The icy wave of lethal intent crashed over Alan. The serpentine gaze from beneath the hood pinned him like a specimen, radiating cruel interest and affronted malice. He felt trapped, exposed! Emily still struggled mindlessly against his grip, eyes vacant, throat emitting meaningless gurgles. The monotonous drone and unsettling whispers in the headset clawed at his sanity.
Found you, little mouse… A voice, raspy as sandpaper scraping stone, echoed directly in Alan's mind! Telepathy! The hooded figure hadn't moved its lips. The sound dripped with cold mockery and unveiled malice, piercing through the headset's noise, stabbing into his consciousness. Interesting disruption… take it back for study…
The figure moved! Not towards Alan, but gliding like spilled ink towards the rough sculpture lurking in the shadowed corner, the source of the malignant pulse. A hand emerged from the wide sleeve, fingers splayed, tips wreathed in visible, tar-black streams of energy! The darkness writhed like living corruption, reeking of decay and chaos, grotesquely at odds with the mundane work clothes. The hand hovered, palm aimed at the agonized stone figure!
Hum—!
As the figure acted, the sculpture, previously radiating psychic pressure, erupted with a blinding, sickening pulse of deep violet light! The light twisted and throbbed like a living thing, instantly overpowering the gallery's feeble illumination. A psychic shockwave ten times more potent than before exploded outward from the sculpture, a tsunami of pure mental force!
"Gah—!" Alan took the brunt. His head felt split by a white-hot hammer! Agony! Tearing agony! Screams, maddening whispers, despairing sobs lanced directly into his mind! His vision spun, distorted; Emily's blank face blurred grotesquely. He felt his very soul being shredded, consumed!
Worse, with the shockwave's spread, every controlled visitor, including Emily, convulsed! Their vacant eyes flooded with excruciating pain and madness! Unearthly, distorted shrieks tore from their throats! Their movements ceased being mere shuffling; they became puppets injected with violent commands – flailing, shoving, even slamming their heads against the warped walls and cold metal exhibits! The eerie quiet plunged into utter, hysterical bedlam!
"EMILY!!" Alan's vision blurred with rage and terror! He saw her eyes glazed, face contorted, froth at her lips, driving her forehead towards a jagged metal protrusion! She was lost, a puppet savaged by the evil sculpture and its hooded master!
Protect her! Get her out! The thought burned through fear and confusion like a brand. Grandfather's warnings, Lena's threats, the chaotic imprint within, the lurking Hounds – all obliterated by the sight of Emily teetering on destruction.
NO! NOT HER!
A power unlike any before, primal and pure, erupted from Alan's core in a silent roar of defiance! Not the uncontrolled eruption of chaotic energy, but an instinct – Harmonization!
He stopped fighting the churning force within. Instead, like a drowning man grasping driftwood, he poured every ounce of his spirit, will, and overwhelming protective fury into it! His target wasn't himself, but the malevolent violet glow, the viscous psychic control saturating the space!
Focus! Alan screamed inwardly. Like Grandfather taught, imagine the energy flow… NO! Not imagine! Command! Command the chaotic torrent to soothe! To quell! To neutralize the raging, maddening, hateful psychic poison!
WHUMP—!
Alan felt his consciousness momentarily empty! The chaotic power, long suppressed as a "bomb" and a "beacon," surged forth with unprecedented force! But it wasn't a destructive blast. It was an intangible, all-encompassing ripple, expanding from Alan, gentle yet swift!
Where the ripple passed, silence fell like a guillotine.
First, the headset's maddening drone and whispers vanished! Absolute quiet reigned! Next, the hooded figure's revolting black energy streams, touching the ripple's edge, hissed violently! They warped, fluctuated, then dissolved like snow under a blowtorch!
At the heart of it all, the sculpture blazing with violet light!
As Alan's Harmonizing ripple touched it—
Buzz! Zzzt—!
The sculpture shuddered violently! Its rough surface, unable to contain the internal conflict, instantly fissured with a web of cracks! The blinding violet light flickered like a dying bulb, its intensity plummeting! The writhing, pulsing lines of energy seemed forcibly straightened, smoothed by an invisible hand! The massive, oppressive Anima wave emanating from its core – viscous, cold, psychically crushing – uttered a silent shriek and collapsed, dissipating at an astonishing rate!
After a few frantic pulses, the violet light guttered out completely, like a snuffed candle!
With the sculpture extinguished and its core power annihilated, the powerful psychic control field enveloping the gallery crumbled like a sandcastle without its frame!
"Huh… wha?" Emily's lunge towards the metal spike froze mid-motion! The agony and madness flooding her eyes receded like a tide, replaced by utter confusion and profound terror. Her legs buckled, and she collapsed, gasping for air, drenched instantly in cold sweat, her body wracked with violent tremors. She stared blankly at the distorted lights and her own trembling hands, as if waking from the deepest nightmare.
Not just her! Every visitor trapped in madness froze! Screams cut off! Flailing limbs locked mid-air! Their vacant eyes filled rapidly with shock, confusion, and dawning, paralyzing fear! A heartbeat of absolute silence, then chaos erupted louder than before! Shrieks, sobs, groans of pain, frantic questions filled the twisted space! People looked around wildly, disoriented, remembering only a terrifying, uncontrollable nightmare!
