Accidentally Became the Most Wanted Entity in the Multiverse

The door to the atrium hissed open.

Dae stepped in and immediately felt it… pressure in the air, like the room itself was testing him.

Twenty students stood scattered in a vast, circular chamber, the ceiling lost in shadows and the floor a polished obsidian black. Their reflections stretched beneath them like ghosts.

Above, the ocean shimmered through a dome of glass, casting waves of blue light over their faces. Somewhere in the distance, a leviathan-shaped silhouette drifted past, slow and deliberate.

The atmosphere was tense.

And then, static crackled.

A sudden hum filled the space, followed by a flickering screen materializing midair.

And then… him.

PIX.

A small, rectangular projection of light appeared barely three feet tall.. shaped like a cube with stubby legs, floating arms, and a lens-like eye that blinked far too often.

"Ah-ha! Yes! Yes! Greetings, carbon-based embarrassment clusters!" he announced, his voice both regal and unhinged, like a retired Shakespearean actor forced to host a children's cartoon.

The students blinked.

Dae squinted. "…What?"

PIX flailed one stubby limb dramatically. "Do not fear! I am PIX : Protocol Interface for eXistence. Former galactic assistant. Once hailed as the most advanced artificial being in seventeen planetary systems."

A pause.

Then: "I now work… here."

He sighed so dramatically, Dae actually blinked.

The floating girl Rea tilted her head. Her feet hovered a few inches off the ground. Her hair floated too, like she lived in different physics. "You look like a flying toaster."

"EXCUSE me!" PIX snapped, voice crackling. "I'll have you know I was designed by the ancient engineers of Solaris Prime. I am over 13,000 years old!"

Kio raised an eyebrow. "So why do you sound like a broken Alexa?"

PIX sputtered. "Young man, I.."

Then froze.

Literally froze. His whole body glitched midair. His eye flickered.

"…Memory core… blocked… access denied beyond timestamp 00455-A…"

The room went silent.

Dae took a step forward. "Blocked?"

PIX rebooted with a fizzling pop. "Yes, yes! Likely sabotage. Some inconsiderate evolutionary hiccup decided to tamper with my memory chip. I can recall my creation, several hundred years of legendary service, and… then… static."

He twitched. "It is deeply upsetting. I had a favorite opera collection. Gone. A hundred crushes. All deleted. A thousand years of existential crisis—unremembered."

An, still scribbling in his ever-present notebook, spoke for the first time: "How do you still function?"

"I don't," PIX said flatly. "I improvise."

....

Sera appeared near the doorway, arms crossed, a faint smirk on her lips. "Enough introductions. PIX, you're assigned to assist in Awakening Protocols. Don't fry anyone this time."

PIX flinched. "One time! That was one time!"

Sera ignored him. "Students. Today, you'll begin revealing your source threads.. what your power connects to. Element. Emotion. Origin. Or anomaly."

She gestured to the floor.

Twenty tiles lit up.

"Step forward. One by one. The floor will respond. PIX will analyze."

PIX puffed up proudly. "That's right! Be not afraid, feeble adolescents. I shall peer into your soul. gently."

Rea went first.

The floor pulsed beneath her.

PIX blinked. "Ah. A sky-threader. Light-bonded. Air-touched. You are gravity-sensitive. flight-based manipulation. Passive levitation, advanced agility, and emotional shielding. Deep repression detected. Strong-willed. Extremely introverted. Possible… avoidance issues."

Rea just floated back silently. Not even blinking.

"Next!" PIX chirped.

Kio stepped forward, rolling his shoulders.

The panel beneath him lit up like fire.

"Ahhh, strength-threaded. Kinetic core. Power amplification via physical contact. Raw force conversion. And… oooh. Mild god complex. Low patience. Believes he can solve everything with a punch. Probably can."

Kio grinned. "Damn right."

"Sit down, gymnasium brain."

Next came a girl with red streaks in her hair and tattoos crawling up her neck. She wore her cape like it was a rebellion.

PIX paused. "Oh. You. You're… interesting."

"What does that mean?" she challenged.

"You are death-threaded. Emotion-fueled. Pain-responsive. Capable of shadow-stepping, teleportation via emotional surge. Also… severe trust issues. And a probable attraction to emotionally unavailable people."

She smirked. "So basically, I'm every main character ever."

She stepped off.

One by one, the students stepped forward.

PIX narrated each one.. brutally honest, sometimes wrong, always entertaining.

....

When it was Dae's turn, the air felt heavier.

PIX flickered. "Ah. Finally."

Dae stepped forward.

The platform flickered.

Then surged.

PIX's eye widened. "Oh no."

The room trembled.

"Kairoth response: 98%. Thread unknown. Core type: Creation. Source: Light."

Sera looked up sharply.

PIX floated backward. "You… You are a Creator? Oh dear stars. This is… unexpected."

Dae blinked. "What does that mean?"

PIX hesitated. "It means… you are something that should not exist anymore."

The others stared.

Rea's eyes locked onto his.

An's pen stopped moving.

Kio looked impressed.

Dae felt… cold.

Sera stepped forward. "Enough for today. Dorms. Now."

PIX whispered as they turned to leave, "We thought all Creators were gone. But if Kairoth chose you… something ancient is waking up."

...….

Later that night, when the atrium was dark and the ocean cast long shadows…

PIX sat alone, his light dimmed, floating near the training platform.

His eye flickered again.

"Memory fragment unlocked," he whispered.

A voice echoed, soft, human, warm.

"PIX, if you ever hear this… it means they're coming. Protect the boy. He's the last."

PIX didn't speak.

But if he could've cried, he would've.

He stared into the dark, remembering a name he wasn't supposed to remember.

A friend.

A creator.

A promise.

And then… quietly, like a whisper to himself he said:

"…Welcome back, Dae."

...

[To Be Continued in Chapter 7: "The first fractures."]

✦ SYSTEM LOG > PIX [CLASSIFIED ARCHIVE ENTRY #0445-A] ✦

Timestamp: Corrupted

User: PIX > Protocol Interface for eXistence

Status: Functioning (Barely)

Access Level: Retroactively unauthorized

Thread Synchronization Report:

Subject #17 "Dae"

Core Compatibility: Confirmed

Thread Type: UNKNOWN

Artifact Link: Kairoth (confirmed active)

System Response:

→ Crucible Mode: INITIATED

→ Failsafe Protocol: GLITCHED

→ Warning: ENTITY DESIGNATION: CREATOR DETECTED

…oh no.

Admin Notes [PIX Internal Thought Process, heavily fragmented]:

"Okay. Okay okay okay okay okay…

Did I just register a Creation Core? That's… not possible.

They were erased. Sealed.

Or were they… hidden?"

"Initiating memory recovery…

Cross-referencing forbidden fragments…

ERROR: Access denied by something smarter than me. Ugh."

"He doesn't even know what he is yet.

The ring responded first. The system second.

And I…

…I remembered a voice.

A command I shouldn't remember."

Recovered Fragment [Voice Unknown]:

"Protect the boy. If he ever wakes it… the others will come."

Updating status of Subject Dae to:

Tier Z Unregistered Origin Carrier

Compatibility: 98%

Source Thread: [REDACTED]

Integrity Risk: Unstable

Memory Trigger Detected: Suppressed

Final Note [Encrypted, visible to PIX only]:

"They'll come for him.

Not because he's strong…

But because he remembers what the world tried to forget."

"I think I was built for this.

I hope I was."

End Log.

-><-