The city was silent, but Caius Grey heard everything.
Breaths. Heartbeats. Footsteps. The wind slicing around the steel tower like a whisper.
He crouched on the rooftop, coat fluttering behind him, eyes focused on the glass building ahead. Inside, a general from the Global Security Council was making a deal he shouldn't.
A psychic deal. Illegal tech. One glimpse into the briefcase and Caius had seen enough.
He touched two fingers to his temple.
"Target confirmed. Memory scan complete."
"Copy that, Grey. Extraction in five. Keep it clean."
He stood up. Calm. Focused.
Then—
A voice in his mind that wasn't his.
"You shouldn't have come here, Caius."
His eyes narrowed.
Seconds later, everything went wrong.
The tower behind him exploded. A wave of force knocked him forward. Snipers fired from rooftops. A dozen minds screamed into his consciousness at once. Trained thoughts. Blocked thoughts.
Traps.
Caius clenched his fists, stopping a bullet mid-air. Another grazed his arm. He scanned ahead—visions flooding in. Futures. All of them ended the same way.
Death.
"This isn't a mission. It's a purge," he muttered.
They weren't just after secrets. They wanted to erase him.
Blood on the glass. Sirens below. A helicopter spinning out of control. Smoke in his lungs.
He knew what he had to do.
Caius dropped to his knees. Focused. Slowed his heart. Pulled every last piece of his power into one place—his mind.
A final thought echoed before the blast swallowed the sky:
"Let's see you contain this."
Everything went white.
Then black.
And then—
He opened his eyes.
He wasn't in the city anymore.
He wasn't even on Earth.