The heroes looked at each other. Their faces were pale, ravaged by exhaustion, skin smeared with soot and dried blood. Each bore visible wounds, but the invisible ones weighed heaviest: the void left by loss, survivor's guilt, and the burden of a victory stained by tragedy. They had held the line. They had shattered a critical link in the chain of darkness. But the price… the price had been catastrophic.
The silence, heavy as lead, was broken by Reiss as the sky began to lighten, a gray that didn't yet dare turn blue.
"It's time," he said, his voice hoarse. "The Veil of the Eternal Flame has stabilized. We can deactivate it. Lunavia and Solaria… they need to know. The truth can't be hidden any longer."
Jake felt his chest tighten. That phrase—the truth can't be hidden any longer—was a sentence. It meant showing the world what they already knew. The disaster. The horror. The price of the Black Choreography.
With a final gesture from Reiss, the distortion field that had enveloped Altamira Academy began to dissipate. Like an arcane mist at dawn, the waves of energy frayed, revealing the naked heart of the disaster. What had once been a symbol of greatness and knowledge was now a broken husk, a corpse of steel and stone.
The first rays of sun brought not hope, but a harsh, revealing light. They exposed every crack, every piece of rubble, every extinguished life. And then, the most heart-wrenching sound emerged: the wails of those who had waited through the night, clinging to a hope that now slipped like sand through their fingers. The makeshift security cordons were useless. Desperation shattered all order. Families, friends, strangers united by pain, surged toward the ruins, screaming names, their voices breaking, their souls twisting.
A woman shrieked for her daughter, Elara, her eyes wide with terror. A young man collapsed to his knees, searching for his sister. A little girl clutched a blood-soaked teddy bear, staring into the void. They were living shadows, fragments of the collapse.
Some survivors emerged from impossible corners, staggering, their gazes empty. They didn't ask for help. They didn't ask for answers. Because they knew there were none.
And as the tragedy took on faces, the sirens began to wail. First one. Then dozens. Ambulances, news drones, helicopters. The truth was being laid bare in the light of day.
The heroes said nothing. There was nothing to say. Their fight hadn't been for glory. Not that night. Not this dawn. Because, though they had saved the world from a deeper evil, they couldn't save those who had been inside.
The echo of the gloom was fading, but it wouldn't disappear. Raven's words, like a final breath, still hung in the air between them. And while the world witnessed only ruin, they knew the worst was not yet over.
The first ray of sun brought no relief. It lanced into the devastation like a forensic scalpel, relentless, baring the remains of Altamira with a cold, unforgiving light. The Academy complex, once a symbol of hope and knowledge, now revealed itself as a blackened skeleton of metal and stone, a monument to the night's brutality.
The heroes could barely stand. Exhausted, wounded, the marks of combat stamped on their faces. A spark of tactical victory glimmered in their eyes, but it was just that: a spark amidst the ruins. They had bought time. They had shattered a critical link in the chain of darkness. But the price… was a deep, bleeding wound, in body and soul. Raven had fallen. And her agony still hung heavy as lead in the air.
Sirens ripped through the silence like a mechanical lament. First one, then a swarm: ambulances, fire trucks, rescue units swarming in from Lunavia, their rotating lights reflecting in the pools of blood and ash. The screams began soon after: fathers, mothers, siblings, and friends, crying out names amidst the smoke. Some survivors stumbled out from the rubble, their faces blank, unable to comprehend why they had made it.
And then it happened.
They didn't come running. They didn't descend from the sky. They simply… appeared. At the edges of the perimeter, just where the Veil of the Eternal Flame had dissipated, their silhouettes materialized with an unnatural fluidity, peeling away from the environment like shadows choosing to become solid. Elite teams. Unmarked tactical gear, designed to dissolve into the gloom. They weren't military. They were something else. Silent, surgical, Solaria's invisible will executing its purpose, unseen.
They moved with chilling precision, oblivious to the chaos, with only one objective in mind.
One of them planted himself in front of Sophia, who still clutched the Prisma CEES. His voice was a soulless command:
"Subject Alpha. Priority One. You're coming with us. Now."
There was no room for protest. Two operatives flanked her, lifting her as if she no longer belonged to this world. Jake felt the pressure of an iron grip on his arm.
"Subject Beta. Priority Two. No time for discussion."
He tried to resist, but his body barely responded. As he was dragged away, he heard a torn voice scream Elara's name. A pang of sickness hit his stomach. The tragedy the cameras were now witnessing… they had lived it in secret. And now, Solaria would erase it.
