Back in Merricent, an armoured personnel carrier was pulling up to the heavily restricted area around Titan Academy. As it cleared the security checkpoints, the joint taskforce that consisted of members of the Rogue Special Forces and the Merricent Royal Guard watched as four channellers stepped out of the vehicle. The first two channellers to exit the craft were familiar faces in the area, Harry Benet the Rogue Vice Admiral and the elusive Commander Loki Thorsson, the final member of the illustrious K-Four. Following their lead however, were the unfamiliar faces of Roun and Tyler, who were being escorted to the highly defended perimeter of the recently formed Gaea pocket.

Roun’s eyebrow tipped upwards, as it too often tended to, as they approached the cordoned off area. The sight laid out before him admittedly wasn’t as strange as he had been imagining. The mere thought of their world having fused with some alien landscape had conjured scenes more akin to the luminescent mushroom forest of the Drowned Province than what he now saw before him. For the most part, the area still looked very much like Titan Academy after the effects of a cataclysm induced by Jayce Falco. Damage to the various buildings that constituted the Academy was certainly visible, but with the exception of very few of these buildings, that damage was rather mild. Those buildings that did sustain significant damage were those that appeared to have been sharing space at the time of the fusion with some strange and highly ornate monoliths. These monoliths—at least—seemed alien in origin, but with the exception of them, there was very little from ‘Oya’ that seemed to inhabit this space.

“Curious.” Roun muttered to himself as he approached the threshold of the pocket, before his internal energies began to fluctuate wildly in response to it.

“Careful Roun.” Tyler stated as she followed behind him, her eyes narrowing at the odd energetic reactions taking place at the threshold between their regular space and this so-called Gaea pocket.

Roun simply nodded in response to her cautioning, slowing his pace slightly as he approached the barrier between Terra and Gaea.

As he approached, the fluctuations drew his mind back to his training in Hisuii National Park with his mother. He could feel as they pulsed with the same rhythm as his odd, tripartite channelling core at the centre of his braver form. Roun took a deep breath as he did his best to quell the odd fluctuations within his energy, focusing now on the luminous core of aesis that manifested within his mind’s eye, surrounded by the rings of veranos and synchros that orbited it. As he had done the last time, the young man closed his eyes, allowing his vision to drift from focus and to be replaced by the grid-like paths of zeta that permeated the environment around him. He could sense the deviations from the organised grids as they flowed towards channellers and technology alike; he could even sense the repulsion of these grids as they tried to flow into the pocket.

Roun’s focus sharpened at this point, with the pulsing of the ring of veranos intensifying as it did. As he reached the threshold at which the grids of zeta were being repelled, he could sense another form of energy. In his mind’s eye, he could now see the green grids of zeta being reflected off what he could only describe as alien-glyphs. These glyphs were fed by a familiar energy, one that he had experienced in his countless duels with Kanrei Angelus and then subsequently in his battles with the haima’sa – but for the first time he could actually see the chaotic red streaks of magic. As his senses became attuned to this energy, he could see it permeating the Gaea pocket in quantities that dwarfed even the global saturation of zeta.

“No wonder we can’t pierce these things…” He muttered once again as he allowed the zeta to drain from his body, abandoning the much weaker energy source as he walked up to the now glowing red barrier and rested his hands on it.

As he touched the glyphs, he could feel them attempting to repel his body, pushing against him with the force of the chaotic magical winds that they somehow seemed able to tame. Instead of repulsing his form like it did with the zeta however, the magical energy instead flowed into him, snaking painfully through his body before flowing into the veranos ring at his core and exploding.

The eyes of those watching on from behind the safety of the barricades set up by the Rogues and the Royal Guard widened as Roun’s body was engulfed in the raging green flames of veranos. They watch with equal parts intrigue and worry as his eyes and hair adopted the emerald glow of this energy before his biological body was consumed and replaced by the energized structure of his braver form.

Harry and Loki were the most puzzled of all however, as the young man’s zeta signature vanished completely and was replaced by something that they could barely sense. Tyler was more intrigued by the development however. Despite the shift in the source of energy that powered Roun’s abilities, this young woman had no problem sensing the energy flowing through him, nor identifying the code that corralled this chaos and ignited it into the green flames that she had, until now, never seen Roun actually manifest.

Tyler just shook her head at the development. As Roun’s body changed, now powered by the very magic that attempted to bar his entry, she noticed that the strange energetic glyphs no longer pushed against him, but instead flowed around him—allowing the young man to pierce the barrier that had previously barred him from the pocket. Instead of trying to force his way in, the young man was instead sucked in, vanishing completely into the bubble of congealed space.

