Chapter 11 – Apex of the Hunt

Section 1 – Trial Chamber II: The Observation Deck

The chamber groaned with the sound of shifting steel as Nathan stepped into the center, the reinforced floor gleaming faintly beneath the harsh white light. The room wasn’t empty—not truly. Elevated above him, an entire wall of glass shimmered, behind which the instructors and overseers gathered like shadows in judgment. Their silhouettes stood stiff and attentive, arms folded, eyes tracking his every move. Nathan didn’t have to squint to know who was there. Corvus, his presence always a weight in the air. Raze, arms crossed, her jaw set in that hard line of perpetual disapproval. Calderón, her pen tapping absently against her data slate, though Nathan suspected it was far from absent-minded. They were measuring him—again. Always measuring.

The air smelled faintly of oil and recycled oxygen. It was too clean, too artificial, as if designed to strip away comfort. Nathan rolled his shoulders, the muscles in his arms humming with a quiet tension. He wasn’t nervous anymore; that had died weeks ago, maybe months ago, replaced by something else entirely. Not calm, not fear. Hunger. He wanted this. He wanted to be pushed, tested, broken if that’s what it took. Every strike he landed was one more step toward power, toward vengeance.

“Activate the drones,” a voice echoed from the speakers above. Cold. Mechanical.

Panels slid open along the chamber walls, and shapes unfolded with spider-like precision. Combat drones, sleeker than the ones Nathan had fought in earlier drills. Their frames gleamed black and chrome, each equipped with modular limbs ending in blunt weapons, tasers, and, disturbingly, blades sharp enough to carve steel. Their eyes—pulses of red light—fixed on him as though he were nothing more than data to be erased.

The first drone lunged.

Nathan’s body moved before his mind caught up. A pivot, a sidestep, the muscles in his legs exploding with speed that carried him across the floor. The drone’s strike cleaved only air, and in the same motion Nathan’s fist drove upward into its midsection, the impact ringing like a hammer against an anvil. The machine staggered back, joints screeching, before recalibrating with a snap.

Above, Calderón’s pen stilled. “His acceleration curve is faster,” she murmured. “Almost double last session.”

Corvus grunted. “And his recovery time?”

“Near instantaneous.”

Another drone came at him from behind. Nathan didn’t turn—he didn’t need to. He felt it. The subtle shift in air pressure, the vibration of its servos humming through the floor. His body twisted, low and sharp, just as the strike descended. His arm shot up, intercepting the blow with a speed so precise it looked choreographed. Then he drove his knee upward, smashing into the drone’s cranial module. The machine collapsed, sparking.

Raze leaned closer to the glass, her eyes narrowed. “He’s not reacting,” she said. “He’s predicting.”

Nathan heard none of this. He was inside the storm now. Every fiber of his body sang with the clarity of motion. He ducked, weaved, struck, his fists like sledgehammers and his movements impossibly fluid. When one drone tried to flank him, Nathan vaulted off the wall, spun midair, and drove both heels into its frame with bone-shattering force. He landed in a crouch, breath steady, pulse unbroken.

From the observation deck, silence stretched. Finally Calderón spoke. “He’s exceeding every projection.”

Corvus’s gaze never left Nathan. His voice was low, almost grim. “Exceeding… or evolving past control.”

Nathan ripped a sparking limb from the fallen drone and hurled it at another, the makeshift projectile tearing through its chassis. His chest rose and fell, but there was no exhaustion—only a steady rhythm, controlled and lethal. His mind flickered back, unbidden, to the basement of his home, to the laughter that had filled the air as his family’s bodies were broken before him. The rage that memory always carried surged in his veins, and instead of drowning in it, he rode it. It sharpened him, made him faster, stronger.

He struck again, and again, until the last drone lay shattered at his feet. Sparks rained down, the acrid smell of scorched circuitry filling the chamber. Nathan straightened slowly, sweat glistening on his brow, his fists clenched. He raised his head toward the glass above, and though he couldn’t see their faces clearly, he knew they were staring back in silence.

For the first time, Nathan smiled—cold, sharp, predatory.

The speakers crackled, Corvus’s voice heavy as stone. “End simulation.”

But the silence that followed told Nathan everything. They hadn’t expected this. Not from him. Not yet.

And deep down, Nathan knew they were right to be unsettled. He hadn’t reached his limit. Not even close.

Section 2 – The Spy’s Revelation

The debrief chamber was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that carried weight, not relief. Nathan sat at the far end of the long steel table, his fists still raw from the drone trial, the faint ache lingering in his knuckles like a reminder of how far he’d gone—and how much further he could still push himself. Above him, the observation deck’s lights dimmed, and one by one the instructors filed into the room. Corvus at the head, as always. Raze close behind, her scarred face unreadable, her hood casting half her expression in shadow. Calderón with her data-slate clutched tightly, as though she were afraid of losing the numbers that defined what Nathan had become.

But there was another presence in the room that drew Nathan’s attention. Bishop. A grizzled veteran Enhanced who had been around longer than anyone except Corvus. His body bore the scars of countless missions, his movements precise, his voice steady. Nathan had trained beside him once or twice—he was tough, but steady, the kind of soldier others leaned on. Or so Nathan had thought.

Corvus leaned against the edge of the table. “Today was… revealing,” he said, his tone heavy, deliberate. His eyes flicked toward Nathan. “You’re not just progressing—you’re accelerating faster than anyone we’ve seen. Faster even than the original Chimera prototypes.”

Calderón added, “His neural response time exceeded projections by forty percent. Forty. That’s beyond human adaptability—it’s rewriting the baseline of what we thought possible.”

Nathan sat still, absorbing the words. But then he noticed something strange—Bishop shifting in his chair. His jaw tightened, his hands clasping and unclasping slowly, almost rhythmically. His eyes darted toward Nathan once, then away. Not the calm, steady presence Nathan had always read in him. Something else lurked there—something nervous.

Nathan’s instincts flared.

“Is there something you want to add, Bishop?” Raze asked suddenly, her voice cutting like a blade. Her eyes, sharp as razors, pinned him in place.

Bishop’s throat worked as he swallowed. For a long moment, silence reigned. Then, with a sigh, he looked up, and in that look Nathan saw something he didn’t expect. Not guilt. Not remorse. Defiance.

“They’ll never stop coming for him,” Bishop said at last, his voice low but steady. “Not when he’s this far beyond the curve. He’s the one they want. The one they need. And if you think locking him in this cage, drilling him until he bleeds, will keep them from claiming him—you’re fools.”

The room froze.

