Compression three.
High enough to swap across long distances.
Low enough to keep the ghouls uninterested.
Anything higher and the inner realm would linger too long—
and ghouls loved echoes that overstayed their welcome.
Each student danced on that razor-thin line as they swapped between cities, their inner realms flashing open and shut—
shorter than a sigh, sharper than a blink.
Not enough to be hunted.
Enough to be felt.
From above, the world of Airious unfolded like a fractured constellation.
Henry was the fastest.
He drank the static raw, lightning folding into his veins as speed bent around him. Pulse Reversal snapped again and again, leaving behind a violet trail that stitched cities together from a bird's-eye view—
a line only Jack could fully see.
Jack stood atop a fractured pillar, his analysis eyes peeled open to their fifth-dimensional reach. Distance recoiled in his presence, laws quietly stepping aside as if embarrassed to still exist. Cities folded closer. Horizons thinned.
Behind him, Osei ran without running.
No footprints.
No displaced air.
He wasn't a body in motion—
he was a decision already made.
Instinct had learned awareness.
Yyvone slipped away from absence and arrived in beauty.
Featherlight City welcomed her with floating bridges and luminous spires, magic humming beneath every step. Healing threads danced faintly around her wrists, barriers forming and dissolving unconsciously as she moved.
Yet still—
Nothing.
No campfire.
No teachers.
No trace.
Yyvone's voice echoed—
not through air, but through connection.
"This is pointless. They're playing tricks on us."
The sound reached the others simultaneously, threaded through the swapping field itself.
Jack exhaled, irritation riding the breath.
"Anyone found anything yet? Any nodes?"
Silence answered him—
then voices.
Ian's came first, tired but wry.
"Nope. Checked a few spots that felt right. Guess they're better at hiding than I was when I ran from my dad."
Sonia shook her head, strands of emotional spectrum flickering faintly around her.
"Nothing. Nadda."
Charles spoke from Icius, breath fogging in the cold.
"Me neither."
Kennedy's framework tab flickered rapidly as he scanned overlapping city-frames.
"Nah. No anomalies. No anchor points."
Henry's voice cut in mid-sprint, strained.
"It's like the cities are stretching the faster I run."
Osei followed just behind him, tone calm, curious.
"How big is Airious?"
Kennedy chuckled softly.
"Not how big," he corrected.
"It's why big."
Laughter rippled through the link—
light, brief, needed.
Sonia added with a dry sigh,
"Airious is weird like that… chai."
Jack smirked faintly.
"Yeah. Figures."
He inhaled deeply, trying to settle himself—
—and froze.
The breath never reached his lungs cleanly.
Smoke.
Not thick. Not choking.
Sharp. Intrusive.
Biting at the edges of his exhale.
"Oh," Jack muttered. "Someone's cooking."
He stepped out of space itself and reappeared atop an even higher pillar, stone spiraling beneath his feet.
The scent followed him.
Persistent.
Wrong.
He narrowed his eyes.
"C'mon, man… ah—wait."
His analysis eyes flared.
The smoke wasn't drifting.
It was changing color.
Every heartbeat, a shift. Not random—responsive.
Recognition struck like a quiet bell.
"…That's it."
Jack's voice sharpened.
"Guys—Henry, Osei. Follow this trail. There's a node. Track it."
They didn't hesitate.
Jack projected what he saw—
nodes unfolding from the smoke, refracted into a colorful trail of anticipation and danger.
To do that—
He had to push.
Compression increased.
Beyond three.
Two.
His inner realm shuddered.
Cracks appeared—not visible, but felt.
Unfinished trauma pressed against the surface, memories clawing for air. His breath hitched as pressure built behind his eyes.
Power surged.
Exposure followed.
Equal. Always equal.
Jack scanned instinctively, head snapping side to side.
Ghouls would smell this.
He had to hold the trail together.
Just a little longer.
They came.
Low-level ghouls spilled from warped space—
dark figures with distorted tentacles and wings painted red.
