Chapter 7: Getting Hit

The final bell for third period hadn't even rung when Neiry slipped out of the side door of the history pavilion. Down the hall, Kaleb was already loudly fabricating a theatrical, fast-paced story to their substitute teacher about how Neiry had suddenly developed a catastrophic, contagious stomach flu and needed to sprint to the nurse's office immediately. It was a sloppy cover-up, but it gave Neiry exactly the window he needed to dissolve into the corridor's shadows and vanish from the campus entirely.

Ten minutes later, Neiry jumped down on the fire escape outside Mia's bedroom window in Astoria.

Through the glass, the room wasn't dark.. Intense luminescence was bleeding through the gaps in the blinds—not like a standard lightbulb, but a dense, warm gold light that seemed to vibrate the very air. Neiry tapped quickly on the glass.

The window slid open instantly. Mia stood there, her hair slightly disheveled, her eyes wide with a mixture of relief and intense frustration. "Neiry," she whispered fiercely, pulling him inside. "What is happening to me? Look at my hands."

Faint, erratic currents of golden magic were pulsing across her fingers like static lights, warming the room to an unnatural degree.

"I know," Neiry said, his voice hurried as he looked around. "I'm sorry I had to leave you in that medical bay the other night. I was in a rush because I had to secure an independent location—a base where we wouldn't be tracked by the agency. I'm taking you there right now. Grab your jacket."

"A base?" Mia stepped back, her expression hardening as four days of isolation, fear, and confusion boiled over. "No! Stop. I'm not going anywhere with you until you start talking. You expect me to just follow you blindly? The other night in the alleyway... that darkness came out of you. You're Dark, and you told no one"

Neiry closed his eyes for a brief second, then took off his glasses, looking at her with absolute seriousness. "Yes. I know I'm sorry. But please I was just trying to protect you as long as everyone else I was born with these powers, Mia. I've lived with this darkness my entire life."

He stopped himself there. He could sense the ancient, celestial echo vibrating within her aura, but looking at how terrified she already was, he knew it wasn't the right time to tell her she was an ancient being or that they had known each other five centuries ago. That truth would shatter her fragile reality.

"The enforcer's attack somehow breached your system," Neiry explained, keeping his voice grounded. "You've awakened a form of raw light magic. I don't know the full scope of it yet, but you need to keep it completely secret. Don't try to use it on your own, and don't get involved with anyone, not a single word to your friends. It's too dangerous."

Mia stared at him, her chest heaving. Part of her felt a sudden, sharp sting of distrust—the quiet, unnoticeable boy she sat next to in class had been hiding a massive, world-altering secret from everyone. Yet, beneath the anger and the fear, an overwhelming sense of awe washed over her. The phantom savior the entire school talked about, the legend of the Astoria docks, was standing right in her bedroom in a worn-out school hoodie.

"You're Dark OMG..." she breathed, the realization finally settling in. She looked down at her glowing hands, then back at his resolved face. "Yea.. yea fine. Show me this base."

The independent sanctuary beneath the border of Long Island City was a massive, echoing vault of cold concrete and ancient iron girders. The abandoned subway terminal was completely dark save for the glowing blue diagnostic mainframes Neiry had covertly installed over the weekend.

"It's completely detached from the city grid and Iron Veil," Neiry said, his voice echoing in the cavernous space as he led her to an open, concrete platform between the old tracks. "No cameras. No sensors. Try to summon it here."

Mia stepped onto the center of the platform, looking down at her palms. "How am I even supposed to do that? I don't have a manual for this."

What followed was an exhausting, hour-long montage of trial and error. Mia stood in the center of the dark terminal, closing her eyes, trying to force the energy out by sheer willpower, only for nothing to happen. She tried focusing on her emotions, but the golden light only sputtered weakly across her knuckles before dying out.

"Relax, don't force it from your head," Neiry advised, standing a few yards away with his arms crossed. "Feel the heat in your chest. Let it flow naturally, like breathing out."

