[T-minus 59 Days Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

The fire had been restoked, but no one sat near it. Smoke curled quietly into a sky that refused to be blue, as if even the sun had grown wary of the land below. The clearing was heavy with the kind of silence that followed humiliation – not defeat, exactly, but exposure.

No one was talking.

Chloe stood apart, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as she watched the treeline. A beetle skittered across her boot and she flinched – then disappeared.

Not fully. Just for a moment. Her shape distorted like glass under pressure, and then snapped back into place. She let out a shaky breath and sat down hard, face pale. She hadn't meant to shift.

Again.

A few meters away, Alyssa was hammering her fists into the ground – not wildly, but with a kind of stubborn rhythm. She wasn't angry at anything in particular. Just everything. Sweat beaded on her brow as her body began to hum, gravity thickening in the air around her.

She planted her feet, grit her teeth, and let the pressure climb.

With a deep, grinding crack, the soil beneath her caved in – she'd hit max density again. A crater bloomed around her. Her knees trembled. Her breath rasped.

Still not enough.

Dan was off to the side with his soulforged staff – well, a stick, really. It had retracted to its smallest form. He flicked it. Nothing. He twisted the grip, willing it to extend. It flared gold, humming—

—and then fizzled.

He sighed. Tried again. The staff extended to about shoulder height, then shuddered and collapsed back into itself like a winded accordion.

"Useless," he muttered.

Omega sat on a broken fence post nearby, sharpening a fragment of metal against a stone. He didn't look up as he spoke.

"You don't need demons to be cursed."

No one responded.

Ferron was fixing Tensō. He hadn't said a word since sunrise.

Victor stood with his back to everyone, facing the slope where they'd buried their first team member. Not that long ago. The wind tugged at the hem of his shirt, but he didn't move.

And Max watched it all.

Quiet. Absorbing.

He saw the cracks now – not just in their gear, but in their souls. The things Alpha had said yesterday... they hadn't broken the team. But they'd peeled off the outer layer. What was left now was raw.

He wasn't angry at them.

He was angry at himself.

He'd brought them into this and expected instinct to carry them. Had relied on chaos and adrenaline to keep them alive.

But instinct was sloppy. Adrenaline faded. Chaos eventually picked a side.

He'd seen what Alpha and Omega could do without awakening. He'd seen what they were like without their power fully unlocked.

What scared him more was imagining what they'd become once they were.

He stepped toward the centre of the camp.

"It's time," he said.

Everyone turned. Some with hesitation. Some with hope.

Only Alpha and Omega nodded without blinking.

…………………

Ferron's makeshift forge wasn't much to look at – just a circle of heat-resistant bricks, a soulmark-etched anvil dragged from the Institute's plane crash site, and three shallow firepits spaced like a triangle around the camp's centre.

But the circle he'd drawn into the earth?

That was something else.

Wards burned into the soil with crushed bone ash. Thin iron spikes hammered into the perimeter at cardinal points. Glyphs traced with soul-glass dust shimmered faintly beneath the mist, reacting to the breath of anyone who stepped too close. It pulsed like a heartbeat in waiting.

Max stood just outside the circle, fists clenched, eyes fixed on the mark in the centre – a fusion of the awakening sigil and the soul-bond contract he'd broken months ago.

"This is unstable," Ferron muttered, standing behind him. "You sure you want to do both?"

Max didn't answer right away. His pulse was too loud.

Ferron stepped beside him, voice low.

"You awaken one person like this, the soulfield screams. Two? It'll ripple like a flare. If anything's listening – demons, even Contractors – they'll feel it."

Max nodded. "I know."

Max nodded, eyes fixed on the ritual circle. It wasn't for him – it was there to keep the flare from announcing them to every demon for a hundred miles. Or at least, try to.

"I've done it before," he said, "but never like this."

Ferron arched a brow. "You fumbled it with Dan. Saved his life, sure – but barely. Victor's awakening was mid-fight. Instinct. Reflex."

Max didn't argue.

"Alyssa and Chloe asked. I gave them what I had. But it was rushed. I wasn't thinking straight. Just reacting."

He looked down at his hand, where faint golden light already licked across his palm.

"This is different. I've had time. I know what I'm doing now. What it costs. What it gives."

A pause. Then, quieter:

"This is the first time I've chosen it."

Ferron studied him a moment longer. Then stepped back.

"Then make it count."

"It's not just them you'll be empowering. It's you you'll be draining."

"I can handle it."

A beat.

"Can they?"

Before Max could answer, Omega stepped forward.

"We'll be fine."

He clapped his hands together once—too loud, too eager. His grin was razor-wire cheerful.

"Come on, golden boy. Let's light me up."

Alpha stepped in behind him, precise as always.

"He should do me last," she said. "My output vector is more refined. If your connection to the ritual weakens after him, I'd rather not be the casualty."

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Max gave her a look.

"That your way of saying I should pace myself?"

"It's my way of saying I'm not dying because of your sloppiness."

Omega laughed. "Romantic."

