Rynn's legs moved before his brain finished processing the command.
He didn't think about direction. Didn't calculate odds. Didn't consider that running from an armed man from another planet who'd just called him "the most interesting thing" was probably exactly what that man expected. He just ran—back toward the house, toward the subdivision, toward any kind of cover that might buy him a second to think.
The blue glow intensified behind him.
Rynn dove through the front door, rolled across the entryway floor, and kept moving. Living room. Kitchen. Back door. He burst into the yard just as something cracked through the space he'd occupied a moment before—a beam of blue light that turned the kitchen's back wall to vapor.
No. Not vapor. The wall was simply gone, replaced by empty air and a faint shimmer at the edges.
[Energy weapon detected]
[Classification: Tier 2 Enforced-rank]
[Warning: Direct hit would be fatal]
"No shit," Rynn gasped, scrambling toward the neighbor's fence.
He jumped, caught the top, hauled himself over. Landed in another yard—neat lawn, flower beds, a child's swing set standing empty in the pre-dawn gloom. He kept moving. Another fence. Another yard. His lungs burned, his legs screamed, the serpent in his chest coiled tight and useless.
Behind him, footsteps. Calm. Unhurried. The man named Kaelen wasn't running. He didn't need to.
"You can't escape," Kaelen called, his voice carrying easily through the suburban quiet. "I'm Tier 4. Reborned. You're Tier 0. Mortal. The gap between us is larger than the gap between you and an ant. But that's not why you can't escape."
Rynn cleared another fence. Another yard. His mind raced through options—none good, most fatal.
"The reason you can't escape," Kaelen continued, closer now, "is that I don't want to hurt you. I want to talk. But if you keep running, I'll have to catch you, and catching you will involve hurting you, and I'd really prefer not to start our relationship that way."
Rynn's foot caught on something—a garden hose, coiled and hidden in the grass. He went down hard, his knife skittering away into darkness. By the time he'd scrambled to his knees, Kaelen stood over him.
The blue weapon was gone. Sheathed or dismissed, Rynn didn't know which. Kaelen's hands were empty, held slightly away from his body in a gesture of peace.
"See?" Kaelen said. "No weapon. Can we talk now?"
Rynn stayed on his knees, breathing hard, every muscle screaming at him to keep running even though running was clearly useless. The serpent stirred, and he felt Chaos capacity flicker—1.4 units, useless without control, useless against a Tier 4 Reborned who could probably kill him with a thought.
"What do you want?"
Kaelen smiled again. That same not-friendly expression from before, but with something else beneath it now. Curiosity. Genuine interest.
"I told you. You're interesting. The System classifies affinities. Always. Every being in the Chain has an affinity that fits into one of seventeen thousand recognized categories. Fire, water, earth, air, light, dark, space, time, void, life, death—seventeen thousand variations on the same fundamental forces." He crouched, bringing himself to Rynn's level. "But yours doesn't fit. The System literally can't classify it. It just says 'Unique' and moves on."
He waited, as if expecting Rynn to explain.
Rynn said nothing.
"I felt you," Kaelen continued. "From half a kilometer away. Felt something that didn't belong. Something that made the local reality itch, like a splinter under the skin. I've been exploring newly integrated worlds for two hundred years, and I've never felt anything like it." His golden eyes narrowed. "What did you wish for?"
The question hung in the air between them.
Rynn considered lying. Considered making something up—some rare but known affinity that would explain the anomaly. But Kaelen had felt him from half a kilometer away. Had tracked him through a suburban maze without breaking a sweat. Lying to someone like that seemed pointless.
"Chaos," Rynn said. "I wished to manipulate Chaos."
Kaelen's expression didn't change. For a long moment, he simply stared, those golden eyes unreadable.
Then he laughed.
It wasn't mocking. It wasn't cruel. It was the laugh of someone who'd just heard something genuinely surprising, genuinely delightful, and couldn't contain their reaction.
"Chaos," Kaelen repeated. "Primordial Chaos. The force that existed before the first god thought the first thought. The raw potential from which all realities are born and to which all realities return." He shook his head slowly. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"Made myself a target?"
"That's one way to put it." Kaelen stood, offering Rynn a hand. "Come on. On your feet. We need to talk somewhere less exposed, and I promise I won't shoot you in the back."
Rynn stared at the offered hand. It was a normal hand—five fingers, palm lines, calluses from weapons or work. Nothing about it suggested otherworldly power. But the man attached to it could vaporize walls with a glance and had been exploring "newly integrated worlds" for two centuries.
"You're really from another planet?"
