My knees scraped the metal floor as I forced myself upright, breaths shallow, vision blurred. Pain rang in my chest like a tuning fork someone wouldn't stop striking. My team closed in—half ready to help, half expecting something worse.
"Kaleb, are you okay?" Maddie asked, crouching beside me.
I snorted, half-laughing through clenched teeth. "No. Maddie, I feel amazing," I barked sarcastically, dragging myself to my feet. "Just got tossed through the laws of physics—why wouldn't I be peachy?"
She recoiled slightly. "Hey, I was just trying to check on you."
I didn't mean to snap. I knew that. But sarcasm was armor—it was safer than honesty. I waved her off and limped forward, each step grinding resentment deeper into my spine. Past the others, past their concerned looks and half-formed words.
The double doors loomed in front of me.
Some part of me already knew who was behind them. The weight in the air changed, the kind of pressure you don't hear but feel—like something breathing just out of sync with reality.
I pushed the doors open.
And there he was.
Not cloaked in shadows, but becoming one. Vesper didn't need darkness to be unsettling. His presence was the absence of warmth, like something crawling across your skin that you couldn't brush off. His face was smooth, unreadable. Eyes glassy, half-lidded, like someone only pretending to be human.
He wore a suit blacker than void, every fold unnaturally crisp. He tilted his head the slightest degree, studying me like a mistake that fascinated him.
"You must be my target," he said.
His voice wasn't loud. It didn't have to be. It crept inside your head and spoke from the walls.
I didn't flinch. "You would be wise to leave."
He blinked.
When his eyes opened again, they were entirely black. No iris. No whites. Just the hollow gaze of something that had eaten too many truths and never learned to swallow.
"She said the same thing," he replied.
Then he moved.
No warning. No build-up. Just an arm cutting through the air—elegant, almost lazy.
And then pain.
He struck me in the center of my chest, clean and surgical, like a scalpel through a heartbeat.
I didn't fall.
I flew.
My back collided with the far wall, shattering the panel and denting the steel behind it. My team scattered as I crashed past them like a cannonball. Metal screamed. My body screamed louder.
I hit the ground hard.
Jacob roared, cracking his knuckles together like thunderheads. "You messed up," he growled, already charging.
Vesper turned slowly. Amused.
"They screamed your name," he said softly. "You didn't answer. Why?"
Jacob hesitated mid-swing, the words landing heavier than the punch he never got to throw.
Vesper caught his arm, rotated his wrist like he was adjusting a dial, and lifted Jacob off the floor as if gravity had turned traitor.
"You don't get to be a shield just because you're loud," Vesper whispered.
He hurled Jacob across the room—then caught him again mid-air with a flick of his fingers, bending the very rules of motion. Jacob's body slammed down like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
"Keep swinging," Vesper said. "Maybe you'll hit something that matters."
Then he turned.
His finger extended.
"You're next."
Maddie didn't hesitate. Her scream tore through the space like a war siren. It wasn't fear—it was fury, compressed and released through shattered breath—a pulse of raw emotion.
But it didn't stop him.
Nothing ever did.
Vesper walked toward her, each step measured, like a predator indulging curiosity rather than hunger.
Maddie wasn't still. Her hands weaved symbols mid-air, threads of glowing bio-energy knitting into serpents—dozens of them. Ethereal snakes hissed to life around her, eyes glowing with intent, each one an extension of her psyche.
By the time he reached her, they were coiled and ready.
Vesper stopped.
He looked at the swarm.
Then he laughed.
A quiet, brittle laugh that didn't belong in any human throat.
"Inconsequential," he said.
And the snakes… disintegrated.
One by one.
No fire. No force. Just erased—like something rewrote the code that made them real.
Maddie gasped. Her hands trembled.
"You create from instinct," Vesper whispered. "But instincts lie. They build what you fear—not what you need."
She stepped back, eyes wide.
"I can show you," he offered. "All of you."
His gaze drifted across the team.
Rev stepped forward silently, already preparing his weapon.
Chase tightened his grip on the console near him, knuckles white.
Booker narrowed his eyes, standing between Vesper and the others. I would have hoped he had a successful recovery.
But I wasn't done yet.
I pulled myself from the wall, ribs cracked, lungs on fire.
"You're not here for them," I said, voice hoarse. "You're here for me."
Vesper turned his head without looking. "I'm here for what remains of you, yes."
