November 24, 2024 - Melbourne, Australia

The world was changing.

And it was changing fast—too fast.

Jack had just said goodbye to his parents, who'd shown up for one of their short weekly visits. He stood near the edge of Mount Sugarloaf, hands in his pockets, staring down at the view below.

The big metallic casing that once surrounded the spot Alonso had disappeared from? Gone.

They'd removed it.

Obvious why. They no longer wanted to make Alonso feel threatened. Hell, they couldn't afford to. Even if they had something that could contain him now, what about next week? What about next month? Yeah—didn't seem likely.

Jack took a slow breath of the air. It was clean. Natural. Peaceful.

And honestly? Boring as hell.

This whole "we're keeping you here for Alonso's and Pablo's safety" arrangement had dragged on long enough. His bank account looked great. His mental health? Not so much.

He leaned back, stared at the blue sky, and pulled out his phone. They were probably spying on every damn thing he searched—but he gave a literal fuck.

He went straight to the news, mostly curious about how the situation in the US was spiralling. The elections had just wrapped up—loud, tense, and right in the middle of growing returnee panic. The Republicans had taken the win, but that wasn't what people were talking about anymore.

A Senator's wife had been killed by a returnee last week. And since then, things had only gotten hotter.

The headlines were bold.

NEW POLICY PROPOSED TO MANAGE RETURNEE POPULATION

Jack tapped the article. Another press conference, another soundbite making the rounds. One of the major political figures had stepped up with a plan—strict regulation, national coordination, and a whole lot of big promises.

Jack scrolled.

"We welcome the strong ones. The good ones. Some of these returnees are heroes. No question," the speaker had said, voice calm but firm. "But the dangerous ones? The unstable ones? We deal with them decisively. We have the tools. We have the people. And we'll do what it takes to keep the country safe."

Applause. Flags. Flashbulbs.

Jack rolled his eyes.

Same pitch. Same choreography. Just a different crisis.

Still, they knew they couldn't lump all returnees into the threat category—not with half the Pentagon practically drooling over the idea of adding EM-powered operatives to the payroll.

They'd already run the numbers. Teams in suits were already drafting protocols, budgets, recruitment funnels.

The brass didn't see broken people with trauma.

They saw weapons.

Returnees were valuable now. That was the word the talking heads kept vomiting across every network: Assets.

"Strategic resources with potential unmatched by conventional forces," some general had said with a dead-serious face last week. "Not just in combat, but in intelligence, logistics, cyber operations—hell, even space."

Actual supersoldiers.

Perfect aim.

Reflexes off the charts.

Strength and endurance boosted past anything even the top-tier Marines could pull off.

And the higher-tier ones? The ones who made it further inside that The Tower?

They weren't just strong.

They were different.

Take Alonso, for example. If he came out right now, he wouldn't even be considered a returnee anymore… He'd be something else entirely. Something his home country, Spain, and Australia would probably fight over—and that was just based on what they last saw of him.

He was in a different league compared to the troublemakers from Gen-2 stumbling back out.

Alonso wasn't just strong—he was ridiculously strong. And on top of that, he was easily one of the most talked-about figures on the internet. Viral-level famous.

Even with all the new clips coming in from other groups in the second stage—and the really efficient and powerful Shadows—there still hadn't been a single individual display of power that matched the last recorded footage from Gen-1.

Someone with that kind of pull… the government—and whatever shadowy military group was running this place—had to tread carefully.

Jack had noticed the changes around the base. The way people moved. The way conversations stopped whenever someone in a black suit walked past.

More agents. More silence.

Especially after that snobbish woman was chosen for Gen-2.

That's when shit started to shift.

Things were getting serious.

He kept scrolling on his phone.

Africa had apparently "stabilised" again. Which really meant some rebel groups with returnees got flattened by drone strikes and a few returnees who were willing to play nice with the local regimes. The headlines made it sound like a win for global security.

"Returnee collaboration ends months-long insurgency in Central Sahel."

Jack scoffed.

Translation?

A few desperate returnees took the offer—food, shelter, amnesty—and helped the same shitty governments that let their countries burn in the first place.

