The Storm and the Stranger / Halo Guard, Double Tap

The train had vanished. Not derailed. Not exploded. It simply ceased to exist, erased into pixels of violet static.

Ji-Ho had stood trembling in the void of silence left behind, chest heaving as the symbols on his skin faded. His trembling hands had been proof of something impossible—something he couldn’t control.

“…Who am I?” he had whispered to the night.

But the night gave no answer.

Instead, the storm came.

By the time Ji-Ho stumbled back to the city streets, his head was pounding. His body felt like it belonged to someone else—lighter, yet heavy with an unbearable pressure beneath the skin. Rain poured down, soaking his school uniform. People passed by without noticing the boy who had just erased a train from existence.

Every step felt unreal. Every sound echoed wrong. And in the back of his mind, a truth began to root itself like a parasite:

He shouldn’t exist.

And yet, he did.

The rain hadn’t stopped since that night.

Ji-Ho stood in the middle of the street, chest heaving, soaked to the bone. His vision flickered like a broken screen — flashes of his parents walking away, Arjun’s smirk as he betrayed him, the train vanishing into static. Every memory felt distorted, replaying in fragments as if someone was forcefully rewinding his life.

A low hum spread through the air. Thunder rolled above him, but this wasn’t normal thunder. The clouds swirled unnaturally, white veins of lightning spiraling like they were being pulled by an invisible hand. His eyes widened. The bolt bent downward — straight for him.

Ji-Ho froze. He couldn’t even scream.

And then the world… paused.

The rain stopped midair, droplets hanging like glass beads around him. A figure stepped into existence, blurring in and out of reality before solidifying in front of him. The man’s voice was calm, almost casual:

“Rare Technique: Swap.”

In a blink, Ji-Ho’s body was yanked sideways, like the world had just skipped a frame. He stumbled, suddenly five meters away, heart hammering. Where he had been standing a moment ago, the stranger now stood, hand raised toward the oncoming lightning.

“Common Technique: Deflect.”

The bolt screamed down — but the man simply flicked his wrist. The lightning curved unnaturally, bouncing back into the storm above with an ear-splitting crack that shattered the night sky. The clouds convulsed, glowing briefly before settling into a heavy rumble.

Ji-Ho could only stare, breath shallow. Who… was he?

The ground suddenly trembled.

A jagged tear ripped open in the air behind them. Dark smoke poured out, twisting into a monstrous form with limbs that churned like blackened clouds. Its head stretched into a gaping maw, hungry and endless.

The man didn’t even look back as he spoke, voice low:
“Run, kid. Now.”

But Ji-Ho’s body betrayed him. His legs shook, refusing to move. The alien inhaled deeply — the street itself seemed to warp as a vortex of smoke dragged everything toward its jaws. Ji-Ho’s feet slid forward against the pavement, pulling him closer to the void.

And then—

The stranger blurred, his body scattering into streaks of rainbow light. In less than a breath, he reappeared between Ji-Ho and the beast. His afterimage shattered into fragments of glass before dissolving.

“Teleportation Method: Spectral Dash.”

The alien’s arm lashed out, but the man was gone again, reappearing at another angle. The air rippled with his movement, like reality itself couldn’t keep up with him.

His tone sharpened, almost irritated now.
“Hey, young boy. Run as fast as you can. Now.”

But Ji-Ho couldn’t. His chest tightened, vision breaking apart into pixels and static. The world itself looked corrupted — colors split apart, his body trembling uncontrollably. He dropped to one knee, gasping.

And then it happened.

Faint glowing lines began creeping up his neck under his skin, like circuits trying to activate. The power inside him surged, too heavy for his body to handle. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed completely.

The man’s head snapped toward him. He clicked his tongue.

“Not now, damn it.”

The alien roared, pulling a shard of rock from its own body and hurling it straight at Ji-Ho’s unconscious form. The stranger raised his hand calmly.

“Ability Share: Halo Guard.”

A shimmering dome of light unfolded around Ji-Ho, translucent and edged with faint rainbow hues. The rock slammed into it, exploding into fragments. For a moment, Ji-Ho was safe.

But the shield cracked instantly, spiderwebbing with fractures. With a sharp sound, it shattered.

The man frowned.
“Tch… the kid can’t handle the full load yet.”

Yet instead of disappearing, the shield flickered again — weaker, unstable, but reforming itself over Ji-Ho’s body. A glitch in reality, reshaping the technique.

The man’s eyes narrowed.
“…No. That’s not my Halo Guard anymore.”

The shield pulsed again, glitching like a second heartbeat. Ji-Ho’s unconscious body resonated with it, reshaping the ability into something new.

“Double Tap…” the man muttered. “…What the hell is this? Not alien… not human either. Something older.”

The alien roared again, preparing to crush the flickering shield. But the man stepped back, lips curling into a smirk.

“The kid is weak, but... I'm sensing the presence of KAI points in him.”

Silence fell. Only rain, and the low rumble of the alien’s body. Ten seconds of it — heavy, suffocating silence.

Then the man’s voice cut through it like a blade:
“You’re over.”

The alien unleashed its Neptune Cloud — a dense blue fog that hissed as it filled the street, meant to burn flesh from bone. It engulfed the man in seconds.

The alien grinned with its jagged mouth—until it screamed.

The fog recoiled, twisting back into its own body. Its form convulsed, tearing apart from within.

The man’s voice echoed, deep and magnified:
“Magnified: 100x.”

The alien ripped apart in a burst of smoke and static, its form collapsing into nothing.

The man lowered his hand.
“Fool. I used Thorns against you… and you didn’t even notice.”

With the street finally silent, he turned back to Ji-Ho. The kid lay unconscious in the rain, shield flickering faintly over him. The man crouched, lifted him effortlessly, and carried him away into the night.

The hospital smelled of antiseptic and metal. Nurses scrambled as the man carried Ji-Ho in, laying him down gently on a prepared bed.

As his hand brushed away, a sharp jolt of static electricity shocked him. His eyes widened.

Lines of light — fractal, circuit-like — crawled under Ji-Ho’s skin, glowing faintly like a machine waking up.

“…This isn’t alien,” the man muttered. His voice was tight now, less confident. He pulled a small scanner from his coat and waved it over Ji-Ho’s body. The screen flickered, symbols glitching violently.

Error: Source: NULLVERSE. Integrity: Unstable. Projection: Catastrophic.

The man’s jaw clenched. “This is older than them…”

Suddenly the lights flickered. Monitors beeped erratically. Static filled the room as a dark silhouette appeared at the foot of Ji-Ho’s bed. A humanoid shape made of shadow, with eyes glowing crimson.

The man’s blade was already in his hand, but the shadow leaned toward Ji-Ho’s ear. It whispered something in a language not meant for humans… and vanished.

Ji-Ho’s monitor flatlined. Two full seconds of silence. Then his heart restarted — but the rhythm wasn’t human anymore.

The man’s grip tightened around his blade.
“…This is way above my clearance.”

Outside, the storm raged on. Lightning froze mid-flash, stuck in the sky like broken frames of a movie.

On a distant rooftop, two masked figures stood watching the hospital.

“The Nullverse carrier’s awake,” one whispered.

The other nodded slowly.
“Then the countdown has already started.”

The sky glitched. And somewhere unseen, a clock appeared, numbers flickering violently as it began its descent:

365 days.