They walked until the sun cleared the horizon.
Rynn led, Maya followed, and neither spoke for the first hour. The landscape around them had transformed overnight—familiar fields now dotted with crystalline formations that caught the light wrong, trees that had grown extra branches overnight, a stream that ran uphill before correcting itself mid-flow. The integration was settling, Kaelen had said. Reality was stabilizing. But it would never be the reality they'd known.
Maya broke the silence first.
"You're bleeding again."
Rynn looked down. His chest was wet—not with blood, but with sweat, his body still recovering from wounds that should have killed him. The scars from Maya's medicine were barely visible, thin silver lines against his skin. But something else was wrong. He could feel it.
The serpent was restless.
Not hungry—it had fed well on the corrupted thing. Not threatened—nothing pursued them. Just... restless. Dissatisfied. Like it wanted something Rynn couldn't provide.
[Chaos Control: 0.7%]
[Chaos Capacity: 2.4 Units]
[Warning: Prolonged Chaos inactivity may cause destabilization]
[Warning: Chaos affinity requires regular expression to maintain stability]
[Warning: Failure to express Chaos may result in uncontrolled release]
Rynn read the notifications twice. "You've got to be kidding me."
"What?" Maya asked, moving closer. "What's wrong?"
"The System says I need to use my power or it'll use me." He touched his chest, feeling the serpent shift beneath his skin. "Like a muscle that atrophies. Except when this muscle atrophies, it explodes."
Maya's eyes widened. "Explodes?"
"Uncontrolled release. The notification didn't specify, but I'm guessing it's bad."
They'd stopped walking, standing at the edge of a field that had partially transformed into something else—half corn, half glowing crystal stalks that hummed faintly in the morning air. Beautiful and deadly, like so much of the new world.
"So use it," Maya said. "Practice. Like you were doing in the barn."
"I tried. Control's too low. Every time I reach for it, the serpent just..." He struggled for words. "Ignores me. Like I'm asking a tiger to do tricks."
Maya considered this. For someone so young, she had a stillness to her, a patience that suggested she'd learned to wait out storms. "Maybe you're asking wrong."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean..." She bit her lip, thinking. "My mom used to grow roses. She'd talk to them, play music, all that hippie stuff. I asked her once if she really thought it helped. She said the roses didn't understand English, but they understood attention. They knew she was there, caring for them, and that made them grow stronger."
Rynn frowned. "You're saying I should... talk to my Chaos?"
"I'm saying maybe control isn't about forcing. Maybe it's about paying attention. About letting it know you're there." She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just a kid who wished for medicine instead of something cool. What do I know about cosmic powers?"
Rynn almost laughed. "More than you think."
He sat down at the field's edge, cross-legged, facing the crystal corn. Maya settled beside him, close enough to help if things went wrong, far enough to survive if they did.
Attention, he thought. Not force. Attention.
He closed his eyes and turned inward.
The serpent was there, as always—coiled in his chest, vast and patient and utterly indifferent to his existence. He'd been approaching it like a problem to solve, a tool to wield. But Maya was right. That was wrong. The serpent wasn't a tool. It was part of him. A part he'd never acknowledged, never attended to, never treated as anything but a threat.
"Hey," he said silently. "I see you."
The serpent didn't respond.
"I know you're there. I know you've been there since the wish. I know you saved my life twice—against the void thing, against the eater. I know you're hungry and restless and probably wondering why I keep trying to use you like a weapon instead of just... being with you."
Still nothing.
"But I don't know how to be with you. I don't know what you want. I don't know what you are." He paused, searching for words. "I'm scared of you. That's the truth. Every time you move, I'm afraid you'll unmake me. Unmake everything. Turn the world into grey ash because I looked at you wrong."
The serpent stirred. Slightly. Questioningly.
"But I'm more scared of not using you. Of letting you build up until you explode and hurt people like Maya. Of becoming like that thing in the barn—so twisted by what I am that I stop being human." He took a breath. "So I'm asking. What do you need? What do we need?"
For a long moment, nothing.
Then the serpent uncoiled.
Not fully. Not like before—not striking out in defense or hunger. Just... unfolding. Letting him see more of it. And with that unfolding came understanding.
The serpent wasn't Chaos.
