The Five Evolution

『"And the Director at the back said, "Everyone attack.""』

The Apostles stood at the threshold of the swirling spatial tear. Just as they prepared to step through, a commanding voice interrupted.

"The Five had the right idea," Director Mikhail declared. "You’re not going anywhere." Three glowing orange bars ignited across his neck.

"Shroud, Stormcleaver," he commanded, and lightning from his battle axe wrapped around his body like armor.

"Take care of the girl!" Mikhail barked to his guards before vanishing from sight.

He reappeared in front of the Collector, bringing an axe down. The Collector caught the strike with his dagger, and lightning shockwaves exploded outward from the impact.

Even though the Collector had blocked the blow, lightning surged through the blade and into his body anyway, dealing enough damage to force him into a brief retreat.

He leaped backward, white cloak smoldering as acrid smoke curled from the scorched fabric. Whatever smile he’d carried completely gone.

For a heartbeat, the Collector was left vulnerable by that attack. However, a heartbeat was all Yuri needed.

She came from the side like a comet, her transformation halfway complete and three bars glowing on her scaled forearm.

Her draconic claws closed around the Collector’s face as she drove him backwards with enough force to crash through the first spatial barrier.

The glass-like membrane that separated the War Room from the adjacent pocket dimensions shattered immediately, sending crystalline shards spiraling into the void.

But she didn’t stop. She kept going, intent on driving him through each dimensional partition, until they were in a completely different pocket dimension within the facility.

She drove his head through the second. Then the third. Each barrier exploded around them in a cascade of prismatic fragments as Yuri carried him deeper into the facility.

Behind them, Director Mikhail moved like lightning following thunder, a streak of electric blue tracing Yuri’s destructive path.

***

The moment Mikhail gave the order, two of his operatives broke formation and rushed Babydoll.

She stood apart from the others, her expression distant and unreadable. She looked like the easiest target. The weakest link. The logical first domino to fall.

She also held the hostages. This made her the reasonable priority target.

The guards prepared to attack as three orange bars ignited across both operatives—one along Jordan’s collarbone, the other tracing Sakurai’s neck.

"Soul Self: Release!" the first operative(Jordan) said, and a colossal demonic figure tore itself free from his body, towering over the War Room like a kaiju.

Beside him, the second guard extended her hand and summoned a rose-shaped Spirit Weapon that unfurled into a whip of black thorns.

Babydoll sighed. She reached into her cloak and produced two dolls dressed in miniature Institute uniforms, each no larger than her palm.

Her pink eyes drifted lazily toward the charging guards. "Jordan Tyler," she whispered to the first. "Sakurai Tenma," she added with a smile, then twisted the necks of both dolls simultaneously.

The guards collapsed mid-stride, their bodies hitting the floor with dull thuds. The demonic spirit evaporated instantly and the thorn whip disintegrated into drifting petals.

A third guard, delayed by shock or perhaps wiser than his companions, rethought his strategy. He moved like a blur, hoping overwhelming speed would do the trick.

His ability manifested as something Babydoll didn’t bother to identify. She simply produced another doll at blinding speed, murmured a name, and crushed it.

Unlike the others, this guard detonated from within as blood and viscera painted the pristine War Room table. "Ah..." She wiped blood from her face. "Didn’t think that through."

Amara felt her insides go cold.

Watching a person die was one thing. Watching someone erase a life with a twist of her fingers was something else entirely.

Sebastian, observing from the corner of his vision, allowed himself a thin smile. "It was foolish, going after Babydoll first," he murmured to no one in particular. "Too bad for them."

Then he made his move.

***

Across the room, two of Yuri’s guards, left leaderless by her sudden departure, but no less dangerous for it, intercepted Sebastian’s path.

The first wielded a nodachi, and the second was partially unwrapped. Strips of white cloth hung from his limbs like ceremonial burial wrappings, revealing black miasma coiling around his arm.

The nodachi came first. Blue energy flooded his blade before coming down in a diagonal slash meant to bisect Sebastian at the shoulder.

Sebastian caught the weapon between his palms, and the guard’s eyes widened. Then he drove a kick into the guard’s stomach, folding him in half, and sending him rocketing across the room.

The second guard struck from behind, sensing an opening. His hand missed Sebastian by inches and struck the floating table instead.

Instantly, the table aged centuries. Wood rotted, metal corroded, and the entire section collapsed into dust.