"Then come and take it."
The shadows behind him pulsed.
And the fight wasn't over.
He didn't attack right away.
He simply stood there, still as death, hands by his sides, head tilted slightly. Watching me. Not like an opponent sizing up a threat—but like a predator calculating what shape I'd break into when I finally shattered.
I didn't wait for him. I couldn't.
My hands sparked with unstable Nexus energy, tendrils of light wrapping around my arms like circuitry that didn't belong. I dashed toward him, every footfall a declaration: I wasn't afraid of him.
I threw the first strike—a condensed blast of distortion energy laced with intent. It twisted through the air like a collapsing star and collided with his chest.
Or should have.
He blurred.
The blast passed through space.
I blinked—and he was behind me.
"Faster than your thoughts," he whispered into my ear.
I turned and swung blindly, only to find nothing there.
"Still trying to fight me like I'm a man," Vesper continued, his voice echoing from somewhere else in the room. "You don't fight a shadow. You cast it."
Another blow hit me—this time from the side. It wasn't a punch. It was a memory.
Booker's voice, screaming in pain.
My stomach turned. I faltered.
Then came another: Aaliah, eyes wide, betrayed.
"No," I growled, pushing back against the illusions.
"Ah," he said from somewhere above, "you're catching on. My attacks don't come from fists. They come from you."
Maddie stepped in again, hands glowing, this time with jagged constructs—not snakes, but spears of molten emotion.
"Get away from him!" she shouted.
She hurled them in a barrage. They whistled through the air, each one an embodiment of her fear for me.
Vesper raised his hand—a single gesture.
The spears stopped mid-air. Froze. Then turned to point back at her.
"No," I gasped.
He flicked his fingers.
They flew toward her.
I reached out instinctively. Nexus energy surged around me in a pulse, rewriting the immediate geometry of the room. The floor twisted upward like a shield, intercepting the weapons just in time.
Maddie stared at me, wide-eyed. "Thanks."
"Stay back," I said. "He wants you afraid."
"I'm already afraid," she said, voice trembling.
"Then don't let him have it."
Behind me, Booker launched himself at Vesper with a roar, blue energy forming around his arms.
"You're not getting another step closer to my brother!"
Vesper caught his hands between his palms.
It hissed. Burned.
He didn't flinch.
"You still think this is about him?" he asked. "How quaint."
He twisted, slamming Booker into the wall.
Rev and Chase opened fire together. Controlled bursts. Tactical. Measured.
Bullets slowed as they neared Vesper, swallowed by something unseen. A veil of unreality. Even the sound of the gunfire felt thinner.
"I'm not part of your world," Vesper said, stepping through the smoke. "I'm what your world abandons to exist."
I concentrated. My heart beat in unstable rhythms, the Nexus energy inside me pulsing like it wanted out. I reached deeper—too deep—and let the power surge.
The walls flickered.
Time warped.
Vesper slowed.
I moved.
This time, I reached him. My palm struck his chest and released a blast of raw rewrite energy. Not just destruction—replacement. A force meant to erase and overwrite.
His body convulsed. Glitched.
He fell backward, slamming into the floor.
Everyone paused.
Had I finally—
He stood up.
Not slowly.
Not with effort.
Like gravity had politely changed its mind about holding him down.
He smiled, teeth too white, too neat.
"Now that was interesting," he said.
I stumbled back.
He raised his hand and opened his fingers. In the center of his palm was a piece of my own energy—stolen, frozen mid-pulse.
"I've learned something new," he said.
Then he crushed it.
And something inside me burned.
I collapsed to one knee, coughing, vision flickering.
"You think power saves you?" he asked, stepping toward me. "Power is just permission to become what you're afraid of."
He crouched in front of me.
Face close.
Eyes endless.
"You're almost ready," he whispered.
"Ready for what?" I choked out.
"To stop pretending you're still Kaleb."
He stood again and turned his back.
"Next time," he said, "don't make me wait so long."
Then—he vanished.
No flash. No portal.
Just gone.
The silence afterward was unbearable.
Jacob groaned from where he lay. Maddie rushed to Booker's side. Chase lowered his weapon slowly. Rev moved to check the perimeter.
I stayed there.
Kneeling.
The Nexus inside me still trembled.
And part of me was afraid Vesper hadn't taken something from me.
But given something instead.