Man, the sky over Velaris was just—well, fake. Gorgeous, sure, but in a way that's almost threatening. Like, imagine someone painted a wound across the heavens, all bleeding reds and golds, and then just hit "pause" forever. Permanent sunrise, never a proper day. Pretty, but honestly kind of a cosmic joke.
Down below? The city buzzed and jittered like it'd just mainlined ten espressos. People were everywhere, but not really people—more like these streaks of color blasting past, all fire and ice and lightning, like the world's most aggressive light show. Alex Thompson stood right smack in the middle of it all, in the ruins of what used to be Horizon Plaza, and felt… well, invisible. Like he was haunting his own life. Talk about existential.
His cloak—a dull, standard-issue gray thing—looked extra pathetic next to all those streaking, show-off speedsters. They weren't just moving fast; they were basically little gods, each one flinging themselves through the city like they owned it, sparks flying, ice crackling, the whole nine yards. They kept the monsters out, sure, but it was all so fragile. Alex? He was just Alex. No sparks, no glory, just some regular dude stuck in the middle of a superhero mosh pit.
Above him, that massive holo-board hung in the sky, total buzzkill. It wasn't for ads or whatever—it was a countdown. **54 minutes, 12 seconds**. That's all the outside world had left before—well, the "Event." No one even bothered to give it a real name. Some end-of-the-world nonsense. But inside this weird, warped bubble Dr. Chronos whipped up, those fifty-four minutes drag out to fifty-four years. A whole lifetime to save everything, if you're fast enough.
Which, let's be clear, Alex was not.
He was a Norma. Like, capital-N Normal. In Velaris, that made him about as useful as a floppy disk at a streaming convention. Normas weren't gone, exactly; just banished to the background. They ran the power plants, kept the food machines chugging along, did all the stuff nobody wanted to see. The city only let Normas walk around in public if they were related to speedsters—basically a big, flashing sign reminding everyone that genetics can be a real jerk sometimes.
So when someone yelled, "Outta the way, static!"—yeah, that was for Alex. Some speedster tore past, all flaming hair and a smirk that deserved its own slap. Didn't even shove him with his hands. Just a flick of kinetic energy, a wave of heat that nearly knocked Alex on his butt and left a black scorch burned into his cloak. The burn hurt, but the attitude? Way worse.
"Careful, Cinder," another speedster laughed, barely more than a blur. "Gonna set the world on fire with that ego."
Alex just bit his cheek, tasted blood, and kept his head down. He didn't say a word. What was there to say? The fresh burn on his cloak might as well have been stitched on: "Totally Useless." He was "The Frozen Failure"—son of two legendary speedsters, brother to a prodigy, and somehow he'd missed the power lottery. Five years spent in stasis during the Rift Wars (because, of course, non-essentials get put on ice) only cranked up the awkwardness. His family lived; he slept. Figures.
Out of nowhere—thank God—came a voice he actually wanted to hear. "Alex!" Soft, gentle, way too good for this city.
Lily Windwhisper, hair like silver streamers, zipped up and stopped so quietly you barely noticed. The wind around her, more like a sigh than a breeze, barely kicked up any dust. She was an elemental too, technically, but her power couldn't even snuff out a candle. Outcasts, unite, right? Following her was Kael Emberstrike. Now, Kael was a whole different story. He was a "Pure Kinetic," no elemental fancy-pants stuff, but the dude had *power*. Like, raw, blunt force. His amber eyes, which practically glowed with their own inner fire, were already sweeping the crowd, searching for Mr. Red Hair and his stupid smirk.
"You okay?" Lily asked, her hand actually *touching* the scorch mark on his cloak, a surprising warmth.
"Peachy," Alex mumbled, his sarcasm so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Kael, meanwhile, cracked his knuckles. Sounded like rocks grinding. Seriously. "Cinder's just a third-rate bully with a sparkler for a soul, you know? Say the word, Alex, and I'll personally make sure he learns how his fire works when he can't breathe."
"Don't," Alex said quickly, shaking his head. "It's not worth it." What he really meant was, *I'm not worth it*. Kael's jaw clenched, hard, but he got it. He always got it. They were Alex's only real anchors in this too-fast world. Lily, the whisper-wind, barely-there elemental. Kael, the brute-force kinetic. Pure Kinetics, man, they got no respect. All brawn, no pretty elemental light show. The grunts. The mages' glorified bodyguards.
