The bedroom door clicked shut, and Zylas collapsed against the wood. The silence of the room didn't matter to Zylas at all as his mind filled with hundreds of questions about the unusualness of the voice that echoed through his mind. He didn't turn on the lights. He just stared at the silver ring on his finger, which felt like it was growing heavier by the second.
"Okay," Zylas whispered into the dark. "I want to use the authority so work this time."
There was no screen. No menu. Just a sudden, sharp spike of pain that anchored the ring to his finger bone. Then, a cold thought that wasn't his own forced its way into his skull, "Authority: Impact Stasis."
The voice didn't activate because Zylas said so, it activated because Zylas desired it to.
He looked around the dim room for a target. He wished he was in the training building right now but Grant had forbid him to do so. His eyes landed on a heavy oak stool in the corner, a solid piece of furniture that looked like it could withstand a sledgehammer. He walked over. He pulled back his right fist and focused on the sensation of the ring locking onto the air around his knuckles.
He swung.
His fist slammed into the wood. There was no sickening crack of bone. No vibration. No recoil. It literally felt like punching a block of hard, solidified nothing. His hand stopped dead against the oak, but the stool didn't budge an inch. It didn't even creak. The force of the blow had simply disappeared into the wood.
Zylas pulled his hand back, confused. The stool sat perfectly still. But then he saw it, a slight, shimmering ripple in the air right where he had hit it.
One second.
Two.
CRACK.
The sound was as loud as a gunshot. The stool didn't just break, it disintegrated. The top shattered into pieces of jagged splinters that flew through the air, embedding themselves into the drywall. The legs snapped outward with enough violence to gouge the carpet.
Zylas scrambled back, hitting the door. He checked his hand. No new bruises. No pain. The ring had stalled the impact, keeping the energy from bouncing back into his body, before releasing it all at once.
"Holy shit," he breathed.
The ring hummed a warning. A sharp, pulling sensation flared in his forearm. He realized the cost. The ring held the energy, but his muscles were the conduit. If he held the stasis too long, or if the impact was too great, his own arm would be the thing that shattered.
A sharp knock on the door made him jump.
"Zylas? Everything okay? I heard a bang," Grant's voice called out.
Zylas looked at the wreckage. "Yeah! Just... dropped a heavy book! Sorry!"
"Careful with the furniture, kid. It's expensive and I don't own it." Grant replied, his footsteps fading.
Zylas didn't waste time. He grabbed a wastebasket and began shoving the larger chunks of oak into it, burying them under some old papers. He used his foot to sweep the smaller splinters under the rug. His heart was still racing, but the adrenaline was being replaced by a crushing fatigue. Using the ring once had drained him more than the entire afternoon of punching the Drowned projection.
He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the ring. It was dormant again. He laid back, staring at the ceiling, trying to process the fact that he now possessed an "Authority."
Sleep didn't come easily. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the stool exploding. He saw Sylvia's red eyes. He saw the Cosmic Entity's shadow. He tossed and turned for hours, unable to sleep.
Around midnight, he felt a strange sensation, a feeling of... Familiarity. It wasn't coming from near him, but from outside. He stood up and walked to the window, looking out over the dark grounds of Grant's estate.
In the distance, near the black practice building, he saw a faint, blue shimmer. It lasted for only a second before vanishing.
Someone else is out there, Zylas thought.
He considered going out to investigate, but his body screamed for rest. He wasn't a Paragon. He wasn't an Apostle. He was just a guy with a borrowed weapon and a target on his back. He returned to bed, pulling the blanket tight. Tomorrow was the start of the semester. Tomorrow, he would have to stand on a stage in front of thousands of people who expected him to be a hero.
He finally drifted off into a fitful sleep, unaware that the ring on his finger was starting to glow with a faint, ghostly light. As he slept, the black lines from the day before reappeared on his arm, moving slowly, as if mapping out his entire muscular structure. The Authority wasn't just a power, it was a change.
Zylas woke up before the sun was fully up, his body feeling like it had been hit by a truck. He sat up, his right arm feeling stiff and heavy. He pulled back the sleeve of his shirt and froze. It was glowing with a black light.
Suddenly he heard the same voice from The Ring speak, "Visible changes have been made to show Authority Activation."
"No, deactivate the Authority and make it not visible when activated." Zylas said firmly, in an attempt to command The Ring.
Nothing responded. Yet in an instant, the glow dissapeared. Zylas' orders were heard.
He heard Grant moving around downstairs, the smell of coffee drifting up through the floorboards. Zylas walked to the mirror and splashed cold water on his face. He looked older. Tired. He took a deep breath and headed downstairs.
"Morning," Grant said, not looking up from the stove. "Ready for your big day?"
"As ready as I'll ever be," Zylas replied, his voice flat.
"Eat up. We have to be at the Academy in an hour for the opening ceremony. The Dean wants the Representatives there early."
Zylas sat at the table and picked up a piece of toast. He could feel the ring pulsing against his pocket. The "Authority" was ready to be activated again. He just hoped he wouldn't have to use it on a person.