The war room of Tempest was a sanctum of calculated power, a world away from the visceral chaos beyond the city's immense walls. Sunlight, filtered through reinforced glass, cast long, clean beams across a central table where a holographic map of the Indian subcontinent glowed softly. Pins of light marked everything from stable settlements to flickering, malevolent rift zones. Aditya Roy stood at its head, a figure of unshakable calm, his fingers resting lightly on the table's edge as he listened to a report on border skirmishes.
Veer leaned against the far wall, the cool stone a stark contrast to the heat simmering in his veins. He could still feel the phantom vibration of kinetic energy in his fists from yesterday's training session—a satisfying, raw power he understood. That was the language of this world: force meeting force, power overwhelming threat. The discussions in this room—logistics, supply lines, political maneuvering with other guilds—felt like a cage. He was a storm being asked to calculate pressure gradients.
"The final matter for today's council," Aditya's voice cut through the low murmurs, its timbre instantly commanding silence. All eyes turned to him. "Concerns a pattern of disappearances in the Bihar sector. Specifically, the ruins of Patna and the surrounding agrarian settlements."
A few of the senior councilors subtly shifted in their seats. Bihar. The word itself evoked a sense of a forgotten backwater, a place that had been slowly succumbing to entropy long before the rifts tore the sky open. It was a problem for accountants and census-takers, not for the core leadership of India's most powerful guild.
"The missing are exclusively low-tier Awakened," Aditya continued, his gaze, heavy with intent, sweeping the room and finally anchoring on Veer. "Scavengers with an affinity for finding metal scraps. Healers who can mend shallow cuts and stave off infection. A young woman who could purify a few liters of water a day. There are no signs of monster attacks. No residual energy signatures suggestive of a high-tier confrontation. They are simply… vanishing from the face of the earth."
Veer pushed himself off the wall, his brow furrowed. "Slavers?" he proposed, the word ugly on his tongue. "A rival guild like Iron Fist poaching useful, if minor, talents?"
"Unlikely," Aditya countered, his voice level. "The victims hold negligible strategic value. Their abilities are the currency of daily survival, not warfare. This is something else. Something that operates in the shadows, preying on the vulnerable." His eyes held Veer's, and the unspoken command was as clear as if it had been shouted. "It requires a very specific kind of investigation. Subtlety. Patience. And an understanding that the most insidious threats are not the ones that roar, but the ones that whisper."
The cold knot of understanding tightened in Veer's gut into a hard, resentful ball. He knew with utter certainty where this was going, and the injustice of it burned.
"You want me to play detective?" The words erupted from him, sharper and louder than he'd intended, echoing in the solemn chamber. "Father, with all due respect, the western front has two unstable Tier 4 rifts that could spill over any day. The scouts report heightened mutant activity in the Deccan Corridor. Jiya and I should be leading raid teams, sharpening our forces for the real fights—not chasing ghosts in a graveyard for a handful of missing… scavengers." He nearly spat the last word, his frustration overriding his decorum.
The silence in the room became a physical weight. Aditya's expression remained an unreadable mask, but a flicker of profound disappointment in his eyes struck Veer harder than any blow. It was Jiya who broke the silence, stepping forward from her place beside their father. Her presence had changed since her awakening; a new, profound calm radiated from her, making her sharp gaze even more penetrating.
"Is that what you think strength is, Veer?" she asked, her voice deceptively soft. "A cudgel to smash only the largest obstacles? Those 'scavengers' are the reason cities like this can function. They find the resources, they mend the workers, they provide the water. They are the foundation. And Tempest's strength—our strength—is meaningless if it cannot shelter the people who look to our banner for protection." She took a step toward him, her eyes locking with his. "Strength isn't just for breaking things. It's for protecting people no one else sees. It's for being a shield for the defenseless. Go see the world you're actually fighting for. You might be surprised by what you learn about it… and about yourself."
The challenge hung in the air, a gauntlet thrown not just by his sister, but by the very ideals Tempest was supposedly built upon. To refuse now would be to openly declare that he, Veer Roy, was nothing more than a blunt instrument, a weapon without a conscience, unworthy of the legacy he was meant to uphold.
His jaw clenched so tight a muscle twitched in his cheek. He saw the mission for what it was: a punishment for his perceived recklessness, a tedious lesson in humility disguised as duty. The memory of his mother's death—the cataclysmic, world-ending violence of it—felt cheapened by this slow, mundane, grinding tragedy of people fading away one by one. This wasn't the grand, heroic war he had trained for his entire life. It was… janitorial work.
But he was a Roy. His pride, his name, left him no choice. He gave a single, curt nod, the motion sharp and final. "Fine," he bit out, the word tasting like ash. "I'll go."
He turned on his heel and strode from the war room without another word, the heavy doors swinging shut behind him. The weight of the "unworthy mission" settled on his shoulders, a leaden shroud. He was going to Bihar, not to face a monster in glorious combat, but to sift through the silent, pathetic ashes of lives that the world had deemed unimportant. And as he marched down the corridor, the resentment burned in his chest, a low, steady, and bitter fire.