Designation: Mn-33
Folk Name: "The Pretender"
Sin Embodied: Envy – Absorbs victims’ identities but is never truly them.
Codex Failure #3
Origins – The Lie of Beauty
The Codex Order, in its pursuit of human augmentation, launched a bounty program promising flawless physical enhancement. Citizens desperate for beauty and status volunteered, believing they would emerge perfect.
Instead, they became subjects in Zeraph’s cruelest experiment—Project Mn-33.
Zeraph’s True Intent – The Perfect Infiltrator
The project was never about aesthetics—it was about erasing identities. Mn-33 was meant to absorb and overwrite minds, to become anyone, anywhere. A ghost with no true form, no self—only function.
But the Proto-Core corrupted the process. Instead of seamless transformation, Mn-33 could only absorb fragments—memories, mannerisms, voices—but never the soul.
No matter how many faces he stole, they were always wrong.
The Fall – When Identity Becomes a Curse
Belial’s first days in Nexus Prime were a nightmare.
The first time he stole a face, he looked in the mirror and felt a rush of hope—but then the expression twitched. The mouth moved out of sync. The reflection betrayed him.
He tried again. And again. Each face was incomplete. The voice was never quite right. The posture was always just a little off.
Panic turned to obsession. He thought he just needed the perfect host—so he killed more. And more.
The cycle of envy began.
He mimicked, he killed, he tried again—each time hoping this face would finally be his.
But it never was.
Becoming a Hunted Legend
The Codex Crows were always watching—mechanical spies blending into the gothic skyline of Nexus Prime. At first, Zeraph was still interested. He wanted to see if Belial could adapt in the wild.
But Belial was no infiltrator. He was a monster in the making.
His killings weren’t strategic. They were desperate.
Eventually, even Zeraph gave up. Surveillance shut down. He was discarded like the others.
Now, the underworld took notice. A bounty was placed on “The Pretender.”
Hunters searched, but how do you hunt something that never looks the same twice?
Some hunters disappeared—only for their “partners” to return… acting slightly off.
At some point, Belial stopped running. He stopped trying to be “someone.”
Now, he played with his victims.
He let his face flicker mid-conversation, just to see their horror.
He whispered back memories that weren’t his.
Fate – The Phantom of Nexus Prime
Eventually, the bounty hunters gave up. The reports stopped.
But then… the stories began.
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A merchant swore he saw his lost brother—but his brother had been dead for years.
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Surveillance footage showed the same face in different parts of the city at the same time.
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A scavenger bragged about meeting a childhood friend—until the “friend” slipped, calling him by a name he had never shared.
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A bartender spoke to a customer for hours—until the man started repeating the conversation backward.
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A woman had dinner with her husband—but her husband had been off-world for months.
The Proto-Core’s corruption rejects him, forcing his form to glitch and flicker, as if reality itself cannot hold him.
Mirrors betray him—his true form flickers in reflections.
Sometimes, his voice is two voices at once—his own and the last person he stole from.
Even in his own mind, he isn’t alone.
Zeraph’s voice still echoes:
“You are unfinished.”
“You are an error.”
“You will never be real.”
Belial has stopped trying to belong. Now, he simply exists.
Always shifting. Always watching. Always longing to be something he can never truly become.
Some whisper that his endless shifting has drawn the attention of the SIW—or worse, Cyber Knight himself.
The city never truly forgets The Pretender.
And the last time you saw a familiar face…
Are you sure it was really them?
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