John stood on the tarmac, staring down the cluster of warehouse buildings scattered across the southern edge of Heathrow Airport's sprawling complex. The crimson light of the burning sky cast long shadows that stretched across the cracked concrete like grasping fingers.

  Throughout most of the false night brought on by the black hole, he and his comrades had worked tirelessly to clear these structures of monsters and portals. They'd all contributed to the effort, fighting through warehouse after warehouse in a grinding campaign that had started to feel like pest control.

  And yet, for all their work, the portal count had been surprisingly sparse. Pete had even noted that there had been more portals here before, a detail that had set John's mind working in uncomfortable directions. The Lugger's aborted confession still echoed in his thoughts, cut off mid-sentence by whatever malevolent intelligence ran this show. That same intelligence had evidently decided to rearrange things after the boss monster had come too close to leaking information they didn't want disseminated.

  It had still been a grind despite the strange lack of portals. Boring for John at times, if he was being honest with himself. After the fight against the Lugger, the red-souled boss monsters no longer seemed to engage with him directly. On the rare occasions where they'd found blue portals—there was nothing higher—the bosses had stuck rigidly to their personas, giving John little reason to actually fight them directly. He'd just gone straight for the portal cores, destroying the pocket dimensions with brutal efficiency.

  He felt a little guilty about it, knowing now that there was some kind of personal motivation for the red-souled boss monsters to be defending the portal cores so fervently. But ultimately, it was either him or them. He hoped that releasing them from their servitude to the sadistic bastards running this show was a mercy, even if they might not see it that way.

  John shook off these thoughts, pushing them into that mental box where all his uncomfortable realisations lived. Dwelling on it wouldn't help anyone. The work still needed doing.

  He turned his attention to the warehouses themselves. The buildings ranged in size from massive to gargantuan, great rectangular structures of corrugated metal and concrete that had once housed cargo, equipment, and the endless detritus of international air travel. Now they were just potential cover for monsters to ambush from, blind spots in the defensive perimeter around the royal suite.

  They had to go.

  John moved forward, raised his hands, and activated Geomancy, feeling the spell's awareness flood through him. The ground beneath his feet came alive in his perception as a three-dimensional map of stone and earth and concrete spreading outward in a sphere perhaps ten metres in radius. Soon he could feel the foundations of the nearest warehouse, the thick concrete supports that anchored it to the tarmac, the structure's weight distributed through pylons into the bedrock below.

  With a conductor's precision, he made a sharp downward gesture with both hands. The foundations cracked with sounds like gunshots, fractures racing through the concrete as Geomancy twisted and shattered the stone. The warehouse groaned as thousands of tonnes of metal and concrete began to shift.

  John didn't wait for gravity to finish the job. He drew his fist back and drove it into the tarmac with every ounce of strength his enhanced physique could muster, Iron Fist making his knuckles feel like they were carved from diamond. Earthquake activated the moment his fist connected, channelling power from his magical core through his arm in waves of escalating intensity.

  The ground bucked beneath him like a living thing. Seismic waves radiated outward from the impact point, visible ripples in the concrete that spread in concentric circles. The warehouse's death rattle became a scream, its structural integrity giving way all at once. Walls folded inward, the roof collapsed with a roar of tearing metal, and the entire structure came down in a cascading avalanche of debris.

  Dust billowed up in a massive cloud, obscuring everything. John blew, activating Hurricane. The cataclysmic torrent of wind that erupted from his mouth was like standing in front of a jet engine. A visible cone of devastating force hurled the dust cloud away. The debris scattered like leaves, clearing the air in seconds to reveal the flattened ruin where a warehouse had stood moments before.

  +2000 Aura

  It was, he had to admit to himself, oddly satisfying, dealing out destruction like this. He even felt his lips twitch towards a smile. The demolition job he’d done on Watford had had too much emotional weight attached to it to feel the kind of caveman “me like smash” joy knocking down this building had just given him.

  John looked at the next warehouse in line, a slightly smaller structure perhaps fifty metres away. Then he looked at his hands, feeling the power literally thrumming through his veins.

  What's the point of being this strong if I can't even enjoy it occasionally?

  The thought felt almost transgressive, like he was admitting to something shameful. But he was mostly alone out here. Everyone aside from Lily had returned to the royal suite already, leaving him to finish the cleanup. No one to judge him for cutting loose a little.

  No one except himself, anyway.

  John moved toward the second warehouse, his hands already coming up in preparation. This time, instead of the surgical precision of his first demolition, he went for style. Geomancy lifted a massive section of the building's foundation like he was peeling back a layer of skin, exposing the structural supports beneath. Earthquake sent shockwaves racing through those supports, shattering them in rapid succession like dominoes falling.

