Floodlamps freaked out in seizure-strobes, shadows dragging too long across the walls like they were trying to crawl away. Metal screamed, rivets snapping like they'd had enough of this job. Alarms screamed red across the haze.
"Twist! Caden! Get the fuck up!" Deleon's voice ripped raw over comms, ragged with panic. His hands were already on Caden's chestplate, shaking him hard enough that grit and flakes of dried sulfur rattled free from the seals. Caden's body flopped under the effort — limp, dead weight, one arm bent sideways at a wrong-angle horror that made Deleon recoil.
And then — low, thrumming vibration that came from nowhere and everywhere at once. Like a body-sized subwoofer under your ribs firing off one brutal note. Teeth rattled. Dust swirled like it got nervous. Loose bolts jittered across the decking.
The air rippled.
Dust swirled upward in spirals, bolts jittered across the decking like popcorn. Floodlamps bent their own beams, shadows stretching unnaturally long, sliding across walls like they were trying to escape.
Deleon froze mid-shake, hands locked around the chestplate. His helmet tilted upward in disbelief as Caden's body rose.
Not yanked. Not jerked. Just… lifted. Smooth. Inevitable. Boots leaving the floor without effort, dangling slack. Limbs hung loose, head drooping forward like a marionette. His armor rattled faintly in the unseen current, caught in something that wasn't wind, wasn't gravity.
The Artifact behind him pulsed — veins glowing through fractured skin of metal. But each throb came weaker. Faltering. Like a dying heart coughing out its last beats. And then… black. Dead. Every flicker gone.
Not gone. Transferred.
The implication was obvious even if no one dared say it — the thing had given everything into him.
Midair, his body shifted. The limpness went out. Spine straightened, shoulders rolled back as if pulled. Legs unfolded, stretching downward until the form hanging in the air wasn't broken or slack anymore — it was tall.
Arms drifted outward, palms open. Relaxed. Like some mannequin that had decided to live.
He pivoted without muscle effort, like friction didn't apply to him anymore. And faced forward.
"...holy shit," Harker whispered, voice thin, cracking across comms. The words didn't even sound like language, more like raw animal awe leaking out of a throat.
Even Baines—Mr. Iron-Never-Flinch—let his rifle sag toward the floor without noticing. Barrel hanging like it weighed nothing. He was just… staring.
The miners froze up like statues. Helmets tilted, breath caught. The whole cavern holding its lungs. Not a shuffle. Not a breath.
And then—Caden's chin lifted, slow, deliberate. His eyes snapped open. Light burned under the irises — Not flashlight glow. Hotter. Denser. Like molten steel remembered it used to be human.
A low hum pressed into everything, an atmospheric pressure that curled gut instincts into knots. Helmet comms crackled static A couple miners actually raised their hands like bare skin could block whatever this was.
Suspension. Stillness. One of those moments where even time goes: lemme see where this is going first.
And then gravity remembered itself.
Boots touched down, soundless. No stumble, no sway. Just—planted. Balanced. Centered. He breathed once, slow and steady. Calm. Like he'd just woken up from a nap instead of—whatever the fuck that was.
He blinked. Just one blink. Humanity slotted back into his face like nothing had happened, like the light wasn't still smoldering under his eyes.
He glanced around, casual, surveying the statues around him. Every visor frozen, every rifle limp. Dust still floating in lazy spirals around his boots.
Caden looked at his hands, flexing his fingers. And then he said it. Because of course he did : "...How long was I out?"
Because of course the guy floating midair with godlight in his skull and gravity bowing around him would break the tension with a fucking nap joke. Like the dude hadn't just turned into a biblical warning.
As you might have guessed - no one laughed. No one even breathed.
Because for them? Private Caden Twist wasn't the squad's mouthy grunt anymore.
He was something else.
Something terrifying.
Something wrong.
Silence stretched so hard it felt like it might snap. "What….?" Caden asked innocently.
"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT—" Deleon's voice finally cracked it open. Raw. High. Half-panic.
It ricocheted around steel and stone, too loud inside helmets, too jagged for the moment.
