Noah came to with the sharp sting of disinfectant in his nose.
White ceiling tiles. A buzzing vent. The faint creak of a curtain shifting in the air conditioner's draft.
The nurse's office.
For a moment he thought it had all been a nightmare. Just another one. But then he tried to sit up. Pain screamed through his ribs, his arm throbbed like he'd been dragged through live wires, and his skin still prickled with static.
Not a dream.
The curtain rattled as someone moved on the other side. Voices drifted in — muffled, casual. Students waiting for bandages, ice packs, excuses to get out of class.
Normal. Totally normal.
Noah pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the faint echo of his heartbeat still racing too fast. He half expected sparks to crawl across his skin again.
They didn't.
The door clicked. Light footsteps entered, and the curtain slid open.
It wasn't the nurse.
It was her.
The hoodie girl. Raven.
She leaned against the frame, hands stuffed in her pockets, eyes unreadable. For a second, neither of them spoke.
Noah's throat went dry. "…What do you want?"
Her hood dipped lower. "To see if you're still alive."
Noah blinked hard, trying to focus. The white ceiling blurred, then steadied. His ribs ached with every breath, his arms still tingled like they'd been plugged into a socket.
The curtain rattled, and Raven leaned against the frame, hood low, hands buried in her pockets.
Her voice was flat, almost annoyed."It was a hassle to drag you all the way here."
Noah frowned, throat dry. "You… carried me?"
Her smirk twitched, barely there. "Don't flatter yourself. If you'd stayed in the hall, someone else would've found you. Too many questions."
Noah shifted, wincing at the sharp pain in his side. "So what—this is you being… helpful?"
"Practical," Raven corrected. She pushed off the frame, walking a step closer. The fluorescent light caught on the chain at her wrist before vanishing back into her sleeve. "Alive, you're useful. Dead, you're not."
Noah swallowed hard, gripping the edge of the cot. "Useful for what?"
Her eyes met his from under the hood. "You'll figure it out. Eventually."
Then she turned and left without another word.
Silence pressed in. Noah sat up, every muscle aching, ribs sore. Through the window he caught the orange wash of sunset sinking over the school.
He gathered his things and left.
The streets were quiet, washed in the fading light. By the time he reached his apartment door, the sky had already slipped into night.
Home. Normal.At least, that's what it was supposed to be.
By the time Noah reached his apartment, the sun was gone. The city lights hummed against the dark, neon signs bleeding color across the windows.
He tossed his bag onto the couch, dropped himself beside it, and just sat there. His ribs ached. His hands still trembled faintly. Normal life, huh.
The phone buzzed on the table. He didn't recognize the number — but he didn't need to.
He answered.
"Noah," the voice said. Firm. Grounded. A tone that once carried through gunfire and desert heat without breaking. His old captain.
"It's your first day," the man continued. "School. How'd it go?"
Noah closed his eyes, the memory of lightning splitting the hall flashing behind his eyelids. Sparks, fists, blood, the smell of ozone still burned into his clothes.
He swallowed. "…Fine. Normal."
The captain let the silence hang for a beat. Then he chuckled, low. "Normal. That's what I want to hear."
Noah's jaw tightened, fingers drumming on the armrest. He didn't trust his voice enough to say anything more.
"Keep it that way," the captain said. "Don't let the past drag you back in. You've done enough fighting. Time to learn how to live."
The line clicked dead.
Noah sat in the glow of the city outside, phone heavy in his hand. His captain wanted normal.
But nothing about today had been normal.
Noah sat in silence after the line went dead, the captain's words still echoing in his ears. Normal life. Easy for him to say.
Noah exhaled slowly, then pulled out his phone again. His gallery was open opened the photo he'd taken — Volt, caught mid-step, his outline jagged in a blur of sparks. Grainy, distorted, but clear enough for someone who knew how to follow threads.
Normal people wouldn't see it. To them, it was just static blur. But Noah had been trained to notice details — posture, build, gear, even the faint markings on the jacket Volt wore. Enough to start a trail.
He stared at it for a long moment. His thumb hovered over the screen. Then he dialed the captain back.
The call picked up on the second ring. "What is it?"
"I need information," Noah said flatly.
The captain's tone sharpened. "On what?"
Noah sent it with one line of text: Find him
The captain's voice came through, firm as ever. "You really can't stay out of trouble, can you? First day of school and you're already chasing ghosts."
