Rain on Eden-9 didn't fall so much as slide. Droplets became thin veils of metal dust carried down from the upper towers, staining the air with a shimmer that burned the lungs of anyone foolish enough to walk outside without filters.
Sera Vance walked through it anyway.
The coat she wore was the same issue she'd been given in the Bureau years ago—heavy polymer plating, light refractors embedded in the fabric. She liked the weight. It reminded her she was still a body, not just the mind that kept expanding every time she touched the students' answers.
At the end of the promenade was an old maintenance dome that hadn't been used in decades. The Academy listed it as condemned. That made it perfect.
Inside, the five students were waiting.
Ryn's crystalline form threw jagged colors over the room. Tava crouched on a high beam, watching with predatory curiosity. Iri floated at the center of her hydration sphere, calm, unreadable. Morthen leaned against a pillar, mask venting faint blue mist. Kael sat on the floor, eyes closed, murmuring equations under his breath like prayers.
Sera stepped into the circle of light. "We need to test something."
Kael opened his eyes. "You want proof that we're not just guessing."
"I want limits."
Ryn laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "Limits are for those who can't rewrite the constants."
She ignored the jab. "We start simple. Predict the motion of the Ruinborn swarm in sector nine."
Tava tapped her temple. "Two hundred and thirty-seven hours until contact with Eden-9."
Morthen added, "Fifty-eight percent chance of partial atmospheric breach."
Iri whispered, voice rippling through her water sphere. "Forty-two percent if you interfere."
Sera's pulse quickened. "Interfere how?"
"By existing the way you do."
The words hit her like a physical strike.
She took a step closer. "Meaning what?"
Iri's black eyes opened. "Your growth ability doesn't just evolve you. It echoes through probability space. Every adaptation shifts the network's timeline."
The room fell silent. Even Ryn stopped glowing for a moment.
Sera breathed out slowly. "So every time I learn something from you…"
Kael finished it for her. "…the universe learns you back."
Her implant buzzed again, louder this time.
Adaptation event detected. Neural load 39.4%. Evolutionary pathway expanding.
She clenched her fists until her knuckles cracked. "Good. Let it."
They ran tests for hours.
At first, simple data queries—engineering schematics, astro-political simulations, linguistic riddles from forgotten cultures. Each answer came instantly. Then she moved to dangerous territory: weapon patterns, genetic recoding, energy field manipulation.
Her ability drank it all.
By the fourth hour, the air around her shimmered faintly, heat bending light into warped halos. When she exhaled, sparks crawled along the floor.
Tava hissed, tail flicking. "You're overheating, Professor."
"Don't call me that," Sera said. Her voice came out layered, like two versions of her speaking at once. "Names are for small people."
Kael stood. "You're reaching the phase where your body rewrites itself. If you keep going, the Bureau will sense it. They'll come."
"I want them to."
He frowned. "They don't arrest anomalies anymore. They harvest them."
"Then they'll have to catch me first."
Outside the dome, a pulse rippled through the city's surveillance grid. Far above, in the orbital towers of the Federal Black Operations Bureau, an alarm triggered in the bio-signature division.
A technician turned to his supervisor.
"Sir, we've got an unregistered growth pattern forming below the Academy."
The supervisor leaned in. "Classification?"
"Unknown. But the neural output matches… Vance."
The supervisor's expression soured. "Vance is dead."
The technician checked again. "Apparently not."
Back in the dome, Sera stood alone in the center, surrounded by her five impossible students.
Her skin glowed faintly now, lines of light tracing her veins like circuitry. Every breath felt like pulling in a galaxy.
"Tell me," she said softly, "what happens if I stop pretending I'm human?"
Kael looked up at her. "Then you'll stop being limited by this galaxy's rules."
Ryn tilted their head. "And probably start rewriting them."
Morthen's spores drifted lazily in the air. "Just make sure you like the version you create."
Sera smiled—a small, dangerous smile.
"Then let's begin rewriting."
Above them, Bureau ships began descending through the metallic rain, engines screaming.
Below, something vast and ancient stirred beneath the planet's crust.
The Ruinborn were coming early.