Mia took a deep, centering breath. She thought about the warmth of the sun, the feeling of finally being safe after the warehouse collapse. She opened her eyes, and her irises flared with a brilliant, solid gold light.

FLASH.

A sudden, concentrated beam of raw, blinding light erupted from her outstretched palm. It shot across the platform with terrifying speed, striking Neiry dead-center in the chest. The concussive magical force caught him off guard, knocking him backward two feet before he could react and prepare to absorb the impact.

The light faded, leaving Neiry leaning against a steel pillar, a faint wisp of smoke rising from his singed hoodie.

Mia's jaw dropped in horror. "Oh my god! Neiry! I'm so sorry, are you okay?!"

Neiry looked down at the blackened fabric of his shirt, then up at her panicked face. A rare, genuine laugh escaped his lips. "I'm fine. I heal fast. But note to self: your output is significantly higher than a rookie."

Mia let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, a vibrant, musical laugh breaking through her anxiety. For the next several hours, the tension between them completely dissolved as they worked through the basics, Neiry teaching her how to ground her emotions to suppress the flares.

As the golden light under her skin finally quieted down, Mia looked around the vast, high-tech subway terminal. Her chest swelled with a sudden, surging realization. If she had this kind of raw, explosive power, she didn't just have to be a bystander anymore. She didn't have to be the girl who got caught in the crossfire.

"Neiry," Mia said, her voice growing firm as she stepped closer to him. "If I have this power... I should join you. I can help you out there."

Neiry froze. His expression instantly darkened, a sharp wave of annoyance tightening his features. "Absolutely not. Don't even think about it."

"Why not?" Mia countered, her brows knitting together. "You saw what I just did! I have magic. I can cover your blind spots. OH my god we could be a team!"

"Mia, you don't understand what you're asking," Neiry said, his voice turning cutting and direct. "It is not as easy as I make it look. Being a hero out there isn't some high school after-school club. It's constant pressure, it's brutal, and it takes a toll on everything you are. You see the headlines, but you don't see the reality."

"I'm not stupid, Neiry. I know it's dangerous!"

"It's not just about danger," Neiry snapped, crossing his arms rigidly. "Another thing truth is, I like working alone. I've always worked alone. And frankly... you couldn't do it. You don't have the stomach for what happens when the dust settles, and you definitely don't have the training to survive a real fight."

Mia recoiled slightly, his harsh words stinging deeper than she cared to admit. As angry and defensive as she felt, looking at his cold, unyielding stance, she couldn't help but feel a massive wave of respect. He wasn't just being arrogant; he carried himself like someone who had carried the weight of a thousand battles entirely on his own shoulders.

The heavy silence between them was cut short when Neiry's secure communicator pulsed with a sharp, localized audio ping. A priority alert from the local police frequency filtered through.

"It's a mission," Neiry said, his voice instantly snapping back into a cold, professional cadence as he pulled his obsidian mask from his bag.

Mia swallowed her frustration, her tone dropping into a quiet sadness as she watched him adjust his dark gear. "Do you have to go right now?"

"It'll be fine its a standard, low-level jewelry heist in progress three blocks from here," Neiry said. He saw the sudden worry in her eyes and softened his tone slightly, realizing he might have been too harsh. "Tell you what—I can patch my mask's tactical feed directly into the central mainframe screen here. You can watch the perimeter and talk to me through the comms so you don't have to be alone. It shouldn't take more than five minutes. It'll be quick."

Mia looked up at the massive terminal screen as it flickered to life, showing the first-person perspective of Dark's visor interface. "Okay," she said quietly, taking a seat in the pilot chair. "Be careful."

The display on the mainframe screen tracking Dark's movement was clean. Within minutes, he had slipped through the roof access of the downtown jewelry exchange, completely catching the four street-level thieves off guard. Moving with absolute, silent precision, he neutralized three of them with swift submission holds, his shadows tying them to the central display cases before they could even register his presence.

"See?" Neiry's voice hummed through the audio link, perfectly calm. "Almost done."

BOOM.

