The wind had changed.
It hadn't shifted in temperature, nor brought with it the sharp scent of storm or the heavy stillness of the approaching rain. No, this change had no weight. No source. Yet Elyon felt it in his bones — or rather, in the memory of the bones. The vessel he wore had flesh and nerves, but what pulsed beneath was not human.
He stood on the crumbling steps of the shelter and stared down the street. It was morning, but the light had the color of an old parchment — too pale to be gold, too thin to feel warm. The world was waking up reluctantly.
People moved like dust caught by the winds, directed to and fro. That is of Routine, Quick steps, Quiet words. Stiff shoulders and eyes too tired to focus. Drones skimmed overhead in silent sweeps. A delivery vehicle hummed by, glowing soft blue as it registered faces and logged movement. Behind its reinforced glass, an advertisement for the Emotion Regulation Board flickered:
"Control your Core. Control your Future."
Below the slogan, a woman sat smiling in grayscale, her face serene — perfectly neutral.
Elyon's eyes narrowed.
He stepped onto the street.
He walked for over an hour, letting the world unravel around him. The further he moved from the shelter, the more he felt it — resistance, not from people or structures, but from the fabric of the city itself.
It rejected resonance.
Emotion here wasn't forbidden — it was filtered, neutralized, muted. The city's system ran like an immune response, treating strong feeling as infection. Elyon's presence wasn't just abnormal — it was antithetical to the system's very function.
And still, he walked.
At a corner cafe, a woman stared at her cup for too long. At a bus stop, a man clenched and unclenched his fist, counting the seconds with rigid precision. A group of children laughed mechanically near a school gate, their amusement too even, their pitch too rehearsed. Behind their eyes was the same thing he'd seen over and over since his return:
Containment.
Not discipline. Not peace.
Fear.
Not of what emotions could do — but of what might happen if they were ever allowed to speak.
Then he felt it.
Not a thought.
Not a whisper.
A pull — deep and unmistakable, like a gravity he was drawn not to mass, but to memory. One of his fragments was near.
He turned down an alley painted in rust and shadow. Faded posters flapped in the breeze — some torn halfway from the wall, others overwritten with graffiti: red slashes, broken crowns, words half-scrubbed by bots.
He emerged onto a cracked lot behind a community center. There, under a corrugated awning, a girl practiced alone.
She moved like fire kept in a box.
Sharp, fast punches. Sloppy footwork, but fueled by something just below control. Her breathing was ragged, not from exhaustion, but from restraint. She struck a dummy again and again, until the foam tore and the center pole bent sideways.
"Vei," someone snapped nearby. A tall man with a synthetic trainer's coat stepped forward, holding a data slate. "What did I tell you about output limiters? You're bleeding heat again."
The girl flinched. "I— I'm trying."
"You're slipping," the man growled. "And you know what happens when you slip."
She bowed her head.
The trainer exhaled through his nose. "Five minutes break. Then regulation drills. Don't push further. You're not cleared for surge patterns."
He left without waiting for acknowledgment.
Elyon stepped forward.
Vei didn't notice him at first. Her hands were still wrapped tight in fraying cloth, and her knuckles were beginning to bruise under the strain. She was maybe fifteen. Sharp angles. Tired eyes. But her presence hit like a wall.
She wasn't normal.
She was carrying something.
He saw it glowing beneath her skin.
A flicker.
A shard.
It was his.
[CROWN FRAGMENT DETECTED]
[TYPE: WRATH]
[HOST: UNREGISTERED]
[SYNC POTENTIAL: HIGH]
[STABILIZATION: UNLIKELY WITHOUT INTERVENTION]
She noticed him then.
Her eyes met his.
And the world cracked, just a little.
Not the concrete. Not the air.
The moment.
Something shifted in it.
Like fate had inhaled.
Vei's posture changed instantly. "This area's restricted," she said, her voice rough. "You're not supposed to—"
"You are burning," Elyon said quietly.
She blinked.
"What?"
"Every time you breathe, it tries to rise. Every time you speak, it stutters in your throat. You've carried it for so long, you think it's a part of you."
She stepped back. "Who are you?"
Elyon didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Her heart already knew.
The fragment was surging.
So Vei gasped and fell to her knees.
Her arms trembled. Her eyes rolled back. Heat poured from her skin like sweat turned steam.
Nearby, the training sensors began to wail.
A bright-red alert sign blinked to life on the wall:
"EMOTIONAL SPIKE DETECTED. LEVEL THREE. RESPONSE EN ROUTE."
The trainer reappeared, shouting orders into a comm-link.
Drones buzzed overhead.
"Get back!" the man barked. "She's surging!"
Elyon stepped closer.
"Don't—!" the trainer yelled.
Vei screamed.
The ground split beneath her, a spiderweb of cracks glowing red-hot.
Elyon knelt.
"Let me take it," he whispered. "Let me show you what it really is."
Her eyes locked with his.
And the Crown responded.
[SYNC INITIATED]
[FRAGMENT 027 — WRATH]
[INTERFACE: LIVE]
[EMOTION EMBODIMENT: PHASE ONE — UNLEASHING]
THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION,
The explosion was not sound.
It was pressure — pure, rolling heat that slammed outward in a perfect circle.
Metal warped. Walls bent inward. Glass shattered.
The trainer was thrown into the fence. Drones spiraled, fried midair.
At the center stood Elyon.
Unburned.
Unmoving.
And Vei — no longer screaming.
She stood tall.
Steam poured off her body.
Her fists were glowing white-gold. Her eyes, bright as pyres.
And in her chest, a crown of flame rotated silently, orbiting something deeper.
She wasn't Vei anymore.
She was Wrath Incarnate.
For three seconds, the world stood still.
Then everything moved at once.
Dozens of bots dropped from sky rails.
White vans screeched into the lot.
Armed regulation officers with neural disrupters, anti-emotion restraints, and control syringes poured out.
The lead officer barked, "Subdue and isolate! Do not engage physically!"
Elyon stood in front of Vei and opened his arms.
"No," he said.
They fired.
Light.
Sound.
Gas.
But none of it reached them.
Every frequency bent.
Every tranquilizer dissolved in midair.
Elyon's eyes lit gold.
He raised a hand.
And in his palm, a sigil pulsed.
Not a spell.
A memory.
A name the world forgot.
And the air remembered it.
Every officer grew stiff as if frozen.
Their equipment shut down.
Their voices stuck in their throats.
Time didn't stop.
But for them, emotion did.
As if they were yanked from themselves and left floating in numbness.
They dropped to their knees.
Confused.
Afraid.
Silent.
Elyon turned to Vei.
Her breathing had calmed.
The fire dimmed — not gone, but tempered.
He reached toward her chest.
Touched the edge of the crown.
"You've held this piece long enough," he said. "Let it return."
She nodded.
Tears ran down her cheeks and hissed away into smoke.
The fragment rose from her and spiraled into his hand.
It entered his chest like a heartbeat.
And his Crown — still broken, still forgotten — glowed a little brighter.
[WRATH FRAGMENT — RETRIEVED]
[CURRENT CROWN INTEGRITY: 3.4%]
[EMOTION EMBODIMENT — UNLOCKED: PHASE ONE FORM — WRATH INCARNATE]
He exhaled.
And for a moment, all was quiet.
Vei collapsed into his arms.
Her skin was still warm, but was peaceful compared to before.
Elyon carried her to the edge of the field and sat beside her until her breathing slowed.
When she woke up, she whispered, "What happens now?"
Elyon looked out at the stunned agents, the smoking debris, the terrified sky.
And said:
"Now we burn."
To be continued...