Chapter 11 - Another One?!

The afternoon sun was warm, casting long, lazy shadows across the stone-paved promenade of the commercial district.

Flo walked beside Caecilius, carrying a small list in one hand while he quietly carried the boxes they had collected from the shops. They had been sent out to buy a few specific materials for their practical class that weekend. Most of the items were ordinary magical supplies like safety gear and the metal spheres but Flo had somehow managed to add several things of her own that had absolutely nothing to do with the assignment.

Caecilius had not complained and just went along with it. He simply carried them as Flo did the buying.

"I still say the pastel ink set was a necessity," Flo declared, glancing at the boxes in his arms. "Mr.Hugo's ink is so dark it looks like charcoal. How am I supposed to highlight crucial magical spectral shifts with charcoal?"

Caecilius continued walking. "Didn't you say you have five different ink sets at the Observatory? Three unopened?"

"Those are analytical inks," Flo argued, slowing down to walk beside him. "These are decorative inks. Completely different theoretical framework."

Caecilius accepted that as a valid reason.

Flo stopped in front of a shop window. A row of ridiculously round plushies shaped like chubby cats sat behind the glass. Her eyes widened and she gasped. "Look! Isn't this soo cute?"

Caecilius stopped beside her and looked. He studied the plushies for a few seconds. "Yes."

Flo blinked. "RIGHT!?"

"Yes."

She stared at him suspiciously. "Really?"

"Yes."

"Which one?"

He pointed towards a small, round orange one. "That one."

Flo's face lit up. "YOU HAVE TASTE!"

Flo went inside and bought two of the orange ones and gave one to Caecilius,"Here you go! Your rightful compensation for carrying the load. You should be glad i pay worth the work others do, u nlike someone who doesnt pay in comparison to the work they assign."

(Mr.Hugo sneezed at the Observatory.)

Caecilius accepted the plushie fascinated by how soft and chubby it was and then picked up the boxes again.

"You know, I thought you were going to say no," she said.

"To the plushie?"

"Yes."

"I didn't see a reason to."

Flo stared at him for a moment before she smiled. "You're weirdly reasonable."

"So I've been told."

Over the past few weeks, the aloof, unapproachable three-star NightGlower from the Academy had gradually become less distant around her. He was still quiet and still impossibly rigid about rules and duty but he was comfortable being around her. And, apparently, he had also accepted that carrying half of Flo's shopping was simply part of the experience.

Flo glanced at the boxes in his arms. "Do you want me to carry some?"

"No."

"You're carrying all of them."

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

She smiled. "Oki!"

Flo didn't argue. She simply walked beside him, swinging her little shopping list between her fingers.

All of a sudden, the air around them changed. The warmth disappeared as a violent pressure drop swept through the street. Flo's smile vanished just as a shop window exploded.

CRACK!

The pressure drop was so violent that it almost made Flo's ears pop.

CRACK!

Another glass storefront across the avenue shattered inward, showering the pavement in crystal shards.

The street instantly became chaotic. Pedestrians shrieked, dropping bags and scrambling towards nearby alleyways. Dust billowed from the ground as paving stones buckled and tore upwards, pulled into a localised, erratic vacuum.

"Get back!" Caecilius's voice cut through the panic as he called out to the people around them.

In a single fluid movement, he dropped the packages, his hands already gathering the deep, ink-black aura of NightGlow magic to counter the destruction.

Flo stepped beside Caecilius onto the cobbles and focused her mind. This time, she knew what to look for. Deep within her, she summoned the steady warmth of DayShine while simultaneously invoking the geometric precision of ObserVation.

[-DayShine-OberVation-]

A glowing teal-and-gold geometric crest materialised over her right eye as a soft golden-white scan wave erupted from her body. The world shifted and raw magical spectra flooded her vision.

And there, in the middle of the whirling dust and flying debris, Flo saw what she was expecting to find.

Unlike the massive, sweeping tornado that had ripped through the mountain research facility, this disturbance was not spread out. It had a centre and it was horrifying.

