The battlefield was a grave. Smoke curled from molten metal, glass crunched beneath every shifting ember, and Jaggernaut's half-melted corpse dripped like slag into the ruined street. The mafia footmen who had survived were still screaming—skin charred, bones visible in places.
Kyren stood in the middle of it, his grin fractured and too wide, lightning crawling over his body like living madness.
From the haze stepped a figure—broad shoulders cloaked in heat-haze, his eyes like burning coals. Flames licked across his skin as if they were veins. Scorch — a registered GAA hero.
His gaze swept across the destruction—Jaggernaut's corpse, the broken mobsters writhing, the cratered street. Horror warred with fury in his face.
"…God, what have you done?" he whispered, before looking straight at Kyren. His voice hardened, fire flaring hotter around him.
"Heroes don't act like this. You crossed a line."
Kyren tilted his head, laughing, the sound jagged like broken glass. His lips trembled with manic glee.
"Line? You think there are lines in war? Hah! The voice tells me the truth—heroes don't win wars. Gods do."
"They don't understand you, Kyren. They'll never understand. You are not one of them. You are above them." The voice whispers to Kyren.
Kyren clutched his head, giggling — muttering to himself—sometimes whispering, sometimes shouting. "Above them… beyond them… hah! The voice is right, the voice is always right!"
Scorch felt his stomach twist. This kid… he was unraveling. He took a half-step back, flames wreathing him tighter, instinct screaming danger.
"…Stormborne," he muttered, realization hitting like a punch.
Kyren's grin widened at the name. The storm inside him screamed for release.
Scorch raised his voice, a soldier's command.
"Then I'll put you down before you burn the whole damn world."
And with that, he attacked.
The street ignited.
Flame and lightning collided in an instant.
Scorch's inferno erupted outward, a rolling tide of flame that melted asphalt and bent lampposts like wax. Kyren answered with a crackling detonation of lightning, his body disappearing in a blur as thunder shook the world.
They collided midair. Fire and lightning tore into each other, twisting the night sky into a storm of searing light.
Kyren's fist crackled with a hundred thousand volts as he swung, but Scorch caught it with a flaming palm, the collision sending shockwaves through the air. Flame roared up Kyren's arm, searing skin, while lightning tore into Scorch's ribs, making him stagger.
They circled each other, predators in the ruins.
Scorch roared, unleashing a pillar of flame that consumed an entire building, reducing it to molten slag. Kyren darted through it in streaks of blue, lightning singing through the inferno, and slammed into Scorch with a brutal knee.
The hero coughed blood but retaliated instantly, engulfing Kyren in a solar flare burst, a miniature sun exploding between them. The shockwave hurled Kyren across the street, embedding him in a wall. His skin blistered, steam rising off him—yet his grin never wavered.
What followed was chaos.
Kyren's lightning strikes forked and split, hunting Scorch through the ruins. Scorch countered with walls of flame, redirecting the bolts into glowing cages of fire. Kyren blurred forward, fists shattering the ground with thunderclaps, while Scorch's whips of living flame lashed back, carving deep burns into his flesh.
Neither yielded. Neither relented.
Inside, Scorch's resolve hardened. If I don't stop him now, no one will.
He ignited his whole body, becoming a living inferno, brighter and hotter than any blast furnace. The heat was unbearable, pavement bubbling around him.
"You want to be a god?!" he shouted over the roar. "Then fight one!"
Kyren answered by summoning his storm in full—his veins glowing electric blue, lightning forming jagged armor around his body. The ground split under the pressure, the air howling with static.
They clashed—storm and sun colliding. The city vanished in blinding white, the sound a thunderclap that shattered eardrums.
The city itself seemed to collapse around them. Cars exploded under stray sparks, rooftops caved from flame, and the very air boiled. Each blow felt decisive, yet neither fell. The storm of anxiety rose—anyone watching would know that either man could die at any second.
A man-shaped sun burning against the storm.
They clashed one last time. The world turned white with the impact.
When the light faded, both were broken.
Scorch staggered, falling to his knees, blood dripping from his mouth, one eye swollen shut. His skin burned and cracked, smoke rising from every pore. Yet he stood, flames flickering stubbornly, refusing to die.
Kyren towered over him, wild-eyed, bleeding, his laugh sharp and broken. Lightning crawled endlessly across his frame.
The voice inside Kyren hissed, seductive, cruel.
"Kill him. Snuff out the fire. Show him what gods do to those that dare to oppose them."
"You spoke like a hero, but look at the destruction we've caused together, you even melted an entire building with your flame pillar." Kyren yells at the broken hero.
"All civilians within the vicinity have... been evacuated to safety by the police." Scorch struggled to speak.
