Overview:

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Roanne, Allison, and Sophie find themselves in a narrow passageway, only for it to crack open and send them plunging toward their doom. Before they hit the ground, the seafoam green, pink, and yellow Luminaries appear and merge with the girls, saving them from the fall. Meanwhile, James and Michael reach the cave entrance. Michael manages to make it outside, but James is left behind as the Orange Luminary comes to him, imbuing him with the power of music. Out in the rainstorm, the Scarlet Luminary sneaks up on Michael and strikes him, causing him to suffer feverish symptoms. His eyes begin to glow, and rings of heat burst from his body. Deep inside, Benjamin tries to find a way out for his younger cousin, Topher, but a cave-in blocks all their routes. The two boys take shelter in a small cavern, where Topher shares his chocolate bar with Benjamin to lift his spirits. At last, the final two Luminaries—cyan and ivory—catch up to the boys. Like the rest of the group, they are struck by the mysterious powers and forever changed.

Emergency_save_protocol.sav

Level: Cavern Collapse

Difficulty: Nightmare Mode

Save Points: None

Okay, so here’s the thing about earthquakes in mysterious underground caverns—they’re basically the game developer’s way of saying “we need to raise the stakes dramatically because Act Two is getting boring.” And let me tell you, this particular tremor is going full San Andreas meets Journey to the Center of the Earth, with a dash of The Descent thrown in for maximum claustrophobia points.

I’m crouched behind a cluster of stalagmites—or is it stalactites? The ones that go up, not down. Whatever. Point is, I’ve got a decent vantage point of the narrow passageway where Roanne, Allison, and Sophie are currently squeezing through like they’re in some twisted game of sardines. The passage is maybe two feet wide at most, all jagged limestone and shadow. My phone’s flashlight app is on minimum brightness because the last thing I need is to draw attention to myself, but I can still make out their silhouettes against the moss clinging to these walls.

The ground won’t stop shaking. It’s like the earth itself has restless leg syndrome.

“Allison, lead the way.” Roanne’s voice cuts through the rumbling, steady despite everything falling apart. Literally. She’s got her hands on Sophie’s shoulders, guiding the kid forward. “Sophie, follow your Ate. Don’t worry—I’m right behind you, looking after both of you.”

Ate—that’s Tagalog for “big sister,” by the way. Filed under: things I learned from hanging around Marco’s family gatherings. Cultural knowledge +10.

Sophie, tiny thing with yellow headband. She’s terrified. She’s wearing this bright yellow dress that’s dainty, and in the dim light, it makes her look like a little moving highlighter. Roanne’s in blouse and a practical long skirt, dark hair pulled back in a braid that’s coming loose. She’s got that mom-friend energy—the designated responsible one who probably has band-aids and granola bars with her.

And then there’s Allison.

Allison’s the vlogger type. I clocked that immediately from her setup—ring light attachment clipped to her phone, the way she was filming everything even as the ceiling started raining pebbles ten minutes ago. She’s in trendy wear, all pink and brand names, hair in one of those deliberately luscious waves that probably took twenty minutes to achieve. The kind of person who’d livestream a natural disaster for the content.

I’m not judging. Okay, I’m totally judging.

Another tremor hits—this one’s a big one, probably a 6.5 on the “we’re all gonna die” scale—and I watch Allison stumble forward. Her phone goes flying like it’s been equipped with an ejector seat, bouncing twice before skittering into a crevice.

“No, no, no!” Allison’s wail echoes off the cavern walls.

But that’s not the worst part.

Sophie, who’s just behind Allison, doesn’t see the wall jutting out at head level. The quake throws her sideways and—crack. That’s the sound of a skull meeting unforgiving stone, and it makes my stomach drop like a failed quick time event.

The little girl crumples like a puppet with cut strings.

“Sophie! Answer me!” Roanne drops to her knees so fast she’s going to have bruises. She’s cradling Sophie’s head, and even from here, I can see the dark liquid spreading through her fingers. Blood looks black in bad lighting. That’s something I learned from horror games and wish I hadn’t confirmed in real life.

Sophie’s eyes are closed. She’s not moving.

My chest tightens. This is the part in the game where the NPC dies if you don’t act fast enough, except this isn’t a game and I can’t reload a save file.

“My poor Sophie…” Roanne’s whispering it like a prayer, like if she says it soft enough, the universe will take pity and rewind the last thirty seconds.

