The first Guardian incursion came at dawn.
No warning. No system chime. No earsplitting approach.
Just a ripple in the dome's pressure and a crisp, electric snap—then white-armored figures sear through the mist over the student plaza.
Three of them. No insignia. No speech.
They don't need to announce themselves.
We know what they are already.
They drop like gravity forgot them, late, weightless until impact. One slides across the rock on a wave of kinetic light. The second draws a pulse blade so fast it leaves burn trails in the air. The third just waits—watches. Calculates.
I move without thinking.
The moment their boots make contact, my glyphs ignite.
Miko's voice crackles through my comm: "Disruptors incoming. Hold line integrity. No direct bursts. You copy, Sera?"
But I'm already moving.
Lio is the fastest to my side, hands outstretched, and magnetic fields flaring in blue arcs. He intercepts the first swing, holding it suspended in midair with a crunch of pressure. The Guardian—his better by a foot in height—turns his head to the side as though he's bored, then twists, slamming a shoulder into Lio's chest.
He crashes into the wall so hard it cracks.
I scream his name, but he's already struggling back to his feet.
"Go," he growls. "Do what they can't prevent."
I launch myself at the second Guardian.
His sword lashes out, too fast for a student to follow—but I am not a student anymore. My hands blaze white as I fend off the sword with a spike of inner surge. Metal shrieks. Sparks fly. Our powers meet with a scream of energy so sharp I feel it in my teeth.
He recoils.
That's all I require.
I press forward, drive my palm into his chest plate, and release everything I've been holding in.
The air folds.
He's thrown thirty feet into a pillar, armor warping inward like it remembers fear.
But the third Guardian doesn't move.
Still watching.
Still waiting.
And then she steps forward.
And the ground bends beneath her feet.
She doesn't draw a weapon.
She is one.
Her presence alone slows the wind. Changes the way the heat hangs in the air.
I walk towards her.
My glyphs crackle.
My spine rigidifies.
And my head begins to shatter.
She's a psychic mod.
Field class.
So the moment I get close, my head is a battleground.
I clench my fists.
"Don't," Nessa's voice is in the comm. "Not without—"
But I go in anyway.
I have to.
Because if I don't, no one else gets out alive.
Her voice whispers in my head, not words, not thoughts. Images of devastation, of silence, of me crashing, falling, and surrendering.
I fight.
I fill my head with memory: Jin's hands smeared with grease. Miko smiling over a shattered wire. Lio's voice in the corridor, calm and assured. The first time someone called "Seva" to me.
She pauses.
I sense it.
Her shoulders tense.
Her eyes narrow.
She pushes harder, sending despair like a storm.
But she's never been inside my head before.
She doesn't know what I've buried.
What I've survived.
What I've chosen.
I let go of the memory.
The first time I fell from the Vortex Arena.
The first time, they named me Zero.
The first time I listened.
And I burn it.
Every shame.
Every silence.
Every name I was never supposed to wear.
It becomes flame.
It becomes light.
The psychic mod screams.
The plaza is awash with white energy.
And I stand in the center of it.
Unafraid.
Unbroken.
Unranked.
The other two Guardians recover quickly.
But students are on their feet now—dozens of them, glyphs burning, sparks flashing, and shields shining. It isn't order.
It's chaos.
But it's ours.
For the first time, the academy doesn't belong to those in charge.
It belongs to us.
Jin pulls Miko into cover.
Lio's back on his feet, shoulder bleeding, grin wild.
We fight like we've always trained—not for rank, but for choice.
And it holds.
Barely.
But it holds.
The Guardians retreat at 06:19.
Not because they're defeated.
But because they see what they've unleashed.
Not an army.
Not a rebellion.
A movement.
One that won't kneel.
One that will never rank itself again.
By 08:00, the damage is counted.
Four injured.
None taken.
Hallway charred.
Windows broken.
But morale?
Unbreakable.
Nessa runs a pulse scan.
The central grid didn't record any of the battle.
It's been blacked out from the top.
Meaning Voss didn't want anyone to see it.
Which is to say she's losing.
Later, in Sector Nine's echo chamber, I stand before what's left of the original student wall—the mural where names were listed by achievement, rank, and potential.
I gaze upon my own spot: blank.
Still blank.
Always blank.
And then I take Miko's soldering stylus.
And I burn one word into the void.
SEVA
Nothing more.
No rank.
No classification.
Just that.
When I turn back, I don't find silence.
I find thirty students waiting.
Each of them with glyphs beginning to glow.
Each of them ready.
And I understood then
Voss summoned the Guardians to kill us.
But instead…
She gave us a beginning.