"Chaos is just order that hasn't found the right equation yet." — Gareth Lancer
The desert outside Aeria wasn't a desert in any traditional sense.
It was a vast expanse of scorched polymer and shattered glass—the remains of old cities ground down to shimmering dust over eighteen years of the war with the zombots and the effects of wind and entropy. The remains of civilization reduced to particles that caught the light like diamonds made from someone's broken dreams. The horizon rippled with heat and static interference, and every few miles something half-buried would catch the light: the skeleton of a war drone, its weapons still raised in eternal vigilance against an enemy that had already won; a collapsed solar tower, its panels now just mirrors reflecting the sun's indifferent gaze; the ghost of a world that had tried to reach too far and fallen even farther.
The shuttle descended toward what looked like an oasis of steel—a massive complex encircled by energy pylons that hummed with barely contained power, creating a protective dome that kept both the sand and hope contained in equal measure. Arcadia Academy.
Even from the air, it looked intimidating in that deliberately architectural way that suggested someone had built it to either inspire greatness or induce existential dread, and they'd succeeded at both. Eight training domes stretched out around a central tower like the spokes of a gear, each one large enough to house a small city. The whole facility hummed faintly with a deep bass note that you felt in your chest before you heard it, powered by something deep beneath the ground—rumored to be a pre-Erebus reactor that nobody wanted to think too hard about because ignorance was sometimes preferable to the alternative.
As the shuttle landed with a pneumatic hiss, Gareth turned his face against the viewport with a blank expression, which made him feel slightly inhuman considering the view in front of him, but he did it anyway. "Okay. That is some serious stuff they have going on here."
The boy next to him—tall, blond, effortlessly handsome in that way that probably got him out of trouble regularly and into it just as often—chuckled with a handful of snacks halfway to his mouth. His hair was styled in that deliberately messy way that took actual effort to achieve, and his green eyes sparkled with perpetual amusement like he'd found a joke in everything and refused to share the punchline. "You nervous?"
Gareth deadpanned "You're asking that like I'm supposed to be."
"Dude, it's the Arcadia entrance exam. If you're not nervous, you're either lying, incredibly stupid, or actually a robot." He popped a chip into his mouth. "Please tell me you're not a robot. That would be disappointing."
"Unfortunately, I'm none of those things." Gareth turned back to the viewport, though he frowned for half a second—a micro-expression of uncertainty that vanished as quickly as it appeared, like his face couldn't commit to the emotion.
The guy laughed again, genuine and warm in a way that suggested he'd never met a social situation he couldn't befriend. "Name's Riven. Kinetic augmentation." He flexed his fingers, and faint blue energy rippled across his knuckles before fading like dying embers. "You?"
"Gareth. Caffeine-based organism with delusions of competence and a conflicting relationship with machines."
Riven raised an eyebrow, grin widening like he'd found someone interesting. "No ability yet?"
"Not that I know of. But I make excellent synth-coffee. It's a very marketable skill. I could probably start a small business if the whole 'saving humanity' thing doesn't work out."
Before Riven could respond with what was probably going to be another amused comment, the shuttle doors hissed open with mechanical precision, flooding the cabin with desert heat that hit like a physical wall.
The examinees filed out onto the landing pad, which was large enough to play several sports simultaneously and heated enough to cook on. The sun hit them immediately—a blinding, hostile glare reflecting off metallic sand that looked like someone had melted a city and left it to cool into a permanent reminder of failure. The air tasted like copper and regret.
Ahead, a line of Arcadia instructors waited, each dressed in sleek combat suits bearing the academy's crest. They looked like they could kill you seventeen different ways and were mentally ranking which would be most efficient based on your body type and stance.
One of them stepped forward, and several guys in the crowd immediately stopped breathing. Some girls stopped breathing too. A few people might have forgotten how breathing worked entirely.
Commander Vale looked barely older than twenty-five, but her eyes carried the weight of someone who'd survived things that would break most people. She stood at about five-foot-ten, with an athletic build that suggested violence was always a considerable option. Her hair was dark auburn, pulled back in a severe bun that meant business and possibly violence. Her face was striking—high cheekbones that could cut glass, full lips set in a neutral line that promised nothing, and eyes that were a startling shade of amber flecked with silver. The silver wasn't cosmetic. It was cybernetic enhancement, visible when the light hit right, giving her the look of someone who'd replaced parts of herself with better versions.
