Rourke didn't feel the light enter him—
he felt it rewrite him.
Every nerve, every breath, every hidden corner of his being ignited as the Heart poured its ancient power into him. Gravity spun in wild spirals around his body, lifting him off the ground. Blue fire crawled across his skin like living script.
He tried to speak—
to call out for Seren—
but no sound escaped.
His voice belonged to the storm now.
The chamber shook around him, metal plates groaning as currents of force radiated outward. Seren stood at the edge of the platform, shielding her face, shouting something he couldn't hear.
The gravitational guide watched silently, its form flickering as if the Heart's awakening disrupted even its existence.
Rourke floated higher, light wrapping tightly around his limbs.
Then—
Everything went white.
Inside the Core
He landed on his knees.
But the place he had been dropped into was no longer the sphere's physical chamber.
Here, no floor existed.
No walls.
No ceiling.
Only an endless field of shimmering dust, each particle a speck of memory. Above it all towered a colossal structure—half machine, half living star. The Heart in its true form.
Energy streamed from it in elegant arcs, each one carrying thousands of intertwined voices. The air vibrated as though the entire realm breathed.
Rourke staggered to his feet. "Is this… inside me? Or inside the Heart?"
A figure emerged from the radiance.
Not the guide.
Not a Hunter.
A Solarii.
He was tall, dressed in flowing lines of light, his eyes deep silver. His hair drifted in soft gravitational currents. When he spoke, his voice resonated like a harmonic frequency played on crystal strings.
"You stand within the confluence—the space where your essence meets the Heart."
Rourke swallowed. "Who are you?"
"An echo," the man replied.
"A memory given shape so the Heart may speak with you."
The figure extended a hand.
Rourke hesitated, then took it.
Warmth—not heat—spread through his palm.
The Solarii's gaze softened.
"At last, we meet, child of the fracture."
Rourke felt a knot tightening inside him. "Why was I the one who survived? Why didn't the Solarii save more of their own?"
The echo's eyes dimmed.
"We did not choose one child.
We saved the only one we could reach."
A lump formed in Rourke's throat.
"You survived because your core—your spark—was compatible with the void. Most of us would have died the moment we crossed its threshold."
Rourke shook his head. "I shouldn't be the last of anything."
"You are not the last," the echo corrected gently.
"You are the beginning."
The Weight of Two Worlds
The Heart pulsed. The entire plane shuddered. Fractures of blue lightning danced across the artificial star.
Rourke flinched. "What's happening?"
The echo turned toward the Heart.
"Bonding requires acceptance from both sides."
"Both sides…?"
The echo placed a hand on Rourke's chest—right over the core that now pulsed within him.
"Your humanity weighs heavily within you.
As it should.
But the Solarii essence must coexist with it."
Rourke's jaw tightened. "And if it can't?"
The echo's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Then the Heart will die…
and you will perish with it."
The ground—if it could be called that—split open beneath Rourke. Dark space swirled below, rising like a tide of memories and fears.
Pain punched through his ribs.
He doubled over.
Images erupted in rapid flashes:
Dock Nine collapsing.
His adoptive mother lifting him after the turbine explosion.
Seren kneeling beside him after the Hunter attack.
The dead Solarii woman shielding the last baby.
The Hunters' claws tearing worlds apart.
Rourke pressed his palms to his skull. "Stop—please—just stop!"
The echo didn't move.
"You are divided.
You cannot bond while believing your power makes you less human."
Rourke shouted, "Because maybe it does!"
The realm echoed with his voice—reflected, multiplied, sent back at him from every direction.
The echo stepped forward, placing both hands on Rourke's shoulders.
"Your humanity is not a flaw.
It is the anchor that kept the Solarii spark alive long enough to reach this moment."
The fractures slowed.
The pain dimmed.
Rourke inhaled shakily. "So what do I do?"
"Choose."
The echo gestured toward the Heart.
It pulsed, calling him.
"Choose to be whole."
The Leap
Rourke approached the Heart in its monumental form.
Its cracks glowed brighter the closer he came.
Seren's voice echoed faintly—
somewhere far away.
Desperate.
Afraid for him.
He placed a hand on the Heart.
His entire body jolted.
A surge of gravitational force tore through him—
a flood of power so immense his vision blurred at the edges.
He screamed as his bones vibrated, as though every particle of his body was being examined, tested, rewritten.
The Heart's voice—no longer gentle—boomed inside his mind:
"Rourke Talon.
Do you accept your dual nature?"
Rourke clenched his teeth.
"Yes."
The Heart brightened.
"Will you defend the vulnerable, even when the burden crushes you?"
"Yes."
"Will you wield gravity as Solarii do—not as a weapon of destruction, but as a force of balance?"
"Yes."
"Will you stand against the Hunters?"
Rourke's voice rose with new strength.
"YES!"
Light erupted from the Heart.
Threads of energy spiraled around Rourke, weaving into his skin, merging with his bones, seeping into every corner of him until he could feel the entire sphere—
every corridor, every broken mechanism, every shifting gravitational pulse—
as clearly as his own heartbeat.
The echo spoke one last time.
"Then rise, Rourke Talon.
Rise as Solarii.
Rise as human.
Rise as both."
The realm collapsed into a storm of light.
Awakening
Rourke slammed back into his body with a gasp.
The chamber reappeared around him.
He hovered above the platform, suspended by a cocoon of shimmering gravity.
Seren stared up at him, stunned. "Rourke…?"
He descended slowly as the last of the energy faded. His boots touched the ground.
He opened his eyes.
They glowed silver.
The gravitational guide bowed.
"The Heart has chosen."
Rourke steadied himself.
Power hummed beneath his skin—controlled, focused, alive.
For the first time since Dock Nine,
he didn't feel afraid of it.
He felt ready.
He met Seren's gaze.
"The Hunters are coming," he said quietly.
"And now… I can face them."