  The building began to collapse sideways. John Flash Stepped to the side, positioning himself at the perfect angle, and unleashed Hurricane just as the structure hit the ground. The wind caught the debris mid-collapse, scattering it in a spectacular spray of metal and concrete that dusted the crimson sky with glittering fragments.

  +3000 Aura

  He lost himself in it after that, venting frustration and rage and a week's worth of accumulated tension on the buildings. Each demolition became more elaborate than the last. He'd teleport to the roof of a warehouse, drive Earthquake through its spine, then ride the collapsing structure down while Hurricane cleared the debris around him in swirling vortices. He'd use Geomancy to lift chunks of foundation and hurl them into walls like wrecking balls, following up with precisely placed Earthquake strikes that brought entire sections down in choreographed sequences.

  The buildings fell one by one, each demolition a creative expression of destructive force. By the time he was halfway through the cluster, John had stopped thinking about efficiency entirely and started experimenting with combinations. What if he used Geomancy to create a stone platform under a building's centre, then activated Earthquake while simultaneously using Hurricane to direct the falling debris? The result was a spectacular explosion of rubble that radiated outward in a perfect circle, leaving a crater where the warehouse had stood.

  +2000 Aura

  The power at his fingertips, the ability to so casually demolish vast structures like this, gave him a surreal feeling. Somehow, stuff like this emphasised for him just how powerful he'd become far more than defeating monsters ever had.

  Fighting monsters, even after a week of getting used to it, still didn't quite feel like real life. It was too fantastical.

  But these were real buildings, constructed by real people using real materials and real engineering. The kind of structures that were meant to stand for decades, designed to withstand storms and the slow erosion of time. And he was reducing them to rubble with what amounted to a gesture and a thought.

  It put his power into context in a way that monster fighting never quite managed. Tangible, undeniable proof that he'd become something more than human. He was truly a one-man army now.

  John shook his head, pushing the thoughts aside, and turned his attention to the last few warehouses. These were the largest ones, massive structures that loomed like steel mountains against the burning sky. He decided to save the best for last, taking his time with the setup.

  Geomancy lifted sections of foundation in a spiral pattern as he traversed around the building's perimeter. Earthquake sent carefully calibrated shockwaves through the structure at precisely timed intervals, weakening it from within without causing it to collapse. When everything was in position, John activated both spells simultaneously with all the power he could channel.

  The warehouse seemed to fold in on itself, imploding rather than exploding, the walls curving inward like a wilting flower. Then Hurricane caught it, lifted the collapsing debris up and outward in a massive spiral that climbed fifty metres into the air before dispersing into a rain of metal and concrete.

  +3000 Aura

  When it was done and the last echo of falling debris had faded and the dust had settled, John stood alone on a stretch of cleared tarmac that extended for hundreds of metres in every direction. The area around the royal suite was now completely open, offering clear sight lines all the way to the southern boundary of the airport. Only the terminals remained standing to the north, east, and west, dark shapes against the hellish sky.

  Through Mana Sense, he could feel the monsters outside the airport still inert, frozen in the holding pattern the System had imposed on them. But the ones in the terminals and underground tunnels were a buzzing hive of activity, a restless pressure building at the edges of his awareness. The black hole still hung in the Eastern sky, its hateful attention still resting on his shoulders, but it wasn’t actively interfering. Not yet, anyway.

  Time to head back, John thought, already feeling the post-adrenaline crash beginning to set in. There was an emotional exhaustion creeping in at the edges, the weight of responsibility settling back onto his shoulders.

  He activated Dragon Wings, and, with a powerful downstroke, John launched himself into the air, climbing rapidly toward the altitude where Lily waited for him.

  She'd insisted on staying to watch his back, despite the others returning to the royal suite hours ago. John hadn't protested too strongly. Having someone cover him while he worked made tactical sense, even if the real threats were all contained in the terminals for now. And if he was being honest with himself—which he tried very hard not to be, most of the time—he'd found Lily's presence comforting.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  When did that happen? he wondered. When did I stop being terrified of her noticing how awkward I am?

  He spotted her hovering a few hundred metres up, the Fire Falcon Idol's blazing form somewhat hazy at a distance, with the burning sky roaring behind it. The summon was massive, its wingspan easily three metres across, its body wreathed in flames that ranged from deep red at the wings to iridescent white at the eyes. Lily sat astride it with easy confidence. She’d taken to magical flight like she was born to it, her strawberry blonde hair whipping in the wind generated by the falcon's beating wings.

  As John drew closer, he could see the clearly amused look in her eyes, the slight smirk playing at the corners of her mouth.

  "Have fun breaking things?" she called out as he drew level with her, having to raise her voice to contest with the burning sky this high up.

