[Scene: Aftershock still danced in the air. The battlefield was broken. Ian stood tall, barely—his sword trembling in his grip. But something colder than fear pierced the tension.]
A ripple in the wind.
A laugh that didn't belong.
Redan appeared, mid-air, hovering like a sickness that had grown sentient.
Redan (grinning, licking his lips):
"Hey buds…
Did you miss me?"
Ian's brows furrowed like thunderclouds.
Ian (shouting):
"You again?!"
Redan:
"Hehe… Yeah.
As long as your minds are still wobbly… I'll be here.
That's the mission, after all."
Ian's fists tightened. His blade hummed with restrained defiance.
Klexis scoffed, folding his arms, dual hammers floating beside him like loyal beasts.
Klexis:
"Look. You can't do anything to me. Or to him.
And if you really wanna test that theory—
Come closer, and I'll smack the concept of corruption outta your teeth."
Redan (mock nodding):
"Ohhh look who's talking now...
Still haunted by the shadow of Elexis, huh?"
Klexis flinched.
A full-body silence.
His bravado cracked like glass.
Redan's smirk widened. Klexis took a step back.
The others landed around them, descending like stars falling with purpose.
Merina's eyes narrowed—sharp and protective.
Jack hovered slightly off the ground, fists clenched.
Osei's aura flickered with instinctual tension.
Jack (frowning):
"Who's… Elexis?"
Klexis couldn't speak.
His gaze... lost.
Merina (softly, with weight):
"Elexis… was once the greatest warrior in Airious.
Trained by Kainen himself.
Until he…
betrayed everything."
A gust of disbelief passed through the team. They exchanged glances, unsure, unsettled.
Redan savored the confusion like a five-star meal.
Ian (turning back, blade pointed):
"Whatever game you're playing...
End it.
Or I'll cut through your entire ideology."
Redan (smiling with insane calm):
"Oh Ian…
You have so much potential.
But you follow the wrong star.
We ghouls aren't evil—we just want one thing.
Freedom.
Absolute freedom."
Jack (flying forward, voice rising like a storm):
"You call this freedom?
Pfft.
That's an illusion plated in silver lies.
We see you, Redan.
And your game won't work on us."
Ian's eyes closed… then opened. Calm. Clear.
Ian:
"You may have taken Eve Maid.
But you'll never take me.
You'll never take them."
Redan… just smiled. Like he already won.
Then it happened.
The students activated.
Ready. Unified. Furious.
Osei's aura pulsed erratically—his instincts bubbling with wild, calculated motion.
Yyvone's healing threads twisted into golden shields—barriers that sang with protective fury.
Sonia's hair lifted, her aura glowing red with rage, the emotion of anger summoned into weaponized Avia.
Charles whispered to the air—Battle Codes weaving around him like digital incantations.
Kennedy cracked his knuckles and animated a floating arsenal of ridiculous proportions—blades, blasters, and a few snarky mini-Aprexion holograms.
The battlefield tilted.
Something divine was coming.
And Redan… just opened his arms.
Redan:
"Come then.
Let's test your little revolution."
A breathless second passed after Ian's vow. Then—chaos. Controlled, precise, beautiful chaos.]
They attacked. Fast. Snappy. Lethal.
Osei darted in first, slipping through Redan's warped strikes like a whisper in the wind.
A blink. A twist. A duck.
He feinted left, then spun right— baiting Redan into a staggered shift—
Sonia struck.
BOOM—
Her fist, coated in blazing red Avia, connected with Redan's back like a divine uppercut of raw emotion.
The blast cracked the sound barrier in seven directions.
Redan's spine arched—
But before he could react—
WHACK.
A massive animated hammer, courtesy of Kennedy's Framework Arsenal, came down like the judgment of ten angry gods.
Then lightning—
Henry roared from above, releasing pure volts of personality.
ZAP-CRACKLE-BAAANG!
Electricity licked Redan's body like holy fire, frying every illusion in a five-meter radius.
Charles stepped forward calmly, almost monk-like.
Carved a rune across his arm—Strength.
His eyes lit up like a constellation—
He punched.
The ground erupted like a volcano with regrets.
Redan's body cratered through mountain and meaning.
And then—
Jack.
Silent. Focused. Furious.
"Hard Bolt: Judgement Cry."
He hurled a spear of pure lightning—no, not just lightning—destiny sharpened into a blade.
It struck true.
Redan was impaled into stillness.
The battlefield stilled.
Silence.
For a moment, they thought it was over.
Then…
Reality hiccupped.
Like it was trying to blink—but couldn't.
Tendrils.
Thick, metaphysical, dripping in paradox.
They emerged from nowhere, everywhere. They coiled around the students—gripping not their bodies, but their very connection to Avia.
They screamed, twisted, thrashed—
But the tendrils pulsed in an ancient rhythm, making them forget the very shape of their strengths.
Redan rose.
Floating. Limbs wide.
T-posing like a demonic statue in a corrupted museum exhibit.
Redan (voice distorted, like three people speaking at once):
"Let's play…
a little game."
The Metaphysical Domain of Regrets and Bad Decisions]
It was a realm built like a graveyard of forgotten choices.
Skies swirled in colors that didn't belong in nature—bronze sorrow, violet guilt, rusted nostalgia.
The team stood bound.
Not in ropes.
But by truths they never wanted to admit.
Their limbs were still.
Their minds... trembled.
Redan hovered above them, arms wide like a dark messiah.
The air shimmered with seductive madness.
Redan:
"You think we're evil?
No, sweet rebels... we're free.
Truly.
We are the unshackled. The untethered.
We don't follow rules—we unwrite them."
He floated past them slowly, like a dark teacher inspecting students before a cosmic exam.
