The underground sanctuary breathed in silence.
Faint streams of dust danced where stray light dared to slip through fractured stone. The air still trembled with echoes of the storm that had torn the world outside; broken sigils glowed faintly on the temple's cracked walls, whispering the remnants of a forgotten divinity.
Ahan sat cross-legged beside the flickering ember bowl, its flame shivering between gold and blue. His hands trembled over an old, leather-bound journal—Siddharth's—edges darkened by time and ash. Aryan and Abhi watched quietly from opposite ends of the chamber. The weight of loss still lingered; it pressed against their throats like the dense dust of ruin.
Ahan turned the page.
The ink bled in lines that seemed alive, pulsing faintly as though they carried heat from another realm.
"They called it divine residue once—fire fallen from the heavens, the echo of war among gods."
"Aether," Siddharth had written. "Not born of this world, but reborn within it."
As the words unfurled, the air around them shimmered. The journal's letters burned briefly, and Ahan's vision deepened—no longer confined to the ruins.
He saw the sky ablaze.
He saw the past.
A world before memory—when the war of celestial warriors scorched the fabric of creation. The earth trembled beneath astras unleashed, when the Mahabharata's final echoes consumed everything divine and mortal alike. Weapons of gods collided, burning the air, twisting time itself. The clash of celestial elements—Agni and Vayu, Varuna and Indra—fused energies that mortals could never comprehend.
When the final light dimmed, that which remained of those astras did not vanish.
It sank—soaked deep into the veins of the planet, crystallizing over millennia into what mortals would one day rediscover as Aether.
What had once been the roar of divinity became a whisper in the earth's heart.
Siddharth's writing continued, now trembling in Ahan's hands.
"They believed it to be a myth. The old texts called it Virya—the essence of creation, raw and unbound. But when found again, man renamed it Aether, seeking to master what he could never understand."
"Outfit X experiments on it, twisting purity into power. They do not realize that Aether remembers its origin."
A low hum filled the chamber. The relics embedded within the walls began to vibrate; strands of faint golden light coiled like serpents around the journal. Aryan instinctively reached for his weapon, but Ahan raised a hand—his eyes fixed on the glowing script.
"This energy was never meant for dominance," Siddharth's voice seemed to echo from the air itself.
"Those chosen to bear it are not conquerors—they are continuations."
The light pulsed once more, and then dimmed, leaving the three in silence.
Ahan slowly closed the book. The warmth faded from his fingers, leaving behind a chill that wasn't from the air.
"It's not just power," he murmured. "It's memory."
Abhi frowned. "Memory of what?"
"Of everything the world forgot," Ahan whispered. "And everything that died trying to protect it."
A pause. The sanctuary's flame flickered lower, the golden glow fading into amber.
Beyond the cracked archways, thunder rolled somewhere distant reminding them that the world above still shifted, still broke, still waited.
Aryan leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "So, what now? You think Siddharth wanted us to find it—to use it?"
Ahan's gaze lingered on the last line of the journal, etched deeper than the rest:
"Three sparks will rise from the ashes of war. But fire remembers both creation and destruction. Choose which it will become."
He shut the book and looked at his brothers.
"Then we find it," he said. "Before they do."
Outside, the storm broke again, scattering faint motes of light across the ruins—tiny fragments of something older than faith itself.
And in that glow, unseen from the shadows above, a distant observer watched through fractured lenses—eyes reflecting the same golden hue. His voice, cold and measured, crackled through a communicator buried in his coat.
"Subject A-3 has activated the resonance," he said softly. "Phase Two begins."
Static swallowed the rest.
The ember bowl flared once, then went still.