"Verathis. Third planet from a yellow star in a system you've never heard of. Part of the Chain for three thousand years, like I said." Kaelen wiggled his fingers. "The hand's not going to stay offered forever."
Rynn took it.
Kaelen pulled him up effortlessly, then released him immediately. No lingering grip, no show of force. Just a man helping another man to his feet.
"There's an all-night diner about two kilometers that way." Kaelen pointed through the houses. "Still standing, last I checked. We can talk there."
"The diner's still open? After everything that happened?"
Kaelen's smile widened. "That's the thing about the Chain. The System integrates worlds, but it doesn't destroy them. It adds to them. New resources, new dangers, new opportunities. Most of the infrastructure survived. Most of the people survived. The ones who made stupid wishes... well." He shrugged. "Natural selection moves faster now."
---
The diner was called MEL'S, and it was, impossibly, open.
Light spilled from its windows onto a parking lot that held a dozen cars—some belonging to survivors, probably, others abandoned by owners who'd never return. Through the glass, Rynn could see people sitting in booths. Eating. Talking. Living their lives as if the sky hadn't been bleeding twelve hours ago.
"The System stabilizes things," Kaelen explained, pushing through the door. A bell chimed overhead, absurdly normal. "Once integration completes, reality settles. The dimensional anchors stop expanding. The monsters that came through either adapt or retreat. Most of them retreat—they prefer wild zones, not settled ones."
A waitress appeared. Human, middle-aged, dark circles under her eyes but moving with practiced efficiency. She looked at Kaelen, looked at his strange clothes, and didn't bat an eye.
"Booth in the back?"
"That would be perfect," Kaelen said.
They slid into vinyl seats that had probably been there since the 1980s. A menu stood propped against the napkin dispenser, advertising breakfast served all day. Rynn stared at it, struggling to reconcile the normalcy of this moment with everything he'd seen.
"Coffee?" the waitress asked.
"Please," Rynn said automatically.
"Make it two." Kaelen's golden eyes scanned the diner, cataloging exits, threats, opportunities. The habit of someone who'd survived a very long time.
The waitress departed. Kaelen leaned back, studying Rynn with that same unreadable expression.
"So. Chaos. Let's talk about what that means."
Rynn waited.
"First, the bad news. You're in danger. More danger than any newly awakened mortal has ever been in. Chaos affinity is... legendary. Mythic. There are beings in the higher dimensions who've spent millennia searching for even a trace of it. Beings who would kill every human on this planet just to get to you. Beings who—" He stopped, reconsidered. "Actually, let's save the really bad news for later. Start with the manageable bad news."
"Manageable bad news?"
"You're Tier 0. Mortal. Your control is 0.4%. Your capacity is basically nonexistent. Any half-competent Tier 2 could kill you without trying. And your affinity makes you glow like a beacon to anyone with the right perception." Kaelen ticked points off on his fingers. "You need to increase your control. You need to increase your capacity. You need to learn to hide what you are. And you need to do it fast, because the higher-dimensional powers will notice Earth eventually, and when they do, they'll come looking."
The coffee arrived. Rynn wrapped his hands around the warm mug, drawing comfort from its ordinary heat.
"Why are you telling me this?"
Kaelen's expression shifted. Something flickered in those golden eyes—old pain, maybe. Old regret.
"Because three thousand years ago, I was where you are now. Newly awakened, terrified, completely out of my depth. Someone found me. Someone helped me. Taught me. Gave me a chance to become more than just another dead mortal." He sipped his coffee. "That someone died a long time ago. But I remember what they did for me. Paying it forward seems like the least I can do."
"You expect me to trust you?"
"No. I expect you to be smart. To listen, evaluate, and make your own decisions. Trust is earned, not given." Kaelen set down his mug. "But I can give you information, and information doesn't require trust. Just attention."
Rynn considered this. It made sense. More sense than blind trust, certainly.
"Okay," he said. "Information. Start with how I increase control."
"Practice. Deliberate, focused, repetitive practice. Your affinity is part of you now—a muscle you've never used. You need to exercise it." Kaelen leaned forward. "But be careful. Chaos isn't like other affinities. Fire mages practice by making fire. Water mages practice by shaping water. If you practice Chaos by shaping Chaos, you could unmake yourself. Unmake this building. Unmake reality in ways that can't be repaired."
"Then how do I practice?"
"Start with perception. Learning to see Chaos before you try to touch it. Every moment, every object, every person has Chaos potential—the possibilities that could have been, could be, could still become. Learn to see that. Learn to distinguish between what is and what could be. Once you can do that consistently, you can start learning to nudge."
