EQUINOX || The Catalysts Series, #3

epilogue

When the chaos finds its way to Arcana and the group of authority figures, the headmaster's brain is immediately working itself in case it needs to file for the best possible solution and potential outcomes, as it always is when he is attempting to reshape reality. However, there is never a good outcome for most situations—desirable, perhaps—however bad the current reality is, because something is always sacrificed in the process. There is always a price to pay when you play with the world's laws.

The headmaster and the authorities step out into his academy's courtyard from their interrupted discussion to find a destroyed section in one of the academic buildings. The ground is blasted open, and a floor or two is destroyed at one side. Smoke billows from the damage, and Arcana is instantly aware of who is behind this.

Something's not right, thinks Arcana when a quake rumbles the ground beneath his feet, the force of it strong enough to shake up the entire academy. Mere seconds later, a blast of raw power comes from belowground, something like condensed plasma. Everything is falling apart from the destruction in its wake.

This is something new to Arcana, because while Caelus never holds back the destructive nature of his abilities, he rarely does so in the academy. His top student, however powerful, has never actively participated in any duels or does training seriously. Seeing his display of power now, Arcana instantly regrets leaving him be. He should never have let Caelus walk away on his own claiming he'd had somewhere to be, someone to check on. What business is he up to, anyway?

But it's hardly Caelus who Arcana's worried about; rather, he's afraid of the potential implications that led the Ace to use his abilities to such an extent on academy grounds, which should be void of anyone at the current hour. Again, he should have asked his student before he'd disappeared. Arcana had been too focused on his own task to notice how strangely Caelus was acting.

"We've received a signal," Lieutenant Raines reports beside Arcana. "There's a captured entity below."

"Demon, or human?" Neither sounds good. Arcana doesn't know which is the better option.

"Human," Lieutenant Raines and Viktas both answer at the same time.

"There can only be one explanation, then," Arcana says.

Only the members of the Shadow Syndicate have been declared as S-tier threats, though they all but remain a secret due to the authorities' insistence that this shady group remain hidden from the media to protect the so-called peace of the City of Leatia. Only the bureau and the S-class know about this dangerously chartered threat, and that they should be appropriately dealt with using the special device—a form of suppressors that comes with a technology that automatically renders them immobile and weakens them, additionally providing a set of coordinates for where the captured location is.

They follow the live signal now, Lieutenant Raines and Viktas both taking this as official bureau business, calling out to their guards. Arcana makes it his own too, considering the fact that this is his academy and his students are potentially involved. Carefully but efficiently, they uncover a trail slightly underground but broken through nonetheless. They use it to trek into the unknown, where the source of the signal is.

Caelus' storm has all but calmed down now, but most of the lesser guards eye not only the surroundings nervously, but somehow spares Arcana a few side glances.

"What is it?" he snaps, but he isn't sure he wants to know. At least, not now under these circumstances. He had long suspected that the authorities had been hiding some plot from him, directly under his nose—hence the reason he left all for the purpose of exposing the two leaders that took over his academy—but he has an ominous feeling about it all. "Whatever you've done, save it. I just need my students to be safe."