Chapter 26: Tracking

Walking down the main hallways of Jefferson High on a Wednesday morning was a lesson in physical endurance.

inside the school, the aftermath was already spreading like a wildfire. Everywhere Kaleb looked, students were huddled over their phones, scrolling through viral social media feeds, shaky smartphone recordings, and local news clips. 

"Did you see how fast Dark used his body like a freaking shield?" a sophomore muttered to his friend by the water fountain.

"Yeah, but the girl with the glowing solar light completely shattered that falling concrete block. She's way better," a girl replied, holding up a TikTok edit of Mia's solid-state solar shield. "Beacon is definitely the leader. She actually smiles at the cameras. Dark just looks like an edgy emo."

Then closer by.

"Are you kidding? Dark was way cooler when he was operating by himself," a senior chimed in, leaning against a row of lockers. "Ever since he teamed up with Beacon, he's gone soft. He used to just drop villains and vanish. Now he's playing corporate cleanup."

Kaleb leaned heavily against his locker, wincing sharply as his backpack shifted against his shoulders. His ribs felt like they had been run over by a car. Every breath felt like a complete risk, a brutal reminder of exactly what it felt like to take a direct counter-punch from a superhero.

"If you groan any louder, the hall monitor is going to send you to the nurse," Mia murmured, leaning against the adjacent locker with a small, sympathetic smirk. She looked completely fine, her brown pigtails bouncing as she adjusted her books, though her eyes were sharp, scanning the passing rustling crowd.

"I'm not groaning, I'm trying to calm down and properly breath," Kaleb wheezed, pressing a hand flat against his stomach. "And do you people have any idea how much traction you guys are getting online? Check any social media people are literally split down the middle. Half the city is calling you a flawless duo, and the other half is complaining that Dark is ruined now." "But please remind me to never question Neiry's definition of a 'controlled punch' ever again, Cause nah bro my spleen is NOT where it used to be, it's definitely in my back now." 

Nearby only a few feet away, Neiry stood still, one of his hands buried deep inside the pockets of his pants. To any passing student, he looked like just any other student detached, as any quiet teenager always was. He was completely oblivious to the fact that his vigilante persona was trending city-wide. Beneath the fabric, his left shoulder was tightly bandaged. The skin was stiff and hypersensitive, buzzing with the phantom sting of Carf's desperate, high-voltage parting blast.

"Let them talk," Neiry said softly, his voice cutting cleanly through the morning chatter of the hallway. He didn't turn his head, keeping his eyes on the classroom doors down the hall. "The public opinion doesn't change anything". "And to remind you Kaleb you survived," Neiry said softly, his voice cutting through the morning chatter of the hallway. He didn't turn his head, keeping his eyes on the classroom doors down the hall. "And to me that means the lesson worked. Maybe if there's a next time and real weight hits you, you don't panic. You adapt."

"Yeah, well, next time let's adapt with a shield, or extra padding please" Kaleb muttered, wincing again as the warning bell rang, forcing him to stand up straight. "Let's just survive the third period. We have to figure out what we're telling Iron Veil about yesterday."

By the time the final bell released them and they retreated into the safety of their underground base, the anxiety of their corporate contract had completely taken over each of them. 

Kaleb dropped onto the base's terminal chair, letting out a long, relieved sigh as he booted up the system. He typed out a rapid sequence, pulling up the secure, encrypted data provided by Iron Veil. "Alright. The data files from the substation fight are fully compiled. Sending the mission report now. Prepare yourself guys—corporate handlers don't usually like it when the target vanishes in a cloud of static."

Before Neiry could even answer, the main monitor flickered. The sleek, silver interface of the Iron Veil network expanded across the screen, displaying a live audio-only connection bearing their handler's encrypted identification tag.

"Team," the handler's voice echoed through the concrete room—calm, professional, and entirely devoid of much emotion. "We've reviewed the telemetry from the downtown substation crisis."

Mia stepped up beside Neiry, her hands gripping the edge of the map table, bracing for the worst.

"The tactical review is positive," the handler continued smoothly. "We were primarily testing if your real-time civilian containment was exceptional. You grounded a loose live wire, prevented a structural collapse above a civilian vehicle, and stabilized the sector's main energy distribution core before a cascading blackout could cripple the commercial square. You saved our logistics division roughly four million dollars in infrastructure restoration."

Kaleb blinked, his fingers hovering frozen over his keyboard. "Wait. You're not... furious that Carf broke containment and vanished?"

"Iron Veil operates on saving lives, Tempest," the handler replied, a faint hint of corporate amusement in his tone. "A-rank heroes fail assignments. C-rank rogues escape. The reality of the field is unpredictable. What matters to the board is preservation and liability reduction. You protected the perimeter, and you secured the area. Accordingly, your initial payment has been deposited into your secure accounts with zero deductions."

A digital notification popped up on Kaleb's side screen, displaying a balance with more zeroes than his student account had ever seen.

"However," the handler's tone hardened slightly, shifting back to pure business. "Do not let your guard down. Our local intelligence indicates that the rogue, Carf, didn't break in all on his own. There was pinging an encrypted signal back to an underground black-market tech network operating within the lower districts. We are uploading the residual signal parameters to your terminal now. Stay alert. Iron Veil will contact you when the next anomaly spikes. Connection closed."

