The Five Evolution

『"I have to get better."』

In the training simulation room of the ARTE, Amara settled into the control station, her fingers hovering over the haptic interface. "This is your idea of relaxing?"

Behind the reinforced observation glass, Ethan stood in the center of the empty chamber, rolling his shoulders. "Compared to Hiro’s hobbies, this is perfectly normal."

"You sure about this?" Amara asked through the intercom. "You’ve been pushing yourself for days."

"I need this." Ethan looked up at the observation window, finding her silhouette. "The Convergence is in two days. The Council’s going to test us, and I need to know my limits."

"Your limits huh," Amara repeated slowly. "Ethan?" She prodded like she knew he wasn’t telling her everything.

"I have to be better." His voice carried an intensity that made her pause. "It’s only a matter of time until we see each other again."

Amara’s gaze dropped to the ground for a moment, she had an idea who he was referring to. "Alright. But if I see you collapsing, I’m pulling the plug."

"Yeah." Ethan dropped into a ready stance. "Now stop coddling me and hit me with everything this room has."

"Everything?" Amara’s fingers moved across the interface, pulling up the threat parameters. "You realize ’everything’ includes simulations that have hospitalized Tyrants, right?"

"Okay, maybe not everything." His grin was a mix of confidence and recklessness. "Start me at Knight-class. Work up from there."

Amara watched him through the glass for a moment. Two days to Convergence. And somewhere out there, a brother he’d never met had a weapon designed to kill him.

She shook her head and pressed the activation button. "Simulation commencing..."

The chamber transformed as reality rippled like water. Holographic projectors and hard-light generators worked in concert to create enemies that looked and felt real enough to kill.

Five Knight-class Malices materialized in formation. Humanoid shadows with horns protruding out of their eye sockets, each one representing minor fears and affinities.

Fire. Cockroach. Quake. Acid. Shadow.

But that wasn’t all. From the walls, weapon ports opened. Targeting lasers painted Ethan’s position as automated defense drones locked on.

Simultaneously, the Malices and the drones launched into an all out assault.

A translucent platform formed beneath his feet and launched him skyward just as the first volley of laser fire crossed through the space where he’d been standing.

Red beams carved glowing scars across the simulated landscape, but Ethan was above it all.

"Good start," Amara said through the intercom.

"Your confidence in me is touching," Ethan said as the Fire Malice rocketed up in a burst of flames. A wave of flames erupted from its arms and rolled across the battlefield like a tsunami.

Ethan raised one hand. Instead of a wall, a curved shield materialized in front of him. The flames slammed into it, then bent.

Amara’s eyebrows shot up as she watched.

The fire wrapped around the barrier’s curved surface and redirected sideways, directly into the advancing Cockroach Malice.

The creature shrieked before bursting apart as thousands of roaches exploded outward in every direction.

Amara physically recoiled. "Meep." An embarrassing sound escaped her lips before she could stop it

Ethan glanced toward the glass surrounding the control room. "Tell me you’re not scared of roaches?"

"Maybe," she murmured.

Ethan’s attention was immediately drawn to the Cockroach Malice that was already recollecting itself as a swarm surged upward toward him.

His forcefield platform vanished and he dropped, causing the mass of insects overshoot past him by inches.

Before they could turn, another curved barrier appeared before the combined assault of the Fire and Acid Malice.

Their combined attack was redirected towards the swarm instead. Then the barrier expanded to enclose the Roach Malice.

As a result, the swarm vanished in an expanding sphere of eviscerated insects.

"Haven’t seen that one before," Amara observed.

Ethan landed lightly. "Been working on it."

Immediately, the Quake Malice slammed both fists into the ground, and the battlefield fractured. Stone erupted upward, entire sections of the terrain collapsing.

Ethan simply stepped onto another forcefield platform as the earth split beneath him. The platform carried him above the destruction like an invisible elevator.

Three defense drones acquired him instantly, targeting lasers painting his chest before unleashing.

A barrage of concentrated beams fired simultaneously. However, Ethan extended both hands, and a mirror-like barrier appeared.

The lasers struck, then reversed direction. The beams crossed back through the chamber and punched directly through all three drones, explosions echoing through the simulation.

Amara stared. "Okay. That’s definitely new."

Ethan grinned. "Too easy," he called up to the control room window, not even breathing hard. "Crank it up."

"Okay, hotshot." Amara’s fingers danced across the interface. "Let’s see how you handle this."

The chamber shifted again. The remaining Knights dissolved, and something new took form. Larger. More solid. More present.

A Bishop-level threat simulation materialized as a gigantic fifty-foot cyclops that was letting off enough pressure to distort gravity around the simulation space.

"It’s at level one!" Amara warned through the intercom.

The Cyclops blurred forward impossibly fast, each step shaking the ground. It closed thirty feet in a fraction of a second and drove its fist toward Ethan’s face.