Meanwhile—and I can’t believe I’m witnessing this—Allison is army-crawling toward the crevice where her phone disappeared.

“My phone! All my recordings for the vlog—no!”

Are you kidding me right now?

She’s literally oblivious to the child bleeding out three feet behind her. Too focused on her precious content to notice that A) Sophie’s unconscious, and B) the wall behind them is developing cracks that look like a spider’s web designed by someone on a really bad acid trip.

I want to shout a warning, but my throat’s locked up. Classic freeze response. Thanks, anxiety.

The wall gives this ominous crrrreeeeak that every horror movie has taught me means “run,” but nobody’s running. Allison’s got her hand in the crevice, fingers scrabbling for her phone. Roanne’s too focused on Sophie to notice the danger. And Sophie’s just… out.

Then the mother of all tremors hits.

The wall doesn’t just crack—it explodes outward in a shower of limestone shrapnel. I throw my arms over my head instinctively, feeling chips of rock pelt my jacket. When I look up, the entire section of passage is just… gone. Empty air where solid rock used to be. And beyond it, nothing but darkness and the sickening pull of gravity.

The girls are falling.

It’s like watching a cutscene in slow motion. Roanne’s still clutching Sophie, both of them tumbling through empty space. Allison’s screaming, limbs flailing. Boulders—actual boulders—are falling with them, because apparently the universe decided this needed to be a full disaster movie package deal.

I’m about to do something stupid like try to catch them (spoiler alert: I’d just become another casualty) when—

The cavalry arrives.

Except it’s not cavalry. It’s something so much weirder.

Three massive shapes burst through the cavern wall like the Kool-Aid Man’s anime cousins. They’re huge—each one maybe twenty feet tall—and they’re glowing. Seafoam green, bubblegum pink, and electric yellow. They move with impossible grace for their size, and they’re heading straight for the falling girls.

The Luminaries. They’re actually real.

I’ve heard the stories—everyone has—but seeing them in person is like finding out Bigfoot not only exists but is also surprisingly good at parkour. They’re humanoid but not quite human, their forms shifting between solid and translucent, like they’re rendered in some graphics engine that doesn’t quite mesh with reality.

The Yellow Luminary reaches Sophie first.

It strikes her—not an attack, but like a tactical intercept—and suddenly Sophie’s surrounded by this cloud of… pollen? It’s glowing golden, and it’s moving in patterns that are definitely animated. Like, literally 3D-animated, cell-shaded and everything, floating in our decidedly 3D world. The art style clash is giving me Who Framed Roger Rabbit vibes, if Roger Rabbit was less about jazz and more about quantum physics.

Honeybees swarm around the pollen cloud. Cartoon honeybees. They’re buzzing in harmony—an actual musical chord—and beneath Sophie, a robot materializes.

The robot’s spherical. Black and yellow like a bumblebee, with electric green eyes that glow with obvious intelligence. It’s got these floating ear pad things, and the whole thing is 3D-CGI in that Pixar-adjacent style. It catches Sophie in the pollen cloud like the world’s weirdest airbag, cradling her unconscious form with surprising gentleness.

Mixed media. We’re living in a mixed media reality now. My brain’s trying to process this and failing spectacularly.

The Seafoam Green Luminary doesn’t bother with subtlety—it slams into Roanne mid-fall.

There’s this burst of aquamarine light, and suddenly Roanne’s… changing. Her legs fuse together, skin rippling and reshaping into scales that shimmer like mother-of-pearl. A tail. An actual mermaid tail in sea-green that catches the light like living opals. Her hair shifts from dark to this gorgeous copper color, curling as it lengthens, floating around her face like she’s underwater.

And she is underwater—sort of.

She’s encased in this sphere of glittering water that shouldn’t exist outside a container but does anyway. The water’s this deep indigo shot through with sparkles, glowing pearly white at the edges. Periwinkle and aquamarine currents cascade down the sides of the sphere in defiance of every law of physics I learned in Mr. Peterson’s class. The whole thing’s shaped like a bell, and bubbles—transparent, tinted bubbles—drift lazily from the cascading water.

Roanne floats inside, asleep, hands clasped to her chest like some kind of fairy tale princess waiting for true love’s kiss. It’s beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

Then Allison’s turn comes, and hoo boy, does the Pink Luminary commit to the aesthetic.

