From the observation room, Eden leaned forward, eyes wide. The scanners beside her spiked sharply, readings jumping off the chart. Xander, standing beside her, exhaled low under his breath.
"Well," he muttered, "that's one way to light up a resonance meter."
Eden didn't answer. Her eyes were fixed on the two men in the pod. Lucien's aura was beginning to show, faintly at first, a soft, smoky blue that pulsed like embers, and Kenneth's, that pale crimson shimmer, was responding in kind. The colors bled together briefly before stabilizing, neither overtaking the other. Their eyes glowed a frosty blue colour.
Inside, Kenneth blinked against the strange warmth building in his chest. He felt exposed, seen in a way that made him both uneasy and oddly grounded. Lucien's thumb brushed the back of his hand, unintentional, but it sent another pulse through him.
Eden's voice came through again, softer this time. "Good. Keep your hands connected. Let your energy settle. Don't fight the resonance, let it happen."
Kenneth swallowed hard. Let it happen.
He wasn't sure he could. But as the energy between them evened out into a steady hum, the heat that once burned through him began to feel… bearable.
Almost comforting.
"alright…cadet. You can start anchoring now," Eden ordered.
And so he did. Slowly at first.
Kenneth closed his eyes, taking in a slow, steady breath before reaching inward, into that strange space where energy took form and instinct guided him.
And then he saw it.A pit.
Not just any pit, but a vast, yawning canyon that stretched endlessly in every direction. The walls shimmered faintly with red light, jagged and scarred as if carved by years of battle. The air was heavy, vibrating with restrained force. His breath caught in his throat.
No wonder no one's been able to anchor him, he thought. It's too deep… too broken.
But as he peered closer, he noticed something else. Grains of gold, tiny motes of his own energy, had begun to swirl around the edges of that pit, drifting slowly downward like glowing sand in a fractured hourglass. The deeper they went, the brighter the canyon seemed to glow.
Kenneth's pulse quickened. He focused, guiding that stream of energy carefully, filling the cracks and rifts in the pit wall with the golden light.
Outside, Eden's monitor started to hum, lines of data surging across the screen. Her eyes widened. "He's doing it….fucking shit, he's doing it," she whispered.
Xander said nothing but gave her a grunt of disapproval for her use of foul language. Eden straightened herself, throwing him an apologetic smile.
Lucien, meanwhile, had gone rigid at first. He'd braced himself for the usual discomfort—the splitting headache, the nauseating drain that came every time an anchor tried and failed to stabilize him. But instead…
A soft warmth bloomed at the back of his skull. It trickled down his spine, light and electric, until it spread through his entire body. His fingers twitched against Kenneth's hand, and his composure cracked just slightly.
It felt good. Too good.
Without realizing it, Lucien leaned forward, his breathing slow and uneven. The gap between them shrank, and his grip around Kenneth's hand tightened.Kenneth gasped softly but didn't break focus. The golden current continued to flow, smooth and steady, wrapping itself around Lucien's wild energy like a thread weaving through fire. For the first time, Lucien's chaotic aura began to calm. The red glow dimmed into something steadier, more controlled, like a storm settling after years of unrest.
From the observation room, Eden stood frozen. "No fucking—I mean, no way…" she breathed.
But there it was, Lucien Saint-James, the unanchorable Striker, finally resonating.
Lucien had been anchored before, more times than he cared to count, but never like this.
At first, it was just a whisper of warmth brushing over his mind, a light, curious touch that barely grazed the edges of his consciousness. He'd expected it to fade, the same way every other connection had; dull, fleeting, lifeless. But instead, that touch deepened. It pressed gently against him, then wrapped around him like soft hands tracing the contours of his soul.
It wasn't invasive. It wasn't forceful. It was… tender.
A faint shudder escaped him. It felt like being cradled, like a child who'd gone too long without comfort finally feeling the warmth of an embrace they didn't know they'd been starving for. Or a man wandering through a desert suddenly finding cool, clean water and realizing, too late, just how unbearably thirsty he'd been all along.
That realization broke something in him.
He wanted more.
The ache that had lived inside him for years, tight, coiled, half-feral, snapped its restraint. His energy surged forward, pushing against Kenneth's, pulling greedily at it, drawing more of that golden warmth into himself. The need was dizzying. Like Icarus laughing as he fell, knowing to fall meant he had once soared, Lucien felt the same. He didn't even realize his body was moving until he was leaning in, until the faint space between them disappeared and his chest pressed flush against Kenneth's.
