It didn't make a sound at first. Just the shift of grass. The hush of trees pulling back. Then a low rumble—deep and broken, like gravel rattling in a throat too wide for any beast Wade had ever imagined.
The thing exploded from the brush without a snarl, without even a full breath of warning. One second, Wade was standing behind Lira, the wind curling at her heels like ribbons of silk. The next, the forest screamed.
"Move!" Riven bellowed, flames bursting from both palms in two blazing arcs.
The beast didn't dodge. It plunged straight through the fire, howling in something like a laugh. Charred fur curled and blackened, but it didn't falter. The smell of burning rot rolled through the clearing. And then—
It was in the clearing.
Wade couldn't process it all at once. It had too many limbs, six or maybe eight—spindly and thick at the same time, bent the wrong way like broken sticks jammed back into a dying animal. Its skin looked like wet hide stretched over armor, but pulsing, somehow alive. Its head wasn't a head. It was a jagged mess of flesh with a mouth that split across its face and curved up both cheeks. A mouth full of yellowed, saw edged teeth.
The worst part? It didn't have eyes.
It hunted through sound and just had slits where a nose might've been and a brow ridge stretched too tight, like it was once human… and someone had scraped the face off.
"Lira—" Wade's voice cracked.
"I see it," she hissed. Her body tensed, both arms slicing forward.
A gust of compressed wind lashed across the field. Trees bowed from the force. The monster shifted, quick and unnatural, bending its limbs backward to duck under the gale like a spider turning inside out. Then it darted sideways, vanished behind a cluster of pines, and—
CRACK.
It was behind them.
Lira spun, whipping another blast of air at it. But the beast was already gone, skating across the dirt in a low, wet slither, too fast to be real. It moved like water wearing skin, never fully rising, always watching.
Riven turned. "It's not attacking to kill."
"What?" Wade's eyes widened.
"It's toying with us." Riven raised both arms again. Fire surged up his wrists, dancing across his shoulders like armor.
The monster darted toward him.
This time, Riven didn't hold back.
He roared, a full bodied cry that ripped through the glade, and launched twin waves of flame in a cross pattern. The air ignited. Heat pulsed like a furnace. Trees near the blast curled inward. Smoke poured out—
And then the creature screamed.
It had landed in the blast.
But it wasn't dying.
The flame clung to it. Its limbs convulsed. The air filled with the rank stench of seared hair and meat. But the monster pushed forward through the inferno like pain was a rumor it had never heard. Its body smoldered, burned—yet it still lunged.
It slammed its forelimb into Riven's chest.
Wade heard the breath explode from his brother's lungs. A sound like a bell being hit with a sledgehammer followed—thum-THUD—as Riven's body flew across the clearing, slamming against a thick pine tree. Bark splintered like ice. He dropped to the ground and didn't move.
"Riven!" Lira shouted, her voice breaking.
Wade's knees buckled. His lungs forgot how to work.
The monster turned to them, mouth open in that sideways grin. It took a step forward, slow, determined. Its teeth clicked together in a creepy rattle, like laughter made of bone.
Lira didn't run, she raised her hands and twisted them in a violent arc. The wind screamed in protest. Blades of air, sharp enough to skin a deer mid-run, lashed at the beast from all sides.
But it bent low and rolled through them. Not dodging it but adapting, as if every move taught it something new.
Lira grabbed Wade's wrist. "Get behind me. Now."
"No," Wade said, but his voice barely made a sound.
"I won't let it touch you," she growled, her shoulders trembling, hair whipping around her face like silver fire. "You hear me, baby brother?"
But she was bleeding. He could see it now—lines of red down her left arm. Her breath was hitching.
Wade didn't know what to do. No one had taught him. No one could teach him. He was the one without power. The one who wasn't supposed to matter in fights like this.
But watching her stand in front of him, bruised and shaking and still refusing to yield—
Something in him broke.
The monster didn't care about the moment. It moved again—faster this time. It charged, claws raised, mouth open wide. Not for Lira, but for both of them.
But something had shifted in Wade.
He could hear his heart now—every beat like a war drum echoing in his ears. Not loud. Precise. Like the tick of a clock counting down to something final. His breath came shallow and fast, chest rising and falling like bellows.
He wasn't supposed to be here. He didn't have magic. He wasn't chosen. Just the tag along little brother with no glow in his hands, no spark in his veins. But they never treated him that way. Riven, the hot headed protector. Lira, all elegance and bite. Even when other kids whispered behind his back, when they called him "blank" or "magicless," his family never once let him believe it.
And now they were bleeding because of him.
His fists clenched so tightly his nails split skin. His feet refused to run.
The beast came again, crouched low, shoulders hunched like a giant insect, the smell of burnt fur still rising from its hide. Lira braced, one arm extended, wind surging violently around her—chaotic now, less like a weapon, more like a scream of fear.
No. I can't let this happen. Not again.
A flash. A memory. A boy falling in front of a car. Wade lunging. The snap of metal. The cold of the road. The last look up at gray clouds.
Back then, he'd moved without thinking. Without hope. Just—instinct.
This time was no different.
He stepped forward.
Lira noticed too late. "Wade, don't—"
The monster struck.
Wade didn't think. He just reached out.
"Leave us alone!" he shouted, not in defiance, but in desperate, absolute refusal. The words came not from his mouth, but from somewhere deeper, somewhere buried beneath all the years of being powerless.
And then—
Something answered.
A pulse tore outward from him like a drumbeat from the center of the world. Not just sound—heat. Force. A cyclone of pressure and roaring fire, whipped through with slicing wind. The clearing lit up like dawn. The monster's momentum shattered mid air as it was flung backward, caught in a vortex it could neither resist nor understand.
The blast thundered out in every direction, it was so big that it could be seen from every direction. Trees bowed, grass scorched, bark ripped from trunks. Firestorm and gale became one, howling in unison—wild, uncontrolled, beautiful and terrifying. The sky above flickered as if reality itself was holding its breath.
Lira was screaming and running towards him, though he couldn't hear it anymore.
The last thing Wade saw before collapsing was the monster disintegrating—no, being unmade—pulled apart by power he hadn't known he held.
And then—
[SYSTEM: HERO CANDIDATE IDENTIFIED]
[Initializing Core Access… Affinity: FIRE. Affinity: WIND.]
[Class Assigned: HERO]
[Restrictions Unlocked. Welcome, Wade.]
The words burned into the air behind his eyelids.
And then it all went black.