The reinforced glass storefront of the exchange didn't just shatter; it exploded inward in a cataclysmic shower of razor-sharp shards and concussive energy.

Three figures stepped through the smoke, clad in high-end, matte-black military exoskeleton plating that radiated a strange, high-frequency purple hum. They didn't look like common thieves; their movements were perfectly synchronized, their weapons targeting Dark before the dust had even settled.

On the automated threat display of Dark's visor, three identical warnings instantly flashed in bright crimson:

[ B-RANK ELITE MERCENARY DETACHMENT — SYNDICATE STRIKE TEAM 04 ]

Threat Level Evaluation: Extreme (Anti-Kinetic Specialty)Status: Active Engagement

"You've got to be kidding, it's a trap," Neiry rasped into the comms, his voice dropping into its gravelly battle frequency as he dove behind a marble pillar.

"Neiry?!" Mia's voice broke through his earpiece, laced with sudden, acute terror as she watched the screen warp from the concussive blasts. "What are those things? What's happening?!"

"The heist was just a lure," Dark muttered, his eyes scanning the environment. "They aren't here for the vault. They must've used an active energy-frequency tracker to lock onto my shadow signature the moment I used my powers."

One of the mercenaries raised a heavy, specialized rifle. Instead of firing bullets, the weapon unleashed a high-density, disruptive sonic pulse. The wave of energy tore straight through the marble pillar, the anti-kinetic frequency instantly shattering Dark's shadow barriers the moment they tried to form.

Dark was sent flying across the showroom floor, crashing heavily into a steel safe. His visor screen flickered violently, warning indicators blaring in his ears.

"He's pinned! Deploy the dampening net!" the lead mercenary barked into his tactical radio.

"Neiry, get out of there! Please!" Mia screamed from the base, her hands gripping the edges of the console so tightly her knuckles turned white. She watched helplessly as the three mercenaries closed the distance, their weapons charging with terrifying purple energy.

But the Syndicate strike team had made one critical miscalculation. They had engineered their tech to counter standard human mutations—they had no concept of the deep reservoirs of raw power sleeping within him.

"I should've told you." Dark growled, his voice echoing with a terrifying supernatural resonance that shook the entire building. "Your data is outdated."

Ignoring the disruptive frequencies, Dark slammed both palms into the floor. He didn't try to form constructs; he unleashed a raw, massive wave of darkness. The atmospheric pressure inside the jewelry exchange instantly multiplied by tenfold.

The heavy exoskeleton suits of the mercenaries groaned under the sudden, immense mass. The floorboards beneath them shattered as the three elite combatants were violently forced down onto their knees, their specialized anti-kinetic rifles snapping under their own crushed weight.

Using the temporary lockdown, Dark didn't stay to finish the fight. He knew more units would be closing in on the coordinates. He dissolved into a desperate, high-speed line of ink, slipping through the shattered floor vents and escaping into the subterranean drainage network before the mercenaries could override the gravity lock.

Ten minutes later, the shadow pool in the center of the abandoned subway terminal surged upward. Neiry materialized on the concrete platform, collapsing heavily sitting down as he took his mask off. His tactical suit was torn, his chest heaving as his accelerated healing fought to repair the internal bruising from the sonic blasts.

Mia flew out of the command chair, sprinting down the platform and dropping to her knees beside him, her hands instantly hovering over his shoulders as faint, involuntary sparks of golden light flared from her palms. "Neiry! Oh my god, you're hurt—"

"No it's okay, fine," Neiry panted, raising a hand to steady himself as he looked up at her, a grim, battle-hardened expression on his face. "But the city is hot now. They know my energy. I must've really pissed them off , Mia. They're after me." Mia hovered over him, her hands trembling as the fading remnants of her golden light illuminated the damp concrete of the terminal. Seeing him bleed—seeing the unyielding, untouchable "Dark" reduced to a ragged, panting teenager on a cold floor—sent a violent jolt of adrenaline through her chest.

She backed away slowly, her eyes tracking the tears in his tactical suit and the dark bruises already forming beneath the fabric. The fear that had paralyzed her during the live stream suddenly solidified into a fierce, stubborn resolve.

