Rebirth Protocol: The Return of Earth's Guardian and the Sword-Magus Supreme [A Sci Fi Thriller Progression]

[Host, emergency reports indicate a Veil tear has opened in Mt. Cook City. Faculty channels are completely overwhelmed.]

A tear in the Veil? Nick's pulse hammered. Here? How the hell—

Sophia cut him off, their voice carrying an edge of urgency he'd never heard before.

[Host, there's something else. I've completely lost connection to Maggie Zhang.]

Nick's legs trembled as he stared at the world displayed on his HUD. Sophia had lost connection with Maggie. What did that mean?

Sophia, what do you mean you've lost connection with Maggie? Nick asked, his heart racing.

[I am completely disconnected from Maggie Zhang's Arcadian system, biometric readings, and resonance pattern recognition. A campus-wide sweep confirms she is no longer on campus.]

Rage flooded his system, burning hotter than the adrenaline that had spiked through his veins moments before. Mana surged blue beneath his skin, veins of light racing along his arms, his irises blazing with the same volatile glow.

[Host, your mana levels are critical. Current output is exceeding the stabilization ring's capacity. Please pull back your mana.] Sophia's voice rang in his mind.

Then Arlize's voice cut across Nick's thoughts with the force of command. Enough! Breathe, Nick, now! His tone cracked like a general's order, iron wrapped in urgency. Do not let rage overwhelm you. Breathe!

Breathing in for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

Nick felt his mind settle. His mana receded from raging fire to smoldering embers.

With another deep breath, he began walking again.

When was she taken?

[The connection terminated abruptly the moment she left Professor Vellian's office. I intercepted the data she extracted—including her inferences—and relayed everything to Director Eidolon for review.]

Who could have taken her—and why?

Sophia, was Maggie the only one?

[Negative. Ten Alpha students were taken alongside Maggie, including Elijah Carter and Faith Adeloye. An additional twenty students were seized from the Beta cohort.]

Thirty-one in total… Nick's chest tightened. They must have been watching our combat trials, scouting who to grab.

By then he'd reached the arena's exit. Zora stood near the entrance arch, her posture rigid, eyes scanning the dome with a look far too grave for someone who'd just fought in front of hundreds.

He moved to pass her, but her voice stopped him cold.
"Did someone on your team vanish too?"

Nick froze.

When he turned, her expression had hardened into something dangerous. Only minutes ago her brown eyes had blazed with competitive fire; now her fists trembled at her sides, her breathing sharp and ragged.

"What do you mean?" he asked, his voice cautious.

"My team," she said, stepping closer as her voice cracked. "Obi and Aiden—they're gone. Our systems were synced, but… there's nothing now."

Sophia. List the Alpha-class students taken.

[In addition to Maggie Zhang: Obinna Okafor, Aiden Park, Luz Aguilar, Fergus Murphy, Faith Adeloye, Elijah Carter, Jackson Schultz, Saren Choudhury, Robert Burns, and Aleksandra Orlov.]

Nick exhaled slowly, then met Zora's desperate gaze.
"You're not alone. Maggie's missing too. And it's not just our teams. One from every Alpha squad has been taken. Apex, Stormweavers…most of their rosters are gone."

Zora's breath caught, her knuckles clenching.

Who could have done this? The thought sliced through Nick's mind the flood of possible culprits impossible to stop.

Sophia, can you track them?

[Attempting resonance scans.]

[Emergency protocols are actively interfering with my scans. Host, I advise waiting until the emergency protocols lift before utilizing my scanning abilities.]

Nick ground his teeth. Whoever orchestrated this knew exactly when to strike—and how to stay hidden.

He gestured for Zora to follow and started toward the stadium stairs. "Let's go sit until the domes come down. We'll find our friends then."

I am not losing another person.

"Maybe we should tell the leaders of the other teams," Zora said as they climbed the stairs. "If everyone's had someone taken, we need to work together to find them."