Kyren raised his hand, lightning coiling into a killing spear. His grin split wider. His laugh tore through the ruined street.
Scorch raised a trembling hand, voice ragged but resolute.
"You don't have to be this… You could still be more."
But as Scorch raised his trembling hand in a last, desperate push, his fingers brushed against the chain on Kyren's neck, exposing a pendant around Kyren's neck from beneath his shirt.
Kyren froze.
The voice stuttered.
His eyes locked on the small charm around his neck. Memories—his mother's voice, soft and steady, whispering hope into him as a child—broke through the static.
"Be hope, Kyren. Be peace. Do not lose yourself, you must be a symbol. A storm that brings rain, not ruin."
The storm that had been brewing inside him faltered. The laugh choked off. His eyes widened, not with madness, but with grief. His body shook violently. Lightning sputtered and died around him.
"No…" Kyren whispered, tears welling. "No… not her voice too…"
He screamed at the heavens, a raw, broken sound that tore through the night, clutching his head.
"LEAVE ME ALONE!"
The sinister voice recoiled, silenced. For the first time, there was no whisper, no corruption—only Kyren's ragged sobbing.
He staggered back from Scorch, shaking, tears cutting streaks down his burned cheeks. His lightning flickered weakly, like dying embers, his manic grin replaced by trembling lips.
"I won't… I won't be your monster," he muttered. Then louder, broken, almost begging:
"I'll... I'll live the way she wanted. I'll make her proud."
As Scorch fell, his body finally giving in, the flames around him sputtered and dimmed.
Across the ruined street, Kyren's form flickered—then vanished in a streak of fading lightning, disappearing into the night and leaving behind a battlefield that looked less like a fight… and more like a warning.
Scorch collapsed onto his back, chest rising unevenly, the taste of iron thick in his mouth. His vision blurred, but he kept staring at the space Kyren had occupied—like if he looked away, something worse might take its place.
"An omega-level Stormborne…" he rasped, clutching his ribs as pain flared through his body.
A weak, almost disbelieving breath escaped him.
"No… not just that."
His eyes flickered, recalling briefings, classifications, cold rooms filled with colder voices—
charts… colors… categories meant to make sense of things that shouldn't exist.
The Global Awakened Authority had a system for everything.
They always did.
Seven levels.
Seven neat boxes to contain chaos.
At the very bottom—Delta. Harmless anomalies. Latent risks. Things you monitored… but didn't fear.
Then Gamma—Awakened individuals who could disrupt cities if left unchecked.
Above that, Beta. Regional threats. Disasters waiting to spread.
Then came Alpha.
Scorch let out a strained breath, a faint, humorless smile touching his lips.
That's where I stand, he thought.
Where Juno stands… where most of us stop.
National-level threats.
Powerful. Dangerous.
But still… containable.
His expression darkened as his thoughts climbed higher.
Above Alpha… was Omega.
His fingers curled weakly against the shattered ground.
Planetary threats.
The kind of power that didn't just break cities—
it rewrote them.
The kind you didn't fight to win against—
You fought to survive.
And above even that…
Scorch's breathing slowed, his eyes dimming slightly as the memory surfaced like something half-buried.
Celestial.
Primordial.
Names spoken less like classifications… and more like warnings.
System-ending forces.
Existence-level threats.
Things that didn't belong in any world governed by rules.
His gaze drifted back to the sky, where the last traces of lightning had already faded.
"…And he's still growing," Scorch whispered hoarsely.
The realization settled in his chest, heavier than any injury.
"God help us all…"
Because if that…
was only Omega—
Then the storm hadn't reached its limit yet.
Present day. Kyren's apartment in Hollywood.
Kyren holds onto his mom's pendant around his neck and then begins controlling his breath while remembering his mom, thus silencing the voice inside him.
Kyren's cellphone begins ringing and he picks it up to check who is calling, realizes it's Talia, then he answers it.
"Hey, Ky, did you reach home safely?"
"Yeah, no problem." Kyren replied. "I was just resting, but it's nice to hear your voice."
"That's right, before I had only my mom's memories to help me fight my inner demons, but now I also have Talia." Kyren thinks to himself.
"Thanks for the care, Talia, and everything else you do for me." Kyren murmurs through the phone.
"Stop it, Ky, you're going to make me blush."
"Ky, are you okay? You don't sound fine to me."
"It's nothing Talia, I'm just exhausted."
"Alright, have some rest, we'll talk tomorrow, good night, Ky."
"Ya, good night, Talia."
"I know what I did was wrong, but the guy had it coming; he wanted to go after Talia. If it was just me, it would have been ok, but he involved her, and I couldn't let him lay a finger on her."
Kyren thought to himself.
"Good thing there were no witnesses or cameras in the area."