"Just tell me what you've got," Noah said.
The captain sighed, but his tone sharpened. "Name that came up is Aetherion Technologies. Big company. Multinational. On paper, they handle processors, servers, cloud security — the works. Clean image. Too clean, if you ask me. These guys have reach everywhere, and the kind of people you don't cross for fun."
Noah's grip on the phone tightened. "So Volt works for them."
"Connected, at least. And if that's true? My advice—stay out of it. You wanted normal life? This isn't it. Don't drag yourself back into the old mess."
The line clicked dead before Noah could answer.
He leaned back on the couch, the glow of the photo still spilling across his hand.Volt. Aetherion. A company to the world. But Noah could feel it — something behind the mask.
Normal life, his captain said.But there was nothing normal about this.
The call ended, leaving Noah staring at the faint glow of the city outside. Aetherion Technologies. To everyone else, just a company. To him, a thread worth pulling.
He slipped on his jacket and moved.
The city streets were alive with evening rush, but Noah flowed through them like a shadow. Every step was muscle memory — keep your head low, watch reflections in windows, use crowds as cover. Mercenary habits he was supposed to have buried.
By the time he reached Aetherion's district headquarters, the crowds had thinned. The building rose sleek and modern, all glass panels and white neon trim. To the public, it screamed money and clean tech. To Noah, it screamed fortress.
He crouched on the roof of a café across the street, binoculars steady in his hands. Guard rotations. Security cams. Employees moving in and out with their neat ID badges. On the surface, everything normal.
But then he saw it.
One of the side entrances opened. A man stepped out — tall, sharp posture, moving with precision too deliberate for an office worker. Noah zoomed in. For a split second, the light caught across the man's wrist.
A faint flicker of blue.
Not Volt. Someone else. But cut from the same cloth.
Noah's jaw tightened.
To the world, this was just a company. But inside, something was crawling beneath the glass and steel. Something connected to Volt.
And now Noah knew where to start digging.
The café roof gave him the perfect angle. Noah tracked the side entrance, memorizing the guard's patterns — ten-minute rotations, blind spot near the maintenance door. Corporate security 101.
He smirked faintly. Easy.
Noah dropped into the alley, hood up, hands loose at his sides. He moved like he belonged there — not rushing, not hiding, just another body in the night. The guard barely glanced at him before turning away.
That was all he needed.
A bent paperclip slid into the lock. One twist. Click. The door eased open, and Noah slipped inside.
The air changed instantly. Outside, the building glowed clean and modern. Inside, it buzzed low and mechanical. Fluorescent lights hummed over polished steel corridors. Security cams tilted on perfect intervals. Every step echoed too loud.
Noah kept to the shadows, moving smooth, every breath measured.
On the third floor, he found it.
Through the glass wall of a conference room, a group of men and women sat around a table. Suits. Laptops. Paperwork. To anyone else, it looked like a late-night board meeting.
But Noah's eyes caught the details. One tapped his finger in threes — the same rhythm Ezra used in class. Another's reflection in the glass showed faint blue static dancing across his knuckles when he reached for a pen. Another's eyes flicked toward Noah's hiding spot for half a second, too sharp for coincidence.
Not a board meeting.
Awakened.
Noah's grip tightened around the knuckle duster in his pocket. He didn't move. Not yet.
Then, at the far end of the table, the glass flickered — as if the light itself warped. A tall silhouette stepped into view.
Volt.
Noah's pulse spiked, but he didn't flinch. He leaned closer to the glass, recording everything in his mind. His captain thought this was just a company. But right here, Noah was seeing the mask slip.
And the storm inside was only just beginning.
Noah tore his eyes from the glass wall. Volt was right there, sitting with his people like nothing had happened last night. Like he hadn't ripped a hallway apart with lightning.
Every instinct screamed at Noah to act. But mercenary training kept him still. Patience. Watch. Gather. Then move.
He backed away, retracing his steps down the hall — and froze.
The elevator doors at the far end slid open. Four men stepped out, black suits, no badges. Their eyes swept the hall with practiced precision. Not rent-a-cops. Trained.
One of them spotted the crack in the maintenance door Noah had left behind.
Their gazes locked.
"Unauthorized," one muttered, already reaching for the radio.
Noah swore under his breath. Subtlety was over.
