In Valoria, a realm of impossible peaks and luminous forests, every child was born with a purpose woven into their soul. Warriors of impossible skill and mages who bent reality like thread maintained the world's delicate balance. The warriors were Valoria's living weapons, their grace and deadliness honed to a razor's edge. The mages were its mind, wielding knowledge as a force that could rewrite the laws of physics.
James was born to both. His father, Ragnar, was a legend—a warrior whose name was a synonym for valor. His mother, Elara, was a sage whose quiet wisdom was the bedrock of the High Council. It was a lineage of immense power, yet from a young age, it was clear James was an anomaly. While other children's abilities bloomed like inherited flowers, James's power was a knot of lightning trapped in his core—a latent, unpredictable force that intrigued his parents and terrified everyone else.
He trained under his father's exacting gaze, the clash of training blades a constant rhythm in their mountain citadel. "A warrior's strength is not a gift, it is a cage you build around your heart," Ragnar would say, his voice like grinding stones. "Discipline is the key that lets you out." James learned the warrior forms, his body a blur of motion, but always he fought against something inside him, a second force that answered to no discipline.
With his mother, he learned a different kind of strength. In the candle-lit silence of the library, Elara taught him from the ancient texts, showing him how the flow of aether connected all things. "Knowledge is not a weapon," she would tell him, her hand resting on his, a stark contrast to Ragnar's calloused grip. "It is the understanding that you do not need one."
But neither discipline nor understanding could tame the storm within him. It surged without warning. During a sparring session, a simple defensive block became a blast of kinetic force that threw Ragnar across the training courtyard, cracking the ancient stone. James stared at his trembling hands, horrified. The power hadn't felt like his own.
The incident forced the hand of the Elders, the ancient governors of Valoria. They convened immediately in their obsidian chamber, a place where echoes held more authority than living voices.
There was Elder Kaelith, whose eyes had witnessed the birth of stars; Elder Lyara, whose compassion was a shield for Valoria; and Elder Thandor, a solemn figure for whom order was a sacred, unbending law.
"It is a nexus," Kaelith said, his voice a dry whisper. "It does not create or wield aether. It draws it in. Uncontrolled. Unstable."
"He threw Ragnar back twenty paces without a touch," Lyara added, her face etched with a worry that went deeper than the incident itself. "The boy feels no connection to it. He is a conduit, not a master. If he were to feel true fear, true rage… he could drain this citadel dry in a breath."
Thandor's gaze was hard. "Then the connection must be severed. For the safety of Valoria, the anomaly must be contained." He did not say 'the boy.'
Ragnar and Elara were summoned. They stood before the council, two pillars of Valorian strength, now trembling against a verdict they could not fight.
"Ragnar. Elara," Thandor's voice was devoid of malice, yet it struck with the force of a hammer. "Your son is a danger to the balance. His power is a tear in the fabric of our world. We cannot mend it. We cannot control it. We can only… remove it."
"He is a child!" Elara's voice cracked, the sage's composure finally breaking. "He means no harm. Let us teach him. There is still time."
"We had time," Kaelith countered softly, a deep sadness in his ancient eyes. "But what happened today was not a lapse in control. It was a glimpse of what lies at his core. It is a power that seeks only to grow, and it is tethered to the heart of Valoria. The risk is absolute."
Ragnar, who had faced down armies without flinching, looked broken. "What are you saying?"
Thandor rose. "We will sever his connection. We will cast him into a place with no aether. A dead world. A silent place where his power will have nothing to feed on." He motioned to the center of the chamber. "We do not know where the gate will lead. Only that it will be… away."
With a gesture from Kaelith, the air in the center of the room began to tear. It wasn't a swirl of light but a violent, silent rip in reality, a wound of shimmering, nauseating energy that hummed with a dissonant chord. There was no destination visible, only a chaotic storm of colorless light.
The finality of it struck James like a physical blow. This was it. No more training. No more lessons. Banishment. As the Elders' magic pulled him toward the gaping maw, a surge of pure, terrified desperation erupted from him. It wasn't a thought, but a primal scream from the core of his being.
No!
The chamber floor cracked beneath his feet. A wave of invisible force blasted outwards, making the Elders stagger. The very stones of the citadel groaned. For a heartbeat, the portal flickered, threatening to collapse.
Thandor's face hardened. "Now!" he commanded.
Ragnar grabbed his son's shoulders, his grip a final, desperate anchor. "Survive, James," he choked out, his voice raw with a pain no armor could deflect. "Whatever happens. Just survive."
Elara pressed her hand to James's cheek, her touch a fleeting warmth against the cold dread. "Your heart is your own, my love," she whispered, tears streaming down her face. "Never forget that."
And then he was thrust forward, stumbling into the screaming chaos of the portal.
The world didn't fade; it shattered. He was tumbling through a void of non-color and non-sound, his body pulled apart and slammed back together a thousand times a second. The immense, ever-present ocean of aether he had felt his entire life was gone, stripped from him like a second skin, leaving behind an aching, hollow void.
He awoke on something cold and sharp. Not the soft moss or ancient stone of Valoria, but a bed of stinging, uniform gravel. He pushed himself up, his body screaming in protest. The air was the first shock. It was thick, acrid, tasting of burnt metal and something sickly sweet. It felt dead in his lungs, lacking the crisp, energetic charge of home.
Gravity was the second. It was a lead blanket, heavy and oppressive. Each movement required a conscious, exhausting effort. He felt sluggish, weak, a stranger in his own body. The vibrant greens and impossible blues of his world were gone, replaced by a dreary palette of gray, black, and washed-out brown. A row of identical structures, all sharp angles and flat surfaces, stood beneath a sky the color of dirty dishwater.
And the sound—a constant, low hum that vibrated through the ground, punctuated by the distant shriek of something that sounded like a dying animal. It was a symphony of wrongness.
He was weak. The power that had once surged within him was now a faint, terrified whisper in the back of his mind. He was hollow. He was alone.
Years bled into one another. The quiet town became his prison. The memories of Valoria's gleaming spires and his parents' faces softened, becoming dreamlike and distant. Earth was a world of its own mundane cruelties. He was an outcast among outcasts. In a world where some humans manifested their own strange, supernatural abilities, James was the boy with nothing. A void.
"Cursed," the other kids would sneer, shoving him in the crowded school hallways. "No wonder you're a freak."
The taunts were blades, but they carved something new into him. The absence of his power did not break him; it forged him. He had no latent gift to rely on, so he would rely on his body, his mind, his will. He trained with a ferocity that startled the martial arts masters he sought out, pushing his body past limits others thought absolute. He mastered techniques with a speed and precision that surpassed those with innate gifts of strength or speed.
Every night, after the humiliation of school, he would retreat to a clearing in the forest, his makeshift training ground. There, under the cold, distant stars of this alien sky, he would move. His punches and kicks were a blur, a physical testament to an unyielding spirit. He wasn't just training his body; he was fighting the silence inside him, refusing to let the hollow place win.
One evening, his body aching, he collapsed onto the damp earth. He stared up at the unfamiliar constellations, a lonely speck in a world that wasn't his.
"Mother, Father," he whispered to the silence, the words a promise more than a prayer. "I will prove them wrong. I will make you proud."