The glass of the study window shattered inward, sending a shower of jagged shards to the polished wooden floor.
Caius Astrea, my older brother, braced himself against the sudden chaos. In the dim light, his Synaptical Trigger flickered to life, a fiery halo enveloping his clenched fists.
A son of the prestigious Astrea family, a skilled Synapse user. His eyes, with conviction, subconsciously flickering, his body preparing for combat.
Internally reciting the mental steps: Isolate oxygen... Raise thermal intensity... Apply flame-resistant coating...
The air burst into bright red. Waves of heat rolled off him, carrying the sharp smell of burning air. "Whoever you are,"
Caius growled, his voice tight with fear and burning anger, "you picked the worst house to break into tonight."
"Astrea Household, you will pay for the injustices you have caused us common people."
I, Gabi Astrea, his younger brother, stood by the heavy wooden desk, watching in silence.
"Injustices..? What does he mean?!"
Unlike Caius, I had no Synapse power, a Null. But my mind.
The Wolf didn't just break in, he turned the window to dust. Path shows he landed just outside the window. Caius's stance looks like he's ready to fight, but maybe he's surprised.
"Brother," I called out, my voice calm compared to his angry words, "watch his feet! He's not fighting your heat; he seems to be... soaking it up."
The intruder remained perfectly still. Clad in dark blue armor that seemed to absorb the light, he had a convicting presence. "Astrea," a flat, emotionless voice finally came, "your borrowed sparks are bright, and annoying."
"Borrowed?" Caius roared, "This is earned! Apoy's power flows through my very veins!"
He launched himself forward with unnatural speed. His right fist, wrapped in crackling red flames, aimed not for the emotionless helmet, but for the Wolf's solid chest.
The Wolf, with smooth movement, his armored body shifted.
An armored forearm, the plates subtly moving as he did, met Caius's flaming fist. It wasn't a clumsy block, but a precise, almost graceful move that sent Caius's force away.
Sparks flew onto the ground, leaving smoking burn marks. The Wolf barely flinched, his stance steady.
"Not enough," he said.
My mind, even as my body trembled, kept analyzing. The Wolf is incredibly stable. Caius's hit barely moved him. Means he's either incredibly strong or the armor has a complex system to absorb hits.
I saw it coming again the tiny shift in the Wolf's weight, the slight tensing of his broad shoulders under the dark armor. Attack building. Vector power is faint, almost hidden. Pure velocity, kinetic force, amplified.
"Caius," I warned, my voice sharper now, feeling the urgency, "attack coming! Low angle, hit his-"
"Quiet, Null!" the Wolf snapped, turning his helmet slightly toward me. Then, his attention went back to Caius. "Forward. Impulse."
This time, Caius was a little more ready. The red glow around him grew stronger, a layer of flame against physical hits. He met the incoming blow, with his forearms crossed, trying to spread out the force of the hit.
It wasn't enough. The Wolf's strike, a focused burst of what I knew was an incredibly high amount of kinetic energy, slammed into Caius with brutal power.
Then came the wet, sharp cracks the clear sound of bones breaking under huge pressure. Caius was thrown backward as if by a battering ram. The solid wood groaned under the force, sending papers and books flying across the blood-soaked surface.
Synapse Shield: Broken. Bone Damage: Ribs four, five, and six broken, sticking out. Blood Vessel Damage: Lung artery confirmed. Heavy bleeding in chest very likely. Chance of Survival: eight percent and dropping fast at about four point one percent per second.
Caius gasped, a ragged breath mixed with blood. The bright Crimson Mantle disappeared completely. "G-Gabi..." he choked out, his eyes wide with shock, the fiery light usually in them replaced by the dull look of death.
The Wolf walked forward, his heavy armor crunching over the broken glass and wood. His helmet looked at my brother, before finally looking at me. "The extra. Your brother's fire is out. What exactly will you do to stop me?"
Dodge? The small room gives me nowhere to go. Block? Completely insane against that power. Fight back? My lack of Synapse makes any direct attack useless. My eyes darted around the room, looking for anything I could use, any weakness. ...Plan seven. Exploit Kinematic Weakness..
The Wolf seemed to almost ignore me, his attention back to Caius, maybe making sure he's dead. That split second was his mistake. His right arm, the one that had delivered the bone-shattering blow, was starting to relax, the elbow a momentarily weak spot, at one hundred and twelve degrees.
My hand shot out, grabbing the heavy silver letter opener from the blood-stained desk. Use as a lever, not a knife. Gain advantage. "FORWARD IMPULSE!" I said, my voice surprisingly steady despite my heart pounding, hoping to get his full attention for the fraction of a second I needed.
It worked. Successfully distracted, for a split second I bluffed well to waste precious milliseconds. The dark helmet snapped back toward me. Sign number fourteen: Tiny eyelid twitch. Means surprise. The Wolf started his next strike, a slower, careful move this time, maybe expecting me to fight back.
I moved, stepping inside the path of his planned blow, a desperate dance with death. The heavy letter opener, held tight in my right hand, found the small gap in the armor near the elbow joint, aiming for the sensitive nerve cluster. I turned on my heel, using my body weight and the angle of the makeshift weapon.
Thunk. The letter opener dug into the armor's seam there, the nerve. The Wolf's arm twitched wildly, fingers spreading out like a broken puppet's. One point eight seconds of not seeing. Go.
The armored hand spasmed hard, the intended blow becoming a useless twitch. I've successfully messed up how he moves.
In my left hand, a jagged piece of glass, picked up without thinking during the chaos, found its target, plunged into the attacker's armored hand. Another, sharper grunt of pain.
"Clever, Null," the Wolf grated, surprise briefly cutting through his flat voice.
I didn't look back at my brother's cooling body. I didn't look at the briefly stunned, hurting, enraged assailant. I spun around, my fingers finding the hidden latch of the servants' passage hidden behind, and disappeared into the narrow darkness.
Caius was gone. My older brother. The fiery, arrogant, powerful one who was supposed to be invincible. Gone, because I wasn't strong enough, fast enough, powerful enough to stop it.
"Caius!" I screamed, the sound raw and broken, punching the rough cobblestones of the alleyway floor until pain shot up my arm. "No! DAMN IT!" Tears, hot and sudden, streamed down my face, mixing with the cold sweat. "I thought you were stronger. You said you were stronger.."
.....
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I stumbled into the narrow alleyway, the cool night air a sharp change from the heat of the study. My lungs burned, and my hands shook, still wet with my brother's blood. For a brief moment, a tiny bit of desperate hope flickered maybe I had actually gotten away.
"What did He mean by injustices..? Did my family do something to anger them?"
Then, a harsh voice shattered that hope. "Hey! You there!"
A uniformed officer stepped out of the shadows, his eyes widening as he saw how messy I looked, the blood on my hands and clothes, the piece of glass still in my left hand.
"Gabi Astrea! You are under arrest for suspicion of killing your relative. You are to come with me."