The group wandered through the vibrant halls of the campus with aimless steps.
"Well… she cancelled all our other classes for today," Marcus said, glancing over his shoulder at the others.
"So, what now?"
"I'm hungry, man." Giuseppe groans, putting his hands over his stomach.
"Same," Arthur nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. "I feel like I haven't eaten in years."
"What time is it?" Tandav asked, tapping the side of his Connector.
[5:42 PM]
"Did that bitch seriously make me miss lunch?" Giuseppe immediately changes his opinion on Mavena.
"Yes. Yes, she did," Arthur confirmed solemnly, enabling Giuseppe.
"I will remember this," Giuseppe spat with venom.
Marcus chuckled lightly, but his smile quickly faded. He fell silent, his eyes distant, an unreadable expression on his face.
Then, "Hey, go on ahead for a bit. I've got something I need to take care of."
Tandav narrowed his eyes slightly. "You good, bro?"
"Yeah, I'm good," Marcus replied quickly, brushing it off with a casual wave. "Just a couple errands, you know."
Giuseppe and Daniel exchanged a glance. Neither said a word, but both noticed the shift.
"Alright," Arthur said eventually. "Don't take too long or we'll eat without you."
Marcus gave them a half-smile, then turned down a side corridor without looking back.
***
Marcus walked alone through a corridor that stretched beneath the artificial twilight of the academy's upper district. Students parted around him like a stream around a stone, offering quiet nods or glances of mild curiosity. But many let out subtle sighs of relief when they noticed Giuseppe wasn't by his side.
After a while, Marcus stopped before a massive, matte-black door marked with silver letters: C.I.
Knock. Knock.
"Come in," came the unmistakably firm voice from within.
The instructor's office was almost bare. Functional. A desk sat at the far end beneath a digital skylight, a smooth leather couch on the other side of the office, and half a dozen holographic windows hovered midair, each displaying student dossiers. Mavena didn't look up as Marcus stepped inside.
"I know why you're here, Marcus Vathen," she said without ceremony.
He blinked. "So you do know her."
"Indeed. Leona was my lieutenant before her promotion."
A small smile played at Marcus's lips briefly.
Finally, Mavena looked up from her screens. She studied him for a moment, then sighed and flicked her fingers. The other holograms dissolved, replaced by a single, larger one—a portrait.
A young woman, early twenties, regal and radiant. Dark skin, golden eyes, black hair cascading from beneath a sharp black military cap. Her face was calm, neutral, yet unmistakably strong. She looked like him. Or rather, what he could be if he ever lived up to her image.
"Leona Vathen. Brilliant, relentless. The kind of soldier who silences rooms by merely entering. She's thriving, Marcus. You don't need to worry."
Relief threatened to crumple his stance, but he held steady. His brows lowered.
"Then... what is she fighting? What could possibly warrant so much manpower at the Great Border? We've colonised galaxies. What enemy could need the presence of a Storywalker like her?"
The air in the room chilled.
Mavena's voice, when it came, was quieter. Heavier.
"That information is classified. You know that."
"I do," Marcus said, stepping forward. "But I need to know anyway. Because if I don't understand what she's up against… then how do I become strong enough to stand beside her?"
Their eyes met. Something unspoken passed between them.
She didn't answer. Not with words.
Instead, the next thing he knew, he was flying backwards across the floor.
Smack.
His body slammed against the matted floor of her office, pain blooming across his ribs. He gasped, one hand pressing to his side as he tried to get up.
Mavena stood over him with arms folded.
'She's not like him,' Marcus thought, vision blurring slightly. 'Giuseppe fights with instinct and raw will. She dissects my moves, mechanically and methodically.'
His mind flashed to the earlier fight. The sloppiness. The raw, unrefined aggression.
"You don't get to analyse your own failure in the middle of a fight," Mavena said sharply, crouching below him.
POW!
Another blow—clean, efficient—hit his gut. He folded forward, coughing.
"You and that boy. You make an interesting pair. He moves like an animal. You think too much. Brilliant together. But separately? Your weaknesses are clear to an experienced opponent."
She stepped closer, her gaze cutting into him.
"Crazy people are dangerous because they don't stop to ask Should I? They just do. You need a little of that madness in you. Be a little crazier."
