The sky over Paris was a deep, bruised purple, streaked with the last, bloody-orange gasps of sunset. A few distant, blinking airplanes cruised silently, mimicking sterile, man-made stars against the twilight. The city's silhouette was dominated by the familiar iron lattice of the Eiffel Tower, but its reign was now challenged by the new, gleaming presidential villa that pierced the heavens. Below, the city hummed—a distant, muffled symphony of sirens, traffic, and countless lives intersecting.
With a hydraulic sigh, a high-speed Maglev train, designated GT-6478, slid into the Waltongate Street station. The doors hissed open, releasing a wave of indistinct chatter and the rustle of disembarking passengers into the rowdy subway air.
From the central car emerged a teenager, a stark figure against the crowd. Her hair was the colour of leaden storm clouds, falling loose to her shoulders with a few limp strands draped over her forehead. Her eyes, a steely, piercing azure, held a weary intelligence. Her attire was deliberately unremarkable: a faded blue t-shirt with obscure lettering and a simple denim skirt. A single bag was slung over her shoulder, its strings held tightly in her fist. Her internal narration was a dry, pessimistic stream, a stark contrast to the lively chaos around her as she stepped onto the platform.
A voice, distorted and impatient, hollered from the station speakers: "Keep moving! No loitering! This is Destination MLGG6379—Waltongate Street! All passengers, disembark now!"
She had only taken a few steps when a familiar voice cut through the din. "Aurelia! Aurelia, wait!"
The girl—Aurelia—paused and turned. Hurrying towards her was Gwendolyn, a vision of warmth even in the subterranean gloom. Her long auburn hair cascaded around her shoulders, and her green eyes sparkled with a concern that seemed to generate its own light, complemented by an ebony glow that required barely any illumination to shine.
"Ellie, it's not your fault," Gwen said, catching up and placing a gentle hand on her friend's arm. "You can't honestly believe that."
Aurelia's shoulders slumped. "It might seem that way to you, Gwen. But we both saw what happened. It was fair and square. You won." A melancholic smile, devoid of any real warmth, touched her lips. "You always leave me with an interminable gap. I can't change it. And now my mom is using it as another excuse to pull me out. Another school, another city. I don't even know why she bothers to unpack."
"But I thought she was in Tokyo. How would she even know the details?" Gwen's voice was soft, affectionate.
"You know her. She has this... omniscient presence. It's like she's literally pulling my strings from the other side of the world." Aurelia's voice dropped to a frustrated whisper. "She and Noelle have a lot to elucidate to me, one of these days."
Gwen's expression softened further. She rummaged in her own bag and produced a small, beautifully carved wooden fox. She pressed it into Aurelia's hand.
"What's this?" Aurelia asked, furrowing her brow as her fingers closed around the smooth, polished wood.
"A good luck charm," Gwen said with a small shrug. "I know you don't believe in that sort of thing, but... I suppose you might need it someday." She folded Aurelia's fingers over the talisman, her grip firm and reassuring. They embraced, a tight, wordless hug that spoke volumes.
"My dad left for Madrid yesterday," Gwen murmured, pulling back slightly with a look of contrition. "Sorry, I didn't get to tell you. Some high-level NATO proceeding and other global projects. He'll be there for a while."
"Are you going to join him?" Aurelia asked, a flicker of worry in her steely eyes.
"Perhaps, but not now. He'll tell my mom next month, I think." Gwen then broke into a broad, mischievous grin, successfully lightening the mood. "So cheer up, pookie." She playfully pinched Aurelia's cheeks. "Well, see ya, Lerra. My nanny's waiting—"
The world ended.
A sudden, deafening roar swallowed her words whole. The air itself became a solid wall of force, slamming into them. The train car behind them contorted, then erupted, torn apart by a massive, inexplicable explosion. Shrapnel and glass became a deadly storm. In a moment of pure, panicked instinct, Aurelia's unique talent flared to life—she unconsciously mimicked a minor shielding ability from a nearby passenger, a shimmering aura that flickered around her. It was enough to save her life, but not enough to prevent a shard of glass from slicing into her wrist and another embedding itself in her foot.
