Ethan kept his back against the tree trunk. The electricity still ran through his whole body. It felt like a low hum in his blood and muscles, strong enough to light up the whole forest if he pushed it out. He held it back for now. His eyes stayed fixed on the path ahead, not on Marcus.
"So go ahead," Ethan said. "I'm listening."
Marcus stayed on the ground a few meters away. He could see the faint blue sparks jumping across Ethan's skin. The air around him carried a charge that made Marcus's arm hair stand straight up.
A normal guy would have been shaking with fear right now. One wrong word and Ethan could fry him on the spot. But Marcus did not feel scared. He knew the kind of man Ethan was. They had been side by side for years. That history sat heavier than any threat.
Marcus pushed himself up with both hands. His legs still tingled from the earlier shock, but he got to his feet anyway. He brushed dirt off his pants and looked straight at Ethan.
"You really want to know?" Marcus asked. "I thought you already figured it out."
"I want to hear it from you," Ethan said. "Just to confirm. And then maybe burn you to a crisp."
Marcus did not answer right away. The words hung there. They were not empty. Ethan meant them. Still, no fear came. Marcus knew why. He had seen Ethan spare people who deserved worse. He had watched Ethan walk away from fights he could have ended in seconds. That was the Ethan he knew.
Marcus looked up through the tree branches. A small, regretful smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. "You awakened your powers. You're even further out of my league now."
He glanced down at his own hands. The palms were rough and scarred from years of training and missions. All that work suddenly felt, pointless. The guy who had been his rival, his friend, and basically his brother for most of his life was now on a different level entirely.
"I hated it," Marcus said. "I hated how special you always were. Every time you walked into a room, people felt it. I felt it. But I refused to accept it...."
He paused. Memories came back fast. Back when they were both seventeen, fresh into the field training program, Ethan had aced every test without breaking a sweat.
Marcus had stayed up nights memorizing tactics and drilling combat forms. During one live exercise in the old warehouse district, a group of low-level awakened thugs cornered them.
Ethan stepped in front of Marcus without thinking and took down three guys with nothing but a broken pipe and pure instinct. Marcus had finished the last one after, but everyone on the team afterward talked about Ethan like he was already a legend.
Marcus had smiled and slapped Ethan on the back that night. Inside, it burned.
Another time, two years later on a border scouting run, they had to cross a river under fire. Ethan's section of the bank collapsed. Instead of panicking, he grabbed a loose cable and swung across like it was nothing.
Marcus had to swim the rest of the way, lungs burning, while the rest of the squad cheered for Ethan. Later around the campfire, Ethan had shared his rations with Marcus and joked about how clumsy he was. Marcus laughed along. But the jealousy sat there, quiet and heavy.
"I knew you were different from day one," Marcus continued.
"You never had to try as hard as the rest of us. And I couldn't stand it. So I took the assignment. I took the deal they offered me. I told myself it was just business.
That I was protecting the balance or whatever bullshit they fed me. But really, I wanted to see you knocked down a peg. I wanted to prove I could be the one who mattered for once."
Ethan gave a short smirk. It was half proud, half disappointed. "I knew. I already knew."
Marcus blinked. "You did?"
"Yeah. Little things added up. The way you always asked where I was going after missions. The extra questions about my family.
The times you disappeared right before big reports came in. I noticed. But I didn't push you away. I figured you'd come clean when you were ready.
Or maybe I just didn't want to lose the only guy who had my back through all the crap we went through."
Marcus felt his jaw tighten. "But I did betray you. I sold you out. And you still stood there and listened instead of ending me."
Ethan finally turned his head and looked at him. He pushed off the tree and stood up straight. The electricity around him crackled a little louder for a second, then settled. "Yeah. You know me."
Marcus gritted his teeth. He could feel the weight of every year they had spent together pressing down on him. "You won't survive this rate, Ethan. That lightning running through you right now means you carry the blood of the king of kings.
A lot of it. And I mean a lot. Organizations, governments, private crews—none of them are going to stay quiet. They track bloodlines like yours. They contain them. Or they use them. Or they erase them.
You're not just another awakened anymore. You're a walking threat to their control."
