The room was too clean to be a real research center. Gamma Jack walked among the blank screens and polished metal surfaces, the echo of his own footsteps accompanying him. Outside, the remains of the first Omnidroid still smoldered on the beach. It had been a victory, clear and decisive. Exactly the kind of comeback he had imagined when he accepted the mission and set foot on that island.

Restore greatness. That's what they had told him.

He calmly removed his gloves and placed them on a console, observing the place carefully. Something didn't quite fit. His mind kept returning to the same word: KRONOS. He had heard it before. Syndrome had uttered it with restrained enthusiasm while talking to Mirage, that measured smile that never quite reached his eyes. That was why he had sneaked into the research center.

He activated the main screen and typed KRONOS.

Files. Combat logs. Dates.

Gamma Jack narrowed his eyes, leaning a little closer. He didn't expect anything he couldn't understand: technical evaluations, Omnidroid upgrades, simulations. That was normal. What wasn't... were the names.

One. Two. Three.

He recognized the first one immediately. An old-school Super. Not a close friend, but someone with whom he had shared missions, stages, headlines. The file showed images of the Omnidroid in a less refined version.

Result of the confrontation: failed.

An uncomfortable weight settled on his chest. The Omnidroid was supposed to have failed, which was why Mirage had brought it to the island on Syndrome's orders. But everything he saw on the screen told a different story.

He kept going.

Another name, and another. There weren't many, not yet, just a few, enough to seem like coincidences, disappearances that no one would notice. Trials. Adjustments. But they all shared the same pattern: sent to the island, controlled confrontations with the Omnidroid until they died. And each time, the Omnidroid returned improved for the next one.

“No...” he murmured, almost in disbelief.

He went through the images one by one. Some records were incomplete, others ended abruptly. None mentioned rescues, none mentioned returns. Gamma Jack leaned on the console and took a deep breath, his usual smile completely absent.

He had arrived early, one of the first. The project was still in the improvement phase, and the results of his last fight were already accompanied by possible adjustments to defeat him on the next attempt. They had tricked him. This wasn't to restore his former glory, it was to turn him into just another Super, one who would serve to train the Omnidroid.

Suddenly, the island no longer felt like an opportunity and began to look more like a carefully designed trap.

He had come to regain the greatness of heroism. And he had just discovered the price that others had already paid in advance.