It was his Chaos. The part of the primordial force that had attached itself to him, shaped itself to his soul, become something unique in all the universe. It didn't want to be used. It wanted to be expressed. To flow through him the way blood flowed through his veins, the way thoughts flowed through his mind. It wasn't separate. It was him.
And he'd been treating it like a stranger.
Rynn opened his eyes.
The crystal corn was still there. Maya was still there, watching him anxiously. But something had shifted. The serpent was calm now, patient, waiting for him to figure out the next step.
He looked at his hands.
Grey lightning flickered across his palms.
Not the uncontrolled burst from before—just a spark, a thread, a tiny expression of what lived inside him. It didn't burn. Didn't hurt. Just was, crackling gently between his fingers like static electricity given form.
[Grey Lightning manifested]
[Affinity expression: Partial]
[Control level during expression: 1.2%]
[Note: Control during expression exceeds baseline control]
[Note: Expressing specific elements may be easier than general Chaos manipulation]
Rynn stared at the notification. Expressing specific elements may be easier. Of course. He'd been trying to control Chaos itself—the vast, infinite potential of un-reality. But Grey Lightning was just one expression of that Chaos. One possibility made manifest. Like learning to paint with a single color before trying to master the entire spectrum.
He focused on the lightning.
It responded.
Not perfectly—it flickered, wavered, threatened to escape his intent. But it responded. He could make it brighter, dimmer, longer, shorter. Could move it from palm to palm, shape it into rough forms that dissolved almost instantly. For the first time since the wish, he was controlling something.
[Grey Lightning control improving]
[Grey Lightning control: 1.2% → 1.5%]
[Grey Lightning control: 1.5% → 1.8%]
[Grey Lightning control: 1.8% → 2.1%]
The percentages climbed as he played, as he experimented, as he stopped trying to force and started trying to be. The serpent hummed with satisfaction, finally doing what it was meant to do—expressing itself through him.
Maya gasped.
Rynn looked up. She was staring at his hands, at the lightning dancing across them, her expression a mixture of awe and terror.
"It's okay," he said quickly. "I'm controlling it. Mostly."
"That's..." She swallowed. "That's beautiful. And terrifying. And beautiful."
Rynn looked back at the lightning. It was beautiful—grey, yes, but not the grey of ash or death. The grey of storm clouds before rain. The grey of twilight between day and night. The grey of potential, waiting to become.
[Grey Lightning recognized as Legendary Element]
[Legendary elements are extremely rare]
[Legendary elements provide unique advantages in combat and progression]
[Warning: Legendary elements attract attention]
[Warning: Legendary elements are highly desirable to collectors and power-seekers]
[Warning: Displaying legendary elements in public is not recommended]
The warnings were familiar by now. Everything about him attracted attention. Everything about him was desirable. He was a walking target in a world full of hunters.
But he was also, for the first time, a hunter himself.
Rynn stood, letting the lightning fade. His control had settled at 2.3%—still pathetically low, but four times what it had been this morning. And he'd learned something crucial. Don't control Chaos. Express it. Let it flow through specific channels instead of trying to shape the whole.
"Thank you," he said to Maya.
"For what?"
"For the advice. About attention. It worked."
She smiled, small and uncertain. "So you're not going to explode?"
"Not today." He looked at the crystal corn, at the transformed field, at the world that kept changing around them. "But I need to practice more. Need to get better at this. The lightning, I mean. If I can control one expression, maybe I can learn others."
"Blacksoul Fire," Maya said. "Your other element. The System mentioned it when you were unconscious. Said you had two legendary affinities."
Rynn hadn't thought about that. Grey Lightning was one expression of Chaos. Blacksoul Fire would be another. Different channels for the same infinite source. If he could master both—
[New objective detected]
[Master two legendary expressions]
[Estimated time to completion: Unknown]
[Reward: Increased Chaos Control]
[Reward: New abilities]
[Reward: ???]
The System, at least, approved.
"We need to find somewhere safe," Rynn said. "Somewhere I can practice without attracting every monster in a ten-mile radius."
Maya nodded. "What about the mountains? My family used to camp in the national forest. It's remote, lots of places to hide, and the System probably hasn't changed it as much as the cities."
It wasn't a bad plan. Remote was good. Remote meant fewer people, fewer monsters, fewer complications. Remote meant time to practice, to grow, to become something that could survive whatever came next.
"Let's go," Rynn said.
They walked.
