Ronak woke to silence.
His body felt different — alive in a way that defied explanation. Every breath shimmered, every heartbeat hummed like distant thunder. The faint glow that had rippled under his skin the night before was still there, pulsing with the rhythm of something vast — something not human.
He sat up, gasping. The room flickered. His desk light surged too bright, then shattered with a pop. Water from his bottle lifted — hovered midair — before raining softly down again.
Ronak stared at his hands.
"What the hell... am I?"
He stumbled to the mirror. Reflections twisted — eyes flickering with hues that shifted from blue to gold to crimson, like storms trapped behind glass. When he touched the surface, it rippled as if it recognized him.
Outside, the city had already moved on. The plasma storm was dismissed as a "data surge event," another anomaly buried by the megacorps. But something in the air had changed. The world felt heavier. Quieter. Watching.
Ronak stepped out into the crowded streets of Future Pride, still dizzy from the strange current thrumming through his veins. He could hear things — the hum of drones, the electric pulse of neon lights, even the faint whisper of people's digital devices syncing around him. It was overwhelming.
Like the city was talking to him.
Then he heard the scream.
Across the avenue, a hover-transport had spiraled out of control. Sparks burst from its undercarriage before it slammed into a holo-sign, bursting into flames midair. The crash lit up the night — molten metal raining down like fiery confetti. People ran. Sirens blared.
And then Ronak saw her — a girl, trapped behind the cracked glass of the cabin, pounding desperately.
Without thinking, he ran.
The world blurred around him as instinct took over. His skin flared — energy surging outward in waves of light and heat. Fire twisted at his command; he didn't understand how, but his body moved before thought could form. Streams of water from a nearby hydrant bent unnaturally toward the flames, hissing as they collided. The air trembled, the ground cracked, and the wreck's blaze seemed to respond to him.
"Hold on!" he shouted — but the words were drowned by the storm forming around him.
Lightning snapped across his arms. The flames didn't die — they danced, alive, almost conscious, wrapping him in spirals of orange and violet. For one terrifying second, Ronak felt everything — every atom, every flicker of energy — like the universe itself was breathing through him.
Then it went wrong.
The energy turned wild. The hover-transport exploded in a brilliant burst of plasma. The girl was thrown clear — alive, coughing, terrified — but the street dissolved into chaos. Drones malfunctioned midair, neon signs burst, power grids blacked out for an entire block.
People screamed.
"It's a monster!"
"A dark spirit!"
"The ghost from the storm!"
Ronak fell to his knees, his hands smoking, his pulse an earthquake in his chest. The girl looked at him once — eyes wide, afraid — before she ran into the crowd.
By dawn, the city was flooded with headlines.
"MYSTERIOUS ENTITY STRIKES FUTURE PRIDE."
"GHOST OF DARKNESS EMERGES FROM STORM."
CCTV feeds showed only flickers — a silhouette glowing with blue fire, surrounded by bending elements and shattered machines. The media turned it into a myth within hours.
But Ronak knew the truth.
It wasn't a ghost.
It was him.
And somewhere in the depths of the city, a black-ops observer watched the footage, replaying the frame where Ronak's eyes glowed with six colors.
"Target confirmed," the agent whispered. "The ALL IN ONE has awakened."