But the horror was elsewhere. Her eyes, stinging with smoke and dust, found Gwen. A long, twisted steel rod, a piece of the train's skeleton, had impaled her friend, pinning her to a mangled flight of stairs.
"No!" The scream was ripped from Aurelia's throat. Ignoring the excruciating pain in her own limbs, she crawled forward, the world reduced to the sight of Gwen's motionless form. She hadn't willingly used her ability; it had simply happened, a terrifying testament to her lack of control.
The station was a fresco of carnage. No one was left unscathed. Scattered pieces of the train burned with an incandescent fury, casting hellish, dancing shadows. The air was thick with the smell of ozone, fuel, and blood.
"Gwen! Gwen, don't you leave me! Please wake up!" Aurelia sobbed, finally reaching her. She grabbed Gwen's limp hand, her own blood-slicked fingers slipping. She pressed her ear to Gwen's chest, and a fragile sob of relief escaped her—a faint, thumping rhythm echoed there. Alive. Aurelia's eyes met Gwen's own talisman, she was convinced it was Gwen's because hers was in her firm grip.
A stark, black-and-white memory flashed behind her eyes: The "Blackheart" National Zenith Tournament, named for its founder. She and Gwen, a perfect team. Her own adaptive mimicry, a chaotic mirror of any power she witnessed, perfectly complemented by Gwen's disciplined pyrokinesis and sharp strategic mind. They had swept through the combat rounds, leaving opponents on their knees to the roar of the crowd. But the Aptitude test was her undoing. Her papers were swapped with a twelfth-grader's—a test she still passed, but which nearly got her disqualified until her mother's distant, cold intervention with the Blackheart board. Gwen had taken first. Aurelia, second. The "interminable gap."
Aurelia managed to surface from the memory, her mind returning to the half-dead reality of the present. The wail of sirens grew from a promise to a presence. Ambulances had arrived. Figures in reflective uniforms moved through the smoke. An ebony-skinned man and a woman with a ruddy complexion and kind eyes approached.
The woman, whose blonde hair was streaked with soot and whose azure eyes mirrored Aurelia's own, knelt beside them, her face a mask of professional calm. She offered a graceful, optimistic smile that seemed utterly alien in this setting.
"What are your names? Yours and hers?" she asked, her voice soft but steady.
"I'm Aurelia," she choked out, her gaze locked on Gwen. "She's Gwen... Gwendolyn Smythefield."
For a minute, the woman—Iris—seemed lost in a profound thought, her eyes fixed on Gwen's face as if searching for a ghost. Then she blinked, returning to the moment. "I'm—I'm sorry for that. I'm Iris. Nice to meet you." The formality was heartbreakingly out of place.
Aurelia didn't reply, her thick, cold exterior the only thing holding her shattered insides together.
Iris expertly wrapped a bandage around Aurelia's bleeding wrist, and when she looked up, her eyes met Aurelia's—a fudge-curdling glare of pain, fear, and defiance.
"Aurelia, hold Gwen's hand, okay? Everything will be alright," Iris said, her words imbued with a motherly concern that Aurelia hadn't heard in years. "And most importantly, I'll do my best to help your sister."
Sister. The word hung in the air, unclaimed and unexamined. But Aurelia obeyed, gripping Gwen's cold hand while Iris took the other. With a coordinated heave, they pulled Gwen free from the grotesque metal spear. Aurelia gestured frantically for the ebony man to help lift Gwen onto the waiting stretcher. As they wheeled her into the bright, sterile confines of the ambulance, the adrenaline that had been sustaining Aurelia vanished. The world tilted, the lights of the emergency vehicles smeared into long, blinding streaks, and then everything went pitch-black.
A void of silence and numbness.
Then, a voice, gentle but firm: "Aurelia? Can you hear me?"
Her own voice was a frail echo in the darkness. "Where... am I?"...