Aurelia learned quickly that this world moved slowly—at least at first.
Days passed in warmth and quiet, measured by gentle hands and soft voices. She was carried, fed, and cradled without expectation. No one demanded strength from her. No one asked her to fight. It was a peace she had never known.
Yet her mind never slept.
Even as an infant, awareness lingered beneath the haze of her new body. She could not think in words yet, but sensations connected—patterns forming where instinct met memory. The rhythm of footsteps. The tone of voices. The subtle pull beneath reality, faint but ever-present.
The Grid was there.
She felt it most clearly at night. When the world dimmed and sound faded, something vast stirred beneath existence—like an ocean moving under ice. It did not speak. It did not guide. It simply was.
[OMNI-RANGER SYSTEM — PASSIVE OBSERVATION MODE]
The system remained distant, restrained. It did not flood her mind with knowledge or demand action. Instead, it watched her grow, adapting alongside her developing body. It measured muscle response. Neural growth. Emotional stability.
It learned her.
Months turned into years.
Aurelia's first steps came early. Her balance was uncanny, her falls fewer than expected. Her caregivers laughed it off, calling her "quick" and "sharp," unaware that her body remembered coordination from a life long past.
When she fell, she rolled.
When she reached, she reached correctly.
Her golden eyes—too vivid to ignore—often unsettled strangers. They held a focus no child should possess, tracking movement with quiet intensity. Aurelia said little, listening more than she spoke, absorbing the world piece by piece.
She learned that this was a world of heroes and monsters.
Not in stories—though there were plenty of those—but in reality. Cities rose impossibly high. Threats appeared without warning. And sometimes, people wrapped in color and light fought back against forces no one else could challenge.
Aurelia watched everything.
One afternoon, when she was barely five, the Grid answered her for the first time.
It happened by accident.
A falling beam. A scream. Panic tearing through the street as metal collapsed where she stood frozen, small and helpless.
Something inside her reacted.
[THREAT DETECTED]
[LIMITED INTERVENTION AUTHORIZED]
The world slowed.
Not stopped—but stretched, as if reality itself took a breath. Aurelia felt heat surge through her chest, down her arms. Light—golden and controlled—flared around her hands.
The beam shattered midair.
Not explosively. Precisely. As if broken by an invisible strike calculated to avoid collateral damage.
Silence followed.
Aurelia stared at her hands, heart racing. The glow faded instantly, leaving no trace—no scorch marks, no residue. People whispered. Someone laughed nervously, calling it luck.
The system went quiet again.
[EVENT LOGGED]
[USER UNAWARE — ACCEPTABLE]
But Aurelia was aware.
That night, she did not sleep.
The memory of power—controlled power—echoed through her mind. It was nothing like the chaos of her old world's magic or the brute force of weapons. This was alignment. Precision. Order shaped by will.
Far away, the Custodian adjusted its calculations.
She adapts faster than predicted.
Aurelia stood at her window, small hands resting on the glass, watching lights move across the distant skyline. Heroes flew. Energy flared. Battles were fought where she could not yet reach.
But one day, she would.
She did not know what the Omni-Ranger truly was.
She did not yet understand the cost of standing against perfect order.
But even now, even as a child, she knew one truth with absolute certainty:
This world was not prepared for her choice.
And she was still becoming.