"My head… splitting!"
"What happened? Where am I?"
"God! Who pushed me?!"
"Get out! Get out now! This place is cursed!"
Panic consumed the crowd. They shoved, stumbled, screamed, surging like terrified cattle towards the remembered exit! Utter pandemonium!
Alan remained frozen for a second, hands outstretched in the posture of his desperate focus, gasping like he'd run a marathon. He felt hollowed out, vision darkening at the edges, ears ringing with a high-pitched whine, limbs trembling with weakness. The burst had drained him utterly. Seeing Emily collapsed but conscious, relief warred with bone-deep exhaustion and dread.
Then, he felt it again – that icy, piercing gaze!
The hooded figure!
He stood in the shadows, mere steps from the now dark, cracked sculpture. His black energy was gone, dissolved. Hidden beneath the hood, his expression was invisible, but Alan felt the serpent eyes locked on him, radiating stunned disbelief, intense scrutiny, and… a sharper, hungrier interest!
Static… Null? The rasping voice, heavy with shock and a sliver of… awe? echoed directly in Alan's mind, no longer mocking, but grave. Forced neutralization… annihilation… pure… Harmonization?! Impossible… such an affinity… The voice fractured, reeling from cognitive dissonance.
The figure didn't linger. He cast one last, searing look at Alan, as if branding him onto memory, then melted backwards like retreating shadow. He slipped swiftly through the gaps in the panicked crowd and vanished into the deeper darkness of the gallery, ghostly and silent.
Alan's heart clenched. Bigger trouble. The stranger hadn't just seen him; he seemed to recognize the nature of his power! He had to get Emily out now!
Fighting dizziness and weakness, he stumbled to Emily's side, hauling her to her feet. "Emily! Move! NOW!" His voice was a raw croak.
Still dazed but aware enough for terror, Emily clung to his arm, leaning heavily as he half-dragged her into the frantic stream of people surging towards the exit.
As Alan, supporting the trembling Emily, burst through the heavy bronze revolving doors of St. Martin's Art Centre, back into the cool, fresh air of a London evening—
Three blocks away, in an unmarked room atop a nondescript office building.
Lena White stood before a massive wall screen displaying complex runic projections and real-time surveillance feeds. She wore her dark grey Warden uniform, posture rigid, though a faint weariness touched her eyes. Most screens showed calm Anima data streams across London.
Suddenly!
Whoop—Whoop—!
One monitoring zone flared glaring red! A strident alarm blared! The coordinates matched St. Martin's Art Centre!
Lena's eyes snapped wide! She lunged to the control console, fingers flying over holographic keys. The screen zoomed in, displaying the Anima energy signature graph for the art centre.
The graph showed the baseline Anima (steady green line) spike violently seconds earlier! A massive, chaotic crimson peak erupted, instantly breaching danger thresholds! Clear signature of potent psychic assault or control!
But then, the graph did something that made Lena's brow furrow, her expression shifting to profound astonishment!
Just as the chaotic crimson peak reached its zenith, a unique, nearly transparent energy signature flared! It wasn't a counter-blast. It was… an eraser? Where it passed, the raging crimson peak was forcibly smoothed, dismantled! The speed and cleanliness of the annihilation were staggering! Within a second, the dangerous psychic field capable of mass mental contamination was utterly erased! The graph showed only residual noise and the chaotic bio-signatures of panicked life.
"Energy neutralization… annihilation… localized precision…" Lena stared at the fleeting trace of the transparent wave on the screen, her voice low with disbelief. "…Nature… Harmonization? Pure… suppressive Null?" This energy profile matched only vague descriptions in the highest clearance archives!
Her gaze snapped to the time and location of the event. Her fingers danced again. Another screen pulled up public info on the "Whispers in the Static" exhibition and… grainy footage from a concealed entrance camera minutes before the chaos.
The footage showed a pale, anxious-looking East Asian youth being pulled into the exhibit by a chestnut-haired girl. Low resolution, but Lena's hawk-sharp eyes recognized the face instantly.
Alan Shaw!
"You again…" Lena murmured, her gaze fixed on Alan's image, sharpening to predatory intensity. She swiftly accessed Alan's basic file, her eyes landing on his registered address – East End, Chinatown, "Bai Cao Tang."
"It seems the 'source of incident'… is more unique than anticipated." Lena's voice was ice. She input a rapid sequence of commands. Alan's image and the "Bai Cao Tang" address flashed on screen, tagged with a glaring red label: HIGH PRIORITY SURVEILLANCE TARGET - ABNORMAL ANIMA HARMONIZATION RESPONSE.
She picked up a sleek internal comm unit, pressing the transmit button. "White here. Source of 'Static' incident located. Target: Alan Shaw, residence: 'Bai Cao Tang,' East End Chinatown. Initiate Protocol Silent Watch, Level Two. Repeat, Level Two Silent Watch. Target capability assessment… significant anomaly detected. Potential threat level elevated. Personal oversight requested." She paused, her gaze lingering on the strange energy signature graph. "Field investigation imminent."
Closing the comm, Lena gave Alan's image on the screen one last, hard look, then turned and strode purposefully towards the equipment locker. Outside, beneath the London dusk, another invisible net began to silently draw tight.