Raze’s hand went to her blade. Corvus’s expression hardened, every line of his face tightening. Calderón dropped her pen.

Nathan stared. His mind whirled, a storm of rage and clarity rising together. “What are you talking about?” he demanded, his voice rough. “Who’s coming for me?”

Bishop gave a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “The same people who made you what you are. The ones who started this program. You think you’re theirs because they rescued you? Because they trained you? No. You were marked the day your mother stepped into that clinic. And when they realized how much potential you had, when they saw you could be more than the others… they decided they would own you. Use you. Shape you into their weapon. And I—” His eyes swept across them all. “I’ve been giving them what they needed to keep you in their sights.”

Calderón’s face went white. “You…” she whispered. “You’ve been feeding them data?”

Bishop didn’t flinch. “Every file. Every projection. Every breakthrough he’s made. They know it all. And they’ll come for him. Sooner than you think.”

The silence was crushing, broken only by Nathan’s chair screeching against the floor as he stood. His heart hammered, fury clawing its way up his chest. All those whispers, all those shadows watching him—it hadn’t been paranoia. It had been real. Always real.

Raze stepped forward, her jaw clenched tight. “How long?”

Bishop met her stare with a soldier’s steel. “Since the beginning. Since before the boy even knew what he was.” His gaze flicked back to Nathan. “They won’t stop, Nathan. Not until you’re one of them. And maybe—” His lips curled into something like a smile. “Maybe you will be.”

Section 3 – Nightmares and Blood Hunger

Nathan didn’t sleep that night. Not really.

He lay on his cot in the dim barracks, staring at the cracks in the ceiling that seemed to shift under the glow of the safety lamps. Every blink brought flashes of Sector 12—the enemy’s distorted grin, the shockwave of their clash, the words: We’ve been watching you. He had dismissed them at first as psychological warfare. But now, with Bishop’s betrayal still echoing in his ears, those words burrowed into his skull like barbed hooks.

When he finally drifted into unconsciousness, it wasn’t rest. It was war.

He was back in his family’s basement. The laughter was there again—jagged, cruel, echoing inhumanly through the walls. He saw his mother’s terrified face, his father beaten half to death, his siblings broken and sobbing. And then, just as before, they went still. Silent. Lifeless. Only this time, when Nathan tried to scream, his voice didn’t come. Instead, his fists clenched, his body moving on its own. He tore through faceless figures in the dark, his strength limitless, his movements faster than thought. Blood splattered the walls, soaking him in warmth he both loathed and craved.

He woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat, his chest rising and falling like he’d sprinted a marathon. His hands shook, but not from fear. From hunger. A deep, gnawing need to feel that strength again, to unleash it without restraint.

The next morning, he hit the training hall early. Too early. The others weren’t there yet.

Nathan wrapped his fists and turned to the heavy bag. For a moment he just stared at it, his mind replaying Bishop’s words: They’ll never stop coming for him… Maybe you will be one of them.

His jaw tightened.

The first punch nearly ripped the bag from its chains. The second left his knuckles burning, his blood singing. He began to move faster, faster, until the rhythm of his strikes was a drumbeat, echoing through the hall like a war chant.

By the time Raze walked in, he was a storm. His footwork was a blur, his body weaving, pivoting, striking with speed and precision that looked inhuman. She froze in the doorway, watching. For a moment, she looked almost uneasy—like she was seeing not just a trainee, but something primal and dangerous clawing its way out of him.

“Nathan.” Her voice carried steel.

He stopped, panting, sweat dripping from his jaw. His eyes burned, not with exhaustion, but with something else.

“I can’t stop,” he said, his voice low. “If I stop, I see their faces. Hear the laughter. And then I remember Bishop was right—they’re out there, watching. Waiting. If I don’t get stronger, I’m nothing but prey.”

For once, Raze didn’t snap back. She just studied him, her eyes narrowing. “…Strength without control destroys the wielder,” she finally said.

Nathan shook his head, fists still trembling. “No. Strength without will destroys the wielder. I know what I want. And I know what I’ll do to anyone who tries to take it from me.”

Something in his tone made her pause. For the first time, she didn’t hear the scared young man clinging to survival. She heard the edge of a predator—one who had decided the darkness wasn’t his enemy. It was his fuel.

Section 4 – Whispers in the Ranks

The base was never truly silent, but lately Nathan noticed how the noise shifted when he walked into a room.

In the mess hall, spoons clinked against metal trays and conversations ebbed into hushed tones whenever he passed. At first, he thought it was his imagination. But then he caught fragments—words carried just enough to be sharp.

“Did you see him with the bags? …like the damn thing was about to explode.”

“…snapped at Raze, no hesitation.”

“…too much, too soon. They’re pushing him.”

He pretended not to hear, jaw tightening as he kept his eyes fixed on his food. But the whispers clung to him, crawling into his thoughts. Some feared him. Others admired him. Either way, he was no longer just another recruit. He was something else. Something becoming.

The tension followed him into training. During combat drills, he could feel the others’ eyes lingering too long, measuring him, waiting for him to slip. Even Cassian—the wiry teen who had once barely acknowledged his existence—kept his distance, flanking him in exercises but avoiding conversation.

It wasn’t until sparring that Nathan truly felt it.

He faced two opponents at once, a simulation meant to test coordination. His movements were a blur—dodging, striking, weaving in ways that left both fighters stumbling. He didn’t just beat them; he overwhelmed them. His fists stopped just short of breaking ribs, his heel inches from crushing a jaw. He pulled back at the last possible moment, but the violence simmering in his veins had been visible to everyone watching.

The room was silent afterward, all eyes on him. Even the instructors exchanged uneasy looks.

Raze broke the silence with a sharp clap. “Again.”

But no one moved immediately. They were still staring at him—not as an ally, not as a comrade, but as a weapon they weren’t sure they wanted to stand beside.

That night, Nathan found himself unable to sit still. He ended up in the empty gym, knuckles raw from hours of assaulting the heavy bag. His chest heaved, sweat dripping from his temple, but his mind wouldn’t slow down. Every blow was a question: Am I losing myself? Or finally finding what I was meant to be?

He didn’t notice Elara until she spoke.

“You’re going to break your hands if you keep that up.”

He froze, turning to find her leaning against the doorway, arms crossed. Her eyes weren’t afraid—at least, not in the same way the others’ were. They were searching, like she was trying to read the truth buried under his rage.

“Maybe that’s what I want,” Nathan muttered, turning back to the bag.

“No,” she said firmly, stepping closer. “That’s what they want you to believe—that your only worth is how hard you can hit. But I’ve seen you. You’re more than that.”