He caught its arm in a sphere of force that formed around the Cyclops’ limb and locked it in place. Then the sphere moved, rotating with Ethan’s will and puppeteering its arm in the process.

The Cyclops’ fist slammed into its own face repeatedly, and Ethan muttered with a small grin, "why you hitting yourself?"

From the control station, Amara’s voice carried dry amusement. "Really?"

"What?" His expression was innocent even as he dismissed the orb and shaped his forcefield into a large bat.

He jumped up to the face of the Cyclops and swung hard, sending it tumbling across the chamber floor.

"Real nice." But Amara was smiling as her fingers moved to level two. "Let’s see how insufferable you are when the environment stops playing nice."

The simulation chamber transformed completely.

Gone was the sterile training space. In its place, a city street. Cars parked along the curb. Buildings rising on either side. Streetlights casting realistic shadows.

The detail was so precise that for a moment, it felt like they’d been transported topside.

And in the middle of the street, a new threat materialized.

An Elder Vampire simulation. Pale and beautiful.

Amara’s voice carried genuine concern now. "You sure you got this? This simulation’s based on the one we fought at the abandoned factory."

"Who do you think you’re talking to?" Ethan’s grin widened, but his stance shifted, lower, more defensive, eyes tracking the vampire’s smallest movements.

The vampire moved. In a blink, it clawed from Ethan’s left, but he blocked, his shield manifesting in the path of claws that would’ve torn through his throat.

The vampire vanished and reappeared at his right. He blocked again. Then it vanished in a streak of red, coming from behind. Then above. Then below.

Each attack came from a different vector with no warning, no pattern, simply testing his reaction time and defensive coverage.

Ethan’s eyes struggled to track the movements, seeing only afterimages and blur. In response, a complete sphere formed around him— a perfect defensive shell, impenetrable from all angles.

The vampire crashed against it repeatedly, testing for weaknesses with an axe forged from blood, but finding none.

Ethan smiled inside his bubble and moved. The sphere rolled forward with him inside it, picking up speed and slammed into the vampire like a wrecking ball.

The simulation staggered, and Ethan seized the opening.

His sphere split into dozens of smaller orbs, each one trying to catch the vampire as it blurred around the street.

Afterimage after afterimage disappeared inside force bubbles that merely closed on empty air.

"You’re gonna have to do better than that." Amara’s voice came through the speakers.

"Okay." Ethan lowered the main sphere around himself, leaving himself exposed, trying to bait it.

The vampire went for it.

In a blur of supernatural speed, it appeared directly in front of him, hand closing around his throat with crushing strength. But Ethan’s skin shimmered.

He had surrounded himself in a microscopically thin layer of force field that was invisible until contact.

Gotcha.

His hands shot up, grabbing the vampire’s arms. And that thin defensive layer spread, flowing from his skin onto the vampire’s body, enveloping it completely.

Then he crushed it. The sphere compressed, and the Elder Vampire simulation shattered like glass.

Ethan straightened, breathing slightly heavier now but still grinning. "Take it up."

There was a pause from the control station. When Amara spoke again, her voice carried something that made Ethan’s pulse quicken. "Why do you look so hot right now?"

His grin faltered, replaced by something more dangerous. "That’s not fair."

"Well, now you gotta focus extra hard." The teasing in her voice was evident even through the intercom. "Let’s see if you can handle this distracted."

The simulation chamber shifted one final time, and Ethan’s breath caught.

The environment expanded, no longer just one street but an entire city block. Cars. Buildings. Streetlights. Fire hydrants. Newspaper stands.

And civilians.

Dozens of them. Holographic projections so realistic that Ethan’s brain registered them as actual people despite knowing better.

Men, women, children, all going about simulated lives, completely unaware of the threat materializing in their midst.

At the center of the street, reality warped, and the War Malice took form.

It wasn’t the real thing. Ethan knew that. But the simulation was based on detailed combat data from Tokyo, programmed to replicate the Bishop’s capabilities with terrifying accuracy.

Twelve feet tall. Obsidian armor. Molten light bleeding through cracks in its form. Radiation signature so powerful that even the simulation made Ethan’s skin prickle.

And the civilians kept walking. Kept talking. Kept existing in blissful ignorance of the apocalypse standing among them.

"New rule," Amara’s voice was serious now. "If any civilian dies, simulation ends. You fail." She paused. "However, I’ll be making the civilians immune to its radiation, only seems fair."

Ethan stared at the War Malice simulation as it turned its face toward him. His third Ascendant Sigil bar flickered on his right arm, there one moment, gone the next.

The War Malice tilted its head, studying him.

Ethan returned the studying gaze, then smiled. This wasn’t his usual cocky grin. It was more like a "this time’s different" kind of smile.

"Bring it," he whispered as his third bar flickered again.

The simulation detected his challenge and responded.

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