The silent hum of the Veyne mansion's basement was a symphony of progress. Six months had passed since Kael's ascension to B-Tier and his tense stalemate with Skulker. In that time, the workshop had evolved from a cluttered lab into a true command center. Holographic schematics for Project: Aegis hovered over one workbench, the Cloaking emitters now scaled to 80% efficiency. On another, the Mark II suit rested on a charging cradle, its electric blue circuitry pulsing softly, having been refined and stress-tested in the only field that mattered: the Ghost Zone.
Kael stood before the active portal. His two excursions in the past half-year were calculated campaigns for resources and intelligence had borne fruit. Kael recall his experience with technus in his first excursion. At that time, after sparring with Skulker he went to deep areas of the ghost zone. After going far from the portal's coordinates, Kael's enhanced HUD picked up a familiar, grating frequency.
<<< SIGNATURE DETECTED: UNKNOWN. CLASSIFICATION: B-TIER. DISPOSITION: HOSTILE. >>
The self-proclaimed "Ghost of Technology" was attempting to possess a floating fortress of scrap metal. Seeing Kael, he started his nonsense on world domination and pressuring Kael. Kael, having no patience for his antics, unleashed a concentrated Ghost Fire Projection, overloading the fortress's rudimentary systems and sending Technus fleeing in a shower of sparks and incoherent ranting. It was a brief, decisive encounter that solidified Kael's status, he was not someone anybody can mess with.
Kael was happy to meet these fictional characters from his previous without being afraid of them. He's one of them so his safety is assured now. Now, he dived into the portal again.
Kale first went to Skulker's territory. His first return had been a deliberate provocation. He'd emerged not in a neutral territory, but on the jagged, rust-colored outskirts of Skulker's claimed domain. It hadn't taken long.
The hunter arrived with the predictable roar of thrusters, his new arm cannon gleaming ominously.
"Back for another lesson, pest?" Skulker's voice boomed, though the earlier malice was now edged with a grudging wariness.
"Call it a sparring session," Kael had replied, his tone cool. "I need to field-test my upgrades. You need a moving target. A mutually beneficial arrangement."
What followed was less a fight and more a brutal game of tag. Kael pushed his Temporal Perception to its limit, reading the trajectories of net launchers and micro-missiles a crucial two seconds before they fired. He used his improved Intangibility not to flee, but to phase through attacks at the last nanosecond, countering with precise Blue-Fire Rays that scored glancing hits on Skulker's armor, testing its resilience.
Skulker, in turn, was gathering his own data. He noted Kael's increased speed, the stability of his Ghost Shield, the efficiency of his movements. He was mapping the parameters of his prey's new strength, calibrating his arsenal for a future, definitive hunt. They stopped after twenty minutes, a silent acknowledgment passing between them. The game continued.
Kael went to another are this time. After roaming around for sometime, near a swirling, musical nebula, he sensed another presence. Ember McLain sat perched on a floating amplifier, strumming a lazy chord on her guitar that resonated through the ectoplasm.
"Well, well. The new kid's making waves," she said, her voice a mix of curiosity and appraisal. Her eyes scanned his unique blue-silver aura. " You are one good looking guy in a cool suit. Different from the others. You here to cause trouble?"
"Just passing through," Kael replied, keeping his guard up but not raising his weapons. Ember was unpredictable, but not inherently hostile without reason.
She smirked. "Smart. Keep it that way. The Zone's got enough noisy heroes and wanna-be tyrants." She played a power chord that vibrated in his core, a subtle display of her own power, before turning back to her music, dismissing him. " The name's Tempest. Maybe one day I will come to listen to your song, Ms. singer," Kael replied . She smirked. "It's Emer McLain. You are welcome anytime to listen to my songs, handsome". The encounter was neutral, but it was a clear statement the Zone's elite were taking note of "Tempest."
After some time, he felt some unique ecto-signature. Deep within a cavern of glowing crystalline formations, his scanner pinged.
<<< UNUSUAL ECTO-SIGNATURE DETECTED. ENTITY: CRYSTALISK (x2). CLASSIFICATION: C-TIER. ENERGY READINGS: HIGH REGENERATIVE PROPERTIES. >>
The creatures were beautiful and bizarre—geometric beings of living, shifting crystal that pulsed with a soft inner light. They were defensive, not aggressive, firing harmless prismatic shards when he approached. With a calibrated Containment Orb, he captured one, and then the other. Their value wasn't in power, but in that strange regenerative energy signature. A potential key to more efficient healing tech, he assumed, unaware of the true, profound potential he had just bottled.
Now, back in his lab with the two Crystalisks contained and his data logs updated, a strange impulse struck him. It had been weeks since he'd checked on Amity Park in person. A flyover, just to see the Fentons' home, to ensure the timeline was still quiet. A nostalgic whim, a moment of just normal strolling.
Transforming into Tempest, he shot up through the mansion and into the twilight sky over Amity Park. He flew high, a streak of blue and silver against the darkening blue, invisible to human eyes below.
Unfortunately, He never made it to Fenton Works.