They were already giving medals to one of them. "Commander Vek" or some crap—a guy who'd reached the second stage of Tier 2 and could twist gun barrels with his bare hands. They stuck a flag behind him, cleaned him up, threw some flowers around, and voilà—poster boy for cooperation.

Another headline popped up.

"Four Banks Hit in Two Days—Authorities Confirm Returnees Involved."

That one felt more honest.

The footage was grainy, but you could still make out the chaos. One returnee punching straight through a reinforced wall. Another messing with the lights and cameras mid-heist—probably EM interference again.

Jack watched one of the clips.

He wasn't even surprised anymore.

You pull people out of hell, spit them back on Earth with freak powers and no rehab, and then act shocked when some of them snap?

What the hell did they think was gonna happen?

But of course, the news always had to balance things out.

Cue the next piece. All soft piano music and optimistic narration.

"Returnees Driving Innovation in Energy and Healthcare Sectors."

Jack clicked it, mostly for the laugh.

Sure enough, there was a returnee in a lab coat, standing in front of some shiny facility in Sweden. She was using the same basic EM control they all came back with—nothing fancy, just tuned to work with some scanning tech.

"Revolutionizing medicine," the voiceover said, breathy and overblown like they were announcing the cure for cancer—when, in reality, she was probably slower, less precise, and way more unreliable than any decent MRI machine already on the market.

Another one was powering rural schools in Bolivia. Same deal—basic EM output hooked up to some dusty battery rack and a few coils. The kind of setup any backup generator or solar panel system could've done better, cheaper, and without needing therapy every month.

Then there was the Aussie guy—Jack recognized him. Quiet, ex-mechanic type. Came back with a so-so feel for current flow and field tuning, nothing to brag about. But now he was the face of "green energy innovation," helping the government rewire half the rural grid out west like he was Nikola bloody Tesla reincarnated. In truth? Any half-decent engineer with a multimeter and a week's prep could've done a cleaner job.

Jack snorted.

Same tools. Different jobs. The news just slapped feel-good music on it and called it a miracle.

Jack snorted.

It all felt like the new brand of returnee wokeness. All wrapped up in slick promos and puff pieces to make normies feel good.

Jack sighed.

The world was losing its mind. But that was true even before The Tower arrived.

MAI's voice suddenly came from the phone:

"Notification: Gen-1 Returnee: Zian Halek report has been added to ASCENT."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Jack's eyes widened.

Finally.

They took their bloody time.

He opened the link and tapped it.

The report was actually longer than expected. And the more he read, the more his eyes narrowed.

Gen-1 had reached Stage 3?

There was a waiting room for a week between stages?

They got separated at the start, and Zian died fighting… a dinosaur?

But more than that, what really caught Jack off guard was the entire paragraph dedicated to some kind of knowledge transfer—something Alonso and the other members of the so-called Gen-1's Seven had apparently received after beating the Seventh Boss.

And it wasn't just fluff. It lined up with what ASCENT had published a few weeks ago… except now, it was more detailed. More… advanced.

Jack recognized it immediately.

He'd been poring over the manuals since they dropped. Couldn't train the techniques—not until The Tower chose him—but having the information ahead of time helped. A lot.

He read to the end.

No further mention of Alonso.

Only a brief line about another climber—Nikolai—being with Zian when he died. That was it.

Jack re-read the final paragraph, then closed the tab.

His thoughts drifted.

When would the next Gen-1 event drop?

How was Alonso doing in there?

And what about Pablo—who'd never been in any of the Shadows' boss fights but was somehow still alive inside?

Where the hell was he right now?

November 24, 2024 - The Tower, Second Tier, Second Stage

Pablo was slowly analyzing the corpse of one of the magma lizards—a creature that, for lack of a better name, he had termed Ignisaurus minor.

It was just something to help him catalogue things in his head.

The corpse was still warm, even hours after death. Its outer scales were rough and jagged, almost obsidian-like, but underneath—near the joints and belly—were softer, more porous plates, likely for heat exchange.