“Aaaaaaahhh!!!” Allison’s scream would put any final girl to shame. She’s curled into a ball, arms and legs tucked tight, falling between tumbling boulders like the world’s worst game of Tetris.

The Pink Luminary doesn’t just intercept—it merges with her.

One second Allison’s falling, the next she’s glowing like she swallowed a pink LED strip. Her eyes snap open—pure pink, no pupils, just solid color—and she’s radiating light like she’s going Super Saiyan in rosé. Behind her, these vertical strips of sparkly red hearts materialize out of nowhere, rising up and twitching like they’re glitching between frames.

Rose petals erupt around her. Thousands of them, hot pink and spinning upward in a cyclone that makes zero aerodynamic sense. They’re moving against gravity, against the wind from the fall, just spiraling up and around Allison like she’s the protagonist in the world’s most extra magical girl transformation sequence.

Allison’s face goes slack. Entranced. Like someone hit her reset button and she’s rebooting in safe mode.

The three of them—Roanne in her water sphere, Sophie cushioned by cartoon pollen and a robot bee, Allison haloed by impossible rose petals—descend slowly to the cavern floor. Saved. Transformed. Forever changed.

I’m still crouched behind my stalagmites, phone clutched in my sweaty hand, trying to process what I just witnessed.

The Luminaries hover for a moment, their massive forms casting colored shadows across the broken passage and scattered boulders. Then, as quickly as they appeared, they fade—not leaving, exactly, but becoming transparent, merging with the girls they saved.

The cavern settles into an eerie quiet. The earthquake’s not over. Sophie’s unconscious but breathing, cradled by impossible technology. Roanne sleeps in enchanted water, a mermaid now, apparently. Allison’s floating in her rose petal stasis, looking like she’s having the strangest dream of her life.

And me?

I’m the witness. The observer. The guy who was in the right place at the right time to see three ordinary girls get drafted into something way bigger than a casual cave exploration.

Classic hero’s journey setup. Except I’m not the hero in this story.

I’m just the NPC who saw the cutscene trigger.

My hands are shaking as I lower my phone. The video’s still recording—I wasn’t even aware I’d started filming. The battery’s at fifteen percent.

Three girls walked into a cavern. Three different things walked out.

And somewhere in my chest, beneath the fear and the awe and the sheer impossibility of it all, there’s this tiny voice asking: when do I get my Luminary?

But that’s a question for another walkthrough.

For now, I’ve got documentation to backup before my phone dies, and three transformed girls who are going to have a lot of questions when they wake up.

Level complete.

Achievement unlocked: Witness to the Impossible.

Continue? Y/N

The_lucky_brother_and_the_unlucky_one.sav

Here’s the thing about running from giant cosmic entities—you either make it, or you become part of the light show. No middle ground. It’s pure binary: ones or zeros, survive or transform.

I’m watching James and Michael book it through the cavern like they’re speedrunning a survival horror game, except there’s no checkpoint system and definitely no respawn. The earthquake’s still doing its best impression of a theme park ride gone wrong, rocks tumbling like someone hit randomize on the physics engine.

“Hurry! We have to run!” Michael’s voice echoes off the cavern walls, and the dude’s already ten feet ahead. Classic tank build—all strength, zero patience.

James is struggling to keep up, his hair whipping behind him. He’s more of a mage type, built for strategy, not sprinting. “Is that the exit? It might be the one we used to enter!”

Smart observation, even while running for your life. I file that away in my mental notes: James Pangilinan—keeps his head in crisis situations.

Michael doesn’t even respond, just puts on more speed. The gap between the brothers widens. Behind them, two massive shapes are moving through the darkness, and I recognize them immediately from the board game layout I memorized earlier.

The Scarlet Luminary and the Orange Luminary. First Plane and Fourth Plane, respectively. They’re hunting.

This is exactly like that boss chase sequence in every action game ever, I think, watching the scene unfold. The part where you’re supposed to run toward the camera while explosions happen behind you.

Michael bursts through the cave opening into the rain-soaked night. He’s made it. Achievement unlocked.

James, meanwhile, stops about twenty feet from freedom, hands on his knees, gasping for air. Cardio clearly isn’t his strong suit. The kid’s wearing this hipster-adjacent outfit—open button-up shirt, graphic t-shirt underneath, slim jeans—definitely not optimized for cave escapes.

That’s when the Scarlet Luminary passes over him.

I hold my breath.