  John considered deflecting, playing it cool and acting like the demolition had been purely tactical. Then he remembered that Lily had seen him execute a spinning aerial manoeuvre while demolishing the last warehouse, and decided honesty might be the better play here.

  "John smash," he said flatly, keeping his expression perfectly neutral.

  Lily burst out laughing. It made something warm bloom in John's chest.

  "Oh my god," she managed between laughs. "You're such a dork."

  +100 Aura

  John boggled at the notification for a moment, baffled that being called a dork was worthy of an Aura gain.

  "That spinning tornado thing at the end was definitely necessary." Lily’s eyes sparkling with mirth. "For safety reasons."

  "Exactly," John said with perfect seriousness. "If I hadn't dispersed the debris in a controlled fashion, it could have created a hazard."

  "A hazard. Right. As opposed to the debris flying fifty metres into the air and raining down like a meteor shower."

  "Controlled meteor shower. Very important distinction."

  She laughed again, and John found himself smiling back without consciously deciding to. It felt natural, easy. When had Lily transformed from "that American woman who was probably judging him" to someone whose opinion actually mattered, whose presence made him feel less alone in this nightmare?

  After a moment, the laughter faded, replaced by a comfortable quiet that John was surprised to realise didn't make him anxious. His usual awkwardness was taking a back seat, the typical raised heart rate and sweaty palms nowhere to be seen. He didn't even need to use Biomancy to calm himself down.

  The realisation was startling enough that he almost did reach for the Spell anyway to check if everything was alright with his body.

  Lily's expression had shifted, becoming more thoughtful. She was looking at him with an intensity that would have sent him scrambling for composure a week ago, but now just made him curious about what she was thinking.

  "You know," she said slowly, "I get it. Breaking things."

  John arched an eyebrow, wordlessly inviting her to continue.

  "When I was younger, my dad used to take me shooting," Lily continued, her gaze drifting away to focus on the burning horizon. "Target practice, and all. Tin cans, paper targets, that sort of thing. I was good at it. Really good. And I loved it because it was just... pure. You line up the shot, control your breathing, squeeze the trigger, and the target at the end of your sights blows apart. Boom. There’s something satisfying about destroying something without consequences, isn’t there?"

  John felt a twist in his chest. Before he could overthink ite, he spoke.

  "Yeah. I used to smash things when I got angry. When I was younger. Like, really young. Single digits, and a little ways into double-digits too before I… sorta got a handle on it."

  Lily's attention curved back to him, her green eyes interested but not judgemental. Telling, that John could even read that much in her face. When had last known someone well enough to be able to identify their emotions through their expression so easily? It felt like he’d known her more than a week.

  "I struggled a lot with controlling my emotions as a kid," John continued. "Everything was just too much, all the time. Too loud, too bright, too overwhelming. And when it got to be too much, I'd just... break things. Snap pencils, punch walls, throw whatever was in reach.

  "It wasn't about the destruction, exactly. It was about having some kind of control when everything else felt out of control. Like, I couldn't make the world make sense, couldn't make my brain work the way it was supposed to, but I could take this one thing and change it. Break it. Make it into something different."

  Lily nodded slowly, understanding flickering in her expression.

  "My parents tried everything," John said, his voice taking on a slightly bitter edge. "Therapy, medication, behaviour charts, reward systems. Some of it helped, I guess. I learned to bottle it up better, to hide the anger and frustration behind being quiet and withdrawn. Became real good at just... not reacting. Not feeling, or at least not showing it."

  He gave a wry smile. "But that kid who smashed things is still in here somewhere. This situation, this apocalypse, all of it... I think it brought him back out. And honestly? The work of demolishing those warehouses was oddly cathartic. I understand now why those rage room businesses were successful, you know? The ones where people pay to smash things with impunity."

  +1000 Aura

  Lily sighed softly. "I wish I could sink back into the calm shooting used to give me. But it feels tainted forever."

  "Then make it yours differently," John said. "Don't let him taint a thing you loved. He doesn't get to have that power over you. Take it back. Reshape it. Make it into something that's yours and yours alone, something he could never touch or understand."

  Lily looked at him for a long moment, then she smiled, sad and wistful. "I wish it was that easy, John. Don’t think the System would’ve saddled me with it if it was something I could just get over."

  "Yeah," John agreed with a sigh.

  They floated there in companionable silence for a few heartbeats beneath the burning sky. Then Lily's expression shifted, a mischievous glint entering her eyes.

  "Race you back to the royal suite?" she said, already guiding her Fire Falcon into a ready position.

  John felt a smirk tugging at his lips. "You know I'm way faster than that thing, right?"

  "Prove it."

  She was off before he could respond, the Fire Falcon streaking toward the royal suite. John laughed at her competitive spirit, and gave chase.