Caden just tilted his head. Rolled his shoulders with the laziest stretch, like he'd just crawled out of the world's best nap. \
"Okay, so—long story short? I touched the spooky alien rock."
He lifted one hand, palm up, as if presenting exhibit A — the Artifact still faintly smoldering in the wall.
"Rock said high five. Weird alien god voice told me to kneel. I told him to fuck off. He didn't like that. We wrestled. He lost. End of story."
Pause. Helmets stared. You could hear the disbelief in the silence.
"Oh—yeah. Then I woke up with these."
He snapped his fingers. Casual. Like he was showing off a party trick instead of rewriting physics. A chunk of basalt — half the size of a rifle crate — peeled off the rubble pile and lifted. Then another. And another.
They didn't just float. They orbited. Slow, deliberate, weightless. Caught in shimmering distortions — not light, not dark, more like reality got dunked underwater.
Rocks circling him like moons around a planet.
He grinned under the helmet, teeth bared, voice dry as ash.
"Telekinesis baby. Gravity deluxe edition. You didn't answer my question though…How long was I out?"
Harker startled like he'd just been yanked by invisible strings. Maybe he had. Words tumbled out before he could even process them. "Uh—like… barely a minute. Before you started, y'know… floating and stuff."
Caden blinked. A minute? No fucking way. In there—wherever there was—it stretched forever. Felt like years compressed into an instant. That thing, that godlike shard of… whatever the hell—it had pressed on him, demanded he kneel. He'd fought, screamed, bled in silence for an eternity. And out here? Sixty seconds.
The thought twisted around itself. Wait—how the hell was he even breaking this down? Like past and present were sitting side by side in his head. Like his brain was running twice the tracks at once.
Does telekinesis come with a brain upgrade too?
The orbit tightened, faster now, a stuttering halo of stone and blue distortion. His hands stayed down. He didn't have to move. Just stood there, grinning, while impossible physics spun itself around him.
Even Baines — Baines, who never cracked — let it slip, voice flat but fraying at the edges: "What the hell did you do, Twist?"
"Nothing. I am exactly what I was yesterday, boys. Just… maybe taller? And with some space wizard powers." Caden laughed. Not a shred of nerves. Alive.
The rocks fell all at once. Slammed the deck in unison, a crack so sharp it punched through boots and breastplates. Dust leapt. Helmets flinched.
Caden spread his arms, mock-grandiose.
"Don't worry. Still your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,"
Nobody bought it. Nobody said shit. Not relief. Not laughter. Just silence — tight, fearful silence.
Because it didn't matter what he called himself.
They'd seen him float.
They'd felt the cavern bend.
They'd watched rock orbit a man like he was the goddamn sun.
And every single one of them knew it:
Private Twist wasn't human anymore. He touched the spooky rock and now he's a freak. Stay away from spooky rocks kids.
"So lemme get this straight." Deleon's voice pitched high, like a man trying to build a diagram out of pure panic. "You touch the artifact — which, reminder, everyone knows you don't fucking touch — you pass out. And then, in your dreams? Probably? some alien god shows up? Tells you to kneel? You tell him to fuck off. And instead of frying you into atoms, he's… impressed? Grants you powers to, what, lift rocks?"
"Not exactly… but pretty much, yeah."
"Awesome. Cool. I wish I had alien gods handing out rock-lifting superpowers. Where do I sign up? Is there a list? A raffle? Shit, I'll even fill out the paperwork."
Caden chuckled low, it kinda came of as dark, "Oh, no, no, dear Deleon. It's not just stringing rocks along."
Something in the tone made everyone shift.
Caden slowly walked toward the collapsed tunnel, and miners, marines, all of them stepped aside like their bones knew better than to be in his way. Every visor followed.
He stopped at the wall of mangled steel and stone sealing them in.
Deep breath. Slow. Deliberate.
His fist clenched, arm cocking back — not fast, not wild, but like the whole cavern was a crowd holding its breath for the wind-up.
Light crawled veins across his gauntlet, his knuckles humming with something that did not belong in this reality.
Harker's voice cracked through comms, thin and trembling:
"Oh… he's gonna—"
Yes he did. He swung and punched into thin air— really haymaker hard.
BOOOOM.
