Consciousness returned in flickers. The sterile white ceiling of the med-bay. The beep of a heart monitor. The dull, ever-present throb in his head, now a permanent resident. He tried to sit up, and the world tilted violently.
"Easy, rookie." Kaelen's voice was uncharacteristically soft. She was sitting in a chair beside his bed, cleaning her rifle with a methodical focus that seemed to ground her. "You've been out for a day. Gave us a scare."
Leo's throat was raw. "The Mimics?"
"Gone. Vaporized. Along with half the psychic residue in that whole sector." She stopped her work and looked at him, her gaze direct and serious. "What was that, O'Connor? That wasn't the 'scalpel' the Captain talks about. That was a psychic nuke."
Before he could form an answer, the door hissed open. Captain Valerius entered, his data-slate already in hand. Kaelen immediately stood, her posture snapping back to rigid formality.
"Status?" Valerius asked, his eyes on Leo, not her.
"Stable, sir," Leo croaked. "The cost was… high."
"Indeed. The energy signature was off the scale." Valerius swiped at his slate. "You utilized the Hundredfold Application on a non-existent skill, forcing its creation and execution simultaneously. The strain would have killed any other Aptitude user." He said it not with concern, but with the tone of a geologist noting an interesting mineral sample. "You've expanded our understanding of your limits."
"My limits?" Leo pushed himself up, ignoring the spinning in his head. "Captain, it felt like my mind was tearing in half. I can't do that again."
"You can," Valerius corrected him calmly. "And you will, if the situation demands it. The data is clear. Your defensive 'monotony' protocol is effective, but your offensive potential, when pushed, is unprecedented." He finally glanced at Kaelen. "Dismissed, Sergeant. I need to speak with O'Connor alone."
Kaelen gave a curt nod, shooting one last, unreadable look at Leo before leaving. The door sealed, and the room felt smaller.
Valerius pulled up a holographic display from his slate. It showed a map of the city, with several locations pulsing with red light. "The incident in Gamma-9 was not isolated. We've detected similar bait-and-ambush patterns in two other sectors. The Gloaming is adapting its tactics, specifically targeting Sweeper teams. It's learning."
He zoomed in on the data from Leo's psychic blast. "But your response has given us a new variable. That dispersion wave didn't just destroy the Mimics; it created a temporary 'dead zone' in the Gloaming. A clean patch of reality. No residual echoes, no latent fear. It was… sanitized."
A cold knot tightened in Leo's stomach. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying your value has just been re-evaluated again, O'Connor. You are not just a scout, or a bait, or a key." Valerius's eyes held a terrifying, fervent light. "You are a potential cure. A reset button. Imagine being able to not just push back the Gloaming, but to erase it from a location. Permanently."
Leo stared, horrified. The Captain was no longer just looking at him as a weapon. He was looking at him as a WMD. "That blast nearly killed me. To do it on a larger scale…"
"Will require refinement. Control." Valerius leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Think beyond clearing a single building. Think of reclaiming an entire sector. Pushing back the Weeping Lands. Giving humanity real ground, not just fortified enclaves. This is bigger than your discomfort, Leo. This is about the future of our species."
The weight of the words was crushing. Valerius was offering him a purpose so grand, so monumental, that his own suffering became a trivial footnote. It was a seductive, terrifying logic.
"But the cost—"
"—is a price we must be willing to pay," Valerius finished, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Your training is being accelerated. We will find a way to mitigate the backlash, to build your tolerance. But we will harness this."
He stood to leave, pausing at the door. "Rest. When you are cleared, report to Lab 1. We begin the next phase."
Alone again, Leo sank back into the pillows. The throbbing in his head was a constant reminder of the price. Valerius saw a cure. Kaelen had seen a nuke. Leo just felt like a man standing on a crumbling cliff edge, being told to jump for the greater good.
He closed his eyes, and for the first time, a treacherous thought whispered in the back of his mind. A thought more frightening than any Manifestation.
What if the only way to survive his own power was to escape the man who wanted to wield it?