Ethan rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. The motion sent a small arc of current down his arm.
"I always wondered why my mother never talked about my father. She changed the subject every single time I asked. Told me he was gone and that was that. Now it clicks. She was hiding this. Hiding me. But don't worry about me Marcus. I'll handle it."
He lifted his right hand and let the power build in his fingers. The hum grew stronger. He rubbed his thumb and index finger together once, then flicked them toward the thick bushes on the left side of the clearing.
A thin bolt of electricity shot out, no louder than a snapped twig. It hit something metal inside the leaves.
Sparks flew. A small droid no bigger than a fist dropped out of the branches and landed on the dirt. Its lights flickered once and went dark.
Marcus stared at the fallen machine. "They already know…"
Ethan nodded once. "Yeah. It's official now. The whole thing. It was fun, Marcus. All the times we had. The missions, the stupid jokes, the nights we stayed up planning our next move. I'm not going to forget that. But this is where it ends."
He turned and started walking away. His steps were steady. The electricity around him had calmed, but it was still there, ready. He did not look back.
Marcus tried to follow. His legs would not cooperate right away. The tingling had turned into a deep pins-and-needles feeling from his knees down.
He took one shaky step, then another. It felt like his muscles had been asleep for hours. "Wait!" he called out. His voice cracked a little. "It's a whole organization, Ethan. Not just some small group.
They have resources. They have people everywhere. How long do you think you can hide? Just give up and surrender. I'll make sure they don't kill you. I still have some pull. I can negotiate terms..."
Ethan kept walking as the bushes swallowed his figure bit by bit.
"Wait! Ethan!" Marcus shouted louder. He forced his legs to move faster, but they dragged. "Trus—" He stopped mid-word. The rest of the sentence died in his throat. "Trust me." Those words used to come easy between them.
They had said them a hundred times on jobs that could have killed them. Now they sounded fake. Marcus had shown his real colors today. He had chosen the organization over their friendship. He had no right to ask for trust anymore.
So he stayed quiet. He watched Ethan disappear completely into the green. The forest swallowed the sound of his footsteps.
Marcus's watch buzzed against his wrist. He lifted his arm right away, knowing who it was. A blue hologram flickered to life above it.
His captain's face appeared—sharp features, gray hair cut military short, eyes that never showed much.
"Report," the captain said.
Marcus swallowed. "Mission... failed."
The captain nodded slowly, like he had already guessed the outcome. "Expected. Everything was planned for this possibility. Stand by for extraction."
Marcus felt his stomach drop. "What... extraction? A Leviathan crew? That's unnecessary. It's too much. He's not some monster. He's just one guy who woke up with power today."
The captain's expression did not change. "The Leviathan crew has already been dispatched. They specialize in high-threat bloodline targets. Your failure means we move to containment protocol level three. You are warned Solider, Do not interfere."
Another alert popped up on the hologram. Marcus's rank badge in the corner flashed red. Demotion notice. Effective immediately. He was no longer field lead. Just another operator now.
Marcus did not care about the rank. He had lost something bigger today. The only real friend he had ever had was gone. The guy who had covered for him when he messed up reports.
The guy who had dragged him out of a collapsed building during the southern riots two years back. The guy who never once bragged about being better, even when everyone else could see it.
Marcus tried one more time to stand fully. His legs still shook, but the worst of the numbness was fading. He took a step toward the bushes where Ethan had vanished. He wanted to run after him.
He wanted to shout a warning about the Leviathan crew—eight operators, each with elite augmentations and kill orders that did not allow for surrender.
They moved like shadows and hit like freight trains. Ethan might have lightning now, but eight against one was still a bloody suicide.
But Marcus stopped. He had no right to warn him. Not after what he had done.
The hologram blinked off. The watch went silent.
Marcus stood alone in the clearing. The fallen droid lay a few feet away, smoke still rising from its casing. The forest felt bigger and quieter than before. He thought about all the times he had envied Ethan.
All the times he had told himself that pulling Ethan down would make his own life better. Now that he had done it, the only thing left was an empty hole where their friendship used to be.
"Ethan," Marcus said under his breath, "I will do my part, and after this, hopefully, I can still earn your forgiveness..."