The Five Evolution

『"Every good strategy requires coffee."』

Inside one of the Sun branch’s many operations rooms, combat footage was playing for the fourth time. Amara sat in front of the display, her eyes narrowed as she sipped on a coffee mug.

"Zoom in," she said to the system, leaning closer to the screen. "Right there. See?"

The holographic display magnified, showing Babydoll in crisp detail. The way her lips moved, she was clearly whispering something into the crude doll she’d summoned from thin air.

The corresponding guard dropped dead a fraction of a second later.

"She whispers their names into the doll before creating a connection," Amara said, rewinding and playing it again. "Every single time. Name first, then the sympathetic link activates."

"Yeah... yeah, I see it." Beside her, Hiro’s eyes narrowed. "So she needs to invoke a person’s true name to create the connection. And she’s crazy fast at it too."

"Okay." He left Amara’s side and started pacing. "Crazy goth chick with the voodoo dolls. Sympathetic magic via true names, which requires verbal invocation."

"Hmmm..." He stopped and picked up a pen from a nearby desk. "What else are we missing? I mean we’ve seen these footage like ten times."

Amara spun the chair around to face Hiro. "Do we even know if she’s an Awakener? What sort of ability is that?" She tapped the rim of her mug. "And I couldn’t spot a power sigil on her."

"Ascendant sigil," Hiro corrected unconsciously.

Amara shrugged. "I kinda like the old timey reference." She shook her head. "That’s beside the point." She spun back to face the screen. "Wanna check out Sebastian again?"

Hiro grinned. "Sure, why not." He hurried over to Amara’s side and they rewound the footage, watching Sebastian’s section now.

Sebastian moved like a master of several martial arts. But more importantly, the moment his opponents crossed an invisible threshold, everything supernatural was simply negated.

"He’s a big guy," Raj observed from a corner. "I would like to take him on."

Sophia, relaxing across another chair with her legs hanging over the armrest, chuckled. "I’d like to take him on too." She paused just long enough. "...if you know what I mean."

It took Raj a moment. Then his face twisted. "...Eugh, Soph."

"Pfft." Hiro stared at her as, blinking way faster than usual. "You don’t even know what’s under the mask."

Sophia shrugged. "So?"

"He could have..." Hiro gestured vaguely. "...tentacles for a mouth."

Sophia grinned. "...I’m listening."

Raj threw both hands into the air. "The fuck, Soph?"

Sophia raised an eyebrow, looking genuinely confused. "What? Just because he’s part of an evil organization doesn’t suddenly make him unattractive."

She crossed one leg over the other. "And besides..." her grin widened. "I’m not interested in his mouth." She looked up thoughtfully. "...Okay, maybe a little."

Raj physically recoiled. "Please stop talking."

Hiro slowly looked toward the ceiling. "I can’t believe this is a real conversation right now."

Sophia pointed toward Amara. "Amara. Back me up."

Every eye in the room turned toward her.

Amara considered the paused frame on the monitor with complete sincerity. "If I’m being objective..." She adjusted her glasses. "...he is an attractive man."

Raj looked betrayed. "Amara!"

She lifted one finger. "By our own subjective standards, anyway."

Another voice spoke from the back of the room. "I’m right here."

Everyone turned to find Ethan, who had apparently been standing near the doorway the entire time, hands folded and watching the conversation derail.

Amara blinked once before smiling apologetically. "Well... I wasn’t comparing. But if I were, you’d obviously win in a landslide."

A small smile tugged at the corner of Ethan’s mouth. "I should certainly hope so."

Sophia snorted. "Hey, speak for yourself."

Hiro clapped his hands together a little louder than necessary. "ANYWAY!" He pointed at the paused frame of Sebastian."From what we know, his effective radius is about seven feet."

He began pacing again.

"We don’t know if a long-range attack can bypass it, but..." He gestured toward the screen. "...my guess is that as long as this ability is active, he forces every fight onto his terms."

Sebastian’s footage resumed for a moment, showing him dismantling three Awakeners in rapid succession before Hiro paused it again.

Amara rested her chin against one hand as she studied the frozen frame. "So..." she murmured into her mug. "He’s basically a walking Ultimate Nullifier."

Hiro immediately pointed at her. "Precisely."

Raj looked between them. "A walking what-ifier?"

"Ultimate Nullifier," Sophia repeated. "Probably one of their nerd talks again."

Raj stroked his chin. "I see."

Hiro opened his mouth to explain. "Well, you see, it’s this tool—" He stopped himself halfway through the sentence. "...Never mind."

Raj folded his arms. "No, now I wanna know."

Amara quietly hid a smile behind her coffee mug as Hiro cleared his throat before anyone could derail the discussion again.

"Moving on." He reached over Amara’s shoulder and tapped a key. Sebastian’s image disappeared, and a different recording filled the screen.

The Collector.

The room instinctively grew quieter. Unlike Sebastian, there was nothing outwardly intimidating about him.

"Now this guy," Hiro said. "I have absolutely no idea where to even begin."

The footage shifted to Amara’s encounter with him, and she tensed despite knowing it was just a recording.

Watching herself get rag-dolled by the Collector’s hammer was somehow worse than experiencing it.

Ethan walked over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

Amara looked down at Ethan’s hand. "Yeah..." Her voice was quiet. She placed a hand over Ethan’s and squeezed, then returned her gaze to the screen.

"The Collector showed us two more spirit weapons," Amara said, instinctively reaching for her ribs with her other arm. "A compass and the hammer he referred to as Graviton Maul."

Hiro naturally took over. "We know the hammer manipulates mass on impact and makes whatever it strikes exponentially heavier without recoil to the wielder."

Amara took another sip of coffee and carried on from Hiro. "The compass though, look at this section." She pulled up footage of Director Mikhail attacking the Collector.

Mikhail’s attacks curved away from the Collector without the Apostle moving. Lightning coated strikes redirected. Projectiles veered off-course. Everything that should have hit just... missed.

"He can’t hit for shit even when the Collector’s standing still," Sophia observed.

"Vector manipulation, maybe?" Hiro suggested. "Compass points direction. What if he can manipulate the direction of incoming attacks? Force them to miss regardless of aim?"

"That fits," Amara agreed, rotating the mug in her hands absentmindedly. "Every attack we saw got redirected. The compass probably shows him the attack’s vector and lets him change it."

They finally came to the ending of the footage, leaving one more Apostle to analyze.

Ethan went rigid, but Amara didn’t let go of his hand. Instead, she held tighter, anchoring him to the present instead of the memory of his fight.

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