Chap 97: Swelled Ego

All traces of the cavern and its light vanished into total darkness, and Saeda began to tremble uncontrollably. She fumbled for the distress signal on her telecom and pressed it. Just in case that wasn’t enough to alert her teammates to the grave and abominable danger, she yelled,

“Guys, where are you? We need to get out of here now!”

A flash of light broke through the darkness—Zod had turned on his telecom flashlight after hearing Saeda’s panic.

“Saeda, calm down. I’m here,” he said.

Tee stirred awake as vibrations rippled through the band on her arm. She screamed when she realized she was floating in darkness. Was she trapped by Sade?

The four burning lines across her face told her she was definitely awake. They came from that creature that lunged out of the shadow while fighting Lilith. But what was that thing? No way was that Lilith.

“Tee, is that you?” Zod asked through his telecom after hearing her scream.

Miko brought her telecom close to her mouth. “I only hear four of us. Where’s Kie?”

Tee shone her telecom light beneath her chin, illuminating her face. “Yeah, it’s me. Where in Dreden are we?”

Kie, too, felt the vibration and opened his eyes to what looked like outer space—except there were no stars. The pain in his stomach from four stab wounds reminded him he wasn’t dreaming. Luckily, the ache in his neck wasn’t as bad without gravity.

Wherever he was, hearing his teammates’ voices meant he wasn’t alone. He activated his holo-map to check their locations and sighed in relief. Everyone was accounted for.

“The Harbingers left,” Miko said.

“Then we’re leaving—” Kie began, but stopped when his arm swiped through the air without moving him. “What the—?”

“Great to hear your voice, Kie,” Zod said. “Now what’s the plan to get us out of here?”

Kie tried paddling with both hands, but he stayed in the same spot. His holo-map confirmed zero movement. His left eye twitched.

“We didn’t even take down a Harbinger, and now we’re trapped here?” he muttered, forgetting the two-way comms were still on. “...Tsk. Another failure.”

The pain in his neck and chest stopped him from saying more.

Miko was about to mention Riven when she remembered it had escaped through a vortex—meaning it was still alive. The faint hope she’d clung to vanished with a sigh.

Tee recalled that Kie still had a spark of his powers, but an ugly feeling bubbled up inside her anyway. She couldn’t stop herself.

“Another failure?” she said. “You made another show of your Sentinel powers. Stop pretending to be modest—you’re not fooling anyone.”

“And yet I didn’t manage to take Lilith down. Some power—”

“Be quiet!” Saeda screamed.

Her heavy gasps echoed through the silence that followed. Tee frowned, unsure if the outburst was aimed at her or everyone.

Saeda’s voice trembled. “Can we please focus on getting out of here and end this pointless argument?”

Zod knew the darkness was getting to her—it was getting to him too. His heart was racing, but he forced optimism into his tone.

“Hey, the fragment’s not here, so it shouldn’t block the elders’ surveillance. They should see we can’t move and come get us.”

“I think that only applies when we’re half-dead,” Tee muttered.

A small white dot appeared in the void ahead, expanding slowly. Everyone turned toward it.

“What’s that?” Zod asked.

“The end,” Tee answered.

The flash of blue light drew their attention to where Saeda was. They couldn’t see her in the pitch darkness, but everyone recognized her signature flashes.

“Saeda, did you get a future vision?” Zod’s voice cracked. “I knew it—we’re gonna die here, aren’t we?”

“It’s not a future vision,” she said. “But it doesn’t make sense.”

“Just tell us what you saw,” Kie said.

“I saw five hands pressing the teleportation button—each spaced far apart. It doesn’t make sense, because we need to be close to teleport.”

“You mean… we can teleport?” Miko asked.

Zod’s chest tightened. “I thought we could only teleport when we’re close together. Isn’t that how we trigger jump acceleration and teleport in under a second?”

“It’s illogical,” Kie admitted. “But Saeda’s proven herself today. I’m not doubting her.”

He was willing to try anything. All he wanted now was to make it back to Primus—to finally master channeling energy through his sword, even if it meant sleepless nights.

Saeda glanced toward the growing light ahead. Something about it felt wrong—it didn’t bring hope. It felt worse than the darkness surrounding them. 

Suddenly, a flash image struck her—her teammates being obliterated by the white light, their screams echoing painfully in her mind. She didn’t dare tell them. Time was too critical. She spoke quickly.

“I know the vision didn’t make sense. But it showed all five of us separated, activating teleportation together. Maybe we can teleport—it just won’t happen instantly.”

“By ‘not instantly,’ do you mean ten minutes?” Zod asked. “Doesn’t ten minutes only apply to individual teleportation? And our telecoms weren’t configured for that—it’s like a switch. Either it works or—”

“Zod,” Saeda said calmly. “Please, stop talking.”