Aria barely had time to turn when her captor found her.
"Subject Gamma. Priority Three. Move. Fast."
She reacted with a reflexive burst of stellar energy, a final spark of autonomy. It was useless. She was contained with surgical precision, as if her powers had already been anticipated, neutralized before they could fully manifest.
As they were herded into an armored vehicle camouflaged among the wreckage of a collapsed building, Reiss Vauren's voice resonated in their comms. He no longer sounded like their comrade. It was the tone of someone who had crossed an invisible line.
"Alpha-3 extraction in progress. The perimeter is under my supervision. The energy dispersal revealed the anomaly, but the cover story protocol is active. I repeat: Solaria's security and the integrity of stellar knowledge depend on immediacy. No one sees them."
The vehicle door slammed shut with a dull thud.
Outside, the world tore itself apart in tears and pain. Inside, only darkness and the operational silence of those who buried truths remained.
They were no longer heroes. They were sensitive variables. Assets to be contained. The lie was already in motion. And they, unwilling pieces in a grand machine, would be buried along with the rubble of Altamira.
While the extraction was underway, Reiss Vauren was the eye of the storm in Solaria's subterranean command center, an extension of his nation's deepest neural networks. He was not a politician, nor a soldier. He was a young man with the weight of his lineage and stellar knowledge on his shoulders. As Second-in-Command of Altamira's Academic Council, his authority stemmed from centuries of wisdom accumulated by his family and their allied scientific houses.
His face, illuminated by the bluish light of holographic screens, was a mask of absolute focus. But behind that stillness, every thought was a contained fissure.
"Traffic diversion models activated," he ordered, his fingers sweeping across the translucent interface with surgical precision. "Deploy distraction drones in the West sector, near the central labs. I want a smoke pattern simulating continuous structural collapse."
An alert blinked. A report from the internal sweep team. Reiss opened it with a minimal gesture.
"Guardian Reiss," the operative's voice was tense. "We've located Professor Aldrich… in what's left of the Academy Coliseum. No vital signs. Death confirmed."
For an instant, the air in the command center seemed to vanish. Reiss blinked once. Closed his eyes. His expression didn't change, but inside, something shattered silently. Aldrich. The First-in-Command. His mentor. His second father.
He had believed he would be prepared for this. He wasn't. One never is.
"Condition of remains, operative," he asked, his voice neutral, almost mechanical.
"Multiple traumas. Consistent with high-energy impact. He was in a combat stance. The ground around him is fractured. He fought to the end. He was the only one from the committee who faced the threat directly."
Reiss felt something cold settle in his chest. Old Aldrich, who always said that dying for knowledge was noble, but living to preserve it was essential. And yet, he chose to fight. Why?
"Altamira Succession Protocol, Delta-9 level, activated," he declared, his voice rising. "Confirmation of the death of the entire Steering Committee. Temporary operational authority falls to the Second-in-Command. Secure all knowledge archives. Critical information containment. May the memory of their sacrifice be preserved."
But the silence behind his eyes was deafening.
Was he really ready for this?
A part of him screamed, demanded to grieve, to hit something, to ask questions that had no answers. Another part, older, harder, silenced it. There was no room for cracks. Solaria needed him intact. Unbroken on the outside. Unflinching within. For now.
On another screen, high-level intelligence channels from Brazil, Japan, Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway flickered.
"Reiss," a sharp Japanese voice cut in. "The level of devastation is alarming. We detected an unusual energy pattern. What is the status of the cover-up protocol?"
"In implementation phase, Mr. Kaito," he replied, without hesitation. "The public narrative is already being stabilized. An external attack. Experimental technology. Nothing more."
"We need assurances," an Icelandic woman retorted. "Cracks in your facade compromise everyone."
"The deterrence algorithms were designed for known threats," Reiss said, his tone as cold as the void between stars. "This was… something else. But we survived. And now we have data. Unique. Valuable. Solaria will deliver. It always does."
When the transmission cut and the command center once again filled with murmurs and flashing lights, Reiss bowed his head for just a second. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath.
And in that second of stillness, in the darkness behind his eyelids, he saw Aldrich's face one last time, smiling at him with that unbreakable patience that always disarmed him.
"I'm sorry, Professor," he murmured, barely audible. "I don't have time to mourn you now. But one day… I will."
Then he returned to his duties. Because knowledge had to live on. Even if he couldn't allow himself to feel.