Rain soaked through Leon’s torn jacket, mixing with the faint metallic taste of blood in his mouth. He stood slowly, his boots sinking into the mud of what had once been the reactor field. The entire landscape was different now — the ground pulsed faintly beneath him, breathing like a living thing. The air shimmered with silver and blue light, threads of raw energy winding upward into the bruised sky.
He took one unsteady step forward. The world responded. The ground rippled outward from his footfall, the same way it had in the Merge. He clenched his fists, forcing the reaction to stop. Every nerve in his body felt alive, charged, but it wasn’t like before — it wasn’t raw power. It was balance.
“Leon.”
The voice came from behind him, shaky and wet with tears. He turned, and Kiera was st
