~~~***~~~***~~~

At the same time, across the seas in Merricent another anomalous existence was feeling the effects of the powerful disturbance that now permeated the background magic racing chaotically through Terra. The pale-skinned, blue-haired channelled did his best to muffle the screams as the strange energy that normally coursed painfully through his body went wild in reaction to Teros’ tampering. His attempts however were futile. The resulting shriek gave his sister quite the start, drawing the white-haired manipulator from her room down the hall and blasting through the unfortunate, locked door that stood between her and her stepbrother. Standing amidst the rubble that once was Kanrei Angelus’ door, Lilith gazed through the dissipating zeta from her attack to see her brother writhing in agony on the floor, clutching his chest. This was a strange sight, despite how sickly she knew Kanrei to be. If there was one thing that his condition had given her brother, it was an incredibly high tolerance for pain. That only made his current condition even more worrying.

“Kanrei!” She yelled to the young man but there was no response beyond his shrieks.

Without a second thought, she rushed to his side, taking him in her arms to shake him as she tried to get the attention of the young man who seemed to be so thoroughly overwhelmed by the pain he was experiencing that he couldn’t even hear her as she called out to him. She would soon realise the error of her ways however.

Unbeknownst to Lilith, years of practice had taught Kanrei how to suppress his own infectious energies, preventing them from mingling with those of other channellers – and interaction that he instead saved for his more offensive abilities. Unfortunately, however, in his current state, he had neither the presence of mind nor the will to spare to accomplish such a feat. The result was the unhealthy comingling of his horus energy-type and Lilith’s own energies. The effects were debilitating. As his energies leaked into his sister’s braver-form, they tossed Lilith into the same agony that Kanrei lived with daily but now amplified tenfold. Soon her screams were added to his shrieks, amplifying the commotion that could be heard earlier.

This all drew their father away from his study at the other end of the house and towards this scene in Kanrei’s room. At first he had assumed that his two overly energetic children were just rough-housing; as combat-oriented and military-trained channellers had a propensity for doing – but as he neared the screams he could quickly distinguish between the usual sounds of the two of them ‘going at it’ and the audible distress that they both now exhibited. This caused the middle-aged man to pick up his pace, breaking from a brisk walk into a sprint as he approached Kanrei’s destroyed door and laid his eyes upon the scene.

Having lived with his son’s predicament for some two decades now, he was quick to realise the symptoms of Kanrei’s latest crisis, and thankfully, he knew exactly what to do to de-escalate the situation. Without a second though, he dragged Kanrei off Lilith and flung him – less than gently – into the corner of his room. Like most non-channellers, he was unable to generate the kind of force necessary to damage his son, even accidentally, so he could focus his efforts on things within his power.

Next, he grabbed Lilith and hoisted her off the ground, rushing her across their flat and towards his study where he could treat her. Unfortunately, this was where being a non-channelled played to his detriment. William Angelus was physically an ordinary man for his age and as such, the task of lifting his stepdaughter through the hallways of their house took quite a bit longer than it might have were the situation reversed. Still, he managed to get her into the room where he tended to work from home and hooked her up to what most closely resembled a defibrillator. While most channellers simply waited for the effects of Kanrei’s magic-infused horus to wear off, William had developed this device to forcefully purge his son of the otherworldly energies that inexplicably seemed to seek him out and cling to him. The process for Kanrei was seldom pleasant, but during his worst crises, it offered temporary relief to his symptoms at the cost of the discomfort. For Lilith, the device would purge her of Kanrei’s infectious energies entirely and unlike his son, she wouldn’t have to worry about them developing again on their own. As he hooked her up to the device, she squirmed with discomfort, the annoying ‘buzzing’ as it powered up filling her head with an unpleasant ‘noise’. This was a feeling that mounted as William switched on his zeta-infusion device and forced vast quantities of unprocessed atmospheric zeta through her system. For Lilith—as it had been for Kanrei on many occasions—the process was both painful and disorienting, as it flushed her body not only of the chaotic magical energy but also of her own processed and coded zeta variants. By the end of the ordeal, she felt as though she had just vomited all of her channelled energies out of her system but at least she found herself also devoid of the painful ‘bubbles’ of magic that permeated Kanrei’s unique variant of zeta.

