Ascension Protocol

The Echo of Her Heart 💜

Chapter 9: The Echo of Her Heart

She once stood at the top of Zenith Academy "Aralyn Vael".

A name whispered with awe and fear.

Prodigy. Sovereign. Untouchable.

Born with a soul-thread so pure it disrupted most scanning technologies, she shattered the academy’s combat and intellect records before her sixteenth birthday. Rumors claimed she’d glimpsed Tier V protocols before most students even grasped Tier II.

But she was also something else: lonely.

Aralyn had everything status, power, even suitors from corporate dynasties, but none of them touched her heart. She was not waiting for a rival, a prince, or a mentor.

She was waiting for a resonance a soulmate written in fate and code.

> “He won’t come from above,” she once told her only confidante, Ayla, her AI companion.

“He’ll be buried under the noise of the world. But when I find him... I’ll know.”

So she sealed her powers.

Voluntarily.

Her status fell. Factions withdrew their interest. Professors scoffed, thinking her flame had faded.

But she was free to walk without shadows chasing her.

And that’s when it happened.

Two months before Samuel’s awakening.

A rainy night. Thunder carving the sky in jagged lines.

Aralyn wandered into the old metro district hidden under a simple cloak, pretending to be a nameless girl searching for old tech scraps to analyze. No one recognized her without the glowing crest of Zenith flaring behind her steps.

That’s when they came three rogue scavengers, men enhanced with illegal bionic mods and driven by the scent of helpless prey.

She didn’t fight.

She couldn’t. The seal locked her protocol access. She had intended to experience the world as a human. But now, she was bleeding, cornered in an alley, pulse weakening.

And that’s when he showed up.

Not with grandeur. Not with technique.

He simply threw himself between her and death.

Samuel Gray, barely surviving himself, lashed out with nothing but a rusted pipe and primal instinct. No skills. No systems. Just desperation.

He broke a jaw. Took a blade to the ribs. But he didn’t run.

When the attackers fled, Aralyn looked up at his face cut, shivering, soaked in blood. And saw something not even Zenith’s elite had ever shown her.

Kindness.

> “You okay?” he whispered, eyes barely open.

“You’re not... dying on me, are you?”

She smiled despite the pain. “I’m not the one who’s dying.”

He passed out before she could respond.

That night shattered her seal.

Unknowingly, Aralyn had chosen him. And in doing so, triggered a resonance buried deep in the forgotten system within Samuel’s genetic code.

> Synchronization Detected

Subject: Aralyn Vael – Soul Signature Matched

Catalyzing Interface Awakening...

She left before he awoke. Left behind only a shimmer of data etched into the system, a phantom heartbeat, and a soft memory burned into the deepest part of his soul.

He never saw her face clearly.

But the system did.

And it remembered.

Now – Present Day.

The transport slowed, descending through Zenith’s defensive perimeter. The campus unfolded like a technological city-state buildings forged from obsidian alloys and woven light, aerial walkways crawling with autonomous drones, and towers humming with raw energy.

As Samuel stepped out of the craft, a wave of encrypted surveillance tags swept across him.

> [SCAN FLAGGED]

[Unregistered Protocol Detected]

[Unknown System Interface Present – Access: DENIED]

Warning: You are being watched.

He smirked.

Of course he was.

The courtyard was filled with first-years, each arriving from corners of the city and beyond. Most wore tailored uniforms. Samuel, in contrast, still wore his reinforced street jacket—patched, unbranded, and slightly scorched from his last trial.

He stood out. And he didn’t care.

A voice called out.

“Transfer candidate Gray?”

He turned. A figure approached tall, lean, older her coat marked with a triple-banded crest: Zenith Academy faculty.

“Administrator Lys Renn,” she said, extending a hand. “You’re late.”

He looked at the sun above. “I’m early by two minutes.”

“You’re late by three years, Mr. Gray. Based on what your system suggests, you should’ve been here long ago.”

Samuel’s gaze sharpened.

She continued, expression unreadable. “You’ll be placed in Sector 9, alongside elite initiates. That sector is watched closely by all three major factions. And your entry has stirred... questions.”

“Let them ask,” Samuel replied.

Administrator Renn gave the barest hint of a smile.

“Very well. Orientation begins at dusk. Until then, don’t die.”

Elsewhere, behind a translucent hexagonal wall in the heart of the academy, Aralyn Vael stood before a massive screen showing Samuel’s arrival from fifteen different angles.

She wore her crest again. Her power was unsealed.

Her fingers hovered over the interface.

> “He’s here,” Ayla said quietly in her ear.

“He doesn’t remember. Not fully.”

“I don’t need him to,” Aralyn whispered. “I just need him to live.”

She turned, cloak swirling like a tempest.

In another chamber, masked figures of the Trine Consortium watched the same feed, eyes glowing with cybernetic overlays.

One spoke:

> “The system was never meant to be found.”

“And now it walks freely among children.”

“Let the game begin.”