Pablo noted the pattern of heat spots along its spine. Six in total, each connected by a branching network of pale, semi-crystalline tubes running under the skin. When he'd cut into one earlier, a faint glow had leaked out before the tissue darkened.

Some kind of thermal organ system. Possibly a self-regulating heat reservoir? Maybe even pressure-based, given the burst when he pierced the third chamber.

The creature's bones were dense—too dense, actually. Likely reinforced with mineral deposits.

But what fascinated Pablo most was the orb.

Such an immaterial structure, lodged right in the middle of the brain. It was weightless, yet somehow still affected by gravity. It was also invisible to EM waves. For all intents and purposes, it was like it wasn't there—yet it was.

But what was it? Some sort of condensed energy? But energy from where? And why in the centre of the brain? And why was it wrapped in so many highly conductive filaments?

Pablo was fairly certain the orb was related in some way to EM control capabilities—but that theory had plenty of inconsistencies.

Take climbers, for instance. When they died, they all left behind the same kind of orb. Yet EM control among climbers varied wildly. So why did they all... well, not have the same kind of orb, but orbs that behaved the same way when absorbed?

So then—what about information? Was anything stored inside? Or just… a source of plain Stage Progress?

And entropy—what about that? As it stood, the orb seemed to decrease the entropy of the system. But that would violate the Third Law of Thermodynamics.

Also—

"You should be more aware of your surroundings."

The voice from directly behind him jolted Pablo.

He didn't need to turn to know who it was.

"I... I may have been a bit distracted," he muttered, still half-lost in his thoughts.

But honestly? Even if he'd been fully alert, it wouldn't have mattered.

If Leonie didn't want to be noticed, she wouldn't be.

"Any new discoveries?" she asked casually, crouching beside him.

Her armor was splattered with blood—some dried, some still fresh. She held her helmet in one hand.

Her face was flushed with heat and streaked with sweat, strands of golden hair sticking to her temples. Pablo tensed slightly, like he always did when she got too close.

Leonie wasn't just beautiful—she was beyond that. There was something raw in her presence, something that made her impossible to ignore.

"Just a couple of new weak points," Pablo said, trying hard to keep his mind composed next to her. He sent her a pulse, highlighting the weak spots in a detailed 3D diagram of the creature.

"Good. By the way, did you receive the orbs from the jellyfish? Or wait—you called them Aetheromedusa graviflua, didn't you?"

"I… yes. Thank you. And… apologies for not being of any help in the battles."

"You help more than quite a number of my men, despite being a guest," Leonie said, smiling.

Pablo gulped, tension rising in his chest.

"So, anything else you want to tell me?"

"N—well… there is one thing I'd like to try. But it might be a waste of time and resources."

"Just say it. I'll decide if it's a waste or not."

Pablo nodded slowly, his eyes drifting to the protruding orb in the Ignisaurus's brain.

"Climbers can absorb orbs from one another. I was wondering if… it would be the same for the creatures."

Leonie frowned. "You mean creatures could potentially absorb orbs too… and grow stronger?"

"It's just a guess. But we could… perhaps… try throwing an orb at one and see what it does."

"Hmm… interesting. Amusing how none of them thought about it. Alright. Let's give it a shot."

She stood, took a step forward, and one of her tendrils flickered—practically imperceptible to Pablo's eyes. A moment later, the orb once nestled in the creature's brain was resting in Leonie's hand.

"Follow me."

Pablo blinked, slightly stunned, but quickly got up and followed her.

As he walked, he caught a better view of her latest equipment—the gauntlets and the tendril-cape she'd acquired from the last two boss fights. It… suited her.

A couple of minutes later, one of the Ignisaurus was in sight.

Before Pablo could say anything, Leonie sprinted forward and hurled the orb straight at it.

It bounced off.

A pulse came through to Pablo a moment later.

"Well… seems it didn't work."

Pablo exhaled, disappointed—but then paused.

Unless...

"Can you try aiming for its mouth?"

"Alright. But… any particular reason, or just a hunch?" she asked, already moving. With effortless speed, she dodged the creature's swipes, retrieved the orb mid-slide with one of her tendrils, and circled around.

