Arlan's POV
Dawn broke over the Celestial Ascent Academy not with serenity, but with a rising tide of fervor. From his vantage in the ruined observatory, Arlan watched as the campus came alive. Banners snapped in the wind. Floodlights powered down as the sun took over. Streams of students, faculty, and invited dignitaries flowed like brightly colored rivers towards the colossal central coliseum, the Heart of the Academy.
The air itself vibrated with anticipation and concentrated mana. The Grand Melee was more than a competition; it was a ritual, a massive drawing of power and ambition that energized the very ley lines the Academy was built upon. Today, that ritual would be poisoned.
Arlan was already moving. Dressed in his weathered maintenance uniform, his features subtly altered by a minor, sustained illusion woven from Umbral shadows—just enough to make eyes slide away, to make him forgettable—he descended from the bluffs using little-known paths. He carried a toolbox that did not contain tools.
His first target was not the coliseum, but the Citadel.
The Academy's central administrative and detention fortress rose like a silver needle, gleaming in the morning light. It was the symbol of order. Today, it would become a target.
Security was visibly heightened, but it was the wrong kind. Squads of guards in Academy colors patrolled the open plazas, their attention focused outward, on the crowds. The subtle, deeper security—the sensor grids, the anti-teleportation wards, the hidden null-fields—were all still active, but Arlan had Enya's careful notes on their blind spots and shift-change rhythms.
He used them now. He moved not with stealth, but with the bored confidence of a low-level worker. He nodded to a guard at a service entrance, flashing a stolen, reprogrammed ID chip. The guard, his mind already on the spectacle about to start, waved him through with a grunt.
Inside, the Citadel was eerily quiet. Most personnel were either at the Melee or on perimeter duty. Arlan took a service elevator down, deep into the sub-levels. The air grew colder. The walls changed from polished marble to reinforced grey synth-stone.
Containment Block C. Where they held magic-capable detainees.
The hallway leading to the block's security station was empty. The station itself was manned by two junior guards, watching a live feed of the Melee's opening ceremonies on a small screen.
"—and let the first event, the Aetherial Gauntlet, BEGIN!" the commentator's voice boomed.
On the feed, hundreds of students surged into a vast, magical obstacle course of shifting platforms, elemental hazards, and illusionary monsters. Arlan saw Borin Emberheart leading a wedge of flame, saw other familiar faces. The games had started.
Perfect.
He approached the security station. One guard looked up. "Authorized personnel only, maint—"
Arlan's hand shot out. Not with a spell, but with speed enhanced by spatial energy. A focused Chilling Touch to the first guard's neck, dropping him instantly into hypothermic unconsciousness. The second guard fumbled for his sidearm.
Arlan Blinked—a mere half-step—appearing inside the station. His bone knife, held reverse-grip, came up and tapped the guard's temple with precise force. Not a killing blow. A neural shock-point strike, another brutal lesson from the dark. The second guard collapsed.
He dragged them both into a supply closet. He then turned to the security console. Dorian, in better days, had shown him the backdoor protocols to these older systems, boasting about their flaws. Arlan's fingers flew over the keys, inputting a sequence of override codes Dorian had once jokingly called "the skeleton key."
The console beeped. A schematic of Containment Block C appeared. Two cells were highlighted: C-7 and C-9. Occupied.
He unlocked the inner blast door. It slid open with a hiss of pressurized air.
The block was a line of identical, featureless metal doors. He walked to C-7. The viewport slid aside at his command.
Inside, Mira sat on the floor, her usual calm replaced by a weary defiance. She looked up, her ice-blue eyes widening in shock.
Arlan pulled down the shadow-illusion hiding his face.
"Mira. Time to go."
Her breath hitched. For a moment, she just stared, as if seeing a ghost. Then a small, fierce smile touched her lips. "Took you long enough."
He opened the door. She stood, a little stiff, but unharmed. "Fen is next door. They have null-collars on us. Dampeners in the cells."
"Not a problem." Arlan walked to C-9. Fen was sitting cross-legged, meditating. He opened his eyes as the viewport opened. His psychic senses, even dampened, must have felt him coming. Fen's normally placid face showed a flicker of profound relief.
Arlan opened the door. He examined the null-collar around Fen's neck. It was a complex device, but its principle was simple: disruption. His own core, with its negating-energy veins, gave him an idea.
"This will feel… strange," he warned Fen.
He placed two fingers on the collar, ignoring the disorienting null-field buzz. He focused, not on breaking the device, but on introducing a tiny, precise pulse of Absolute Negation—the barest whisper bleed from the Fragment.
The collar didn't break. It simply… stopped. The humming died. The light on its side went dark. It became an inert piece of metal. He repeated the process on Mira's collar.
The effect on them was immediate. Mira gasped as her connection to mana and the glacial depths of her magic flooded back. Fen's eyes glazed over silver for a second as his psychic awareness expanded violently back to full range.
"We need to move," Arlan said. "The Melee is underway. That's their cover."
"Their what?" Mira asked, forming a small, sharp shard of ice in her palm, relishing the feeling.
"The Accord. They're using the concentrated energy of the Melee to unseal something underneath the coliseum. Vance is with them."
Fen's face paled. "The… the pressure. The psychic pressure from the arena… it's not just excitement."
"We're going to feed them a surprise," Arlan said, his voice grim. "But first, we get to the armory. You'll need gear."
He led them back out the way he came, now a small, determined lance of three. As they passed the security station, Fen paused, looking at the Melee feed.
"Arlan," Fen said, his voice tense. "Selene and Kaelen. They're here. On the eastern edge of the grounds. They're… searching. For you."
Arlan stopped. Selene was here? A mix of fierce protectiveness and cold strategy warred within him. She was in danger. She was also a powerful, unpredictable asset.
"Change of plan," he said, his mind recalibrating instantly. "Mira, Fen—head to the secondary armory in the Aerie Spire. The codes are the same. Gear up. Then make your way to the eastern ruins. Hold position. If you see Selene and Kaelen, bring them in. I have another stop to make."
"Where?" Mira asked.
Arlan looked towards the heart of the academy, towards the roaring coliseum. "To give the people what they want. A spectacle."
He turned and melted into a side corridor, leaving his two freed friends to their mission.
He had a distraction to execute, and a debt to a wind-duelist to fulfill. The first move in the real Melee was about to be played.
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