The Concord felt different now.
Word of the failed exhibition hadn't been officially released and whispers bled through the walls. Everyone knew something went wrong. Something bad. Training schedules stayed intact, drills remained unchanged but the silence in the halls spoke louder than any briefing ever could.
No one said it, but the Breachers could feel it:
Fear.
---
Thunder cracked against the padded walls of the training hall.It was Raiden.he was hitting a reinforced training dummy.
Raiden struck again this time with his fists wrapped in arcs of blue lightning, shirtless, muscles clenched and glistening with sweat. Each blow reverberated with anger, his expression carved into a mask of relentless focus. The reinforced dummy cracked again and again under his relentless strikes.
He didn't stop. Better word for it,he couldn't.
"You're going to break that thing," came a voice from the doorway.
Warden Caelis stood there, arms folded. The ever-unflinching commander.
Raiden breathed hard but didn't turn. "Does it matter? What's the point if I can't get any faster with my attacks."
"Or maybe you're just punishing yourself."
He froze. Lightning hissed around his forearms, then flickered out.
"I wasn't there," he muttered.
"You weren't supposed to be.Consider yourself lucky kid,you wouldn't do anything to that monster and you know it.So just drop it and move on."She said with a cold and emotionless expression on her face.
Raiden froze,he new she was right even if she was very blunt about it.
Caelis stepped inside. Her boots echoed as she walked to him. "Ethan's alive because of his team,they had his back. You'll get your chance, Raiden. Train hard...but don't burn yourself out before your moment to shine comes."
Raiden looked at her for a beat, then nodded. "…Yes, ma'am."
---
In the drone bay,a room specially made for Liora to work on her gadgets.Liora sat alone, surrounded by spare parts and hovering modules. Her usually bright eyes were dulled with frustration. Screens flickered with schematics, new ones. Deadlier ones.
She was rebuilding everything.
New armor plating. Smarter A.I. Reinforced shock cores. No more "support-class" tech.
Zira approached from behind, her arm still wrapped tight, skin mottled with bruises.
"You're still here? You haven't left this lab in two days."
"I should've done more back there," Liora whispered. "All I did was carry Keir out. While Ethan... Zira, he almost died. You got crushed. Keir..."
Zira sat beside her, exhaling. "You didn't run. You didn't freeze heck you even sacrificed one of your drones in that things mouth. If that doesn't count as doing something then I don't know what will,your alive...that's what counts."
"I was a liability."
"No. You were a teammate. One who's making sure next time, you'll be more than ready."
A long silence passed. Liora finally looked up at her friend. "I'm redesigning my entire drone core. If I can't destroy something instantly then...I'll build something that can."
Zira smirked. "Then get to work. I'll gladly test it when I can walk straight again."
---
RESEARCH WING – DEEP ANALYSIS BAY
Dr. Renn Kael stood in the center of a darkened chamber. Holograms danced across the room,a 3D projection of Ethan's biometric scans flickered in ghostly blue.
Around him, six specialists from the Division of Rift Phenomena and Bio-Mana Analytics stood locked in virtual conferencing.
"Let's begin," Kael said. "Subject 369...Ethan Valtaris. Initial scans post-recovery revealed dual mana signatures."
Dr. Eriana Solari, arms crossed, cut in. "Dual? Or just noise from the beast? I wouldn't be surprised if it was able to do that to it's targets"
Kael didn't flinch. "One is consistent with awakened Breachers. The other? Not noise. It dwarfs the primary signature by a factor of two hundred."
"Impossible," Tannos Vire scoffed. "You'd fry your nerves holding that much energy."
"And yet here he is," Kael snapped, pulling up overlapping energy curves. "And you're missing the point,the second signature isn't just larger. It's alien. Structurally unstable, spatially disruptive."
Dr. Calven Jhor leaned in. "Because it's not native to this dimension."
Eriana shook her head. "We've seen off-worlders before. None of them destabilize the grid like this."
Jhor fired back, "That's because they're from adjacent worlds. Ethan's readings don't fit anything in our known dimensional spectrum. It's like he's... layered between planes."
"So what, you think he's a walking paradox?" Tannos growled.
"Maybe," Jhor replied coldly. "Or maybe he's proof we've only scratched the surface of interdimensional resonance theory."
Kael interrupted. "The Rift-class mutant they encountered showed similar distortion. When Ethan's second mana flared...probably due to the stimuli of fear,the beast reacted. Violently. As if compelled."
Grall's voice joined the channel, tone low. "It hunted him. Prioritized him more than the others."
"Exactly," Kael said. "Its behavior became erratic the moment Ethan was in range. Their resonance patterns... sync, in irregular pulses."
Eriana scowled. "Are you suggesting the beast was attracted to something in him?"
"No," said Kael. "I'm saying it resonated with him. Like matching frequencies between two incompatible systems. That reaction nearly cost all four of those kids their lives."
There was a tense pause.
Then Jhor spoke. "We've calibrated every reading under the assumption of dimensional parity. What if... Ethan doesn't just come from another world...what if he exists partially outside of this one?"
The room fell silent.
"Explain," Grall demanded.
"If his true essence vibrates at a frequency incompatible with this dimension's base reality, then we're not seeing a mana surge, we're seeing a misinterpretation of reality," Jhor said. "Our tools can't interpret what they weren't built to detect. That's why he appears unreadable. That's why he's dangerous."
Eriana muttered, " "Wait... are you seriously saying the universe is bending the rules to let this kid exist?"
"Maybe," Kael replied. "And if that secondary resonance ever stabilizes, we don't know what it'll do. To him. To us."
Tannos crossed his arms. "So what's your proposal? Lock him up? Cut him open?"
"We monitor him," Kael said firmly. "Around the clock. Because if that mana spikes again, I want to be there when the laws of physics decide to take a vacation."
Grall's voice dropped. "And if it's not just him? If others start showing signs of change?"
"Then this war's bigger than we thought," Jhor muttered.
---
In the infirmary,Ethan lay motionless beneath a thin layer of scanning drones. His body still bore bruises and faint traces of charred skin. Monitors blinked slowly. Beside him, Keir lay in a separate pod, his condition stable, but unresponsive.
The room was quiet. Then...
Ethan's fingers twitched.
His eyes opened for a moment, unfocused. He saw light and a faint silhouette that whispered his name in his head.
"Nanook".
The voice faded.
His vitals spiked for an instant… then returned to normal.
He had fallen asleep once again.
---
Later in th common hall,Zira entered with Raiden, her arm newly dressed and limping slightly. Across the table, Liora tapped away at her holo-pad, still scribbling formulas and adjusting design ratios.
"They're saying Ethan and Keir might wake up soon," Raiden said.
"Good...it's been days," Zira muttered. "Ethan's got alot of questions to answer."
Raiden smirked. "Bet he'd say the same about you,he does find you weird hehe."
Above them, a screen flickered to life:
CONCORD BULLETIN: ALL EXHIBITIONS SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. HIGH-RISK RIFT THREAT DETECTED. CONTINGENCY MEASURES IN PLACE.
Raiden leaned back. "Yeahhh that's not comforting at all."
Zira cracked her knuckles. "They just can't let us have a break huh.This is getting pretty creepy."