Rynn thought about the ghost images he'd seen after the wish. The bed that existed and didn't exist. The versions of his apartment layered over reality. He'd assumed that was a side effect of the initial awakening, something to be ignored. But maybe it was the first step.
"I saw something," he said slowly. "Right after the wish. Everything had... layers. Versions of itself. Is that what you mean?"
Kaelen's eyebrows rose. "You saw probability shadows? Immediately after awakening?" He whistled softly. "That's... unusual. Most Chaos users—the ones who exist, the ones I've read about—take months to develop that perception. Years, sometimes."
"I couldn't control it. Could barely see through it."
"Of course not. Your control is 0.4%. But the fact that you saw it at all means your natural affinity is strong. Stronger than I expected." Kaelen's golden eyes gleamed. "That's good and bad. Good because you'll develop faster. Bad because you'll attract attention faster."
Rynn filed that away. "What about capacity? The System says I need to consume Chaos-aligned resources to increase it."
"Correct. Chaos-aligned resources are rare—incredibly rare. Most planets have none. But Earth..." Kaelen glanced around the diner, at the ordinary tables and ordinary people. "Earth is a Nexus Point. That means reality is thinner here. More permeable. Chaos seeps through from adjacent dimensions. Over time, it concentrates in certain places. Forms resources."
"Where do I find them?"
"That's the problem. You can't sense them yet. Your perception isn't refined enough. And by the time you stumble across one, something else might have found it first." Kaelen reached into his pocket and withdrew a small stone. It was grey, nondescript, the size of a marble. He placed it on the table between them.
"What's that?"
"A gift. Chaos residue, collected from a dimensional breach on my home world three hundred years ago. I've been saving it for... I don't know. Something. Maybe this." He slid it toward Rynn. "Consume it. Absorb it. Your capacity will increase."
Rynn stared at the small grey stone. It looked harmless. Ordinary. But something about it made the serpent in his chest stir with interest.
"Why are you giving me this?"
"Because I'm curious. Because I want to see what you become. Because three hundred years from now, when you're Tier 12 and the higher-dimensional powers are running scared, I want to be able to say I helped." Kaelen smiled, and this time it almost reached his eyes. "Also, it's useless to me. I'm fire-aligned. Chaos residue just sits in my pocket looking pretty."
Rynn picked up the stone.
The moment his skin touched it, the serpent woke. Not the way it had during the void thing attack—not striking out in defense—but hungrily. Eagerly. He felt something flow from the stone into his fingers, up his arm, into his chest. The stone crumbled to dust in his palm.
[Chaos resource consumed]
[Chaos Capacity: 1.4 → 1.9 Units]
[Chaos Control: 0.4% → 0.5%]
A 0.1% increase in control. Not much. But measurable. Real.
"Thank you," Rynn said, and meant it.
"Don't thank me yet. Thank me when you're still alive in a year." Kaelen finished his coffee and stood. "I have to go. There are other anomalies on this planet, other newly awakened mortals who need guidance or culling. But I'll be back."
"Culling?"
"Some wishes create monsters. Not physically—mentally. People who wished for power without wisdom, for revenge without justice, for things that twist them into threats. The System doesn't fix those people. It just gives them power and waits to see what they do." Kaelen's expression hardened. "I've been doing this long enough to know that some of them need to be put down before they put down others."
He extended his hand. Rynn shook it—a normal gesture, human gesture, strange coming from someone who'd lived three millennia.
"One last piece of advice," Kaelen said. "Find others. Not many—Chaos-bearers are targets, and anyone close to you becomes a target too. But a few. People you trust. People who'll watch your back when the higher-dimensional powers come calling. You can't do this alone."
"How do I find people worth trusting?"
Kaelen's smile was sad. "You don't. You trust, and some of them betray you, and the ones who don't—those are the ones worth keeping." He released Rynn's hand. "Good luck, Chaos-bearer. I hope I see you again."
He walked out of the diner, the bell chiming overhead, and vanished into the pre-dawn darkness.
Rynn sat alone in the booth, staring at the grey dust on his palm. His capacity was 1.9 units now. His control was 0.5%. He had a kitchen knife, a half-empty cup of coffee, and a target on his back that spanned dimensions.
The waitress appeared. "More coffee?"
"Yes," Rynn said. "And a menu. I need to eat something before I figure out how to survive the next thousand years."
She laughed, thinking he was joking and Rynn didn't bother correcting her.
---
Mass Release For Y'all.... Heheheheh