Zane was put in the infirmary and left to rest with Elias. Kaelen had informed the other leaders of the incident and scheduled a meeting to prepare for what's to come.
The air in the council chamber was frigid, the weight of the previous hour's violence hanging over the round stone table. Liam, a man with sharp, avian features and eyes that seemed to constantly scan for structural weaknesses, leaned forward. As the head of the Sentinels—the faction responsible for the Sanctuary's external perimeter—the breach was a personal insult to his competence.
"How could this happen under your watch, Kaelen?" He said, his voice tight with a mixture of fear and accusation. "We were told this mountain was a ghost. We were told our signatures were masked. And yet, a Specter—a high-level Facility hit-unit—walks into our heart and nearly executes a Prime Conduit?"
Kaelen stood at the head of the table, his silhouette cast long and jagged by the flickering torchlight. He didn't look at Liam; his gaze was fixed on a tactical map of the mountain range.
"It didn't 'walk' in, Liam," Kaelen said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "A Specter doesn't use doors. It utilizes spatial phasing and kinetic transparency. It wasn't looking for a breach in your perimeter; it was looking for a specific energetic frequency. It found Elias."
Pierce, still reeling from his political defeat but sensing a new opening, scoffed. "And it found Zane. This 'Protector' you've championed was the one the creature was toying with. If it weren't for your intervention, we'd be cleaning Zane's remains off the infirmary walls."
"He held it off for nearly ten minutes, Pierce," Salena countered sharply, her eyes flashing. "A Subject Zero unit held off a Specter in a closed room while protecting two targets. No one else in this room could have done that. Not even Xavier."
"Enough," Kaelen commanded, slamming his hand onto the stone table. The impact sent a dull thud through the floor. "The political squabbling ends tonight. The Specter was a scout. Its termination signal will have already reached the Facility's nearest relay. They know where we are. They know we have the Prime. And they know we have a functional Chimera unit."
He looked around the room, his eyes glowing with that faint, golden kinetic residue. "We are no longer a Sanctuary. We are a target. We have no clue what comes after this."
"If they have our location," Liam said, his voice dropping to a strained whisper, "we have maybe forty-eight hours before a retrieval team arrives. We can't move three hundred people through the mountain passes in mid-winter. We'll be picked off before we reach the tree line."
"We aren't moving," Kaelen stated, his voice devoid of doubt. "We are going dark. Every energetic signature, every non-essential power use, every unmasked frequency stops now. If we can't be a ghost, we will become the mountain itself."
Kaelen turned to Liam. "Double the Sentinels. I want seismic sensors every ten meters along the primary arteries. If so much as a pebble shifts without a permit, I want to know about it. And Liam—use the dampeners. I don't care if it makes everyone sluggish; I want this mountain's psychic and kinetic footprint reduced to zero."
Liam nodded, already mentally recalculating his patrol rotations. "What about the 'Specific Frequency' issue? If they found Elias once, they'll find her again."
"That's where the Stabilizing Medium comes in," Kaelen said, glancing at Salena. "Lyra's Hydrokinesis can act as a natural shroud. When she's in sync with a target, she can mask their biological and energetic output. She'll be tethered to Elias around the clock."
Pierce stood up, his eyes narrow. "And what of the boy? Zane is a lighthouse of crimson energy every time he breathes too hard. You're talking about going dark while keeping a Subject Zero unit in the heart of our base. He's not a shield, Kaelen; he's a beacon."
"Zane is the only reason we still have a Prime Conduit to protect," Kaelen countered, stepping toward Pierce until he was well within the man's personal space. The air between them crackled with suppressed kinetic tension. "He didn't just fight that Specter; he adapted to it. He learned how to condense his signature in the middle of a death match."
Kaelen looked back at the map, his tone shifting to one of grim necessity. "Tomorrow, his training isn't about control anymore. It's about erasure. He needs to learn how to exist without being sensed. If he can't master the Bio-Channeling to hide his own blood-flow, then you're right, Pierce—he'll kill us all just by being here."
"We are officially in a state of Siege," Kaelen announced, his voice echoing through the chamber. "Salena, begin the rationing protocols. Liam, seal the sub-levels. Pierce... you want to be useful? Take your Kinetic Faction and reinforce the structural integrity of the infirmary and the nursery. If the mountain starts coming down, I want those rooms to be the last things standing."
Pierce looked as though he wanted to argue, but the sheer weight of the situation—and the threat of the Facility—finally forced a stiff nod.
"Meeting adjourned," Kaelen said. "May the mountain keep its secrets."
As the leaders filed out, their faces grim and determined, Salena lingered behind. She watched Kaelen, noting the way his hands gripped the edge of the stone table until his knuckles turned white.
"You're asking a lot of him, Kaelen," she said softly. "Zane is barely holding together. To ask him to master erasure in three days while he's still healing from bruises and broken ribs..."
"I'm not asking him to be a student anymore, Salena," Kaelen replied, finally looking up. His eyes were no longer glowing; they were merely tired. "I'm asking him to be a ghost. Because if he isn't, the Facility won't just take him back. They'll burn this mountain to ash to make sure no one else can have him."
Salena looked at Kaelen. "And what of the girl? Elias? You know dr. Alden pretty much has a bounty on her. And you know he'll stop at nothing to make sure his plan is complete, and she's the key component for that plan."
Kaelen's gaze remained fixed on the empty seats of the council chamber, the silence growing heavy around them. At the mention of Dr. Alden, a muscle in his jaw twitched—the only outward sign of the storm brewing beneath his stoic exterior.
"Alden doesn't see a girl, Salena," Kaelen said, his voice dropping to a whisper that carried more weight than his earlier shout.
"He sees a Universal Key. He spent decades trying to bridge the gap between kinetic, psionic, and biological manipulation. Elias isn't just a powerful subject; she's the Harmonic Center. If he gets her back into a resonance chamber, he won't just 'use' her power. He'll use her to slough off the limitations of the human form for every soldier he has."
He finally looked at Salena, his eyes dark with the memory of the Facility's labs. "He wants an army of ghosts like that Specter, but with the raw, destructive output of a Subject Zero. If Elias is the catalyst, he gets exactly that. She isn't just a prize to him—she's the final piece of his god-complex."
Salena crossed her arms, a shiver running through her that had nothing to do with the mountain's chill. "Then we can't just hide. We have to be ready to burn the bridge behind us."
"We are," Kaelen said, his voice hardening. "Go. Check on the rations. I'm going to the infirmary. I need to see if our 'Beacon' is awake."