Chapter 28: ROGUE HELIARCHS

The first thing Sio understood was that he could see, although even that felt wrong because nothing in front of him matched what his body was doing. A Central Nexus Wayfarer rushed him from the left with both palms glowing amber, while two more spread through the wrecked office behind him, and Sio instinctively tried to retreat.

His body stepped forward instead, slipping his right foot inside the attacker’s stance before Sio had even chosen where to place it. His shoulder turned, his hand caught the man’s wrist, and a sharp rotation dragged the glowing palm harmlessly past his chest while every bruised muscle in Sio’s body protested the movement.

What the hell was happening? He felt everything with horrible clarity: the strain in his fingers, the ache buried beneath his ribs, the warmth of blood drying near his eye and the grinding weakness in his legs were unmistakably his, yet the decisions moving those injured limbs belonged somewhere else.

The attacker tried to pull free, but Sio’s other palm struck his sternum with a compact blow that should not have done much damage. Something beneath the man’s flesh shuddered anyway, a faint distortion cracking deeper than his body before his knees buckled and he collapsed.

Sio barely had time to wonder why the strike had hurt the man like that before his body released him and turned. Another responder was approaching from behind, but whatever controlled Sio had apparently noticed him long before Sio himself had.

A black opening appeared beside Sio’s elbow as the man swung. His arm vanished through it and reappeared behind the attacker’s shoulder at an impossible angle, hooking around him and destroying his balance before Sio’s leg swept beneath his feet.

The man hit the floor hard, and Sio stepped over him despite desperately trying to stop. Panic climbed higher as he realized that he could feel every movement arriving through his muscles, sometimes even the beginning of an intention, but he could not decide which one came next. I’m moving. I’m actually moving, so why the hell am I not the one doing it?

A metallic shriek tore through the office and dragged Sio’s attention toward Fern. A Nexus Wayfarer had ripped a steel support from the ruined wall and swung it toward Arch, but Fern stepped directly into its path before the weapon could reach him.

She lowered her center of gravity, and something changed beneath her feet. Her boot sank into the fractured floor with a crunch, cracks spreading outward beneath her heel as the steel support slammed across her raised forearm. Her clothes snapped violently beneath the impact, the fitted fabric across her legs tightening as she absorbed the force, but Fern herself barely shifted.

The Wayfarer’s expression faltered. "Heliarch Fern, stand down. You’re interfering with a Central containment order."

Fern looked almost offended by the attempt. "You brought half a wall over here for that?"

The man forced more strength through the support and shoved, only for Fern’s weight to increase beneath him. The tiles under both her feet broke, yet she remained exactly where she had planted herself.

Then the pressure vanished from her posture all at once. Fern slipped beneath the steel with frightening speed, suddenly so light and quick that the same man who had failed to move her barely managed to turn before she hooked his leg from behind.

She dragged him flat, followed him down and settled across the middle of his back while one hand pinned his wrist. His first attempt to rise actually lifted her slightly, until Fern increased her weight and slammed him straight back into the floor hard enough for a web of cracks to spread from beneath his chest.

"Yield." Fern adjusted one knee beside his shoulder while keeping her weight centered across him, the movement practical even if the position made the man’s humiliation considerably worse. "I’m not carrying you around after this."

His cheek remained flattened against the floor, but somehow he managed to look sideways at her. "There are worse ways to lose."

Fern’s eyes narrowed, and the man’s mouth twitched despite the pain. "I mean, if someone has to sit on me..."

The floor complained as Fern increased her weight another fraction. "So help me, I can become considerably heavier."

"I surrender," he managed quickly, and Fern seemed satisfied with the sudden improvement in his judgment. "Good decision," she replied as she rose immediately, shedding the impossible weight so quickly that she was moving again before the man beneath her had finished coughing.

Another attack streaked toward her from the corridor, but Caspian stepped across its path without attempting to block it. The compressed force approached along a straight trajectory until the path itself bent.

Sio could actually see the attack curve around Caspian’s body, its direction changing as though the invisible line guiding it had been physically grabbed and rewritten. Caspian rotated one wrist, and the attack swung past him before plunging into the floor beneath two advancing Nexus Wayfarers, throwing both men sideways.

"Heliarch Caspian, move away from the subjects!" one of the responders shouted from behind them.

Caspian caught sight of another man coming at him and shifted his stance almost lazily. "Fern, I’m beginning to think resigning would have involved less paperwork. We may have approached this in the wrong order."

