CHAPTER 1: The Smell of Grease and the Silence

The Fort Rust base in Nevada was a forgotten patch of rock and sand. The midday temperatures could melt asphalt, and at night, the cold bit deep. It wasn’t a combat outpost; it was a grease pit.

And Sergeant Elara Vance was in charge of that grease pit.

Her official role was Culinary Specialist Level 2, managing the dinner shift at Dining Facility 3.

At Fort Rust, people generally forgot that Dining Facility 3 existed, unless they were hungry. It was isolated, far from the new recruits’ barracks and the firing range. The entire kitchen seemed perpetually coated in the scent of scorched onions, old cooking oil, and industrial cleaner.

Elara was part of that monotony. She was about five feet five, of average build, always wearing loose, faded gray kitchen fatigues, her hair pulled back so tightly that her face was hard to see. She never spoke louder than necessary to call out an order, and she was notorious for a clumsiness that seemed almost intentional. She had spilled the mushroom sauce vat twice this month and nearly set the toaster oven on fire last week.

The soldiers often looked at her with grudging disdain. “The slow cook,” they muttered.

But Elara never minded. She kept her head down, her pale brown eyes always fixed on the stainless steel trays. It was an astonishing level of focus—not on the cooking, but on the concealment.

Every day, Elara repeated a perfect routine: Inventory counts, vegetable prep, deep frying. Her movements were slow, lacking fluidity, as if she were deliberately restraining a potent, boiling energy within.

Except for one small detail:

Whenever she held a kitchen knife, even just to slice a potato, the light in the kitchen seemed to be absorbed by the blade. In that split second, her pale brown eyes became hyper-focused, almost supernatural, and her fingers moved with absolute precision. This moment lasted less than half a second, after which she would revert to her habitual, clumsy demeanor.

Only she knew that this was the instinctive reaction of someone once codenamed Valkyrie—a former officer of the highest-level Advanced Operations Unit, who had vanished from system records two years prior.

The Bullies Arrive

On this particular day, things were worse than usual.

It was Fatty Roasted Chicken night, a meal Elara deeply despised due to the excessive amount of grease it produced.

Just as Elara was meticulously wiping down the spice shelf, the door to the auxiliary storeroom burst open.

Staff Sergeant Jax, a large, arrogant man with a thick mustache, walked in. He was an NCO from the maintenance unit, who always considered himself superior to anyone in the dining facility. He was accompanied by two other soldiers, Private Miller and Corporal Reese—both smirking.

“Hey, Cook!” Jax growled, his voice unnecessarily loud in the small room. “Your Fatty Roasted Chicken tonight is worse than chemical waste. I want a special portion. A fillet steak. Right now.”

Elara turned around, wearing her usual expressionless facade. “Sergeant, tonight’s menu is only Fatty Roasted Chicken. Fillet is out of stock. The next shipment arrives on Friday.”

Jax sneered, stepping closer, blocking the light from the overhead lamp. “You don’t understand me, Vance. I’m not asking. I’m ordering. I know you hide some good stuff for the senior officers. Get it out, or I’ll report you for that mushroom sauce incident.”

Miller and Reese chuckled loudly.

Elara stayed silent. She knew the rule: avoid trouble, maintain the cover. She bowed her head and began to turn back to her cleaning task.

“I apologize, Sergeant. I cannot violate regulations,” she repeated, her voice small, almost trembling.

Jax frowned; he hated her silence and her adherence to rules. He wanted obvious submission.

“Are you challenging me, Vance?” He stepped up, leaning his hand on the stainless steel counter.

Suddenly, his eyes caught sight of a small object, tucked behind the salt shaker. It was an old, worn silver coin, threaded into a simple pendant. It was the only keepsake Elara had from her previous life.

Jax gave a cruel smirk. He snatched the coin and held it up.

“What is this? A lucky charm for clumsy cooks?”

Elara finally looked up. It was the first time she looked Jax directly in the eye. A flicker of cold warning passed through her brown eyes, so fast that Jax thought he imagined it.

“That’s personal property,” Elara said. Her voice was still small, but this time, it carried a metallic sharpness. “Don’t touch it.”

Jax, feeling insulted by her tone, decided to cross the line. He clenched the coin in his palm and slammed it down hard on the steel counter.

CRACK!

The coin was bent, the leather cord snapped.

“Oops,” Jax said falsely, staring at Elara. “My bad, cook.”