She wore the standard commander's uniform like it was designed specifically for her, and maybe it was. Despite the whole "I could destroy you without breaking a sweat or even raising my heart rate" vibe, she was objectively gorgeous in that terrifying way that made you think inappropriate thoughts before realizing she could probably hear your thoughts and didn't approve.
Half the crowd was trying very hard not to stare. The other half had given up pretending and was staring openly with varying degrees of subtlety.
Her voice carried authority—calm, clipped, direct, the kind of voice that made you stand straighter without thinking about it: "Welcome to Arcadia. I'm Commander Vale."
She let the silence stretch just long enough to make everyone uncomfortable, which seemed deliberate. Everything about her seemed deliberate.
"You are here because you've shown potential. Not power, not luck—potential. Today's evaluation will determine whether that potential is worth our time, or whether you're better suited for safer careers like accounting or data entry or staring at walls professionally." Her amber eyes scanned the crowd like a targeting system acquiring locks. "Most of you will fail. Some of you will fail spectacularly enough to become cautionary tales. A few might surprise me. I like surprises. They're rare."
A few kids in the crowd swallowed nervously, their Adams apples bobbing like they were trying to escape. Gareth yawned, which he immediately regretted because it meant dozens of people turned to look at him.
Excellent social skills, Gareth. Really establishing yourself as someone to take seriously.
Vale's eyes snapped to him with predatory precision, like a hawk spotting movement in tall grass. "Something wrong, Candidate Lancer?"
He blinked, suddenly very aware that everyone was looking at him and he had no idea what the correct response was. "No, ma'am. Just... didn't quite get enough sleep last night. Did I miss something funny? I apologize if I did. Sometimes humor doesn't translate well for me."
A few nervous chuckles rippled through the group—the kind of laughter that wasn't sure if it was allowed but desperately wanted to be. Vale didn't smile, but something flickered in her expression—maybe curiosity, maybe the beginning of regret for not kicking him out immediately, maybe respect for someone too stupid to be properly intimidated.
"Confidence is commendable," she said, tone dropping in a way that made the temperature reach bone chilling level. "Arrogance is fatal. Let's see which one you're carrying."
Gareth tried looking away from the stares the minor situation had brought him and that was when he saw her. A girl with jet black hair styled like she was a pixie with nearly glowing emerald eyes to match, she looked like a pixie jumped out of a fairy tale and somehow ended up in this terrifying world.
She stared at him like he was either an incredible dummy or an incredibly useful tool. He stared back not wanting to lose to her and somehow he seemed to be comfortable in her gaze until she shattered the moment by giving him a look that only stuck-up anime characters give the over-ambitious MC. A "Don't get in my way" look.
They were led into Dome One—a cavernous structure with a transparent ceiling showing the burning sky above like the inside of a snow globe designed by someone with apocalyptic tendencies. Inside, the floor was sectioned into training zones that looked like they'd been designed by someone who really understood both human physiology and creative torture: obstacle courses that looked like they'd been designed by sadists with engineering degrees, combat simulators that hummed with lethal potential and the promise of pain, weapon racks lined with enough hardware to start a small war or a large riot, and drones hovering like mechanical vultures waiting for something to die so they could analyze the corpse.
A holographic announcer flickered to life at the center, its voice booming with artificial enthusiasm that somehow made it more unsettling:
"WELCOME TO THE ARC TEST. ALL PARTICIPANTS WILL BE GRADED ACROSS THREE PARAMETERS: ADAPTATION, RESILIENCE, AND COMBAT SYNTHESIS. FAILURE TO MEET MINIMUM STANDARDS IN ANY CATEGORY WILL RESULT IN IMMEDIATE DISQUALIFICATION AND A LIFETIME OF WONDERING WHAT IF."
Gareth raised an eyebrow at the excessive drama. "Combat synthesis sounds like a band name. Probably metal. Maybe prog rock."
Riven elbowed him, grinning. "Focus, dude. You're in the big leagues now. This is where people with actual abilities show off."
"I'm always in the big leagues. It's just that the leagues keep changing size and nobody tells me until after I've embarrassed myself."
The first test began with chaos because of course it did. Arcadia didn't believe in easing people into things.