Nick nodded grimly. "Good point. I wonder if they even realize their teammates are missing yet."

But I'm not revealing Sophia...

"Let's tell them about our two missing teammates. That might get them asking the same questions about their own," Zora suggested as they surfaced in the stands.

"That could work." Nick nodded, scanning the crowds for Jordan. He spotted him near an exit row, and they made their way over.

Dropping onto the bench beside him, Nick asked, "How bad is it?"

Jordan enlarged his interface and positioned it where they could all see.

"It's bad," Jordan answered, his voice grim.

Mt. Cook City's skyline had been torn open. A jagged dimensional fracture split the sky from horizon to ground—a gash in reality that bled light and shadow in equal measure. The crack stretched nearly two miles end to end, its edges writhing with molten mana.

"Shit, that tear is massive," Zora whispered.

Nick stared in stunned silence.

The footage showed emergency response teams working frantically around the fracture's base. He could make out AIA's Veilwalker teams in their distinctive black and silver tactical gear—some channeling mana streams into stabilization arrays around the fracture, others deploying suppression domes around the affected blocks. News drones circled at a safe distance, their cameras capturing what might be humanity's first glimpse of the impossible made real.

The scale was staggering. Entire city blocks had been evacuated, residents streaming away from the fracture in orderly but urgent lines. Emergency vehicles packed every available street, their lights painting the scene in strobing blues and reds. Through it all, the impossible tear in the sky continued to pulse with alien energy.

"Breaking news from Mt. Cook City where authorities are responding to what officials are calling a 'geological anomaly,'" the reporter's voice crackled through Jordan's speakers. The woman's professional composure was impressive, but Nick could hear the strain underneath. "Early reports suggest this may be related to underground gas line ruptures, though witnesses describe lights and sounds that don't match conventional explanations."

"Gas lines," Jordan muttered with bitter amusement. "Right. Because gas lines regularly tear holes in the atmosphere."

The cover story was laughably thin, but Nick understood why they'd gone with it. How do you tell civilians that reality itself had suffered a catastrophic failure? How do you maintain order when people's basic assumptions about how the world works suddenly crumbled?

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Probably the best they could manage on short notice.

"Maggie's been taken," Nick said without preamble. No point in easing into it—Jordan needed to know, and they needed to start planning. "Sophia lost her signal after she left Vellian's office."

Jordan's jaw tightened. "Was anyone else grabbed, or was she their only target?"

The question sounded clinical, professional, but Nick caught the concern flickering in his friend's eyes. Jordan had grown fond of Maggie too, had come to appreciate her quick wit and fierce loyalty. The thought of her in danger would eat at him just as much as it ate at Nick.

Before Nick could respond, Sophia connected with Jordan's interface and quietly shared the details of the other missing students.

Both their comms units chimed with an encrypted message:

Once the domes drop, meet me in the training area. - Val

Three hours.

Three hours of sitting in what had become a very comfortable prison, watching emergency broadcasts detail the gas explosion in the city and trying not to lose his mind while the people responsible for Maggie's disappearance had a three-hour head start.

The Academy's emergency processes kicked in the moment the dimensional fracture was detected. Containment domes rose from hidden placements around the stadium, their walls shimmering with mana that would keep students safe from dimensional bleed-through. Water stations materialized from concealed compartments in the stadium walls, dispensing clean, cool liquid that tasted faintly of minerals. Ration packs appeared in neat stacks—protein bars and energy gels that tasted like cardboard but would keep them functional for days if necessary.

Shade canopies extended from beneath the ground, transforming the harsh alpine sun into filtered light. Climate control systems hummed to life, maintaining comfortable temperatures despite the dome's enclosed environment. Emergency medical stations deployed from concealed panels, staffed by automated systems capable of handling everything from minor injuries to major trauma.

It was impressive. It was also suffocating.

