The hum of the engines pulsed through the cabin floor like a low heartbeat. Outside the reinforced windows, the Atlantic stretched endlessly beneath them, dark, vast, and indifferent.
Dævd sat quietly by the viewport, watching clouds drift by like ghosts. A thin bandage wrapped his ribs. The bruises on his knuckles had started to fade, but the weight behind his stare hadn't.
Lucent Grave was strapped securely beside him, humming faintly in intervals only he could feel.
Across from him, Jules reclined in a padded seat, legs stretched out, a snack bar in one hand and a clunky, makeshift tablet in the other. "Man," he muttered, scrolling. "I forgot how boring survival flights are when you're not crashing."
Kade sat farther back, arms crossed, one boot tapping lightly. He hadn't said much since they took off. His eyes remained sharp, scanning everyone even at rest.
Jules leaned over and whispered loud enough for Dævd to hear, "You'd think he's guarding a nuke, not sitting next to two kids and a magic sword."
"I can hear you," Kade said without looking up.
"Great! Saves me the trouble of repeating it."
Dævd exhaled slowly through his nose, a tired grin slipping onto his face for the first time in a while.
Rena passed through the aisle then, checking on the readouts from the cockpit. Lila followed behind her, hands folded, her gaze scanning each of them in turn. When she reached Dævd, she offered a small, reassuring nod.
"We'll be descending soon," she said. "The facility's located underground in Delaware. Isolated. Fortified. Secure."
Dævd nodded back. "Sounds… like a bunker."
"It's more than that," she replied gently. "It's your new home. For now."
The Division 7 hovercraft dipped below the cloud line, its sleek form humming softly as it began its controlled descent. The sky outside had shifted from burnt orange to pale blue, scattered with the early haze of morning on the East Coast. Below, a seamless circle of terrain shifted and opened like the petals of a mechanical bloom, Division-7's hidden base emerging from the earth like some buried relic.
Massive steel platforms hissed and locked into place as the hovercraft touched down. The bay was cold, clinically lit, and lined with armored doors and security personnel in charcoal-gray suits.
As they disembarked, the trio stuck close. Dævd's boots hit the floor with a soft thud, eyes wide as he scanned the new environment. The air was thick with quiet tension, like the whole place held its breath.
Lila and Rena led them through winding corridors, each lined with thick glass panels and humming security nodes. Staff nodded respectfully, though many couldn't help but glance curiously at Dævd and the glowing sword he carried.
At the end of the corridor, a secure chamber slid open, spacious, dimly lit, with couches, screens, and resting quarters.
"Alright, make yourselves comfortable." Lila said. "Tomorrow, we begin a fresh start."
Kade stepped inside, giving the room a cautious look. Jules flopped dramatically onto one of the couches and stretched.
"Alright. Underground hideout, glowing swords, psychic aliens, global manhunt… we're definitely in anime now."
Kade shot him a flat look. "We've been in anime since Lagos."
The next morning came quickly.
A low chime echoed through the dormitory quarters, subtle but persistent. Dævd stirred on the thin but comfortable bed, blinking against the sterile white lights overhead. The ceiling was smooth and metallic, with soft blue lines tracing from corner to corner, pulsating gently like a heartbeat.
A voice spoke over the intercom, calm and gender-neutral.
"All new arrivals, please proceed to Orientation Hall C within the next fifteen minutes."
Jules groaned from the bed across the room. "Orientation Hall C? That sounds like a place where hope goes to die."
Kade was already up, pulling on his boots, dressed in a clean black Division 7 jacket with reinforced sleeves. He glanced over. "It's where we figure out how deep this rabbit hole goes. So get moving."
Orientation Hall C was massive, an open, high-tech amphitheater built into the inner heart of the facility. Transparent monitors floated midair, flickering with rotating schematics of Earth and dozens of unfamiliar energy patterns. A sleek Division 7 insignia hovered at the center, spinning slowly.
Several recruits and agents filled the seats, most in tactical gear or lab uniforms. A few glanced up as Dævd, Jules, and Kade entered, accompanied by Lila, who gave a subtle nod to a woman standing on the stage.
Waiting at the center stage was a tall, sharply dressed man in a tailored dark coat with silver insignia on the collar. His salt-and-pepper hair was immaculately styled, and his dark skin carried the kind of agelessness that suggested experience, command… and something unspoken.
He stepped forward as the last of the new arrivals filed in. His voice was deep, commanding, and precise.
"Good morning. I'm Director Thorne Myles Chief Strategist and Lead Overseer of Division 7."
His eyes passed over Dævd, Kade, and Jules for a split second longer than the others.
"You've each survived what most would not. Lagos was not an isolated anomaly. The emergence of Aetherian threats has increased exponentially and the world can't afford to stay blind to it anymore."
A hologram of Earth flickered into view behind him. Orbit lines, energy trails, and strange foreign characters rotated slowly around the globe. His voice softened only slightly.
"You may have come here in chaos, but what you're walking into now… is war."
He clasped his hands behind his back. "This facility exists to prepare, observe, and if needed, neutralize all off-world phenomena and bio-etheric anomalies. That includes each of you. Orientation will consist of five phases: compatibility scans, combat assessments, neural resonance readings, interdimensional sync trials, and… psychological profiling."