Tyler’s gaze narrowed at the sight, noting that her best friend didn’t appear to actually pass into the scene of Titan Academy that they were gazing at, but instead vanished completely from their vision.

“What the…” She paused, before focusing harder for other effects at play.

As Roun passed through the magical barrier, he could feel his body interacting with another set of smaller, more subtle magical glyphs. Unlike the massive ones that provided the repulsive force to keep foreign entities out of the pocket, these smaller ones produced light, sound and even smells. Roun’s eyebrow tipped upwards curiously at these smaller magical constructs, but as he emerged on the other side of the barrier, their function became clearer.

As he slipped into the Gaea pocket, he laid his eyes on more than twenty people standing just in his immediate vicinity. ‘Illusions’ he thought to himself as his surroundings sharpened into view, revealing no less than ten, heavily armoured soldiers pointing what he could only describe as overtly ornate spears in his direction.

“Idaentieficaersie!” A large soldier in the most elaborately decorated armour commanded, in what the young man could only assume to be some dialect of either Latin or Spanish.

Unfortunately, whatever language it was, his universal translator completely failed to convert it to any of the languages that he spoke fluently; leaving the young man completely puzzled as to what was being said. All he could do in reply was raise his hands to show that he meant no harm and that he was surrendering to their authority. Unfortunately, that was not what the small military unit in front of him wanted.

“Idaentieficaersie!” Came the command again, this time causing the other members of the small platoon to close in on the young man.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re saying!” Roun exclaimed, his energy flaring defensively as he prepared for the possibility of an attack. However, his response only seemed to draw more yelling from his assailants, with a few of them actually charging their spears with magical energy as they continued to bark incomprehensible commands at him.

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Roun growled lightly in response, slowly dropping his hands and falling into a fighting stance almost instinctually. Thankfully, a young woman stepped towards him from behind the soldiers to diffuse the situation before things could get any more out of hand.

Roun watched as the young woman rested her hand on the spear of the large soldier that he assumed was in command of the unit, motioning for him and his team to lower their weapons as she approached. Much to his surprise, they obliged her so in response Roun also lowered his guard and allowed his own energies to return to their ordinary levels.

Roun watched on as the woman spoke briefly to the commander of the military unit in their native tongue, before she turned her attention toward him.

“Aebrie tuoh mientieh.” The young woman sounded as she walked past the soldiers now, tapping her temple as she turned her gaze towards Roun and drew a puzzled look from the young man.

As he pondered exactly what she was saying, he could feel the faintest tingles of psychic probing in his head. Being the son of one of Terra’s most powerful psychics, as well as close friends with the likes of Elf and Kikoto, Roun could tell when someone was trying to read his mind. Years of training had led to his initial instinct being resistance, but it didn’t take long for him to pick up on what the young woman was actually trying to do.

Counterintuitively, the young man relaxed and allowed his thoughts to flow freely, in turn allowing the young woman’s thoughts to flow freely into his own mind.

“Greetings.” Her voice finally echoed in his head as he dropped his guard, hearing her thoughts in his native tongue.

“Uh, hey…” He responded, somewhat sheepishly as he began to relax somewhat. “What’s going on here?” He then inquired.

The young woman just smiled in reply however, before motioning to the platoon of ten soldiers that surrounded him.

“As the ones with blades to your neck, you should let us ask the questions young Itami.” She stated.

Roun’s gaze narrowed at the statement, wondering if she had somehow gleaned his last name from reading his thoughts or if his mind had simply translated her statement in such a way as to include it. His eyebrow tipped upwards in confusion before his attention was drawn back to the young woman.

“Who are you and how did you get here?” She inquired, as Roun’s gaze shifted back towards her.

“My name is Roun—Roun Itami—and I’m investigating this area on behalf of the Rogue Special Forces.” He announced, wondering if the name of the faction would mean anything to his would-be captors.

“Nice to meet you Roun Roun-Itami.” The young woman replied, seemingly ignoring the very mention of the RSF. “I must admit that I’m not familiar with the house of ‘Roun’, which part of Itam do your people hail from?”

Her response drew a look of absolute puzzlement from Roun, as he tried to figure out what she was talking about. More and more he started to think that their psychic link was faulty and that things were being lost in translation.

“No, Roun is my first name.” He explained. “Itami is my family name.”

He watched as his response puzzled the young woman in turn.

“Itami is your clan name—as is evident by your use of the green flames.” She corrected him. “If Roun is your given name, then what is your family name?” She now pressed, speaking more slowly as she did.

It was only at this point that Roun noticed something strange about this woman and score of people that occupied his immediate surroundings. Unlike the occupants of Neo Brighton; who exhibited a kaleidoscope of skin tones, hair colours and ethnicities; all of the twenty-odd persons that surrounded him exhibited near identical pale skin tones and straight, ice blue hair. His gaze narrowed at this fact before he addressed the young woman’s statement.