A thunderclap detonated out of his fist like the tunnel itself had been stuffed with explosives. The shockwave ripped through stone and air — a sonic gut punch that made helmets ring with static and bones rattle. A pressure wave followed half a beat later, hot and heavy, slamming into chests and sending dust screaming into a storm that swallowed the cavern whole.
It felt like being inside a C4 blast. Except multiplied. Amplified. Like someone stacked four charges on top of each other and crammed them all into the throat of the tunnel.
Everyone hit the deck on instinct. Helmets pressed into arms. Rifles clattered against the grating. The world became nothing but ringing and grit.
The haze lingered. Thick. Claustrophobic. Floodlamp beams dissolved into static glow, like they were trying to cut through smoke instead of dust.
When it thinned, helmets lifted one by one. Visors blinked into clarity.
The tunnel mouth wasn't collapsed anymore. It was gone. Open. Jagged steel twisted outward like someone had peeled it apart barehanded. Boulders split and scattered like toys kicked aside by a tantrum god. And beyond the gap — twilight bleeding in through sulfur haze.
The sounds of battle came with it. Gunfire crackling sharp. Shouted orders bouncing off rock. The hollow thump of grenades punching echoes across the valley. Raiders. The fight outside hadn't ended.
Closer, right at the breach, one of them hadn't made it.
A raider was crumpled under a slab of stone the size of a cargo pod. Body crushed flat, blood streaking in long bright ribbons across black basalt. His rifle jutted out at a sick angle. Fingers twitched once before going slack.
Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.
Caden lowered his fist. Smoke curled lazy from his gauntlet. His breathing didn't even hitch.
He turned back to them. Grin splitting wide under the helmet.
"...Told you. Way cooler than lifting rocks."
A boulder filled the vision - Car-sized, glowing blue veins crawling across its skin like lightning trapped under stone. It zoomed through the air, dust peeling off its surface in ribbons, before Caden hurled it down like Zeus had gotten drunk and mean.
CRUNCH.
The rock pancaked three raiders at once — armor squealed, bones snapped like chicken wings. One man's helmet popped clean off, blood spraying the deck in a red arc before the rock rolled over him. Screams cut short, smothered under half a ton of stone.
"Oops," Caden said brightly over comms, laughter bubbling behind it. "MY BAD, BOYS. DID THAT HURT? BE HONEST, SCALE OF ONE TO 'HOLY FUCK MY SPINE IS PASTE.'"
Gunfire answered. Ridge lit up, rifles roaring in panic. Caden didn't duck. He pivoted, hand out, palm glowing.
"Alright, fine. You shoot, I throw."
A ball of raw pressure swelled in his palm, sucking dust and air inward until it glowed white-blue. He lobbed it lazy, underhand, like tossing a beer can. The orb screamed forward, slammed into a raider's chest — BOOM — armor crumpled, ribs shattered like glass. The body flew twenty feet back, splattering against a support strut, sliding down in a red smear. Rasengan bitch.
"God damn," Caden muttered, snorting laughter. "Guess he just… couldn't handle the pressure."
"WHAT THE FUCK IS HE!" someone screamed, voice breaking, firing wildly.
Another raider broke cover, charging with a blade. Bad move. Caden's hand twitched, invisible threads yanking the man up mid-scream. He spun helplessly, orbiting Caden like a ragdoll moon, arms flailing, blade flashing uselessly.
"Look at this, guys — my very own satellite!" Caden shouted, laughing loud, voice cutting through the gunfire. "Man's really orbiting me right now."
He gave a casual flick. The raider shrieked as his body sailed across the battlefield, tumbling end over end until it hit the lava river in the distance with a wet hiss.
The scream lasted two seconds before it warped into a boiling gargle. Flesh blistered, armor plates sagged and split. The man thrashed, clawing at molten rock as his skin sloughed off in chunks. His helmet floated for half a heartbeat before filling and vanishing beneath the surface.
Caden saluted with two fingers. "And there he goes. First batarian marshmallow roast. S'mores, anyone?"
"SHOOT HIM! FUCKING SHOOT HIM!"