Max stepped forward into the circle.

The glyphs lit up, one by one, as he crossed the line – each with a different pitch, like keys being pressed on some ancient, invisible piano.

He stopped in the centre, glanced at Omega, then at Alpha.

"I can awaken you," Max said. "But I don't control what comes out. It's not a gift I hand over – it's a door I force open. What's behind it… depends on what you need. And who you are."

He exhaled, then raised a hand. Golden Soulfire flared to life in his palm.

Not the violent blue of Hellfire, not the burning crimson of rage – but something deeper. Something that didn't just consume – it transformed.

Chloe stepped closer, her eyes wide. Alyssa pulled her sister gently back.

"Is this going to hurt them?" Chloe whispered.

Ferron answered without looking up.

"If it doesn't," he said, "it didn't work."

Alpha and Omega stepped into the circle together.

Without a word, they began removing sections of their armour – each gesture mechanical, rehearsed. Omega pulled off his chest plate, revealing the mess of scarring and metallic reinforcement that spread like a tree of black veins from his sternum outward. Port anchors gleamed in the spaces between his ribs.

Alpha unclipped her gauntlet, revealing a ridge of embedded soul-conduits beneath pale skin. Her spine had a calibration interface built into it—small magnetic disks blinking blue.

Dan winced. Chloe looked away.

Alyssa didn't flinch.

Max stepped between them, voice quiet.

"Omega first."

"Hell yes," Omega said. "I've waited long enough."

Max's fingers curled, and the soulfire in his hand surged brighter.

He placed it – slowly – against Omega's exposed core.

His soul flared.

And the ritual began.

…………………

Max crouched slightly, hand hovering above Omega's exposed chest plate. Gold flickered at his fingertips, the soulfire thrumming in time with his pulse. For a second, he hesitated – his gaze flicking between the two supersoldiers standing in the circle.

There it was.

A faint, silver-white shimmer pulsing just beneath their skin.

Body Affinity, Max thought. Same as Victor. Almost the same colour. Definitely the same hum. He'd seen it enough now to recognize the pattern.

Most people fell into it – might over mind. The world liked building hammers more than mirrors.

Mind Affinity bent instead of broke – subtle, reactive, layered in illusion and perception. Grimm radiated it: sharp, surgical. Chloe shimmered with hints, like echoes that hadn't found their voice.

And Liz?

Liz burned. Her aura flared deep crimson – focused, calculated, terrifying. Not cold. Just... inevitable.

Soul Affinity was different. Rarer still. He and Dan shared it. It didn't scream. It pulled. Heavy. Ancient. Like gravity with memory.

He pushed the thought aside. Omega was grinning up at him like this was a carnival ride.

"Let's light the fuse," Omega said. "Come on, golden boy. I'm ready."

Max pressed his palm to the reinforced port between Omega's ribs – and released the flame.

The reaction was instant.

The glyphs around the ritual circle ignited in perfect synchrony, flaring outward like a supernova compressed into a single breath. The blast of soulfire slammed into Omega's core and kept going, tunnelling into the buried anchors threaded through his nervous system, lighting every nerve like a live wire.

Omega didn't scream.

He howled.

His back arched. Metal cracked. The ground trembled beneath him.

His muscles bulged, twisted, then tore. Not apart – outward. Veins swelled with molten red energy before hardening to black under the skin, like cooled volcanic glass. His body writhed against itself, reshaping from the inside.

Bone pushed through.

Thick ridges erupted from his spine, curling up into armour plates across his shoulders. Spiked growths jutted from his elbows, then cracked and reformed, spreading down both arms in segmented armour that gleamed with wet marrow. His jawline thickened. His eyes rolled back, then locked forward with uncanny clarity.

Smoke billowed off him.

He collapsed.

For three long seconds, there was no sound but the hiss of steam escaping ruined earth.

Then Omega rose.

Slowly.

Grinning.

The exoskeleton receded. Bone cracked, splintered, melted back into him like it had never been there. His breathing slowed. His eyes gleamed.

Then, with zero warning, it happened again.

His entire upper torso exploded outward in a fresh bloom of armour. Spikes erupted from his back like wings. His jaw unhinged for a moment—bones rearranging mid-laugh as he let out a sound that was half glee, half agony.

He stood there, shimmering with power, surrounded by shattered dirt and frightened silence.

"Oh, it hurts – but it fits." Omega muttered.

The armour slid back into him like a living thing retreating under his skin. A few seconds passed.

Then he did it again.

Bone. Recession. Bone. Growth.

Every cycle made him stronger. Sharper. More defined.

Ferron flinched. Alyssa stared. Dan whispered something no one caught.

Chloe took a step back.

Max didn't move.

Omega rolled his shoulders, now covered in pale ridges of armour barely visible beneath his skin.

"...Oh yeah," he said, voice low and reverent.

"That's the good stuff."

…………………

Max was trembling now.

