Chapter 29 – "Squad Null: The War Within"
The girl who had stepped from the shadows wore her scars like armor. Her name, according to the RS-I tags flickering across Aaron's augmented sight, was Kael Nara—code-signed "Stray Zero." She had the look of a war orphan raised by battlefields and honed in the flames of collapse, her eyes equal parts weary and lethal.
"I don't follow orders," she said flatly, stepping closer.
Aaron studied her, then nodded. "Good. I don't give them."
A beat passed—then she smiled. "Then we'll survive."
Around them, more emerged from the threshold of the Evoker's Path. Each one tethered to broken strands of reality, each one scarred. Survivors of echo collapses, systemic anomalies, failed simulations—people lost between versions of the world and somehow still clinging to life.
The RS-I hummed.
> [SYNC UPDATE RECEIVED]
New Node Established: Squad Null
[Members Registered:]
– Aaron Velcris – "Ascendant Variable"
– Kael Nara – "Stray Zero"
– Riven Halcros – "Ghostburn Operative"
– Jun Xiang – "Reality Diver Mk-II"
– Elora Vynn – "Fracture Medic"
Each of them bore signs of tampering, deep system-rooted trauma, and yet—symbiosis potential in the high percentile. They were broken in ways the world couldn't predict… and that made them invaluable.
Aaron stood at the center of them.
"Welcome to Squad Null," he said. "We don't exist. We don't follow doctrine. We do the impossible."
---
Citadel Blackspire – Deep Command Layer
The shadow generals were screaming again.
"He's creating a squad."
"Not just a squad," the woman in black—General Ravien—whispered, watching the simulations stream. "A counter-narrative. A living correction to our system's dominance."
"This wasn't in the projections."
"No," Ravien said. "He's writing his own projections."
The simulation room darkened.
A new profile emerged on their central display.
> Code Name: ASCENDANT
System Risk Category: [UNCLASSIFIABLE]
Reality Interference Factor: 98.7%
Command Override: DENIED
"He's approaching singularity."
"We still have Echofall."
"But we may not survive what comes after it."
---
Evoker's Bastion – Reality Fault Zone
Squad Null ran drills not with guns or formations—but with divergence logic, sync choreography, and combat coding.
Aaron watched as Jun shifted through five temporal reflections of himself mid-duel, weaving unpredictability like a dancer with a blade.
Riven phased out of reality to deliver blows before his enemies could recognize he was real again.
Kael tanked a wave of psychic artillery by rerouting her consciousness into a backup neural thread mid-fight.
And Elora…
She rebuilt a squadmate's shattered leg using synthetic memory patches and trauma deferral stabilizers.
They weren't soldiers. They were wild variables—systems that couldn't be controlled because no one had finished defining them.
> [SYNC ABILITY UPGRADE – SQUAD NULL ACTIVE NODE]
Shared Perception Grid Activated
Tactical Forecast Sharing: ENABLED
Squad Quantum Thread Count: 5/5
Result: Tactical Prediction Accuracy Raised to 87%
Aaron grinned. "Let's break something."
---
Operation Echofall – Shadow Launch Window
Elsewhere, Blackspire launched their preemptive strike.
A reality cascade was dropped on Fort Dravon—targeting all RS-I users. Soldiers began collapsing mid-action, their interfaces overridden.
Aaron and Squad Null caught it in time.
> [ALERT: REALITY SINK WAVE DETECTED]
Origin: BLACKSPIRE (Shadow Protocol)
Countermeasure: SQUAD NULL ANCHOR POINT
Deploying…
Kael threw a distortion charge. Jun rewound the last 4.6 seconds to avoid a triple-kill. Elora activated squad-wide memory continuity buffers. Riven sacrificed his own sync-core to shield their formation.
Aaron stepped into the storm and became the counterpoint.
The Transient Blade shimmered into his hand again—not summoned, but remembered.
He walked through the echo collapse, his presence rewriting space.
Echofall was repelled.
And Blackspire got its answer.
---
Back at Fort Dravon – Recovery
The troops looked at Squad Null like gods. But Aaron stepped up.
"We're not here to save you," he said. "We're here to show you how to survive yourself."
The RS-I interfaced with the base command and upgraded all existing units.
> RS-I Version 3.9 Installed
Feature: Symbiosis-Lite Mode Activated
New Trait: Echo Memory Layer – Record combat pattern and preserve awareness through neural trauma.
"What did you do?" Reyes asked as he watched the update complete.
"I made soldiers into versions of what they need to be," Aaron said. "Not what we told them to become."
---
Symbiosis Matrix – Inner Convergence Depth
Alone, in the stillness of the Evoker's chamber, Aaron connected with his system.
> Reality Sync Interface – Level V Evoker's Pathway
Symbiosis Thread: [ACTIVE]
Query Detected: [What are you becoming?]
He didn't answer with words.
Instead, the system showed him dozens of variant Aarons—king, traitor, martyr, savior, weapon, ruin.
And he chose… all of them.
That was the only path forward now.
Not to become one.
But to become many—and carry the truth of each.
---
>Chapter 29 End