The man punched, but Caspian barely moved. The vector behind the strike shifted a fraction before impact, carrying the attacker’s fist past Caspian’s shoulder while the rest of his body continued following momentum it had already committed to.

Caspian helped the mistake along with one hand against the man’s upper back and sent him stumbling face-first into a broken partition. Fern kicked another attacker away and barely spared Caspian a look. "You betrayed the Nexus before filing anything. I don’t think paperwork is our biggest concern anymore."

"Technically, I haven’t resigned yet." Caspian ducked beneath a luminous chain and altered its direction as it passed, sending the weapon curling into the legs of another Nexus Wayfarer instead.

Fern watched the tangled officer hit the floor. "You just redirected his own attack into his partner."

"I’m considering my options," Caspian replied, already watching the next threat approach. Fern shifted her stance beside him and gave him a look that suggested his deliberation had lasted long enough. "Consider faster."

Sio heard every word and understood none of how they had reached this point. He wanted to ask why Fern and Caspian were attacking their own people, where Vise had gone and how he had ended up standing inside a ruined Central Nexus office, but his mouth remained closed while his body rotated toward another threat.

A woman with silver lines moving beneath the skin of both arms thrust her hands toward him, compressing the air into a narrow distortion aimed directly at his chest. Sio thought about dodging, but a black opening appeared instead and swallowed the incoming force.

The woman’s eyes widened just before another opening formed beside her hip and released her own attack back into her. She crashed sideways through a desk, and Sio stared at the fading portal with a sickening realization. I did that. The thought barely formed before another followed it. No. I didn’t.

His body walked toward the fallen woman while Sio fought uselessly against his own legs. She raised one trembling hand defensively, and he felt his fist tighten despite every part of him screaming that she was already down. Stop. She’s finished, so stop.

His arm halted before the strike landed. For a strange instant, Sio felt something inside his body resist its own momentum while the woman stared up at him.

Whatever controlled his limbs seemed to decide she was no longer a threat and turned away. Relief struck Sio hard enough that his vision blurred, and the fact that something else inside him had chosen not to hurt her should not have been comforting, yet somehow it was.

A violent impact shook the floor near Arch, pulling Sio’s attention across the office. Three Nexus Wayfarers had forced the older man away from the wall he was trying to use, one attacking with a dark-plated arm while another sent sharp pulses through the floor beneath his feet.

Arch avoided the first blow but misjudged the second. The floor kicked upward beneath his injured leg, his balance collapsed, and the armored fist came toward his face before he could recover.

Caspian intercepted the attack without blocking it. He touched two fingers against the attacker’s forearm at the instant the punch entered his reach, and the vector shifted sideways so abruptly that the blow carved harmlessly past Arch’s cheek while the attacker’s own body twisted after it.

"Much appreciated." Arch caught the man’s shoulder long enough to shove him away while Caspian altered the path of another incoming strike.

"Open the door and appreciate me somewhere else." Caspian redirected the attack into an empty desk, which exploded into splinters beside them. "Preferably before the entire building discovers we’re here."

"I’ve been attempting exactly that." Arch gave him an exhausted look as he pressed his palm against the nearest surviving wall. "The building has opinions."

A faint rectangular outline appeared beneath his hand, and hope surged through Sio before a streak of pale fire struck the wall. Caspian saw it too late to redirect the entire blast, managing only to alter its angle enough to keep it from striking Arch directly.

The edge still tore across the wall and scorched straight through the forming doorway. The outline vanished beneath blackened plaster, but Fern was already moving toward the fire-user.

She lightened herself for the approach and crossed the distance in a blur, then restored her weight at the moment her shoulder connected with the man’s torso. He left the floor completely, crashing through the remains of a glass partition while Fern followed him through without losing her footing.

"Try again." She dragged him away from Arch by one ankle when he attempted to rise. "We’ll keep them busy."

Arch looked across the room and immediately understood the problem. More Wayfarers were entering through the stairwell, and several had already stopped trying to attack Sio directly.

Instead, three responders began spreading toward Mira.

Sio’s body turned before he consciously understood why, and something inside him changed so violently that his pulse deepened. The presence guiding his movements seemed to lose the cold restraint it had shown moments earlier as Sio finally recognized what had drawn its attention. They’re going for Mum.