"Only Miss Shirogane in her dragon form has withstood my Miasma," the bandaged man hissed, "and I owe her my life."

His hand rose to touch the wrappings covering his face, a gesture of reverence perhaps. "So I will do her the service of ending yours."

Black miasma gathered around him, and he attacked again as strikes came in flurries of decaying touch.

Sebastian simply weaved through them, stepping around each strike. Each evasion was measured to the centimeter, until he saw his opening. Then he spoke.

"Veto of the Void."

The black miasma vanished immediately and panic flashed across the Awakener’s face. "What—" he started.

Without giving him the opportunity to process what just happened, Sebastian caught his wrist. "I see." His eyes moved to the Awakener’s hands. "You age anything you touch into nothingness."

"In exchange for such a power, you must be stuck like this." He glanced at the bandages with interest. "That explains this. Somehow, it keeps your ability contained."

Having satisfied his curiosity, bone snapped. Sebastian had broken the wrist he held on to and kicked the man backward.

The moment the guard left a seven-foot radius around Sebastian, the black miasma returned.

Amara noticed it immediately, and so did Ethan.

Two more Tyrant guards rushed in to support their crippled ally. As soon as they entered Sebastian’s radius, their abilities flatlined. Bars that had glowed orange went dark.

Crossing into Sebastian’s seven-foot sphere was like stepping into a world where powers or anything supernatural no longer existed.

One guard found his arm trapped in a joint lock before he even understood what had happened. Sebastian broke the trapped arm in three places, the snaps of bone audible even over the chaos.

The second caught a knife-hand strike to the throat, and a follow-up punch to the solar plexus that rendered him unconscious, never having processed why his power had abandoned him.

The bandaged man returned with another elite Awakener, recovering faster than Amara expected.

"I don’t need abilities to handle the likes of you," the bandaged man snarled, flinging both hands forward. His wrappings unspooled like striking snakes, whipping toward Sebastian.

Sebastian intercepted them with crossed forearms, and the cloth wrapped tight around his limbs. He was then yanked toward the bandaged man and a knee crashed into his face.

Sebastian’s head snapped back but he didn’t stagger.

He shook his head, and that’s when Amara saw it. Four bars, barely visible beneath the edge of his mask, along his jawline, pulsed once with muted light.

The bandaged man grinned as he tried pulling on the bandages again, and found himself pulling against an immovable object.

Instead of being pulled forward, Sebastian reversed the tension. He didn’t strike, he simply redirected, flinging the bandaged man into his approaching ally.

At the exact moment they collided, Sebastian deactivated his ability.

The miasma returned instantly, hungry and indiscriminate. It enveloped the other guard before he could scream, aging him from living man to dust in the space between heartbeats.

The bandaged man collapsed to his knees, staring at the empty space where his comrade had stood, whispering, "no... no..."

However, Sebastian gave him no time for grief. He reactivated Veto of the Void, then spun around and kicked him.

The single kick lifted the bandaged man from his knees and sent him hurtling through the shattered remains of multiple spatial barriers.

One, two, three pocket dimensions flashed past in a blur of broken glass and blood, until he vanished into the depths of the fractured space.

Okoye’s guard who had also been observing stepped forward then. "You seem to be able to negate any supernatural phenomenon that enters within a seven-foot radius of you."

Sebastian’s green eyes narrowed, the only sign that the observation had hit its mark. Then he settled into a widened stance with one hand raised. "Come."

***

Behind, the five of them watched the battle.

Hiro’s breathing had gone shallow, his hands trembling at his sides as the violence escalated beyond anything they’d trained for. "What do we do?!" he demanded.

Amara forced herself to think through the chaos. Collector. Yuri. Mikhail. Her gaze tracked the path of destruction Yuri had carved. "I’m going after the Collector," she decided.

Ethan’s gaze shifted elsewhere. Michael stood surrounded by fallen guards and injured Directors. Untouched. "I’ll handle Michael."

Raj cracked his knuckles. "I’m coming with you."

Hiro looked between them. Then he turned toward Sophia. "So..."

Sophia rolled her eyes. "So nothing," she said, already moving. "Don’t get yourself killed." She sprinted after Amara.

Hiro blinked once, then sprinted after them.

None of them believed they could win. But standing still wasn’t an option. With that, the five of them split apart as the War Room descended fully into, well war.

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