"Is it the Void?" someone whispered behind Nick. A Beta student, judging by her uniform, her voice tight with panic. "My cousin's friend works for the government, and she says they've been tracking dimensional instabilities in the area for months."

"Don't be stupid," another voice shot back. Another Beta student, his tone dripping with arrogance. "If it was the Void, we'd all be dead already. This has to be something else. Maybe those terrorist cells from the news?"

Nick tuned out the speculation. Rumors bred like bacteria in confined spaces, and most were either wildly wrong or dangerously close to classified truth. Neither would help him find Maggie.

The conversations around him revealed a student body struggling to process what was happening. Some clung to official explanations, desperately trying to fit the impossible into the familiar. Others whispered about government cover-ups, their voices carrying the excitement of people who finally thought they'd glimpsed the truth.

None of them realized that while the world watched this spectacle unfold, thirty-one of their classmates had vanished.

Jordan sat beside him in silence, methodically working through his interface feeds. Both had picked up some of Maggie's surveillance tricks during their months working together.

"Anything useful?" Nick asked quietly, watching the data streams Jordan was rapidly pulling up.

"Maybe." Jordan's fingers danced across his interface, accessing feeds from security cameras around the Academy.

"I'm tracking movement patterns from the last three hours. Whoever did this had inside knowledge—they knew exactly when and where to strike. But we already knew that."

Nick had thought they'd have more time before Professor Vellian or his cronies made their move. Still, he didn't want to rule out the possibility that other players were involved.

Selene. She wasn't among the taken. We need to talk to her.

Looking around the arena, his eyes focused on the faculty members and staff who patrolled the aisles with forced calm. But Nick could see the tension in their shoulders, the way their eyes darted to the dome walls every few seconds. They were scared too—maybe more scared than the students, because they understood what they were really dealing with.

[I have been monitoring the tear, and the fracture appears stable. Mana bleed has decreased forty percent over the last three hours. The emergency containments should be coming down in less than an hour.]

Any luck breaking through the lockdown?

For the last three hours, Sophia had been navigating the complex campus intranet to keep Nick and Jordan updated on the fracture's progress. She'd also been searching for ways to bypass the campus lockdown and begin the search for Maggie.

[Nothing yet. Everything is locked tight. Even the transmission of information about the fracture can't be used as a relay.]

Nick sighed.

Looking past another roaming faculty member, his gaze found Zora on the other side of the arena. She'd left them a couple hours ago to find the other Alpha team leaders, checking in to see if they had any contact with their missing teammates. Now they formed a tight semicircle—some frantically typing at their interfaces, others calmly participating in the discussion Zora was leading. He'd let Zora handle them. His first and only priority right now was finding Maggie.

Maggie...

The thought of her scared and alone made his hands clench into fists. But Maggie was a brilliant technomage and, through Val's training, a damn good fighter.

She would be okay. She had to be okay.

Nick ruthlessly crushed down the panic clawing at him and forced his thoughts into sequence. When the domes dropped, he and Jordan had one job: find Maggie. Everything else had to serve that objective.

Objectives for the next 24 hours:

Debrief with Val and Marcus. Get their read on the situation, confirm faculty cover stories, and secure whatever intel they have to find Maggie.

Gather intelligence. Sweep Sophia's data cache, leverage Jordan's contacts, and cross-check student and professor comms for movement patterns. Maggie's trail has to start somewhere.

Identify resources. Weapons, travel clearance, mana stabilizers, and anyone in Marcus' network who can be trusted to help.

Get off campus. Val should be able to help with this.

Bring Maggie home.

The list helped. It gave him focus. But Nick couldn't do anything about any of it now. Taking a deep breath, he stared at the dome walls, watching light refract through the barrier in prismatic patterns. Somewhere beyond that protective shell, the evidence trail was growing cold, and the people who'd taken Maggie were slipping further from justice.

At the five-and-a-half-hour mark, everything changed.

