[Oliver’s POV]

  [For now, return. Someone is calling for you.]

  The words echoed through his consciousness.

  Oliver felt his mind being pulled, gently at first, then with increasing force, until he was back into his body. The divine pressure that had surrounded him began to fade, replaced by the coldness of the physical world.

  For a few seconds, there was nothing.

  No sound. No light. No sense of self.

  Then, as though a switch had been flipped, reality came back.

  His vision flickered, blurry shapes forming into the familiar contours of the chamber.

  Thalos was standing in front of him. The android’s hand waved slowly in front of Oliver’s face, as if trying to wake someone from a deep sleep.

  “He’s back,” Command confirmed from within his containment tank.

  Oliver blinked several times, his mind sluggishly catching up to the world around him. “Did you call me back?” he asked, his voice hoarse, the words slow and uneven.

  “The Hermes called,” Thalos replied. “Communication Division. They said it was urgent.”

  Oliver frowned, pressing two fingers to his temple. “An emergency?”

  “Not exactly,” Thalos said. “But they insisted it was important. Four wants to speak with you.”

  Oliver groaned softly. “Another Number? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  He pushed himself up from the floor, his legs unsteady. The faint aftereffects of divine pressure still lingered; his body felt heavy, his thoughts sluggish, as if part of him hadn’t fully returned.

  “I’ll go,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Later, Command.”

  “We’ll continue this discussion another time, Governor,” Command said, his voice echoing faintly through the tank’s audio systems.

  Oliver nodded and turned toward the door. Thalos was already at his side, one hand hovering near him in a protective gesture.

  The corridors outside were quiet.

  At this late hour, most of Aquarius was asleep. The operational decks were nearly silent.

  Thalos adjusted his pace to match Oliver’s, occasionally reaching out to steady him when his balance wavered.

  By the time they reached the Communication Wing, the silence had become absolute.

  Only two Hermes operatives remained inside the vast chamber. The massive communication array, a curved wall of projected data and transmission signals, filled the room with soft light.

  “Sir, incoming transmission. Source: Number Four,” Hermes-3 reported.

  “Did he say what it’s about?” Oliver questioned.

  “He mentioned it’s regarding his mission. However, refused to elaborate without direct authorization." Hermes-3 replied, fingers gliding across the interface.

  Oliver exhaled through his nose, muttering a curse under his breath. “Damn it. Every one of these transmissions is a chance to get traced.”

  He hesitated only a second before nodding. “Fine. Connect him.”

  The Hermes operative tapped a command, and the air in front of Oliver shimmered. Static rippled outward, forming the faint outline of a holographic figure. The image was distorted, flickering, but recognizable.

  “Governor on the line,” Oliver said, his tone firm. “Report, Four. What’s the status?”

  Four’s voice came through, rough and fragmented by interference. “I need the reinforcements to stand down. Now. They’re drawing too much attention. I can’t get anywhere near the vault.”

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  Oliver frowned. “Reinforcements? What reinforcements?”

  “The bastard in the Green Armor!” Four snapped, his voice rising with frustration. “He’s tearing through the upper levels. Blowing holes in everything. It’s chaos up here.”

  For a moment, Oliver didn’t respond. The words hung in the air.

  “Four,” he said finally, his tone low, dangerous. “We didn’t send anyone else. There are no reinforcements.”

  A beat of silence. Then Four’s voice came back, laced with disbelief. “Then what the hell do you call this? Everyone’s saying it’s a Green Ranger. He’s using Energy like one. And he’s good. Too good. He’s already disabled internal comms. The whole place is blind.”

  The line crackled with static. In the background, Oliver could hear screams, the distant thud of explosions, and the metallic groan of a collapsing structure.

  “Thalos,” Oliver said sharply, turning toward the android. “Get down to Engineering. Check if the Green Crystal is still secured.”

  “Understood,” Thalos replied, already moving toward the door.

  Oliver didn’t pause. “Hermes-5, wake the others. Now.”

  The Hermes nodded briskly, activating a secondary comm channel.

  Oliver’s voice dropped, cold and focused. “Either we’ve been robbed… or someone just got their hands on a Crystal that should never have been in human possession.”