Jules leaned toward Kade and muttered under his breath, "Cool, cool… so just a casual invasion of privacy then."
Kade didn't even blink. "Just wait till the blood tests."
Jules visibly paled.
Thorne turned back to the crowd. "Some of you may not know what you are. Others know too much. Either way… this place will show you what you're capable of. The rest… is up to you."
The lights dimmed. Behind him, the hologram changed.
It was the Lagos battle, rendered in sharp, haunting clarity. The camera followed Dævd mid-air, clashing blades with Irohk, lightning flashing, debris flying. The projection froze just as Dævd's Law Severance cut through the night like divine judgment.
Whispers ran through the crowd.
Dævd's stomach twisted at the sight. All that destruction. The flames. The screams in the background.
He clenched his fist.
Beside him, Jules leaned back in his seat. "Okay, I know this is serious, but damn… that's a killer highlight reel."
Kade's eyes narrowed at Thorne, but he said nothing.
Thorne finally turned to face the trio again.
"You three especially… will be receiving personal evaluations. Effective immediately."
He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.
The Assessments
They were led through a long corridor that branched into smaller testing wings, each humming with Futuristic-tech and flickering digital panels. Glass-walled rooms monitored bio-signatures in real time. Scientists and tactical agents moved like clockwork, nodding briskly at clipboards and holographic displays.
Dævd sat in a reinforced chair surrounded by rotating rings of light and symbols that pulsed in rhythmic intervals. At the edge of the room, a female technician whispered as she calibrated the scan.
"Subject displays non-human neural patterning… resonance output is fluctuating… no standard match."
The lights intensified.
Suddenly, the outer rings distorted, flickering violently. A high-pitched whine pierced the chamber as strange symbols projected into the air on their own.
The tech jumped. "It's… it's talking to itself?"
A supervisor stepped closer to the screen. "No. It's syncing with something… deeper."
For a moment, Lucent Grave, locked in a sealed chamber down the hall, hummed in reply.
Dævd's eyes opened slowly, faintly glowing.
Technician: "We've never seen resonance levels like this."
Jules was surprisingly cooperative, cracking jokes even while wearing a skin-tight diagnostic suit. His scan revealed traces of spliced genome data, old, deeply embedded, almost Aetherian, but altered.
"Wait… You're saying I'm not fully human?"
The scanner pulsed again. Hidden circuitry along his ribcage glowed green.
Jules blinked. "Okay, that's… new. Am I part microwave?"
One of the researchers chuckled nervously. "It's… dormant energy, likely engineered. You've been modified before, possibly unknowingly."
"Modified? I don't even have a Netflix subscription."
More unsettling was the energy signature: a unique sub-frequency that mirrored something they'd only seen in Aetherian archives. A locked report was tagged: "Pending Authorization – CLASSIFIED."
Meanwhile… Kade stood in a wide chamber, surrounded by hovering drones armed with stun modules and holographic projectors. A prompt blinked over the chamber entrance: "Simulated Combat Initiating."
Kade rolled his neck, cracked his knuckles, and grunted. "Let's get it over with."
A flurry of drones zipped toward him. He moved like a blur, calculated, unrelenting. His movements weren't flashy, but they were surgical. Brutal. Efficient.
In less than 90 seconds, every drone was a heap of sparking metal.
The observers stared in stunned silence.
One muttered, "He's… too precise. That kind of training doesn't come from casual merc work."
Another tapped his notes: "Prior Division-7 exposure? Unauthorized training lineage?"
Kade exited without a word, ignoring the stunned glances. He tugged on his glove tightly and muttered, "Too many eyes here."
Later, the trio was summoned to a private room high above the testing floors. The windows overlooked the dense steel-and-glass facility core. It was spartan but sleek, lit by a massive horizontal panel glowing like dusk.
Director Ayasha stood beside a large table, flanked by three others:
Dr. Anneliese Keller, head of xenogenetics.
Captain Lucan Riggs, head of tactical ops.
Rena, calm and focused, already seated.
Thorne folded his arms.
"You all passed your diagnostics… though I use that word loosely."
He turned first to Dævd.
"Your resonance isn't just rare, it's ancient. The blade is reacting to you like it's found its rightful bearer. That makes you both an asset and a target. Whatever you're bound to… it's sent ripples through dimensions we've only begun to chart."
To Jules:
"You're hiding something inside you. It's not your fault but it's there. Your body has been tampered with. My guess is… whoever did it wasn't from this planet."
Jules gave a small, awkward salute. "Sweet. So I'm like a toaster with trust issues."
Thorne didn't smile.
Then, to Kade:
"You're hiding something too. But not from us, from yourself. That kind of training, reaction time… you're either ex-Division, or worse. We'll find out which."
Kade crossed his arms but didn't respond. His jaw tightened.
Thorne stepped forward. "You're not prisoners. You're not soldiers yet. But if you stay… you'll become something the world needs. A shield… or a sword."
He turned to Lila and Rena.
"They deserve the choice. But not for long."