"Accelerated imprint decay. Terminal within the hour."
The diagnostician's voice didn't shake. It stayed flat, bored even, as he tapped the glass screen of his scanner. The red numbers scrolling across the display told a different story. They screamed.
Marcus Hale thrashed on the gurney. His back arched, heels drumming a frantic rhythm against the metal frame. *Thump. Thump. Thump.* The sound echoed off the sterile walls of the secondary bay. Sweat slicked his skin, turning his grey tunic into a second, darker layer.
I stood at the foot of the bed. My hands were already gloved. White latex. Perfectly clean.
"Vera," the diagnostician said, not looking up. "Stabilize the core fluctuation. We need him conscious for extraction."
*Extraction.* They wanted to pull the enhancement imprint out before the decay finished the job. A salvage operation. Standard procedure for valuable assets. Marcus was B-rank. His imprint was worth more than my annual salary.
I stepped forward. The air in the bay smelled of ozone and burnt sugar. The scent of failing energy channels.
Marcus's eyes rolled back, showing only the whites. His mouth opened, a silent gasp trapped behind clenched teeth. The corruption was moving fast. Faster than I'd calibrated.
*Good.*
I reached for his chest. My right hand hovered over the center of his sternum, where the imprint mark glowed a sickly, flickering violet. The heat radiating from him was intense. It prickled against my palm, even through the glove.
*Don't touch yet.*
I checked the room. The diagnostician was busy logging vitals. The other two healers—a D-rank tank and a C-rank support—were prepping the extraction rig. Heavy cables coiled like sleeping snakes on the floor. They weren't watching me. They were watching the monitors.
*Now.*
I pressed my hand down.
No flare of gold. No warm hum of restoration.
I pushed the *other* thing forward. The grey-green current that lived in my marrow. It slid out of my fingertips, invisible to the naked eye, and sank into Marcus's skin.
The reaction was instant.
Marcus screamed. A raw, tearing sound that cut through the hum of the machinery. His body went rigid, every muscle locking at once. The violet light on his chest flared bright, then shattered into a dozen fragmented sparks.
*Too much.*
I pulled back, but the connection held. The decay wasn't just eating the imprint anymore. It was eating *him*. The energy transfer reversed. Instead of me giving stability, I was drawing everything out.
*Stop.*
I tried to sever the link. My mental command hit a wall. The channel was wide open, flooding my system with B-rank energy. It was too big. Too heavy.
My own imprint mark, hidden under the sleeve of my tunic, burned. A white-hot brand searing into my wrist.
*Break.*
The energy didn't stop. It surged up my arm, flooding my shoulder, racing down my spine. My vision split.
Gold. Grey-green.
Two spectrums overlaying each other. The warm, healing light of the medical bay lamps twisted, stretching into long, jagged shadows. The grey ripple of my decay aura flickered across my skin. I saw it on my hand—a wash of dull, dead color that made the latex glove look transparent.
*Suppress it.*
I gritted my teeth. The pain in my wrist sharpened, turning into a grinding sensation. Like bones rubbing against bone. My actual bones. They were humming. Vibrating at a frequency that made my teeth ache.
"Vera?"
The diagnostician looked up. His brow furrowed. "His vitals are spiking. What are you doing?"
"Stabilizing," I said. My voice sounded distant. Like it was coming from the other end of the room.
"You're draining him!"
The D-rank tank moved. Heavy boots on the linoleum. He reached for my shoulder.
*Don't touch me.*
I shoved him back with my left hand. Not hard. Just enough to break his grip. But the force behind it was wrong. It carried the residual shock of the B-rank surge.
The tank stumbled, crashing into the instrument tray. Scalpels clattered to the floor. Metal rang against metal.
"Get back!" I snapped.
The grey ripple on my skin pulsed again. For a fraction of a second, the air around me warped. The light bent away from my hand, creating a tiny void of darkness.
Then, the surge peaked.
My imprint mark tore open. Not physically. Metaphysically. The E-rank shell cracked, splintering under the pressure of the inbound energy. I felt the structure of my own power rewrite itself. The tight, constricted channels of an E-rank healer blew out, expanding, widening, forcing themselves into new configurations.
It felt like breaking every bone in my body and having them knit back together wrong.
I gasped, doubling over. My knees hit the floor.
The connection to Marcus severed.
He collapsed onto the gurney, limp. The violet light on his chest was gone. Extinguished. The decay had finished its work. The imprint was dust.
Silence crashed into the room.
The monitor flatlined. A single, high-pitched tone filled the space.
*Beep. Beep. Beep.*
No. Just one long tone.
"Marcus?" The diagnostician dropped his stylus. It rolled under the gurney. "His imprint... it's gone. Completely gone."
The tank stared at me. His eyes wide. "What did you do?"
I stayed on my knees. My right hand trembled. Not from fear. From the overload. The energy was still cycling through me, looking for somewhere to go. It settled, slowly, into the new channels. The D-rank channels.
My pool ceiling dropped.
I didn't need a scanner to know it. I felt the limit shrink. The maximum capacity I could ever hold, forever reduced. A permanent tax on the power I'd just stolen.
*91.6... down.*
My internal counter spun. *88.4.*
Three point two percent. Gone. Just like that.
