Chapter 203: 204 | A Seven-Second Debt
The entity’s hunger wrapped around my consciousness like a fist. Not squeezing. Holding. Desperate and needy and absolutely unwilling to release the first real connection it had felt since whatever nightmare created it.
LIAM. I pushed the name through the link. YOU HAVE TO LET ME GO.
can’t. can’t let go. so cold here. so empty. you’re warm. you’re REAL. please don’t leave me alone again please please please—
The voice wasn’t mechanical anymore. It was young. Terrified. A kid who’d been locked in a dark room and finally found someone who could hear him screaming.
My drain strained against the pull. The entity’s crude imitation kept reaching, kept trying to consume, but underneath that programmed hunger was something worse. Loneliness so vast it made my chest ache.
I’M NOT LEAVING. I pushed the thought through as hard as I could. BUT I NEED YOU TO TRUST ME. LET GO FOR TEN SECONDS AND I PROMISE I’LL COME BACK.
lies. everyone lies. the man with the kind eyes said it wouldn’t hurt. said I’d be helping people. said I’d be a HERO. lies lies LIES—
The competing Essentia signatures flared. Thermal generation spiked and I felt heat bloom across my skin. Gravity manipulation yanked at my feet. The entity’s body was responding to Liam’s emotional distress, the thirteen abilities triggering in chaotic bursts.
"Rome!" Mera’s voice cut through the storm. "Twenty seconds! You’re at twenty seconds!"
I couldn’t answer. My mouth wasn’t working right. The connection had dug too deep.
Cheon’s voice came next, sharp and clinical even through what had to be panic. "His drain is destabilizing. The feedback loop is compressing his own Essentia channels. If this continues for another fifteen seconds he’ll—"
"I know what he’ll do! I can see it!" Mera again. "Rome you absolute IDIOT. You promised thirty seconds. You PROMISED."
LIAM.
what.
I KNOW SOMEONE HURT YOU. I KNOW THEY LIED. I KNOW YOU’RE SCARED AND ANGRY AND YOU WANT TO TEAR APART EVERYONE WHO DID THIS TO YOU.
...yes.
MY FATHER DID THIS. VITO D’ANGELO. HE’S THE ONE WHO BUILT THIS PRISON AROUND YOU.
The entity went still.
Every competing ability signature froze mid-activation. The heat died. The gravity normalized. The hum dropped to almost nothing.
...the man at the head of the table. the one with the cold eyes.
YEAH. HIM.
he watched. when they put the needles in. he watched and wrote notes on a tablet and didn’t say anything when I screamed.
I’M GOING TO MAKE HIM PAY FOR WHAT HE DID TO YOU.
Silence in the link. Then, so quiet I almost missed it:
promise?
I PROMISE.
The grip on my consciousness loosened. Not completely. But enough.
I ripped myself free.
The world slammed back into focus. My knees hit the plaza tiles. Someone caught my shoulders before my face followed. Red hands. Warm skin. Mera’s perfume cutting through the smell of ozone and dead grass.
"Thirty-seven seconds you absolute bastard. Thirty-seven. I was counting."
"Thirty-seven’s basically thirty."
"Thirty-seven is seven seconds past the point where I was supposed to portal your stupid ass out of there whether you wanted to go or not." Her voice cracked. "Your eyes. Rome your EYES."
I couldn’t see my own face but I could feel the drain still burning behind my pupils. Three concentric circles pulsing with stolen Essentia. Probably glowing bright enough to read by.
The entity stood motionless three feet away. Not attacking. Not advancing. Just... waiting.
"Cheon." My voice came out rough. Like I’d been screaming for hours. "The map."
"I have it." She appeared at my left side, visor down, fingers flying across a projection only she could see. "The architecture is... Rome, it’s a disaster. Whoever designed this had no understanding of Essentia compatibility matrices. These thirteen signatures aren’t integrated. They’re fighting for dominance in real-time. The only reason the host body hasn’t torn itself apart is because the drain at the core keeps trying to absorb the overflow and failing, which creates a constant state of near-collapse that paradoxically maintains structural integrity."
"English, Panda."
"The whole thing is held together by suffering. If the drain stops trying to consume the other abilities, even for a moment, the entire construct implodes."
"And takes out how much of the campus?"
Cheon’s fingers stopped moving. "Based on the energy readings... everything within a quarter mile radius."
"Cool. Great. Love that for us."
The entity’s head tilted. The blank face somehow conveyed confusion despite having no features to express it.
why aren’t you running.
"Because running won’t help you." I pushed myself to my feet. Mera’s hands stayed on my shoulders, steadying me. "And because I meant what I said. I’m going to make my father pay for this."
how.
"Still working on that part. But step one is getting you out of that body without killing everyone in the blast radius."
impossible. they said. the man with the kind eyes said the process was irreversible. said I was a PROTOTYPE. said there would be more like me once they perfected the—
"The man with the kind eyes works for my father." I took a step forward. Mera’s grip tightened but she didn’t pull me back. "And my father lies about everything. If he said it was irreversible, that means he just didn’t bother figuring out the reversal because you weren’t worth the research budget."
The entity’s hands clenched. The hum spiked.
i wasn’t WORTH it?
"To him. You weren’t worth it to HIM." Another step. "But I’m not him. And I’ve got something he doesn’t have."
what.
"People who actually know how drain-type Essentia works." I glanced at Cheon. "You said the drain is the core. The thing holding all thirteen signatures together."
"Correct."
"What happens if we strengthen it instead of trying to shut it down? Give it enough power to actually win the fight against the other twelve?"
Cheon’s eyes widened behind her visor. "In theory... the drain would absorb the competing signatures one by one. Integrate them properly instead of fighting them constantly. The host would become a genuine multi-ability user instead of a walking bomb."
"And in practice?"
"No one’s ever tried it. The amount of Essentia required to boost a drain-type to that level would be..." She trailed off. Looked at me. "Rome. No."
"Rome YES."
"You cannot be serious."
"I’m always serious. That’s my whole thing."
Mera’s nails dug into my shoulders hard enough to hurt. "You want to drain yourself. Into that thing. Into the entity that just tried to hollow you out like a gourd."
"I want to GIVE Liam enough power to take control of his own body." I turned to face her. Her red skin had gone pale. Her horns were still dull from burning through her reserves. Her eyes were wet and furious and she looked like she wanted to kill me herself to save me the trouble. "There’s a kid in there, Mera. A scared kid who got kidnapped and tortured and turned into a weapon by a man who shares my last name. I can’t just leave him like this."
"So you’ll die instead? That’s your solution? Drain yourself dry and hope it works?"
"It’ll work."
"You don’t KNOW that."
