Rain had been Kael's companion for hours now — not the thunderous, cleansing kind, but a slow drizzle that turned stone to slick danger and silence into unease.
He stood on the outer edge of a broken field east of Elandor, armor damp, boots sunk half an inch in mud, breathing steady. The sky overhead was a quilt of gray, barely pulsing with the memory of his last storm.
The mission had sounded simple enough.
A scout team had vanished on patrol. Signs pointed to a Varnok pack operating closer to the city than anything should've been able to. Kael joined a team of four — two mages and a blunt, hammer-wielding Vanguard named Brek — to investigate.
They'd found the answer all too soon.
Varnok.
Not just scouts or stragglers. A full hunting pack led by a massive, bone-plate creature pulsing with faint Essence resistance. It had tusks like blackened swords and eyes that shimmered faintly with pale green hunger. A pack leader.
Now they were in it.
Kael ducked a slash from a clawed beast, the wind of its swing whipping his cloak aside. His left arm flicked up — a kinetic pulse blasted from his palm, staggering the creature just enough for his knee to meet its chin. His fingers spun into a casting grip mid-motion, crackling with Lightning Essence, and a burst shot clean through the Varnok's throat.
It gurgled once. Fell.
No time to rest.
Across the battlefield, the others were holding ground, barely.
Brek was a wall — but the creatures kept swarming him in groups, and his movements were slowing.
Tessa, the elemental Arcanist, was losing rhythm in her spells, too many flanks to cover.
And Lain, their scout, had taken a slash to the ribs and was hunched behind a stone ridge, bow useless.
Kael didn't think. He moved.
A bolt of motion.
His feet barely touched the mud as he crossed the field, ducking low under a pouncing Varnok, fist surging with kinetic energy. He uppercut the creature mid-leap, twisted in midair, and snapped a lightning whip from his wrist into another's chest.
"Tessa, behind you!"
She spun too late — but Kael was already there, sliding under her, bracing his leg, and blasting a Stormburst spell into the thing's chest. It flew backward, twitching violently.
He glanced up at her, breath sharp. "You're welcome."
She blinked, stunned. "Thanks…?"
"No pressure. Try not to die."
He was already gone again.
The fight thickened. The pack leader finally joined, stomping forward on all fours, its tusks crashing through the terrain. Every time someone tried to hit it, Essence resistance flared, diffusing the spell or dulling the strike.
It hit like a battering ram and moved with terrifying coordination.
Kael's bones rattled just watching Brek get slammed into a tree trunk and stay there.
They couldn't win like this.
Kael skidded to a halt in the middle of the field, breathing hard, coated in grime and streaked blood — some not his, some definitely his. He scanned the field.
Tessa faltering.
Lain bleeding out.
Brek unconscious.
Too many enemies.
He could feel it building — that old pressure, that voice in the back of his skull whispering, you're not enough.
He gritted his teeth, fighting two Varnok at once now. One tore across his shoulder — he let it. Spun with the momentum, elbowed the other, shot a lightning jab into its throat, and tumbled out of the way just as the leader lunged.
Can't win. Can't run. Can't let them die.
He screamed, not words — just frustration, defiance, desperation.
"—Do something!"
And then… the world listened.
A gust. The first sharp crack of thunder.
The drizzle shifted into a heavier fall.
Kael froze, bloodied hand to his side, chest heaving. He looked up.
The clouds churned.
A deep pulse echoed through his bones. The Storm stirred.
It wasn't a gift. It was a summons.
His fingers curled. The Essence inside him roared, familiar and new. Lightning danced over his skin in violet arcs — deeper, wilder than before. His body felt both lighter and heavier. Grounded and charged.
The Varnok paused.
Kael stepped forward, drawing his stance low. Left foot spiraling back. Right arm coiled like a spring.
He whispered the words. His own words.
"Let the sky bear witness."
Tempest Grave.
The ground beneath his feet cracked.
The clouds above spiraled into a vortex, thunder screaming its arrival. Lightning flared like veins in the heavens, centering above him.
Kael launched forward with a devastating thrust — his Essence surged upward through his body and exploded into the sky. The storm answered.
A colossal bolt of violet lightning slammed down on the pack leader, the impact cratering the earth. Smaller storm bursts erupted outward in a sweeping arc — precise, patterned chaos, disintegrating two more Varnok before they could run.
The ground smoked. Air hissed.
Then the final blast came.
A storm dragon's maw — fangs made of spiraling thunder — crashed down on the Varnok leader's body, devouring it in a bloom of radiant, crackling light.
Silence.
Smoke curled around Kael's feet as the rain hissed against scorched dirt. He stood there, the center of a smoldering battlefield, one fist still extended, lightning pulsing from his fingertips like a heartbeat.
Behind him, Tessa coughed. Lain groaned. Brek stirred.
They were alive.
Kael let his arm fall. Exhaled.
He wasn't just reacting anymore.
He was becoming something else.
Something that moved with the storm.