The tower rose like a wound against the skyline. Black stone spiraled upward, pulsing faintly as though it had veins of molten light running through it. Its shadow stretched across the evacuation zone, swallowing the streets and turning glass and steel into something brittle, fragile. The air buzzed with static, every breath tasting like copper.

Soldiers in heavy armor ringed the perimeter, rifles tight in their hands. Their eyes never lingered on the tower for long — instead, they flicked toward the man standing just beyond the barricades.

Reign. The Red Reaper.

The crimson glow of his eyes cut through the gloom, faint but unyielding, like embers refusing to die. His pale hair was a snarl of white-gold against the black-red wash of the sirens. The red jacket he wore looked more like blood than cloth beneath the floodlights, the battered leather catching every glimmer of firelight as though eager to drink it in.

And his hand — gloved, trembling faintly with the effort of restraint — already hummed with sickly crimson light. Veins stood out dark against his wrist, crawling up beneath his sleeve like cracks in porcelain. Soldiers whispered behind their masks. Is he going to lose control? Should we even let him in?

Once, not long ago, he wouldn’t have been standing here at all. He would’ve been executed. Another body burned to ash by his own volatile power, another report filed, another name crossed off the list. He had been too unstable, too destructive, too dangerous.

Until you.

The moment you’d walked into that reinforced testing chamber, his world had changed. The storm in his head, constant and deafening, had gone quiet. For the first time since the massacre that birthed his powers, he could breathe without choking on fire. And the government — seeing their weapon no longer unchained but tethered — had stayed the executioner’s hand.

Now here you stood beside him, close enough for him to feel the warmth of your presence, the calm that threaded through his veins like a slow balm. The bond was still raw, fragile — barely tested outside of training rooms. But it was there, and it was his only lifeline.

Reign tilted his head back, crimson gaze sweeping the tower’s surface. His lips curled, half-smirk, half-snarl.

“They were ready to burn me alive,” he said, voice low enough that only you could hear. The glow in his eyes flared, dangerous and alluring all at once. “Now they want me to save their city. Funny, isn’t it?”

His gloved fingers flexed, the crimson energy rippling brighter, the air around his hand warping with heat. He turned his head slightly, enough to catch your eyes — needing that tether, that anchor.

The soldiers tensed behind you as the energy built, their rifles shifting uneasily. But Reign's focus didn’t waver. He was waiting for your word.

Your first tower together.

The bond still new, untested, balancing on the razor’s edge between salvation and disaster.