Next up was Marione Kaina, the enigmatic pilot of the AngelFront E.V.A.—a name whispered more often than spoken, half-myth, half-machine. Her presence was subdued, but no one mistook it for weakness. She moved like someone who had stood at the edge of annihilation and simply blinked.
Overseer: Marione Kaina
Prospects:
1.Kagami Ryuzen – Augment: Dragonborn
2.Kara Peak – Augment: Energyshift
3.Max Murdoc – Augment: Crucible Kindling (LPG)
4.Felix Norwright – Augment: Blindeye (Illusionary Eye)
5.Nadari Kodai – Augment: Ferrutius Armament
Atlas approved her list without debate.
Marione simply sat down, her expression unreadable. She stared through the holograms like they were windows into somewhere else—her thoughts clearly far away. As the room fell back into silence, a subtle shift pulled everyone's attention.
Erementaru Hayate stood.
He moved slowly, deliberately—like a man walking toward the edge of something final. With practiced calm, he stepped toward the podium at the head of the table, the same place the others had stood. But when his name appeared on the interface, every overseer leaned in.
A slight smile traced his lips.
The names on his list appeared.And the room changed.
Gasps weren't audible—but they existed, buried behind stone-faced expressions. Eyes widened. Brows twitched.
The unwanted. The unstable. The dangerous.These weren't just overlooked candidates.
They were rejected plans.
Overseer: Erementaru Hayate
Prospects:
1.Oliver Narite – Augment: Shadow-Walk
2.George Stiney Jr. – Augment: Electromagnetic Superiority
3.Vlad Alucard – Augment: Advanced Haemomancy
4.Shiro Livinrock – Augment: Newtonian + Sonics
5.Ria Bergschrund – Augment: Light Prism
(Not a flight risk—present solely to help ground the team's trauma-ridden dynamics into something resembling normal society.)
6.Nathaniel Alderman – Augment: Kinetic Muscle
Erementaru didn't flinch under the weight of their judgment. He knew what they saw—misfits, experiments, discarded potentials, living anomalies.
But he also saw fighters.
War-touched youth wrapped in silence, shadows, and suppressed potential.
His kind.
And he would mold them into a weapon the empire didn't even know it needed.
He turned to face the room—his mechanical arms softly whirring, the light along his gauntlets glowing in steady pulses like a heartbeat.
"You gave them the scraps," he said, his voice level. "But I see the edge in the metal."
His visor caught the glow of the holoscreen behind him, casting long shadows across the room. The silence that followed wasn't dismissive. It was uneasy respect.
Allan Muhongo leaned forward, just slightly.Atlas remained still, but the tilt of his head gave away intrigue.Jane—Artemis—narrowed her eyes.
"Squad Four," Erementaru continued, "will be the storm you never see coming."
And with that, he stepped back to his seat—no flourish, no arrogance. Just certainty.
Because he wasn't building a squad.He was assembling a contingency.
Arete turned her gaze toward Erementaru, a subtle smile forming across her lips.
This was it.The beginning of something far greater than they'd let on. The rehabilitation initiative. The reintroduction of hunters. The silent war against entropy itself. Their quiet agreement, months in the making, had finally birthed something tangible.
She had even gone as far as placing her own daughter into the Configuration. That alone spoke volumes.
But her satisfaction was short-lived.
Around the table, overseers began to murmur—some cautious, some skeptical, others irritated by what they saw as a reckless move.
Then came the question—cutting through the noise like a scalpel.
"Who is Nathaniel Alderman?"
The silence that followed was absolute.
Arete didn't hesitate.
Her fingers tapped lightly against her console, and across the table, files blinked into existence—compressed dossiers streaming into personal displays. A single, red-tagged header expanded first:
SUBJECT: Nathaniel AldermanStatus: AMNESIAC.Designation: OBSERVATIONAL CLASS – anomaly survivor.Clearance: TEMPORARY LEVEL 3 – pending reevaluation.
"He was recovered from the Anomaly Nexus," Arete said calmly. "Placed under surveillance for evaluation. His stats will update post-orientation like the rest."
Eyes scanned the screen. Some frowned. Others squinted at the faintly redacted segments. Most didn't like the vagueness—but none questioned Arete out loud.
They knew better.
But they all knew what it meant: one of the most volatile unknowns had just been placed in Squad Four.
And worst of all, Erementaru knew what he was doing.
A few whispered to each other behind cupped hands. Others exchanged glances. But the meeting continued, moving toward its final speaker.
Then the doors parted.
The final overseer stepped forward—and Ramon's lips curled into a rare smile.
Ammon.Code name: The Phaser.
Overseer: Ammon "The Phaser"
He walked without sound—his figure flickering faintly at the edges, as though refusing to remain fully solid. Clad in charcoal gray, with glints of refractive light dancing across his suit, his very presence disrupted the air, bending light as though caught in a prism.
His face was calm, but unreadable—like a sculpture left in a pocket of warped space. A phase distortion hung around him like a second skin.
Time and space never sat still around Ammon.
He stood at the podium, and his console synced automatically. He didn't speak right away. He simply uploaded the final list.
Overseer: Ammon (The Phaser)
Prospects:
1.Xeyra Navis – Augment: Chrono-Harmonics.
2.Luco Virell – Augment: Phase Drift.
3.Carmen Telluride – Augment: Geo-Anchor Pulse.
4.Rikuto Saehara – Augment: Photon Quanta Override.
5.Aero Niles – Augment: Dimensional Ripple.
6.Alyssa Reignfield-Augment: synthesis.
His voice, when it came, was cool and layered, like a transmission arriving from just outside normal space.
"six anomalous vectors. Highly unstable. Highly precise. Each capable of disrupting battlefield continuity. You gave me your broken systems. I offer you the re-calibrated future."
No one interrupted.No one dared.
Even Atlas raised his brow—just slightly.
With that, Ammon returned to his seat, his body glitching ever so slightly mid-step as reality reasserted its hold on him.
As the table's holograms dimmed and the rosters finalized, the true meaning of this session began to bloom behind every glance.
They hadn't just built squads.
They had determined the future of their empire.
AUGMENTS SUMMARY FOR SQUAD 5
Prospects:
Xeyra Navis – Augment: Chrono-Harmonics
Manipulates harmonic frequencies of time to synchronize or desynchronize local causality. Crucial for time-staggered support or anti-chrono interference.
Luco Virell – Augment: Phase Drift
Can partially shift between physical states, allowing movement through matter or delayed kinetic contact. Specialized in ambush and sabotage.
Carmen Telluride – Augment: Geo-Anchor Pulse
Stabilizes or destabilizes terrain at molecular level. Used to pin fast-moving targets or trigger seismic ruptures in localized zones.
Rikuto Saehara – Augment: Photon Quanta Override
Converts thought patterns into light constructs, capable of short-range reality overwrites. Primarily used for instant weapon conjuring or deception.
Aero Niles – Augment: Dimensional Ripple
Warps spatial consistency in a narrow radius, enabling rapid relocation, object distortion, or 'glitch' movement.
Alyssa Reignfield – Augment: Synthesis
– Tech-material generation and integration. Capable of deconstructing, absorbing, and reconfiguring raw materials or tech components in real time. Allows for creation of modular tools, adaptive armor, and fusion-based constructs. Key support specialist with frontline utility engineering capabilities.