A light groan escaped her lips as the pain subsided and she came back to her senses, her channelling abilities now going about the painstaking task of passively recoding the vast quantities of energies that permeated her forcefully evacuated braver-form.

“Where’s Rei?” She muttered, unable to have followed what her stepfather had done up to that point due to the disorienting effects of the pain.

“He’s still seizing. I’m going back for him now.” William replied abruptly, not having the luxury of tending to his stepdaughter while Kanrei was still suffering the effects of this latest episode. “Clear the room while I do. I don’t want him reinfecting you with his aura when I bring him in here.”

“Uhh—”

Still groggy, Lilith barely managed to nod before William went racing back down the hallway to get his son and repeat the process. Luckily for her, William was certainly no longer a young man, and bringing the even heavier Kanrei down the hallway from his room took quite some doing. That gave her enough time to gather her energies about her and make her way out of the window, allowing her to touch down safely on their lawn outside while her stepfather set Kanrei up and attached the machine to him.

Unlike it had done for Lilith however, simply being attached to Kanrei seemed to prevent William’s device from purging the anomalous channelled of the corrupting energies flowing through him. Instead, and contrary to what had taken place countless times in the past, his horus bypassed the device’s backstops and flowed into it, overloading it with vast quantities of coded zeta and the accompanying raw unfettered magic. William could barely get away fast enough before the small device detonated on Kanrei’s arm and the impact shunted the young channelled off of his chair and sent him sliding into a nearby bookshelf. William watched with horror as the massive bookcase then toppled onto his son, who – had he not been preternaturally empowered by his braver abilities – would have likely suffered severe injuries.

Despite his son’s durability, the sight of the massive bookcase falling onto Kanrei was enough to marshal strength within William, drawing the middle-aged man up off the ground and over to the large set of shelves before he dragged it off of his son with newfound strength. By now, Kanrei’s reaction to the sudden change his the magical energy running through his body had calmed down significantly. No longer overwhelmed with the pain, and now simply stricken by it, his mental adjustments left the young manipulator at least somewhat cognisant of what was going on around him at this point.

“Dad, stop.” He muttered with a mild chuckle as William tossed the bookshelf to the side and scrambled to clear the mountain of textbooks off his back. Kanrei just grabbed his father’s hands as he spoke. “I’m alright now, dad.” He managed to get out before his grin was replaced by a grimace. “This will pass… it always does.”

William just sighed heavily at his son’s response, taking some solace in the fact that he was now at least lucid, even if still in visible in pain.

“These episodes have been getting worse ever since that incident at Titan Academy Rei.” William replied, tears welling up in his eyes at this point.

Kanrei just nodded in reply.

“Yeah I know – I’m gonna have to give that wanker Jayce a peace of my mind when I see him next.” He jested, drawing a light chuckle from his still shaken father in return.

“We need to leave Rei… get you as far from this new gate as possible.” He explained. “Just like we did last time.” But Kanrei just shook his head.

“No, we already tried that and look where we are now.” Kanrei retorted. “Placements are almost over and even if I have to drop out, Lilith is almost guaranteed to make it into a faction and do something worthwhile with her life. That’s what she wants, and it’s what Evelyn is looking forward to.”

“I know Rei, but you’re my son too.” William retorted. “What am I supposed to do with you?”

“Quarantine me for the time being. I don’t want to be a danger to Lil’.” He conceded with a sigh and a shrug. “After that… just… figure something out, dad. I can’t live my life running away from this thing… cuz it just keeps catching up.”

William just sighed at his son’s response, tears streaming down his face as he did.

“Don’t cry dad, I trust you to work this out.” Kanrei nodded gently as he touched his father’s face, but his response just caused William to break down sobbing.

“Alright m’boy.” He responded between sobs as he started to formulate a plan. “Let me make a call.”