Not blood.
Freedom, twisted into color.
They shrieked—not in sound, but intent.
One slammed into the pillar.
Jack was thrown backward.
The stone didn't shatter.
It disassembled, breaking itself apart before the ghouls could even target it.
He hit the ground hard.
Henry's voice cracked through the link, sharp with panic.
"Jack—what's wrong? What's happening—JACK!"
Too much concern.
Too fast.
Almost obsessive.
Tentacles lashed toward him.
The Storm smiled.
Jack swapped.
Instantly.
The ghoul behind him took the hit instead, impaled by its own kin. Jack reappeared mid-air, lightning coiling around his limbs as he landed.
He didn't hesitate.
Fire and electricity collided—
truth igniting through force.
The ghouls burned.
Ash fell like black snow.
Silence followed.
Jack laughed softly, breath uneven.
"Hehehe… relax. No worries."
He straightened, smoke curling off his shoulders.
"These ghouls can't handle my truth."
Lightning crackled once.
"Let it own its storm."
Henry exhaled loudly, relief crashing through him.
"Phew… I thought—y'know…"
Jack didn't answer.
The trail still burned.
Ahead of them—
Fire.
Floating.
Waiting.
They followed the smoke.
Not as a straight line—
smoke never respected geometry.
Sonia lashed forward first, swapping relentlessly—
vases, railings, streetlamps, abandoned benches,
anything still enough to obey her persuasion.
Her presence skipped across cities like a melody refusing to repeat itself.
Ian followed with thunder folded into his stride,
cutting distance with blade-thin intent.
Charles stepped politely through cold and heat alike,
his inscriptions whispering permissions reality was too tired to deny.
Kennedy bent frameworks mid-scan, riding broken grids like stepping stones.
Osei flowed between them all—
not chasing, not lagging,
simply arriving where instinct already stood.
Henry burned the sky violet.
And Jack—
Jack slowed.
Because he wasn't just seeing the smoke anymore.
He was hearing it.
Not sound.
Not echoes.
Metaphor.
Smoke was everywhere.
That's how everywhere his emotions became when he stopped paying attention.
For a human brushing higher dimensions—even partially—
the future wasn't time.
It was awareness.
And awareness spoke in volume.
Jack flinched.
A sharp intake of breath escaped him, almost a shriek—mild, involuntary.
The smoke wasn't talking to him.
It was recognizing him.
A reflex, for something that knew his shape.
Not fear.
Not threat.
Recognition without explanation.
And that—
that was worse.
The pull strengthened.
The node was real.
They followed it through city after city, avoiding obstacles that felt less like traps and more like tests.
None of them—not even Jack—had expected this.
The outskirts.
A place where Airious exhaled and didn't bother inhaling again.
A city that chose night over day.
---
Night Flair City.
Where darkness wasn't absence, but preference.
Luminous flames hovered above still waters, suspended like thoughts that refused to sink. Their glow painted the surface below in liquid blues and quiet golds, reflections stretching longer than they should.
Jack chuckled softly.
Didn't say a word.
Because of course they'd be here.
Kennedy spotted them first.
"Uh… yeah. That's them."
On the shore.
A beach where the water wasn't clear, but radiant—
bioluminescent waves licking black sand like gentle fire.
They swapped in together.
Sand scattered across their higher-dimensional footwear as reality accepted the group all at once, the air briefly thick with arrival.
Kainen lifted a hand and waved, casual as ever.
A silent come over here.
They glanced at one another.
And promptly lost it.
Laughter spilled out—uncontrolled, relieved, alive.
As they approached, Aprexion leaned back against a piece of driftwood that might've been older than a continent and grinned.
"And that, my friends," he said, voice light, eyes sharp,
"is how you swap with fate and meet destiny in the most inconvenient place possible."
More laughter.
Jack only nodded.
His version of touché.
Above them, flames drifted.
Behind them, smoke thinned.
And for just a moment—
The night held still.