By morning, Amethyst—no, Katie, no, Pidge—had mastered the art of looking like a chronically underslept fourteen-year-old boy who lived off caffeine and spite.
The uniform hung slightly loose on her narrow frame. Her hair stuck up at angles the System insisted made her "more convincing." And when she shoved her oversized glasses into place and slouched just enough…
Yeah. She looked the part.
Emotionally, physically, spiritually?
She felt nothing like a fourteen-year-old boy.
But today wasn't about feelings.
Today was about blending in.
Today was about changing canon before canon locked in around her.
---
The entrance hall smelled like industrial floor polish and recycled air. Cadets shuffled past in clusters, bleary and bored.
Pidge strode toward the security arch with her fake badge clenched in hand. Her pulse stayed steady. She'd already spent half the night prepping for this.
As she approached, she "stumbled"—just enough to palm a thin Maker-coded strip onto the base of the scanner.
A tiny UI blinked across her vision:
[Badge Interface Hijacked]
[Access Level: Expanded
Stealth Mode: On
Alert Probability: 0.02%]
She swiped the badge.
The scanner chirped green without hesitation.
Pidge grinned. "Too easy."
Once inside, she paused at the junction between the east and west wings.
It was time.
She rolled her shoulder, and the Maker System responded to the subtle gesture. Dozens—no, hundreds—of glittering particles shimmered into existence around her, each one no larger than a grain of dust.
Any observer would mistake them for lint caught in a stray sunbeam.
But Pidge's HUD recognized them instantly.
[Micro-Drone Swarm: Deployed]
[Primary Directive: Full-campus mapping
Secondary Directive: Data exfiltration to Maker Room]
The motes scattered, threading themselves into vents, under doorframes, across ceilings. Every hallway. Every office. Every restricted lab.
Within seconds, she had a 3D minimap panel hovering at the corner of her sight.
And with every new room scanned…
Her Maker Room pulsed.
The next time she blinked into the dimensional space between classes, the blank workshop had changed.
Sleek metal shelves now lined the walls.
A wall-mounted tool rack gleamed with basic but functional equipment.
A suspended holographic blueprint table flickered to life, fed by the Garrison schematics her drones had already collected.
[Maker Room: Level 1 > Level 3]
[Upgrade unlocked: Basic Fabrication]
[Upgrade unlocked: Structural Blueprint Archive]
She turned slowly, awe prickling her skin.
It wasn't just upgrading.
It was listening to her needs before she voiced them.
"Keep this up," she murmured, "and we're going to break the plot in half."
The System chimed, almost smug.
She returned to her body seamlessly, walking across the quad when the sensation hit.
A warmth—thin as a hair, soft as breath—brushed along her ribs. A pulse. A tug.
Not pain. Not danger.
Just… connection.
Like someone had plucked the edge of an invisible string tied to her sternum.
She startled, clutching her side.
[Soul-Thread Pulse Detected]
[Origin: Unknown
Proximity: Distant
Classification: Significant]
"Significant," she repeated, whispering under her breath. "Significant how?"
No answer.
The warmth faded just as quickly as it had come, leaving behind a lingering hum—like the echo of a name she hadn't learned yet.
She took a steadying breath.
There were only a handful of people in this universe whose existence hit that level of importance.
Two she was related to.
One she already planned to rescue.
And one she knew she wouldn't meet for a long time.
…unless this AU threw the timeline completely out of order.
Pidge squared her shoulders and headed toward her next class.
If the universe thought it could surprise her—it clearly didn't know who it had reincarnated.