LYRA( EXILE) POV
The air in the Dead Zone was thick with the scent of sulfur and old iron. This was a place where the Impulse had bled into the earth decades ago, leaving the land gray and sterile. It was the only place I felt at home.
I sat on the rusted bumper of an overturned tank, slowly sharpening the edge of a monolithic blade that most men couldn't even lift. I didn't use a whetstone. I used a localized pulse of Purple Dark Impulse, vibrating the edge of the steel at a molecular level until it sang.
My comm-link chimed—a frequency that hadn't been used in ten years. I didn't answer. I simply let it ring until the holographic projection forced itself open in the dirt at my feet.
"Exile," the voice of High Councilor Valerius rang out. "I assume you've seen the news from Jorgen City."
I didn't look up from my blade. "I don't watch the news, Valerius. I watch the horizon. It's less full of lies."
"Kwame has resurfaced," she said, ignoring my tone. "And he's brought two... anomalies with him. Hybrids. They crippled Vance in less than three minutes."
That made me pause. I knew Vance. He was a textbook soldier—boring, predictable, but competent. To dismantle him that quickly required more than just raw power; it required a level of violence that the Council usually kept on a leash.
"Hybrids," I repeated, the word tasting like copper on my tongue. "So the old man actually did it. He fused the poles."
"They are heading to the coast," Valerius continued. "The Council wants them neutralized. But I know you, Lyra. You don't want them dead. You want what's inside them."
I finally looked at the projection. My eyes were a deep, swirling Purple, the mark of a Rare-tier user who had spent too much time on the edge of the Black. I wasn't like the Sentinels. I didn't wear a white coat or a visor. My armor was made of scarred leather and the bones of the things I'd killed in the wastes.
"I want the harvest," I said, my voice like grinding stones. "If Kwame has truly balanced Light and Dark, then their cores are the most valuable thing on this planet. If I bring them to you, I want my exile lifted. I want my name back in the archives."
"Bring us the cores, and you can have the Citadel itself for all I care," Valerius replied. "But be warned: the one called Adam... he doesn't fight like a human. He fights like an ending."
The projection flickered out. I stood up, sheathing the heavy blade onto my back. The weight was comforting, a constant reminder of the gravity I controlled.
I closed my eyes and reached out. Most people 'channel' Impulse. I commanded it. I felt the ley lines of the earth, the faint, shimmering trails of energy left by travelers miles away. And then, I felt it.
Way off to the southwest, near the salt-spray of the ocean, there was a hole in the world. It wasn't a shadow, and it wasn't a light. It was a ripple—a frequency that shouldn't exist. It was beautiful. It was a masterpiece of biological sin.
"Found you," I whispered.
I stepped off the tank and began to walk. Every step I took cracked the parched earth, my Purple Impulse leaking from my boots and turning the dust into heavy, jagged crystals. I wasn't a surgeon like Vance, and I wasn't a scientist like Kwame.
I was the Exile. And in my world, there was no such thing as a 'god' that couldn't be bled.
I reached into a pouch at my belt and pulled out a small, dried flower—the only thing I had kept from the world before I was cast out. I crushed it between my fingers, watching the petals turn to ash in the violet glow of my hand.
"A calm storm, they call you?" I smiled, showing teeth. "Let's see how calm you are when I tear the sky out from over your head."
I didn't need a car. I didn't need a Legion. I crouched low, the ground groaning as I focused my internal gravity. Then, with a crack like a sonic boom, I launched myself toward the coast, a purple streak of violence painted across the gray sky.
The harvest was coming. And I was hungry.