---
The road to the mountains took them through smaller towns, past farms and forests, through landscapes that grew wilder with every mile. The integration had affected everything, but unevenly—some areas were barely touched, others transformed almost beyond recognition.
They passed a town where every building had turned to glass. Not broken glass—glass, smooth and transparent, the houses still standing but completely see-through. Inside, furniture floated where it had been, unsupported, defying gravity. No bodies. No people. Just glass and floating chairs and a silence that pressed against the ears.
They didn't stop.
They passed a forest where the trees had grown eyes. Hundreds of them, thousands, covering every trunk and branch, all of them watching. The eyes followed as they walked the road at the forest's edge, tracking their progress with lidless attention. Maya gripped Rynn's arm so hard it bruised. They didn't stop.
They passed a field where time moved differently. They saw it from a distance—birds frozen mid-flight, grass motionless, clouds stopped in the sky. But at the edges, where normal time met whatever was happening in that field, things flickered. Appeared. Disappeared. Rynn's Chaos Sight showed him probability shadows layered so thick he couldn't count them.
They didn't stop.
By evening, they'd reached the forest's edge. Real forest—or close enough—with trees that looked like trees and animals that moved like animals. The mountains rose beyond, dark against the bleeding sky, promising shelter and isolation.
"We should find a place to camp," Maya said. "It'll be dark soon, and I don't want to be caught out here at night."
Rynn nodded. "There. That ridge. We can see anyone coming."
They climbed. The slope was gentle at first, then steeper, forcing them to use hands as well as feet. By the time they reached the ridge, the sun had set and the sky had darkened to its new normal—bleeding grey shot through with colors that didn't have names.
Below them, the forest spread into darkness. Behind them, the mountains rose. And somewhere in the distance, things moved that they couldn't see.
Rynn found a sheltered spot beneath an overhang, protected on three sides, with a clear view of the approach. Not perfect, but good enough. Maya gathered dry wood—real wood, not transformed—and soon they had a small fire going, its light pushing back the dark.
"We should take turns keeping watch," Rynn said.
Maya nodded. "I'll take first watch. You need to practice."
He looked at her, surprised. "You sure?"
"You're our best chance if something attacks. The stronger you get, the safer we both are." She smiled, that same small uncertain smile. "Besides, I've got my medicine. Three drops left. That's three times you can almost die and come back."
Rynn laughed—actually laughed, the first time since the wish. It felt strange, but good. Human.
"Okay. Wake me in three hours."
He settled against the rock, closed his eyes, and turned inward.
The serpent was calm now, satisfied with the day's expression. But Rynn didn't want to rest it. He wanted to understand it. He reached for the lightning again, letting it flow through his hands beneath his closed lids, feeling its shape and texture and nature.
Grey Lightning wasn't lightning. That was the first thing he understood. Regular lightning was electricity, charged particles moving through air. Grey Lightning was possibility moving through reality. It didn't conduct. It didn't ground. It simply was, appearing where he wanted it because in some probability, it had always been there.
That was the key.
He wasn't creating the lightning. He was choosing it from infinite possibilities. Every Grey Lightning strike was a probability made manifest, a potential timeline where that lightning existed, pulled into this reality by his will.
Understanding flooded through him.
[Grey Lightning comprehension increased]
[Grey Lightning control: 2.3% → 3.1%]
[Grey Lightning control: 3.1% → 3.8%]
[Grey Lightning control: 3.8% → 4.2%]
The percentages climbed faster now, fueled by understanding. He wasn't forcing. He was choosing. And the lightning responded to choice the way water responded to gravity—naturally, effortlessly, inevitably.
By the time Maya shook him awake, his control had reached 5.1%.
"Your turn," she said, yawning. "Nothing happened. Just quiet and dark and me trying not to fall asleep."
Rynn stood, stretching. The fire had burned low, just embers now. Beyond their small circle of light, the forest waited, full of sounds he couldn't identify.
"Sleep," he said. "I'll keep watch."
Maya curled up against the rock, her vial of medicine clutched to her chest, and was asleep in seconds. Rynn watched her breathe, this girl who'd saved his life with her only treasure, and made a quiet promise to himself.
He would get strong enough to protect her. Strong enough to protect anyone who showed him kindness in this broken world.
And he would start by mastering the lightning that danced at his fingertips, waiting to be chosen.
---
Please, share your ideas, eh? Heheheheh