Arman's legs moved on adrenaline and instinct, his sneakers pounded on the cracked pavement, more running, he dashed past units, slipping between shipping containers, zigzagging across open space, bullets clipped steel pipes showering down a rain of sparks, one bullet seared past his leg, but he didn't stop.
Two agents dressed in black and armed chased him.
Arman slowed his breath, his heart hammering loudly.
One of them shouted, "Check inside, don't let him leave the lot"
He pulled out his phone, no signal, he reached into his pocket and found the DG-3 USB burning cold against his palm.
What had he walked into? Who was watching? And more importantly, who exactly is Joyce? An image of Joyce flashed in his mind, how she had asked about his favorite MLBB heroes, how her hands trembled the first time she played the game, all a cover? Or had she come to love the game, just like him? And what else had David hidden?
He ran to a corner and hid himself quietly, he waited for the footsteps of his pursuers to pass, after they passed, he sprinted towards another direction, he dove over a half fallen wall, hitting the ground hard, then slipped along the chain link
A small tear in the metal mesh became his exit, his hand tore on the wire, drawing blood, he grunted but didn't stop, beyond the fence was a narrow service alley chocked with broken pallets and oil drums.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, he ignored it.
Ahead, a rusted shipping container lay tilted, creating a low tunnel between it and the wall, he ducked and slid beneath, his shoulder scrapping against the gravel, behind him, boots stomped, then, another vibration, his instincts finally screamed louder than his urgency, he grabbed the phone as he ran.
A new message, unknown number again:
>Run south, past the water tanks, third wall has an opening, take it, the GPS is live Do Not Stop'
He had no time to reply, he spotted the old water tanks, massive, cylindrical and corroded, he sprinted past them, heart punching his ribs, dogs barked in the distance as more gunshots echoed.
Third wall, he counted as he ran, first, second, third, the wall was too high to jump, but there, an old stacks of tires and crates, he scrambled up, nearly slipping then threw himself over the top, he hit the ground hard on the other side
His lungs gasping for air, for a moment, the world was quiet again except for the deafening thunder of his pulse, he lay there, staring up at the cloudy sky.
Another vibration:
>You're close, 300 meters south, look for the building with the red canopy, Basement level, keypad code 0924'
He pushed himself up and began moving again, this time crouching low, weaving through industrial debris and crumbling roads, a truck passed in the distance, he froze, waited, then moved again
The building appeared like a ghost, squat, windowless with a weathered red awning dropping like tired eyelids, the keypad blinked faintly beside the metal door.
Arman keyed in 0924, the lock released with a mechanical snick, he slipped inside, closing the door behind him, inside, everything was silent, the air smelled of mildew and electricity, a faint hum vibrated beneath the floor, there was a narrow stairway descending deep into the shadows, he stood at the edge, breathing hard, still clutching on the DG-3 USB.
"Dad," he whispered, "What in the hell did you put me in the middle of?"
The silence inside the underground bunker was dense, broken only by the low electric hum vibrating from deep within the floor, Arman descended the concrete steps slowly, one hand brushing the damp, old wall as he clutched the DG-3 USB in the other hand
Dim lights flickered to life with his movement, the place looked abandoned but something about it felt... prepared, almost like a forgotten santuary waiting for him.
He reached the bottom, a metal door groaned open on rusted hinges, revealing a small chamber lined with dusty screens, unplugged servers and an empty chair positioned before a console, Arman dropped into the seat, exhaling hard, on the desk he noticed a single note in handwritten he hadn't seen since he was eighteen.
*Trust The Game. Dig Deeper - D.G.*
He stared at the initials for what felt like hours.
In the hollow basement of Masaki Depot, the flickering lightbulbs cast shadows like ghosts dancing around Arman Gonzalez, the console infront of him was humming now, syncing with the USB, the screen read:
> SYNC COMPLETE :: DG-3 > TRIDENT NODE 43B > SECURE LINK ENABLED
The lights buzzed out, he froze, then a new screen blinked to life.
> WELCOME USER: DG-3
> TRACE INITIATED: NOKO
> DESTINATION: TRIDENT / HQ ENCRYPTED / 43B-NET
Arman sat frozen in front of the console, he took a deep breath and clicked *ENTER*, A secure folder appeared, labeled:
> GHIBLI // TRIDENT// RAVEN // NOKO
He instantly double clicked it, suddenly, he was no longer just watching the mystery, he was inside it but somewhere, someone had just found out that he had accessed the DG-3 USB.
Data spilled across the screen, an ecrypted cascade of logs, blueprints, terminal commands, audio clips, but the one that stood out was labeled:> NOKO_REPORT // 23:09 // Internal Investigation - David Gonzalez
His hands trembled, he thought for a while then finally decided to open it, he double clicked, Inside, were more files, blueprints and a timestamped video message.
His father's face blinked onto the screen at the moment he clicked onto the video message.
"If you're watching this, it means I've failed to protect you from what's coming, Ghost Knights, they're more than you think, there are strings being pulled, Tridents buried in dirt, son, Dig Them Out and Trust Nobody... not even your lectures"
Arman stared, frozen, the screen glitched, and for a second, the face of Professor Nwoko flashed behind his
......