He launched forward before the guard could speak, shoulder slamming into his chest. The man hit the wall with a grunt, radio clattering away.
The others moved instantly, hands reaching — too fast, too sharp for normal security.
Knuckle duster slid onto Noah's fist with a satisfying click. His arm snapped out, steel crunching against a jaw. Another guard lunged; Noah caught his wrist, twisted, and drove his elbow into his gut.
But more were coming. From the stairwell. From the opposite hall. The whole floor was alive with footsteps.
By the time Noah realized, it was already too late — he was surrounded.
One guard swung a baton, its tip crackling faint blue. Not standard issue. Noah ducked under the arc, swept his leg, and sent the man sprawling. But three more filled the gap, fists glowing faint with the same static.
"Awakened," Noah hissed.
He braced himself, heart pounding. Normal life was over the second he stepped through that door.
And now, on the next floor of Aetherion Technologies, the fight was about to begin.
The guards closed in, a tide of bodies and batons sparking faintly blue.
Noah inhaled once, steady. His boots slid across polished tile, lowering his stance. Then he moved.
The first guard struck high — Noah slipped under, his fist snapping into ribs, then pivoting to drive an elbow into another's jaw. He twisted, baton catching a third across the temple, then rolled his weight forward into a spinning kick that sent two sprawling together.
Three more filled the gap. One lunged low, another feinted right, the third raised his baton overhead. Noah dropped into a crouch, hook-swept the first off his feet, spun to parry the overhead strike, then used the momentum to slam his knuckle duster into the feinter's chest.
Tile cracked. Bodies scattered. Still, more surged in.
It became rhythm — block, strike, redirect. The sound of impact rang like percussion: baton against steel, boots against tile, fists against flesh. Noah moved like a storm in tight corridors, his mercenary training weaving efficiency into every step.
But the tide didn't stop.
A baton crackled across his shoulder, spinning him half a step. Another grazed his ribs. His body screamed protest, but he forced it down, teeth clenched. He grabbed the next attacker, flipped him into two others, then shoved them all into the wall with a burst of raw strength.
Then—
The lights above flared, humming loud enough to rattle glass. Blue sparks crawled along the walls like veins of lightning.
The guards froze.
Footsteps echoed, slow, deliberate, cutting through the haze of smoke and sweat.
Volt.
Electricity licked across his arms, his calm smile framed by arcs of light. "Messy," he said, eyes locking on Noah. "But you lasted longer than I expected."
Noah braced himself — and then another voice cut through.
"Enough."
Raven stepped from the stairwell shadows, hood low, her presence sharp enough to halt the guards mid-motion.
Beside her, Kai slipped his hands into his pockets, lollipop stick bouncing between his teeth. He didn't look tense. He didn't look ready. But the air shifted around him — heavier, sharper.
Volt's grin widened. "Finally."
In a blink, the floor erupted.
Volt surged forward, hand glowing like a live wire. Raven darted left, her chain flashing out in a whip-crack arc. Kai barely moved — just tilted his head as a guard lunged at him, and the man collapsed like he'd hit a wall of invisible force.
Noah staggered back, eyes wide. Sparks burst across the hall, Raven's chain sang, Kai's lazy smile didn't flicker, and Volt's strikes cracked the air itself.
The fight had gone beyond him.This was Awakened against Awakened.And Noah was caught right in the middle
The hallway was littered with broken guards and scorched walls, but the air still thrummed with tension. Noah's breath came in ragged gasps; Volt's eyes scanned the shadows, every muscle coiled for what might come next.
Then, the world seemed to hold its breath. The doors at the far end swung open slowly, and a figure stepped through—tall, commanding, and impossibly powerful. Every inch of him radiated dominance, like the air itself bent around him.
Noah felt a chill crawl up his spine. This wasn't just another enemy. This was the leader—the strongest in the building. The one everyone feared, the one no one had ever survived facing directly.
A slow, deliberate smile curved across the leader's face. "So… this is what awaits me," he said, voice low but sharp enough to cut through stone. "I expected more."
Volt tightened his grip on his weapon. Noah clenched his fists, feeling the surge of his own power, but deep down, he knew—they were standing at the edge of a storm they couldn't yet control.
And in that silence, filled with unspoken threats, Noah understood one truth: the real fight had only just begun.
the end of chapter three