Neo Acedemies;
This was more than just a place. It symbolises hope, the hope of humanity. Neo Academies did not exist because the world was ending. They existed because the world had already changed.
And Dawn academy was one - The only Neo Academy in the whole of Vaspera settlement.
After the Yora Atunda — when the Mist thinned and the Duat bled into the Mortal Plane — collapse didn't come in one dramatic explosion. But its aftermath was devastating.
Cities folded, countries bled.
Continents disappeared entirely from the world maps, replaced by places that were so sinister it felt like it was drafted direvtly from a horror movie.
Forests thickened into Wildzones
Creatures appeared… creatures that only existed in myths and children bedtime stories. And these ceratures were not friendly.
War broke out between every faction, every creature, every entity.
Humanity was attacked from every angle. They managed to survive for some times, managing to defend themselves from those malicious creatures. At first it was possible but as time went on, stronger creatures appeared.
Human's weapons became useless. Their bullets were like foam against the hides of these creatures, their war tanks were dismantled like paper against the claws and teeth of these creatures, and even their nukes could barely save them.
Humanity stood at the very edge of extinction. They began to live in Settlements, hiding behind walls, but even then, these cretures were relentless.
Then something unexpected happened.
Neos appeared. NEOs - New Evolutionary Organisms.
People began to emerge, people that began to show variations, people that do not fit into normal human standards.
Some had elevated regeneration, strange energy signatures, physical output beyond baseline human limits.
Some awakened slowly, some all at once, others barely at all.
They weren't engineered, and neither were they summoned. They were born.
There was no clean pattern, no predictable inheritance. Siblings differed. One awakened while the other didn't.
Some could reinforce their bodies harder than steel, some manipulated heat, lightning, gravity, air. Some had abilities so subtle they passed as "talent."
It wasn't magic. It wasn't technology. It was humanity adapting under pressure.
And once it became clear that Neos were not anomalies but advantages, society reorganized.
They were admired. Envied. Occasionally feared — especially when rogue incidents made headlines — but they were also defenders.
When breaches happened, Neo units responded first. When beasts crossed outer zones, it was often a Neo who pushed them back. In one words, they were humanity's defenders.
But power alone was not enough. And powers not put in check was more dangerous than no power at all. A rogue within the walls more dangerous than a beast outside the walls.
And Dawn Academy existed for that exact reason.
And this morning, Alexander Cruise was on his way there.
* * * *
The apartment door shut behind them with a familiar click as Stella slid the secondary lock into place. Nate was already halfway down the corridor.
"Last one downstairs is funding my tuition," he called.
"You don't have tuition," Alex replied calmly.
"Exactly. So you'd owe me."
"You're impossible."
They descended the stairwell together. The building carried the layered sounds of Middle District morning — pipes clanking, someone yelling about tram delays, a radio playing outdated pop somewhere below.
Nate skipped the last three steps, tripped and hit his head on the wall. Stella pretended not to see this.
Outside, the Middle District of Vaspera Settlement was already alive.
Vendors arranged produce behind folding tables, calling out prices to nobody in particular. Workers moved in steady streams toward transit lines. A public screen on the corner cycled between perimeter updates and an advertisement for reinforced boots — the same ad Alex had seen every morning for three years, the boots still the same price, the perimeter still the same problem.
Nate walked beside him with the energy of someone who had slept extremely well and intended to make that everyone else's problem.
"You know what I heard?" Nate said, stepping over a cracked paving stone without looking down. "Someone in our neighbourhood failed the Dawn exam four times. Four. And he's applying again today."
"Good for him," Alex said.
"That's not the point. The point is — four times. At what point do you accept the universe is sending you a message?"
"The universe doesn't send messages."
"Tell that to the guy who's failed four times."
Stella walked on Alex's other side, hands in her pockets, golden-brown hair catching the morning light. She wasn't talking much.
She had the quiet of someone running a checklist in their head — not of things she'd forgotten to pack but of things she hadn't said and was deciding whether to say them now.
They passed a delivery crew struggling with a heavy crate near the corner of the market block. Three of them straining, redistributing grip, arguing about angles. Then a fourth stepped forward and lifted the whole thing with one hand — smooth, unhurried, like the weight wasn't worth acknowledging. He set it down precisely where they needed it and walked back to his position without comment.
Nate slowed slightly.
"Muscle reinforcement," Alex said.
"I know," Nate said. "I also have eyes."
"You were staring."
"I was appreciating." Nate paused. "You think he went to Dawn?"
Alex considered it. "Probably not. Plenty of strong Neos never do. Dawn isn't the only way to be useful."
"But it's the best way."
Alex didn't answer that. Mostly because Nate wasn't wrong.
A woman nearby repaired a drone on a small workbench, faint sparks flickering from her fingertips in precise controlled bursts. A man two stalls down had his arm transformed to something denser than bone — grey, layered — while he demonstrated something to a customer. A child near the transit stop kept making small flames appear in her palm and closing her fist over them, appear and close, appear and close, like she was practicing a trick she hadn't shown anyone yet.
Neos everywhere. In the walls, in the markets, in the ordinary machinery of the day. That was the Middle District. Power wasn't extraordinary here. It was just Tuesday.