The air conditioning hummed softly, a sterile contrast to the humid, oil-stained air of the Lagos industrial park outside. The only light came from a flickering sodium-vapor lamp, casting a sickly orange glow on puddles of stagnant water.
His fingers, his own dark-skinned fingers, traced the seams of the black leather gloves he wore. A matching mask, a featureless void, lay on the passenger seat next to a folded photograph. He'd memorized the face. Michael "The Jackal" Okoro. A man who traded in human misery. The police file was a litany of horrors, but one detail had sealed the man's fate: the Polaroid of his last victim, a girl of seventeen, her eyes wide with a terror that had screamed at Joshey from the paper.
This wasn't recruitment. This was disposal.
Headlights cut through the gloom. A beat-up Toyota Corolla, right on time. The car pulled into a spot thirty yards away. The engine died.
Joshey's breathing slowed. He felt no rage, no heated fury. Only a cold, crystalline certainty. This was a necessary correction.
He watched Okoro step out, lighting a cigarette, his face illuminated by the flame. He was laughing into his phone, a coarse, grating sound.
Click.
The sound of the car door was unnaturally loud. Joshey was already moving, a predator closing the distance.
Okoro heard the footsteps. He turned, his laughter dying. "Who are you? What do you want?" he demanded, puffing his chest out.
Joshey didn't answer. Words were for the living.
He saw Okoro's hand dart towards his waistband. Too slow. To Joshey's heightened perception, it was like watching a man move through syrup. His own arm came up, the gun an extension of his will.
Crack.
The gunshot cracked the night. Okoro spun as the slug tore into his shoulder. He screamed, staggering against his car.
"Please!" he wheezed. "I have money! A lot of money!"
Joshey didn't answer. He moved. One gloved hand clamped down on Okoro's arm, the other bracing his shoulder, and then—he wrenched. There was a snap, a tearing sound. Okoro's scream climbed into something inhuman as his arm came away in a grisly spray.
Okoro collapsed, writhing, staring at the gushing stump. Joshey stood over him, holding the severed limb.
Then the beating began.
The first strike crushed Okoro's jaw. The second smashed his face into the car hood. The third drove him to the ground. Joshey kept swinging until the body was a broken, leaking carcass.
When it was over, Joshey dropped the arm. The night was silent again.
Okoro was a ruin on the ground, his chest heaving. Joshey crouched beside him.
"You think this is suffering?" Joshey said, his voice flat. "The ones you sold… their fate was far worse. Compared to them… you're getting mercy."
He raised the machete. Okoro tried to scream, but it came out a wet gargle. Joshey's arm cut clean and fast. The head rolled.
Joshey let the body twitch, then stilled. The night swallowed the scene whole.
***
Joshey's eyes snapped open.
The pre-dawn grey of Caligurn leaked through the patched roof. He lay stiff on the rough straw mattress, heart jackhammering. The ghost of the gunshot was still in him. The smell of blood and iron clung to his nose.
He lifted his hand—Elias's pale hand—into the half-light. He stared at it, half-expecting it to drip with gore. It was clean. Yet it didn't matter. The blood was there.
The killer of Lagos had crossed into this world with him.
A knock—sharp, measured—broke the silence.
Sylvaine stepped inside. "You look like you've seen a ghost," she said, a cold observation.
"Something like that," Joshey rasped.
"The sun is up, Elias," she said, her tone brisk. "Training waits for no one. Unless… you think shooting holes in huts counts as mastery of pyro-mana."
The name—Elias—hit him like cold water. It pulled him back into this body, this broken world.
Joshey pushed himself upright. "No," he muttered. "I didn't forget."
When he stood, the dream still clung to him. For one blink-long instant, Okoro's shattered face flickered over Sylvaine's sharp features.
"Good," Sylvaine said. "The field behind the hut. Don't make me wait."
She left, her absence leaving the air heavier.
Joshey stood there, staring down at his hands. Pale. Clean. Too clean. Hands that could conjure fire, or crush bone.
The blood was memory. The debt was real. And the training waiting outside… He wasn't sure which terrified him more.
***
The field behind the hut was bathed in the soft, grey light of dawn. Sylvaine stood with her arms crossed, watching as Joshey effortlessly summoned a perfectly controlled sphere of flame.
She let out a long, slow breath. "Stop."
Joshey closed his hand, and the fire winked out.
"There is no point," Sylvaine stated. "Trying to teach you the basics is like teaching a fish to swim." She strode forward. "If you already speak the language, then let's skip the grammar and learn how to write poetry. Or warfare."
She raised her hand. "The main use of Pyro-Manipulation isn't lighting candles. It is controlled annihilation. Let's start with the Firebolt."
A sphere of compact, white-hot flame roared to life above her palm. She thrust her hand forward. It shot across the field and struck a gnarled tree with a deafening CRACK, vaporizing a chunk of the trunk.
"Your turn," she said.
Joshey didn't hesitate. He formed a dense, spinning orb of fury and thrust his palm forward. The firebolt screamed across the field, blasting a similar crater into the wood.
Sylvaine raised an eyebrow. "Adequate. But predictable." She spread her hands wide. A helix of flame coiled around her arm. With a flick of her wrist, she unleashed it. It spiraled through the air like a serpent before striking the tree.
"Now you," she commanded.
Joshey formed a ribbon of fire, willed it to spin, and released it. It corkscrewed through the air and bored straight through a thick branch.
Sylvaine was silent. "You copied me," she murmured. Then her expression grew ambitious. "Alright. Let's see if you can truly engineer with fire. A Fire Tornado."
She brought her hands together, then swept them apart. The air began to churn, spinning faster until it ignited into a miniature tornado of fire.
"Control the vortex!" she shouted. "If it breaks, it will consume this entire field!"
Joshey didn't see a terrifying phenomenon; he saw a system. He stepped forward, harmonizing with it. He tightened the vortex, smoothing the flames into a coherent, terrifyingly beautiful spiral. He held it for ten seconds before willing it to dissipate, leaving a perfect circle of scorched, glassy ground.
The sudden silence was deafening.
Sylvaine stared, her composure shattered. "Who are you?" she whispered. "The Elias I knew struggled to light a candle. That man is gone." She gestured at the scorched earth. "What stands before me is a master."
Her gaze locked with his. "I didn't teach you anything today. I just showed you the door. And you walked through it like you owned the house."