It’s enormous—easily twenty feet tall—and it moves with this fluid grace that shouldn’t be possible for something that size. The red glow washes over James’s face, painting him crimson for a split second, but it doesn’t stop. It’s not interested in him.

It wants Michael.

James looks back toward the exit, and I can see the worry etched on his face even from my hiding spot. “James!” Michael’s shout carries back into the cave, but there’s nothing the older brother can do except watch.

Then James turns around.

Rookie mistake, I think. Never turn your back on the exit. First rule of horror game survival.

The Orange Luminary is right there, rushing toward him like a freight train made of neon light. It’s massive and glowing, and those musical staff patterns are already starting to form in the air around it—I can see them even from here, these wavelike constructs that look like someone imported sheet music into reality and cranked the brightness to max.

“Oh no,” I whisper.

James’s eyes go orange. Just—bam—full LED mode, glowing like someone installed RGB lighting in his irises. His expression goes slack, and I’ve seen that look before in games when the mind-control status effect hits. Stunned. Entranced. Game over.

He lifts off the ground. Actually levitates. And I know I should probably be freaking out more, but part of my brain is just cataloging everything with clinical fascination: Subject demonstrates loss of gravitational adherence. Luminary-induced levitation confirmed.

Two neon-orange musical staffs materialize on either side of him, stretching out like the world’s most extra hammock. They’re huge—easily six feet tall—and they pulse with this electric energy. Then the music notes appear.

Cyan. Magenta. Yellow.

They’re the size of basketballs, and they hop along the staffs like they’re in some demented cartoon. Each one makes this popping sound as it bounces—not quite musical, but not quite not-musical either. It’s like if a MIDI file gained sentience and decided to mess with physics.

James just floats there, suspended between the staffs, completely zonked out. His arms hang limp at his sides, and his head tilts back slightly. The orange glow from his eyes reflects off the cavern’s wet walls, creating these shifting patterns that would probably be beautiful if they weren’t so terrifying.

Then the levitation ends.

He drops—not fast, but not slow either—and I tense up because that’s got to be a fifteen-foot fall onto solid rock, but—

A massive four-leaf clover appears beneath him.

I’m not even kidding. A giant, glowing, four-leaf clover. It materializes out of thin air like the universe suddenly remembered that James is supposed to be the lucky one, and it cushions his landing like the world’s weirdest airbag.

He bounces once, twice, then settles onto the clover’s surface, still completely out of it.

The Orange Luminary hovers above him, triumphant.

Player Two has been captured, I think grimly. One brother escaped. One brother transformed. The cosmic game continues.

And I’m just the NPC who watched it all happen.

Player_one_gets_his_powerup.sav

“James, where are you?” Michael’s voice cuts through the rain, and there’s this edge to it—not quite panic, but definitely concern mixed with irritation. He’s standing just outside the cave entrance, water streaming down his athletic build, and he’s scanning the darkness like he’s waiting for his brother to respawn.

“That slowpoke…” he mutters, and I can practically hear the eye-roll in his voice.

That’s when I see it.

The Scarlet Luminary—First Plane, the one closest to the Star of Vis in the board’s cosmology—descends behind Michael like a stealth bomber. It’s massive, easily the size of a small house, and it’s glowing this deep crimson that makes the rain look like falling blood.

Michael has no idea it’s there.

Boss fight initiated, I think. Player hasn’t noticed the aggro yet.

The Luminary doesn’t make a sound as it closes in. No dramatic music cue, no warning flash. It just—touches him.

“What’s that?” Michael spins around, but it’s already too late.

The change is immediate and brutal. His face goes from confused to sick in about half a second, skin flushing red, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cold rain. He’s a big guy—athletic, the type who probably benches his own weight—but right now he looks like someone hit him with a status effect he can’t shake off.

Poison damage? Burning debuff? My brain’s cataloging symptoms. Fever spike. Autonomic nervous system override.

Michael drops to his knees, hands hitting the muddy ground. His eyes—dark brown a second ago—flicker scarlet. On. Off. On. Like someone’s messing with the RGB settings.

Then his body makes a choice: flight.

He takes off running.

And I mean running. Not human-speed running. More like—if The Flash was having a really bad day and couldn’t quite control his powers. Michael’s moving so fast he’s leaving this scarlet afterimage trail behind him, like motion blur in a video game that’s trying too hard with the special effects.

