Chapter 2 - Chapter 1: The Unranked Awakening

Kael stood at the edge of the training dome, watching the holographic rankings flicker above the crowd. His name wasn't there. It never had been."Echo-0: Deceased. Echo-1: Promoted. Echo-2: Under review."Kael? Nothing. Not even a footnote.The dome buzzed with energy—young heroes sparring, instructors shouting, drones scanning for resonance spikes. Kael walked through it all like a ghost. His resonance pulsed beneath his skin, raw and unstable. The system called it a glitch. The instructors called it a liability.Commander Virein called it a mistake."You're not supposed to exist," he said once, arms folded, voice cold. "You were a backup. A failsafe. Not a hero."Kael didn't respond. He didn't need to. The silence between them was louder than any protest.He trained alone. Ate alone. Slept in the unranked dorm, where the lights flickered and the heat barely worked. Every day, he watched others rise—Echo-3 with her gravity field, Echo-5 with his flame arc. They were celebrated. He was tolerated.But Kael didn't want celebration.He wanted recognition.And the system refused to give it.He remembered the first time he tried to access the Resonance Terminal. The biometric scanner blinked red. "Unclassified," it said. "No rank assigned." The technician looked at him like he was a virus. "Try again," she muttered, but the result was the same. Kael had no resonance ID. No echo trail. No proof he existed.That night, he stared at the ceiling of his dorm, listening to the hum of the broken heater. His fingers twitched with energy—unmeasured, unranked, unacknowledged. He could feel it in his bones, in the static between his thoughts. The system didn't recognize him, but the resonance did. It called to him. Whispered through the cracks.He began to test it.Late at night, when the dome was empty, Kael would step into the simulation chamber and activate the training drones manually. They weren't programmed to respond to unranked users, but Kael didn't need permission. He moved through the drills with precision—dodging, striking, pulsing his resonance in short bursts. The drones adapted. They began to track him. One even overloaded and collapsed, its sensors fried by Kael's unstable output.The next morning, he was reprimanded."You're not authorized to use the chamber," said Instructor Halden. "You're not Echo-class."Kael looked him in the eye. "Then what am I?"Halden didn't answer.The breach came on a Tuesday.Kael was in the dome, watching Echo-7 demonstrate a new resonance technique—a shockwave that could disable drones mid-flight. The crowd applauded. The rankings updated. Echo-7 moved up a slot. Kael turned away, heading toward the exit, when the lights dimmed.A siren blared. Red overlays flooded the dome's interface. "System breach detected," the AI announced. "Resonance anomaly in Sector 7."Kael froze.Sector 7. That was Echo-10's last mission. The place where the system failed. The place where Kael had been activated.The crowd panicked. Instructors barked orders. Drones scrambled to secure the perimeter. Kael felt it before he saw it—a pulse in the air, a vibration in his chest. The resonance was shifting. Reacting. Calling.He ran.Not away—from it.Toward it.Through the corridors, past the ranked dorms, past the archive hall where Echo-10's statue stood in silence. He reached the old terminal, the one that hadn't worked since the breach. It flickered now. Alive.Kael placed his hand on the scanner.It blinked.Green."Resonance recognized," the system said. "Echo Protocol: Unclassified."Kael's breath caught.He wasn't ranked.He wasn't registered.But he was real.The terminal opened. Data flooded the screen—mission logs, resonance maps, biometric trails. And one file, locked behind a code: *Resonance Code: Echo-10.*Kael entered the override.The file opened.It wasn't a weapon.It was a message."If you're reading this, you were never meant to be ranked. You were meant to remember. The system measures visibility. But resonance measures impact. And impact cannot be classified."Kael stared at the words.He wasn't just a glitch.He was a mirror.A reflection of everything the system refusedit to see.Outside, the sirens faded. The breach was contained. But something had changed.Kael walked back to the dome.The rankings flickered again.And for the first time, a new line appeared:Echo Protocol: Resonance Code – Status: Unclassified.No rank.No title.Just truth.Kael smiled.Let the system panic.He was done waiting.He was ready to echo.