Her words cut through his anger like a shard of light, though he didn’t want to admit it. He clenched his fists tighter, forcing his eyes down. “If I’m ‘more,’ then why do they all look at me like I’m a monster?”

Elara hesitated, then reached out, her hand brushing his arm. “Because they don’t understand you. They’re afraid. And sometimes fear looks like hate.”

The touch lingered a moment longer than it should have. Nathan finally looked at her, seeing something in her expression that made the burning in his chest shift—just slightly—from fury to something softer. Something dangerous in a different way.

But when she pulled her hand back, the gym’s silence swallowed them again.

Section 5 – Conflicted Mentors and the Body’s Betrayal

By morning the angry split in Nathan’s knuckles was gone.

He noticed it first at the sink—cold water rattling in the steel basin, fluorescent light pooling on his hands. Last night the skin had been split and glass-burned, ridges of dried blood mapping each knuckle like coastline. Now the abrasions were pink, sealed, barely tender to the touch. He flexed. No sting. No stiffness. Just a faint, alien tightness, as if new skin had been poured over bone while he slept.

He stared longer than he meant to. His reflection wavered in the metal panel behind the faucet: the same face, sharper somehow. His irises—once hazel with that green-brown muddle—had sunk a shade darker, a stormy near-black that swallowed light. His hair, too. The brown had deepened over the last week, curls drinking shadow, the lighter threads he’d had since childhood now a memory.

He should have felt afraid. He didn’t. He felt… right. Like his body had finally decided to match whatever he’d already become on the inside.

“Reyes,” a voice snapped from the doorway. Raze. “Med bay. Now.”

The med lab was colder than the rest of the base, a place of glass and chrome and obedient light. Machines hummed in polite frequencies, screens bled data in quiet rivers. Elara stood by the intake console, tablet tucked to her chest, her eyes flicking over Nathan with a quick, professional scan that softened when he met her gaze. Dr. Calderón and two lab specialists—Nguyen and Ishii—moved around the room in a rehearsed orbit, tugging on gloves, calibrating scanners, calling values too quickly for anyone not fluent in numbers to follow.

Corvus leaned in the back corner, arms folded, a sentry made of frown lines and patience. Raze took the opposite wall, watchful as ever, knife-less but still sharp.

“On the table,” Calderón said, already pulling up his last panel. “We’re repeating baselines.”

Nathan hopped onto the exam table, stretching his legs out as adhesive electrodes found his chest, his ribs, his forearms. Cold gel bit his skin beneath the EMG pads; an EEG cap settled over his curls with a soft rubbery shuck, contacts kissing his scalp. A wand passed over his knuckles, its display sketching a ghostly cross-section of flesh and bone in pale blues.

“Elara,” Calderón said, eyes on the live graph. “Vascular perfusion has—”

“Up nine percent,” Elara finished, already noting. “Capillary refill is… instantaneous.”

Nguyen positioned the dermal imager over Nathan’s hands. On the monitor, the tiny crystalline lattice of new collagen looked too perfect, a manufactured weave with none of the messy patchwork of normal healing. “This is twenty-four hours old?” he asked, not quite hiding his disbelief.

“Twelve,” Nathan said. “Maybe less.”

Calderón looked up, studying his face, then lowered a penlight and tracked the beam across his pupils. “Iris pigment density is increasing,” she murmured. “Melanin deposition in the stroma. That’s not typical post-trauma response. That’s systemic.”

“Hair, too,” Ishii said, sweeping a phototrichogram through a lock of Nathan’s curls. The model on-screen populated with strand counts and pigment saturation, the bars ticking higher even as they watched. “Eumelanin up. Pheomelanin trending down. Follicle cycle seems… accelerated.”

Raze’s eyebrow moved a millimeter. “In English.”

“He’s darkening,” Ishii said simply. “Fast.”

“Explain,” Corvus said, not unkindly, but without room to soften anything.

Calderón tapped through Nathan’s historical panels, the graphs unfolding like maps of a country at war. “We’ve been calling him Enhanced as a catch-all,” she began, “but we’re well past that. His baseline metabolic rate has climbed thirty percent in ten days with no catabolic penalty. Lactate clearance is twice the median for elite athletes. VO₂ max is—”

Elara glanced up at Nathan, then down again, almost smiling despite herself. “Ridiculous.”

“Neural activity,” Nguyen added, turning his laptop to show a riot of color where the EEG plotted across cortical areas. “Gamma bursts at rest. Threat-prediction tasks show anticipatory spiking before stimulus presentation. He’s not just reacting faster. He’s predicting events and priming the motor cortex in advance.”

Raze tilted her head. “He moves before the fight starts.”

“His body does,” Calderón said. “The conscious mind catches up a hair later.”

Nathan listened, the words stitching into him like cold thread. None of it felt like flattery; it felt like inventory. He flexed his healed knuckles again, the new skin stretching, patient and uncomplaining.

“What about the healing?” Corvus asked.

Calderón switched screens. An overlay of yesterday’s micro-tears and this morning’s smooth tissue blinked in a quiet alternation. “He’s laying collagen with minimal inflammation. Macrophage signaling is… unusual. Cytokine profile suggests the inflammatory phase is blunted and the proliferative phase accelerated. That means less swelling, less pain, faster closure.”

“How fast,” Raze said.

Calderón met her eyes. “Fast enough to get him back on his feet long before he should be.”

Raze didn’t smile. “Convenient.”

Elara stepped closer to Nathan with a lancet and a collection tube. “Fingerstick,” she warned softly. He nodded. She pricked. A bead of blood swelled; she caught it deftly and sent it toward the analyzer. By the time she pressed a gauze square to his fingertip, the prick had already sealed. She blinked, then let out the tiniest breath of disbelief. “Okay.”

The analyzer chimed. Ishii’s brows climbed. “Hematocrit up. Hemoglobin up. Iron utilization… efficient. He’s building oxygen capacity as if he’s living at altitude and sprinting in his sleep.”

“Which he is,” Raze said dryly. “Metaphorically.”

“Cortisol?” Corvus asked.

“Elevated at baseline,” Calderón said, “but—” She pinched, then relaxed. “So are endorphins and dopamine. He’s running hot, but the system’s rewarding it. If you asked me whether he enjoys operating in that hyper-adrenergic band…”

“You’d say yes,” Raze finished.

Nathan didn’t bother denying it. “I do,” he said. Calm. Honest. Elara looked over at him quickly, and something unreadable moved across her face.

Calderón’s tone gentled a fraction. “Have you noticed other changes? Sleep? Appetite?”

