CHAPTER 1 – ASSETS & ANOMALIES

The old man’s words echoed in the sudden, ringing silence of the chamber.
There's no going back now.

The finality of it was a physical blow, heavier than any tremor. The crack in the great stone beneath us wasn't spreading anymore, but it seemed to emanate a profound coldness. We were stuck. Marooned in another dimension with the very people who saw us as this big mistake.

The old summoner, High Priest Valerius, straightened up, his panic replaced by a grim, resentful resolve. "The summoning stone is shattered. We are bound to you, and you to us." He wasn't speaking to us, but to the other cloaked figures. "Your... diversity," he finally looked at us, the word dripping with disdain, "created an unstable resonance. It corrupted the ritual."

"So YOU mess up, and now it's our fault?" Lucas was the first to find his voice, his anger a palpable force in the cold stone room. He stepped forward, putting himself between the summoners and the rest of us, a natural shield. "Is that how it works here?"

Valerius's gaze was like ice. "We summoned the Heroes of Old. A pure lineage. Your presence IS the flaw."

"High Priest," a new voice cut in, sharp and clear. A woman in practical, fitted armor stepped forward, placing herself between Valerius and Lucas. She was the one we'd later know as Commander Elara. "These flaws are now the only weapons this kingdom has. My duty is to make them sharp."

I watched the exchange, my mind racing. The priest looked at us like we were a disease. This woman... she was looking at us like we were broken swords she had to reforge.

"Your powers are awakening, I can feel fragments of it..." Valerius said, ignoring her and pointing a long, bony finger at Lucas. "Untrained. Unstable. Just like the ritual you helped corrupt." He banged his staff on the floor. "Enough! We are leaving."

He turned and swept towards a massive stone archway, his cloaked followers trailing behind him like shadows. Elara watched them go, her expression unreadable. She then turned to us. "Follow me," she commanded.
It wasn't a request.

◆ ◆ ◆

The walk to the barracks was a blur of cold stone corridors and old architecture that, for some reason, felt familiar. The shock was finally starting to set in and everyone was handling it differently.

"Two moons," Bela whispered, her artist's eyes wide with a strange, terrified wonder as she looked through a high window. "The light is all wrong. It's beautiful." Lucas stayed close to her, his earlier anger replaced by a quiet, protective focus.

"I wonder if they have decent tea here," Olivia muttered, more to herself than anyone else. "A proper cuppa would sort this whole mess out. Probably." Her attempt at a joke was so weak it was clear how shaken she was.

Advik was clenching his hands, his knuckles white. I saw Hana stumble on an uneven flagstone, and Chen Yu was there instantly, his hand on her arm to steady her. They didn't say a word, but they didn't need to.

I stayed silent, my gaze flickering between my classmates and our new warden.

We finally stopped before a reinforced wooden door. The two guards accompanying us didn't speak; they just shoved the door open and gestured for us to get inside. Elara watched us file in, her arms crossed.

"Rest now, "heroes"" she said, her voice like chipping stone. "Your training as humanity’s weapons begins at dawn."

The room was just as we'd seen it from the balcony - a long, cold hall lined with cots. But now I noticed the details. There were no names on the beds. Just numbers, crudely painted on the stone wall above each one. We weren't people; we were inventory.

The heavy door slammed shut, the sound of the bolt echoing with finality. We were trapped.

"This is unacceptable," Emma declared, her voice trembling with indignation. "We are not prisoners. We have rights!"

"Do we, though?" Takumi asked quietly from the corner he had already claimed. "In our world, maybe. But we're not in our world anymore. We don't know the rules here."

"So what, should we just roll over and accept all of this?" Lucas shot back.

The reality of our situation began to sink in, and we started to realize: we weren't heroes. We weren't even guests. We were assets. Weapons to be pointed at an enemy we’d never met in a world that wasn't ours.

"No," Takumi replied, his voice even. "We learn the rules. Fast."