Dad,
I know you're probably still out in the zones. I hope this message reaches you before the next blackout.
I've been transferred.
New track. Combat prep.
I asked for the switch. They said it was merit-based, but I think they knew what I was really after. I need answers—for what happened at the museum. For what's happening to my brother.
He paused, staring at the unfinished message on his battered datapad. His thumb hovered over the send button, but he couldn't press it—not yet. A low ache twisted behind his ribs, part worry, part guilt, part a hunger he couldn't name. The words on the screen blurred slightly as he blinked hard, fighting the weight pressing behind his eyes. He didn't just want to tell his father what happened—he wanted to make sense of it, to anchor something real in the storm that still hadn't settled.
Morning light spilled through the slatted blinds, drawing faint stripes across his hands—a quiet reminder that everything he had done, every choice, was still less than twelve hours old. The rest felt too tangled to explain—at least not now. He'd come back to it tonight, but the feeling in his chest didn't fade.
It wasn't guilt—it was obsession. The kind that filled silence with theories, replayed footage frame by frame, mapped impossible energy signatures until his eyes burned.
I have to know what that thing did to him.
He set the pad aside. I'll finish it later. When I have more. When I can prove I'm close.
His brother was stable, recovering at a specialized care facility in the upper districts. But no one could explain the scans—why there was still alien resonance in his body, why the lights in the recovery chamber sometimes pulsed with that same impossible hue. Xilo had tried to talk about it with his aunt, but she'd shut it down quickly. Too dangerous. Too weird. Too many eyes on them already.
The school didn't help. Ever since the incident, everyone looked at him differently. Some with fear. Others with curiosity. Mostly with distance.
He made the decision himself. No pressure. No permission. Just a quiet signature on the reapplication form for the combat profession track.
It was the first initiated training session of its kind for students under 18.
The project was called Generation 0.
I don't expect answers today. But I have to believe they're hidden somewhere inside all this. Inside me, maybe. What if the tech left something behind?
I won't rest until I know.
Before he left, his aunt moved through the kitchen behind him, stirring a pot of rice as the steam fogged the cracked window.
"You're not going to tell him everything, are you?"
Xilo didn't turn. "I don't know how."
She clicked her tongue. "Then don't. What good would it do, him knowing? He can't help from out there."
"He deserves to know what happened. What I did."
"You saved your brother," she said sharply, as if the finality of it could erase the storm still turning in his mind.
Xilo shook his head. "I changed him."
Her stirring slowed. "He's alive. That's enough for now. Don't chase answers that'll only bring more questions. Focus on school. Stay alive."
After the quiet exchange with his aunt, Xilo stepped out into the crisp light of early morning, the city still stretching into its day. Neon veins traced the edges of the train station canopy as he descended the stairs, hands shoved deep into his coat pockets.
He boarded the southbound train heading toward the academy sector. The car was half-full—students mostly, all in varying states of silence. Just before the doors slid shut, a boy with a short fade and a faded red jacket stepped aboard and paused. His eyes met Xilo's for a beat.
The boy gave a small nod. Not a challenge. Not an invitation. Just recognition.
Xilo returned it, barely.
That one's from the Dustborne. Redline gang tattoos, half covered. Probably took the long route to get here too.
The train rumbled to life.
High above the city's edge, Glitch adjusted the focus of a suspended drone, watching the feed as Xilo tucked the datapad away. Beside him, Solin leaned against the console, arms crossed.
"He's raw," Solin said. "Driven. Obsessive."
"It means he won't stop," Glitch replied. "He has a reason. He's the one who touched the tech."
"You're leading this phase," Solin reminded him. "I'm just here to observe."
"And what are you observing?"
"How he adapts under pressure. Whether he hides from what's inside or uses it."
They both watched the screen as Xilo pushed away from the table and headed toward the door.
Glitch nodded slowly. "Let's see who he becomes."
Later that morning, Xilo sat in the cafeteria beneath humming lights and reinforced windows. The smell of scorched metal and fresh eggs mixed in the air. He picked at a tray loaded with scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, toast with jam, and a half-cup of lukewarm orange juice. It wasn't fancy, but it was warm. Familiar.
He stared at the plate, barely tasting it. Around him, other students murmured or ate in silence, their nerves just as frayed. Some scarfed down their food like it might be their last good meal for a while.
I don't care what they think. I'm not here to blend in.
I'm here to find out what that tech did—to my brother, to me, to all of us.
