Location: Jerkin Residence - Grand Hall
Time: Evening - The Ambush
---
Leo's mind raced as Vaela advanced on him, her grin sharp and hungry. His internal voice was a storm of disbelief.
Are you kidding me?! Some video of me—a video I'm pretty sure was artificially generated—got these people to travel hundreds of miles just to get at me? Don't tell me they're that gullible. Don't tell me they didn't even double-check the legitimacy of that crappy video!
He took a step back, his hands rising. His body moved on instinct—not thought, not plan. Just instinct.
And then he felt it.
The confusion. The puzzlement. The disbelief. They were his emotions—but they weren't only his. They had weight. They had texture. They had presence. They swirled around him like a living field, a constructed weave of emotion made manifest. And beneath them, another current—confidence. Steady. Unshaken. It intertwined with the confusion and the puzzlement, weaving together into something greater than the sum of its parts.
Visually, it was faint—a shimmer at the edges of his silhouette, like heat rising off summer asphalt. Auditory, it was a low hum—a resonance that seemed to come from his chest and his spine at once.
This is it, Leo thought. This is the true way. This is what Elijah taught me. I don't fight the emotions. I accept them. I use them.
Vaela lunged.
---
Vaela was fast. Faster than Leo expected. Her body moved with a sharp, predatory agility—a lioness's patience paired with a puppet's precision. Every step was measured. Every strike was aimed. She wasn't fighting like a person. She was fighting like a program—like something that had been trained into her body so deeply that it had become her body.
She aimed a palm strike at Leo's midsection.
Leo's body twisted—not dodging, but accepting. His core tightened, his weight shifted, and the strike glanced off his ribs instead of landing clean. He felt the impact. He felt the pressure. He used both.
His own hand shot out—not a counter, but a continuation. The weave of confidence around him pulsed, and his palm connected with Vaela's shoulder, redirecting her momentum.
Vaela's eyes widened. Then narrowed.
And then she smiled.
It was a flushed, excited smile—the smile of someone tasting something delicious for the first time in years. Her voice came out breathy, almost reverent.
"There it is. The strength you carry. I can smell it."
Leo's skin crawled.
Why is she looking at me like that? Why is she blushing? This is getting creepier by the second.
The space around Vaela shifted—a rotating shimmer, like a screw turning in soft wood, visible at the edges of her silhouette. Her presence pressed outward, and the air between them grew heavy.
Leo felt his own weave respond. The confidence in him deepened. The confusion and puzzlement sharpened into awareness. His body moved before his mind could catch up—and for the first time in his life, he understood what Elijah had meant.
I'm not thinking about the fight. I'm not planning the next move. I'm just... moving. And the weave is moving with me.
---
Vaela came at him again—three strikes in rapid succession, each aimed at a different vital point. Leo blocked the first with his forearm, slipped the second, and caught the third on his shoulder.
The impact hurt. But he didn't stop.
He advanced.
His first punch landed on Vaela's ribs. She grunted. His second punch caught her jaw. Her head snapped back.
And then he noticed something.
The shimmer around her was thinning. The rotating presence at her edges was fading—not because she was weakening, but because she was running out. Whatever she was using to fuel her attacks, it wasn't infinite.
She's burning through it, Leo thought. She's pouring everything into every strike, and she's running dry.
He pressed his advantage.
Three blows to her midsection. Two to her shoulders. One to her temple. Vaela's guard crumbled—not because she was unskilled, but because she was empty. Her weave sputtered. Her movements slowed.
She stumbled back, breathing hard, eyes wide with something between fury and hunger.
"Rhen!" she shouted.
---
Rhen moved instantly.
He came at Leo from the side, his body twisting into a spinning kick aimed at Leo's gut. The motion was fast, brutal, and precise.
Leo's body reacted before his mind could.
His left arm swept down, deflecting the kick. His right foot planted. His hips turned. And his fist—driven by something deeper than thought—connected with Rhen's midsection.
Rhen flew backward. He crashed into a table, splintering it, and rolled to a stop against the wall. He didn't get up.
Leo stared at his own hand.
What was that? That wasn't me. That was... reflex. Defensive reflex. My body knew what to do before I did.
His internal voice carried a note of quiet awe.
Is this what Elijah meant? Is this the true way?
---
Across the hall, Irina, Jax, and Ilya lay against the wall—not unconscious, but empty. Their limbs wouldn't move. Their thoughts came slow and thick.
Irina's voice was a strained whisper. "My nerves... they feel like they're on fire."
Jax's hand pressed against her chest. "My heartbeat... it's racing. Like it's trying to escape."
Ilya's face was pale. "Nausea. Dizziness. The moment she touched me, I felt... I felt like something was being pulled out of me."
She paused, her voice dropping lower.
"I don't know why, but I think it has to do with the suit. Not the suit itself—but what's inside it. What's connected to it."
Jax's brow furrowed. "You mean the chip?"
Ilya nodded slowly. "Maybe. I don't know. I just know that whatever that girl did, it didn't feel like a normal attack."
---
Across the hall, Jace and Jenna were locked in combat with Goran—a massive, brutish man. His movements were aggressive, almost animalistic—shoulders rolling, arms sweeping, feet stomping the ground with each step. Every motion carried weight. Every strike carried force.
But something was wrong.
Around Goran, the air had grown thick and dark—like a miasma, like smoke that didn't rise. Jace and Jenna's movements slowed. Their breathing grew shallow. Their vision blurred at the edges.
Jenna's voice was strained. "What's up with this guy? Is he becoming brainless or what?"
Jace didn't answer. He couldn't. His lungs were burning.
And then something shifted.
Goran's aura—the rotating shimmer at his edges—began to decline. His steps faltered. His strikes lost their weight. His eyes, previously fierce, grew confused.
Irina's voice floated from the wall. "He's overloading his core. That's not supposed to happen during combat. What is he doing?"
Jenna and Jace exchanged a glance. Then, without a word, they attacked together.
---
Irina, Jax, and Ilya pushed themselves off the wall.
They didn't know what they were doing. They didn't know why it was working. But they moved together—four attackers, four directions, no rest, no hesitation.
Goran tried to track them. He couldn't. They came from everywhere and nowhere—strikes landing, retreating, landing again. Not allowing him a moment to breathe.
His chest heaved. His face contorted.
And then he collapsed.
He hit the ground hard, one hand clutching his chest, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He didn't get up.
The girls stood over him, panting.
Irina raised a hand, and the others clapped—weak, exhausted, but triumphant.
---
A voice cut through the celebration.
"Don't celebrate so easily."
Vaela stood at the edge of the hall, her sharp eyes blazing. Behind her, Sable and Marek flanked a central figure.
Corvin.
He held Valerik by the neck—one hand wrapped around his throat, the other pressed flat against his chest. Valerik's body was limp. His eyes were open but unfocused. His voice was gone.
Corvin wasn't looking at Valerik.
He was looking at Leo.
And his hollow eyes said everything.
You're next.
---
The hall was a battlefield. Cadets lay scattered—some groaning, some silent. The Pyre intruders stood amidst the ruin like wolves among sheep.
Vaela pulled herself up, glaring at Leo. Rhen was still down. Goran was down. But the others—Sable, Marek, Dross, Veyra, Talon—were still standing. Still hungry.
And Corvin held Valerik's life in his hands.
Leo's fists clenched. His weave pulsed around him—confusion, puzzlement, confidence, all intertwined.
I don't know what's going to happen next, he thought. But I'm not going to let them take anyone else.
He took a step forward.
Corvin smiled.
The night outside was very, very quiet.