Stream questioned in the glooming atmosphere in the room "is everyone here yet?... Nope, typhoon is absent.... Just where in the hell is he.."
The wind carried his words.
The wind was wrong.
It crawled instead of flowing—skittering low across the wasteland of shattered stone, whispering through cracks like it was afraid of being heard.
Typhoon stood alone, boots planted on broken slate, blood already dripping from his knuckles where the air had cut back at him.
"…Yeah," he muttered, breath fogging despite the heat. "You're here."
The shadow beast peeled itself up from the ground.
Not rising—unfolding. A mass of black pressure and teeth-shaped absence, limbs forming where they were needed, sinking back into nothing when they weren't. No eyes. No mouth. Just a gravity that bent the world toward it.
It made no sound.
Typhoon rolled his shoulders, winced. "Figures. You're the quiet type."
The wind answered him, picking up, dust lifting in trembling spirals around his legs.
"I'll warn you once," he said, voice steady even as his ribs screamed. "I don't run anymore."
The beast lunged.
Stone exploded where Typhoon had been. He vanished in a snap of pressure, reappearing ten meters back, skidding, coughing as shadow clipped his side like a blade.
"—gh!" He doubled over, spitting red onto gray rock. "Fast. Okay. Noted."
The shadow twisted, stretching impossibly, filling the space between them like a collapsing night.
Typhoon raised one hand, fingers shaking. "You know what I hate?" He clenched his fist. "Fighting things that don't react."
The wind screamed.
A horizontal blast tore through the wasteland, carving a trench straight through stone. The shadow beast was split in half—
—and immediately reformed, its mass boiling back together, unharmed.
Typhoon laughed once. It came out ragged. "Yeah. Of course."
The beast struck again.
This time it caught him.
Shadow wrapped around his torso, pressure crushing the air from his lungs. He felt ribs crack. Felt his feet lift off the ground.
"—listen to me," Typhoon forced out, teeth clenched, blood running from his nose. "I don't care if you understand."
The wind around him began to compress—not outward, but inward, screaming as it was dragged into a tight, furious core.
"I'm still standing."
The pressure detonated.
The shadow was blown back, slammed into a field of broken pillars, its form tearing, unraveling like smoke in a storm. Typhoon dropped hard to the ground, landing on one knee, one hand braced against stone that immediately fractured under the force.
He didn't get up.
The beast recovered faster than it should have—charging again, larger now, denser, its shadow swallowing the light itself.
Typhoon dragged himself upright, swaying.
"…Last one," he whispered. "Promise."
He spread his arms.
The wind stopped.
For half a second, the wasteland went dead silent—no air, no dust, no motion.
Then everything rushed toward him.
Stone lifted. Debris screamed. The sky itself seemed to bend as Typhoon pulled every scrap of air into a single, brutal vortex wrapped tight around his body.
The shadow beast hit it—
—and was torn apart.
Not blown back. Not scattered.
Erased.
Shadow shredded into nothing under impossible pressure, ripped thinner and thinner until there was no shape left to hold darkness together.
When the wind finally died, the wasteland collapsed back into stillness.
Typhoon fell with it.
He hit the ground flat on his back, vision flickering, ears ringing. He couldn't feel his left arm. Breathing was shallow, wet, wrong.
He stared up at the sky, blinking against the blur.
"…Tch," he breathed, a weak grin tugging at his mouth. "Still… counts."
Blood pooled beneath him, dark against pale stone, as the wind whispered low and worried around his broken body.
Victory.
Barely.
The wind had gone still.
No whispers, no gusts — just the quiet hum of blood and thunder.
Typhoon lay broken on a wasteland of shattered stone, the clouds above him swirling like wounded beasts. The battle had been over hours ago. He had won — or so they said — but victory had come with a price: a body with nothing of a use, in pain, and cuts all over, and one big chunk of his body, gone.
The wound didn't bleed red. It bled wind.
The air itself escaped him, his essence leaking into the storm. He coughed, choking on his own breath, feeling the world fade one gust at a time.
"So this… is how I die," he whispered.
But the storm did not answer.
It only wept.
He fell to his knees, clutching his chest. The pain was unbearable — yet somewhere within it, he felt movement. The air around him began to spiral, gathering, protecting. Each breath formed a vortex; each heartbeat drew the wind tighter around his body.
The storm refused to let him die.
Instinct took over.
He knelt, spreading his arms as the cyclone enclosed him completely — forming a massive cocoon of condensed air, dust, and lightning. From the outside, it looked like a fallen egg of the sky, humming with pressure so dense it cracked the ground beneath it.
Days passed. Then weeks.
The wind howled endlessly, wrapping around that still cocoon as if guarding something sacred.
Inside, Typhoon's consciousness drifted. There was no body, no form — only motion. He remembered the taste of freedom, the sound of storms, and the joy of flight. He remembered what it meant to soar without chains.
Then a voice — calm, boundless — echoed within the eye of his mind.
"You were never meant to die grounded. You are the wind unbound — the storm given wings. Awaken."
The cocoon trembled.
It began to glow with golden-blue light, cracks running across its shell like veins of lightning.
Then — it shattered.
From within, wings of plasma and stormlight burst outward, slicing through clouds and splitting thunder. A cry echoed across the skies — not of man, but of something greater.
Where Typhoon once stood, now soared Garuda — his armor reborn into feathers of light, his eyes glowing with the pulse of skyfire. The air bent to his command, each beat of his wings summoning a cyclone beneath him.
He looked down at the world that had nearly claimed him, and smiled.
"The wind cannot die. It only changes form."
And with that, he took flight — a blazing stormbird across the heavens, racing toward the horizon where the other Awakened were stirring.
The wind had found its voice again.
And its name… was Garuda.
---
Everyone is at hq, worried sick about his whereabouts...
A loud banging on the door was Heard. "Guys? BANG ×3... im baaack." Garuda yelled from the other side of the door.
"TYPHOON!!" Tidal called out immedietly and gladly.
"I'm typhoon no more, now its garuda. And it seems like im not the only one..."
They all laughed in enjoyment whilst celebrating his return.
Prime was caught giving a silent smile across the room... As if... Waiting.