As he crossed the town limits, his Temporal Perception flared—not with a future attack, but with a sudden, piercing ping from the present. A sophisticated, hidden sensor, disguised as a common cell tower, had just locked onto his ecto-signature. It wasn't a Fenton design; it was too clean, too precise. He was caught in surveillance.
<<< EXTERNAL SCAN DETECTED. SCAN ORIGIN: UNKNOWN. NATURE: HOSTILE. >> his suit's system warned.
Vlad Plasmius.
He immediately changed his course, swinging east to flee back to the safety of Elmerton.
He was too slow.
The air in front of him ripped apart with a sound like tearing velvet. There was no flashy entrance, only a sudden, oppressive presence that slammed down on him like a physical weight. Vlad Plasmius hung in the air, clad in his elegant black and red suit, his hands clasped behind his back. His expression was one of cold, academic curiosity, but his crimson eyes burned with intense interest. His sensors couldn't even detect him.
"Now, now," Vlad said, his voice a smooth, chilling baritone that seemed to freeze the very air. "Leaving so soon? After you've been so very difficult to find?"
Kael said nothing, his mind racing through escape vectors. Every route was cut off by Vlad's sheer, dominating aura.
"I felt your little portal months ago," Vlad continued, drifting closer. "A remarkable feat. So clean and clearly controlled. Not Jack's work, certainly. And then you a half-ghost never seen before. For twenty years, I have been alone in this world. A king without a peer. And then... you. A ghost in my image. An echo where there should only be a single voice. Who gave you the right to exist?"
Silence prevailed. Kael's hand twitched toward his blaster. He had no intention of answering Vlad.
Vlad's smile was thin and sharp. "No matter. I prefer hands-on research anyway."
The fight began not with a blast, but with a flicker. Vlad Teleported instantly behind Kael. Kael's Temporal Perception saved him; he'd seen the move a second before it happened. He dropped into a Phased state, and Vlad's grasping hand passed through his intangible form.
Kael retaliated, spinning and unleashing a full-power Inferno Strike. The blue-silver fire wave hit Vlad square in the chest—and dissipated against a shimmering, crimson Ghost Shield without so much as making Vlad flinch.
"Aggressive. And disappointingly straightforward," Vlad commented.
He raised a hand. A Plasmius Blast, thicker and denser than any ecto-blast Kael had ever seen, lanced out. Kael brought his own shield up. The impact was monstrous. The silver disc of energy shattered on contact, and the concussive force threw Kael backward through the air like a leaf in a hurricane, his suit screaming damage reports.
< REACTOR: 78%. HULL INTEGRITY: 65%.>
This was an A-Tier Domain Master. This was Vlad Plasmius.
Desperation set in Kael's mind. He used Duplication, creating two clones that flanked Vlad, all three firing Blue-Fire Rays. Vlad didn't even bother to dodge. He simply Teleported again, appearing above Kael and unleashing an Energy Wave. The blast caught Kael and his clones, vaporizing the duplicates and sending the real Kael plummeting toward the rooftops below.
< REACTOR: 45%. HULL INTEGRITY: 30%. CRITICAL SYSTEMS FAILURE IMMINENT.>
He crashed onto a roadblock, rolling to a stop. Vlad descended slowly, elegantly, like a king visiting a subject. "Your tenacity is commendable. But this is over. You will tell me everything about that portal. One way," his eyes glowed dangerously, "or another."
As Vlad reached for him, Kael made the only choice he had left. The choice he had engineered for but prayed he'd never have to use.
"You talk too much," Kael rasped, forcing himself to stand. His voice was raw. He had made his mind" Let me show you something special."
He reached into the core of his being and shattered his potential. It was not an explosion, but an implosion of will. He was burning potential of his A-Tier self to fuel a single, catastrophic minute of power.
His aura crystallized. The electric blue became a hard, blinding. The silver ripples froze into jagged, sharp patterns. The air grew deathly cold.
Vlad's smug superiority vanished into stark disbelief. "You idiot! You're tearing yourself apart! Stop this!" He recognized the act for what it was: not an attack, but a suicide.
"Temporal Howl!"
Kael screamed, and the world screamed with him. A visible, concentric wave of silver-blue force erupted. It was a temporal shockwave that scrambled perception and momentum. Vlad cried out, physically thrown backward as the concept of "forward"* momentarily ceased to exist for him.
In those three precious seconds of Vlad's disorientation, Kael executed his escape. Duplication. Five duplicates, each glowing with the same suicidal aura, scattered into the night.
The real Kael, now hollow and almost transparent, pushed his last spark of power into his suit's dying systems. HOVERBOARD. MAXIMUM BOOST. The thrusters sputtered, but the half-second burst of acceleration was enough. He dove, Intangible, through the roof of a building, through its floors, and out into a back alley, his ecto-signature fading into nothingness.
Miles away, he collapsed in a dank alley behind his Elmerton home, the suit's final capacitor flickering.
<<< CORE FRACTURE: CATASTROPHIC. >>
<<< ECTO-RANK: NULL. >>
<<< PROJECTED NATURAL RECOVERY TIMEFRAME: 9.8 YEARS. >>
<<< SIGNAL LOST... >>
The Tempest was gone. All that was left was a broken boy, two pulsing crystals of unknown potential in his containment unit, and the crushing silence of a bleak future.