When the call came for transport, he dumped the rest and stood.
A shuttle carried Xilo and twenty other students across the fractured skyline toward the new campus sector: Division Koru. It wasn't the sleek, polished academy sector he'd seen on holos. This place had history. Walls reinforced with scrap, halls etched with scars from past drills. It was a place built for those who fought.
A tall woman stood waiting as they disembarked, her silver hair coiled tightly at the crown of her head like a signal flare. Her voice was sharp, clipped. Military, but not formal.
"I'm Instructor Venn. Welcome to Combat Track One. There are 150 of you total across this city's network. Most of you won't make it past the month. That's not a threat. That's data."
Someone near Xilo swallowed hard.
Venn paced in front of them.
"Before we assign you to corps, you'll go through an Internal Crossing. It's not a test of strength or speed. It's a test of you."
She gestured to a massive gate behind her. On its surface, alien glyphs shimmered faintly—likely drawn from archived tech sequences recovered after Breakline Day.
"You step through alone. What you face on the other side is yours and yours alone."
The line of students shifted uncomfortably. Xilo stared at the gate, his hand unconsciously brushing the bandage that still covered the scar on his palm.
Answers. That's all I want. And if this place can't give them, I'll find a way to make it talk.
His name was called third.
He stepped forward.
Crossing was not physical.
One moment he was walking through light.
The next, he stood in a place that didn't follow the rules of any space he knew.
The world around him pulsed like breath—shadows unfurling into structures, sound twisting into shape. He saw echoes of his childhood, of the museum collapse, of his brother calling out.
Then, as if time had folded inward, he was standing in front of a figure. The air shimmered like heat off metal, and the space around him rippled—half-formed architecture constructed from fragments of memory and emotion. Everything was quieter here, yet charged with impossible weight. Opposite him, a figure began to take shape from the haze.
It looked like him.
But older.
Stronger.
Wearing something that pulsed faintly with alien energy.
"You think you're ready?" the echo asked.
Xilo tried to speak, but the words failed.
"You acted on instinct," the echo said. "But do you understand it? What it cost?"
Xilo clenched his fists. "I need to understand. I will."
The figure stepped forward. "Then show me. Show me you're not afraid to become what you already started."
They moved at the same time.
It wasn't a fight. It was a fusion.
Xilo woke on the other side of the gate, gasping. Light flared across his vision, and for a moment, he saw a symbol hovering in the air—etched into memory.
Instructor Venn crouched beside him.
"You passed," she said. "Barely. But you passed."
She stood and motioned for him to follow. "You're Koru Division now. Get ready. They're already watching you."
He blinked. "They?"
She didn't answer.
High above, Glitch tapped a new line into the mission log. Across from him, Solin tilted her head, listening to the silent hum of the Scroll in the sealed containment.
"You saw what happened in the Crossing?" Solin asked.
"I saw him make contact with something inside himself. But not enough to elevate him."
"He didn't make it into Ascent Division."
"No," Glitch said. "But the Scroll disagrees."
Solin turned. "It gave him a name?"
Glitch nodded once. "It etched something after he crossed. Veil confirmed the energy spike remotely."
"Then we have to confirm," Solin said. "Establish contact?"
"Not yet. Veil wants us to wait. Let the Scroll settle. It's not ready to reveal the name."
"But it chose him."
"Or maybe," Glitch said quietly, "it's still deciding."
A new voice crackled through the secure comm channel.
"Glitch. Solin. Veil here."
Both ninjas turned. His voice carried clarity, even through static.
"We've cross-verified the glyph. It's not just a designation—it's a proto-signature. It matches none of the past Scroll selections."
"So it's new?" Solin asked.
"It's evolving," Veil said. "The Scroll is responding not just to what he is—but what he might become."
Glitch leaned in. "And what does that mean for us?"
"It means we don't interfere. Not yet. Becoming isn't something we force—it's something we watch take root. Let the kid think he's just another recruit. The Scroll is watching. So are we."
"And if he triggers it again?" Solin asked.
"Then we find out what kind of name the Scroll gives someone who rewrites the rules."
The channel clicked off.
A second transmission followed almost immediately.
"Everyone, return to base," Veil ordered. "We'll need the full team together. Strategy review starts as soon as you're in."
Glitch exhaled slowly. "He's in deeper than he knows."
"Or exactly where he's meant to be," Solin replied.
They turned back to the monitors, silent but focused.
Below, Xilo walked alone toward the barracks, unaware of the weight following each step.