The world returned not with a gentle fade, but in jagged, disconnected pieces.
The first sensation was the cold. A deep, penetrating chill that seeped into bones that felt brittle, hollowed out. Then came the smell—acrid, like ozone and scorched earth, mixed with the coppery tang of blood. Finally, sound filtered in: the distant, approaching wail of sirens, and a voice, fractured by sobs.
"Arthur? Arthur, please… please wake up."
Elara.
I forced my eyes open. The world was a blur of washed-out color and swimming shadows. My body was a single, unified ache, a symphony of pain with no distinct instruments, just a crushing, overwhelming volume. I was lying on my back on the cold concrete of the underpass. Above me, the grimy ceiling was illuminated by the pulsing red and blue lights of arriving emergency vehicles.
I tried to sit up. A white-hot spike of agony lanced through my chest, and a choked gasp was all that escaped my lips.
"Don't move!" Elara's face swam into view above me. Her perfect hair was matted with dirt and tears streaked through her makeup, creating dark, messy trails down her cheeks. Her eyes, those stormy grey pools usually full of confidence or contempt, were wide with raw, undiluted terror. For me. "Your… your ribs. Just stay still."
Fragments of memory slammed into me. The stone fist. The impact. The shattering pain. Then… the heat. The impossible, all-consuming fire. The feeling of invincibility. The sound of Kragg's stone face cracking under my molten fist.
Had that been real? Or a pain-induced hallucination? A final, desperate fantasy of a dying Baseline?
I managed to turn my head slightly. The scene around me was one of devastation. The walls of the underpass were blackened and scarred, as if by a tremendous heat. The asphalt where I lay was cracked and glassy in places, vitrified by extreme temperature. And ten feet away, lying in a heap of rubble, was Kragg. His granite form was intact, but a massive, spider-webbed fracture ran across his face and torso. He was unconscious, or worse.
It had been real.
A wave of vertigo washed over me, unrelated to the pain. What had I done? What was I?
The sound of heavy, purposeful footsteps echoed in the passage. Figures clad in sleek, black body armor with the stark letters MRA emblazoned on their chests moved in with practiced efficiency. They surrounded Kragg, deploying strange, glowing devices that encased his stony body in a field of shimmering energy.
One of them broke away from the team and approached us. He moved with an unnerving grace, a predator's economy of motion. He removed his helmet, revealing a man in his late twenties with sharp, angular features, silver-streaked black hair tied back in a short tail, and eyes the color of cold steel. He radiated an aura of absolute authority.
His gaze swept over the scorched scene, then down to me, and finally to Elara. It was a calculating look, taking in every detail and filing it away.
"Elara Vance," he said, his voice calm and devoid of warmth. "Are you injured?"
Elara shook her head mutely, her hand still gripping my shoulder tightly.
The agent's steel-colored eyes fixed on me. "And you are?"
"Arthur Prott," I managed to rasp out. The effort sent another jolt of pain through my chest.
He knelt beside me, his movements precise. He didn't touch me, but a small scanner in his hand hummed as he passed it over my body. A holographic display flickered to life, showing a schematic of my torso with several ribs highlighted in angry red.
"Multiple fractures. Significant internal bruising. And a massive, anomalous energy depletion," he murmured, more to himself than to us. His eyes met mine again, and this time, they held a deep, probing intensity. "The Rogue did this?"
Before I could answer, Elara found her voice. It was shaky but defiant. "He saved me! That… that thing was going to kill me. Arthur pushed me out of the way and… and then…" She trailed off, gesturing helplessly at the devastation around us.
The agent's expression didn't change. He looked from the scorch marks, to the broken Kragg, to my broken body. The equation didn't balance. A Baseline teenager with shattered ribs couldn't have done this.
"I see," he said, his tone neutral. He tapped a comm unit on his wrist. "We have two juveniles at the scene. One, Elara Vance, Gifted, appears unharmed. The other, Arthur Prott, registered Baseline, is critically injured. The Rogue, Kragg, is subdued and contained. Send a medical transport. Priority one."
Registered Baseline. The words hung in the air, a lie that now felt as fragile as glass.
As the MRA agents secured the area, the agent—I saw the name Valerius on his armor—stayed with us. He didn't speak again, but his presence was a heavy weight. He was studying me, piecing together the puzzle.
The medical team arrived. They were efficient, gentle, strapping me to a backboard, administering a painkiller that sent a wave of blessed numbness through my body. As they lifted me onto a gurney, my head lolled to the side. I saw Elara being guided away by another agent. She looked back at me, her eyes filled with a confusion that mirrored my own.
Then, I saw Agent Valerius. He was standing over the spot where I had lain. He reached down and picked up a small piece of something from the glassy asphalt. It was a dark, obsidian-like shard, still faintly glowing with a deep inner heat. A piece of the armor that had sheathed my body.
He held it between his fingers, examining it. Then, his cold steel eyes lifted and met mine as I was loaded into the ambulance. There was no warmth in that gaze. No gratitude. Only the cool, clinical assessment of a new variable. A dangerous, unknown variable.
The doors of the ambulance slammed shut, plunging me into a sterile, silent world. The numbness from the drugs spread, but it couldn't touch the cold dread solidifying in my gut. I had saved Elara. I had defeated a monster.
But as the vehicle sped away from the ruins of my old life, I knew with terrifying certainty that I had just jumped from the frying pan into a fire I couldn't even comprehend.
My life of quiet observation was over. Now, I was the one being watched.