The constant low-frequency hum vibrating through the dome structure suddenly shifted pitch, rising to a keening whine that made everyone in the stadium wince. The sound came from everywhere at once, resonating through the protective barriers and into their bones. Students covered their ears, faces twisting in discomfort as the frequency climbed higher.

On Jordan's feed, the dimensional fracture above Mt. Cook City began to convulse, its edges pulling inward like a wound trying to heal itself. The writhing mana streams that had been bleeding from the tear suddenly reversed direction, flowing back into the crack with increasing velocity. The light show intensified, cascades of energy painting the sky in colors that had no names in any human language.

Then, with a sound like a mountain of glass grinding against itself, the fracture collapsed.

The implosion lasted exactly seventeen seconds. Nick counted them, his mind automatically cataloging the temporal distortion as reality snapped back into place. The spectacle was both beautiful and terrifying: cascades of released mana painting the sky in impossible colors, followed by a shockwave that rippled outward in visible rings of displaced air.

The shockwave hit the city in waves, each one weaker than the last but still packed with enough force to rattle windows and trigger car alarms for miles around. Emergency vehicles swayed on their suspension as the distortion passed through them. News drones filming the event bucked against invisible forces, their cameras shaking as they fought to maintain position.

When it was over, Mt. Cook City's skyline looked almost normal. Almost.

The buildings stood intact, the streets clear of debris. But something felt wrong with the light—a quality to the shadows that suggested reality hadn't quite settled back into its original shape. The air itself shimmered with residual energy, like heat waves rising from summer pavement.

The stadium erupted in cheers. Students leaped to their feet, shouting and hugging and crying with relief. The sound was deafening—a release of tension that had built for hours. News anchors on every feed practically shouted their updates: "Crisis contained! No fatalities reported! Authorities confirm the geological anomaly has been fully stabilized!"

Nick didn't cheer. He couldn't take his eyes off the dome walls surrounding them, watching emergency lights pulse in slow, measured rhythms. The fracture might be gone, but they were still trapped. Still waiting. And somewhere out there, Maggie was still missing.

"Hundreds remain in critical condition, with even more suffering minor injuries," the reporter continued, her voice bright with relief. "But officials stress that the quick response of emergency personnel prevented what could have been a catastrophic loss of life."

The celebration around him felt hollow, premature. Yes, the immediate crisis had passed, but the larger threat still loomed. Thirty-one students were still missing. The people responsible for their disappearance remained free. And every minute of delay gave them more time to vanish into whatever network of safe houses and hidden facilities they'd prepared.

[Host, the dome will has begun to cycle down.]

He felt it before he saw it—a subtle shift in air pressure, like the moment before a thunderstorm breaks. The prismatic walls that had contained them for five hours began descending with mechanical precision, folding into the ground with barely a whisper. The process was smooth, elegant—a testament to the Academy's engineering capabilities.

Fresh air rushed in, carrying the scent of alpine snow and something else that made his enhanced senses prickle with unease. Residual mana from the fracture, maybe. Or something more dangerous. The air tasted of ozone and copper, with an underlying sweetness that reminded him uncomfortably of decay.

Students streamed toward the exits, relief flooding their faces as they tasted freedom again. But Nick and Jordan remained seated.

As the area around them cleared, Nick spoke. "They planned this. They timed the kidnapping to coincide with the tear opening in Mt. Cook City, and we need to figure out how and why."

Jordan nodded, watching the steady stream of students leaving the arena dwindle to a light trickle, then finally only Zora, waiting for them at the exit. "Looks like Zora's waiting for us. Let's go."

Getting up, Nick and Jordan made their way toward the exit.

Sophia?

[Connections have been restored with Director Eidolon and his team. Professor Estrada is waiting to extract you.]

Good. Thank you. Let's get information about Maggie's whereabouts asap, please.

[Understood.]

The people responsible had made one crucial mistake: they'd taken someone he cared about. Someone under his protection. They'd assumed that as a regular Academy student, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

They were about to find out just how wrong they were.