Combat drones dropped from the ceiling like angry mechanical hornets that had decided today was the day humanity paid for its sins, scanning for targets before unleashing a barrage of stun pulses that lit up the air with blue-white energy. The sound was deafening—a combination of electrical discharge and mechanical whirring that made it hard to think and harder to hear and impossible to ignore.
Students scattered in every direction, which was probably the intended reaction. Some turned invisible (show-offs who'd been practicing that move for weeks). Others threw up energy shields (practical types who understood defense). A few launched immediate counterattacks (overconfident idiots who watched too many action movies). The air filled with light, noise, and the smell of ozone that meant someone somewhere was using way too much power.
Gareth dove behind a barrier, peeking over the edge like a prairie dog checking for predators. His mind raced, processing patterns at a speed that would've been impressive if anyone could see inside his head. The drones weren't random—they were learning, adapting, syncing to each student's energy signature in real-time like predators marking prey. This test was to see how the candidates function under pressure If he stayed too long in one spot, he'd be flanked. If he moved too predictably, he'd be targeted. If he just sat there like an idiot contemplating philosophy, he'd fail.
"Okay," he muttered to himself, hands already reaching for his toolkit because when in doubt, build something. "Step one: don't die. Step two: make it look intentional. Step three: try not to enjoy this."
He grabbed a dislodged sensor panel from the barrier—some previous student's failure now his opportunity—ripped out several wires with the casual confidence of someone who'd done this a thousand times in his room, and started rewiring it with the small toolkit on his wrist. His fingers moved with practiced precision, muscle memory taking over while his conscious mind handled the calculations, connecting circuits in a configuration that definitely wasn't in any manual and would probably violate several safety regulations if anyone checked.
Within seconds, he'd turned it into an improvised signal jammer that would either work perfectly or explode. Fifty-fifty odds. He liked those odds. Both were in his favor. Probably.
A drone swung toward him, weapon charging with an ominous whine that usually preceded pain—and promptly froze midair, sensors sparking erratically like a computer trying to divide by zero before it dropped to the ground in a smoking heap.
Gareth grinned, reaching for the fallen drone's weapon. "And that's why you always carry a screwdriver."
He watched as a streak of light shot through six drones and impaled another. He couldn't see the source of the light but he knew one thing, it was probably one stuck-up pixie.
Vale watched from the observation deck above; arms crossed in a posture that radiated controlled tension. One of the instructors leaned toward her, speaking quietly while trying not to look impressed: "He's one percent away from full activation, meaning he technically has no usable abilities yet. His threat assessment shouldn't spike like this. The math doesn't add up."
On the display screen, Gareth was moving through the field with disturbing efficiency for someone who supposedly couldn't do anything special—using debris for cover with tactical precision, redirecting drones into each other through careful positioning, anticipating attack patterns before they fully formed through some combination of analysis and instinct, all while providing cover fire for nearby students who hadn't even realized he was helping them.
Vale's eyes narrowed, which was her version of being very interested in something. "He's not reacting to the fight. He's reading it. Predicting like he's solving an equation while everyone else is just trying not to die."
The instructor nodded slowly, clearly unsettled by implications he didn't want to speak aloud. "You think it's early ability awakening? Some kind of tactical precognition?"
"No, that is what this test is meant for. The students are supposed to stay calm and watch for patterns. If possible, work together." Vale's expression remained unreadable, but her fingers drummed once against her arm—a tell that meant she was thinking about things she didn't want to think about. "but what he is doing. It's beyond any form of capability I have seen. something that doesn't fit any profile we have."
By the time the test ended, Gareth was one of the last thirty standing out of hundreds who'd started. Sweat streaked his forehead, turning his dark hair darker. His coat was scorched in several places, smoking slightly like he'd been used as a practice target. But he was grinning like someone who'd just won a game nobody else knew they were playing.
When the final drone crashed to the floor in a shower of sparks that looked almost celebratory, he turned to Riven, who looked half-dead but impressed in that way that suggested he was reevaluating his initial assessment.
"You okay?" Gareth asked, offering a hand up because apparently he had energy left over, which seemed unfair.
Riven took it, panting like he'd run a marathon while being chased by monsters.and then glanced at the makeshift signal jammer. "You... jammed the drones' sensors with a screwdriver and spare parts you found lying around. Who even does that? What kind of person thinks that fast?"
"Someone who can't shoot lightning from his hands or punch through walls or do any of the cool stuff," Gareth replied with a forced grin, helping him up. "You work with what you've got. it's just practical desperation."