The Limit Is Broken

Blood rushed to Elara’s face. Not out of anger, but out of some kind of mechanical trigger. This was no longer about work or rules; this was an intrusion on the final boundary of the cover she had built to protect herself.

In an instant, the humid, noisy kitchen seemed to go silent for Elara.

The sound of Miller shifting position as he tried to back away, Reese’s involuntary gasp of a laugh, even the pulse beating under Jax’s neck—all were processed into separate data streams by her mind. Time didn’t slow down, but Elara’s perception accelerated unbelievably.

She saw every muscle in Jax’s arm unconsciously tense, signaling he was about to swing.

“I warned you,” Elara whispered. Her voice sounded distant, almost mechanical.

Jax laughed, reaching out to grab her wrist. “And what are you going to do, little cook?”

THUD!

Elara vanished. She didn’t move; she shot away.

Her response wasn’t typical combat. It was the calculated precision of physics and mechanics:

Position Nullification: Before Jax could blink, Elara had slipped out of her original spot, the motion so fast it created a small, sharp hiss in the air.

Joint Lock: She didn’t use a fist. Her fingers locked precisely onto a vulnerable point on Jax’s wrist—a specialized technique called the “Ulnar Nerve Intercept.”

Secondary Impact: The force was not violent, but a redirection of energy: she used Jax’s own momentum to destabilize him, causing his head to lightly hit the edge of the steel counter. No injury, but total incapacitation.

Everything happened in less than 0.7 seconds.

Miller, who had been laughing, froze. He only saw a gray blur shoot past. He reached for the folding knife in his pocket, but a loud “SLICE” echoed.

Elara wasn’t looking at Miller. She was standing behind Reese, holding his arm tight. But the thing that made the slicing sound wasn’t her hand.

It was a large, heavy butcher’s cleaver, which she had grabbed from the chopping block without anyone noticing. It wasn’t used to threaten; it was used to fix.

The gleaming blade was embedded exactly 1cm deep into the concrete wall above Reese’s shoulder, pinning his jacket securely to the wall, right next to his throat. The knife was mere millimeters from his skin, enough for Reese to feel the coldness radiating from the steel. He didn’t dare move.

Elara released Reese’s arm. He just stood there, shaking, immobile.

Jax staggered up, but the arrogance was gone. He looked at the small woman who was breathing softly. Her eyes were not the eyes of a cook. They were the eyes of a reprogrammed assassin.

“You will not be reporting my mushroom sauce incident,” Elara said, her voice no longer small or shaky. It was deep, clear, and heavy with authority.

Jax could only nod. He was terrified. He knew he had just provoked something far beyond ordinary military rank or procedure.

Elara turned her back, calmly walking towards the bent coin.

As she bent down, the weak kitchen light caught the back of her neck. Jax, still dazed, squinted. He saw something no one at Fort Rust was supposed to see.

Right below her hairline, on the back of her neck, was a small, circular, almost imperceptible scar, like an old burn mark. But it wasn’t a burn. It was a faint, nearly erased tattoo of a Phoenix engulfed in flames.

Jax knew that symbol. He had seen it in Top Secret files he shouldn’t have known about.

It was the insignia of the Phoenix Unit—a legendary, supposedly disbanded unit dedicated to unofficial Cyber-Kinetic operations for the U.S. Government.

Elara Vance was not a clumsy cook. She was Valkyrie.

She picked up the coin and tucked it into her pocket. She didn’t turn back.

Jax took a step back, swallowing hard. He knew he wasn’t the only one backed into a corner. Elara, she was being hunted.

“Vance…” Jax whispered, his voice trembling. “Who… are you?”

Elara opened the door to the large freezer, preparing to step in to check inventory. She paused.

“I’m just a cook, Sergeant,” she said. “And my shift is over.”

She stepped into the frigid room, slamming the steel door shut. Jax, Miller, and Reese stood stunned in the kitchen, where the smell of grease was overshadowed by the scent of ozone and pure terror.

But when the freezer door closed, inside, Elara did not reach for inventory.

She stripped off her kitchen jacket. Beneath it, she was wearing a tight-fitting black tactical suit. She pulled off the rubber gloves, revealing a tiny satellite communication device strapped to her wrist.

“Nightingale,” she said into the device, her voice now devoid of any clumsiness, turning cold, sharp, and military-precise. “The cover is blown. Someone recognized the marker. It’s time to activate the protocol.“