The ritual circle still pulsed with spent energy, but his breath came shallow. The first awakening had taken more out of him than he expected – more than he wanted to admit. He wiped a streak of blood from his nose, blinked through the brightness still flaring at the edges of his vision.

Omega's awakening had been loud. Brutal. Like detonating a body from the inside and watching it crawl out stronger.

This one would be different.

Alpha stepped forward with quiet exactness. No flourish. No announcement. She removed her outer plating in calculated layers – gauntlet, elbow brace, shoulder casing – until the flesh beneath her left arm was visible.

Not naked. Not organic. But something between: pale skin crossed with surgical seams, silver lines pulsing softly beneath the surface like an artificial vascular system. There, at the base of her triceps, a soul-interface port flickered open with a faint hiss.

Then she did something no one expected.

She knelt.

One knee to the ground, eyes steady, spine perfectly aligned. Not out of submission – out of protocol. Precision to the last detail.

She extended her arm.

"Deliver the flare," she said. "Do it clean."

Max swallowed hard. His soulfire flared in his palm – brighter than before. Not just gold, now tinged with something darker, like burned amber. The kind of light that knew it was dangerous.

"This will hurt," he warned her.

Alpha didn't blink.

"Then make it count."

He reached out, fingers hovering just above the exposed port.

The glyphs trembled around them.

Max plunged his hand in.

The reaction was not explosive – it was precise. Surgical.

The moment his soulfire made contact, Alpha's entire body locked rigid. The glow surged into her system like electricity given thought – flowing along those silver lines, racing through her neural lattice. Her back arched with unnatural stillness, her teeth clenched but she didn't scream.

She shimmered.

For a breathless instant, Alpha vanished.

Not with a pop. Not with a blur. With a cut.

The space she had occupied folded inward. The air twisted like glass seen underwater. A pressure wave bent the grass sideways, and then she was behind Max, standing – silent, whole, changed.

Chloe gasped. Alyssa dropped into a half-crouch.

Max turned, slowly.

Alpha's body was humming – not visibly, but through the air itself. The light around her was wrong. She moved again – just a flicker – and suddenly she stood ten meters away, blade in hand, crouched low beside a large boulder.

There was no wind.

No blur.

Just a moment of anticipation—

—and then the rock split in half, a hairline cut running diagonally through stone like silk.

It collapsed soundlessly. Two perfect halves.

Alpha sheathed her blade in a single, fluid motion.

Her voice, when it came, was quiet and clinical.

"Velocity isn't the point," she said. "Trajectory is."

Ferron exhaled slowly. He hadn't realized he was holding his breath.

He looked at Max. Then at the empty space where Alpha had almost been.

"She's not just fast," he murmured. "She's wrong."

Alpha turned to Max, her aura dimming as the last flickers of distortion faded from the air. She studied him – not with gratitude, but with assessment. As if she were logging data.

"That was sufficient," she said.

Then she turned, walking back toward the edge of the circle without another word. No sound beneath her feet. No need to look back.

…………………

The soulfire guttered in Max's palm, then vanished. He barely registered the drop in light before his knees buckled.

He caught himself – barely – one hand digging into the dirt. The ritual circle was still glowing, but his vision had gone blurry at the edges. Every breath felt like it scraped against his lungs. His hands were trembling. His pulse was… off. Slower. He could feel it stuttering in strange rhythms.

For a split second, he wasn't in the circle. He was somewhere else— —a hallway, burning.

Liz's pod falling through smoke. A whisper behind glass.

Then it was gone.

Just pain. His, now.

Too much, he thought. Two awakenings. Back to back. And I'm still standing—

No, he wasn't.

Victor was there before he tipped over. The big man caught Max under the arm and eased him down near the fire, his grip firm but steady. Max didn't speak. He couldn't. He just nodded once in thanks, jaw clenched against the spinning world.

Alpha stood off to the left, perfectly still. Steam curled from the tips of her armour. Her breathing had returned to baseline in under a minute.

Omega, on the other hand, was pacing the edge of the circle like a man high on adrenaline and wonder, his bone plates flaring and retracting with every third step.

He paused long enough to glance at the others – Chloe, Dan, Alyssa, Victor.

"This is your standard now," he said, grinning. "Get with it... or die behind it."

No one answered.

Ferron approached Max from the side, crouched low. His voice was low but sharp.

"That was a flare," he muttered. "Even with the rune dampeners. If something's out there, it saw that."

Max blinked up at him, still breathless.

"Something always is."

Ferron stood again, scanned the treeline. His hand hovered near his weapon.

"Eyes are already on us. You've just given them a reason to blink."

For a while, no one moved. The air had gone quiet again, but not peacefully. It was the quiet of breath held, of waiting for something to shift.

Dan was the first to look up.

His eyes narrowed.

"Hey," he said softly. "Did the moon... just flicker?"

They all turned toward the sky.

And for a split second, something moved.

Not a cloud. Not a shadow. Something behind the sky. Like static on glass. Like the world forgot what it was supposed to be.

Then it was gone.

The fire hissed.

Max closed his eyes, and whispered:

"They're watching."

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