The screen went dark, returning to Kaleb's standard system diagnostic layout.

"Wow," Mia breathed, letting out a breath she felt like she'd been holding since yesterday afternoon. "They really just view us as a profitable investment, don't they? No lectures, no adult speeches. Just... the facts."

"That's how the corporate factions survive," Neiry said, pulling off his hoodie and tossing it onto an equipment crate, exposing the white medical tape wrapping across his shoulder. "They don't care about the villain's motives. They care about the bottom line. Our job is to protect people."

"Well, their loss is gain," Kaleb said, his focus completely taking over as the stress melted away. He swiped his hand across the interface, opening the signal packet Iron Veil had dropped. "Let's see what kind of frequency Carf left behind."

He pulled up a local scanning grid, linking the terminal's sensors directly to the residue still clinging to Neiry's suit. "Neiry, scan the suit so i can run a primary diagnostic for a second. I need to clear the static interference from your scanner profile so it stops looping."

Neiry stepped closer to the console, his eyes watching the blue lines of data map across the suit's physical form.

On the screen, the computerized tracking metrics began to react wildly. The residue energy from Neiry's mana appeared on the chart, but as the scanner passed over where his shoulder got injured, the blue electrical residue left by Carf didn't register as a normal energy surge.

Instead, the electricity was violently twisting, expanding outward in micro-fractures on the monitor, drawn toward an invisible, cosmic signature of Infinity that lived deep within Neiry's central nervous system.

"What the..." Kaleb muttered, leaning closer to the glass screen. His glasses slipped as his eyes tracked the anomaly. "The static isn't grounding out, Neiry. It's... it's like your internal energy source is acting like a gravity well, pulling the electrical current into a completely different shape. Look at the branching algorithms on the side panel. It's been absorbed."

Neiry frowned, looking down at his bandaged shoulder where the phantom electrical sting had finally begun to dull. He felt a deep, heavy pull in his chest—a familiar, ancient resonance waking up to fight off the foreign current.

"Is that dangerous?" Mia asked, stepping closer to the terminal, her bright gaze reflecting the erratic blue spikes on the monitor. "I mean, he's a demon, but raw electricity inside him sounds like a recipe for an internal meltdown."

"It's not melting down," Kaleb countered, his fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard as he forced a diagnostic override. "Look at the values. The Infinity signature isn't rejecting Carf's static. It's rewriting it. It processed the high-voltage residue, broke down the kinetic compression, and neutralized the threat internally. It's like his body just digested a lightning bolt."

Neiry let out a slow, gravelly breath, adjusting the medical tape over his skin. "It's a survival mechanism. Infinity doesn't tolerate competing external forces inside its host. If a current tries to disrupt my nervous system, the core adapts and consumes it to protect the vessel." He turned his eyes back to Kaleb, his gaze sharp. "But it means Carf's energy footprint is completely gone from my suit now. Can you still trace his original escape trajectory?"

"Way ahead of you," Kaleb said, shifting his focus as the stress of the diagnostic anomaly completely melted away. He swiped his hand across the glass console, pulling up the encrypted tracking files Iron Veil had dropped into their system. "Even if your suit is clean, the packet Iron Veil sent contains the raw frequency Carf's skin was broadcasting right before he blew up the vault."

A complex, mapping grid of the city's lower districts expanded across the main monitor. Kaleb tapped a digital stylus against a cluster of old transit lines, expecting a clean path to appear.

Instead, the monitor let out a sharp, low-pitched error chime. The bright red tracking line suddenly fractured, dissolving into a meaningless blur of gray static.

"Wait... hold on," Kaleb muttered, his brow furrowing as his fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard. He punched in a hard override code, trying to force the signal to re-stabilize. "The frequency just dropped off the map entirely."

Mia leaned over his shoulder, her eyes tracking the flickering screen. "Did the tracker fail? I thought Iron Veil's resources were supposed to be top-tier."

"The data is fine, but Carf isn't an idiot," Kaleb explained, tapping his head in frustration. "He must have completely powered down. Without any current flowing through his conductive body, he has zero thermal signature, zero kinetic output, and zero electromagnetic bleed. He's a ghost in a city made of concrete. Until he draws from the power lines or flashes his electrokinesis again, we're completely blind."

Neiry's dark eyes locked onto the blank screen with a cold, analytical focus. "He knows he's being hunted. He's intentionally running cold to slip through the perimeter before the sensors can lock onto him."

"So what do we do now?" Mia asked, her hands dropping to her sides as her golden solar shimmer slowly faded out. "Just sit around and wait for him to pop up somewhere else in the city?"

"We stay ready, maybe even call in volt" Neiry said, his voice dropping into a quiet, serious baritone. He turned away from the console and looked back toward the concrete training mat. "If we can't hunt him right now, then we use this time to fix our own vulnerabilities. Kaleb, keep a background script running to alert us the exact microsecond a localized grid fluctuation spikes."

"Get off the chair, Tempest," Neiry commanded smoothly. "Let's see if you remember how to guard your ribs."