After Dorian's flashy and extravagant entrance, everyone stared at him in awe. They literally thought he was a high-ranking soldier: a lieutenant, a general, a commander, even a major. But he was just:
A boy.
It wasn't as if an almighty god had descended, much less one of the Dusk Weavers or one of their direct relatives. People with real knowledge understood the potential of Helion users; they knew how bestial, how monstrous those warriors could become when they reached their peak. But still, what Dorian had just done was impressive, worthy of mention in the Branch's evening reports. Because that—whatever he had done in that last instant before impact—wasn't something you saw every day. Not even among young Helion users.
And then, as if a silent order had traveled through the air, everyone present's personal shields deactivated in unison.
A collective electric click, followed by an even deeper silence.
For a dozen seconds, the maneuvering yard was a mosaic of frozen expressions: confusion in some, pure astonishment in others, and in a few, that kind of silent admiration that only an unforgettable image leaves behind—one that would return to their minds years later, in the middle of the night, without warning.
"Damn brat," a grizzled operator grunted, his hand still trembling over the belt where he'd activated his shield. "You scared me. Almost wrote my will. Thought I was gonna die a virgin."
Nervous laughter rippled through the crowd. Some nodded. Others simply exhaled, as if they'd been holding their breath since the first blue spark appeared in the sky.
Dorian, still at the center of the circle that had formed around him, raised one hand in a lax, almost indifferent gesture. His fingers traced a vague arc through the air.
An apology. Or something like it.
"Sorry, my ass," the same operator muttered, loud enough for Dorian to hear. And loud enough for everyone to know Dorian heard.
The man already imagined the kid turning around, those green eyes blazing with Helion energy, confronting him, demanding respect or silence. It was what any other young warrior would have done. It was what he himself would have done at that age.
But Dorian didn't turn.
He didn't slow his pace. Didn't clench his jaw. Didn't even avert his gaze from the front.
He just kept walking, his hands sinking back into his pockets with a naturalness that bordered on insolent.
It wasn't discrimination. It wasn't disdain. It wasn't a matter of rank or inferiority in power.
Simply put, Dorian Astra wasn't going to waste his energy—or his breath—on someone like that.
And somehow, that was even more insulting.
"Did you see that guy who fell from the sky?" a soldier whispered to her companion, not taking her eyes off Dorian's retreating back. "Isn't he, like, really handsome?"
"Hey, he's younger than you. What's wrong with you?" her companion replied, though her eyes also followed the silhouette of the black trench coat.
"What are you talking about? It's not like I'm gonna eat him," the first one retorted, crossing her arms. But her voice had lost conviction.
A pause.
"Although… he really is," her companion admitted, falling helplessly into what, years later, some would unofficially call the Dorian effect. The same woman who seconds ago had been scolding her friend was now nodding with almost hypnotic slowness.
"Haha, weren't you just scolding me?" the first soldier laughed, triumphant.
Their voices faded into distant murmur, swallowed by Helion's wind and the hum of machines resuming their work.
---
Dorian climbed the stairs leading to the Branch's main entrance. Tall, perfectly transparent tempered glass doors reflected the flawless sky. The building's architecture was peculiar: the head wider than the body—a technological mushroom rising above the maneuvering platform. Dorian now walked beneath its overhang, the curved roof casting an elongated shadow across his face.
Hands, as always, in his pockets.
At the entrance, the doors slid open with a pneumatic sigh.
The interior was larger than the exterior suggested. The Branch wasn't especially tall—seven floors, Dorian estimated, maybe eight—but the extraordinary wasn't above.
It was below.
The main vestibule was a giant ring encircling an open core, a central void descending in spirals of light and metal. And at its center, suspended in that artificial gravity well, spun the same representation as at Headquarters: Helion's three suns, dancing their eternal dance around an invisible axis.
Dorian glanced up for a second. Only a second.
Then he kept walking.
The smell was different from Headquarters. There was no institutional aroma, no perfume of old documents and bureaucratic decisions. Here, it smelled of work: thermal oil, freshly welded alloys, the ionic residue of cargo engines. Transport vehicles glided across the inner ring floor, carrying sealed containers loaded with technology not yet released to the markets. Overdeveloped weapons, exploration prototypes, hermetically sealed research modules.
And that was just the surface.