A Wayfarer near Mira flicked both hands outward, sending thin black cords through the floor toward her ankles. Mira stumbled backward, but Sio crossed the room before the cords could close around her.

He did not run the full distance. One black opening swallowed his leading step and another released him several metres ahead, his body emerging from the shortened space already turning toward the nearest attacker.

Sio’s palm struck the man’s chest, and the deeper outline within him fractured so sharply that he dropped before he could finish raising his guard. A second Wayfarer attacked from Sio’s side with a blunt wave of force, but his body allowed it to come frighteningly close before opening a portal inches from his ribs.

The attack vanished and erupted from another opening behind the man who had created it, slamming him across the back with his own power. The third woman stopped advancing before Sio could reach her.

He felt his jaw tighten while his body turned toward her, but she immediately stepped away from Mira and lowered her hands. Whatever was controlling Sio seemed to judge the change before he did and stopped pursuing her.

Mira noticed. Her eyes met Sio’s, and something fragile appeared beneath the fear on her face.

"Sio? Can you hear me?" She took an uncertain step toward him, watching for any sign that the person behind those eyes was still her son.

He wanted to answer so badly that his throat hurt. Mum, I’m here. I don’t know what’s happening. Nothing left his mouth.

Mira started toward him, but Arch saw the movement while searching for another usable surface. "Mira, don’t get any closer to him yet. We don’t know how much control Sio actually has."

She stopped, though every part of her posture resisted the instruction. "He can see me, Arch. I know he can."

Arch kept one hand against the wall while looking toward Sio. "I think he can too."

"Then why won’t he answer me?" Mira’s voice tightened despite her effort to control it. "Sio, if you’re in there, just give me something."

Sio tried. He concentrated on one finger, willing it to move even slightly, but his hand remained still until whatever controlled it decided to turn toward the next attacker.

A broad translucent shield appeared across the arms of the Wayfarer approaching him, catching Sio’s first punch without allowing the man to move. His body withdrew the fist, and a black opening immediately formed before his knuckles.

Sio drove his fist through the entrance again. An exit opened beside the defender’s left side, disappeared the instant the strike finished, then reappeared above him before shifting behind his shoulder.

The man’s expression changed as the same fist seemed to attack from one impossible direction after another. Sio’s arm kept driving through the entrance while the exit relocated faster than the defender could reposition his shield.

Pain flared through Sio’s already ruined shoulder with each punch, but his body ignored it. The translucent plate bent beneath the barrage until it finally shattered, allowing Sio to step through and strike the man’s chest with one final palm.

The deeper fracture followed, and the defender collapsed.

Sio’s thoughts spiraled while his body searched for another threat. He had never opened portals that quickly, never shifted an exit with anything close to this precision and certainly never used the ability as naturally as breathing during a fight.

How am I doing this? I couldn’t even make them that fast. Every portal appeared with almost no wasted distance, opening exactly where the movement needed to finish and disappearing the moment it was no longer useful, as though whoever controlled his body cared less about understanding the Claim than about making it obey.

There was experience in those movements, Sio knew that much, but it was experience that did not belong to him.

Across the office, Fern and Caspian had become a moving barrier around Arch. Fern changed her weight constantly rather than simply becoming heavy and remaining that way, turning almost weightless while crossing gaps or slipping between attacks before becoming brutally heavy at the precise instant she planted a foot, caught a shoulder or drove someone into the ground.

A responder tried tackling her from the side, and Fern allowed him to commit. She lightened herself just enough to pivot with his momentum, slipped across the line of his tackle and dropped one leg behind his knee.

The instant his balance broke, her weight returned all at once. The man folded beneath her, and Fern used his collapsing body as a step to launch herself toward another attacker before he even hit the floor.

Caspian fought completely differently. He rarely met strength with strength because almost everything approaching him could become useful once its direction stopped belonging entirely to the person who created it.

A spear of compressed air curved away from Arch and pierced the ceiling instead. A charging Wayfarer found his forward momentum diverted just enough to carry him past Caspian and directly into Fern’s path, where she became considerably heavier at exactly the wrong moment for him.

Fern caught him, and the collision sounded like someone dropping furniture from a rooftop. Caspian looked at her handiwork with an expression caught somewhere between concern and resignation.

"That one may need medical attention."

"He came here with medical coverage."

"That is not how responsibility works."

"You can explain that to him after he wakes up."

