The heavy steel door of the emergency stairwell groaned as it swung open.
Nico stood in the threshold, his small frame trembling. He had been so scared of the red, flashing lights and the blaring sirens that he couldn’t just sit in the nursery. He had come looking for his mommy.
But what he found wasn’t the warm, soft woman who peeled his apples.
He saw a dirty, shivering man with a cruel smile, standing over his mommy. He saw the blood. It was painting the floor in a dark, terrifying pool.
Julian didn’t even notice the boy at first. He was too busy savoring his victory, his hand raised, the jagged, blood-stained piece of metal gleaming under the strobe of the red emergency lights.
"You’re finally finished, Cat," Julian sneered. "After all this time, the great billionaire witch is just a pile of meat on the floor."
Nico’s breath hitched. A sound bubbled up from his chest, but it wasn’t a cry. It was a high, keening sound that seemed to vibrate in the very marrow of the walls.
"Papa... no!"
Nico screamed.
It wasn’t a toddler’s tantrum. It was a physical force, a tidal wave of invisible energy that hit the corridor like a thunderclap.
CRACK.
Every single light fixture in the hallway exploded in a spray of glass and sparks. The corridor plunged into absolute darkness, save for a terrifying, ethereal glow that began to radiate from the small boy standing in the doorway.
Julian spun around, his mouth dropping open, but the words died in his throat.
Nico’s hair, usually a soft, warm reddish-brown, began to change. A violent, brilliant streak of silver-white surged from his roots, bleaching its way through his locks like lightning captured in human hair. His green eyes, usually so full of innocent curiosity, were gone. In their place were two orbs of blinding, predatory gold that seemed to burn with the intensity of a dying star.
Julian staggered back, his knees hitting the floor with a dull thud. He tried to raise the blade, but his hand wouldn’t move. He tried to stand, but he felt as though the entire weight of the Ark had been placed on his shoulders.
"N-Nico?" Julian wheezed, his face turning purple. The gravity in the room had shifted, turned into a crushing, physical hand that held him pinned to the deck.
Nico didn’t answer. He didn’t even blink. He just stared at Julian with those golden, ancient eyes.
The piece of jagged metal Julian held was ripped from his fingers as if pulled by an invisible magnet. It hovered in the air for a split second, spinning, before it was crushed into a useless, mangled ball of scrap by an unseen hand.
"You hurt Mommy," Nico whispered. The voice didn’t sound like a child’s. It sounded like the low rumble of a tectonic plate shifting deep beneath the earth.
Catrin, leaning against the pipe, gasped for air. Her vision was swimming. She stared at her son, her mind reeling in absolute, soul-crushing shock.
She had birthed him. She knew every single aspect of his biology. For four years, she had convinced herself the mysterious, terrifying man she spent one night with was just a hallucination, a secret government experiment, or a fluke. She had lived in fierce, protective denial.
Now, looking at the glowing silver hair and the alien gold eyes, the denial shattered.
What are you? she thought, the realization hitting her harder than the blade in her side. Who was he?
Julian’s brain was screaming for him to run, but his body was a prisoner of the boy’s will. He watched, horrified, as Nico lifted a single hand. He didn’t touch him. He didn’t reach out. He just gestured, a flick of his wrist that felt like tossing away a piece of trash.
BOOM.
An invisible, massive force slammed into Julian’s chest. It was like being hit by a freight train. Julian was launched backward, flying through the air with enough force to shatter the sound barrier. He collided with the reinforced steel wall of the maintenance bulkhead, his ribs caving in with a sickening crunch. He slid down the wall, coughing up blood, his eyes fixed on his son in pure, unadulterated terror. He was broken. Finished.
But the energy didn’t stop there.
Nico’s body was a conduit, a living reactor that had been suppressed for years. Now that the seal was broken, the energy had nowhere to go. It pulsed out from him in a raw, violet-gold wave that tore through the Ark’s internal systems.
A massive, invisible beam of pure cosmic energy, an Awakening Flare, shot straight up from Nico. It bypassed the roof of the fortress entirely, tore through the heavy titanium plating like paper, punched a hole through the storm clouds, and fired a brilliant beacon of light into the dark, frozen expanse of space.
Deep in the shadow of a massive warship orbiting the dark side of the moon, a pair of eyes snapped open.
Commander Zeviel, the Vanguard Prince of the star-faring collective, sat on his throne of obsidian and cold light. He was watching the tactical feeds of the purple spore-storms ravaging the pale blue planet below. Earth was just another rock to be terraformed. Another successful, routine conquest for his empire.
Then, the flare hit.
It wasn’t a weapon. It was a pulse of raw, genetic resonance. Blood bound to his very own soul.
Zeviel’s breath caught in his throat. He stood up so fast the armrests of his throne cracked. His cape of liquid starlight swirled violently around his armored shoulders.
He remembered the human woman from four years ago. She had been a strange, fierce anomaly on a scouting mission he hadn’t been able to forget. But he had absolutely no idea human biology was compatible with his own. He had left her there, completely unaware that he had left a piece of himself behind.
A child? Zeviel thought, his ancient, golden eyes widening in absolute, world-shattering shock. My bloodline is on that dying rock?
The cold, untouchable conqueror vanished in a fraction of a second. A fierce, terrifyingly territorial instinct took over. His entire universe just derailed.
"Halt the planetary bombardment!" Zeviel roared, his voice shaking the frozen bridge of the warship. The alien crew scrambled in terrified confusion. "Prepare my personal dropship immediately! I have a son!"
Back in the corridor of the Ark, the energy flickered and died.
Nico’s golden eyes faded back to green, the silver streak in his hair settling into a permanent, shimmering mark. The boy slumped forward, falling into a dead faint on the steel floor.
Catrin reached out, her fingers brushing the cold metal. She was weak, the blood loss threatening to drag her into the dark. Her maternal instincts flared, hotter and more desperate than her pain. Nico wasn’t just special anymore. He was an alien. And something out there was going to come looking for that power.
"Jax!" Catrin wheezed into her radio, her voice barely a whisper.
"Boss?!" Jax’s voice was frantic, the sound of heavy boots running through the barracks echoing in the comms. "We heard the blast! We’re coming!"
"Nico..." Catrin murmured, looking at her son’s unconscious form. "Take him... get him to the medical bay. Lock down the corridor. Don’t let anyone else see him."
"Catrin! Stay with me!" Jax shouted, but the radio slipped from her hand.
Catrin’s head hit the steel deck, and the world finally went black. The Ark was silent again, but the true apocalypse had just begun. A beacon had been lit, and the stars were already falling toward her mountain.