Raven walked out through the front entrance of NYU like she belonged there. No rush. No nervousness, just another student in a soom to be dead city. Raven's boots steped on the pavement with a quiet purpose, eyes hidden beneath the edge of her hooded sweatshirt.
COVID made everyone vanish. Lockdowns meant no campus security, no professors, no curious glances. Even if someone saw her, they'd assume she was just another undergrad wandering back from nowhere. In a few days, the world would end anyway. No one would remember her now, but perhaps in a few days that may change.
She reached the edge of the parking lot, far from where anyone might wander, and paused beside an empty parking space. A silent command whispered across her mind.
The air shimmered.
The Ironhowl X4 materialized with a low whine of compressed pressure and shifting energy. The SUV shined faintly under the clouded January sun.
Raven climbed in.
The engine came alive with a comforting purr. She gripped the wheel, scanned the surroundings, and drove through a side street then a service road. Then an alley behind an abandoned bakery, far from traffic and surveillance. She parked beneath a faded fire escape and whispered the trigger phrase.
"Enter Sanctuary."
Reality folded.
Red light surged across the windshield. The world outside fractured and disappeared, replaced by a familiar clearing, open skies, and the soft glimmer of a pond under the afternoon sun. Her private world—untouched, undisturbed.
She sat in the Ironhowl's seat for one long moment.
Then the heat struck.
A slow burn crept up her spine, spreading through her muscles, nerves, and bones. Her skin flushed, breath shallowed. Sweat bloomed across her chest, her collarbone, the backs of her knees. She gritted her teeth and threw the door open.
The wind of Sanctuary greeted her like a spring breeze. She stumbled out, every step harder than the last as the awakening bloomed inside her.
She made it to the edge of the pond, kicking off her boots with shaking fingers. Her coat hit the grass. Her shirt followed. She stood in black lace underwear—lean, powerful, radiant. Her skin glistened like smooth white jade in the sun. The starvation and scars were gone. The bruises from her old life were erased by her awakening.
Her body is been rewritten on a genetic level.
She ran and leapt into the pond.
Water closed over her like a prayer. Steam rose around her. Her body hovered near the surface, floating, pulsing with power. Now with her eyes closed, time flew by.
As she drifted off into slumber steam still rising from her body.
For hours, or even days, her world was narrowed to heat and stillness.
And then…
Raven woke up.
Raven's eyes opened slowly. The water clung to her skin like silk. Light refracted off her body, her form now impossibly flawless—like sculpted jade. She inhaled.
Everything had changed.
She stood, walking out from the water with measured grace. Droplets trailed down her curves. Her skin caught the light like polished stone. Her muscles flexed under the smooth, unmarred surface.
She raised a hand.
The grass at her feet rustled. Then it moved. Gently, as if bowing. Then it grew, curling upward in spirals. She shaped it with a thought, weaving the blades into a soft cushion beneath her.
She sat.
Inside her chest, something pulsed—steady, deep, alive.
A core. Not just one. But two a dual ability core.
Her hands rested over her heart as she felt it—twin nodes of energy inside her chest, one cool and mechanical, the other warm and vibrant. Her Technomancer and Plant Controller powers. They lived inside her now, fused and spinning in harmony.
A dual ability core user has been born.
She is the only one.
No one else would ever awaken these paths. No one else would ever carry the powers she does.
And now?
She was immune from disease.
Completely immune.
The zombie virus couldn't touch her. No future experiments could break her. She was untouchable.
Raven exhaled, her breath steady.
"That makes things a lot easier."
She stood, walked across the clearing to her clothes, and began dressing.
As she pulled on her sweater, she caught sight of her phone screen blinking from the car's center console. She reached inside, tapping it.
The date read: January 8th, 12:00 PM.
Her brows lifted.
"…I was under the water awakening for almost two days."
She let the phone fall back into the seat, turned slowly, and looked out over the land that would become her home.
"It's all worth it."
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