Arch pressed his palm against another wall, and the outline of a door began to appear. The frame reached halfway before another impact shook the building and a fresh wave of footsteps thundered from the stairwell.

Caspian looked toward the sound and exhaled through his teeth. "We’re running out of floor."

Fern drove an elbow into an attacker’s jaw and shoved him into another responder. "Then make them stop reaching us."

"Excellent strategy. Very specific."

A spear of condensed light passed between them, and Caspian caught its vector before it crossed Arch’s position. He twisted its path upward, sending the blast through the supports overhead and bringing panels and metal framing down across the corridor.

The next group of responders disappeared behind a wall of debris. Fern looked at the collapsed entrance and gave Caspian the closest thing the situation permitted to approval. "That works."

"I’ll accept the compliment in writing," Caspian replied, already moving back toward Arch before the debris had finished settling.

Arch ignored both of them because the door outline beneath his hand had survived. Sio saw it from across the room, but his body noticed another danger first.

A Wayfarer had climbed through the broken office partitions behind Arch and was raising both hands, gathering a narrow lance of white light between them. The distance was too great for Sio to reach him normally, but his body did not care.

A portal opened directly before his fist and another appeared beside the attacker’s face. Sio punched once, his fist emerging too close for the man to react, and the forming lance vanished as his head snapped sideways.

Arch looked over his shoulder, and for a brief moment his eyes met Sio’s. Recognition, grief and relief moved through his face so quickly that Sio could not separate them.

"Keep doing that." Arch returned his attention to the door, apparently deciding that whatever was controlling Sio was currently helping more than hurting.

Sio wanted to scream at him. Doing what? I don’t know what I’m doing. His body had already turned toward another attacker before he could make any part of himself obey.

Three Wayfarers forced their way through the shifted debris at once, making Fern intercept the first while Caspian redirected the second. The third reached Sio with a Scar glowing along his neck and drove a heavy fist toward him.

Sio caught the punch, and the impact jolted through his injured arm. His body rotated with the force instead of resisting it, pulling the man off balance before Sio’s knee struck his stomach.

A black opening formed at the exact moment of impact and swallowed Sio’s knee. Another appeared higher against the man’s chest, allowing the same movement to finish from a different position and launch the Wayfarer backward.

Sio staggered afterward as pain finally caught up with whatever was controlling him. His vision pulsed and the room tilted violently, leaving his body motionless for one hopeful second.

He tried to flex his fingers, but nothing happened. Something inside him tightened again and forced his exhausted body upright despite the weakness trembling through every limb.

Whatever controlled him could feel the fatigue, yet it simply refused to surrender to it. That frightened Sio almost as much as realizing he had no idea what would happen when his body finally ran out of strength.

Fern noticed the stumble while changing direction across the room. "Sio’s slowing down, Arch. Whatever this is, his body can’t keep paying for it."

"I know." Arch did not remove his hand from the wall because the forming door had reached the point where a faint handle was beginning to take shape.

Caspian redirected another blast into the ceiling and stepped sideways as debris showered around him. "This would be a fantastic time for that door to stop being decorative."

Arch’s fingers tightened against the wall. "For once, we agree."

The outline brightened while the handle became clearer and the frame sank deeper into the wall. Another impact rippled through the floor, but this time the shape remained intact.

Fern saw Arch’s expression change and immediately understood. She shifted in front of him, planted both feet and increased her weight until fractured tile compressed beneath her boots.

"Caspian, he’s got it." Her focus remained on the corridor as another cluster of responders forced their way through the rubble.

"I see it." Caspian moved beside her and raised his hands as the next barrage began to form.

One of the advancing responders faltered at the sight of the two officers standing shoulder to shoulder against their own people. "Heliarchs, this is your last warning. Stand aside."

Neither of them moved, and the barrage came from the reopened corridor before the officer had finished retreating behind his own line. Caspian seized the incoming vectors before they could converge on Arch, curving some attacks into the ceiling, driving others into empty walls and swinging one violently back across the corridor from which it had come.

Fern remained planted beside him like part of the building itself, intercepting anything physical that survived the redirected barrage. Behind them, Arch closed his fingers around the forming handle.

This time the outline did not disappear. The frame solidified beneath his palm, the handle became real beneath his fingers, and a complete door finally stood where seconds earlier there had only been damaged wall.

Arch stared at it for half a heartbeat before tightening his grip. After everything Central Nexus had thrown between them and the outside world, they finally had a way out.