The light hurt to look at.
Not because it was bright—because it was thick, pressing against the air like something almost solid.
Damian stepped closer, squinting.
The glare wasn't uniform. It bulged in places, uneven, as if the energy inside couldn't settle into a stable shape.
Then he saw the outline.
Arms. Legs.
A torso swollen with dense white light, the glow thickest there, straining against what used to be a shirt. The fabric had split along the seams; blackened scraps hung from shoulders that still looked almost normal before disappearing into the swollen radiance.
Adrian's head was visible—thank god.
Silver hair clung to his face, framing features that were unmistakably his: sharp cheekbones, gray eyes, the same stubborn set of his mouth.
But the rest of him—
the rest of him looked like someone had poured too much power into a body that was never meant to hold it.
He wasn't standing.
He was suspended in the air, one palm braced against the torn edge of the rupture, not out of strength but because the mass of energy around him had nowhere else to go.
"Adrian."
The eyes opened.
Focused.
For a brief second, something flashed across that familiar face—mortification, sharp and immediate—before exhaustion dragged it under.
Damian's mouth moved before his brain caught up.
"You—"
He gestured helplessly at the swollen sphere of light.
"What happened to you?"
A sound came from inside the glow.
Not words.
Something strangled—half laugh, half groan—vibrating through the dense shell of energy.
Damian barked out a laugh.
Sharp. Disbelieving. Relief hitting him hard enough to make his ribs ache.
He stepped closer, close enough to feel the steady thrum of power against his chest.
"Idiot," he muttered.
Behind him Caleb's voice cut through the corridor.
"That's not a power-up," Caleb said dryly. "That's a medical emergency."
"Shut up," Damian said without turning.
His palm found the curve of light, pressing flat where Adrian's shoulder should have been—if shoulders still existed under all that swollen energy.
"Just shut up."