6:43 AM. Alarm.
Zeron lay still for exactly two seconds - cataloguing, the way he always did.
[VOID SENSE - MORNING SCAN: 10KM RADIUS]
Nothing on fire within range. Better than yesterday. He got up.
His mother was already in the kitchen.
Sera Ashveil worked night dispatches three times a week and still managed to be awake before him every morning. Eggs. Two plates. Toast. The orange juice she only bought when she'd worked a double shift and felt guilty about it. He noted this. Said nothing.
"Sit," she said.
He sat.
The kitchen was small. The table was smaller. There was a crack in the ceiling above the refrigerator that had been there since he was nine - a nightmare, gravity fluctuation, three seconds of real power leaking through. His mother had filled it with spackle. Never mentioned it.
"You were out late," she said.
"Couldn't sleep."
She looked at him the way she always did - the look that said I know you're not telling me everything and I've decided that's okay and I reserve the right to change my mind.
"The fire on the news," she said.
"I saw it from the roof."
"Just saw it."
She ate her toast. He ate his eggs. Outside, Ashfield did its morning routine - school run traffic, the bakery two floors down, pigeons arguing on the fire escape.
Miso jumped on the table. Sera moved her. She came back. Sera moved her again. She came back and sat on Zeron's plate specifically. Sera looked at her son. He looked at the ceiling.
"Money on the counter," she said. "For lunch."
"You don't have to-"
"Money on the counter."
He took the money. She went to sleep. He looked at the ceiling crack for a moment, then went to school.
Every screen at Crestholm Institute was running the same footage.
The Veldra Commerce Building. The dark red fire moving like liquid. Sentinel Prime's four best heroes being scattered across a rooftop. EMBERVEIL RETURNS - HERO TURNED VILLAIN ATTACKS ASHFIELD.
The common room was buzzing. A cluster of V2 students near the entrance had the argument that happens when everyone is scared and trying not to sound it.
"Voss absorbed Volt's maximum output and sent it back doubled," one of them said. "That's not V4 range. That's something else."
"Sir Marshal was still standing after the second wave. Give him credit."
"He was barely standing."
"He was standing."
Zivah was in the corner of the common room, watching the screen. She was small, V1, always had soil under her fingernails from the botany elective she took every semester. She watched the footage with an expression caught between frightened and sad.
"He used to save people," she said, not to anyone specific. "That coat used to mean something good."
Zeron looked at the red coat on screen. Same color as the old Sentinel Prime emergency signal. Voss hadn't picked it by accident.
"You okay?"
Zivah had stopped beside him.
"Yeah. Just tired."
She looked at him for a second with the kind of eyes that notice things.
"Okay," she said, not fully believing it.
She went to class. He followed.
At 2:47 PM his phone buzzed under the desk.
VOSS ATTACKS AGAIN - SECOND INCIDENT, CENTRAL DISTRICT. CREW CONFIRMED: THREE ADDITIONAL VESTED OPERATIVES. SENTINEL PRIME RESPONDING.
Below that: witnesses report Voss spoke directly to cameras before the attack. Message:
"I know you were there last night. The one who put out my fire. Come talk to me. Or I keep burning things until you do."
Zeron put his phone away. The teacher was explaining momentum.
After class Zivah caught up to him in the hallway.
"You look like someone walked over your grave."
"I'm fine."
She looked at him.
"Okay," she said again. Still not believing it.
He decided he wasn't going. He made noodles, told himself it wasn't his problem, believed it for almost four hours.
Then he turned on the news and saw which bridge Voss had chosen.
Crestfall Bridge. Forty thousand people crossed that bridge every day. And the tram on it had stopped evacuating.