“Sleep’s a mess,” Nathan said. “Dreams. Not nightmares exactly. More like reruns that won’t stop.” He didn’t add the laughter, the basement, the way his hands always came away red in the dream and how it calmed him instead of breaking him. “Appetite’s up. I feel light most of the time. Like I’m already moving even when I’m not.”

Raze and Corvus traded a look that wasn’t disagreement so much as acknowledgment. There it is, it said. The thing we feared. The thing we needed.

Calderón nodded to Nguyen, who rolled a cart closer. “Last battery,” she said. “Reflex latency and decision tasks.”

The screen lit with a grid of pads arranged in a messy constellation. Lights pulsed at random; Nathan’s job was to strike the lit pad with the correct limb before it dimmed. He’d done the drill a dozen times. Today the room blurred into a geometry problem he’d already solved. Light. Strike. Pivot. Counterstrike. A whole pattern spilled three steps ahead and he simply walked into it. The pads never had time to fade.

“Two hundred and ten milliseconds to eighty-four,” Nguyen read, incredulous. “That’s… human outlier to something else.”

“Define something else,” Raze said, but her voice had lost its edge. She was watching Nathan like a horizon she hadn’t expected to find.

Calderón set her slate down, the gesture oddly final. “I’ll say this plainly. He’s not plateauing. He may not have a plateau. We designed categories around typical outcomes of the protocol—Prime Arcs that dominate a single system. Nathan isn’t a Prime. He’s a… stack. Multiple systems waking in parallel and feeding each other. That’s why the hair, the eyes, the healing, the foresight. It’s not a symptom; it’s a cascade.”

“A Chimera,” Corvus said.

“A better one,” Calderón corrected, and her eyes flicked to Nathan with something like awe. “If he survives the heat.”

Silence stretched. The machines hummed. Nathan felt Elara’s gaze graze his profile, warm and worried; he didn’t turn toward it, but he didn’t move away either.

Raze broke the quiet, voice low. “We have to talk about risk.”

“Which one,” Corvus said. “The risk that they take him. Or the risk that we keep him.”

Calderón folded her hands. “Both are real. The Brotherhood will stop at nothing—Bishop made that clear. He said it himself: if they can’t break him, they’ll bleed us until he walks to them. And if we keep him, and he tips too far into the reward of this state—” She glanced at the closed puncture in his finger; it was already color-matched to the rest of his skin. “He may decide he doesn’t need us.”

Nathan finally spoke, the words landing with a flat certainty that surprised even him. “I don’t need anyone to do what comes next. I’d like allies. I will have enemies.” He looked up, past the bright screens and tidy trays, to Corvus and then to Raze. “But don’t mistake this for something you can leash. You asked for what I am when I stop holding back. This is it.”

Elara’s breath hitched, soft as a paper cut. Raze didn’t flinch. Corvus didn’t either.

“Then we align goals,” Corvus said simply. “We point you at the ones who built the basement you remember and we keep our fingers off the trigger unless we have to.”

Raze’s mouth tilted—half grim, half approval. “And we make sure when he hits, he hits the things that deserve to break.”

Calderón gathered her slate, the scientist again, armor back on. “I’ll keep monitoring the cascade. No more solo nights in the gym, Reyes. If your tissues are remodeling this fast, the failure point won’t be skin—it’ll be something deep we can’t afford to miss.”

Nathan slid off the table, the electrodes peeling away with soft pops. “You’ll have to be faster than me to catch it,” he said, not a challenge so much as a warning.

Elara stepped into his path, not blocking, only there. “Then let me try,” she said quietly. “If you won’t slow down, let me at least run beside you.”

For a heartbeat, the lab’s cold softened. The hum moved to a lower key. Nathan met her eyes, the near-black irises swallowing the lamp-glare. He nodded once.

Behind them, Corvus’s comm chirped. A tech’s voice filtered through, thin with strain: “Sir, ping on the outer grid. Short burst. Same signature as Sector Twelve. It… it included a name.”

“Whose,” Corvus asked, though he already knew.

“Nathan Reyes,” the voice said. “And two words: come alone.”

The lab went quiet enough to hear each breath. Raze’s fingers flexed like they missed a knife. Calderón’s pen paused above the slate.

Nathan didn’t smile. Not outwardly. But inside, something purred again—pleased, patient.

“Run the trace,” Corvus said. “And double the guard.”

Raze’s eyes were on Nathan. “You’re not going.”

Nathan’s new skin didn’t itch anymore. His hands felt light, fast, eager.

“I already went,” he said softly, and the wound in his finger was gone, and the curls above his brow were darker still. “You just haven’t caught up.”

Section 6 – The Breaking Point

The air in the training hall had become so dense with sweat and dust it clung to Nathan’s throat like a second skin. He wasn’t training anymore—he was waging war on everything that still haunted him. The shredded heavy bag lay in ruins, its innards scattered like entrails across the floor. Nathan ignored the wreckage, ignored the eyes fixed on him, and turned instead toward the weight racks lined along the wall.

His hands, raw the night before, were now smooth again. Even the bruises on his knuckles had faded. The sight only drove him forward. He gripped the barbell like it had insulted him and yanked it from the rack with such violence that the steel shrieked against its holder. Plates rattled. Muscles flared. Veins stood out like live wires along his arms.

He heaved the barbell overhead in an explosive press, shoulders quaking, eyes locked on the mirror in front of him. His reflection was unrecognizable. The hazel that once colored his eyes had darkened, burning into a shade closer to black. His curls—once lightened by summer sun—were deepening, strand by strand, as though his hair itself was absorbing the darkness flooding his body.

Every rep was faster than the last. Every set heavier. He didn’t pause to rest. He didn’t want to. The clang of plates crashing back onto steel echoed like cannon fire, yet his body begged for more, craved the punishment, craved the growth.

On the catwalk above, the mentors and scientists circled like vultures at a battlefield.

“He should be on the mat, not throwing weights like a berserker,” Varik muttered, crossing his thick arms. “This isn’t strength training, this is obsession.”

Dr. Calderón shook her head, eyes glued to her monitor, where Nathan’s vitals danced in impossible patterns. “No… look closer. His recovery time between lifts is seconds. Muscle fibers are repairing before micro-tears even stabilize. We’ve never documented anything like it.”

Corvus stood silently, a monolith in the shadows, his sharp gaze never leaving Nathan. His voice was low, but it carried across the hall. “He’s not obsessed. He’s hungry. There’s a difference. And hunger can be directed.”

Down on the floor, the other trainees whispered in awe and fear.