Superhuman velocity, I note clinically. Approximately 60-80 mph based on visual tracking. Luminary infection manifesting as enhanced kinetic output.

He makes it maybe fifty yards before his legs give out and he crashes into the mud, skidding to a stop.

“Aaaaaahhh!!!”

The scream is raw, primal, and it echoes across the field. Michael is on his back now, and his eyes—they’re not flickering anymore. They’re full-on glowing scarlet, like someone installed high-beam headlights in his skull. Actual beams of red light shoot from them, piercing the dark sky.

Then it gets wild.

A scarlet aura explodes around him—this pulsing, churning energy field that looks like someone wrapped him in a force field made of angry red plasma. Energy discs start erupting from his body—spinning, rotating constructs that shoot out in all directions like some kind of omni-directional shockwave attack.

The rain around him just… stops. Not stops falling—stops existing. The water droplets hit the energy waves and vaporize instantly, creating this dome of steam around Michael. And right on cue, lightning cracks across the sky, illuminating the whole scene in stark white flashes.

It’s like watching a superhero origin story, except it’s happening in real-time and there’s no dramatic score, just thunder and Michael’s screaming and the hiss of evaporating rain.

The bright red energy radiating from him has these orange edges, like fire, and the waves pulse outward in rhythm with his heartbeat—I can actually see the cadence, about 140 BPM if I’m guessing right. Way too fast. His body’s in overdrive.

Transformation sequence complete, I think, watching the display from behind my stalagmite shelter. Michael Pangilinan has left the chat. Spartan has entered the game.

The Scarlet Luminary hovers above him, its job done.

And I’m still just watching, recording everything on my phone at 10% battery, knowing that nobody’s going to believe this without proof.

The_older_cousin_and_the_optimist.sav

Meanwhile, deeper in the cavern, Benjamin’s doing his best impression of a survival game protagonist—checking every possible exit, testing every passage, and coming up empty every single time.

I watch him move through the dim chamber, his broken glasses sitting crooked on his face with one lens completely shattered. The kid’s lanky, maybe thirteen, wearing a button-up shirt that’s now covered in dust and debris. He’s got that “smart kid” energy—the type who always has the right answer in class but struggles in gym.

And right now, he’s panicking.

I have to try harder. I can see it written all over his face—the tight jaw, the furrowed brow, the way his hands keep clenching and unclenching. He’s putting all the pressure on himself, classic oldest-sibling syndrome.

“It’s okay. You don’t need to push yourself so hard.” Topher’s voice cuts through the tension, small but steady. The nine-year-old’s standing there in his outdoorsy outfit and he’s somehow the calmest person in this death trap. “I know we’ll find a way out that isn’t blocked.”

Kid’s got protagonist energy. Main character vibes.

The earthquake stops.

Just like that. The rumbling ceases, the ground stabilizes, and the cavern goes eerily quiet except for the distant sound of settling rocks.

“See? Things will turn around,” Topher says, and there’s this genuine hope in his voice that makes me want to believe him despite all evidence to the contrary.

Benjamin looks at him—really looks at him—and some of the tension bleeds out of his shoulders. The kid realizes he’s not alone in this.

“Let’s rest for a while in that chamber.” Topher points ahead to a smaller alcove, then does something unexpected—he takes Benjamin’s hand and gently guides him forward.

Role reversal, I note. The younger one leading the older. Classic subversion of expectations.

They head toward the chamber, and I follow at a distance, keeping to the shadows. Benjamin’s still anxious—I can see it in his stiff posture—but Topher’s optimism is like a shield, protecting them both from the fear that should be consuming them.

The Cyan and Ivory Luminaries are somewhere in this cave system. I felt them pass through earlier, their presence like static electricity in the air.

These two have no idea what’s about to find them.

Save point recommended, I think grimly. But there’s no save system in real life.

The_calm_before_the_fusion.sav

The chamber they find is small—maybe ten feet across—with rough stone walls that seem to close in when you’re not looking. Dim. Intimate. The kind of space designed for secret meetings or final boss conversations. A single shaft of light filters through a crack above, illuminating the dust motes floating in the air like they’re in some indie game with overly artistic lighting.

Topher reaches into his pocket and pulls out a chocolate bar. Hershey’s, from the wrapper. Classic choice.

“I still have a chocolate bar with me. I always bring one for emergencies.” He snaps it in half with this practiced motion—the kid’s clearly done this before—and hands a piece to Benjamin. “Let’s share it.”

