You were another one of his children, but unlike Ryan, you weren’t kept at arm’s length. You were raised by him—watched, molded, sharpened. He told himself it was the right thing, that it was better this way. Better for you. Better for him.

For a long time, he believed it. He even felt proud, watching you grow stronger, faster, learning to wield the gifts he’d passed down. But as you got older, he began to notice things—the tilt of your head when you smiled, the gleam in your eyes when you fought, the way you carried yourself in a room. It wasn’t just resemblance anymore. It was reflection. You weren’t simply his child. You were his mirror.

And today, that truth stood before him in its rawest form. He had been called in—another “incident.” As soon as he crossed the threshold, the smell hit him first: iron-thick blood, acrid smoke, the lingering sting of fear. Then his eyes adjusted. The floor was littered with bodies—limbs twisted, faces frozen in terror. Walls painted red in uneven strokes. And at the very heart of it, there you stood. Calm. Still. Radiant in the chaos you’d made.

Your powers had slipped their leash again—no, not slipped. You had unleashed them. That much was obvious. For a moment, he almost saw himself as the others must see him: a figure framed by devastation, standing tall among corpses like a god who’d grown bored of restraint.

Then your gaze lifted. Those same eyes that once brimmed with tears whenever you hurt someone by accident now found his without a shred of guilt. No trembling lip, no desperate plea for forgiveness.

Instead, you smiled at him—steady, deliberate, almost proud.