Ultimate NeroMancer

Chapter 5: Registering the Dead

Chapter 5: Registering the Dead

The instructors disappeared like bureaucratic ghosts with hangovers and the nine newly minted Awakeners stood blinking in their newfound freedom. They all hung around as though they did not know what to do, go left, right, or up the social ladder. But Kaelen? He did not tarry.

He walked as a man with a mission. He was because.

Two things had to be done, and one of them was bureaucratic. The other was holy: to tell the woman who had fed his body, warmed his nights and occasionally slapped sense into him with a spatula that he had not failed. Not this time.

The first stop was Supers Association.

The basics were already known to the former owner of this body even before Kaelen soul crash-landed into this fucked-up magic-cyberpunk hellscape. Everybody did, hell. This was one of the few things that everyone in the Aurora Realm knew to be true: don not mess with the Association or you would have your kneecaps dissolved in the acid of bureaucracy.

The Supers Association was run by the benevolent tyranny of the Federation, the final world government that emerged out of the ashes of the apocalypse like a phoenix that burned everything but itself. The Federation was a very weary deity who governed continents, and cities below it hung on to order like drunkards to lampposts.

The Association was the leash of the Federation on the supernatural--a rabid, snarling mutt of mages, mutants, cultivators, awakened freaks, and cursed bastards like him. You registered in case you could sneeze reality into submission or punch ghosts into the afterlife.

To Awakeners, it was not a choice. It was a command of God.

And to Kaelen it was a rite of passage, too.

He stepped out of the school gates, still wearing the uniform that smelled like sweat and second chances, and raised his hand just as a rattling old taxi turned the corner like it owed gravity a fight.

The cab shuddered to a stop.

"Supers Association," Kaelen said.

"That’ll be a dollar," the driver replied without looking up.

Kaelen nodded. "Fucking steal," he muttered, hopping in.

The cab interior was sticky with the ghosts of previous passengers: fried food, perfume, stress. As the cab rattled forward, Kaelen pulled out his phone—a real one, not some floating-glass-hologram bullshit like the nobles used to sext across dimensions.

The Aurora Realm was a technological paradox: floatcars above, wheelcars below. Watch-sized computers in penthouses, flip phones in slums. It was an absurd, glorious blend of sci-fi decadence and post-apocalyptic pragmatism.

Kaelen, naturally, was in the dirt.

He tapped out a message to the only person in this world who mattered. Short. Plain. No fanfare.

[Aunt Mia, I awakened. It’s real.]

He barely had time to put his phone down before it vibrated so hard it nearly jumped out of his hand.

A call. From her.

Kaelen swiped to answer. "Aunt? Aren’t you at work?"

Her voice crackled through, warm and tinged with disbelief. "Still at work, Mic. Caught a break just now. Got your message. Is it—"

"It’s real," Kaelen said, smiling. "Your bastard nephew finally pulled it off."

There was a noise from the other end. A choked squeal of joy, like someone had tried to laugh and scream at the same time through a spoonful of soup. He could hear clanging in the background—kitchen chaos, sizzling oil, a waiter shouting something about allergic customers—and yet her voice cut through like sunlight.

"Oh my stars, I thought—Kaelen, are you serious?"

"Dead serious," he said, and then smirked. "Irony intended."

She snorted. "You cheeky little cunt."

There it was. The warmth. The love. The familiarity. She didn’t care about his class, his stats, the fact that he was now legally a danger to reality. She cared that he was hers.

"I’m on my way to the Supers Association now. Thought I’d handle registration before the government decides I’m a threat to humanity."

"Good boy," she said. "I’ll send you some money. Eat something decent, and get Lily a snack on your way home. I might be late tonight."

"Got it. Love you, Ma."

"I love you too, baby. Go show them what a Norman can do."

Kaelen ended the call, sighing softly as the words lingered. Her belief in him was a thread that kept the fabric of his soul from fraying. Even with the memories of another life, another world, Earth’s pain still echoed inside him. The orphaned boy, the dying body, the hospital beeps—all that loss burned underneath his bones like phantom heat.

This world had given him a second chance.

And it had given him her.

He closed his eyes, letting the cab’s rhythmic shudders lull him into a half-doze. The driver kept glancing at him through the rearview mirror like he wanted to say something. Kaelen ignored it.

For the first time in days, he allowed his shoulders to relax. The awakening ceremony, the crushing pressure, the static haze of nerves—gone now. There was only a quiet space inside him, and the rising whisper of something ancient and hungry.

Necromancer.

He could still feel the echoes of that dark energy coiling around him.

He could almost hear whispers beneath the hum of the car’s engine.

Power was waking. And it knew his name.

"Hey, kid," the driver said, tapping the brakes. "We’re here."

Kaelen blinked awake. He sat up, eyes sharpening as he stared out the window. The Supers Association loomed ahead like a temple of legality and divine paperwork.

The building was two stories tall, made of stone and steel and veiled with shimmering runes that danced across its surface like protective tattoos. The air around it felt denser, as if reality itself thickened in the presence of power. Kaelen's breath came a little slower, his instincts prickling with supernatural sensitivity.

He stepped out, stretching his arms, bones cracking like a skeleton rising from the dirt.

"Your code?" he asked.

The driver held up his phone, a simple transfer screen glowing.

Kaelen scanned it. Payment sent.

"Thanks for the ride," Kaelen said, starting toward the building.

"Hey!" the driver called after him. "Congrats on awakening, by the way!"

Kaelen turned, eyebrow raised. "Eavesdropper?"

"You said it loud enough on the phone," the man chuckled. "Besides, you’ve got the look. You’re glowing with that 'fuck around and find out' energy."

Kaelen smirked. "I am that cunt."

He turned back to the Association, face hardening, eyes narrowing. There was work to do. Magic to claim. Rules to break. Corpses to raise.

The necromancer had arrived.

And the system better be ready to file the paperwork.