The car carried me deep into the mountains, through tunnels carved straight into the rock, and into the heart of Aethelgard Academy. This wasn't some campus with ivy towers and gardens—it was a fortress of dark steel and mirrored glass. The air was cold, recycled, smelling of ozone and disinfectant. Every corner screamed discipline and secrecy.
My room was comfortable but sterile, like a luxury hotel no one had ever actually stayed in. No personality. The windows were wired shut, and when the door closed, I heard the sharp, definite click of an electronic lock outside.
The first days were filled with exhausting, invasive tests. They drew blood, scanned my brain, hooked me up to machines that mapped every signal while flashing images of different Artifacts in front of me. They called Rustbucket—the name I'd given the junk heap—"Subject Prime." He was kept in a separate hangar, surrounded by scientists and sensors, a specimen far more valuable than me.
Dr. Aris, a silver-haired woman—the head researcher—summoned me to her office overlooking Rustbucket's hangar. She sat behind a spotless desk, while I was ordered to stand.
"We've studied you, Kaelan," she said, fingertips touching. "And we've studied Subject Prime. Your connection… it isn't Aura."
"Then what is it?" I asked, forcing my voice not to shake.
"We call it Grit," she said, pronouncing it like the name of some rare species. "A primal sympathetic response. It's not about control or harmony. It's about… resistance. Confrontation. Your body, your soul, resonates with the machine in a way that forces it to live. But there's a cost."
"A cost?"
"Pain," she said flatly. "Every time you touch it, every time you try to 'wake it up,' it hurts you, doesn't it? Like an electric shock."
I nodded. I couldn't lie. The memory of that sting was still fresh.
"That's the price. Aura is partnership. Grit… is slavery. You force it to obey, and in return, it feeds on you."
Her words cut deeper than any needle. I wasn't a pilot. I was a host. A vessel for a parasite of metal.
"Then why am I here? If it just hurts me?"
"Because, Kaelan…" Dr. Aris leaned back, her eyes cold with the glow of discovery, "what can a system built on pain achieve, that a system built on harmony cannot? Maybe… more. Maybe something stronger. And we want to find out."
I felt sick. I wasn't a person to them. I was a catalyst. A tool.
Later, they led me into the Main Training Hangar. The place was so massive it made the Sector 7 warehouse look like a closet. This was where the elite female pilots trained, their Artifacts—models like Swiftwind, Javelin, Stormdancer—moving in graceful, intricate dances, their eyes glowing with the steady blue light of Aura.
I was the stain on a perfect canvas.
Rustbucket stood in the far corner, like a cast-out child. His red eye-lights flickered unevenly, as if uncomfortable among the others.
My first trainer was Captain Valeria. A woman built like steel plating, her face marked with small scars near her brow, and her storm-grey eyes staring at me with enough weight to bring down a bird mid-flight.
"Start it," she ordered, voice like grinding stone, pointing at Rustbucket.
I climbed the ladder into the open cockpit. The seat was hard and unforgiving—nothing like the padded thrones I'd seen in the others. As I sat down, a sensor stabbed into my back—not gently, but like a cold needle piercing a nerve. I bit down a groan.
"Focus!" Valeria snapped in my ear. "Feel the machine. Connect!"
Impossible. How do you connect with something that clearly hates you? Still, I tried. I focused, forcing a single thought: Raise the RigHt ARMM!!!
It was like trying to push a boulder with my skull. A crushing mental strain, followed by stabbing pain in my temples. Rustbucket moved, but clumsily—his arm jerking upward, joints screeching like a corpse dragged by strings.
"Enough!" Valeria's disgust was palpable. "Kora—show the subject how it's done."
A slim blonde girl stepped forward. Kora. With calm confidence, she touched her Artifact, Swiftwind. A soft blue glow—then the machine rose, elegant, precise. With a single fluid command, she made it flow through a sequence of flawless motions, silent and deadly.
She glanced at me, her clear blue eyes full of pity. Somehow, that stung worse than her skill.
"Basic duel," Valeria ordered. "One round. Kora, don't hit too hard."
We took positions. I was drenched in sweat, forcing Rustbucket into a clumsy guard stance. Kora was already poised, Swiftwind sleek and balanced like a dancer.
"Begin!"
Swiftwind blurred. Too fast. A streak of blue. I couldn't even think of blocking. Rustbucket was smashed in the chest, shoved back violently—his weak left leg buckled, sending me crashing down with a humiliating clang.
Kora hadn't even moved from her spot. She just stood there, Swiftwind perfect and steady, while I scrambled inside a groaning, lopsided machine.
"That's enough," Valeria said, her tone final. "Subject, you'll be placed in remedial training. Tomorrow, you'll take simple courier and perimeter patrol assignments. Until you can walk without falling, you're useless in combat."
She turned and walked away, her coat snapping behind her. Kora followed, casting one last pitying glance over her shoulder.
I was left alone in the vast hangar, entombed in Rustbucket's painful cockpit, my defeat echoing in the silence. From the shadows, some trainee pilots who'd been watching turned away, muffling their laughter.
Lena approached, a tablet in her hands. Her face was blank, but I caught the way she avoided my eyes.
"Don't worry," she said softly, almost kindly. "They start you off with easy missions. Nothing dangerous. Just a small investigation."
She tapped the tablet. On the screen was the photo of a bespectacled woman with a nervous smile. Dr. Anya Vex. Amateur scientist. Suspected of distributing illegal stamina supplements to female pilots.
"Observation only," Lena assured me. "See what she's up to, report back. No fighting involved."
But something in her eyes—a tiny flicker of unease, the tension around her mouth—made me doubt.
An easy mission. An amateur scientist.
So why did it feel like this was the beginning of everything going terribly, terribly wrong?