The Ascension War
Chapter 07 - The Ascension War
A column of red light pierced the storm clouds above the city.
Every electronic device within ten miles died.
Across the streets, ordinary people changed.
A firefighter lifted a burning truck.
A frightened child vanished and reappeared across an intersection.
A woman screamed, and rain froze around her.
Helix soldiers began capturing them.
Gabriel regrouped the team.
“We shut down the tower and release the prisoners.”
The Null Guard arrived.
Their armor contained blue crystals that canceled Seraph abilities.
Maya’s power disappeared.
Marcus could not alter density.
Lena could not heal.
Eve’s flame vanished.
The battle became physical and brutal.
Then Maya remembered Gabriel’s training.
Power is an advantage. Skill is what remains when it is taken.
She ducked beneath a rifle, struck an armor joint, and tore out the blue crystal.
Her red energy returned.
The others followed.
Marcus became steel.
Lena healed Gabriel’s arm.
Eve burned through the remaining armor.
They reached the chamber beneath the Array.
Director Silas Voss waited on a suspended platform connected to hundreds of cables.
“Human evolution has always required suffering,” he said.
Maya looked at the imprisoned children.
“No. Men like you require suffering because it makes people easier to control.”
Voss activated the neural network.
Every awakened person in the city screamed.
A command entered Maya’s mind.
KNEEL.
She struck the floor.
Around her, the Seraphs collapsed.
Only Eve remained standing.
She had no natural birth signature.
The network could not command her.
Voss stared.
“You are property.”
Eve walked through gunfire.
“No.”
White fire covered her body.
“I am a choice.”
She destroyed the control cables.
Maya rose and flew upward through the center of the red beam.
At the top she found the Crimson Core.
It was not a machine.
It was a living crystal pulsing like a heart.
When Maya touched it, she saw futures of enhanced armies, burning cities, and herself on a throne of red light.
The Core spoke inside her mind.
You were not made by them.
May you like
You were chosen by me.
The crystal opened like an eye.