Marcus groaned, rolling off his knees.
'This is going to hurt,' he thought to himself.
"Good," Mavena said with a thin smirk. "A proper punching bag shouldn't talk back."
***
Marcus lay defeated on the smooth leather couch in Mavena's office, his breaths shallow, his body heavy with exhaustion. The sterile ceiling lights reflected off the sweat on his brow. Each muscle in his body protested movement, yet rest evaded him.
Across the room, Mavena sat at her desk, seemingly immersed in the blue-white glow of floating holographic screens. Student files flickered and shifted before her eyes, yet her hands hadn't moved in minutes. The steady tapping had stopped. Her eyes weren't on the data anymore.
Her gaze flicked to Marcus.
"I'm surprised the other boy didn't come with you."
Marcus turned his head slightly, a brow lifting. "What do you mean?"
"I would've thought Castellano would want to know about him," She muttered mysteriously.
He held her gaze, trying to mask his confusion. 'Him? '
Mavena didn't elaborate. Instead, with a faint gesture, one of the holograms shifted. A new image appeared—its details just out of Marcus's view.
She looked at it for a long moment. Her eyes softened, almost imperceptibly, and the faintest nostalgic smile tugged at the edge of her lips.
The photo showed Leona smiling brightly. Her arm was around a man close to her age, his build athletic, posture relaxed. He had shoulder-length black hair that curled slightly at the tips, and a bucket hat slanted lazily on his head. His features were sharp but not overly so, effortlessly handsome—like someone pulled straight from a dream, the kind that people don't forget.
Beep.
The soft chime from Mavena's Connector cut through the silence. She glanced at it briefly, then leaned back in her chair.
"I think that's your cue," she said, her tone casual but final. "It's getting late."
She gave a small nod toward the door.
Marcus took the hint. With a quiet grunt, he rose from the couch, every movement a protest from his bruised body. He dragged himself toward the exit, each step echoing faintly in the stillness of the room.
Just as he reached the door, he paused.
"…Thank you," he said, closing the door behind him.
Mavena sat in silence for a moment.
***
Location: Judicator Corps Headquarters – The Nexus Bastion.
The stars bent unnaturally outside the massive glass wall of the chamber, refracting in geometries no mortal eye could fully comprehend. Nebulae spun backwards. Moons orbit themselves. Celestial bodies pulsed like living nerves. Time ticked forward and backwards in the same instant.
Here, at the heart of existence, reality was malleable, raw, breathing, and endless.
This was the Nexus Bastion — the headquarters of the Judicator Corps, a fortress suspended between timelines, anchored in the folds of existence where the multiverse converged like veins in a heart. An endless cathedral of steel, glass, and blackened crystal, lit by the flickering pulse of infinite realities.
A familiar Judicator stood alone in the Hall of Causality.
His armour was obsidian and polished like a mirror. Etchings of every law ever broken shimmered faintly across his pauldrons, alive with golden threads of condemnation. A void-black mantle draped over his armour, the symbol of a red scale on its back.
No face could be seen beneath the helmet, only an ever-shifting absence, like a hole punched through existence itself.
Before him floated a vast, rune-etched Akashic Vault, locked with high-order encryption.
With a gesture, streams of information unravelled from the vault, pouring out in fragmented timelines, multiversal fluctuations, name-chains, and entanglements.
A red thread flared, and a name came into view.
The Judicator's hand hovered over that name.
[Castellano.]
The Judicator raised his hand, stopping the data stream. He followed the thread as it split off into another name.
[File Fragment: Vincenzo Castellano – Deceased]
[Judicator Clearance Level: Commander]
[Access Denied.]
The Judicator tilted his head, just slightly.
Then came a voice, soft and smooth—another Judicator appeared behind him, her body wreathed in a white and gold cloak. Her mask was flawless, with no features, but her golden irises shone through the two holes like stars.
"Captain," she said. "We've been alerted. The confidentiality protocol surrounding Vincenzo Castellano has been breached."
No reply. The Captain remained still. Silent.
Until—
A faint blue light blinked in the corner of his vision.
He raised his hand. A gesture formed a holographic screen suspended in the air.
On the other end, seated at a modest desk surrounded by flickering student data, Mavena looked up from her Connector.
Her face was unreadable, her eyes heavy with thoughts unsaid.
