The apartment was quiet, lit only by the soft glow of the city beyond the windows. Cashel sat cross-legged on the couch, a mug of tea cooling in his hands. Leonidas stood at the window, arms folded, watching the skyline pulse with distant sirens. “I’ve been thinking,” Cashel said, voice low. Leonidas turned. “About?” “Children.”…

Leonidas stared at the message glowing on his comm tablet. SARIAH: Dinner. Drinks. No politics. Just us. You know we’d be dangerous together—in all the best ways. He exhaled slowly, the words lingering like smoke. Sariah had a way of slipping past defenses, her pheromone-based powers subtle but potent. She’d made her interest clear at…

The Chrysalis Project’s first public event was held in the heart of New Geneva—a city rebuilt from the ashes of the old world, now a gleaming symbol of Awakened-human cooperation. The venue was a glass-domed atrium, suspended above a bioluminescent lake, with media drones humming like insects overhead. Cashel adjusted the collar of his tailored…

They met in the rain. Cashel had just transferred to the Biotech Division’s tactical training unit, fresh from a civilian academy, still raw, still angry. Leonidas was already a rising star—quiet, intense, with a reputation for precision and a habit of keeping everyone at arm’s length. Cashel broke that habit. Their first conversation was a…

Cashel stood shirtless in the training chamber, sweat glistening on his skin, breath shallow. The room was reinforced with kinetic dampeners, but even they flickered under the pressure of his power. “I can’t shut it off,” he growled, fists clenched. Leonidas stepped forward, calm and steady. “You’re not supposed to shut it off. You’re supposed…

Inside the cocoon, time didn’t exist. Cashel floated in a sea of light and memory, his body stripped down to its essence. He felt everything—his cells unraveling, his DNA rewriting itself strand by strand. Pain came in waves, but it wasn’t physical. It was emotional. Every memory was dissected, every fear exposed. He saw his…

The cocoon pulsed softly in the corner of the room, casting hues of violet and gold across the concrete walls. Leonidas sat beside it, legs stretched out, back against the cold steel frame of the old cot. He hadn’t left the room in three days. Not since Cashel cocooned. He watched the shell breathe—slow, rhythmic,…

The outbreak was never an accident. They called it Project Ascension—an experiment buried deep in the archives of the Global Biogenetics Coalition. A virus engineered to unlock dormant potential in human DNA. It was supposed to be controlled, selective. But like all things born of hubris, it escaped. The first wave was small. A handful…