“Those weights are double mine and he’s barely sweating.”

“His body shouldn’t even move that fast at those loads.”

“Is he even one of us? Or something beyond?”

One trainee, emboldened by equal parts jealousy and fear, finally stepped forward. His name was Kaelen, wiry but wiry in the way of a blade—sharp, thin, dangerous. “What’s the point of all this?” he spat, voice rising above the din. “You think moving faster or hitting harder makes you one of us? You’re just a rookie with lucky genes.”

Nathan dropped the barbell. It hit the mat with an earth-shaking boom, and silence spread like a contagion. His dark eyes locked onto Kaelen’s, unflinching.

“You want to test that theory?” Nathan’s voice was calm, almost too calm, like the stillness before a storm.

Raze leaned forward, intrigued. Varik tensed, ready to call it off. But Corvus raised a single hand—a signal. Let it happen.

Kaelen lunged, fists flashing, but Nathan was already moving. His body was a blur, every motion explosive, each pivot and strike honed in ways no training had taught. He sidestepped, drove a knee into Kaelen’s ribs, twisted with serpentine grace, and slammed him into the mat in one fluid sequence. The crack of impact echoed like thunder.

Gasps filled the hall.

Nathan leaned down close, his voice a whisper meant for everyone to hear. “Lucky genes didn’t save my family. Rage did. And if you push me again, you’ll learn the difference.”

Kaelen coughed, clutching his side, eyes wide with fear. Nathan stepped back, breathing evenly, his body thrumming with power rather than exhaustion.

Up above, the council of mentors erupted into debate.

“He’s out of control—”

“No, he’s in control, more than anyone else—”

“You saw his eyes. They’re not the same—”

“That’s evolution, not corruption—”

Dr. Calderón slammed her tablet shut. “Enough. Whether you fear him or revere him, one truth remains—he has already surpassed every Enhanced we’ve trained before him. If the other side knew the depths of this, they’d stop at nothing to claim him.”

Her words hung heavy in the air. Even Nathan, catching them, felt the echo of truth. He had become something else. Something the world might not be ready for. And instead of shrinking from it, he found himself smiling.

Section 7 – Trial By Science

Nathan’s body screamed with exhaustion, but the trial didn’t end. The fluorescent lights above burned mercilessly, sterile and unyielding, as if daring him to collapse. Sweat slicked down his back in sheets, soaking through the thin training shirt clinging to his frame. Every step, every strike, every breath seemed to drag him deeper into a place he no longer recognized—a place where pain wasn’t a limit but the raw material for growth.

The treadmill roared beneath him, resistance bands strapped across his chest pulling him backward with brutal force. His legs pumped like pistons, each step shaking the machine. Behind the reinforced glass wall, scientists whispered and scribbled notes, their eyes glued to monitors flashing with vitals and neural activity. Nathan didn’t need to hear the words to know what they thought: he should have broken minutes ago. He should have been unconscious. Instead, he ran harder, faster, as though rage itself fueled his blood.

Grief didn’t burn away. It calcified, mutated into something sharper.

His reflection caught his eye in the mirrored wall. For a heartbeat, he saw himself as he had been only months ago—a student, a son, a brother. Hazel-eyed. Curled hair the color of late-summer soil. But under the lab’s harsh lights the image distorted. His sweat-darkened hair was nearly black now, his curls heavier, darker, harsher. His eyes had lost their flecks of hazel; they were deep brown, shadowed, predatory. The treadmill beeped, signaling the end of the trial, but Nathan didn’t stop. He tore the harness from his body and slammed his raw knuckles into the control panel. Plastic cracked beneath the blow. His chest heaved, his veins burned with adrenaline, and he turned to the glass.

“What did you do to me?” His voice cut across the intercom feed, jagged and dangerous. “What the hell did you turn me into?”

The scientists froze. One younger researcher with trembling hands looked as though she wanted to answer, but Calderón silenced her with a sharp glance. Then Calderón leaned forward, voice steel. “He’s metabolizing faster than any Enhanced we’ve documented. Microfractures heal in minutes. Lacerations in seconds. This isn’t stabilization—it’s escalation. You’re seeing something none of us predicted.”

Nathan’s laugh was harsh, bitter, without humor. “Escalation? No. You didn’t build this. You poked at me until I broke. Whatever this is, it’s mine.”

“No,” another scientist interjected smoothly. “You are the culmination of mapped traits, engineered survivability. You are not an accident, Nathan. You are proof.”

Nathan narrowed his eyes. “Proof of what?”

“Proof that humanity can be rewritten.”

Corvus stepped out of the shadows in the observation deck. His voice rumbled low, unflinching. “Not rewritten. Warned.”

The silence that followed was heavier than the hum of machines. Nathan flexed his fists again, his knuckles splitting open from the strain only to seal seconds later, skin knitting with impossible speed. The scientists pressed closer to the glass. Nathan barely noticed them. All he could hear was laughter—phantom laughter, cruel and mocking—the laughter of the men who had broken his family.

And it fueled him.

The next trial was combat. The gauntlet chamber roared to life with drones, ten of them, sparking batons in their mechanical fists. Nathan stepped forward before the order was given. The first machine swung and he slipped inside the arc with a speed that bordered on inhuman. His elbow snapped into the drone’s neck joint, crumpling steel. Sparks showered down. Another rushed him. Nathan pivoted, boot connecting with its chest, hurling it into the wall with a metallic scream.

Pain blossomed across his ribs as a baton grazed him, but the sting vanished before he even registered it. His body was mending in real time. His blood was becoming fire.

He ripped an arm from one drone and hurled it into another. Sparks showered, circuits fried. His body moved in a blur, fists and feet landing with surgical precision. The haze of grief was gone, replaced with terrifying clarity. Every movement was sharpened, inevitable, his body predicting attacks before they came.

Above, Raze’s voice cut through the observation deck. “He’s not dodging anymore. He’s dismantling. He’s enjoying it.”

And she was right. Nathan felt alive. Each strike fed something inside him—a hunger that whispered of strength, of freedom, of power.

The last drone fell in a heap of sparking ruin. Nathan stood amidst the wreckage, chest heaving, bloodied knuckles raw but already knitting closed. He turned toward the glass, sweat dripping down his face, eyes darker than before.

“If this is what you wanted,” he said, voice steady, “then stop pretending you’re afraid of it. Use me. Or let me go.”

The room beyond the glass went still. Calderón’s face was pale, unease etched in every line. One scientist leaned close to another, voice low but audible. “The enemy was right. If we don’t win him, we lose him. They’ll stop at nothing to get him on their side.”

