The silence in the aftermath of the battle at the Gates of Solara was more unnerving than the fighting had been.
For three days, Aeria existed in a state of suspended shock. The government was in shambles, its leadership either disgraced or detained. Commander Vale, backed by a coalition of military leaders who had remained loyal to their oaths, held the city together through sheer force of will. The official story was one of a foiled coup by radical elements within Project Aurora's remnants—a neat, palatable lie that omitted Gareth's central role, his origins, and the terrifying efficiency of the L-02 units.
But the truth, once unleashed, is a ghost that cannot be caged. It haunted the city's streets, whispered in its markets, and glared from the eyes of its citizens.
Arcadia Academy, once a sanctuary, had become a gilded cage. The victory banners from the tournament still hung, now seeming like morbid decorations. Gareth walked its halls and felt the change. The awe that had followed "The Arcadian Evolver" had curdled into something darker: suspicion, fear, a subtle but pervasive hostility.
He sat with his team in their usual spot in the commissary. The space around them was conspicuously empty. Cadets who used to cluster nearby for a glimpse of the champions now gave their table a wide berth.
"He's the one from the files," a hushed voice carried from two tables over. "The prototype. They said he's stable, but how can they know?"
"Did you see the footage from the Gates? The things he did… that wasn't normal Bonded ability. That was something else."
Lyra's knuckles were white where she gripped her fork. "They don't know what they're talking about. They didn't see K-07. They didn't see the trap."
"But we did," Riven said quietly, pushing food around his plate. He hadn't looked anyone in the eye since the battle. The kinetic burn on his arm from holding the shield was healing, but the deeper wound wasn't. "And we're still here. Which means they think we're part of it. Tainted by association."
Sera adjusted her glasses, her datapad displaying a steady stream of analytics. "Public sentiment analysis shows a seventy-eight percent distrust rating for Gareth. A forty-five percent distrust rating for our unit as a whole. The narrative of 'controlled stability' is not holding."
Eve, who had been silently interfacing with the academy network, looked up. "The security parameters around our dormitory wing have been upgraded. The new protocols are classified as 'containment and observation.' We are being monitored as potential threats."
Nova slammed her hand on the table, making the trays rattle. "This is bullshit! We saved this city! We exposed the traitors!"
"By being the catalyst that forced them into the open," Gareth said, his voice flat. He'd been running his own internal analysis, and the results were bleak. "They see it as cause and effect. I arrived. Chaos followed. Therefore, I am the chaos."
The worst part wasn't their fear. It was the fissures it created within himself.
\[System Diagnostic Running…\]
\[Calibration: 100% - Physiological Integration Complete\]
\[Psychological Synchronization: 87% - Anomaly Detected\]
\[Anomaly Source: Emotional-Cognitive Dissonance\]
The numbers mocked him. He had the power. He had the memories. But the seamless union, the feeling of being whole that had flooded him during the fight, was receding like a tide, leaving behind jagged, disconnected pieces.
He could access the vast archives of his ability—counters for threats he couldn't yet imagine, predictive models of staggering complexity—but they felt like tools in someone else's workshop. Using them required a conscious, laborious effort, not the instinctual flow he'd experienced facing K-07.
He was a locked archive, standing at the door but unable to turn the key in his own mind.
Commander Vale summoned him that afternoon. Her office felt different—colder, despite the climate control. The holographic displays showed maps of the city with new security sectors, casualty reports from the brief conflict, and a constantly updating feed of public comms chatter, much of it featuring his name alongside words like "quarantine" and "relocation."
"Have a seat, Lancer."
He sat, feeling the weight of her assessment. She looked older, the lines around her cybernetic eye more pronounced.
"The Council of Sector Governors is convening an emergency session," she said without preamble. "They are demanding you be transferred to a 'secure research facility' for 'comprehensive evaluation.'"
Gareth's stomach tightened. A research facility. A white room with different walls.
"They can't do that," he said, but the statement lacked conviction.
"They can," Vale replied. "And they will, unless I can give them an irrefutable reason not to. Your performance, your loyalty during the attack—it buys you time. But not much. The people are scared, Gareth. They've seen the skeleton in our closet, and they want it buried."
"What do you need me to do?"
"Be perfect," she said, her amber gaze piercing. "Be better than human. Show zero instability. Zero deviation. And even then…" She trailed off, looking at the feeds. "It may not be enough. Fear is a powerful logic."
As he left her office, the feeling of being watched was a physical pressure between his shoulder blades. He wasn't paranoid; his ability confirmed it. Seven distinct surveillance tracks from within the academy alone.
He found himself at the observation deck, the place where this new, fragile version of his team had first formed. Lyra was already there, staring out at the city whose skyline now seemed to bristle with accusation.
"They're wrong about you," she said, not turning.
"Are they?" The question slipped out, borne of the dissonance churning inside him. "I am what the files say I am. A prototype. An experiment. The chaos did follow me."
She turned then, her green eyes fierce. "The chaos was already here! K-07 was here! The corrupted council was here! You didn't bring them; you revealed them. There's a difference."
"But I am the reason they were revealed," he countered, the analytical part of his mind, the cold L-01 part, seizing on the logic. "My existence is the catalyst. My presence is the threat. Statistically, removing the catalyst neutralizes the reaction."
"Don't you dare," Lyra hissed, stepping closer. "Don't you dare start thinking like them. You are not a variable to be solved. You're Gareth. You're the guy who overthinks everything, who makes terrible coffee, who fights with his brain and his heart, not just his ability." Her voice broke slightly. "You're the guy I…"
She didn't finish, but the unspoken words hung in the air, another precious, terrifying vulnerability.
That night, the foreboding settled into a cold certainty. Alone in his room, Gareth accessed a deeply buried, newly unlocked memory protocol. It wasn't a memory of the past, but a fragmented data-burst, a psionic echo he must have absorbed during his close contact with K-07.
It was a message. A taunt. A blueprint.
The images were choppy, horrific. Not of L-02 units, but of people. Citizens, soldiers, Bonded. Their eyes blank, their movements jerky but coordinated, their abilities twisted and amplified into monstrous parodies. They moved through familiar streets—Aeria's streets—a silent, infected army.
And at the center of the psychic broadcast, a familiar, grinning face flickered in and out of static.
"You showed me your heart, L-01," K-07's voice slithered through his mind. "A design flaw I shall correct. You protect this city? I will turn it into your coffin. You cherish these… people? I will make you watch as they become ours. The system is awakening. And it is hungry."
The vision shattered, leaving Gareth gasping, cold sweat beading on his skin. It was a plan. An invasion not from outside the walls, but from within the very populace he was supposed to protect.
He wanted to warn Vale, to warn everyone. But the memory of the hushed voices in the commissary, of Vale's weary face, of the "containment and observation" protocols, froze the words in his throat.
If he told them of a new, insidious threat from the very enemy they thought defeated, they wouldn't see a warning. They would see a manipulation. They would see the prototype, the catalyst, attempting to create a new crisis to ensure his own necessity. They would see confirmation of their deepest fear: that he was the problem.
Gareth looked out his window at the sleeping city, its lights twinkling like indifferent stars. K-07 was coming back, not with an army of machines, but with a virus for the soul. And the only person who knew was the one person no one would believe.
The 100% calibration was a lie. He was not a fully integrated weapon. He was a divided man, holding a terrifying truth in one hand and the crushing distrust of everyone he wanted to save in the other.
The peace was a fracture. And the fracture was about to split wide open.