The Ampers and the Volts faced each other in a standoff, silence stretching too long.
Acuent's voice cut the silence.
"You tracked us. Spied on us. You risked every safehouse we've built for Gifteds. If Taskforce V had found those feeds, we'd all be ash."
Ampra didn't flinch. Her polished white-and-yellow suit gleamed against the dim, scarred chamber.
She met Acuent's fury with practiced calm—the kind that played well on cameras.
"And what has hiding bought you? Fear. Division. Every time the world sees you, it's through blood and rubble. Meanwhile, the Volts show their faces, and people cheer. They trust us."
She tilted her head toward Grant.
"They could trust him too. He's what they're waiting for."
Brakkon slammed a fist against the table.
" He's a kid—a kid who just woke up from a coma."
The table quaked under his blow. Overhead projectors flickered, spitting sparks. The Volts straightened.
Xylo muttered under his breath, blades of frost whispering into form at his side. Nullis half-vanished into the wall, torn between fleeing and fighting.
The room pressed closer to the brink—Ampers on one side, Volts on the other, ideology poised to snap into fists.
And then—
"Enough."
Grant's voice cracked through the noise, raw and commanding. He staggered forward, red lightning crawling across his arms, shadows shuddering in its glow.
His eyes burned as he looked at them all.
"You don't get to fight over me like I'm some prize. I'm not your weapon. I'm not your symbol. And I'm damn sure not yours to claim."
"I'm still here. I decide what I am."
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
The lines between Ampers and Volts were still drawn, sharper than ever—but Grant had forced them all to remember: the boy they wanted to use still had a voice of his own.
The room bristled, tension unbroken, neither side willing to speak first.
That was when Anna moved—slipping past the heavy stares and the glow of the Volts' armor.
She reached Grant and touched his arm lightly, just enough to pull him out of the storm of eyes.
"Come with me," she whispered.
Once they were alone in the dim side hall, Anna spoke, low and urgent.
"Grant… what you just did—" She shook her head, strands of hair falling loose. "It was brave. But you don't see what comes next. If you side with them"—she jerked her chin toward the war room—"the Ampers will think you betrayed us. If you stay hidden again, the Volts will call you wasted potential."
Grant leaned against the wall, chest tight, lightning still crawling across his skin.
"I don't want to be their weapon. I don't want to be their symbol. I just want—" His breath hitched. "I just don't know."
Anna's eyes softened, but she didn't step closer. Her gloved hands trembled at her sides, the distance between them a wound neither could cross.
"Then decide fast," she said. "Because they won't wait."
Grant swallowed, the silence pressing in again. His gaze darted down the hall, then back at her.
And then, before she could say another word, the red lightning flared.
In a blur of motion, the air cracked with thunder, and Grant was gone—vanishing down the hall, out into the night, leaving nothing but a scorch of ozone where he'd stood.
Anna stood frozen, staring at the space he'd left, the echo of his confession still in her chest.
****
Colonel Veynar stood with hands clasped behind his back, eyes fixed on the moment the boy tore through their dampening lines. His voice cut the air clean.
"Phase I has proven obsolete. Silencers can restrain weeds, but not the Red Tempest."
He turned, and with a gesture, the screens shifted. Blueprints unfurled across the holotable: a skeletal titan of luxium, standing stories tall. Power cores pulsed in the chest like a heart of caged lightning, coils spiraling around reinforced limbs. A machine built not for suppression alone—but for capture.
"The Juggernaut Protocol," Veynar declared. "Stage One is under construction. Dampener lattice integrated with exo-fortress design. A prison that walks, crushes, and bends the enemy to heel."
Some officers exchanged wary glances. One cleared his throat.
"With respect, sir, we're building a weapon that could level a city block by just moving. If this thing fails to contain—"
"It won't fail," Veynar cut in, voice like iron. "Because it won't face cities. It will face him."
Before the murmurs could grow, another officer hurried forward, datapad in hand.
The wall screens flickered to grainy CCTV: a streak of red lightning cutting through fields. The streak faltered. Skidded. Then—collapsed.
Grant's body tumbled into the dirt, smoke rising faintly from his skin, limbs slack.
Then Veynar's thin smile cut it open.
"Deploy Taskforce V. The Red Tempest has spent himself. Retrieve him alive."
The officers moved at once, the Juggernaut's looming frame pulsing behind them on the holo-display.
****
Taskforce V descended fast—black transports cutting across the fields, rotors scattering dust.
Floodlights snapped on.
There he was: Grant. Face half-buried in dirt, sparks still twitching faintly along his arms. His chest rose and fell shallow, every breath ragged.
"Target confirmed. Red Tempest is down," a commander barked. "Restrain and lift."
Cables hissed, dampener cuffs locking around his wrists and ankles. The boy didn't stir as they dragged him onto a carrier—no fight, just silence.
****
Back at the heart of Veynar's facility—sterile walls, steel catwalks, the hiss of coolant pipes feeding into a cavernous chamber.
At the center stood the Colonel, hands folded behind his back as they wheeled Grant in, still bound. His eyes didn't soften at the sight.
"Place him in containment. Prep the med-rig."
Screens flared to life around him—rows of classified documents. Each bore the same header, stamped in blood-red clearance:
PROJECT A.M.P.
Augmented Militarized Physiology.
Pages scrolled: early prototypes, broken test subjects, redacted reports of irreversible cellular trauma. And buried deeper—schematics for Brakkon, his physiology warped and reforged.
"Years ago, we proved the body could be reforged into a weapon greater than its Gift. Brakkon survived the trial. Now, the Red Tempest will endure the next stage."
One officer hesitated. "Sir… Brakkon nearly tore apart the facility after his conversion. If this one—"
Veynar turned, his stare freezing the words in the man's throat.
"This one won't wake until I decide it. And when he does, he will be ours. Not nature's mistake. Not fate's pawn. Ours."
He leaned toward the glass, studying Grant's unconscious face as if inspecting a blade yet to be sharpened.
"Prepare the chamber. Red Tempest enters Project A.M.P. tonight."