Joren raised his hand.
The orchard quieted, as if Joren commanded silence in his presence.
In his palm, light began to gather.
A single deep red ember blinked to life, like the first glow of a coal stirred awake. It hovered just above his skin, weightless but growing heavier in meaning.
Then it began to draw from the air around it.
Tiny flecks of ash and glowing light peeled from the space nearby, as if invisible coals were floating loose, pulled into orbit. They spiraled slowly toward the ember like bits of paper-mache caught in a magnetic current, layering themselves one by one.
Each fleck merged into its surface with a soft shimmer.
The ember grew denser as it began to gain mass.
Became brighter.
Its surface rippled as more pieces adhered, folding together into a compact sphere of growing gravity and energy.
The ground beneath Joren's boots hummed faintly, responding to the force condensing in his hand. Leaves rustled in the branches above, not from wind, but pure force alone.
Fon-Doom shifted, sensing something. He gazed around if not with a brain, then with some primal instinct for environmental change. It let out a low, gurgling sound, sloughing hunks of gooey rind as it turned sluggishly toward him.
The star in Joren's hand grew brighter.
No longer red, it now shimmered with a searing white core and streaks of pale blue. The air around it warped, trembling as if caught between heat and vacuum.
Willow stepped back, shielding her eyes. Gus squinted, mouth open in disbelief. Even Bartholomew, dazed in the grass, raised his head to look. "Oh cheese gods…"
The star continued to evolve with its shifting colors. It deepened from hot blue to a rich crimson, then ignited into molten gold, pulsing like the heartbeat of a star entering its prime.
Fon-Doom reared slightly, letting out a shuddering gurgle.
He stepped forward, slow and deliberate, raising the star behind him as he took off into a run.
His boots pounded across the orchard floor, every stride gaining force. Every sound seemed to stop for the star now, a resonating, pulsing hum emanating from it. The miniature star in his palm flared hotter, casting wild shadows that danced over the trunks and grass.
Fon-Doom reared back, its gelatinous form shuddering with some primitive sense of danger. For the first time, it didn't advance.
It hesitated.
He surged forward, the miniature star, now the size of a softball, blazing in his palm like a fragment of creation itself. Each step carried the weight of certainty, shedding the fear he had felt since the forest.
Then he leapt.
He drove the star directly into Fon-Doom's center mass.
For a heartbeat, the orchard held its breath.
The star slipped beneath Fon-Doom's molten surface, vanishing into its core like a sun being swallowed by a black hole.
Then light ruptured from within.
Golden fissures split across Fon-Doom's surface, like lightborn spiderwebs. The molten cheese writhed, bubbling in confusion, as if its body no longer belonged to itself.
A low, guttural, churning sound came from within as light shown through bits of cheese that moved to the sides to let out as much heat and air as possible.
But it wasn't enough.
The cheesy body couldn't contain all that seismic pressure, which caused it to explode outwards in a blaze of glory. The ignition of the star would have shown true brilliance, if not obscured by the gooey mess that was Fon-Doom.
Joren had destroyed the core.
Molten debris rained across the orchard in sizzling arcs, steam hissing from every splattered tree trunk. Chunks of melted rind splashed into the grass like smoldering asteroids, sending up plumes of vapor as the heat met earth.
A wave of golden mist rolled outward from the impact, emanating the scent of burning cheddar.
Willow cautiously lifted her head from behind a goopy bush, blinking as cheese rained down from above. "Is it… over?" she muttered.
Gus peeled himself off the ground, brushing strands of mozzarella from his shoulders. "If it regenerates from that, I'm letting it go."
From somewhere deeper in the orchard, a low voice broke the silence.
"He was... beautiful."
Bartholomew emerged from the haze, head hung low, his spoon bent at an odd angle. Melted wax clung to his boots, tears welled up in his eyes.
"He didn't ask to be born," he murmured, approaching the smoking crater. "But he lived a glorious life, didn't he?"
He crouched beside a sizzling lump of crust, reverent, almost prayerful. "He was my boy."
The others stood quiet.
Then Bartholomew rose, swiping a tear from his cheek and sniffing hard.
"Guess version two will need a reinforced core." He said, smiling now like his old self. It was as if none of it had shaken him.
Clearly nothing had really changed.
They stood in silence a moment longer before Bartholomew's voice rang faintly from the distance. He was already talking to himself again, muttering about cheese viscosity ratios and ethical rebuilding techniques for the second version.
Willow sighed. "We should get moving before he starts carving out blueprints in the dirt again."
Gus nodded. "Back to Gloryhollow?"
Joren glanced one more time at the crater.
"Yeah," he said. "Let's go."
From behind one of the fallen logs, a small piece of cheese twitched.
Some days later – Auspex Evaluation Committee
A thin stack of reports landed on the table with a dull thud. Ink still glistened on a few of the pages, the writing hurried but legible. The man who set them down adjusted his gloves and stepped back without a word.
The room was dim, lit only by soft orbs embedded in the ceiling. A long table stretched across the chamber, where multiple officials in dark uniforms sat reviewing recent field logs. Their badges bore the insignia of the Continental Registry for Anomalous Entities.
We find ourselves now in the perspective of Charles, one of the many members of the committee designed to evaluate Auspex rankings and set bounties for troubling individuals.
