted in places.  

Something had already burned here.

The team moved in formation, thermal sensors sweeping through the haze.  

Then a voice crackled through the comms: “Thermal spike detected! West corridor—massive heat signature!”

“Eyes up!” Voss shouted. “We’ve got contact!”

A moment later, the world erupted.

A torrent of fire burst through the concrete wall, engulfing the corridor in a storm of orange and white. The flames didn’t spread—they *moved,* twisting like a living creature. Through the inferno, Ed glimpsed a figure—a man-shaped silhouette of pure fire, eyes glowing like molten glass.

The anomaly *spoke*, its voice crackling through the air like burning wood:  

“Why do you chase me? I only burn what’s already dead!”

“Deploy coolant rounds!” Voss roared.  

Blue bursts of nitrogen exploded across the hall, clashing with the heat. Steam filled the air.

The creature screamed, its shape flickering, collapsing into human form—a young man, charred but breathing, falling to his knees. His skin glowed faintly like embers.

“Now! Suppression net!”  

Two agents lunged forward, throwing the containment web. Runes flashed as it tightened, locking around the anomaly’s body. The fire dimmed—contained, for now.

Ed watched, unable to look away. The man lifted his head, eyes filled not with rage, but sorrow.

“They called me a monster,” the man whispered. “But I only wanted warmth…”

Then his body went limp.

Minutes later, the transport convoy rolled back toward A.R.C. Headquarters.  

The captured anomaly lay sealed inside a reinforced containment pod, frost coiling along its surface from the internal cooling systems.

Voss stood beside Ed in silence.  

“Remember this, rookie,” he said quietly. “Not all anomalies are things. Some used to be people. Some still are.”

Ed swallowed hard. “What happens to him now?”

“He’ll go to S-District. Observation, analysis, classification. The scientists will figure out what’s left of his humanity… if there’s any left to find.”

Outside the armored window, the skyline flickered with distant firelight—echoes of what they’d just captured.  

Ed stared into it, feeling the weight of what “containment” truly meant.

For the first time, he realized that the Foundation didn’t just *protect* humanity.  

Sometimes, it *decided* what humanity was allowed to be.