And they did. A dozen rifles opened up at once, slugs sparking and whining across the dust. Caden didn't flinch. He turned, raised his hand, and a curved wall of shimmering force snapped into existence.
Bullets sparked, flattened, ricocheted off the barrier. Sparks rained down, smoke curling around the edges.
"Cute. Real cute." His grin widened. "YOU BOYS EVER HEAR OF PERSONAL SPACE?"
Another squad flanked, firing from behind. Caden didn't turn. He just swept his other hand, and the barrier folded in, bending around him until he was sealed in a glowing dome. The bullets hammered from every direction now, ringing against it like hail on glass. The raiders' screams were drowned by the roar of gunfire, desperate, panicked.
Inside, Caden just stood there. Arms crossed. Laughing.
"Yep. Keep it coming. I'LL WAIT. Maybe you'll run out of bullets before I run….-"
The dome hummed louder, vibrating under the weight of incoming fire. Caden spread his arms slow, dragging the energy tight around himself, compressing it until the glow burned white-hot. His teeth bared in a grin, voice loud: "-OUT OF PATIENCE."
He slammed his fists outward.
WHOOOOM.
The barrier exploded. Shockwave ripped out in a 360-degree blast, a wall of pure force. Raiders screamed as they were flung like dolls, bodies hitting steel, hitting rock, breaking against both. Crates shattered into splinters. Weapons cartwheeled into the air. A man's leg bent the wrong way as he hit a strut, bone punching through armor. Another slammed into a lava pool's edge, screaming as molten spray cooked him alive where he landed.
The dust cloud rose high, choking, filling the air with grit, smoke, and the copper sting of blood.
And through it — Caden's laughter. Louder than the gunfire, louder than the screams.
"WOOOO! Fuck, this is fun!"
Raiders scrambled, panicked.
"HE'S A MONSTER!"
"RUN! RETREAT!"
Caden stood in the haze, glowing, calm, like gravity itself had picked a side.
The holo-feed froze mid-chaos.
One frame, locked in light: a dust cloud boiling across the plain. Raiders suspended midair like broken puppets. Rifles tumbling end over end. A boulder hanging against gravity's will, glowing veins crawling under its skin. And dead center — Caden Twist. Grinning. Eyes alive with something that burned too bright.
Silence drowned the command chamber. Only the hum of the projector and the low, tired breath of ventilation.
Commander Halvorsen stood at the head of the table, hands clasped behind his back, spine ramrod straight. His gaze didn't move from the feed.
When the silence cracked, it came from Lieutenant Marquez. Green, nervous, too young to be in this room. His voice quavered before the words even left.
"…That's psionics," he whispered. "It has to be. Like the aliens on Shanxi."
Captain Drake let out a sharp exhale — almost a laugh, except nothing about him looked amused. His uniform was creased, his hair salt-and-pepper, the kind of man who'd traded polish for scars. He didn't take his eyes off the screen.
"No. That's not what this is." His voice was flat and hard. "I was on Shanxi. I saw Turians throw men with their minds. Tear squads apart. That was biotics."
He jabbed a finger at the frozen image, his tone rising.
"But this—" he shook his head slowly, incredulous, "—this isn't that. They couldn't do this." He jabbed again at the paused image of debris scattered like a bomb went off.
The silence that followed was thick enough to chew.
Halvorsen finally spoke, words clipped, precise, like he was dissecting the air. "Private Twist has no biotic implant. There are no human biotics. Not yet. What you are watching…" his eyes narrowed, "…is impossible."
No one wanted to touch that.
Lieutenant Commander Velez leaned forward, fingers interlaced, his calm carrying the sharp edge of pragmatism. "Impossible doesn't change the fact it happened," he said evenly. "This is psionic activity. Offensive. Defensive. Controlled. More force than we've ever documented." His gaze cut toward the two marines at the far end. "Sergeant Kellan. Corporal Baines. You were there. Speak."
All eyes shifted.
Sergeant Kellan sat stiff, helmet resting on the desk, armor scorched and dust-streaked. His eyes looked older than yesterday. His throat cleared rough before he spoke. "Sir… he didn't fight like 'us'. Didn't think like 'us'." Kellan's voice dragged like gravel. "He laughed through it. While raiders were dying, he laughed like nothing could touch him."