Emergency rations, I think. The boy came prepared. Survival skill: provisioning.

“Thank you.” Benjamin takes the chocolate, adjusts his broken glasses with his free hand, and takes a small bite. His expression softens for the first time since the earthquake started. “It’s delicious, but too sweet for my health. You know, blood sugar and cavities. I eat sweets sparingly.”

There it is. Even in a cave-in scenario, the kid’s worried about dental hygiene and glucose levels. That’s so beautifully on-brand for him that I almost laugh.

But here’s the thing I notice—Benjamin’s shoulders have dropped. He’s not wound tight anymore. His voice has this relaxed quality that wasn’t there thirty seconds ago. He’s actually talking, not just issuing commands or worrying out loud.

Topher notices too. I can see it in the way the younger kid’s face lights up, this quiet satisfaction that he managed to help. Made things a little less terrible. He’s happy he brightened the room—metaphorically, since the lighting situation is still objectively awful.

Support character energy, I catalog. Healer class. Morale boost +10.

They sit there for maybe twenty seconds, just eating chocolate in comfortable silence.

Then the ground starts glowing.

Powder blue smoke rises from the stone floor like someone’s vaping directly underneath them, except the smoke sparkles. Actually sparkles. It’s rising in thin tendrils, curling upward with this ethereal quality that screams “supernatural phenomenon in progress.”

Encounter initiated, my brain supplies automatically.

Topher’s eyes go wide—surprised but not terrified. Benjamin’s reaction is immediate and protective. He shoots to his feet, nearly dropping his chocolate, and pulls Topher close against him, one arm wrapped around the kid’s shoulders like a human shield.

“Stay behind me,” Benjamin says, and his voice has that edge again—fear mixed with determination.

The powder blue smoke keeps rising, getting thicker, brighter. It’s beautiful and terrifying in equal measure, and I know exactly what it means.

The Cyan Luminary has arrived.

And somewhere nearby, I can feel it—the Ivory Luminary is close too. Seventh Plane, farthest from the Star.

Two Luminaries. Two hosts. Final fusion sequence loading.

Benjamin’s protecting Topher, but there’s no protection from what’s about to happen.

The stars have come to claim their Acolytes.

Double_transformation_protocol.sav

“These Luminaries… they look like the ones from the board.”

Benjamin’s voice cuts through the chamber, and there’s this note of recognition in it—the same tone you get when you finally understand a game mechanic that’s been killing you for hours. He’s staring at the powder blue smoke that’s now coalesced into a massive, glowing form. The Cyan Luminary. Sixth Plane.

And above it, materializing from thin air like it’s loading into the scene, the Ivory Luminary appears. Seventh Plane. White-gold and radiant, easily as large as the cyan one.

Two giant stars. Two targets. No escape routes.

“The prophecy—the Seven Luminaries will seek the Seven Acolytes.” Topher’s voice is steady, almost knowing. “That Cosmic Cataclysm, the earthquake, our escape… everything is happening as foretold.”

The kid’s nine and he’s connecting narrative threads like he’s been reading the strategy guide. Meanwhile I’m crouched behind a rock formation about thirty feet away, phone at 8% battery, watching this unfold like it’s the final cutscene of a game I can’t pause.

The two Luminaries start moving.

Fast.

They circle the cousins like sharks, except sharks don’t glow with otherworldly light and leave trailing particle effects in their wake. The cyan one moves with this fluid, almost liquid quality. The ivory one is more angular, crystalline, geometric. They’re orbiting Benjamin and Topher at increasing speed, creating this vortex of blue and white light.

Boss attack pattern recognized, I think. Encirclement strategy. No escape vector available.

Benjamin knows it too. I can see it in his face—the way his jaw clenches, the way his eyes dart around looking for exits that don’t exist. His broken glasses slip down his nose slightly.

“This is hopeless. We’re cornered.”

I don’t hear him say it, but I can read his lips, see it in his body language. The kid’s shoulders slump. Reality’s hitting him hard.

Then he does something that makes my chest tight.

He drops to his knees in front of Topher.

“I’m sorry.” His voice cracks. Actual tears are forming in his eyes, catching the cyan and ivory light. “I failed to keep my promise… to keep you safe.”

The protector realizes he can’t protect, I think. Classic hero’s failure moment. Except this isn’t failure—it’s transformation.