Charles adjusted his posture, straightening the edges of the dossier as if the act alone might bring order to the oddities within. The names within the latest batch included people we have seen recently, such as Thunderclap and Tsunami. Willow also found her way into the latest stack for evaluation, based on her recent involvement in Duskfen and Dyer's Crossing.
— ◊ —
◊ THUNDERCLAP (Riven Calder)
Classification: Eclipse-class (Pending)
Status: Rogue
Portrait: Lightning
Confirmed new Auspex. No known affiliations.
Detained following high-collateral encounter in Glazebend. Multiple infrastructure damages recorded.
Escaped detainment days later. Current location unknown.
Primary abilities: atmospheric discharge and voltage manipulation at extreme amplitudes.
Behavioral flags: unstable, showboating tendencies, erratic judgment under pressure.
Recommended Action: Surveillance if found. Engage only with backup or artifact present.
— ◊ —
◊ TSUNAMI (Kaien Moras)
Classification: Harbinger-class (maintained)
Status: Rogue
Portrait: Water
Veteran Auspex. Formerly affiliated with Eastern Front peacekeeping unit, now solo.
Rank maintained due to long-term threat profile and tactical skills.
Multiple unconfirmed sightings across southern territories. Last confirmed sighting in Brindlewood region.
Primary abilities: large-scale water displacement, pressure redirection, and terrain manipulation.
Behavioral flags: evasive tendencies. No recent civilian casualties.
Recommended Action: Do not engage without elite retrieval unit. Monitor long-term movements and ideological affiliations.
— ◊ —
◊ CHIMERA (Willow Thornfield)
Classification: Eclipse-class from Oracle-class (pending)
Status: Not Hostile (monitor)
Portrait: Shapeshift
Originally ranked Oracle-class due to minor transformation traits and linguistic talent.
Recent activity in Duskfen and Dyer's Crossing has triggered elevation to Eclipse.
Confirmed shapeshifting far beyond original assessment: full-limb distortion, voice duplication, and mimicry of known biological forms.
Displays high-level verbal de-escalation skills.
No fatalities recorded, but regional investigators flagged psychological unease in post-encounter interviews.
Last seen in Gloryhollow, accompanied by two others.
Recommended Action: Possible long-term utility as employee; monitor for ideological shift.
— ◊ —
◊ STARFALL (Name Unknown)
Classification: Eclipse-class (pending); potential Harbinger threat
Status: Active
Portrait: Supernova (pending further investigation)
Subject first recorded in Glazebend during Thunderclap engagement.
Initial reports suggest fire-type attack (Note: Fire Portrait still active – contradiction flagged).
Next sighted in Duskfen, where witness accounts describe forest along with Portrait-born giant obliterated by massive fireball. Entity remains exhibited complete cranial loss, energy source unknown.
Further encounter in Dyer's Crossing links subject to the takedown of an Auspex manipulating the town via emotion suppression.
Most recent confirmation: Gloryhollow — detonation of energy construct inside anomalous biomass ("Fon-Doom"), resulting in localized thermodynamic implosion.
Witness descriptions include:
Miniature fireball-like object formation
Gravitational field distortions
Visual phenomena resembling cosmic origins
Personality profile: Hesitant to engage. Defensive behavior prioritizes allied safety. Exhibits restraint.
Affiliations: Chimera (Eclipse), two unidentified civilians (non-Auspex)
Recommended Action: Immediate surveillance of movements, seems to be gaining members for his group. Subject demonstrates Harbinger-level potential but exhibits high restraint and emotional control, ability control seems to be varied. Containment not advised without artifact present. Portrait type not previously registered, scope of abilities unknown at this time.
— ◊ —
Charles leaned back in his seat, eyes lingering on the name that wasn't a name.
Starfall.
Every year we get some new hotshots. What a pain this is...
He tapped the edge of the dossier with a gloved finger, once, then again. The soft thud echoed in the chamber like a heartbeat struggling to decide whether to quicken or slow.
"Unregistered Portrait," he murmured under his breath. "Unknown origin. Controlled detonation."
Across the table, another official raised a brow. "Problem?"
Charles didn't answer immediately. He thumbed through the attached observation notes again, noting to himself that a new group of people was beginning to form.
He exhaled through his nose.
"Not yet," he muttered. "But this year seems to be getting more dangerous by the person. Already seen two new Auspex at the top of the list."
The other official gave a slight grunt of agreement and returned to his own stack.
He cleared his throat quietly and flipped back through the Starfall report, trying to look like he was double-checking something critical and not just stalling because the implications made his stomach squirm.
Cosmic phenomena, huh? What the hell does that even mean?
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, eyes drifting up toward the orbs embedded in the ceiling. The glow didn't help. Everything in this place made him feel like he was trapped in the inside of a glow-worm's skull.
He glanced over to one of the officials across from him.
He was far older, way more experienced than Charles. He didn't like being one of the newest rookies for the task force, only being here a little over a year was not enough time to really understand the importance of his position.
He still checked his badge sometimes just to make sure it was real.
He slid the report into the "monitor" pile and reached for the next one.
Nearly Harbinger-class this fast, what the hell is going on lately?