The rain fell in sheets, cold and relentless, washing the grime from the cracked asphalt but doing nothing to cleanse the smell of wet garbage and decay. Kaelen Vance came to with a gasp, his back pressed against a brick wall, his clothes soaked through. He didn't know his name, not at first. It came to him in fragments, like a radio tuning in through static.
*Kaelen.*
The rest was silence.
Behind his eyelids, words burned like neon scars:
["Do not use it."]
He pushed himself up, water dripping from his dark hair into his eyes. The alley was narrow, choked with overflowing dumpsters and the faint, flickering glow of a broken streetlight at its mouth. Beyond, the city rose—a jagged silhouette of towering spires wreathed in low-hanging clouds and the perpetual glow of holographic advertisements. **Aethelgard.** The name surfaced from the emptiness in his mind, cold and certain.
He took a step, and pain lanced through his skull. A surge of nausea followed. He stumbled, catching himself on the rough brick as another wave of disorientation hit him. This time, it wasn't just pain. It was a… screen. Translucent, blue, hovering just at the edge of his vision.
> **System Initializing…**
> **User: Kaelen Vance
> **Status: Anomalous**
> **Primary Modules:**
> **- ECHO: [LOCKED] 0.0%**
> **- RESONANCE: [LOCKED]**
> **- ASCENSION: [LOCKED]**
> **- VOIDHEART: [SEALED]**
> **Warning: Unauthorized access detected. Containment protocols advised.**
"Containment protocols?" Kaelen muttered, his voice hoarse from disuse. He blinked, but the interface remained. It felt like a part of him, a new layer of perception. Instinctively, he tried to focus on the **ECHO** module. A sharper pain, quick and electric, shocked through his temples.
**"Do not use it."**
The warning was internal, a voice that was his and yet not. A memory? An instinct? He didn't have time to ponder.
Footsteps. Deliberate, synchronized, echoing in the wet alley. Not the shuffling gait of the homeless or the hurried step of a passerby. These were the footsteps of people who owned the darkness.
Three figures stepped into the dim light at the alley's entrance. They wore sleek, grey body armor that seemed to drink the light, and their faces were obscured by smooth, mirror-like visors. No insignia, no identifying marks. Only a palpable, focused intent.
**The Unseen.**
The knowledge dropped into Kaelen's mind, fully formed and icy cold.
The lead enforcer raised a hand. No words were exchanged. The air around Kaelen *tightened*. It was as if the rain itself stopped falling on him, pressed away by an invisible force. Pressure built on his chest, his lungs, threatening to collapse them. **Gravity manipulation.**
Panic, raw and primal, surged. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. The System interface flickered violently in his vision.
`[EXTERNAL FORCE DETECTED: GRAVITONIC FIELD]`
`[ANALYZING…]`
`[ECHO MODULE: FORCED ENGAGEMENT]`
**"NO—"** Kaelen tried to think, to resist the pull of the strange power within him. But survival instinct overrode the cryptic warning. A circuit closed in his mind. He didn't understand how, but he could *feel* the pattern of the enforcer's power—a complex, oscillating frequency of energy that bent mass and space.
He *reached* for it.
And **Echoed** it.
A reverse wave erupted from Kaelen. The crushing pressure vanished. The lead enforcer was lifted off his feet as if swatted by a giant, invisible hand. The gravitational field around him inverted, multiplied. Kaelen watched, horrified and mesmerized, as the enforcer was slammed downward not with the force of a fall, but with the force of a small meteorite impact.
The asphalt didn't just crack. It *exploded* inward, creating a shallow, perfect crater. The enforcer lay motionless in the center, his armor shattered, the visor cracked.
Silence, broken only by the returning patter of rain.
The other two enforcers froze. Their mirrored visors turned from their fallen comrade to Kaelen.
Kaelen stared at his own hands. A faint, golden shimmer traced his veins before fading. The System scrolled with urgent text.