“Let’s do this,” Kie said.

Miko took a deep breath, and the others mirrored her, holding it as they pressed their telecoms together.

Meanwhile, Lilith and Legion stepped out of separate vortexes. Riven perched on a slanted pillar made of Night-line alloy, preening under the faint moonlight that made its silhouette stand out sharply.

Sade lowered his energy shield to catch the fragment Lilith tossed to him. It glowed brightly for a moment, then dimmed as he began his work.

Legion noticed the shiny black feathers scattered across the rough ground. “What happened here?” his deep voice rumbled.

Riven dropped the wing it had been tending and began recounting how it had barely escaped death.

Usually, Sade would have sensed something like that immediately, but he sat cross-legged, his mind far away. He was focused on breaking the fragment’s defenses while simultaneously pulling energy to recharge. When Lilith rested her hand on his shoulder, the inflow of energy multiplied a hundredfold—far beyond what he could draw from the Verge. What would he ever do without her?

Riven made the mistake of boasting that he wanted to possess the vessel and mutate her. Lilith’s ears twitched, and her eyes—black and seething—snapped toward Riven.

“You did what?” Her voice thundered, and Sade almost lost his concentration.

The shout shook Riven to its core. It toppled from the pillar but never hit the ground. A dark orb formed around it and began to shrink, crushing it inside. Riven barely managed to form a small vortex within the orb, forcing itself through at the last second—though a few feathers were squished into dust.

It was early morning, when most of the city still slept under global curfew. The Lieutenant frowned at a strange reading flickering across her translucent hologram screen. Closing it, she stepped over to the five faintly glowing, blue silhouettes slowly forming before her.

It took eight minutes for Tee and her teammates to fully materialize, though to them, it felt instantaneous. They gasped as they looked around the familiar mission base.

“Please tell me I’m not dreaming.” Zod ignored the Lieutenant’s presence and dropped to his knees to kiss the ground. “I’ve never been so happy to be back here again.”

The Lieutenant eyed the large patch on his head but ignored it. “I’m almost certain you five weren’t switched to individual teleportation.”

They turned toward the woman with dark brown hair in a bun, glasses glinting under the lights, and a long green jacket. She adjusted her glasses and studied them closely.

Tee rubbed her forehead. “Don’t tell me this means our slaughter when we first met the Harbingers was for nothing.” Her brows knitted. “We shouldn’t have been able to teleport—unless it was individual teleportation.”

The Lieutenant glanced at her hologram filled with color-coded bars. “Interesting. Four of you are giving off strong traces of compacted Ether energy—Ultramana. The surge in its source must’ve triggered the teleportation. So, you didn’t need overlapping teleportation fields.”

Kie lowered his arms. “Only four of us?”

The Lieutenant cleared her throat. “That’s right. I’m not detecting any energy levels from Tee.”

Tee froze as everyone turned toward her. Her heart pounded in her ears, but she kept her expression calm and puzzled. She had to look as clueless as possible.

But she knew the truth. She wasn’t like them and it was starting to show. What excuse could she give for that, other than the darkness growing inside her?

Zod finally broke the tension, glancing up at the ceiling. “That’s weird.” He raised a hand. “How many of us got a spark of our Sentinel powers not too long ago?”

Kie, Saeda, and Miko raised their hands.

Zod nodded, satisfied. “That’s it. Tee isn’t giving off Ultramana because she didn’t use her Sentinel powers.”

The Lieutenant pursed her lips and pulled up a new hologram, half-hiding her face behind it.

Miko’s face lit up. “Yes! That makes so much sense.”

Zod patted Tee’s shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t worry—you’ll get a spark soon.”

“Whatever,” Tee muttered, brushing past them toward the exit.

“Guys, let’s go ask the Professor for a meeting to see what’s inside the cool orb!” Miko ran ahead, squealing as she threw her hands in the air. “I think I might have teleportation powers!”

“Yeah, good idea!” Zod called, chasing after her.

Tee froze mid-step. A meeting with the elders? What if the elders gave her teammates a deeper explanation for why she wasn’t emitting any Ultramana energy? They’d reveal she was a Xeno-victim hybrid.

It was still early morning, but that didn’t stop Elder Caledor and Elder Seriphal from making time for the young Sentinels.

The metallic scent of blood hung heavy in the air. The teens were bruised from battle but stood proudly instead of sitting. All except Tee, who sat near the window ready to bolt. If her secret came out, she’d throw a chair at someone’s face and dive straight through the glass window.

Zod already knew he could create energy blasts. What he wanted was to rewatch the massive one he fired at the Harbingers through the elders’ orb.

Miko, on the other hand, still didn’t understand how she’d moved so fast to stop the blackbird from reaching Tee. Maybe a slow-motion playback of her memory would reveal whether she had moved at incredible speed or actually teleported. The same thing had happened when the shadow creature nearly killed her.

