Dawn of the 13th Era

The Fourth Surge

By morning Orion arrived at Arizona and alighted from the train looking for a residence to stay, he felt very tired and his body ached all over.

He booked a room in an hotel planning to stay there for a few days before returning to his hometown to cover up his tracks.

"Just a few days, just a few days." He mumbled then fell asleep with a loud snore.

Aeric, Damion and Vincent returned to the city hall and made a quick report before "borrowing" a car from Robert.

Aeric initially planned to leave Cyberis immediately but after a few thoughts he changed course.

"Where are we headed?" Damion asked.

"I need to confirm something before leaving Cyberis." He said with a thoughtful look on his face.

"The lion could turn others into mutants proving that there are ways to turn normal animals and humans into mutants, same with increasing their abilities."

"If I'm not wrong, that kid got his ability from the special force agent and somehow boosted it all the way to early tier 3, even though it's weaker than normal tier 3 it's still stronger than tier 2s." Aeric said then turned his head to look at Vincent.

"Also, he recently discovered his powers meaning if he's given enough time to obtain more mutant powers and upgrade them to tier 3 he'll be more of a danger than even Vincent, at that time if he decides to go against us it'll be a huge problem."

"Why didn't you say this earlier? We could've followed him!" Damion said after realizing the gravity of Orion's escape.

"There was little we could've done earlier, I already lost the track I placed on him, but I need to do something at the special forces base here first." Aeric said then stepped down from the car.

"You two stay here for a while, I'll be back soon." Walking towards the building ahead the guards stepped back after he showed them his ID with a respectful look on their faces.

"Where's your captain?"

"He's in the main office, follow me I'll lead you to his office." The guard replied.

After a few minutes the two arrived in front of a office and Aeric walked in to find a man in his early thirties seared behind the chair with a frustrated expression on his face.

"Who are you and why are you barging into my office? You'd better have a proper explanation or I'll make you regret ever stepping here."

"I don't recall seeing you when Luminaries University was on red alert, or perhaps you didn't move with the main team?" Aeric asked with a calm look and placed his ID card on the desk shifting it towards the captain.

The moment the captain glanced at the card a torrent of sweat poured down from his forehead and his mind raced with different possibilities of what could have happened.

'Is he here to take me in? Or could it be the higher-ups decided to eliminate me?'

"You were probably busy when the incident occured right?" Aeric asked with a smile.

"Yes things are pretty hectic over here."

"I can understand a bit but I haven't seen anything worth the trouble around here. Anyways I'm not here for that."

"There's a boy called Orion in Luminaries University, check for his details and keep an eye out if you ever sight him." Aeric said and picked a picture of Orion out of his chest pocket.

He already gathered all the details about Orion before leaving the city hall but he was in a hurry to return to the capital and couldn't afford chasing Orion himself.

"This time I'll let it pass but if this repeats itself after the fourth surge it won't be the death of just the students but the whole city will be in danger, enforce the city's defences both the interior and exterior, we only have three months to prepare and I don't want any mistakes, if you mess up again I'll deem you useless." Aeric said then walked out of the office without another word leaving the captain who was sweating bucks behind.

On his way out he bumped into Alex who panicked at the sight of Aeric who once traumatized him for hours.

"Why are you so scared? I'm not going to do anything." He said with a refreshing smile.

After returning to the car he drove out of the city and the trio made their way to the USA's Capital.

"What are we going to do now?" Damion asked Aeric who seemed to be lost in thought.

"There's no other choice, the fourth surge is just three months away and we need to find a solution before then or the cause behind everything going on."

"The cause?"

"I don't think these surges just occur on their own, they seem to be propelled by something, it doesn't look like they occur on their own naturally if we could find the cause behind it all we might be able to stop it all from happening." Aeric said with a sigh.

"But we don't even have a lead on where to start from."

"Do you think it will be a wise idea to stop the fourth surge?" Damion asked.

"What do you mean? The Fourth surge is estimated to have at least over ten times the impact of the third surge, if that hits the Earth tens of millions will die instantly and even more catastrophes will happen. You want that to happen?"

"I've had the same thought as you Aeric, the government must've had the same thought also but no one ever took action to stop it or do anything about it."

"This is the start of a new era Aeric, and it all depends on who can survive this early stage, as long as we can handle it even if hundreds of millions die those surviving will create a whole new species of humans that can expand out of this planet and create new possibilities for the human race."

"You've seen what mutants can do Aeric, the powers mutants have, imagine if every human had such abilities. It's already in motion if anyone halts it, it will stop the deaths of hundreds of millions of humans but the adverse effects will be much larger that's why the government isn't doing anything to stop it, right now it's basically a survival of the fittest, those who can survive this onslaught till the end will embrace the dawn of a new era, the era for humans to expand into the galaxy."