Corvus didn’t move. His eyes stayed locked on Nathan, searching not for data, but for something deeper—for a sign that the boy in front of them was still human at all.

Section 8 – The Spy’s Revelation

The spy’s words clung to the room like smoke, suffocating, impossible to clear. For long seconds, no one moved. Even Raze, blade still pressed to his throat, seemed to hesitate. The steel in her grip didn’t falter, but her eyes—hardened by years of scars and loss—wavered. The chamber had become a crucible, and Nathan knew every single one of them was weighing him like a weapon in their minds.

Then the voices began.

Saela was the first. Her calm was usually ironclad, but her voice cracked like glass under strain. “If this is true—if they call him The Fulcrum—then every drill we’ve run, every lesson we’ve given him, every weakness he’s shown us… it’s already theirs. They know him better than we do.” She turned, eyes narrowing at Calderón. “And you knew, didn’t you? You’ve been hiding it.”

The doctor didn’t answer right away. Her fingers gripped the tablet until her knuckles whitened. Finally, she whispered, “I knew his results weren’t normal. But if I’d said anything, you’d have pulled him from training before we understood the scope.” Her eyes flicked to Nathan. “And I couldn’t do that to him.”

Cassian spat on the floor. “Couldn’t or wouldn’t? Don’t dress it up like mercy.”

Nathan’s heart thudded, each beat heavier than the last. He had thought betrayal came from the spy alone, but now it hung in the air like contagion. Who else had lied? How much had been hidden?

The spy leaned back in his chair, the restraints clinking. “Do you see? They’re crumbling already. One word of truth, and the cracks split wide. Imagine what happens when he realizes the rest.”

Raze pressed harder, a thin line of blood welling at his throat. “Shut. Up.”

But Nathan raised a hand, surprising even himself. “No. Let him talk.” His voice was lower than he intended, rough with something close to hunger. He looked the man dead in the eyes. “You said they’d stop at nothing to have me. What does that mean?”

The spy smiled faintly, lips curling just enough to make every nerve in Nathan’s body scream distrust. “It means you’ll see shadows in your sleep. It means the faces of your family won’t just haunt you, they’ll be baited, twisted, replicated until you break. It means they’ll come through fire and blood, through anyone you stand beside, until the only choice left is whether you’ll join them… or bury everyone here with you.”

Marek slammed his fist on the table, making the lights rattle. “Enough of this.” His voice, always calm, trembled with rage. “You’ll rot in a cell for the rest of your life.”

But Nathan wasn’t listening. His chest rose and fell, breath catching as a memory seared through him—the basement, his mother’s terrified eyes, his sister’s muffled sobs, his brother’s lifeless body. The laughter. The laughter that still split him open in the quiet hours of the night. The spy’s words twisted that memory, reminding him that to the enemy, he was nothing more than a prize to be claimed.

“Why me?” Nathan asked, voice breaking despite himself. “Why not any of them?”

The spy’s answer was immediate. “Because you’re already halfway to us. You just don’t realize it yet.”

The silence that followed was heavier than before. Nathan’s fists trembled, not with weakness but with restraint. He could feel his strength surging, his bones knitting faster, his skin tougher, his heart like a war drum. Even as he fought to stay calm, the whispers began behind him.

“He’s dangerous.”

“They’ll come for him again.”

“Can we even keep him here?”

Each word was a dagger in his back. He turned just enough to see their faces: Cassian glaring with suspicion, Saela conflicted, Bishop avoiding his gaze entirely. And yet—two stood differently. Liora, eyes fierce, stepped forward, her voice cutting the murmurs like a blade. “Enough. He’s not the spy. He’s not the traitor. He’s ours. Without him, Sector 12 would’ve torn half this team apart. Without him, we’d already be dead.” She looked at Nathan, not flinching from the storm in his eyes. “Don’t let their fear rewrite what you’ve done.”

And from the corner, softer but steady, came Elara’s voice. “If he was going to turn, he would’ve done it already. Stop treating him like the enemy when he’s the reason we’re still breathing.”

Her defense hit Nathan harder than the spy’s venom. For the first time since his family’s slaughter, he felt something warm push against the ice in his chest—loyalty, maybe even something more. It scared him almost as much as the darkness did.

Corvus finally stepped forward, his authority silencing the room. “Enough talk. He stays. And the spy goes to interrogation. But mark me—” His eyes locked on Nathan. “—every step you take from here on, every choice you make, will decide if you’re our salvation or our damnation.”

Nathan’s jaw clenched, the spy’s smirk burning into him even as guards dragged the man away. The chamber emptied slowly, the weight of the revelation pressing into every step. When Nathan finally looked down at his hands, he realized the bruises that had been there that morning were gone. His skin was whole. His knuckles unbroken.

And all he could think was: They’re right. I am changing. And I don’t know if I want it to stop.

Section 9 – Whispers in the Dark

The base no longer felt like a fortress. It felt like a cage.

Nathan could feel it in every hallway he walked down—eyes on his back, voices that dropped to whispers as soon as he drew near. It wasn’t the quiet of respect or awe. It was suspicion, heavy and suffocating. His very presence had become a wedge that split the trainees into camps. Some avoided him outright, slipping away to other rooms or muttering half-truths into their sleeves. Others stared openly, as if waiting for him to explode in a fit of violence.

He’d learned to catch the words carried by the drafty corridors, fragments that clung like barbed wire:

“They’re calling him The Fulcrum.”

“Corvus says he could shift the whole balance of power.”

“Or end us all, if he snaps.”

Nathan clenched his fists at every whispered judgment. His knuckles cracked against one another as if impatient to prove them right. Sometimes he wanted to spin around and shout at them—ask if they thought he wanted any of this. But the words never came. He’d been told enough times already: stoicism was strength, silence was discipline.

And yet… they weren’t wrong. Something in him was changing. He saw it in the mirror every morning: hazel eyes darkening, curls of hair shading deeper and wilder. He saw it in his hands, where wounds sealed within hours, where blood washed away only to reveal unbroken flesh. Once, those same fists had split on the punching bag until raw bone had threatened to break through. By dawn, his hands were whole, new skin stretched smooth as if the damage had never been. The whispers spread faster than the healing itself.

Sleep became a cruel stranger.

When he did manage to drift into unconsciousness, it betrayed him with nightmares. He was always back in the basement—his mother, his sisters, his father, his brother. The laughter of those men twisted into the laughter of the spy who had infiltrated them, morphing into a chorus of voices telling him he was theirs already. Sometimes he saw his family bound and bloodied, their mouths moving but no sound reaching him. Other times they accused him outright—Why didn’t you fight? Why did you run?—until he woke choking on his own breath, the sheets slick with sweat.