"One day," Kael rumbled, his voice a low, solid growl of pure conviction. "You're gonna show them all."
Alex just managed a weak, tired smile. Show them what, exactly? His knack for advanced calculus from before he went on ice? His talent for quiet observation? In Velaris, those were just… hobbies. Not virtues. Not when the world was ending.
Then, that hum. That super deep, wrong hum that didn't hit your ears but just vibrated through your entire skeleton, right into your teeth. The air suddenly turned cold, tasting like ozone and something else, something ancient and just… *bad*. Alex's stomach dropped faster than a rock. Oh, he knew that sound. Knew it intimately.
"Rift," he whispered, a single word, just a heartbeat before the city's official alarms started blaring like crazy.
"Get down!" Kael roared, his speedster instincts kicking in, sharp as a laser. He practically tackled Alex and Lily, shoving them hard behind the giant, toppled base of some long-forgotten hero's statue. Good move, actually.
Because then, reality just… ripped.
Right there, smack in the center of the plaza, a jagged, angry vertical wound tore open in the crimson sky. Its edges pulsed with this nauseating, throbbing violet energy. It was like staring into a place that definitely, absolutely shouldn't exist. And out of it, a nightmare. This *thing* just unfolded itself into their world. Huge. Covered in living, obsidian-like scales. Six glowing eyes, dull and evil, like dead stars, just silently scanned the plaza with a malice so old it made your skin crawl. Its claws—long, sharp as swords—scraped against the busted pavement, sending sparks flying everywhere. Then it let out this high-pitched, piercing screech that felt like needles scraping inside Alex's brain. And just like that, the whole crowd of arrogant, strutting speedsters turned into a panicked stampede of pure, raw terror.
Two blurs of pure light zoomed in to meet the monster. Sentinels. The absolute best of the best. The real deal.
First was Lira, a woman who practically glowed like a minor sun. She moved like a freaking comet, her light-forged sword leaving trails of pure brilliance against the creature's inky blackness. Second was Torren, a grizzled, muscle-bound guy who crackled with raw lightning. Blue bolts just exploded from his fingertips with every desperate move.
The creature roared back, its hide just shrugging off the attacks. Lira's glowing blade carved a deep, painful gash in its shoulder, but get this—the obsidian scales immediately started knitting themselves back together. Like, instantly. Torren's lightning scorched its flank, making it howl, but it was just… too tough.
Alex huddled behind that statue, his heart banging a frantic, totally useless rhythm against his ribs. He felt useless. Beyond useless. Like a mouse hiding during a dragon fight. What good was he here? Lily, next to him, gritted her teeth, her weak little winds trying to form a fragile, shimmering shield against the stray shrapnel. Kael's fists were blazing now, wrapped in actual fire, a secret power he didn't show often, ready to jump in.
"Stay here!" Kael bellowed, his protective instincts suddenly overruling everything else. No arguments. He then launched himself straight into the battle, a blur of red and orange, a human comet of fire and fury.
The creature swiped with a claw the size of a hover-car. Lira, with her impossible speed, danced under it. She was good. But the creature was deceptively fast. As it pulled back, a *second* limb lashed out, quick as a viper, catching her with a glancing blow. But a glancing blow from that thing was enough to shatter bone. She went flying, like a broken doll, slamming into a vendor's stall with a sickening crunch of metal and shattering synth-glass. Her inner light, usually blazing bright, flickered, like a dying candle. Her sword, her amazing, glowing sword, clattered to the ground a good dozen feet away. Out of reach.
"Lira!" Torren screamed, his lightning attacks suddenly getting wild, sloppy, full of panic. The creature didn't even glance at him. It just slowly turned its six awful, baleful eyes onto the fallen Sentinel, who lay motionless. It started to advance, its intention crystal clear. End her.
Alex's breath hitched in his throat. The whole plaza was just pure, unfiltered chaos now. Speedsters were fighting, sure, but they were keeping their distance. Smart, maybe, but Lira was alone. Kael and Lily were desperately trying to fend off the monster's advance, but it was like throwing pebbles at a tank. Lira lay there, absolutely still, her faint blue, luminescent blood starting to pool on the gray stone.