The second test was worse, which seemed to be Arcadia's design philosophy: if it's not actively trying to kill you, it's not teaching you anything.
They were dropped into a virtual environment—a simulated wasteland populated by constructs designed to mimic real combatants with disturbing accuracy. The goal: survive ten minutes without dying, getting captured, or looking too incompetent to function. Dying meant getting hit by a simulated fatal blow. You felt the full force and pain of the blow but it was only simulated.
Gareth tried to flank the constructs, but they were faster than him, more experienced, built specifically for this. He knew what they were going to do—could see the patterns in their movement, could predict their tactics—but his body couldn't react fast enough. It was like watching yourself fail in slow motion, which was philosophically interesting but practically terrible.
A construct landed a brutal knee to his stomach that sent him flying backward, air exploding from his lungs in a way that suggested his internal organs had briefly considered relocating. He hit the ground hard, rolled with the impact because instinct knew what to do even when his brain was rebooting, came up gasping like a fish that had suddenly remembered it needed gills.
This match is designed to test combat aptitude, he thought grimly, tasting red liquid in his mouth. The one area where I'm completely lacking. How wonderfully ironic. The universe has a sense of humor and it's terrible.
Then something strange happened.
Something that would change everything.
His system—something he didn't even know he had, something that had been dormant his entire life as if waiting for this exact moment—opened automatically.
Text scrolled across his vision like subtitles for reality:
NAME: GARETH LANCER
AGE: 18
EREBUS RESONANCE: (100.00%)
ABILITY: COUNTER
CLASSIFICATION: ADAPTIVE REACTIVE
CALIBRATION: 2%
His vision flickered—for a moment, the constructs slowed like someone had turned down time's frame rate. Their simulated bodies became visible as glowing threads of code in the air, patterns of light that showed him their structure, their weaknesses, their inevitable movements. Vulnerability points highlighted in his peripheral vision like targeting reticles painted by invisible hands.
Lines of information scrolled across his sight faster than he could consciously read, his brain processing data at speeds that should've been impossible:
ANALYSIS: HOSTILE PATTERN LOCK DETECTED.
WEAKNESS IDENTIFIED: TORSO- SOLAR PLEXUS
SUGGESTED COUNTERMEASURE: KINETIC BURST
PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS: 67%
"What the..." Gareth whispered, barely dodging another strike that would've introduced his face to the concept of dramatic reconstruction.
He ducked under a swing that would have decapitated him, pivoted on instinct that suddenly felt guided by something beyond instinct, and struck back with the base of his palm—not with strength because he didn't have enhanced strength, but with precision guided by knowledge he hadn't possessed three seconds ago. His palm met the construct's core, and something pulsed outward from the point of contact like a shockwave. The construct's armor dented inward. He hit the same spot two more times in the same moment until he heard the sizzling sound of its systems shutting down with a shower of sparks that smelled like victory and burnt circuits.
COUNTER SUCCESSFUL
ABILITY THREAD INITIALIZING...
COMBAT PATTERN ARCHIVED
ABILITY ARCHIVED
The glow faded as quickly as it came, leaving Gareth standing over the deactivated construct, breathing hard, staring at his hand like it belonged to someone else.
He blinked several times, trying to process what had just happened. "Okay. That... wasn't coffee."
Above, Vale's eyes widened fractionally—the most emotion anyone had seen from her in weeks—as Gareth's resonance tracker spiked from 99% to 100%. She moved to the console with predatory speed, curiosity overriding protocol and common sense in equal measure.
"Initiation confirmed," said an aide, voice tight with confusion that bordered on alarm. "But the waveform's... strange. It's not generating power—it's mimicking it. Like his body analyzed the enemy's attack structure and generated an optimized counter. I've never seen anything like this."
Vale folded her arms, a small smile playing at the edge of her lips—the kind of smile that meant someone had just become very interesting or very dangerous or both. "An analyzer and counter-adaptive type. Reactive evolution combined with tactical prediction." She paused, considering implications. "That's either very promising or very dangerous. Probably both."
"Both, definitely," the aide muttered, already imagining the paperwork this would generate.
When the simulation ended with a computerized voice announcing his survival in tones that suggested mild surprise, Gareth and eleven others were still standing—exhausted, battered, questioning their life choices, but alive. Riven stumbled over, looking equal parts amazed and suspicious, like he'd just watched someone perform magic and was trying to figure out the trick.
