The silence of the training grounds was replaced by the high pitched whine of medical drones. They descended from the ceiling like mechanical vultures, their stabilizers kicking up the black dust that had once been Kaelo's ammunition.
Grav-stretchers hissed into place with a mechanical sigh.
Kaelo didn't speak. He didn't scream. He simply sat on the edge of the stretcher as the drones hovered around him, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. He hadn't lost consciousness, but his spirit seemed to be elsewhere, anchored to the moment the world went quiet. His right arm hung like a broken branch. The fabric of his officer's uniform was charred where the powder had touched him.
The sensors on the drones flickered, returning error after error. They couldn't find a pulse in his limb because the limb had forgotten how to be alive.
Kaeya followed the stretcher as it began to move toward the medical wing, her boots clicking rhythmically on the metal floor. As the middle child, she had spent her life watching her brothers excel, but she had never seen Kaelo look so small. She didn't look at the Generals or the other students. Her eyes were fixed on the decay crawling up her brother's sleeve.
They reached the intensive care wing. The doors slid open to reveal a room already occupied. Kaelen was sleeping in the adjacent pod, his chest rising and falling in a chemically induced sleep. The two Carbonite brothers, the elite of their generation, now occupied matching beds of white light.
Kaeya stood between them. She reached out and touched the glass of Kaelo's pod as he was finally forced to lie down for the scans. "Who is he really, brother?" she whispered.
She wanted answers regarding the student who had just dismantled her older brother without breaking a sweat.
Across the school, the high status atmosphere of the Command Center was thick with tension. The heavy blast doors hissed shut, sealing out the noise of the student sectors. Generals Kaine, Silas, Vesper, and Varick moved toward the central map table. Behind them, Lieutenants Selene and Jax stood at attention, though Jax was still visibly pale.
"The biological data is a lie," Varick said, breaking the silence. He began swiping through the playback of the pit. "I ran the scan three times.
At the moment Kaelo fired, the boy's heart rate didn't climb. It stopped. Zero. Flatline. For six seconds, Vane Obsidian was a corpse standing in a training ring."
Varick enlarged a frame of the black dust. "This isn't a Spark. It's a systemic erasure. It didn't break the Krieger rounds. It unmade the concept of them."
"He called us children," Vesper whispered. Her voice was hollow.
"He's a student from a fringe ruin, Vesper. Don't let the theatrics rattle you," Kaine said.
Varick let out a dry, dismissive laugh. He didn't think Vane was that powerful. He saw a boy, not a threat. "Scanners can be fooled, Vesper.
I will contact the High Kings about a student named Vane Obsidian and see if I can harvest his essence. If his blood can neutralize a Spark, we weaponize it. He's a Variable, not a God."
"You won't touch him," Vesper said.
The room went still. Kaine turned, his gaze narrowing as Vesper stepped toward Varick.
"You saw what he did to Kaelo's arm!" Vesper snapped. Her voice rose, echoing off the glass walls. She turned on the others, her eyes bright with a terrifying, newborn clarity. "Hell, you two witnessed him fight Kaelo's younger brother. Once is luck, but twice? He's done something unthinkable."
She reached for her belt and slammed her knife onto the holographic table. The blade was pitted. The edge was jagged and weeping black soot.
"Look at my claymore. My knife is barely holding on! I love this knife. This isn't a fluke. That boy is something dangerous."
"Calm down, Vesper," Kaine interrupted. His voice was a heavy weight that settled the room. He stepped into the light, his gaze hard. "I know how dangerous he is.
Why do you think I brought him to this school? I didn't bring him here to be a student. I brought him here to keep a close watch. To make sure he wouldn't be a threat to our world. Valis isn't his home, it's his cage."
"You think you can cage that?" Vesper asked. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "We call ourselves Generals because we command the Spark. But he... he commands the Silence. There is a hierarchy here we don't understand. And he is at the top. I saw it in his eyes. He isn't just a student. He's a King trying to reclaim his crown."
Varick scoffed, turning back to his console. "He's a boy in a grey blazer. I'll believe in his royalty when he stands up to the Aethelgard Elites."
Kaine looked at Varick and narrowed his eyes. "You shouldn't be so cocky, Varick. Just because you are the strongest doesn't mean the computers lie. There is definitely something fishy going on with that boy."
Kaine turned to the Lieutenants. "Selene and Jax will keep a close watch on him. Make sure you don't let him out of your eyesight."
He then looked at Vesper. "Vesper, find out whatever you can about him."
"I will," Vesper said quietly but Vesper had her own agenda. She turned and walked out of the Command Center. Her hand moved to her hip, tracing the ruined edge of her golden blade. It was broken.
In the hallway, she paused and looked toward the student dorms. The devotion was an itch under her skin. She didn't want Varick to harvest Vane. She wanted to follow him.
"VaneObsidian , are you my king or am i just crazy?" she thought.
Back in the medical wing, Kaelo stared at the ceiling. He saw Kaeya standing over him.
A lead doctor stepped forward, flanked by a heavy medical drone. "Your younger brother needs more extensive care than Kaelo," the doctor told Kaeya. "Kaelen's armor was completely shattered. His Spark nearly vanished. We are lucky he is breathing."
Kaeya stood between the two beds, her heart sinking. She turned to Kaelo. "Kaelo, what happened? How did you lose to a transfer student who looks like he's missing a Spark? Why is Kaelen worse than you? What did that boy do to him?"
Kaelo stared at the ceiling, his breathing shallow. "I can't answer that," he rasped. "I can't tell you about Kaelen. It's better if you ask General Kaine what happened with Kaelen."
"Don't," Kaeya said, seeing him try to move.
"My... my guns," Kaelo whispered, his voice breaking. "Phage and Hemo. They're gone, sister. It's all gone."
Kaelo looked at his dead hand. "He wasn't fighting. He was just... existing. And that was enough to damage us."
Kaeya looked at the monitors. The heart rates of her two brothers were perfectly synced. A slow, steady rhythm. Like they were both listening to the same distant sound.
A heartbeat that didn't belong to them.