Kenneth's eyes flew open, his entire body stiff. Every rational part of him screamed to pull back, to shove the other man off, but the longer Lucien stayed against him, the harder it became to think. His pulse thundered in his ears. The sensation of Lucien's energy consuming his own was both draining and intoxicating, and before he knew it, he was letting it happen, letting himself be taken.
Just as Lucien's arm twitched, ready to wrap around him, Eden's voice cut sharply through the haze.
"Alright, that's enough."
The words snapped whatever thread was holding them together. The connection shattered like glass under pressure, and Kenneth stumbled back as if thrown by the force of it. His chest heaved, lungs burning, his heart pounding so hard it hurt—but the storm that had raged inside him for days was finally silent.
He felt… at peace.
Lucien, on the other hand, sat motionless. His body still hummed with the fading echo of Kenneth's energy, his senses struggling to readjust. For the first time in years, he felt whole, steady, alive, overflowing with strength he hadn't realized he'd lost. He glanced down at his V Watch and froze.
95%.
The number blinked back at him, impossibly high. No one, not even the academy's best anchors, Eden Greene included, had ever brought him past seventy. He turned his head, blindfold still tied in place, but he didn't need to see to feel him. That presence, that steady golden current, it called to him, humming faintly in the back of his mind.
Whoever this anchor was, they'd done what no one else could. And Lucien knew, with unsettling certainty, that he wasn't going to let them go.
He needed them.
~*~
Kenneth left the pod as soon as he was given the go-ahead to do so. He couldn't bear sitting in that room any longer. Mostly due to his mixed feelings, but also because he couldn't risk Lucien finding him out.
He stood by his decision of remaining anonymous, even if it would be a pain to do so. Building such an intimate relationship with another person wasn't a good idea, especially not now. Not when there was so much he needed to figure out. He'd been brought to this world for a reason, given a second chance. But he didn't know how long he had here. There were too many variables, too much at stake.
His only focus right now was to get stronger and find his purpose in this world. He knew such a large debt couldn't go unpaid. Only until he'd paid back what was owed could he entertain the silly idea of being involved with another person.
He took a breath, feeling both Instructor Xander and Eden's eyes on him. He looked up, and met their astounded faces.
"What?"
They both shook their heads. "It's nothing. Great job in there. I won't keep you long since I know you have other classes. I'll be sending you a full report of your results within the next two to three business days. But judging from the way your session went, you can expect good results."
Kenneth grimaced. He wasn't sure if this would constitute good.
He simply nodded in response. "As long as you keep your end of the deal, I have no problem anchoring him once in a while."
They both looked at each other with troubled faces. Kenneth suddenly had a bad feeling, and he was quickly proven correct.
"Yeah, so, anchoring sessions, especially with such a high ticket item like Lucien, aren't a 'once in a while '" thing. He exerts a lot of energy when he goes out on his missions and comes back depleted most of the time. You'll be expected to provide one-on-one care for him more often than you think."
Well…shit.
"It sucks, but that's the life of a high-class Striker at Toleran…." She looked hesitant now, almost as if she didn't know whether what she would say next was too much. "You'll understand…soon enough."
There was something ominous about the way she said those last words that made Kenneth frown. But before he could ask her more about it, he heard the door to the pods click open. alarm painted his face, and he quickly took a step back. Xander followed his line of sight and smiled faintly.
"You can head back now…cadet."
Kenneth gave a quick nod before booking it out of the anchoring Centre.
Lucien entered the main room with a scowl on his face. "This kind of treatment is no different from harassment," he grumbled under his breath.
"How so?"
"Leaving me in the dark like this, making me look foolish by forcing this blindfold on me, and refusing to tell me who just anchored me. You talk about a violation of their privacy, but how about mine?"
Eden rolled her eyes. "Stop being a baby. You feel good, don't you? Isn't that all that matters?"
"Are you insinuating that I'm some kind of hedonist? That pleasure is the only thing I care about?"
Eden snorted. "Your words, not mine."
Xander watched their exchange with amusement before glancing down at his datapad. The results between the two spoke for themselves. They were practically a match made in heaven. He sighed.
If only they could form an official pair, he thought.
"So, are they any good?" Lucien asked, breaking him from his thoughts.
Xander pursed his lips. "…They are better than good, though we will only know for sure in a few days."
Lucien let out a heavy sigh. "I knew it. and after all of that," he said, pointing to the pods, "they still don't want to form a pair with me?"
"We've already been over this, Saint-James. They don't want you. Contrary to popular belief, the whole world doesn't revolve around you," Eden said.
"Well, you can forget that," he said as he made his way to the doors. "I will find them, and once I do, they will be mine."
The problem now was finding his mystery Anchor.