"What was that?"
Gareth shrugged, still catching his breath, still trying to understand what his body had just done. "Honestly? No idea. But if it helps, that's definitely not how I make coffee. Completely different process. Less violence, more beans."
Riven deadpanned, "How does that even relate?"
"So I Analyzed and neutralized." Gareth flexed his fingers, watching faint blue light dance across his wrist to his knuckles before fading like dying embers. "It's... weird. I don't know how else to describe it. It felt like my body knew what to do before my brain caught up."
"Dude," Riven muttered, shaking his head with something approaching awe or horror or both. "I don't know if you're a genius or just a walking anomaly that violates several laws of how abilities are supposed to work."
Gareth smiled faintly, the expression not quite reaching his eyes. "I prefer genius. It sounds better on applications and less likely to get me dissected for science."
As the students filed out of the dome toward the processing area, Vale intercepted him with a gesture that wasn't quite a command but wasn't quite a request either.
"Lancer," she said. "Stay behind."
The others glanced at him curiously—some jealous, some sympathetic, some already whispering theories that ranged from reasonable to absolutely insane. Riven gave him a look that said good luck mixed with it was nice knowing you, then followed the crowd out, leaving Gareth alone with someone who could probably kill him without breaking a sweat.
Gareth faced Vale, curious and slightly wary, trying to read her expression and failing completely.
"Your readings are... unusual," Vale said carefully, amber eyes studying him like he was a puzzle missing several pieces and she was trying to figure out if those pieces were important or if the puzzle worked better without them. "Your ability isn't recorded in any database. It doesn't emit power—it reacts to it. You don't fight your opponents. You learn from them, then counter them. It's reactive adaptation combined with analytical prediction."
She paused, letting that sink in like rain into dry earth. "Your ability is quite literally adaptive potential. You don't have a set power—you develop the answer to whatever you're facing."
Gareth frowned, processing implications at speed. "So... I'm basically a mirror?"
Vale's lips twitched—almost a smile, which on her was equivalent to someone else throwing a party. "No. You don't copy. You generate optimal responses. Counters. Solutions. But it requires observation time. Analysis. The longer you fight something, the better you become at fighting it. You're not reactive—you're adaptive. There's a difference."
She studied him for a long moment, something unreadable in her expression that might have been concern or might have been the kind of interest scientists have in particularly unusual specimens. "Arcadia trains humanity's next defenders. What you have could change the game—or break it entirely. I'm telling you this so you understand what you're capable of. Power without understanding is just chaos wearing a different name."
Gareth looked down at his hands, flexing them slowly, watching muscles move under skin in ways that suddenly felt foreign. Blue light pulsed faintly beneath his skin like his veins were conducting electricity. "Yeah," he said softly, voice carrying weights he didn't quite understand yet. "Understanding it would be nice. Right now I'm just... confused. And slightly terrified. Is that normal?"
Vale turned to walk away, then paused, something softening in her posture. "I'd like to see where you end up, Gareth. You're either going to be remarkable or remarkably dangerous. Time will tell which."
"Me too," he admitted, the honesty surprising him. "Understanding myself would be a nice change."
At the end of the day, an announcement echoed through the facility with the gravity of prophecy: all twelve remaining candidates had been accepted into the academy.
Twelve out of hundreds. Gareth tried not to think about the mathematical implications.
Outside the dome, storm clouds gathered on the horizon—silver and dark, crackling faintly with distant static that felt almost alive, like the sky itself was restless. The kind of weather that made people nervous without quite knowing why.
Somewhere beyond the walls, something old and mechanical stirred in the dust.
A signal flickered across a broken satellite array, text scrolling across screens nobody was watching, lost in the digital noise that filled the space between civilization's desperate attempts to hold itself together:
DESIGNATION: L-02
SIGNAL REACQUIRED
TARGET PROXIMITY: ARCADIA SECTOR
STATUS: ACTIVE RECONNAISSANCE
THREAT LEVEL: CRITICAL
INITIATING RETRIEVAL PROTOCOL
In the monitoring room, alarms went unnoticed because the people watching those screens had gone home for the day, confident nothing important would happen after hours.
They were wrong.
But deep in Gareth's system, something pulsed in recognition. Something that had been waiting eighteen years to wake up. Something that knew that name.
Something that remembered what L-02 was.
And what it wanted.