The waiting room wasn't really a room.
It was too big for that—too open, too deliberately calm. A wide circular chamber with curved glass walls that looked out over something that definitely wasn't underground, despite every logical part of Quinn's brain insisting it should be. Beyond the glass, layers of light drifted like slow-moving constellations—data streams, mana currents, spatial constructs stacked on top of one another like a city built out of equations instead of concrete.
Quinn sat on one of the bench-like seats lining the wall, elbows on his knees, fingers laced together so tightly his knuckles had gone pale.
Across from him, Riley leaned back, arms folded, prosthetic fingers tapping a quiet, uneven rhythm against his sleeve. He looked relaxed.
Too relaxed.
Quinn knew better.
They'd been reunited less than ten minutes ago.
No dramatic hugs. No speeches.
Just a long look.
A silent confirmation that they were both still here.
Still breathing.
Still themselves.
For now.
"So," Riley finally said, breaking the silence.
"On the bright side, we're not dead."
Quinn snorted softly. "Yet."
"what happened to the optimistic Quinn" Riley replied
Quinn glanced at him, then away, eyes drifting back to the glass. "What do you think they're going to do with us?"
Riley shrugged. "If they wanted us gone, we wouldn't be sitting in the world's fanciest fishbowl."
As if summoned by the comment, the air shifted.
Footsteps approached—measured, unhurried.
Agent Vale entered the chamber alone.
No guards. No weapons drawn. Just her black coat, the Nexus sigil at her collar, and an expression that had learned how to stay calm in the face of extinction-level events.
She stopped a few meters from them.
"Before you ask," she said, "no, this isn't an interrogation."
Riley raised an eyebrow. "Wow. Character development."
Vale ignored him.
"What you experienced—what you survived—happened during a window of chaos," she continued. "i was told you two don't know much about what's going on in this world "
Quinn stiffened. "umm..yeah we were unconscious and hospitalised for a while...about a month or so."
" But we did witness the explosion " Riley added
"Good" Her gaze sharpened. "A lot can happen in a month when the world breaks."
She gestured, and the glass walls shimmered.
The view changed.
Cities across the globe appeared—
overlapping projections layered in the air.
New York. Tokyo. Lagos. Berlin. São Paulo.
All of them scarred.
Rifts tore open in skies like infected wounds. Creatures poured through—some small and feral, others vast enough to blot out the sun. Streets burned. Oceans boiled. Entire regions went dark as power grids collapsed under mana interference.
"This," Vale said calmly, "was the Wave."
Quinn felt his throat tighten.
"When the first large-scale Rift event occurred, the energy didn't just tear holes between dimensions," she went on. "It flooded our world. Mana—raw, unfiltered, hostile to human biology—saturated the atmosphere."
Riley leaned forward. "And people didn't just… die?"
"Many did we were on the verge extinction..." Vale said without flinching. "But humans are adaptable. Some more than others."
The projection shifted.
Footage of civilians—ordinary people—surrounded by light. Some screamed. Some convulsed. Some collapsed and never got back up.
Others stood.
Fire curled around one man's fists. A woman lifted debris with a gesture. A child screamed, and the ground cracked.
"Those who survived sufficient exposure experienced Awakening," Vale said. "Their bodies altered to accommodate mana. Their neural pathways adapted. Their biology rewrote itself.
Riley blinked."so people don't awaken the same way?"
"No," Vale replied. "Some awaken physically. Some cognitively. Some… anomalously."
Her eyes flicked briefly to Riley's prosthetic arm.
"Because the world didn't wait for us to understand any of this," Vale continued, "we had to act quickly. The Nexus Foundation or atleast what was left of it was… repurposed."
The projection shifted again.
Charts. Classifications. Symbols.
"We established a provisional ranking system for Awakened humans based on observed output, survivability, and threat potential," she said. "It is crude. Incomplete. But necessary."
She raised a hand, and the ranks appeared in sequence.
"F to D-Class: Minor manifestations. Enhanced strength, perception, limited elemental output."
"C and B-Class: Combat-capable Awakened. City-block threat potential. Useful. Replaceable."
Riley winced. "That's comforting."
"A-Class," Vale continued, unfazed. "Strategic assets. Capable of engaging high-tier Rift entities under controlled conditions."
Her hand paused.
"S-Class," she said quietly. "Existential variables. Individuals whose power output, growth rate, or anomalous traits place them beyond reliable prediction."
Quinn's mind flashed to Marco. To golden light. To the way the sky had bent around him.
"And Rift portals?" Quinn asked.
Vale nodded. "Similarly classified. Based on energy density, spatial instability, and projected emergence."
"Lower-tier rifts spawn feral entities," she said. "C-Class and below. B-Class rifts produce organized predators. A-Class produce commanders."
"And S+?" Riley asked.
Vale's jaw tightened—just slightly.
"S+ rifts are extinction events," she said. "We don't 'fight' what comes out of them. We delay. Distract. Sacrifice cities if we have to until the S ranks intervene.
Silence settled heavy in the room.
Quinn stared at the projections, fists clenched. "So where does that leave us?"
Vale turned back to them fully now.
"hmmm... from what we observed during evaluation," she said. "there still holes that need to be filled before assigning you two a rank"
"That's kind of a let down" Riley said sounding disappointed.
She held Quinn's gaze. "Your awakening isn't really a suprise... your internal flow and conversion of mana on the other hand is a suprise...but well need to see how far you can push your limits"
Then she looked at Riley. "And you resisted mana without awakening at all—yet demonstrated a localized time-stasis response through cybernetic integration."
Riley frowned. "You make that sound bad."
"It's worse than bad," Vale said. "It's unprecedented."
She took a step closer.
"The world is changing faster than we can catalog," she said. "Awakened humans are appearing daily. Some want to protect what's left. Others want to rule what's broken."
Her voice lowered.
"And some… want to burn it all down."
Quinn felt it then.
That quiet pull in his chest.
The hunger.
"We can't afford uncontrolled variables," Vale said. "So we offer an alternative."
She stopped in front of them.
"Training. Containment. Direction," she said. "Here. In this facility."
Riley let out a slow breath. "And if we say no?"
Vale met his eyes evenly. "Then we do everything in our power to make sure you never become a threat."
Quinn didn't answer right away.
He looked at Riley.
Riley looked back.
No words passed between them—but everything else did.
The fear.
The anger.
The memory of collapsing streets, screaming skies, and monsters that shouldn't exist.
And beneath it all—
Resolve.
Riley's jaw set.
Quinn nodded once.
They turned back to Vale together.
"We'll train," Quinn said.
Vale studied them for a long moment.
Then, for the first time—
She smiled.
"Good," she said. "Welcome to the front line."
And somewhere deep inside both of them, something stirred—not fear this time, but purpose.
The world had changed.
And they are ready to change with it.