The days after the Academy's fall blurred together.
Evan, Aidan, and Sera fortified the hideout, turning the ruins into something that almost resembled a home. Aidan worked with tireless optimism, patching holes in the walls, cleaning old tech systems. Sera sharpened her knives and her instincts.
Evan watched over them all, cloaking the hideout in layers of telekinetic masking — a fortress invisible to prying eyes.
Outside their small bubble of peace, the world was changing.
The fall of the Academy had left a vacuum.
And nature abhorred a vacuum.
---
Factions began to rise.
The Solar Vanguard — the government-sponsored heroes once loyal to the Academy — fractured into warring bands.
The Obsidian Cartel, long rumored dead, resurfaced with stolen technology and darker ambitions.
Old warlords. New players. Ghosts from the past.
All of them maneuvering for control of what remained.
And somewhere deeper, darker...
Gravemind whispered to those who could still hear.
---
One evening, as the sun dipped below the hills, Aidan burst into the hideout, breathless.
> "Evan! You need to see this!"
He shoved a battered tablet into Evan's hands. Static crackled over the screen before a shaky video played.
Footage from the ruins of the Academy.
Bodies.
Symbols painted in ash.
And a masked figure standing atop the rubble — a long, jagged staff raised high.
The figure's voice was distorted, but the message was clear:
> "The false order has fallen!"
"The Psychic Reaper rises again!"
---
Evan's blood went cold.
Sera leaned over his shoulder, frowning.
> "That's not you," she said.
> "No," Evan growled. "It's Gravemind."
Twisting his name.
His legacy.
Using it to rally the broken and the mad.
---
Aidan looked between them, confused and worried.
> "Can they really—? I mean, can they pretend to be you?"
Evan crushed the tablet in his hand with a flick of his mind, the plastic shattering like ice.
> "They don't have to pretend," Evan said grimly.
"All they need is the legend."
The world already feared the Psychic Reaper.
Gravemind was feeding that fear, weaponizing it.
---
> "What do we do?" Aidan asked.
Evan looked out at the dying light.
He didn't have all the answers.
But he knew this much:
They couldn't hide forever.
The world would come for the Reaper, real or imagined.
And Evan would have to decide what that meant.
Was he a villain still?
A weapon?
Or something else entirely?
---
Later that night, after Aidan and Sera had gone to rest, Evan stood alone atop the hideout, staring at the stars.
The memories clawed at him.
The things he had done.
The blood on his hands.
The power still singing in his veins.
But Aidan's words echoed louder:
> "You're not that person anymore. You're Evan."
Maybe.
Maybe not.
But he would choose.
On his own terms.
---
Below, hidden from the world, Evan smiled faintly.
He could almost believe it.
Almost.
---
End of Chapter 16