`[ECHO MODULE: TEMPORARY ACQUISITION - "GRAVITONIC PULSE"]`
`[USAGE: 1/??]`
`[RESONANCE CASCADE RISK: ELEVATED]`
`[STABILIZATION REQUIRED]`
The two remaining Unseen enforcers moved as one. One drew a blade that hummed with vibrating energy. The other's palms glowed with coalescing heat—**pyrokinesis**.
Kaelen braced himself, the strange new awareness humming in his blood. He could feel their powers too, distinct frequencies waiting to be copied. The blade-user lunged first, impossibly fast.
Kaelen sidestepped, the movement fueled more by preternatural reflex than skill. He parried the humming blade with his forearm, expecting a cut. Instead, a spark of blue energy flashed where they made contact. The **Echo** module throbbed.
`[ANALYZING… KINETIC EDGE]`
Before he could process it, fire engulfed him. A torrent of white-hot flame from the second enforcer. The searing pain lasted only a second before his body reacted. His skin cooled, adapting, the energy of the flames being absorbed, analyzed, and… mirrored.
`[ANALYZING… THERMAL CONDUCTION]`
`[WARNING: DUAL ECHO LOAD UNSTABLE]`
Kaelen roared, throwing his hands out. He didn't direct the heat back. He *changed* it. The fire that erupted from his palms was not orange, but a volatile, shimmering blue—a bastardized fusion of the gravity pulse and raw heat. It struck the pyrokinetic enforcer not as a wave, but as a localized gravity well of superheated plasma.
The enforcer didn't have time to scream. He was simply gone, vaporized into a shower of ash and dying embers.
The last enforcer with the blade hesitated, his mirrored visor reflecting the scene of devastation. Kaelen, panting, smoke curling from his fingertips, turned his gaze on him. The **Echo** was screaming in his head now, a symphony of stolen powers clashing violently. The world began to warp at the edges—the rain fell sideways, the brick walls seemed to breathe.
`[RESONANCE CASCADE IMMINENT]`
`[REALITY COHERENCE: 92% AND FALLING]`
The blade-enforcer turned and fled, disappearing into the gloom.
Kaelen fell to his knees, the adrenaline draining away, leaving a cavernous emptiness and a terrifying, vibrating wrongness in his bones. The System warnings blared like sirens. He clutched his head, willing the world to stop twisting.
"Interesting."
The voice was calm, clear, and cut through the dissonance in his mind like a knife.
He looked up.
A girl stood at the alley's mouth where the Unseen had first appeared. She was slight, wrapped in a dark, dry coat, her hair the color of pale moonlight. But it was her eyes that held him—silver, luminous, and holding an age of knowledge that contradicted her young face.
She stepped into the alley, unconcerned by the carnage, her boots silent on the wet ground. She knelt before him, tilting her head.
"Most Echo-Born don't survive their first Cascade," she said, her voice soft yet analytical. "You not only survived, you triggered a *dual* Resonance. And you're still coherent. Fascinating."
"Who… are you?" Kaelen managed, the words scraping his throat.
"My name is Valine." A small, knowing smile touched her lips. "And you, Kaelen Vance, are a system error that could break the world. You need a Warden."
She offered her hand. Not to help him up, but in formal invitation.
"I can stabilize you. I can help you understand the System, and what you are. Or," she glanced at the crater and the ashes, "you can wait here for the next Unseen squad. They won't send three next time. They'll send thirty."
The pain in Kaelen's head spiked. The world shimmered. The **"Do not use it"** warning clashed with Valine's silver-eyed gaze.
He had no memory. He had a power that shattered reality. He had enemies who wanted him dead.
He took her hand.
`[NEW OBJECTIVE: FOLLOW VALINE]`
`[RESONANCE CASCADE: ARRESTED]`
`[STABILIZATION PROTOCOL: INITIATED]`
The rain continued to fall, washing the evidence into the gutters, as the amnesiac god and his mysterious warden walked out of the alley and into the gleaming, treacherous heart of Aethelgard.