  His Dragon Wings were significantly faster than the Fire Falcon—it wasn't even close, really—but he held back slightly, letting Lily maintain the lead for the first hundred metres or so. Then, with a powerful beat of his wings, he accelerated, the thrust generated far exceeding what should have been physically possible as he rocketed past her, the turbulence of his passing sending her Falcon flapping frantically to right itself.

  "Cheater!" Lily called out behind him, laughter in her voice.

  "You wanted a race!" John shot back, grinning like an idiot.

  He couldn't resist showing off a little. As he flew, he executed a barrel roll, then a tight spiral, then inverted himself completely to fly upside down for a few seconds before righting himself.

  Behind him, Lily was attempting her own aerial acrobatics, the Fire Falcon weaving through the air in serpentine patterns. She wasn't quite as fast, but the way the flames streamed behind the summon as it moved created a beautiful effect, painting trails of fire across the sky. John found himself watching her for a moment, taking in the joy on her face as she guided the falcon through increasingly complex manoeuvres.

  She looked happy. For this brief moment, she was finding pleasure in the simple act of flight, in the freedom and power and beauty of it.

  And she was pretty. John let himself acknowledge that fact without immediately chastising himself for thinking it. Lily was an attractive woman, with her strawberry blonde hair shining fiery in the crimson light, her green eyes bright with laughter, her freckles dusting across her nose and cheeks. It wasn't weird or inappropriate to notice that. It was just... true.

  The royal suite was approaching fast. John put on a final burst of speed, his wings cutting through the air with powerful strokes as he arrowed toward the entrance.

  He touched down first, his feet hitting the tarmac perhaps three seconds before Lily's Fire Falcon descended beside him. The flames dispersing as she dismissed the spell, dropping her to the floor with the little clay bird back in her hand.

  "I win," John said, unable to keep the smirk off his face.

  Lily put her hands on her hips, feigning outrage. "Only because you have better equipment. If we were on equal footing, it’d be different!"

  "We're not, though. And I still won."

  "This isn't over," Lily declared, pointing at him dramatically. "I'll find a way to beat you someday! Me and Lola will make you eat our dust! Mark my words."

  John arched an eyebrow at her. "Lola?"

  She shook her fist at him. "Mark my words, John."

  He could only smile. "Looking forward to it."

  They shared a grin, the easy camaraderie feeling comfortable in a way John hadn't experienced in... he couldn't remember how long. Years, plural. Back before school had turned into a nightmare of bullying and isolation, at the very least. Maybe ever.

  Which was a bit sad to consider either way, honestly, so he didn’t dwell on it.

  John dismissed his Dragon Wings. The torn fabric of his jacket and shirt reconstructed themselves as he dumped a bit of Aura into the Outfits menu.

  Together, they walked toward the entrance of the royal suite, Lily bumping his shoulder with hers as they moved. The building’s dark windows reflected the burning sky like eyes watching their approach.

  John reached the door first and pushed it open, stepping into the dimly lit interior of the front lobby. And immediately almost ran into Doug.

  The old man was standing just inside the entrance, his bare chest still crisscrossed with pale scars from battles past, still wearing only swimming shorts. But it was the expression on his face that made John pause. That cheeky grin spelled trouble.

  "You kids have a good time out there?" Doug asked, his tone carefully neutral but his eyes twinkling with barely suppressed mirth.

  John felt heat rising to his cheeks and immediately activated Biomancy, redirecting blood flow away from his face before the blush could become visible. His heart rate had spiked, his palms suddenly felt clammy, and he could feel his anxiety threatening to resurface after its brief vacation.

  "It was a productive demolition," John said, keeping his voice perfectly level through force of will and magical intervention. "The southern perimeter is now completely clear."

  Doug's grin widened slightly. "Oh, I'm sure it was very productive. Looked like you were having fun, at least. Both of you."

  There was no judgment in his tone, just that same knowing amusement, but it still made John want to Teleport directly through the floor and hide in the basement until this conversation was over.

  "I want to hold a meeting," he said abruptly, desperate to change the subject to literally anything else. "Concerning our next steps. Get everyone together in the main room. Twenty minutes."

  +400 Aura

  He didn't wait for a response, just brushed past Doug and headed deeper into the royal suite, his footsteps perhaps a bit faster than was strictly dignified. Behind him, he heard Lily's quiet laugh and Doug's answering chuckle, but he refused to look back.

  Smooth, he chastised himself. Very cool and mysterious. Definitely didn't look like you were fleeing in terror from a simple conversation.

  But he was already planning the meeting in his head, organising his thoughts about their next objectives. Work was comfortable. Strategy was safe. Leadership, for all its discomfort, at least gave him something concrete to focus on.

  And if it also provided a convenient excuse to avoid examining whatever was happening between him and Lily too closely, well, that was just a fortunate bonus.