Redan (grinning):
"You fight. You train. You push.
But did it ever occur to you…
It was never about strength?
It's about how you handle it when strength fails."
The students' eyes flickered—panic, confusion, realization.
Redan clapped once.
A thunderclap in the mindscape.
Suddenly, the ground split—revealing mirrored platforms beneath each of them.
Redan (whispering):
"This game is simple."
"Whoever has the strongest willpower... loses."
Osei: "Wait… that makes no—"
Merina: "No… I get it."
Charles (eyes wide): "He means... to win… you must give in."
Sonia growled: "Clever bastard…"
Redan (laughing):
"Correct. You see, surrendering…
is my victory.
Resisting... now that... brings pain."
---
One by one, their platforms activated.
Each student faced a vision—a mirror of their personal abyss.
Osei saw himself leading a mission that ended in disaster—friends lost. All his fault.
Kennedy watched as his own creations turned against him—twisting into weapons that hurt the people he loved.
Yyvone faced a version of herself who saved everyone… by letting herself be corrupted.
Sonia was forced to relive every time her anger pushed someone away—even those who tried to help.
Jack saw himself as Valitor's son, burdened by a legacy he didn't ask for, crumbling under the weight of destiny.
Charles watched his future self consumed by obsession, using Avia like a tool instead of a gift.
Henry saw a version of himself that never gained his powers—ignored, forgotten, powerless.
And Ian...
He stood in a dream of peace.
Eve Maid sat beside him.
Safe. Happy. Smiling.
Redan whispered into his ear:
"Wouldn't this be easier?
No fighting. No pain. Just stay here.
No more saving.
Just… be saved."
---
The tension was suffocating.
Each student on the edge.
Because in this domain, the moment you succumb—you lose yourself to the Corruption Force.
But maybe, just maybe…
One of them is crazy enough to find a loophole.
[Jack's Memoryscape: "The Home He Deserved"]
The skies were warm. The streets shimmered with quiet joy.
Ghana glowed, untouched by monsters or cosmic grief.
Jack stood outside the family compound, barefoot in the red sand.
Laughter danced through the air like music from a simpler age.
Cindy—his mother—rushed out, arms open, eyes beaming.
"You did it, Jack. You became what your father dreamed of… and more."
Neighbors applauded. Old bullies nodded in shame.
Lawrence—the childhood ghost—offered his hand in respect.
"Sorry, man. I never saw you... but I do now."
And Jack…
He wept.
Because this wasn't glory.
It was acceptance.
No more being the half-boy, the shadow of a legend, the heir to a legacy he didn't choose.
He was seen.
Finally.
His chest ached with release.
---
But in the back of his soul…
Something didn't click.
The joy… was too easy.
The smiles… never faded.
Lawrence never blinked.
And his mother's hug?
Felt like it was waiting for his choice.
Redan's voice whispered through the wind like a cursed lullaby:
> "You can stay here, Jack.
The fight's not your burden.
You've earned this peace.
Just… let go."
---
But then, he remembered training.
Master Kainen's words echoing through a mountain wind:
> "When it feels perfect, but your soul tugs back...
It's a lie.
Peace isn't something given to you—it's something earned, even in pain."
Jack's tears stopped midstream.
He looked around.
At the adoration.
At the perfection.
At Lawrence. Still smiling.
Then he clenched his fist, so hard his illusion cracked.
Lightning surged.
Jack (softly):
"I don't need to be seen by them...
I need to stay true to me."
With a howl of thunder, he shattered the dream with a cry:
"FREEDOM WITHOUT TRUTH... IS JUST ANOTHER PRISON!"
---
The domain trembled.
Jack burst out of his memoryscape—roaring in lightning, his eyes glowing with Avian defiance.
He stood alone in the metaphysical dark, waiting.
One down.
The others?
Still inside their "perfect memories."
The dream was clever now—vicious in its gentleness.
It knew Jack.
It knew what his soul yearned for.
Not validation… but reconnection.
Valitor stood there like the sun—radiant, grounded, infinite.
Valitor:
> "Son, it's not wrong to desire a life different from mine.
I was never angry at that.
I only ever wanted you to feel... free to choose.
Not to save the world.
Just to live in it."
Jack smiled. It felt real.
The scent. The warmth. The paternal presence that had vanished long ago.
His fingers twitched. His breathing softened.
His eyes glistened like rivers in the dawn.
He whispered:
"Dad…"
---
But the wind changed.
Ever so slightly.
A warmth too consistent. A stillness too perfect.
Valitor never blinked. Never shifted weight.
And that voice... it lacked the quiet crack of pain.
Valitor always spoke with burden. This one didn't.
---
And then—
A spark of lightning, almost instinctual, flickered across Jack's arm.
It danced… then fizzled.
Avia wasn't flowing right.
Not like it did when real emotions moved through him.
Jack's eyes widened.
He stepped back. Looked up.
"Wait…" he whispered.
The illusion-Valitor tilted his head.
> "What's wrong, son? Stay. Just for a little longer."
Jack's real self—the warrior, the student, the son of Airious—rose in protest.
He backed away slowly.
"No… no, I want this… but…"
He clenched his fists.
"You're not him."
---
CRACK!
The world splintered.
Jack's Avian lightning exploded in a sphere of unfiltered self-awareness.
The illusion-Valitor melted like smoke on a battlefield.
And all that remained was Redan's laughter echoing in the void.
> "Ohohoho… you almost stayed that time."
---
Jack floated alone in darkness now.
Breathing hard. Heart full.
Eyes sharp.
"You almost got me," he muttered, smirking through lingering tears.
"But my father didn't raise a puppet.
He raised a storm."
---
And somewhere in the domain...
Osei began to stir in his own memory trap.
A different illusion. A different temptation