“I don’t know what clan you’re talking about, but Itami is my family name.” He stressed. “My parents are Shin and Naomi Itami.”

Roun was caught off-guard by a light gasp from the young woman at the mention of the names of his parents, before murmurs in their incomprehensible tongue spread throughout the small group. Roun did his best to listen for anything that he might be able to translate, but before he would make out a single word, the young woman turned her attention back to him. Now he would feel the tingling sensation as her psychic abilities reach further into his mind, attempting pull actual memories from his brain without his consent. The sensation was intrusive and filled him with disgust, causing his energies to flare instinctually as he pulled away both mentally and physically from their link.

“Gah!” The young woman exclaimed as their connection was severed—and painfully so, resulting in the soldiers once again raising their spears toward Roun.

Back on the outside, Tyler Cage was explaining her discoveries to the Rogue Vice Admiral and Commander that had escorted her and Roun to the Gaea pocket.

“I don’t know how long after they barred you guys from entry, that they put this up, but I can definitely say that you haven’t been observing the actual inside of this ‘pocket thing’ for a while now.” She explained. “In addition to their barrier keeping things out, it’s also been actively rewriting sensory data leaving the space.”

“That’s impossible.” Loki dismissed the suggestion. “No stealth tech is that advanced. There would be repetition in the algorithm or at least some logic to the artificial intelligence generating the illusion, at some point the lack of randomness would have been picked up by our sensor arrays.” He explained, but Tyler just shook her head.

“Yeah that won’t work.” She sighed. “Zeta is highly organised, so randomising it takes careful and precise modulation, but this ‘magic’ is pure chaos. Most of the code—honestly it’s more like a spell really—” she pondered out loud “—most of the spells that control this magic seem to be limiters and safeguards to counteract the inherent chaos. Creating randomness with magic is as easy as creating consistency with zeta, so your algorithms would have completely failed at picking this stuff up.” She explained.

“That’s a deep analysis for someone who’s only just learned about the existence of magic.” Harry chuckled lightly. “But it seems to build on what Daniel would have uncovered in his most recent studies.” He conceded. “So if we’re just staring at an illusion, can you tell what’s actually going on behind this barrier?” He inquired, but Tyler just shook her head.

“I can deconstruct the process that alters the sensory information, but reconstructing the original image would require more brainpower than I’ve got.” She explained. “You’d need the likes of Xavier or Kanrei to reverse engineer it.”

Loki just chuckled at the statement.

“If it’s merely number crunching you need, that’s well within my capabilities.” He announced, drawing a light chuckle from Harry as well.

“Yeah, you kids aren’t the only prodigies out there.” He explained. “Loki’s mind is a super computer compared to even the most brilliant channellers you might know.”

“Just break the algorithm and I’ll reconstruct the image.” Loki added, drawing a nod from Tyler as she turned her gaze back to the magical barrier.

Much like Roun had experience just moments before; Tyler could sense the tingling of Loki’s mind probing her own as he went about establishing a psychic link between the two. As quickly as she could translate the effects of the glyphs—these spells—Loki was reverse engineering the scene within the pocket and projecting it into her mind and Harry’s.

It took just seconds, but soon the image of Roun surrounded by blue-haired, armoured soldiers faded into view.

“Damnit.” Harry cursed lightly. “Kairi will not be impressed.”

“Neither will the Commandant or the boy’s father.” Loki added, pointing out the much greater threats to Harry’s well-being.

“Honestly, I’d take my chances with Shin.” He jested before turning his attention to the young woman who had penetrated the illusion. “Tyler, any way that we can breach this barrier and retrieve your friend?”

“Consider the fact that force has not worked in the past.” Loki chimed in, drawing a nod from Tyler.

“Yeah, it wouldn’t.” She stated. “This barrier is pulling on way more magic than the zeta that any of your weapons can draw out of the air.” She explained. A brief pause preceded her next statement. “In fact, I’m still trying to figure out how Roun even managed to get through.”

“Does it have something to do with that green flame of his?” Loki inquired.

Tyler just nodded.

“I suspect so. The barrier could have obliterated him with the amount of energy it’s putting out—but its energy actually flowed through him first, almost like it was scanning him before it decided how to react.” A puzzled look now dawned on her face. “Maybe those weird green flames of his were a key, like how your particular energy signatures grant your permissions when you sign into The Garrison.”

As she suggested it, their minds all drifted back to the increasingly suspicious recommendation for Roun to investigate the pocket, made by one Rueben Sol-Itami. Harry just sighed heavily the development.

“Loki, get your brother on comms… I want to speak with Rueben Itami right now.”