THE F-RANK THAT BUILDS ABILITIES

Veera woke early.

Not from a sound.

Not from alarm.

But from pressure.

The kind that fills the air just before a storm, even when the skies stay clear. She sat up in the shared field room of the tower's lower level and watched a leaf fall through a crack in the stone ceiling—drifting slower than it should have.

Something had shifted.

The kind of shift that doesn't make noise.

But carries weight.

She stood, stretched quietly, and walked toward the main hall.

Donnie was already awake.

---

He stood alone in the courtyard, Crosshold active around him—trace flaring low around his feet in the shape of an incomplete spiral. It was a trap-form, slow to build, powerful when snapped tight.

Veera approached.

"Early," she said.

He didn't turn.

"They sent someone."

She froze. "How do you know?"

Donnie pointed ahead.

A figure stood outside the south gate.

Unarmed.

No badge.

No color.

But holding a Guild travel disc in one hand.

They hadn't come to fight.

They had come to watch.

---

Mara returned two hours later.

She didn't speak.

She walked past the gates, glanced once at the uninvited guest outside, and disappeared into her observatory chamber.

Later, she sent Donnie a private mark.

> "Let them stay. They want to see if you break.

If you don't, they'll report that.

If you do, they'll make it doctrine."

---

By noon, Donnie ran drills with four new students—each from a different region. Each with completely different backgrounds.

One had once failed every trace theory exam but could replicate movement after one viewing.

Another had trained illegally with discarded combat footage from banned tournaments.

A third had been dismissed from her academy for forming a dual-layer arc without permission.

The fourth had no records at all.

But every one of them had reached the tower on foot, unflagged.

And every one of them learned more in one hour with Donnie than in three years under Guild control.

---

Inside the Tribunal's inner halls, two factions had formed—though no one would admit it.

One group advocated silence. Watching. Containing only if the movement breached city lines.

The other called for disruption.

Targeted recalls.

Subtle shutdowns of trace networks.

Reinstating trace alignments back into dormitory academies.

Both sides agreed on one thing:

They couldn't allow Donnie Reeve to set precedent.

Because precedent becomes permission.

---

Donnie didn't speak during lunch.

He sat beside Veera under a canopy of tangled roots near the training field, sketchpad on his knee, hand still slightly bruised from his morning session.

She passed him a wrapped container.

"You keep forgetting to eat."

"I remember when I stop thinking."

She didn't press.

Instead, she asked:

"What happens when they send someone who doesn't come to watch?"

Donnie didn't answer right away.

Then:

"They'll send someone who believes in the system more than they fear the truth."

Veera exhaled. "Then we'd better keep shaping what that truth looks like."

---

That evening, the traveler by the gate left.

No message.

No confrontation.

Just gone.

But by morning, two more arrived.

And they didn't stay at the edge.

They entered.

One watched from the eastern column.

The other requested training—formally.

Donnie accepted.

---

Elsewhere, beyond Guild territory, inside a trace lab connected to a military-grade school outside the continent's jurisdiction, a panel of researchers reviewed student footage flagged by an AI gatekeeper.

The name Donnie Reeve didn't appear anywhere in the metadata.

But his movements were there.

Half-learned.

Half-reinvented.

An unlicensed combat instructor leaned forward and said:

> "They don't know the name.

But they've seen the rhythm."

---

Lora returned to the tower late that night.

She looked exhausted, but energized.

Her jacket was torn, and her shoulder had a strip of dried trace residue burned into the fabric.

She dropped her bag on the floor and said:

"I just trained with a girl who restructured a mirror trace into a deflection surge without ever being taught either."

Veera raised a brow. "And?"

"She didn't know it was illegal. She thought it was just wrong because her instructor told her not to try it again."

Donnie entered the room.

He didn't ask what Lora had seen.

He only asked:

"How did it feel to watch it happen?"

Lora smiled faintly.

"Like watching someone tear down a wall they thought was a window."

---

That same night, Donnie found a quiet place behind the tower—near the old trace root Mara once sealed.

He opened his sketchpad to a clean page.

And wrote:

> "The system will eventually name this rebellion.

They'll call it an error. A fracture. A misstep.

That's fine.

I'm not building it to be remembered.

I'm building it so it never has to hide again."

---

End of Chapter 22

© Anthony Osifo 2025 – All rights reserved.