Leroi Vale...

That was his name, but it was a name that a lot of people no longer attributed him with. Now, everyone knew him as Ghostwire.

While the rest of his teammates gathered for the last discussion before embarking on their next big mission, Ghostwire made the difficult decision to stay behind because of his personal ambition.

Laying down in his bed, he looked at the ceiling with a complicated look in his gray eyes. ’Am I making the right decision...?’ He thought.

’By staying behind, am I abandoning the team when they need me?’ He felt conflicted.

’Maybe I am...,’ he hesitated. ’But does it really matter anymore?’

There was once a time that Ghostwire saw himself as an indispensable member of the Wraith Cell-9 crew.

Even with Talia, without him, sometimes the crew couldn’t function properly. This was because everyone acknowledged his abilities and relied on him.

But these days, he wasn’t sure if he was indispensable anymore.

It all started from that day that Talia and Kain suddenly returned with an unfamiliar face... Leon Ardent.

Thinking back now, Ghostwire realized that meeting Leon was the turning point in his life and in the life of his teammates. That was when the scope of matters that they got involved in began evolving, things began changing.

It was subtle at first and he didn’t notice it, but now, it was no longer subtle.

Like a dream, the same helpless F Rank Mechanist that he fought for and protected during the siege of the cargo trailer was now big enough to floor him in a 1v1 duel with less than 5% of his power.

In the blink of an eye, Leon was now a D Rank Ascended.

Despite the fact that he was self-aware enough to realize the current gap between him and Leon, he didn’t truly understand its repercussions on his life till the mission to hunt Dhruv Laden.

That was the first time since Ghostwire became part of the Wraith Cell-9 that during a mission, he was sidelined because he simply was not strong enough to participate and they didn’t want to endanger his life.

That hurt more than he wanted to admit.

Brick and Kain may have not thought much about it, but he did.

To him, this wasn’t just about him being sidelined, this was a threat to his very identity. It was a threat to what made him so important in Talia’s original crew, it was a threat to what kept him sane.

And the only thing that kept him sane was Talia.

For the first time, Ghostwire truly acknowledged the fact that he was now too weak.

’Growth...’ he thought.

Compared to his teammates, his power was now too meagre.

This brought back the question, why was he still an F Rank NetRunner? Why haven’t he attempted his first Trial yet?

Was he scared?

Well, technically yes. Who wasn’t scared of an Ascended Trial? Besides, past trauma forced him to be even more scared of the Trial system.

Having witnessed multiple agents and soldiers of the Freegrid Collective succumb to the Trial, unlike Leon who was ignorant, rash and bold, Ghostwire knew exactly what it was for an Ascended to fail and mutate to become a Neon Beast.

He’d seen familiar soldiers morph and scream in suffering and pain as not just their bodies but their very minds became corrupted, demented and mad.

Besides that, he lived entire swathes of his life locked in a basement where all he knew that was attributed to the Ascended Trial was failure. That created long-lasting PTSD in his mind.

Ghostwire was scared of Trials, Leroi was even scared of it.

But for the first time in his life since becoming an Ascended, he witnessed an ally who was reckless enough to not be scared of Trials and who was actually lucky, or maybe good enough to never fail.

Leon had a 100% success rate with Trials! And this is despite him being an Ascended for just 4 months!

The mere thought of his growth speed boggled the mind.

The fact that Daren and Talia were now E Rank too didn’t help matters, it only made Ghostwire feel even more inadequate with himself.

And for the first time, he wanted to take the risk.

For the first time in his life, he realized that he had ambition too but his ambition was not like other people’s ambition.

His sole ambition was to be strong enough to stay relevant in Talia’s crew. He didn’t want to be overlooked by her, he didn’t want to be protected by her, instead he wanted to be useful to her.

In the end, it all boiled down to his history.

Ghostwire was taciturn, but he also had a history, a dark history that was tied to the Omnicore Federation.

He remembered the days when he was a lab rat.

He vividly remembered waking up every day to dim lighting all year round, sleeping in a dark cage and being tied to lab chairs for most of the day as he and other lab rats were experimented on.

Then, he was already a loner but his experiences made him even more taciturn to the extent that the scientists thought he couldn’t speak.

He became an Ascended during one of the experiments where he was being programmed to work for the Federation as an advanced A.I that can think but is fully loyal to the Omnicore Federation.

The hard part was programming his brain to ensure loyalty after empowering him, and that was where most of his torture came from.

During this time, he saw their handlers force multiple of them into attempting Trials, and he saw them all fail in spectacular fashion, mutating into deadly mechanical Neon Beasts.

That developed his long-lasting trauma for Trials.

For a long time, he suffered, then she came.

Talia, alone, like a hurricane, she barged into the lab, killing over a dozen guards and setting off a storm in the lab.

In the end, with help from other lab rats who rose up in arms, they were able to seize control over the lab with violence from the scientists and their guards.

Lots of lab rats died during the process, but led by Talia, they were able to annihilate every single scientist and guard in the lab.

After that, Talia led them to escape before reinforcement from the nearest Federation base came.

It was after they escaped that Ghostwire spoke for the first time in years.

He had a lot of thoughts in his mind, he was confused, but in the end all his confusion culminated in a few questions.

His voice creaked like rusted iron when he spoke. "Why?" he asked, genuinely confused. "W-why take the risk? It’s dangerous, it’s not worth the effort. If they capture you, you’ll suffer a fate worse than death".

"Besides, you don’t know me, what if I or any of us backstab you in the future? You don’t even know us. What if I tell Omnicore agents who rescued me for a bounty reward?"

That moment became the defining factor in his life.

He could still recall her face as she looked at him. He expected rational answers, maybe she was trying to start a revolution or something, or maybe she wanted to turn strong experimental warriors like them into soldiers for herself.

But in the end, her answer left him even more confused.

"I didn’t do this to get anything in return, I did it because it’s the right thing to do".

Those were Talia’s words. And true to her words, she didn’t tie any of the lab rats that she saved to herself. She gave them the freedom to leave and pursue new lives.

Leroid decided to follow her voluntarily.

And till today, Ghostwire was still asking himself. ’The right thing to do? In this world? This era?’

Laying down on the bed, he looked at the ceiling.

’The right thing to do...’

’The right thing to do...’

"They’re going for the mission today and I’m not there," he mumbled. "I’m too useless to participate and help her".

He finally sat up on the bed, gazing intently at the wall. "I’ve been Ghostwire for too long..."

He exhaled. "It’s time to be ambitious".

"It’s time to reclaim my identity".

"It’s time to be Leroi Vale again and do the right thing". In his mind, the right thing was staying by Talia’s side and helping her fight her battles.

Leroi stood up, got dressed and that night he went to the Data Center where he was booked for a protected Trial.

There, he got strapped up after passing the psychological evaluation to confirm that he was ready to attempt a Trial.

That night, Leroi’s E Rank Trial started. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

...

That night, the team also embarked on the journey for the mission.