Dorian knew the real—the important—stuff was much further below.
He headed toward one of the staircases bordering the vestibule's perimeter. Without removing his hands from his pockets, he pressed his right palm against the central handrail. He began to climb. His hand, still inside his pocket, slid along the fabric while his forearm followed the rhythm of the steps. But from the outside, it looked as if the handrail was guiding him—as if gravity had tilted just for him.
He reached the elevator.
A security guard, stocky and sharp-eyed, blocked access with the simple authority of his presence.
"You can't go through," he said, without preamble.
Dorian didn't respond. Didn't move a muscle. Just looked at him.
The guard held his gaze. It wasn't his first day. He'd seen hundreds of explorers, warriors, commanders. He knew this elevator wasn't for just anyone. Without authorization from a lieutenant, a commander, or at least a superior officer, no one entered.
"No authorization, no entry," he repeated, slower, just in case.
Dorian sighed. It wasn't audible, but the guard felt it.
Then, with deliberate slowness, Dorian pulled his right hand from his pocket.
Between his fingers, catching the vestibule's dim light, gleamed the medal.
The dark blue hexagon. The Council's emblem. The proof.
The guard looked at it. Then at Dorian. Then at the medal again.
His jaw tightened.
"You may pass," he said, stepping aside.
The elevator didn't open immediately. First, a thin line of blue light traced the door's perimeter, scanning the medal with millimeter precision. Then a second line—fainter, almost invisible—scanned Dorian's body from head to toe.
Biometric verification.
Identity confirmation.
The doors slid open with a soft ding.
"So it does have some use after all," Dorian thought, studying the medal before pocketing it again.
"Of course it has a use. One of the best," Omega replied in his mind. "They didn't give it to you for nothing, and Councilor Zed already told you as much."
"You're right," Dorian admitted.
The elevator closed.
Ding.
It ascended.
Ding.
The doors opened.
A long hallway. Very long. The walls, immaculate white, stretched until they vanished into an almost perfect vanishing point. The floor was covered in a dark brown carpet, so plush that Dorian's feet barely left an imprint.
"The Council really knows how to annoy people," Dorian thought.
It wasn't the distance that bothered him. It was the silence. It was knowing that at the end of that hallway, people were waiting for him. People he'd have to talk to. Exchange phrases with. Coordinate strategies.
Utter at least one sentence to his teammates.
He started walking.
---
The door at the end of the hallway was made of brushed metal, with no visible lock. Dorian pressed his palm against the cold surface and pushed.
The room was spacious, circular, with a meeting table at its center and darkened screens lining the walls. Light filtered faintly through floor-to-ceiling windows that framed Helion's sky, now tinged orange by one of the secondary suns.
It was empty.
Dorian sat down.
He waited a minute.
Nothing.
Another minute.
No one.
He leaned back in his chair and let his gaze drift to the ceiling.
And then, unbidden, his mind drifted back.
---
Yesterday morning.
I woke up as usual. Took a bath, water at the exact right temperature, steam dissolving the last remnants of sleep. Got out, dried off, dressed. Everyday clothes. None of the flight gear. Not yet.
I headed to the living room for breakfast.
But the table was already set. Fruit cut into geometric shapes, freshly baked bread, the glass of milk waiting for me like a silent accusation.
And Nairo wasn't there.
I picked up an apple. Brought it to my lips.
And then.
My mental map—that invisible extension of my Helion, an energy network breathing around me within a radius of about three steps—detected an intrusion.
Something entered it.
Fast. Too fast. Straight for my head.
I didn't look. Didn't need to. My body was already moving.
I dodged.
The fork—because it was a fork, one of those heavy metal ones Nairo used for cooking—grazed my temple and embedded itself in the wall behind me with a dull thunk. A thin layer of blue energy dissipated from its surface like smoke.
"So you haven't gotten rusty, little brother," Nairo said from the kitchen entrance, leaning against the doorframe with a smile that boded nothing good.
The fork was still vibrating in the wall.
Nairo stretched out his hand. The fork pulled free from the plaster and floated toward him, spinning slowly, wrapped in that same cyan glow.
"Then," he said, and his eyes—those eyes identical to mine, but with a sharper, older gleam—locked onto mine. "How about I give you some lessons before you head out on another trip?"
He paused.
His smile widened.
"By breaking a few of your bones."