"Vera Blackwell," the diagnostician said. His voice was cold now. Sharp. "Step away from the patient."
I pushed myself up. My legs felt heavy, like they were made of lead. I leaned against the gurney for support.
"He destabilized," I said. My voice was steady again. The tremor in my hand had stopped. "The decay was too advanced. I tried to isolate the corrupted nodes, but the feedback loop..."
"Feedback loop?" The tank stepped forward again. He didn't reach for me this time. He hovered, wary. "You drained him dry. I saw the energy flow. It went *into* you."
"Don't be absurd," I said. "I'm an E-rank healer. I can't absorb B-rank energy. The channels would reject it. I'd be dead."
"You look pretty alive to me."
The diagnostician was typing furiously on his console. "Scanner readings are anomalous. His imprint signature is zero. But there's a residual trace... it's unlike anything in the database."
He turned the screen toward me.
A waveform scrolled across the display. Jagged. Erratic. And underneath the flatline of Marcus's death, a faint, secondary frequency pulsed. Grey-green.
My frequency.
*Damn it.*
I'd been careless. The breakthrough had blinded me. I'd let the aura slip.
"That's equipment malfunction," I said. "Old sensors. They can't handle the surge from a collapsing B-rank imprint."
"Sensors were calibrated this morning," the diagnostician said. He didn't blink. "Lock the bay. Nobody leaves."
The tank moved to the door. His hand went to the lock panel.
*Think.*
If they locked me in, they'd run a full diagnostic. They'd scan my imprint. They'd see the D-rank structure forming beneath the E-rank mask. They'd see the decay residue.
Game over.
I looked at Marcus. His face was pale, slack. Dead. Or close to it. Without the imprint, his body couldn't sustain the enhancement load. He was just a man now. A broken man.
And I was a D-rank healer with a dead B-rank asset on my hands and a room full of witnesses.
"You can't lock me in," I said. "I need to report this to Guild Master Roarke immediately. This is a containment breach. If that decay spreads..."
"The Guild Master isn't here," the diagnostician said. "I am."
He tapped his comms badge. "Security to Medical Bay 4. Code Black. Potential hostile action."
*Hostile action.*
They were painting me as the attacker. Not a healer who failed. A saboteur.
The tank blocked the door. His hands were up, ready to grapple. "Stay where you are, Vera."
I looked at my right hand. The glove was torn at the fingertips. Beneath it, my skin glowed faintly. Not gold. Not anymore.
The new power settled. It felt cold. Efficient. Hungry.
I had not broken through. I had only burned the D-rank channels I already owned until they screamed loud enough for everyone in the room to hear.
And I had killed a man in front of three witnesses.
"Step aside," I said.
"Or what?" The tank sneered. "You're one healer. Against a C-rank tank."
I didn't answer. I just watched him. Watched the pulse in his neck. Watched the way his weight shifted on his left foot.
*One second.*
The door hissed open behind the tank. Two security guards rushed in, stun-batons crackling.
"Subdue her!" the diagnostician shouted.
The guards lunged.
I moved.
Not away. Forward.
Into the space between the tank and the guards. Into the chaos.
My right hand shot out. Not to strike. To touch.
I grazed the tank's arm as he swung. Just a brush of fingers against fabric.
The decay jumped.
Small. Controlled. A micro-dose.
The tank froze. His swing halted mid-air. His eyes widened. He looked down at his arm. The fabric of his uniform darkened, rotting instantly. The skin beneath turned grey, crumbling like old paper.
He screamed.
The guards hesitated. Just for a heartbeat.
That was all I needed.
I ducked under the tank's flailing arm and sprinted for the door.
"Stop her!"
I didn't look back. I could hear them shouting, the scramble of boots, the crackle of stun-batons.
I hit the corridor running.
My lungs burned. My new D-rank channels hummed with stolen energy. It felt good. Too good.
*Pool: 88.4.*
I skidded around the corner, slamming into a passing medic. She dropped her tray. Vials shattered.
"Sorry," I muttered, not stopping.
I needed to get to the exit. Needed to get off-base.
But as I ran, I felt it. A ping.
Deep in my imprint. A secondary trace.
Someone was scanning me. Not the local clinic sensors. Something stronger. Something remote.
*Lucian.*
He was watching.
I pushed harder, my legs pumping, the corridor blurring past.
The exit doors loomed ahead. Sunlight streamed through the glass. Freedom.
Then my comms badge buzzed.
A private channel. Encrypted.
I didn't stop running, but I tapped it.
"Vera," Lucian's voice said. Calm. Quiet. "Don't go out the front door."
"Why?" I gasped, sliding to a halt just before the threshold.
"Because Zack Stroud is waiting on the steps. And he's not there to talk."
I stopped. My hand hovered over the door release.
Through the glass, I saw him.
Tall. Dark coat. Standing perfectly still in the sunlight.
Looking right at me.
The door handle felt cold under my fingers.
Zack raised a hand. Not a wave. A signal.
Behind him, shadows lengthened. More figures emerged from the trees.
Trapped.
Inside with the security. Outside with the assassin.
My pool ticked down again. *88.3.*
The price of being D-rank was higher than I thought.
And I was already out of time.
*Vote if this chapter hurt. Vote harder if it hurt the right people.*