Estelle's touch on Kael's shoulder was gentle but firm, pulling him fully from the mesmerizing depths of the Apex System. The blue interface flickered, then receded, leaving only the cool night air and the crackle of the campfire. He blinked, his eyes adjusting, and the faces of Estelle, Jax, and Orion came into clearer focus, their expressions a mix of concern and an almost unnerving calm.
"Come," Estelle said softly, her voice a soothing balm after the digital cacophony. She led him to a flat, salvaged slab of concrete near the fire, gesturing for him to sit. The warmth of the flames was a welcome comfort against the chill of the night. Jax sat opposite them, his crimson skin glowing faintly, while Orion remained a little further back, a silent, watchful presence.
"What happened?" Kael asked, his voice still a little hoarse, the question a desperate plea for understanding. "The facility… the screams… and the world outside…" He gestured vaguely to the ruined cityscape surrounding them.
Estelle sighed, a weary sound that belied her composed demeanor. "The meteor… it wasn't just a rock, Kael. It was a catalyst. It saturated the planet with a chaotic mutagenic energy. Most of humanity… most life… was twisted, warped into something unrecognizable. Some died. Others became… what you saw in the facility. What you fought." Her gaze flickered towards the colossal, dark mass of the Minhocão worm's corpse in the distance, barely visible in the moonlight. "The world as we knew it is gone. Governments collapsed. Cities became graveyards. What's left are scattered pockets of survivors, and an endless, evolving nightmare."
Kael stared, the enormity of her words settling over him. "How do you know all this?" he pressed, a sudden suspicion forming. "You were just a student, like me."
Estelle reached up, her fingers deftly untying the pink bandana from her forehead. As the fabric fell away, the "universe eye" was revealed. It wasn't merely an eye; it was a swirling, miniature cosmos, a vortex of deep blues, purples, and faint starlight that pulsed with an ethereal glow. Kael gasped, remembering the fleeting vision from the facility.
"When the meteor hit, and the energy washed over us," Estelle explained, her voice now imbued with a strange, ancient resonance, "this… opened. It assimilates ambient energy, but it doesn't just grant power. It grants knowledge. Fragments of data, visions, probabilities. I saw the collapse, the transformations, the patterns of the energy. I see the past, the present, and the myriad of potential futures. It's… overwhelming, but it's how I know what happened to the world." She re-tied the bandana, the cosmic eye once again hidden, though Kael knew it was there, silently observing.
Jax leaned forward, his glowing red eyes fixed on Kael. "My turn, then." He thumped his chest, the jagged obsidian gem pulsing in response. "When that thing hit, I felt… a hunger. Not for food. For power. This gem, it's like a magnet for the meteor's energy. When I fight, when I… consume… the energy from other mutants, I get stronger. Faster. More resilient. It's raw, untamed power. It makes me… more." He clenched a fist, the muscles in his arm bulging, a clear demonstration of his brutal strength. "The stronger the mutant, the more energy I get. The more I become."
Orion, from his position in the shadows, spoke next, his voice a calm, almost detached murmur. The luminous blue lines on his pale skin pulsed in gentle rhythm with his words. "My eyes… they became abyssal. They don't see light as you do, Kael. They see energy. The flow, the currents, the signatures. Every living thing, every object, every residual trace of the meteor's power… it all has a unique frequency, a pattern. I can perceive the weave of the world, its hidden architecture. It allows me to sense threats, to track, to understand the subtle shifts in the environment. It's a constant symphony of information, a map of the unseen." He paused, his black eyes seeming to look through Kael, rather than at him.
Kael shifted, feeling a strange mix of awe and unease. Their abilities were profound, terrifying, and utterly unique. He took a breath, then began to explain his own. "And me… when the meteor hit, I felt like I was being torn apart. But then… something stable formed inside me. It allows me to absorb the mutagenic energy from other beings without becoming… like them." He carefully omitted any mention of the system's interface, the levels, or the AP points. "It purifies the energy, and in doing so, it makes me… stronger. Faster. More resilient. And now, I can see… concentrated energy areas. Like the Minhocão worm, it had a massive energy signature." He didn't mention the specific skills he'd just acquired, keeping his explanation vague enough to avoid revealing the full extent of his internal system.
A heavy silence fell, broken only by the crackle of the fire. The weight of their shared, extraordinary transformations hung in the air.
"So," Kael finally asked, looking between the three of them, "if the facility was breached, and everything went to chaos… how did you guys get out?"
Orion and Jax both turned their heads, their glowing eyes fixed on Estelle.