"Since the famous captain of the seventy-seventh division is contacting me personally. I'll assume this isn't a courtesy call," she said dryly, folding her arms.
The Judicator's voice rumbled through the screen—deep, mechanical and emotionless.
"You viewed an archived image. Subject: Vincenzo Castellano."
Mavena didn't flinch. "I did."
The Judicator's helm tilted slightly. A cold pause. Then he turned to his lieutenant without a word.
The woman stepped forward, activating a data slate. Lines of code flickered past her visor.
"There was no direct breach," she said crisply. "The memory resurfaced during a conversation with a student—Marcus Vathen."
Mavena couldn't see his eyes, but she could tell that the Judicator's gaze had sharpened. "And this student is connected to him?"
"No," Mavena said. She shook her head, slowly. "Not to Vincenzo. He has no idea. I thought—" She caught herself. "It was incidental."
The silence that followed was judgmental.
Then the Judicator spoke, his tone colder than the Arctic.
"All records of Vincenzo Castellano were meant to be purged from every Earth-Class network. That was the agreement."
Mavena's eyes narrowed—an instinctive flicker of defiance.
"I never agreed to forget him."
The Judicator's helm caught the light. On the screen, Mavena's reflection hovered across its obsidian surface, as if trapped within it.
"If this happens again," he said, voice low and final, "whether you want to forget him or not… it won't be your choice."
"…I know," Mavena whispered, barely audible.
The screen blinked to black at his gesture, cutting the connection.
Mavena exhaled slowly. The hum of her office returned. She leaned back in her chair, the blue light of the dead screen still etched on her face.
Her eyes closed.
And in the stillness, a laugh echoed—soft, warm, unmistakably his.
But the silence in Mavena's office was then shattered by the opening of the door.
A young woman stepped inside, her heels clicking softly against the floor. There was a poised stillness about her.
Mavena didn't rise, she only turned her head slightly.
"Vice Principal Orelia," she said evenly.
Orelia offered a tight smile, thin as a thread, that didn't reach her eyes. "The Principal would like to see you."
A moment later, Linda hurried in after her, brow furrowed with concern. "I'm sorry, ma'am—I told her you were preoccupied."
Mavena waved her off gently. "It's fine,"
She stood, brushing a hand over a long, grey coat hanging on the wall.
"Let's go, then."
***
The Principal's Office – Apex Tower, Glory Academy.
The room was quiet.
The hum of the city far below was muffled behind tempered glass and silence wards. Within the lofty chamber, the only audible sound was the measured ticking of an antique brass clock mounted above the arched doorway.
Mavena stood rigid before the Principal's white crystal desk, posture immaculate, hands clasped behind her back like a soldier awaiting debrief.
Across from her, Principal Aldric Malchus Hadi was seated in a high-backed chair, reviewing a luminous slate etched with data streams. He said nothing for a long moment, letting the silence stretch—whether as a test or a habit, Mavena couldn't tell.
Finally, without looking up, his voice cut through the silence.
"What are your current thoughts on the students?" he asked, his voice calm. "How many do you believe could survive their Foundational Script?"
There was no hesitation in Mavena's reply.
"Probably only the top ten, sir."
Principal Hadi looked up then, sharp eyes locking with hers. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, though whether it held amusement or grim satisfaction was unclear.
"Well," he said, leaning back in his chair, "that's more than last year."
The two stayed silent for a moment.
"…Vincenzo's brother. Was that your idea?" Mavena asked, her tone unreadable.
Aldric didn't flinch. "Yes," he said calmly. "Yes, It was. I thought it best. For the both of you."
Mavena's eyes narrowed slightly. "I see."
***
Mavena exhaled slowly as she stepped into the corridor, the ambient hum of the academy's upper tower returning like background static to her senses.
Beep.
A soft pulse at her wrist. Her Connector lit up with a pale blue glow.
She didn't check it right away.
Instead, she paused mid-step, eyes narrowing slightly. The sound was enough to tell her what she already suspected—that the world was not yet done demanding her attention.
Mavena rolled her eyes, a quiet exasperation flickering across her otherwise composed face.
"Of-fucking-course," she muttered.
With a resigned flick of her fingers, the display expanded into view.
_________________________________
Author Note: ;)