The army transport truck smelled of industrial-strength antiseptic and the pungent aroma of fear-sweat. Kaito pressed his forehead to the cold metal wall, counting out seconds between every pothole that rattled his body in agony. His ribs throbbed where the phase-shifter's fiery whip had ripped across them, but the pain was already fading - way too quickly for a normal human. When he risked looking down at the wound from beneath his tattered uniform, he saw the skin repair itself with threads of pale silver that disappeared when he blinked.
Lena sat facing him, massaging her throbbing throat with trembling hands. The welts from the phase-shifter's whip stood out as bright red against her caramel-colored skin. "You're shivering," she croaked, her normally songbird voice a rasp.
Kaito gazed at his hands. She was right - they trembled wildly, as if he'd grasped a live wire for too long. He folded them into fists so that the shaking would stop.
Because you did, his mind breathed softly. That searing white blast when he'd driven the heart of the monster had only hurt the monster. It had changed *him*. He relived it in his head on repeat: the way his eyes had cleared so he could see the molecular vibrations of the pipe in his hand, the way the motion of the phase-shifter had clarified at once and become appallingly clear.
The van slid to a halt, sending them crashing forward. They had no time to breathe before the rear doors burst open and they stood up against the face-scarred woman from the alley. At close range, the scar on her lip forced her mouth into a permanent scowl. Her unpleasant eyes raked over their disheveled bodies. "Out. Processing Room B. Now."
Kaito's boots rang against reflective concrete as he entered the loading bay of the military complex. Sterile white walls pulsed with gentle blue light from biometric scanners down the corridor. A watch drone detached from the ceiling, its red lens humming as it locked onto his face.
"Subject Kaito Swift. Age 18. Power classification: Null. Threat assessment: Minimal."
The robotic voice caught Lena by surprise. Kaito's face was blank on purpose, but his heart sped up. They don't know. They can't.
Scar-lip slung his bruising hold around his wrist, jamming it against a wall scanner. "Let's see what you really are."
The machine emitted a high-pitched beep.
"No anomalous energy signatures detected. Power classification remains: Null.".
Her hand closed tighter on her gun. "How'd you take out a Phase-7 then, Null? Dumb luck?" There was suspicion in her tone, dripping with venom.
Kaito held her gaze without flinching. "It had a weak point. I struck it." The fabrication was effortless, honed by years of blending in openly at Aegis.
But the truth pulsed just under his skin - he'd seen the pattern. In those final seconds, the creature's throbbing core had generated fractal patterns that predicted each attack before it was launched. As if his nervous system had simply. downloaded the phase-shifter's code.
Scar-lip leaned forward until her stale coffee breath surrounded him. "You're coming back for full spectral—"
"Lieutenant Vex." A new voice cut across the tension like a knife.
Kaito turned to see Seraphina in the doorway, her typical Celestia uniform replaced with black tactical gear. A silver badge glinted on her chest - Military Liaison, Special Projects Division. The authoritative pose straightened even Scar-lip.
"He's cleared," Seraphina announced, throwing a tablet to the lieutenant. "Incident report's already been sent to Central Command."
Scar-lip's eyes narrowed as she scanned the screen. "One week mandatory psychological testing. Both of them. And I'll be watching." She walked down the hallway, her combat boots echoing.
The instant she turned the corner, Seraphina's professional mask slipped - for an instant. Her violet eyes latched onto Kaito's hands. "You've scalded yourself," she said quietly. It wasn't a question.
Kaito looked down. The smooth, creaseless hands that had rested the smoking pipe were a travesty. They should not have been.
The safehouse was a run-down apartment above a noodle shop in the red-light district of District 9. Garlic and chili oil filled the floorboards, mixing unpleasantly with the mildew in the apartment.
Kaito traversed the filthy carpet, his mind reliving the fight in slow-motion torment. That crucial moment when time itself had come to a standstill - when the phase-shifter's movements had disintegrated into beautiful, calculated patterns. Walking a chess master through their checkmate three moves ahead.
Lena collapsed onto the creaking sofa, gritting as the movement pulled at her bruises. "So," she muttered over swallows of the electrolyte drink Seraphina had shoved into her hands. "You've got powers now." Her tone suggested this was accusation and relief.
"I don't," Kaito said automatically, the lie honed smooth from years of practice.
"Bullshit." Lena pointed a finger at his exposed forearms. "Your veins literally glowed, Swift. Like liquid mercury had been pumped into your blood."
Kaito rolled up his sleeves with trembling hands. Yes, pale silver lines marked his veins like fine circuitry. He was certain they hadn't been visible yesterday.
Seraphina tossed him a high-calorie protein bar from her tactical bag. "Eat. Your metabolism's burning through 5000 calories daily now." When he hesitated, she added, "Or you'd rather pass out when our guest arrives?"
Kaito's head jerked up. "Guest?"
Before she could answer, Lena cut in. "How would you know anything about his metabolism?" Suspicion dripped from every word.
Seraphina activated a holographic projector off her wrist console. A DNA helix curled into existence on the coffee table. "Because I've seen this before." The helix tightened into a recognizable shifting shape - a phase-shifter mid-transformation. "Adaptation-type abilities are rare. Rarer still in an individual who was Null at age six."
The hologram focused on the creature's thudding center. Kaito's gust was caught as he saw the fractal structures from his dream.
"Whatever was at the apartment." His voice was distant from his own ears. "It was like me?"
"Reverse." Seraphina's fingers danced across the controls, bringing up a side-by-side comparison. "Phase-shifters lose control while conforming. Their bodies aren't strong enough to handle the pressure." She caressed the other image - a thermal scan of Kaito in the alley, his veins glowing violet-white. "You. you replicated its pattern. Appropriated it as your own."
A pounding on the door halted them all.
No - not pounding. A code. Three rapid, two slow.
Seraphina tore through lightning-fast gasps of smoke, dragging Kaito in her wake as the door shattered in a whirlwind of splinters.
Smoke churned through the new gap, misting around a gaunt man with a frayed lab coat. His right arm blazed with shifting plates of metal that mimicked the phase-shifter's biomechanical motif. When he smiled, Kaito's flesh crawled in visceral recognition.
"Ah," the man crooned, stepping into the light. His mismatched eyes - one brown, one glowing synthetic blue - locked onto Kaito with terrifying focus. "Subject Zero lives."
The last thing Kaito saw before his vision whited out was Seraphina drawing her sidearm, her lips forming a single word: "Run."