The night lay over Altamira Academy like a choking shroud, the residual energy of the battles still humming in every corner, in every sigh of the wind. Jake could barely stand, propped against a wall in the east wing, Sophia's arms wrapped around him as if she were the only anchor holding him to the real world. The air itself felt thin, fragile, saturated with the metallic taste of spent energy and the ghosts of screams that refused to fade. Every muscle protested, every nerve ending felt raw and exposed. He leaned into Sophia's embrace, drawing strength from her warmth, a silent acceptance of his utter depletion.
Aria, her usual composure frayed at the edges, had guided them to the only safe haven she knew: the Science, Health, and Technology Labs. It was a labyrinth of gleaming chrome shelving, humming regeneration pods, and display cases holding artifacts that pulsed with faint, unsettling light – some of them undoubtedly forbidden. Here, amidst the sterile order and latent energy, the three of them grappled with the raw, visceral chaos they had just witnessed and endured.
"We'll be okay here… for now," Aria murmured, her voice tight, as the heavy metal door slammed shut behind them. The dull thud of the lock sliding into place echoed in the sudden silence, a sound meant to instill security but which only amplified the sense of being trapped. She spun the dial on the integrated security panel, a complex sequence of clicks and hums confirming their isolation. Or so they hoped.
An instant of silence stretched, thick with unvoiced fears and the distant, distorted sounds of the ravaged campus. Then, three sharp knocks against the metal door shattered the fragile peace.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
They froze. Every drop of exhaustion drained from Jake in an instant, replaced by a jolt of ice-cold adrenaline. Sophia's arms tightened involuntarily around him. He felt her swallow hard, the sound unnaturally loud in the sudden stillness. Aria, already moving with swift, practiced grace, didn't hesitate. Her hand snapped out, a small, multifaceted CEES prism materializing in her grip, humming faintly, ready to unleash whatever concentrated energy she had stored within it.
Silence descended again, heavy and suffocating. Was it a trap? Had Raven found them, or worse, Blackthorn himself? The air crackled with tension, each second stretching into eternity. No one spoke. They just listened, breath held tight in their chests, hearts hammering against their ribs.
Then, from the other side of the door, a voice. Trembling, strained, barely a whisper.
"…It's me. Reiss…"
The tension broke, replaced by a wave of shock and shaky relief. Reiss? Here? Now? Aria hesitated only a split second, assessing the tremor in the voice, the sheer vulnerability of the sound. It didn't sound like a deception. She quickly keyed in the code, and the heavy door hissed open with a hydraulic groan.
As they pulled it wide, they saw him. He was a horrific sight – bloodied, with gruesome astral burns searing his torso and arms like crackling black lightning strikes. His uniform was in tatters. His eyes were wide and distant, veiled by trauma, as if he truly had returned from the very lip of the abyss. He stumbled forward, collapsing into their arms, the air around him still faintly smelling of ozone and desperation.
With frantic haste, they guided him to a regeneration cot, one of the humming capsules designed for accelerated healing, though its advanced functions were currently beyond their reach. They managed to lay him down gently, pulling blankets over him despite the burns, trying to soothe the shivers wracking his body. Aria, ever pragmatic, located a medical kit among the lab supplies, administering stabilizing injections with experienced efficiency. As color slowly began to return to Reiss's ashen face, and his ragged breathing started to smooth out, he spoke again, his voice still weak but regaining a flicker of coherence.
"I saw… I saw part of the fight… between Professor Aldrich and Raven… after you… after Raven…" He trailed off, a fresh wave of terror crossing his features at the memory. "It was… horrific. What he did… the others… the bodies…"
Sophia knelt beside the cot, gently taking his unburned hand. "Shhh, Reiss, it's okay. You're safe now. Just breathe."
Jake, leaning against a cold console, felt a fresh wave of nausea. He had seen the aftermath too, briefly, before Aria dragged them away. The sheer, casual savagery of Raven's attack… it was beyond anything he could have imagined.
Reiss swallowed hard, his gaze finding Jake's, then Aria's. "The professor… he wasn't fighting back at first. Just… dodging. Evading. Like he was trying to wear him down, or… or lead him somewhere."
Aria nodded slowly. "That sounds like him. Calculating."
"But then… Raven pressed him. Cornered him in the ruins of the Colosseum. And the professor… he activated something… something that shouldn't exist…" Reiss's voice dropped, tinged with overwhelming dread. "I felt it, even from a distance. A pressure… like reality was folding in on itself."
Jake's brow furrowed, pushing past his exhaustion. This sounded different from the flashy, powerful techniques he'd seen other practitioners use. "What did you see, Reiss? What was it?"
Reiss shuddered again. "An… an Astral Nexus. Not just any nexus. A legendary one. It's called Disruption. And… God… what it does isn't normal. It completely dismantled Raven, shattered his stability, unraveled his sense of self… made him… unstable. Out of control."
An Astral Nexus? Jake had only heard the term whispered in hushed tones by older students or read about them in the academy's restricted archives. They were theoretical concepts, peak manifestations of power so rare they bordered on myth. "An Astral Nexus… Disruption?" he repeated, the name feeling foreign and potent on his tongue.
