Chapter Text
It all started at the Sunshine Institute.
The Admin—Romeo—was furious.
What else was new?
Jesse stood in the center of the Sunshine Institute courtyard, still wearing the associate uniform the Warden had given him. The uniform he had earned. The role he had clawed his way into by obeying rule after cruel rule, swallowing his pride, playing along with the system just long enough to find a weakness.
Until he tried to free Prisoner X.
High above the courtyard, Radar, Jack, and Nurm hung suspended in midair, invisible force wrapped tight around their throats and limbs. Their feet kicked uselessly against empty space. Radar gasped for breath. Jack struggled, swearing under his breath. Nurm trembled silently.
Romeo hovered opposite Jesse, hands clasped behind his back, trembling—but not with fear.
With rage.
“Now why would you do that, Jesse?” Romeo’s voice echoed unnaturally, bouncing off walls that seemed to ripple as he spoke. “I thought you were doing so well. Climbing the ranks. Following the rules.”
His eyes darkened.
“But you can’t fool me. This?” He gestured lazily at the broken cell doors and scattered guards. “This obviously isn’t working.”
Jesse lifted his chin, though his stomach twisted with dread.
“You’re not going to win, Admin,” he spat. “We’ll find a way to defeat you. My friends—Beacontown—they’re counting on me. I will stop you.”
For a moment, silence.
Then Romeo smiled.
It wasn’t amused.
It was cold.
“Bold words,” Romeo murmured, drifting closer. “For someone hanging by the thinnest thread of air.”
He snapped his fingers.
Radar, Jack, and Nurm vanished.
The space they had occupied collapsed inward with a crack of distorted sound.
“NO!” Jesse lunged forward instinctively, only to be yanked back mid-step by an invisible force. “What did you do to them?! Bring them back!”
“Enough shouting.” Romeo waved his hand dismissively. “I sent them home. You should be grateful. I’m done playing with them.”
His expression shifted—something uglier surfacing.
“I’m officially bored with you pathetic nobodies. I found a new project to work on.”
The sky above the Institute flickered.
Daylight fractured into void-black cracks. The ground beneath Jesse’s boots shuddered. Stone blocks began pulling free from the walls as though gravity itself had grown tired of holding them together.
Inmates screamed as cells tore open and ceilings collapsed into glittering particles. Guards ran in every direction. Towers folded sideways like paper. Iron bars twisted into spirals before snapping apart.
Romeo drifted through the destruction calmly, admiring it like artwork.
Jesse continued to struggled against the invisible grip holding him aloft.
“Stop this!” he shouted. “They’re people!”
Romeo tilted his head, studying him like a curious specimen.
“That’s the problem,” he said softly. “They follow you because you’re one of them.”
He floated closer. An aura of intimidation and power radiated from him.
“They believe in you. They cheer for you. They trust you.”
His voice lowered, almost thoughtful. Even remorseful.
“I created everything. And yet—they still choose you.”
Jesse felt the grip around him tighten.
“I don’t need to create loyalty,” Jesse growled. “I earn it.”
That sure did it.
Romeo’s composure cracked. Hard.
The courtyard exploded upward in a violent shockwave. The Sunshine Institute began dismantling block by block, sucked into spiraling columns of light. The Warden’s tower split down the middle. The sun itself flickered like a dying torch.
Romeo’s expression twisted into something utterly unrecognizable.
“Maybe that’s what I’m missing,” he quietly raved. “Maybe I don’t need to defeat you.”
His eyes locked onto Jesse’s. A sick laugh of realization leaving his mouth.
“Maybe I just need to be you.”
The world went silent.
Jesse felt something seize his right eye.
First it was heat. Light burning.
Then fire.
Then something far worse.
It was as if molten lava had been poured directly into his skull. His vision fractured into jagged shards of light. Static roared in his ears. He tried to scream, but the sound strangled in his throat.
And beneath the pain—
Laughter.
Not outside him.
Inside him.
“I’m just going to be YOU, Jesse,” Romeo’s voice whispered.
But his lips weren’t moving.
“At least with you… always.”
Jesse saw flashes—Beacontown’s streets. Petra laughing. Lukas reading quietly. His own house.
But he wasn’t seeing through his own eyes.
He was seeing from behind himself.
Like someone standing just over his shoulder.
Watching.
The burning intensified. He clawed at his face, desperate to tear whatever was happening out of him—but his hands passed uselessly over his skin.
He couldn’t move.
He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t stop it.
For the first time since this nightmare began—
Jesse felt completely powerless.
Not like when the Admin had trapped him.
Not like when the Warden had imprisoned him.
This was different.
This was invasion.
This was theft.
And there was nothing he could do.
Suddenly—
The force holding him vanished.
Jesse plummeted.
He hit the shattered courtyard hard, air ripping from his lungs. The sky above was no longer blue—just a warped distortion of light as the last pieces of the Sunshine Institute dissolved into nothing.
The screaming had stopped.
Everything had stopped.
Only Romeo remained, hovering in the fading glow.
Jesse forced himself onto his hands and knees. His head throbbed violently. His right eye burned like a coal pressed into flesh.
He staggered toward a twisted section of iron bars half-buried in rubble.
He looked at his reflection.
His left eye stared back at him—brown, wide with fear.
His right—
Glowed red.
Not faintly.
Not flickering.
Steady.
Like the Admin’s.
His stomach dropped.
He blinked.
The reflection didn’t.
For half a second, the red eye narrowed slightly.
Smiling.
Jesse suddenly stumbled backward, heart pounding violently against his ribs.
“No…” he breathed like a caged animal.
High above, Romeo’s laughter echoed one final time before his form began dissolving into light.
“You wanted to defeat me,” Romeo called down, voice layered and distorted.
“Now we’ll see what happens… when you start becoming me.”
And then he was gone.
Silence swallowed the ruins.
Jesse stood alone in the wreckage of the Sunshine Institute, trembling—not from anger.
From fear.
For the first time in his life, he didn’t feel brave.
He didn’t feel determined.
He didn’t feel strong.
He felt invaded.
Watched.
Small.
He reached up slowly and touched the burning red eye.
It pulsed under his fingers.
And somewhere deep in his mind—
A voice whispered.
Let me show you how to fix everything.
Jesse dropped his hand like he’d been burned.
He had faced Wither Storms.
He had faced ancient evokers.
He had faced the Admin himself.
But this—
This was something else.
Because this time…
The enemy wasn’t standing in front of him.
It was inside him.
And for the first time since this all began—
Jesse had no idea how to fight back.