He began wandering the base at night, unable to stand the silence of his quarters. The corridors were washed in red emergency glow, steel panels humming faintly with the pulse of machinery. He walked barefoot, letting the cold metal floor keep him tethered. In those lonely hours he felt like a ghost haunting a place that didn’t want him.

The training hall became his refuge. The scent of oil, leather, and sweat lingered long after drills ended, and Nathan threw himself into the heavy bag with reckless violence. The chains rattled under his onslaught, every strike sharper, faster, more brutal than the last. His hands split open, blood slicking the leather. He didn’t stop. He kept hitting until his vision blurred and his knees trembled.

At last he collapsed against the bag, forehead pressed into its stained surface. His breath tore through him in ragged gasps. He could almost hear the whispers even here, echoing in his skull. Monster. Fulcrum. Time bomb.

“You’ll break it at this rate,” a voice said from the doorway.

He spun, chest heaving. Elara leaned against the frame, arms folded, her expression unreadable. She didn’t flinch at the blood on his hands or the wildness in his eyes. Instead, she stepped inside, picking up a towel and tossing it toward him.

“Here,” she said simply.

Nathan caught it but didn’t wipe his hands. “Everyone already thinks I’m about to snap,” he muttered. “Maybe they’re right.”

Elara crossed the room, slow and measured, until she stood opposite him by the bag. Her voice was quiet, but firm. “They’re scared because they don’t understand you. And fear makes people cruel. That doesn’t mean you have to prove them right.”

He almost laughed, a harsh sound that caught in his throat. “You don’t get it. When I fight, when I let it take over—it doesn’t feel wrong. It feels… good. Powerful. What does that make me?”

Her eyes didn’t leave his. “It makes you human. And dangerous. But those aren’t the same thing.”

For a long moment, neither spoke. The only sound was Nathan’s harsh breathing and the faint hum of the base. Then Elara stepped closer, lowering her voice. “Use it. Don’t let it use you. That’s the difference between becoming their weapon—or your own.”

Nathan wanted to dismiss her, to push her away like he had others who tried to reach him. But the steadiness in her gaze unsettled him. She wasn’t afraid, not like the others. She saw the monster and the man, and for some reason, she wasn’t turning away.

He didn’t thank her. Couldn’t. Instead, when she left the hall, he went back to the bag—but slower this time, more deliberate. The strikes echoed, not frantic now, but controlled, like he was testing the edges of this new self.

By morning, his hands were whole again.

Not everyone was like Elara.

At breakfast the next day, Nathan carried his tray to the table, only to find Cassian already seated there. The wiry trainee with ice-blue eyes smirked without humor. “Thought they’d keep you locked up after last night,” Cassian said loudly enough for others to hear. “Guess they’re still pretending you’re one of us.”

Several heads turned. Some avoided Nathan’s gaze; others stared, curious, waiting for him to erupt. Nathan placed his tray down, each movement slow, deliberate.

“Still pretending,” Cassian pressed, leaning forward, “or maybe they’re testing how long it takes before you kill one of us too.”

The words hung heavy. Nathan’s jaw tightened, but before he could speak, Liora—sharp-eyed and blunt as ever—cut in. “Shut it, Cassian. You talk like you’ve done anything worth fearing. He saved us in Sector 12. You remember that, or did your memory snap along with your pride?”

A ripple went through the table. Cassian’s smirk faltered, but his eyes burned. “Defending him now, are you? Maybe you should share a cell when he finally loses it.”

Nathan rose slowly, towering over him. His fists ached to swing, but he forced his voice low, steady. “You want me to lose control? Keep talking. See what happens.”

The silence that followed was suffocating. Even Cassian didn’t answer. Finally, Nathan grabbed his tray and walked away, but the eyes that followed him burned hotter than before.

Behind him, someone whispered, “Fulcrum.”

That night, the nightmares returned sharper, louder. But Elara’s words lingered too, pulling him back from the edge. He wasn’t sure yet which side was winning.

Still, when Nathan looked at his reflection in the mirror—darkened eyes, darker hair, and skin that bore no trace of injury—he whispered to himself, “They’ll see. One way or another, they’ll see.”

Section 10 – Shadows of Betrayal

The air inside the command chamber was dense with suspicion, every whispered word carrying the weight of paranoia. Nathan stood in the center of it all, sweat still drying on his brow from the latest round of drills. His bruised knuckles, once raw and bloodied, looked nearly healed—a detail that hadn’t escaped the watchful eyes of the scientists. His hair, darker now than when he had first arrived, curled in damp strands over his forehead, and his eyes, once hazel, carried a brooding, storm-dark edge. He looked like someone else entirely—someone forged, not born.

Corvus and Dr. Calderón exchanged quiet words near the consoles, their glances darting toward Nathan with an unease that was impossible to hide. Raze leaned against the wall, arms folded, her burned features set in something close to a scowl. Even she—one of the harshest voices among the mentors—was no longer sure whether they had gone too far in pushing him.

Whispers trickled through the ranks of trainees along the edges of the room. Some of them spoke openly now, voices hushed but sharp.

“He’s not like us anymore.”

“Did you see how fast those cuts healed? That’s not natural.”

“If he ever turns on us…”

The words stung Nathan less than they should have. Fear no longer cut him—it fueled him. He stood straighter, letting the weight of their stares roll off his shoulders.

Then Cassian stepped forward, his ice-blue eyes glinting. He looked directly at Nathan, then back toward the mentors. “Maybe we should stop pretending we can control him. He’s already beyond what the program expected. You all saw it. Maybe he should be locked down before he becomes something worse.”

The words were deliberate, sharp as a blade—and they drew blood. A ripple of unease passed through the chamber. Nathan narrowed his eyes at Cassian, but said nothing. His silence carried more menace than any outburst could have.

It was Elara who broke the tension. She pushed forward from the cluster of trainees, her voice ringing clear and unshaken. “He’s not a monster. He’s the reason half of us are alive right now. If you can’t see that, then you’ve already betrayed what we’re supposed to stand for.”

Her defense of him wasn’t just words. She looked directly at Nathan as she spoke, her eyes softer than the steel in her tone, and for a fleeting moment, he felt something stir inside him that wasn’t rage—something dangerously close to hope.

But the fragile balance shattered when one of the officers stepped out of the shadows near the far wall. A man Nathan barely remembered seeing before—a logistics handler, someone so ordinary he seemed to blend into the background. His face, calm and steady, gave away nothing, but the words he spoke froze the room.