The entity was vaguely humanoid but horribly distorted. A towering, unstable silhouette with elongated, jagged arms lashed out wildly at the surrounding buildings while destruction erupted from its form in erratic, violent bursts. But unlike the storm on the mountain, this being's central core was not a bright golden-white. It was dim and shadowed, surrounded by a faint violet-blue aura that seemed to be tearing the entity apart from the inside.

Every time the creature moved, another violent surge of magic rippled through the street, sending heavy stone slabs into the air.

Caecilius raised both hands, dark magic swirling around his forearms.

"Wait!" Flo grabbed the fabric of his sleeve.

Caecilius paused, his dark eyes snapping towards her. "Why?"

"There's... there's something inside it!" she shouted over the roaring wind.

He couldn't see the golden-white core. To his standard perception, there was only a dangerous concentration of unstable magic tearing apart a public street. He looked from the violent disturbance to Flo's glowing eye. He didn't ask for proof but simply nodded.

"Tell me what to do."

Before Flo could answer, the distorted entity turned towards them. Its entire body convulsed before a massive section of broken wall tore free from the rubble and shot towards them.

"Down!" Caecilius lunged forwards and redirected the stone pieces away from them with his NightGlow.

The stone pieces smashed into the ground and exploded into harmless dust but the force knocked them both back.

Flo scrambled to her feet, her crest spinning faster. "I need to get closer. I need to see clearly!"

"Flo." Caecilius stepped in front of her again as another wave of violet-blue pressure rippled through the street. He stared at her for a fraction of a second, evaluating the situation. "It might be too volatile, so be careful."

Understanding flashed in his eyes. Without another word, Caecilius adjusted his position. Instead of standing directly in front of her, he moved into a half-step side guard. He positioned himself to intercept incoming debris with his NightGlow control, throwing the bits and pieces away from them while leaving her line of sight completely unobstructed.

"Go," he said, continuously deflecting streaks of sharp mortar. "I've got your flank."

Flo pressed forwards, her heart hammering against her ribs. Another lash of violet-blue energy whipped towards her and she reflexively deployed a thin curtain of DayShine.

The violent energy collided with her light and stopped.

Flo blinked and noticed that wherever her DayShine had touched the entity's erratic magic, the jagged, frantic thrashing had noticeably slowed and the harsh crackling had simmered down.

'It isn't fighting my light.' Her mind raced back to her practical class. 'It's reacting to it.'

She pushed a tiny fraction more DayShine into her palm. The moment the golden light washed over the entity's outer boundary, the volatile distortion shrank and the violent thrashing weakened into a tremor.

"My light is calming it..." she whispered. Then her expression changed. 'It's not attacking. It's in agony.'

"Flo, look out!" Caecilius shouted, swiftly manipulating a huge falling rock into a piece of iron railing, where it shattered safely away from her. "Nevermind, go ahead, I've got you."

Flo forced her feet forwards. Step by step, she closed the distance between herself and the thrashing figure.

"Just hold on," she breathed towards the core. "Just stay still..."

The entity raised its elongated arms and Flo stopped. For one terrifying second, it looked as though it was about to strike. Instead, it curled in on itself, almost as if it was trying to protect something.

Flo's eyes widened. "Please..." She took another step closer. "I'm not going to hurt you."

The creature released another violent pulse which Flo immediately blocked with her DayShine. She took another step.

Flo reached the centre of the storm. The distorted silhouette loomed over her, its elongated arms raised in a desperate, defensive posture. She took a deep breath and raised both hands.

Golden light flooded from her palms as she pressed her full DayShine magic against the dim, violent core. A blinding flash of warm light exploded outwards and the violence stopped instantly.

The roaring wind died to a whisper and the floating debris fell harmlessly to the asphalt. The chaotic violet-blue distortion dissolved like mist beneath the morning sun, absorbed into the steady golden radiance of her DayShine. The gigantic silhouette contracted smaller, smaller and smaller until the massive shape completely melted away.

When the light finally settled, the street was deathly quiet. Where the giant figure had stood moments before, there was now only a tiny, faint shape lying collapsed on the cracked cobblestones.

Caecilius rushed to her side, his eyes scanning the ruined street in confusion. "What happened?"

Flo didn't answer. Her ObserVation crest flickered weakly over her eye as she stared at the ground.

