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> [Subject Auron Vale: Fragmentborne]
Priority Protocol Engaged: CODE RED – SYSTEM PURGE INITIATED.
Time Remaining: 04:00
The world turned red.
Not metaphorically—literally. The walls, air, and even sound itself were now drenched in crimson pulses of synthetic rage. Kiera grabbed Auron by the arm, dragging him out of the chamber as the cube shattered into floating fragments, each one screaming in binary.
"MOVE!" she shouted.
"What's happening?!" Auron yelled, clutching his head as more fragmented memories tried to crawl into his brain. A child in a locked pod. A voice calling him 'Unit Zero.' A shattered mask in a pool of data blood.
"You triggered a purge sequence! The system's trying to erase you like corrupted code!"
Auron's vision glitched.
He saw himself—digitized, flickering, as though his skin was a poor rendering. His fingers pixelated mid-motion. A piece of his shoe blinked out of existence, leaving one foot bare.
"I'm glitching."
"No," Kiera said grimly, dragging him around a spiraling hallway, "you're evolving. That's scarier."
Behind them, a swarm of faceless security constructs—Codex Reclaimers—erupted from hidden walls. Tall, smooth beings with no legs, only sliding tendrils of data that tore through metal like paper. They weren't designed to detain.
They were designed to purge.
Kiera tossed a plasma mine. It beeped once—then exploded, taking out half the hallway. The Reclaimers didn't scream. They didn't flinch. They just adapted.
"They're rewriting their armor mid-combat," Auron gasped. "Like self-healing code."
Kiera gritted her teeth. "Welcome to the top tier of reality manipulation."
They burst into a train tunnel—black rails, white lights flashing. A lone hovertrain stood idle on the platform, flickering like it didn't know if it was supposed to exist.
Kiera shoved Auron inside. "Drive!"
"I don't know how to—"
"You are the Codex now. Just think it!"
He closed his eyes.
The train screamed to life.
Behind them, the Reclaimers surged forward, a wave of digitized death.
---
As the train barreled through collapsing tunnels, Auron sat slumped, panting. Kiera stared at him like he was a live grenade.
"What are you?" she finally asked.
He looked up, blinking through residual glitches.
"I don't know. I remember... code. Files. Voices. A room. They called me 'Version Zero.'"
Kiera flinched. "That's not a version. That's a prototype."
"So I'm... what? A prototype of the Codex?"
"No," she said slowly. "You are the Codex. The original. Before it was fragmented into a thousand tools. You're the bleeding heart buried under centuries of upgrades and erasures."
Auron felt hollow.
Then a ping echoed in his mind:
> Codex Sync: 89% You are becoming the Vault.
Before he could process that, the train skidded, turned transparent for a split second, then re-materialized inside a massive white chamber surrounded by hovering Sentinels.
Waiting for them stood an Overseer—a tall figure draped in robes, half his face replaced with floating quantum runes.
"You made it farther than expected," the Overseer said, hands clasped. "Pity. We'll have to delete you manually."
Auron stepped forward, breathing uneven.
"I didn't ask to be born from this system."
"No one ever does," the Overseer said softly. "But you were not meant to survive. You're not just a glitch—you're the original sin."
Kiera raised her weapon.
Auron didn't.
He raised his hand.
And the air distorted.
Behind the Overseer, the Codex interface appeared—unprompted.
Lines of code spiraled into being. The system began rewriting... itself.
> Root Command Access: Unlocked
Command Line: 'REDEFINE AURON_VALE'
The Overseer's eyes widened.
"What are you doing?!"
Auron stared him down, voice low.
"Becoming the patch."
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