Overwhelmed by excitement, Miko spoke so fast that neither elder could understand a word. Her lips moved nonstop, caught in an endless loop of words that never slowed enough to make sense.

As for Saeda, aura-sensing alone wasn’t enough proof that she was useful, but she had more to show. Her teammates would see her block Kie from being sliced by an invisible Sade, and then witness her shatter boulders with a sword blast. She wasn’t mistaken. She had two powerful abilities, plus her visions.

Kie, meanwhile, wanted an endless replay of the moment he shattered Lilith’s strike with his energy sword. He would study every second until he mastered it. Soon, he’d become the Sentinel with the most abilities—the one destined to stand above all. Geovalon’s savior. Total control was already within reach.

Elder Seriphal and Elder Caledor exchanged a look. The four teens standing close to the desk weren’t there to analyze memories and uncover answers. They were there for reassurance, to inflate their already swelling egos. Still, the elders were interested in seeing the Sentinels’ battle for themselves. The fragment’s defense had interfered with their earlier surveillance, so to view the full picture, they needed to verge the Sentinels’ minds.

After asking permission, four of them agreed.

But Tee crossed her legs and folded her arms. “I’m not giving you permission to verge me.”

The elders accepted her decision without protest.

Her teammates assumed it was because she had nothing impressive to show—no significant Ultramana progress. But the truth was that Tee had things she needed to keep hidden, like the fact that she was a Hybrid capable of unleashing a MegaSapian.

The elders began the verge, entering the minds of the remaining Sentinels one by one. Kie’s process was fastest, thanks to his mind-linking ability. Once finished, he gathered everything into his mind and projected it onto the viewing orb.

When Zod’s memory replayed the moment he blasted Lilith to save Tee, he turned to her. “Tee, how did you get captured?”

She thought carefully before answering. “I used my foreseeing vision to scan the caverns, then bumped right into Lilith’s cold eyes. But I thought no one was supposed to sense me while using that ability.”

She continued, explaining how she couldn’t see their shadows and how they’d planned to use her as bait.

Elder Caledor confirmed that the Harbingers had sensed her while she was using her foreseeing ability. They weren’t ordinary beings of the modern world. He even demonstrated by performing an invisibility chant and only Tee could still see him.

Indeed, Tee possessed Absolute Vision—the ability to see through any optical illusion. But the frown on her face didn’t waver. It wasn’t just from the painful scrapes swelling one side of her face or the tears in her eyes.

She had lost three chances to prove herself the best Sentinel. Her teammates’ powers outshone hers, and her so-called “ability” felt useless by comparison. The fear of her secret being exposed had faded. Failure was all she could think about.

When the meeting ended, the pain returned. Their bodies reminded them of how beaten up they were. Kie clutched his neck, swearing his head was about to fall off.

Saeda had meant to ask the elders why her aura-sensing flickered on and off, but decided against it. She figured it was just an early-stage issue she’d soon learn to control.

After only three hours of rest, they were back on their feet for training. Breakfast went on as usual—Saeda devoured three servings.

Kie couldn’t stop smiling. The air smelled sweet, and he took it as a sign of a good day. But when Tee walked by with her coffee, he realized it wasn’t the air—it was her.

He breathed in deeply, watching her. For someone with such sharp eyesight, how did she never notice him staring? Feeling bold, he reached for her hand as she passed to pull her closer for a kiss.

Tee sensed something rushing toward her hand and pulled away just in time. When she turned, her brows knit into a tight unibrow.

Kie rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry,” he said, pretending to grimace. “Arm spasm. My arm didn’t heal properly—it’s serious.”

Tee blinked. “That’s too bad.” She walked to the other side of the kitchen. “Try telling that to a nurse. Maybe they’ll care,” she added, stuffing a loaf of bread into her mouth.

Kie yanked the fridge door open so hard that a few juice boxes nearly fell. He sighed and glanced over his shoulder at Tee. She didn’t seem in a good mood—but to him, it was still a good day.

Saeda came by to grab some nut juice. “Don’t close the door,” she said.

He stepped aside and held it open for her. As she reached in, he brushed the hair from the side of her neck. She froze.

“Your hair was sticking out,” he said softly near her ear. “By the way, you have beautiful hair. I’ve always wanted to tell you that.”

Saeda stared down at the juice box in her hand. Her hair fell forward, hiding her face. “Um. Thanks.”

Zod, watching from across the room, sipped his coffee slowly. Wild thoughts filled his head, and he had to swallow every one. Was Saeda Kie’s lucky girl? That was insane.

Kie wasn’t interested in pursuing his other “options,” but things with Tee weren’t going well. Saeda might be easier—but even thinking about it made him frown. He didn’t want her that way at all.