"You can't keep doing this alone," Mia said, her voice shaking but gaining strength with every word. "Neiry, look at what just happened. They engineered everything specifically to counter you. If I had been there—if I could have used my light to blind them or disrupt their tracking tech—you wouldn't have taken those hits."

Neiry didn't answer right away. He focused on his breathing, letting his biology forcibly knit his bruised ribs back together. He reached down, grabbed his glasses from the terminal console, and slid them onto his face. The familiar, mundane frames instantly masked the sharp, lethal gaze of the commander.

He stood up slowly, wiping a trace of blood from his lip. "I could've taken them on my own. I just wasn't prepared. We've already talked about this, Mia. The answer is no."

"Why are you being so stubborn?" Mia countered, stepping directly into his path, her brows knitting together in frustration. "I have powers now! Real, explosive power. I proved I can manifest it today. I'm not just some helpless bystander who needs to be hidden away in a bunker. Let me help you."

An acute wave of annoyance flashed across Neiry's features. He didn't just look tired anymore; he looked deeply, genuinely irritated.

"You think because you managed to spark a single beam in a controlled, empty room, you're ready to stand in a combat zone?" Neiry's voice turned cutting, stripped of any high school familiarity. "I wanna keep you safe, being a hero out here isn't a game, Mia. It isn't some romantic partnership where we look out for each other and save the day. It is a brutal, exhausting mission."

"You keep saying that and mind you I know it's not a game!" Mia yelled back, her palms inadvertently sparking with a faint golden haze as her emotions flared. "I watched you almost get crushed on that screen! I know exactly how real it is!"

"No, you don't," Neiry snapped, crossing his arms rigidly. His cold, dark eyes locked onto hers with absolute, unyielding intensity. "You see the feed. You see the clean takedowns. You don't see the pressure. You don't know what it feels like to have an entire syndicate actively tracing your heartbeat, or the burden of knowing that a single miscalculation means someone dies. I'm not just worried about myself, I have to think of the people that are affected."

He took a step forward, his shadow stretching slightly behind him, throwing the command center into a deeper twilight.

"I've always worked alone. My strength depends on absolute control of the environment, and an untrained partner is nothing more than a liability," Neiry said, his words direct and brutal. "And frankly? I know you couldn't do it, Mia. You don't have the stomach for what happens when the dust settles. The moment a blade is at your throat or you have to make a choice between two lives, you will freeze. And in this line of work, freezing gets you killed even worse god for bid someone else."

Mia recoiled as if she had been struck, his harsh words stinging deeper than any physical blow. Her jaw tightened, a hot tear of anger threatening to spill over, but she forced it back. She wanted to scream at him, to call him arrogant and selfish, but looking at his rigid, unmoving stance, she couldn't deny the terrifying gravity behind his words. He wasn't just being mean; he carried himself like someone who had already lived through a thousand tragedies entirely on his own, and he was completely prepared to carry a thousand more if it kept her safe.

"You don't know what I'm capable of," Mia whispered, her voice tight with a mixture of anger and deep, painful respect.

"I know enough," Neiry replied coldly, turning his back to her as he faced the diagnostic mainframes. He began typing rapidly, his fingers blurring over the keys as he locked down the terminal's external security grids. "Go home, Mia. Clean up, rest, and go to school tomorrow. Act like a normal teenager. Let me handle the Syndicate."

Mia stared at his retreating back for a long time, the silence of the abandoned subway terminal echoing between them. Without another word, she grabbed her canvas backpack, turned on her heel, and marched up the concrete stairs toward the surface.

Neiry didn't turn around until the heavy iron door at the top of the stairwell clicked shut. Once he was completely alone in the dark, he let out a long, ragged exhale, leaning his forehead against the cool steel of the mainframe console.

"Im sorry. If you only remembered," he murmured to the empty, shadowed vault. "You'd know I've already lost you to a war once. I am not letting it happen again." 

"DAMN IT ALL!" Neiry's frustration echoed through the empty base.