Zane and Lyra walked away from the main hall, leaving the suffocating political pressure behind them. Their immediate destination was the infirmary—a final check on Elias before diving into the intensive, life-saving training mandated by the council.
As they reached the infirmary door, their hands instinctively went for the handle, but they stopped. They both felt something was profoundly wrong. Lyra felt a sudden, inexplicable chill run down her spine, a prickle of alarm unrelated to the political fight they'd just endured. Zane, however, felt alarm screaming in his mind. The subtle, quiet presence of Elias's water energy, which he had come to sense as a comforting anchor, was suddenly choked and distorted, replaced by a cold, alien void. The blood within him, the ever-present gauge of threat, surged not with rage, but with pure, instinctual dread.
Suddenly, they heard a muffled, gurgling scream from inside the room—Elias.
Zane, without wasting another second on procedure or stillness, slammed the door open, the heavy wood crashing against the stone wall.
In the center of the room stood Elias, but she wasn't alone. Looming over her was a tall, lengthy figure. It was a terrifying inversion of light and shadow: its body was pitch black, appearing to absorb all surrounding light, and its eyes were pure, cold white voids that offered no warmth or reflection. It had long, skeletal claws wrapped cruelly around Elias's mouth and neck, silencing her screams and holding her small body pinned and suspended just above the cot. The small cup of water, Elias's constant companion, lay shattered on the floor, the liquid rapidly soaking into the stone.
Elias's wide, terrified eyes locked onto Zane.
Zane's eyes widened in horror and a ferocious, blood-hot rage erupted instantly, shattering the hard-won emotional stillness like glass. The image of the Stabilizing Medium vanished, replaced by a singular, blinding focus on the threat to the innocent. He felt the familiar, terrifying surge of power, but this time, he didn't fight it. He embraced it. The monster was called out, but it was aimed with lethal precision.
"GET AWAY FROM HER!" Zane roared, the sound ripping from his throat, saturated with a ferocious, blood-hot rage that shattered the hard-won emotional stillness like glass. The image of the Stabilizing Medium—the cool, lapping water—vanished instantly, replaced by a singular, blinding focus on the threat to Elias. He felt the familiar, terrifying surge of power, but this time, he didn't fight it. He embraced it. The monster was called out, but it was aimed with lethal precision.
The creature turned its head slowly, its featureless black body utterly unaffected by Zane's volume, the white void of its eyes settling on the boy. It exerted a subtle pressure, tightening its skeletal claws around Elias's neck until her small body went limp, the terror in her wide eyes replaced by the slackness of unconsciousness. It had achieved its goal of neutralizing the target.
Half of Zane's face was instantly covered in a crimson blood mask, the other half twisted with pure, protective fury. He immediately blitzed forward, his speed unnatural, a red blur cutting through the infirmary air, his right arm already transforming into a wicked, blood-forged claw aimed for the creature's core.
The creature reacted with unnerving speed and economy of motion. It sidestepped, gliding out of the claw's lethal arc with an almost effortless grace, still clutching Elias's unconscious form. Its movement wasn't that of a living being; it was like a shadow detaching itself from the wall.
Lyra, who had frozen momentarily at the sight of the shadow-creature and the immediate collapse of Zane's composure, now galvanized. Seeing Elias neutralized and Zane committed to a direct, frontal assault—which the enemy had easily evaded—she acted on instinct.
"Zane, stop! Its movement is kinetic!" Lyra screamed, realizing the creature's eerie glide was a hyper-efficient, highly controlled kinetic manipulation, similar to Xavier's, but far more precise and subtle. It used force to push itself and its victim through space.
She stomped her foot on the stone floor, ignoring the now-soaking patch where Elias's cup had shattered. Lyra didn't try to summon water from the surrounding air; she focused on the residual liquid on the stone. With a sharp, practiced mental effort, she yanked the broken droplets and the saturated water from the stone floor, forming a tight, whip-like cable of shimmering liquid that cracked through the air.
She didn't aim for the creature, knowing her direct attack would likely be kinetically deflected. Instead, she lashed the water whip around the creature's wrist—the one not holding Elias—aiming to sever its grip or, at least, impede its motion.
The creature's attention flickered toward Lyra, its white eyes registering her attack with cold indifference. The moment the water whip made contact, the creature's wrist absorbed the liquid, not like a sponge, but as if the water had been instantly converted into pure, static shadow. The whip disintegrated into nothingness, leaving no moisture behind.
The creature then moved with frightening purpose. It tossed Elias's limp body onto the nearest cot—not carelessly, but with a deliberate movement that ensured she wouldn't be hurt. With its hands now free, the creature turned its entire, light-absorbing presence fully on Zane.
It raised one long, skeletal claw. A field of pure, dark-matter energy coalesced at the tips of its fingers, not crimson like Zane's power, but a sickly, churning void. It was an inversion of Zane's own life-force manipulation—a terrifying anti-vitality.
"You will be contained," the creature hissed, its voice not a sound in the air, but a cold, grating thought implanted directly into Zane's mind, filled with the certainty of a machine.
Zane knew, instinctively, that this was not one of Xavier's men. This was something else. The void-like energy felt exactly like the chilling absence he had sensed upon approaching the door—a presence designed to choke the power of a Prime Conduit like Elias.
He roared again, a sound of pure defiance. The crimson mask spread across his entire face as his other arm transformed, fully embracing the blood-forged armor that had been his momentary undoing yesterday. He became a conduit of furious, vital energy, ready to meet the shadow-creature's anti-vitality head-on.
"I am the Protector!" Zane screamed, his voice muffled by the mask, as he launched himself into a chaotic, desperate melee, meeting the cold void with hot, desperate blood. Lyra, seeing her initial attack fail and her only anchor—Zane's control—gone, quickly began summoning a defensive wall of churning water, knowing that the real battle was only just beginning. The infirmary, the site of healing, was now the site of a brutal, clandestine assassination attempt carried out by an enemy far more dangerous than the Kinetic Faction.
The infirmary, the quiet haven of rest and healing, instantly became a tempest of clashing primal forces.