  “Can’t you contact Cernunnos?” Hermes-3 asked, his voice edged with concern. “He’d know if this was one of his Crystals.”

  Oliver shook his head, his expression grim. “I just spoke with them. They might not be able to answer right now.”

  He stood still for a few moments, listening for that faint, familiar echo in his mind. But there was nothing. Only silence.

  The Sovereigns were quiet.

  Minutes passed before the sound of approaching footsteps broke the stillness. Thalos stepped back into the communication chamber.

  “The Crystal’s secure,” he reported. “I checked the vault myself. It's the one.”

  Oliver exhaled slowly, tension easing from his shoulders. “Then whoever’s out there either has a new Green Crystal or someone’s pretending to be the Green Ranger.”

  The room fell silent for a heartbeat, the weight of the statement settling over them.

  “Either way, I need backup,” Four’s voice crackled through the comms again, his tone urgent. “With the attack, they’ve got patrols everywhere. I can’t move without being spotted, and I can’t reach the data on the lower level.”

  Oliver’s jaw tightened. “Thalos, bring the Green Crystal. We’re going to Tros.”

  The android’s eyes flickered. “Understood.”

  But Hermes-3 hesitated, glancing up from his console. “Sir, the wedding’s still a week away. If we arrive now, we’ll need a good reason to avoid suspicion.”

  Oliver frowned. Some of the Great Houses would already be gathering on Tros. However, at that moment, most of them were only close allies. Any sudden appearance from Aquarius’s governor would draw eyes, questions, and suspicion.

  Before he could answer, Four’s voice returned over the comm line, rough with static but sharp with urgency. “Merchants.”

  “What?” Hermes-3 asked.

  “Merchants are arriving constantly. They're bringing gifts for the couple, trading luxury goods, supplies, and rare tech. Whatever they can use to curry favor. Tell them you’re traders. Buyers, sellers, it doesn’t matter. No one will question it.”

  “All right, I can work with that,” Oliver muttered under his breath.

  The static from the comms grew louder, a shrill hiss that clawed at the edges of his hearing. The signal flickered in bursts of distortion, Four’s voice breaking through in fragments.

  “They breached—” The rest was swallowed by noise.

  Then another burst came through, his voice tight with panic. “The Green Ranger’s inside the depot! They’re exchanging fire, he’s got mercenaries with him!”

  Oliver’s pulse quickened. “Can you transmit visuals?”

  “Signal’s unstable, but I can send an image,” Four replied, his tone strained.

  The connection stuttered. The holographic display in front of Oliver flickered with interference, then slowly stabilized. A progress bar crawled across the screen, painfully slow until it was revealed.

  The photo was chaos frozen in motion, an inferno of explosions and lasers. The depot was half-collapsed, smoke and sparks filling the frame. Amid the carnage stood a figure clad in armor of deep green, Energy arcing from their hands in crackling streams. The armor’s plating shimmered with a dangerous glow. The figure’s face was entirely concealed behind a helmet.

  “I’ll have to disconnect. Trying to break out through the chaos,” Four’s voice came through one last time, rushed and uneven. “Four out.”

  The line went dead.

  Oliver stared at the image for a long moment. Then, quietly, he said, “That’s not the Green Armor.”

  Thalos turned toward him, his mechanical eyes narrowing. “How can you tell?”

  Oliver stepped closer to the projection, studying the details. “The gold lines are missing. Every Unique Crystal armor has it. It’s part of the Energy pattern. This one’s… cleaner. Simpler. Almost like a prototype.”

  He folded his arms, his brow furrowing. “Someone’s replicated it.”

  Thalos processed the information for a second. “If that’s true,” he said, “then someone’s managed to reverse-engineer a Unique Crystal. That shouldn’t be possible.”

  “And yet, there it is.” Oliver turned away from the display. “Whoever built that armor might change the balance of power in the next days.”

  The holographic image crackled once more before fading to black.

  Oliver exhaled slowly. “Find out who they are, how they did it. And what they want.”

  He looked at Thalos, his expression hardening.

  “Because if they can copy one armor… they can make more.”

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