The words landed heavy.
Corporal Baines broke the pause. Normally he was stone, the kind of man who spoke in nods and one-word acknowledgments. Now his hands were white-knuckled against the table. His voice came low, clipped. His eyes staring into nothingness.
"It wasn't the power that froze us."
The table turned.
"It was his eyes."
Stillness wrapped the room.
"You look at him," Baines said, sharper now, "and instinct tells you—don't give him an order. Don't even try." His breath dragged, shoulders rigid. "He wasn't ours anymore."
Silence. Nobody breathed.
"And the artifact? Others tried touching it. Nothing happened."
Halvorsen moved for the first time. He tapped his datapad. The quiet beeps felt deafening. "Research confirms," he said. "The artifact is inert now. Dead. Whatever was in it… is in him."
The weight of that settled. Even Velez blinked. Drake muttered a curse.
But Baines wasn't done. His words spilled raw, like a cork had blown.
"In that tunnel, he told us what happened. Said an alien god demanded he kneel. That was the word. Kneel."
His throat bobbed. His eyes didn't leave the table.
"And Twist…" His voice cracked. "…Twist said he told it to fuck off. Said he made it kneel instead."
The room froze solid.
Drake turned from the screen, disbelief hard on his face. Nguyen sat like a statue. Velez's jaw tightened.
Baines pressed on, trembling openly now.
"I looked him in the eye when he said it. And I believed him. God help me, I believed him. My body knew. Instinct. I couldn't order him. Couldn't even think about it. Like he wasn't my subordinate anymore. Like He wasn't one of 'us.'"
His voice broke thin.
"Maybe… whatever that god was… is him now."
The words hung like a blade over the room.
Marquez swallowed hard, pale, lips working but silent. Nguyen's knuckles clamped white around the table. Drake's jaw locked grim.
Velez exhaled slow, leaning back. Calm voice, eyes uneasy.
"Whether it's him or something inside him… doesn't change the fact. He's the first human biotic. Stronger than anything on Shanxi. Stronger than anything we've seen."
Halvorsen snapped the datapad shut. His voice came final, cold, absolute. "Then we classify him for what he is. Not a soldier. Not a hero. An anomaly. Flag him. Arcturus Command will have this report within the hour."
He thumbed the holo controls. The frozen image — Caden Twist, grinning in the storm, dust glowing blue around him — vanished to black.
The Commander's office was colder than the rest of the station. Or maybe it just felt that way.
Caden stepped through the door with a grin he couldn't quite hide, boots clicking too sharp on the decking. His helmet was tucked under his arm like a trophy, his shoulders squared, chest puffed as if he was already wearing medals that hadn't been pinned yet.
Behind the desk sat Commander Halvorsen. Tall, wiry, uniform precise to the fold — but his eyes… his eyes wouldn't settle. They flicked to datapads, to the wall screen, to the blank stretch of desk, anywhere but directly at Caden.
"Private Twist." His voice carried authority, but there was a hitch under it. A pause that didn't belong.
"Sir." Caden snapped to attention, crisp enough to sell the moment. He was trying not to smirk.
Halvorsen cleared his throat, adjusted a datapad he didn't need to touch. "Your… performance, during the raid, has been reviewed."
Caden's heart kicked faster. Here it comes.
The Commander's fingers drummed once on the desk. "You displayed… anomalous capability. Capabilities not previously documented in human forces." He swallowed, the motion stiff. "You are, by every measure, the first confirmed human biotic."
Caden bit back a laugh — not at the words, but at how good they sounded. First. Confirmed. Human. Biotic. That was history talking. That was destiny.
Halvorsen's gaze flicked up, just for a second, meeting Caden's eyes — and then dropping away almost instantly, as if burned. He adjusted the datapad again, voice thinner now.
"Because of this, you will be… reassigned. Effective immediately. You'll be escorted to Arcturus Station. There, higher command will… evaluate your role. As a valuable asset to the Alliance."
The word "asset" landed heavier than the rest, metallic and cold.
Caden, though, only heard the shine of it. His grin widened, and he leaned forward half a step.