“You think you know what he is? You don’t. We’ve known for a long time.”

The silence deepened, every head turning toward him. Corvus stiffened, his hand brushing against the grip of his sidearm.

The officer’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “Nathan Reyes isn’t just another Enhanced. He’s the Fulcrum. The one all sides will fight to claim. And we will stop at nothing to bring him where he belongs.”

Gasps rippled through the chamber. Elara stepped back, her eyes widening. Raze’s jaw clenched.

Nathan’s pulse hammered in his ears. Fulcrum. The word tasted foreign, heavy with promise and threat. He didn’t know what it meant, not fully—but the way the spy said it, with a conviction that left no room for doubt, told him it mattered more than anything else.

“Who the hell are you working for?” Corvus barked, his voice thunder cracking through the room.

The spy only smiled. “The ones who’ll win.”

And then the lights flickered. A red warning siren blared overhead. The spy’s smirk widened, and before the soldiers could close in, an explosion rocked the far wall. Dust and fire surged into the chamber, drowning out the alarms.

Through the haze, Nathan glimpsed them—shapes moving, shadows slipping inside like predators through an open wound. The enemy had come for him.

And for the first time, Nathan welcomed it.

Section 11 – Unexpected Visit

The chamber buckled under the violence of the explosion. Steel beams groaned, glass shattered, and the ceiling lights flickered in epileptic spasms that stuttered between shadows and flame. For one heart-stopping moment, Nathan thought the entire training complex might collapse.

Then came the screaming. Not of fear—but of battle.

Smoke surged across the floor, licking at boots and knees, blinding sightlines. Sparks spit from torn wires dangling like severed veins, showering the combatants in bursts of fiery orange. The alarms shrieked, pulsing red across every wall, a warning heartbeat to match Nathan’s own.

He dropped into a crouch instinctively, his ears ringing but his body already moving. Reflex, faster than thought. A blade cut the smoke where his skull had been—clean, silent, meant to kill. Nathan slammed upward with his shoulder, catching the attacker square in the ribs. The impact knocked the breath out of the man’s lungs, a hollow whuff lost beneath the chaos.

Another shadow emerged. Nathan pivoted on the ball of his foot, his palm shooting out, intercepting the wrist mid-strike. He twisted hard, bone and tendon screaming until the snap came sharp and final. The enemy howled, staggering back into the smoke.

“Inside! They’re already inside!” Raze’s voice cut the madness, her tone sharp, commanding. Her hood was thrown back, scar tissue illuminated in the stutter of muzzle flash as she fired downrange. Each shot sang through the air, bright tracers illuminating silhouettes that fell into the fog.

The trainees scrambled, some diving for cover, others rallying in confused formation. Corvus barked orders, his deep voice booming like thunder, dragging discipline out of panic. Elara was already at the comms station, hands flying over the console as she tried to lock down breach points.

Nathan, though—Nathan wasn’t scrambling. His chest pounded with something far from fear. The smoke became a map in his mind, every disturbance a signal, every subtle shift of weight an attack telegraphed seconds before it landed. He saw intention before it became movement. And God help him, he craved it.

Three came at him. He smiled grimly and welcomed them.

The first swung high, telegraphed in the tightening of shoulder muscle. Nathan ducked beneath, driving his elbow upward with explosive precision. The man’s diaphragm collapsed under the blow, a strangled gasp ripping free as he folded.

The second lunged low. Nathan spun, his heel whipping around to crash into the man’s jaw with a crack that echoed off the chamber walls. The body dropped before the pain could register.

The third thought himself clever, circling behind. Nathan didn’t even look. He reached back blindly, caught the knife hand mid-thrust, and squeezed. The blade bit into his palm—blood ran hot and slick—but Nathan wrenched it free, reversed grip, and buried it in the man’s thigh. The scream tore through the smoke, ragged and panicked.

And Nathan—bleeding, breathing hard—felt only exhilaration.

From the corner of his vision, he saw them watching. Raze’s eyes sharp with calculation, Corvus’s jaw tight with unreadable tension, Elara’s lips parted in something between awe and dread. The other trainees whispered in disbelief.

“He’s not fighting… he’s dissecting them.”

“Like he knows what they’re about to do…”

“That’s not human.”

The breach widened. More spilled through—Enhanced operatives, armor etched with jagged insignia, eyes glowing faintly in the smoke. The enemy wasn’t improvising now. They were moving with military precision, herding, testing, probing.

Corvus’s warning boomed across the chamber: “Nathan! They want you alive. Don’t give them the chance!”

But Nathan barely heard. The bloodlust sang louder. He slipped through the chaos like liquid fire, every strike breaking bone, every dodge impossibly fluid. His enemies fell, not in desperate scrambles, but in carefully orchestrated ruin.

And in every shattered rib, every broken jaw, he saw his family—saw the basement, the ropes, the laughter that had haunted him since. He struck not to survive, but to punish. To destroy.

Gunfire echoed. Smoke danced. Shouts tore through the air. But Nathan’s world narrowed to the thunder of his pulse, the rhythm of carnage.

And then—the battlefield stilled.

The enemy line shifted, stepping back, making space. Confusion rippled through the trainees. Corvus lifted his weapon, eyes narrowing. Raze muttered, “This isn’t right…”

Through the jagged hole in the wall, a figure entered.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Moving with the slow, deliberate certainty of an avalanche. Smoke curled around him but never touched him, as if repelled. His presence alone pressed down on the room, thick and suffocating. Every enemy soldier lowered their gaze, their stances easing into deference.

Nathan froze. His knuckles dripped blood, his chest rose and fell, but everything in him narrowed on this man.

The figure’s eyes locked onto him, sharp and merciless. His lips curved into a smile—cold, cruel, deliberate.

“So this is the Fulcrum.” The voice rolled across the chamber, low but unshakable. “You’ve exceeded the stories already. Let’s see if you’re worth the price.”

Elara whispered, “Don’t…” but her voice cracked with fear.

Nathan’s stance shifted. His cuts burned, but the blood had already stopped flowing. His palms, raw and split, had begun to knit closed. His eyes caught the red emergency lights—no longer hazel, but near-black. His curls, damp with sweat, seemed darker, heavier, shadows clinging to them.

Behind him, he heard Corvus mutter, “We might’ve made him into something we can’t control.”

The Fulcrum smiled wider, stepping forward with the inevitability of death itself. The air between them thickened, charged, alive with violence yet to come.

Nathan’s pulse steadied. The hunger in him surged—not as a fear, but as a thrill.

The fight hadn’t even started.