Verdant Pulse — The Forest Breathes
The transition came without warning.
One moment, the candidates were asleep in their pods. The next, light folded around them — a seamless inversion of space. The hum of machinery faded, replaced by the slow rhythm of wind and heartbeat.
When the world reassembled, it was green.
They stood beneath a canopy that stretched into infinity, where every leaf shimmered like glass catching code. The ground pulsed faintly with bio-luminescent veins — a living network breathing in rhythm with the train's distant pulse.
Above them, an unseen voice spoke — neutral, filtered, yet ancient.
"Cognitive Neutralization Chamber: Pocket Activation — Verdant Sector.Duration: Two days.Objective: Establish Synchrony with the Pulse."
The words meant little, but every candidate felt their meaning. This wasn't a combat test. This was communion.
Harry – Observation Deck
Harry watched from his console, the view fragmented into countless biosignature feeds.Every candidate pulsed with light — Ayush's signature sharp and narrow, Vedant's flaring, Gudi's oscillating like laughter made visible.And Raghu's?
Raghu's signal didn't pulse at all.
Instead, it folded into the forest's own rhythm, disappearing within it. To the sensors, he was a ghost — everywhere and nowhere.
Harry leaned forward. "Compartment Ten, Candidate 47 — Raghu. Full environmental merge?" His assistant AI pinged, uncertain.
"Clarification unavailable. System reads candidate as environment."
Harry frowned. "That's not supposed to be possible. "He typed a command override. The data refused to separate. The forest had swallowed Raghu — or accepted him.
"Circles," he muttered, under his breath, chose to just add a note in the report and do nothing about it. I will follow the instruction of observe only.
Ayush Dhal
Ayush moved through the clearing, every step deliberate. His Erosion Field shimmered faintly, trimming the overgrown vines that dared touch him.
"Beautiful," he said softly, "but temporary."
He knelt beside a trunk that seemed older than the world. Its bark shimmered with embedded symbols, glowing faintly. His hand hovered — his field hummed — and for a moment, the tree recoiled.
Ayush smiled thinly. "So you can feel decay. Good. Let's see how much you resist it."
The beam flashed, invisible yet absolute — and then dimmed just as fast. The tree remained unscarred. Instead, its glow deepened, almost amused.
Ayush's smirk faded. "Impossible."
A voice, faint and unfamiliar, echoed from within the forest.
"Not impossible. Unwilling."
He turned sharply, scanning. No one. Yet, the air listened back.
Vedant Kael
Vedant exhaled, flame flickering between his fingers. The air here was too damp, too alive. Fire wanted to live — but here, everything else did too.
He ignited a spiral in his palm — perfect, disciplined. It danced, hungry. But before it could rise, vines coiled toward it, drinking the heat, smothering it like a mother silencing a child's scream.
Vedant snarled. "You think you can tame fire?"
He forced more energy — flames roared, spiraling outward. The vines retreated, but the forest didn't burn. Instead, his fire blossomed into petals of red light, drifting harmlessly upward.
The forest had transformed his rage into beauty.
Vedant fell silent, chest heaving. For the first time, he didn't feel victorious. He felt… judged.
Gudi Moru
Somewhere deeper in the canopy, bubbles floated lazily between the trees. Gudi walked barefoot, grinning as she tested the forest's rhythm. Her bubble membranes shimmered, distorting the air around her.
"You're breathing weird, you know that?" she said to no one. "Feels like walking through a dream that remembers you."
Her foot touched a patch of moss that pulsed like a heartbeat. A bubble drifted down and burst silently — revealing a flash of memory not her own. Children playing. A train window. A shadow.
"Okay, creepy forest," she whispered, eyes narrowing. "You've got secrets. So do I."
She spun her bubble field tighter, letting it hum in tune with the forest's breath. For the first time, the sound harmonized — a perfect chord.
Something inside her clicked. For a brief second, her Halo Watch flickered a strange message:
[Synchronization Expanding — Environmental Adaptation Possible.]
Gudi's grin widened. "Oh, this is gonna be fun."
Raghu
He stood at the center of the forest, eyes closed. The Verdant Pulse flowed through him — not around him. Every root, every branch hummed in recognition.
When he exhaled, the wind moved with him. When he opened his eyes, the forest breathed deeper.
The Doom Train's hum echoed faintly through the soil, syncing with his heartbeat.
He didn't know what the MUSA wanted. He didn't even know why the train was responding to him. But the forest did.
"Verdant Pulse," he whispered.
And from beneath his palm, a glow answered — soft, steady, alive.
The forest wasn't his weapon. It was his memory. And now, it remembered too.
On the observation deck, Harry's console flickered — briefly displaying a forbidden tag.
[Subroutine Detected: Alignment Initiation — Entity ?? .]
He froze. "Entity ??" what entity , which sub routine??
The display erased itself before he could log it. The hum beneath the metal deck grew stronger, almost aware.
He looked out at the endless tunnel the Doom Train sped through. Somewhere ahead, something pulsed once — deep, deliberate.
Somewhere in the upper compartments of train, Jivan along with several others had received a notification. the Content said " MUSA's Candidate acknowledged . Alignment initiated."
And for the first time in centuries, the Circles were becoming active again.