Trainer | Xpt

He’d expected it. For six months, he’d been a ghost in the system, illegally rewiring the broken minds of veterans the Bureau had discarded. But knowing it was coming didn't stop the hollow ache in his chest.

He activated his portable XPT rig—a jury-rigged mess of wires and outdated hardware. It was like performing brain surgery with a pocketknife. He linked his neural pattern to Kaelen's fractured matrix.

The letter wasn't a plea. It was a single sentence: "The Labyrinth is the only way out."

The moment he entered, the storm hit.

The freighter's bridge flickered. The alarms softened.

Marcus pointed at the raging inferno on the viewscreen. "That's not the sun, kid. That's your ego. You thought a perfect pilot doesn't make mistakes. So when you made one, your mind ate itself. You didn't shatter because of the radiation. You shattered because you couldn't handle being human ."

But Kaelen stood up. He walked past Marcus and faced the agents. "Stand down," he said. His voice carried the weight of a man who had walked through a star and lived. "This man is under my protection. And I'm filing a formal petition to reinstate his credentials. With testimony from a Class-A pilot." xpt trainer

"Kaelen. You're not in the freighter. You're in a room. But you won't believe me. So I'm coming in."

"I'm scared," the core Kaelen whispered.

Marcus activated his XPT trainer's final, forbidden tool: The Mirror. It didn't show you what you wanted to see. It showed you what you were. He’d expected it

A normal XPT trainer would try to soothe, to calm, to rebuild one shard at a time. But Marcus knew the Bureau's secret: they only knew how to polish glass. He knew how to reforge steel.

"Good," Marcus said, his voice finally gentle. "Fear is the first real thing you've felt in three weeks. Now hold onto it. And let's walk out of this sun together."

Marcus didn't offer comfort. He grabbed the young man by the collar and shouted over the alarms. He activated his portable XPT rig—a jury-rigged mess

A standard XPT trainer would use calming protocols, gentle reconstruction. Marcus was not standard.

His apartment was already stripped. The Bureau was efficient. Only one thing remained: a single, outdated physical letter on his magnetic table. No sender ID. Just a name: Kaelen Voss.