"So that's it, huh? Promotion time. Straight to the top."
Halvorsen's lips tightened, just shy of a wince. "…You'll be transferred under guard," he corrected, his voice clipped. "For your protection. And the protection of others."
There it was — the slip. The awkward pause. The unease he couldn't mask.
Caden's grin faltered just a fraction. Just enough to notice.
"…Under guard?"
His eyes dropped. The datapad lay half-turned on the desk, reports still glowing. He caught the words instantly.
Biotic anomaly. Further review. Personality shift. Possibly dangerous.
The letters burned into him like a brand.
His brain went into overdrive, sparking faster than he could keep up, thoughts slamming into each other like shrapnel ricocheting in his skull.
Anomaly. Not hero. Not prodigy. Anomaly.
Further review. That's not promotion paperwork. That's lab-coat wording. That's cage wording.
Possibly dangerous. Dangerous to who? To them? To everyone? Or just inconvenient to command?
Other thoughts spilled in, memories crowding.
A few hours ago — the way the squad looked at me. Harker's whisper, like he couldn't believe his own eyes. Deleon's jokes, a little too nervous around the edges. Even Baines — Mr. Stone-Face — wouldn't look at me. I thought it was awe. Respect. Shit, I thought it was a compliment when one of the miners muttered 'freak.' Freak. Felt good at the time. Like I'd finally scared them into giving me space.
But now again… Kellan. The Sergeant couldn't even say my name right. Stumbled over it like it burned his tongue. Eyes twitching. Shoulders tight. Like he didn't want to be in the same room as me. I thought he was tired. Just tired. But no. No, that wasn't it.
The thoughts hammered faster, harder.
Am I overthinking? Maybe it is a promotion. Maybe Arcturus is the big stage, the medal ceremony, the interviews, the destiny moment. Maybe they're just bad at saying it, awkward because they don't know how to handle history when it walks into their office. First human biotic. First human goddamn psionic. That's gotta be glory, right?
Another glance at the datapad. The words seared hotter.
Biotic anomaly. Personality shift. Possibly dangerous.
His jaw clenched.
But under guard? No. That's not glory. That's not ceremony. That's escort. That's leash.
The storm twisted, tangled, burning through him.
So what is it? Promotion? Cage? Medal? Chains? Which one's real? Which one are they actually giving me?
His fists curled tight.
Am I willing to take that chance?
Every nerve screamed the answer.
Fuck no.
Caden's head snapped up, eyes burning straight through Halvorsen. His grin was gone now, voice sharp, cracked with fury.
"So you wanna 'further review' me, huh?"
Halvorsen stiffened in his chair. "Private, you need to calm down—"
Caden barked a laugh, high and ragged. "Personality shift? Possibly dangerous? That's what I am to you now? I flatten half a pirate raid, save your colony, and your report says cage the freak?"
The air in the room shifted.
Papers stirred, lifting off the desk in little spirals. The overhead lights flickered once, twice. The projector screen buzzed like something was draining power straight out of the walls.
Halvorsen shoved back in his chair, voice breaking sharp. "Calm down, Private Twist! That's an order!"
The pressure only rose. Caden's teeth bared in a laugh that wasn't a laugh at all, just raw energy spilling out.
"Oh, you don't want calm, Commander." His voice was a growl. "You want control."
The table creaked under invisible strain.
Then the door hissed open with a warning beep. The station had detected the spike. Marines burst in, rifles raised, armor still dust-streaked from the raid.
"FREEZE! HANDS IN THE AIR!"
Caden turned toward them, slow. Saw the muzzles pointed at his chest. Saw the fear twitching in their grips. Saw himself reflected in their visors — not a comrade, not a savior, just a target.
And something in him broke.
The laugh ripped free, wild, furious.
"Oh, fuck this."
The room detonated.
Desks tore free and slammed into walls. Glass exploded into glittering shrapnel. The nearest marine screamed as he was lifted clean off his feet and hurled into the bulkhead with a crunch that silenced him mid-cry. Rifles bent in midair, barrels curling like soft wire. The pressure howled through the chamber, shoving every man against the walls like dolls.
And in the center, Caden Twist stood furious — yet grinning.