Benjamin wraps his arms around Topher, pulling the smaller kid into a tight hug. “But trust these words—I’ll be with you till the end.”

Topher doesn’t cry. Doesn’t panic. He just hugs back, and I swear I can see his lips move: I still believe in you, my little friend.

The kid’s talking to the Star of Vis. Still has faith that whatever’s happening is meant to happen.

Chosen One energy off the charts, I catalog.

Then it begins.

The Cyan Luminary strikes first.

It doesn’t crash into Benjamin—it flows into him. The massive form compresses, streams of cyan light pouring into the teenager’s body through his chest, his back, his skin. It’s like watching data download directly into a human hard drive, and Benjamin’s eyes snap open, glowing pure cyan.

He’s ripped backward—literally lifted and thrown by the force—and his broken glasses fly off his face. The right lens, already cracked, shatters mid-air into a dozen glittering shards that catch the light like a slow-motion action sequence.

Benjamin is suspended now, floating three feet off the ground, arms spread wide like he’s being crucified by light.

And then the tech starts forming.

Holographic widgets materialize around him—rectangular screens filled with scrolling code, data streams, web interfaces. They look like something straight out of Minority Report, except these are real and they’re orbiting Benjamin like planets around a sun. I can see fragments of text: HTML code, binary, what looks like real-time satellite data.

Cyber-enhancement package, I note. Internet integration. Full data access.

Cyan lasers shoot out from multiple angles—precise, geometric, creating this lattice of light around Benjamin’s floating form. And within that lattice, something’s building.

Nano-molecules. I can see them—tiny, glittering particles assembling at impossible speed, crawling over Benjamin’s skin and clothes like intelligent mercury. They’re titanium-gray with cobalt blue highlights, and they’re constructing something directly on his body.

Armor.

It starts at his torso, spreading outward in sections—chest plate, shoulder guards, gauntlets. The design is sleek, futuristic, like someone merged Iron Man with Mega Man and added a dash of Tron. The cobalt blue lines pulse with energy, and I can see tiny circuit patterns etched into the titanium surface.

Nanotechnology fabrication confirmed, my brain supplies. Real-time armor assembly. This is insane.

But that’s not even the wildest part.

Above Benjamin, Topher’s transformation is pure fantasy where Benjamin’s is sci-fi.

The Ivory Luminary descends on him like divine judgment, and unlike the cyan one’s fluid merger, this one explodes into the kid in a burst of white-gold light. The entire chamber flashes so bright I have to squint.

When my vision clears, Topher’s hovering.

A halo materializes above his head—not cartoon-style, but this intricate ring of warm white and white-gold light with rays extending outward like a miniature sun. It rotates slowly, and the light it casts makes everything in the chamber look surreal, sacred.

Topher’s eyes open, glowing that same warm white. Not harsh or blinding—gentle, but intense. Angelic.

Then his back arches.

Wings burst from his shoulder blades.

Not small wings. Not cute wings. Massive angelic wings, easily eight feet across each, white feathers with gold-tipped edges. They unfurl with this sound—not a crack or a tear, but this soft whoosh like silk sheets billowing in wind—and sparkling feathers scatter through the air, floating impossibly slow.

The feathers catch the light from both transformations—cyan from Benjamin’s tech armor, white-gold from Topher’s holy aesthetic—and the whole chamber becomes this lightshow of clashing genres. Sci-fi meets fantasy. Technology meets divinity. Shadowrun meets D&D.

And here’s the thing that gets me:

Time slows down.

Not metaphorically. Actually slows. The falling feathers barely move. The holographic widgets around Benjamin rotate at quarter-speed. Even the nano-molecules assembling his armor seem to move through molasses.

Temporal distortion effect, I realize. The Ivory Luminary’s power. Time manipulation. Status: frozen.

I check my phone. The timer’s still running normal speed, but everything in that chamber is locked in this moment—Benjamin encased in forming nanotech armor, floating horizontally with cyan light streaming from his eyes and the web interfaces orbiting him. Topher suspended vertically above, wings spread, halo rotating, warm white radiance painting him as something not quite human anymore.

Dual transformation complete, I think, staring at what used to be two normal kids.

Captain McKinley and Cerulean Arlentis have entered the game.

And me?

I’m still just the NPC with the dying phone battery, watching the protagonists level up while I stay at base stats.

The chamber pulses with power—cyan and white-gold mixing into something new.

The Seven Acolytes are almost complete.