No one was close enough. Seriously. No one was going to make it in time.
No one, that is, except for him.
This weird, almost silent clarity just washed over Alex. All the frantic noise in his head—the shouts, the explosions, the monster's roars—it all faded into this distant, almost peaceful hum. All he could see was Lira, so small and broken, and the monster, getting ready to finish her. All his own hang-ups, his fear, that constant, crushing weight of being a total failure… it just dissolved. Gone. Irrelevant. Just a meaningless number in a sudden, life-or-death equation.
His legs moved. Before his brain even got the memo.
He just broke cover, straight up sprinted across the wide, open, debris-strewn plaza. His lungs burned, screaming with effort. The rift's energy crackled above him, twisting the very air, making every step feel like wading through super thick, heavy molasses. A chunk of debris flew right at him, and he ducked, pure instinct, scraping his knees hard on the pavement. White-hot pain shot up his legs, but he didn't stop. He just kept running.
"Get back, Norma!" Torren bellowed, his voice barely audible over the creature's triumphant roar. "That's an order!"
Alex ignored him. Orders? He didn't have time for orders. He didn't have time for anything but that single, desperate, blazing need to get to her side. He slid the last few feet, probably looking ridiculous, on the blood-slick pavement, his knees screaming in protest, finally skidding to a stop right next to Lira. Her face was pale as marble, her breathing shallow, ragged.
Without thinking—zero thought—he ripped a long, ragged strip from the very bottom of his own plain, ugly gray cloak. Then he pressed the rough, absorbent fabric firmly against her wounded side.
"Hold on," he whispered, his voice choked, useless. His hands were shaking so bad he could barely keep pressure. "Just hold on."
The gray cloth soaked through instantly, turning a dark, glowing blue with her strange, vibrant blood.
The creature. Oh, it turned its full, undivided attention on him. The other speedsters were threats, yeah. But Alex? He was just… meat. An easy target. It loomed over him, its shadow falling like a promise of imminent, final death. And then it slowly, deliberately, raised one gleaming, razor-sharp claw.
Time. It seemed to slow down. Not like a speedster's blur, not that hyper-fast perception. No, this was in *his* mind. The world didn't rush past. Instead, everything became impossibly, terrifyingly sharp. He saw every disgusting detail: the creature's jagged, drooling mouth; the glint of the crimson sky reflecting on its chitinous scales; that faint, sickly sweet smell of ozone mixed with something ancient and foul, something like dimensional decay.
He froze. Just froze. Like a mouse caught perfectly by the hawk, knowing, absolutely knowing, he couldn't outrun it. This was it. This was how his useless life ended. Not preserved in a stasis pod, but brutally, messily, torn apart in a ruined plaza.
Then, a sudden, blinding blaze of fire slammed violently into the creature's side. Kael. He was there, face a mask of pure, furious determination. His flames just *erupted*, forming a protective, roaring wall between Alex and the monster. And at the exact same moment, this sudden, *powerful* gust of wind—stronger than anything Lily had ever, ever conjured before, born, you just *knew*, of pure, unadulterated desperation—struck the creature's massive, descending arm. Pushed its claws just *inches* off-course. Their tips scored deep, fresh gouges in the pavement right where Alex's head had been a second ago.
Torren. He saw the opening. And with a final, truly desperate roar, he unleashed every last ounce of his power. A massive, intensely concentrated bolt of pure, raw lightning, thick as the Central Spire itself, hit the creature dead-center.
With an unearthly shriek that shockingly shattered every single remaining window in the entire plaza, the creature just *dissolved*. Imploded. Turning into a shower of dark, dying energy. The jagged rift above them flickered, wavered erratically, then snapped shut with a deafening, final crack that echoed eerily through the now-unnaturally silent plaza.
The battle? Over. Finally.
Alex knelt there, shaking uncontrollably, his hands still pressed uselessly, almost futilely, against Lira's wound. He was slick with her glowing, vibrant royal blue blood. It was a stark, almost beautiful, and truly indelible stain against the drab, utterly worthless fabric of his own cloak. It was, he realized with a strange sense of finality, the very first time in five long years he had ever been so profoundly marked by the unmistakable color of a speedster's magnificent power.