Foxxie's Pov
Somewhere else, in Joyce's room, now known in-game as Foxxie, she sat cross legged, a maze of notebooks and schematics spread out in front of her, her soft curls framed a furrowed brow as she reviewed match data from the last Ghost Knights' livestream.
Though she was the last member to officially join the team, she still felt like a fraud, the squaad didn't know her real background, her IGN was a mask, her support play a way to stay relevant without exposing too much.
Her phone buzzed.
>Peter (Xiorra): Yo, you good? Arman went off radar.>Foxxie: Yeah, he said he had to handle something, didn't say what>Peter: Weird, felt off, keep your comms up
She chewed her lip, something 'was' off, Arman had barely spoken after the match and then vanished, she got off the bed and sat at her desk, headset on, analysing the audio from their last match, something was off
She zoomed in on the waveform of their stream, there were embedded glitches not from lag, but almost like encoded Morse, she quickly ran a descryption tool.
> ACCESS GRANTED: GHOST KNIGHTS PLAYER IDS :: MATCH INSERTION CONFIRMED
Someone had piggybacked on their stream and recorded more than just the gameplay, her eyed widened, whoever it was.... had hacked them from the inside, she unplugged her hard drive, took a shaky breath and messaged Peter.
........
Peter's Pov
Peter aka Xiorra, was on a night ride at the moment, the city glowed beneath him as his black motorbike, his helmet HUD flashed a new ping from Joyce
>Joyce: We've been compromised, Arman's trail starts at Masaki Depot, I'm going after him
Peter slowed near the overpass, his mind racing, he wasn't just a tank on the field, he'd promised Arman's father, long ago, that if anything happened to David... he'd protect the boy, tonight, it was time to honor that.
.......
Dedero & Cherry's Pov
At a tiny gaming cafe in Mikocheni, Dedero and Cherry sat shoulder to shoulder, poring over the Ghost Knights' archived data.
"There, do you see it?" Cherry asked, scrolling back.
"Yeah," Dedero said, "His IGN kept flashing during the final push but it wasn't part of the broadcast, just milliseconds, hidden codes"
"Someone's trying to leak something and they're using Arman's gameplay to do it" Cherry sat back.
"Then we better make sure he doesn't die with it"
.......
KT's Pov
At the rooftop café above Kariakoo's buzzing streets, KT Suzume leaned on the railing, sipping iced coffee, her dark braids fluttered in the wind as she scanned through her hacked access to a few encrypted Ghost Knights archives
She had always suspected there was more going on in Arman's past, the numbers weren't matching, the Ghost Knights growth, the sponsorship deals, the algorithmic boosts in livestreams viewership, they were off, her eyes settled on one file she hadn't decrypted before.
> GONZALEZ // LEGACY INITIATIVE // K-ARCHIVE
She paused, then opened it.
Names, a project, a timeline that ended on the day David Gonzalez died.
"If this is real," she muttered, "Arman's not just in danger, we all are"
......
Gojo & Anime Girl's Pov
Inside a private gaming room in Kimara, Gojo sat in silence as Rahma (Anime Girl) replayed Arman's most recent MLBB perfomance.
"You see that flicker on his mini map?" she askedGojo nodded, "Thats not lag, that's a trace signal"
They stared at the screen
"Someone used Arman's live feed to inject location pings" she whispered
Gojo stood first, fists clenched,
"We're being watched through the game and Its_cana's their bait"
.......
Dubster's Pov
Dubster, the EXP lane monster of Ghost Knights was doing his thing, mid-match, livestreaming to over 12,000 viewers while eating fried chicken between fights."Yo! that flicker was dirtyyyy," he shouted, dodging a gank in real time, his eyes narrowed at the chat scrolling, among the usual spam of emojis, one message caught his attention
AnonymousUser33: "DG-3 activated, your boy better move"
Dubster froze, not a single viewer would understand what that meant but he did, he slammed the match closed, turned off his mic and sat back in silence"DG-3..." he whispered, "What the hell did you just find, Arman?"
.......
Arman's Pov
Somewhere beneath the bones of Masaki Depot, in that subterranean abyss, Arman sat infront of the console, his father's voice from DG-3 video still rang in his ears.
"Trust Nobody... not even your lectures"
Every beat of his heart felt like a countdown, whatever this place was, whoever had built it, David Gonzalez had known it would be important.
Arman opened another file, blueprints of Ghost Knights' network architecture, not just gameplay layouts but real network traffic logs from NIT, timestamps that matched past match days, why was the school's data center being used as a mirrored node for the team's strategy server? Why was NIT involved at all?
Before he could process more, the power flickered and a voice echoed through the bunker.
"He's in"
Then, a blackout, everything went dark, all except for one screen
> You are being watched, MOVE
He bolted out of the chair and up the stairs, someone had found him again, he raced fast towards the exit, hiding in between crates kept in the basement as he saw his pursuers.
"He should be in the bunker lets hurry" One of the agents said, the two of them ran to the bunker giving Arman an opening to escape from their pursiuts.
Outside now, breathless and heart racing, Arman ran past alleyways near Masaki's shipping district, desperately trying to reach the next safe node referenced on the USB's second page.
He didn't know who was watching.
He didn't know if he could trust anyone.
But one thing was certain, Ghost Kniights weren't just players in a game.
They were chess pieces on a global board.
And someone was about to flip it.