Chapter 3 – Squad 404: Broken Soldiers, Forgotten Code
Aaron Velcris stood in the training ground's shadow, the crisp chill of dawn biting at his breath. Beyond the rows of cadets moving in unison, the Resonance Dome flickered with the remnants of last night's rift breach—a jagged scar of crimson light pulsing against the academy sky.
He ignored it.
His eyes were locked on the transparent HUD hovering in his retinal field.
Reality Sync Interface [RS-I] Booted
Connection: Stable
Mode: Tactical Integration Protocol [TIP]
Objective: Form Squad
Status: Rejected by all elite teams
System Suggestion: Squad 404 – Unassigned Cadets Detected
Estimated Success Probability: 0.03%
Proceed? [Y/N]
"God help me," Aaron muttered, hitting [Y].
A notification blinked.
Squad 404 Protocol Activated
Accessing registry of failed cadets...
Initializing Symbiotic Compatibility Scan...
The data streamed in like fragments of forgotten war files. Four names, four tragedies. Dismissed. Abandoned. Untouchable. And now—his last shot.
---
Cadet 1: Reen Vorta – The Relic-Burned
Location: Forge Sector – Isolation Wing
The girl was strapped inside a relic-confinement chair, veins glowing with residual energy from a fractured fire-bound relic. She didn't look up when Aaron entered—just hissed, eyes flickering like dying coals.
"Don't try to recruit me," she said. "I burn people."
Aaron crouched beside her, letting the RS-I scan the internal corruption levels. Ninety-two percent tainted. That should've killed her.
"You didn't die," he said. "That means you can be something more."
She spat blood. "That means I'm a weapon waiting to explode."
He tapped the HUD, deploying a low-level purge protocol through the RS-I's symbiosis diagnostic. Her eyes widened as her pain dipped for the first time in months.
"Or," he added, "it means you need a commander who knows what you are."
---
Cadet 2: Vayne Dros – Exiled Tactician
Location: Library Basement – Disciplinary Isolation
Aaron found him pacing in the dark, running equations in the air with light-encoded gloves. Vayne looked like a shattered mind held together by obsession. His crime? Outthinking his commanding officer mid-mission. The man had been demoted—and Vayne branded insubordinate.
"You want to use me?" Vayne said, tapping his temple. "My mind's a trap. I see too much."
"That's exactly why I want you," Aaron replied. "You see what others fear to calculate."
He uploaded a sample tactical algorithm—one he'd used during Earth's final war—and waited. Ten seconds later, Vayne had refined it.
"Squad 404," Vayne said. "Nice branding. Failure written in binary. I'm in."
---
Cadet 3: Solen Kai – Rift-Touched Hybrid
Location: Medical Exclusion Zone
Half his face was human. The other half bore ridged boneplates and glowing symbols, consequences of surviving a rift collapse at age twelve. Solen didn't talk—he projected images into minds.
Aaron stepped into the sterile chamber, greeted by silence… and then pain.
Visions stabbed into his brain—monsters, fire, a little boy crying in a void.
"I won't chain you," Aaron said, forcing his RS-I shield to stabilize the psychic noise. "But I will teach you to fire back."
A flicker of an image came: Solen standing beside him in armor, eyes glowing.
Acceptance.
---
Cadet 4: Nessa Tarl – Codeblind
Location: Archive Cleanup, Relic Contamination Team
She was sweeping ash when he found her. No armor. No relic. She was born with no Sync Signature—meaning, the system never even acknowledged her existence.
But the RS-I did.
It pinged wildly when she looked at him. Untouched. Pure. Immune to relic corruption—something that shouldn't exist.
"Why are you here?" Aaron asked.
She shrugged. "No one else knows I'm here. So I stay invisible. Safer that way."
"You're not invisible to me."
She stared, eyes narrowing. "You're the guy who doesn't belong here."
He nodded. "And maybe that's exactly what Squad 404 needs."
She put down the broom. "Then let's be legends no one saw coming."
---
Formation Complete
Squad 404 Initialized
Member Count: 5
Commander: Aaron Velcris
Status: Active
Designation: Rogue Experimental Unit
Note: Squad is ineligible for official combat drills
Override Suggested: RS-I Custom Protocol
Execute? [Y/N]
Aaron tapped [Y].
---
Drills, Blood, and Broken Protocols
Squad 404 had no access to standard training grounds. No sanctioned weapons. No relics. So Aaron made his own.
He hijacked an abandoned simulation hall in the lower ruins of the academy—a place where corrupted relic AI once trained assassins. There, he modified the terrain using RS-I overlays and began building the squad from their lowest instincts.
Vayne rebuilt the training AI using code fragments that shouldn't even exist outside quantum theory. Reen began weaponizing her corrupted energy in short bursts—controlled fire instead of wild detonation. Nessa mapped the terrain blindfolded, and Solen projected illusions into the bots' sensory matrix, turning their own programming against them.
Aaron didn't teach them to fight. He taught them to adapt.
And the RS-I recorded every success, every micro-improvement.
Squad 404 – Sync Level: 4.2%
Compatibility Rising
Potential: Unlocking Advanced Protocols
---
The Challenge
It didn't take long for the upper cadets to notice. Squad 404's rep grew in whispers. A misfit squad using broken training rooms? Winning black-market drills? Ridiculous.
So, the academy sent a challenge.
Team Irondawn, a top-10 ranked unit, composed of polished nobles and polished relics, issued an unofficial mock-combat duel.
Aaron accepted.
Everyone thought it would be a joke.
It wasn't.
---
Combat Begins
The arena crackled as the dome sealed. Squad Irondawn stood in gleaming gold-tier armor. Each carried a rank-bonded relic. Their commander, Dain Throven, smirked.
"Do try not to die too quickly."
Aaron didn't speak.
His squad moved like shadows. The moment the countdown hit zero, Vayne scrambled the internal targeting systems with an echo-feedback loop, Reen launched a spiraling flame that split midair into decoys, and Solen projected false data—forcing Irondawn to fire at their own ghosts.
Aaron moved through the chaos with surgical precision, redirecting Nessa's paths, timing Reen's detonations, and feeding Vayne live battlecode.
By the time Irondawn reset their systems, they were pinned in formation collapse.
And then Reen's controlled detonation ended it.
Victory.
---
Aftermath
Unauthorized Combat Record Logged
Victory: Squad 404
Relic Damage: Minimal
Combat Potential Increase: +8.9%
Unlocking New Protocol: Squad Sync Mode [Locked – Requires 10% Sync]
The commandant summoned Aaron the next day.
"You're breaking protocol," she snapped.
"I'm fixing a broken system," Aaron replied.
"You'll be watched."
He smiled. "Good. That means I'm doing something right."
---
Closing Scene: The Beginning of War
That night, as the squad stood beneath the flickering stars of the dome, the RS-I hummed to life.
New Signal Detected
Cross-Dimensional Fluctuation Detected
Rift Stability: Compromised
Command Directive: Prepare for External War Class Engagement
Mission Brief: Incoming...
Aaron's eyes narrowed.
The real war was coming—and Squad 404 would be the first to bleed for a future no one believed in.
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>End of Chapter 3-