Aria, who had been gently but firmly tending to Reiss's burns, looked up sharply at the name, her voice taut with sudden, intense focus. "An Astral Nexus? Are you certain, Reiss? Not just a high-level technique?"
Reiss nodded weakly, pain flickering in his eyes. "Certain. I felt the signature… unlike anything I've ever encountered. It wasn't an application of energy; it was a reordering of the very fabric of astral potential around the user. It's… it's the stuff of legends, Aria. They say… a worthy user is born once a millennium. Professor Aldrich… he's one."
A heavy silence fell over the lab, weightier than the night outside. Power of that magnitude, wielded by their seemingly unassuming professor… it shifted the entire scale of the conflict they faced. If Lysander Aldrich possessed such a capability, why had he been so passive? Why hadn't he ended Raven's rampage earlier? The questions hung unanswered in the air.
It was Aria who finally broke the silence, her voice quiet but carrying a weight that drew Jake and Sophia's complete attention.
"I… I have developed one."
Sophia and Jake stared at her, their heads snapping around in unison, stunned. Reiss, despite his pain, looked equally astonished.
"What…?" Jake murmured, utterly bewildered.
Aria met their astonished stares with an expression of grim determination. "Not a complete one, not yet. It's… a technique in development. Something I've been working on in secret, anticipating the possibility of threats that conventional methods couldn't handle. The destabilization of the Starfall Tournament… Blackthorn's insidious influence… I knew we needed something… fundamental." She gestured vaguely at the humming equipment around them. "This lab… it has provided the resources, the isolation… the necessary materials."
She paused, gathering her thoughts, her gaze distant for a moment as if contemplating the immense power she spoke of. "I call it Luminar Fulcrum. It's a brutal channeling, a highly compressed concentration of pure stellar energy. Focused not outwards for destruction, but… internally. To create a point of absolute potential. Like Professor Aldrich's Disruption, but conceived for a different purpose."
She sighed, a thin, weary sound. "But I can't wield it directly myself yet. The strain… it would shatter me. I've had to… encapsulate it. Store the refined potential and the technique sequence inside a CEES. A vessel designed to contain power beyond normal capacity."
She turned her intense gaze on Jake, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. "You will use it."
Before Jake could fully process the magnitude of her statement, she reached to a shelf and retrieved a long, slender prism. It was unlike any CEES he had ever seen. It glowed with an inner light, vibrating faintly in her hand as if it contained a beating heart. It felt alive.
She held it out to him. "This is the CEES containing the Luminar Fulcrum. It's designed to respond to a specific astral signature… yours."
Hesitantly, mind reeling from the revelations and body still aching, Jake reached out and took the prism.
The moment his fingers closed around it, a searing heat ignited in his right arm. He cried out, a sharp, involuntary sound of pain and surprise. He dropped the prism, but the heat didn't fade. He looked down, his eyes widening in disbelief.
A mark. An intricate design of swirling lines and stellar patterns was blooming on his forearm, spreading up from his wrist. It pulsed with the same faint, living light as the CEES prism, which now lay on the floor, still vibrating. It wasn't a tattoo; it seemed to move under his skin, flowing like liquid light, reacting to the ambient energy and, strangely, to the fallen prism.
Sophia gasped, a small cry of alarm escaping her as she saw it. She immediately stepped forward, her protective instincts flaring. "Jake…? What is that on your arm?" Her voice was sharp with fear.
"I… I don't know…" he murmured, mesmerized by the burning mark, his earlier exhaustion momentarily forgotten in the face of this new, terrifying development. The pain was intense, but beneath it, he felt a strange resonance, a connection to the pulsing prism on the floor, to the very energy filling the room.
While Jake still stared at his arm, lost in confusion, Sophia's voice cut through the haze, ringing with sudden, ironclad conviction.
"Then I'll go."
Jake and Aria both stared at her, startled.
"I'll use the CEES," Sophia stated, her voice firm, leaving no room for argument. "I'll take care of Raven."
Aria's eyes narrowed, her earlier composure returning, but now tinged with exasperation. "Sophia, you don't have the energy reserves. You're running on fumes, barely have enough astral potential for basic shields, let alone handling the Luminar Fulcrum. It requires immense power – it could shatter your core!"
"I trust myself," Sophia cut her off, her voice slicing through Aria's protest with unbreakable resolve. Her jaw was set, her gaze fierce. "I'm not arguing this, Aria. This is my turn. Jake… Jake is compromised now," she added, glancing at the mark on his arm, the implication clear: he was not fit to face Raven immediately, perhaps ever. "And Reiss is injured. You… you have your knowledge, your research. But someone has to face him. And it's going to be me."
She took a step towards the fallen CEES prism, her posture radiating a fierce determination that brooked no argument. Jake, watching her, felt a fresh wave of helplessness mixed with a deep, unsettling fear for her. Reiss, on the cot, watched with wide, frightened eyes. Aria, her lips pressed into a thin line, made no further move to stop her. The decision was made. The fragile peace of the laboratory was shattered, replaced by the grim certainty of the confrontation to come.