The shape wasn't another strange magical construct, nor was it a swirling ball of light. It wasn't anything she had ever seen before. It looked like a boy with soft, pale features and fine silver-tinted hair but he was translucent. Faint golden threads of light pulsed beneath his skin, flickering in and out of visibility like a dying candle flame.

Flo slowly reached out a trembling hand and hovered her palm over his chest. A tiny stream of DayShine flowed into him and his translucent body immediately became slightly more solid.

Flo felt a lump form in her throat and her eyes filled with tears. 'It's a person?' she thought, swallowing hard.

Caecilius dropped to one knee beside her. "Are you okay?"

Flo nodded, staring at the faint golden light beneath the boy's skin. His signature was nothing like a normal ability user's. She looked back at the place where the enormous figure had been, her mind reeling.

'He was the storm.'

Footsteps echoed in the distance, followed by the sound of approaching sirens.

Caecilius stood up. "The Defence Squad is here. The Ability Authority will probably take over the incident."

Flo looked down at the boy. His translucent fingers twitched and as her DayShine flickered over his chest, he became slightly more solid again.

"Do they know why this happened?" Flo asked.

"They are already investigating the recent incidents," Caecilius replied.

Flo looked towards the approaching officials and then back at the boy. She made her decision. She had to move him because clearly no one else could see these entities and she couldn't reveal her dual ability to the Ability Authority.

Carefully lifting the boy with her DayShine, she found his body was almost weightless. The faint golden light beneath his skin curled gently against her magic.

Caecilius stepped into the path of the approaching response teams. "I'll report the civilian casualty and handle the initial incident details."

Flo nodded before hurrying away through the south alley to take the boy back to the Observatory.

The mountain air was cool and crisp as Flo slipped through the side entrance of the building. She carried the translucent boy straight into the central research lab and gently laid him on the primary examination table.

A quiet meow echoed through the room as the Observatory cat hopped down from Mr.Hugo's desk. It trotted towards the table, jumped onto the edge and tilted its head.

The boy's pale fingers twitched and his faint gaze shifted towards the feline. Flo stood between them, looking from the cat to the boy as her breath caught.

One cat. One human. Both connected somehow to the same strange phenomenon.

The shock lasted approximately three seconds before the researcher in her took over. Flo grabbed her leather-bound notebook and a pen, pulling an array of detection instruments towards the table.

"Okay," she muttered, flipping the switch on the primary spectral reader. "Step one. Baseline readings."

The highly sensitive device whirred to life as Flo aimed the sensor array directly at the boy's chest but it remained still. The dial didn't move and the needle remained at zero.

Flo frowned. She picked up a secondary magical density gauge and held it close to the boy's forehead but it didn't react at all as well. She tried again but to no avail.

According to the laboratory equipment, the table was empty.

Flo slowly activated her DayShine ObserVation and the world shifted once more. The golden-white core inside the boy's chest appeared immediately, glowing brightly within a delicate web of strange light.

Flo looked at the machine, then at the boy and then back at the machine.

"The equipment isn't broken..." Her voice was barely a whisper.

She checked the calibration and it was perfect. She checked the secondary gauge and that was perfect too.

Her eyes widened. "So why can't it see him?"

Flo looked towards the cat and activated ObserVation again. The same strange magical structure appeared around it, yet her laboratory equipment registered nothing.

Her pen hovered above the notebook. For the first time in a long while, Flo didn't know what to write. She stared at the boy, then at the cat and finally at the machines she had helped design.

Something was missing, not from the machines but from their understanding.

She pulled a fresh page from her notebook and wrote at the top:

NEW RESEARCH PROBLEM

Underneath it, she paused before writing:

WHY CAN I SEE THEM?

She stared at the words, then added another line:

WHY CAN'T THE OBSERVATORY SENSE ANYTHING?

The boy let out a soft noise, his translucent body settling slightly as the warmth of her DayShine kept him stable. The cat curled up at the foot of the table and began to purr.

Flo looked at the two of them and her exhaustion slowly disappeared. A familiar spark returned to her eyes as she picked up her pen.

"Okay," she said with revived vigour. "Let's figure this out!"