Chapter 5 – Project Ascendant: Origins of the Architect
The skies had never looked the same after a breach. Even when sealed, even when the world stitched itself back together, a wrongness lingered—thin, spectral, unseen but deeply felt. The kind of unease that crept under the skin and whispered, something still watches you.
Aaron Velcris stood at the edge of the collapsed Rift Beacon, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the sky. His uniform—once regulation issue—was now scorched, torn, and laced with residual dimensional energy. He could still feel the echo of the Codewraiths. But more pressing than the enemy was the truth now stirring inside him.
The RS-I interface pulsed in silence.
Project Ascendant wasn't just a name. It was his past. His origin. His future.
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The Return
Squad 404 boarded the relic skiff, now more scrap than ship. It groaned under them as they flew low across the dead valleys back toward the academy. No comms. No auto-pilot. Just Vayne's hands on the manual coils and instinct guiding their path.
Reen sat across from Aaron, her eyes—normally alight with challenge—uncharacteristically quiet.
"You unlocked something," she said softly. "Back there. Something... older than even the system."
"I didn't unlock it," Aaron replied. "I remembered it."
Solen, wrapped in a tattered cloak, tilted his head. "From before you became Aaron?"
Aaron nodded. "From when I was someone else entirely. On another Earth. A soldier. A test subject."
"A ghost," said Nessa from the shadows near the skiff's tail.
He didn't deny it.
The silence lingered, not uncomfortable—but heavy with unspoken acceptance. Whatever Aaron had become, he wasn't just their leader anymore. He was something more.
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Academy Command: Confrontation
They landed without permission. The second they stepped onto the training grounds, sirens flared. Security drones surrounded them in phalanx formations. The commandant herself descended, flanked by elite enforcers in shimmering armor, faces hidden behind mask-helms.
"You disobeyed protocol," she snapped. "Engaged in unauthorized breach combat. Activated forbidden system functions. You're under immediate suspension and arrest."
Aaron didn't flinch. He stepped forward.
"Do it then," he said. "But first explain why you hid Project Ascendant from us. Why the RS-I system contains protocols predating this war. Why I remember dying in another reality as part of a failed experiment to weaponize reincarnation."
The commandant hesitated.
That was enough.
The Archivist stepped into view, pushing through the guards. "Let them through."
"Archivist—!"
"I said let them through. I invoked Primordial Code Directive."
Every guard froze. Even the system drones blinked out of standby mode.
Aaron turned to his team. "We're not prisoners."
Then he looked forward. "We're keys."
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The Primordial Vault
Beneath the academy existed something no cadet had ever been told about. Not a lab. Not a war room. A vault. Carved into reality itself. Locked with glyphs that responded not to touch or voice—but resonance.
Aaron's presence alone made the doors shudder open.
Inside was darkness—but not the absence of light. A vacuum of time, of gravity, of truth. Within floated relics, incomplete cores, shimmering memories encoded as semi-sentient data streams.
And at the center: a cryo-coffin with his face.
Vayne recoiled. "That's you."
"No," Aaron murmured. "That's him. The first me."
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Memories of the First Ascendant
The RS-I flared. The vault activated.
Visions poured into Aaron's mind—not hallucinations, not simulations. Memories. The war on Earth. The genetic augmentation trials. The creation of the RS-I as a digital soul tether. And the final mission—entering the breach to destroy the invaders at their source. It failed.
He died.
But the system didn't allow death.
Instead, it fractured him, coded him into a seed, and sent him spiraling into alternate timelines until one could host him. One could grow him.
This world.
This body.
This war.
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The True Purpose of RS-I
RS-I wasn't a combat tool. It was a migration framework. A way to transplant potential across realities. The interface adapted to the host, evolving power systems to match the current reality's rules.
Here, it took the form of leveling, combat threads, Phantom Syncs.
But deeper still, RS-I had one final function: to merge all versions of Aaron across timelines into one being—the Ascendant Architect.
A being who could shape outcomes across realities.
And it had begun.
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Squad 404: New Designations
The system buzzed for each member of Squad 404.
Sync Compatibility Enhanced
Cross-Thread Symbiosis Detected
Assigning Prototype Class Roles:
Aaron Velcris – Ascendant Architect [Tier LOCKED]
Reen Ashera – Flamebinder of the Third Veil
Vayne Tal – Temporal Engineer, Class-Epsilon
Nessa Zor – Phase-Dancer, Shadow Wing Initiate
Solen Kael – Mindbreak Echo, Prototype Psi Division
Synchronization Level: 22.5%
Unlocking Subroutine: Squadron Epoch Protocols
Aaron turned to his team.
"You're no longer cadets. You're Epoch-bearers. The future depends on you."
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Threat Beyond the Rift
The Codewraiths weren't an isolated force. They were scouts. Probes sent through the rift from a dying multiversal empire called the Null Pantheon.
Their goal: invade viable timelines and harvest symbiotic resonance to fuel the last of their god-machines.
And now, Aaron understood—he was the final key.
They were hunting him.
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The Decision
Aaron stood before the academy council. They demanded containment, analysis, control.
He offered defiance.
"We need to strike before they arrive," he said. "Find the other fractured RS-I shards. Connect with the rest of the Symbiosis bearers. Assemble a force that doesn't just defend—but reclaims control of reality itself."
They resisted.
He left.
Squad 404 followed him.
They were no longer students. They were rogue agents of a forgotten legacy.
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Into the Deep Sectors
Their journey began across forbidden zones—abandoned cities lost to entropy, overgrown battlefields where time itself refused to function correctly. With each location, Aaron unlocked more of his RS-I.
New abilities emerged:
Reality Weave – allowing him to reprogram matter within limited zones.
Command Threads – creating autonomous battlefield routines.
Foresight Mirage – projecting potential timelines into visual form.
Each power bled reality around them, but they had no choice.
Time was running out.
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Intermission: The Code Awakens
In a temple built by forgotten architects, they faced their first High Wraith—a being that had devoured a version of Aaron in a dead timeline.
This fight wasn't just survival. It was reclamation.
With his squad beside him, Aaron used his new powers to extract the dead Aaron's memory core and absorb it.
The pain was unimaginable.
But he emerged stronger.
For a moment, the sky blinked—then bled light.
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The Endgame Takes Shape
Back at the academy, the commandant watched through intercepted drone feeds. Her advisors warned of heresy, protocol breach, treason.
But the Archivist simply said:
"They will either save us or replace us. And honestly… I no longer care which."
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>End of Chapter 5 –