"It's just a rough guess," Pablo admitted. "With climbers, the absorption process seems to be assisted—almost mediated—by The Tower itself. We touch an orb, even through armor, and it gets pulled in automatically. But for creatures, that external assistance might be weaker or absent altogether. Ingestion could act as a more natural trigger—something closer to a biological mechanism, maybe metabolic or glandular."

She didn't respond immediately, but her next move spoke for itself. Leonie twisted low, dashed under the beast's snapping jaws, and launched the orb into its mouth.

Her voice returned seconds later. "Nothing seems to have changed. I just ran a scan—the creature's dimensions are identical. I'll test its physical performance."

Pablo watched as Leonie danced around the Ignisaurus with the same grace she always had. Her movements were fast, clean, and fluid—almost casual. She struck its limbs, knees, and shoulders in quick succession, opening shallow cuts across its armored hide.

A moment later, she sent another pulse.

"Nope. Identical physical capabilities."

Pablo remained silent. He couldn't deny he was feeling a bit deflated—and more than a little tense—aware he'd just taken up Leonie's valuable time with a poorly grounded idea.

He was preparing an apology—then stopped.

One last check. It was worth that much.

Orbs had been proven indestructible. So if it hadn't been absorbed, it should still be there. Somewhere.

"Can we do one last check?"

"Well, getting the orb out of the mouth is tricky," she quickly replied. "But sure, we can get another one."

"No. I mean… can you kill it and check if the orb is still there?"

A pause. Then—

"Oh… sure. Let's find out shall we."

She moved with that same effortless focus, the kind Pablo couldn't look away from. In a single, fluid dash, she closed the distance, ducked beneath a sweeping claw, and drove one of her blades clean through the Ignisaurus's neck—right between two plates of molten-black armor.

The beast let out a choking hiss, then collapsed with a heavy, echoing thud.

Lava-like blood gushed from the wound, hissing as it hit the stone, thick and glowing with residual heat. The scent of scorched iron filled the air.

Leonie didn't flinch.

She knelt beside the twitching corpse, planted one knee on its scorched flesh, and without hesitation, sliced into its throat. Muscle and sinew peeled back beneath her blade, steaming as it opened, revealing layers of fibrous tissue and partially crystallized veins.

She frowned—just slightly—and dragged the blade lower, carving into the upper gut.

"Come here," she pulsed.

Pablo walked forward, the heat washing over him as he approached.

Leonie parted the cauterized tissue, revealing the organ cavity.

And then—

Nothing.

Pablo knelt beside her and began opening up the entire digestive tract—anatomy that, frankly, puzzled him. These creatures didn't eat. Not once had he observed one feeding. Yet the cavity was there, complete with structures that mimicked digestive pathways.

He followed the path with his blade, slow and methodical, all the way to the end.

Still nothing.

He then swept his sword carefully around the pooled blood and residue, probing for any trace of the orb.

Nothing.

Leonie stared at him, then smiled.

"Well, this is interesting. What are your thoughts on it?"

Pablo slowly shook his head, though a quiet tension gripped his chest.

The orb had to be absorbed—there was no other explanation. But there had been no change in the creature's physical performance. And if anyone could detect even the most subtle shift, it was Leonie. He trusted her eye more than any scan.

So what did that mean?

Where had the energy gone? What was The Tower trying to show them?

The Ignisaurus absorbed one orb and—

One?

Unless… it wasn't a one-to-one scale. What if the system was discrete? Layered? A reserve-based structure—not built around individual units, but thresholds of seven. Powers of it.

"Can we try 7 and 49 orbs?"

The words slipped out before he could stop himself. And the moment he said them, he realised how absurd the request sounded. Some of The Shadows hadn't even reached their personal absorption limit yet with the Ignisaurus, and here he was, asking for a full set of 49.

His face flushed, but when he turned to her, he saw her grin—and those deep, unreadable eyes watching him.

A moment later, a pulse reached him—one she'd clearly let him pick up on purpose.

"This is Alpha to all units. Regroup at my position with 49 salamander orbs in hand. You have one hour."

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