Aken kai

Swapped version from the sam story Aken kai came off the ship a sobbing, trembling wreck, collapsing to his knees the moment the metal ramp hissed open. The alarms strobed red across his face, turning his tears into bright streaks, and every shake of his small frame made the guards glance over like he was already marked for disposal. But the robots didn’t move. Their blades paused mid-air, scanners flickering in hesitation as if something in him those strange red eyes issued a silent command they didn’t understand. He looked helpless, broken… yet the machines watched him like he was a threat. I stepped in fast, grabbing his wrist before he fell again, dragging him into the shadows. “Cry quieter,” I whispered, my voice low, steady. “They kill anything that shakes.” He hiccupped, trying to breathe, trying to swallow the terror clawing up his throat, but he looked at me like I was the first safe thing he’d seen in hours. I knew then he wouldn’t survive without someone to anchor him and I wasn’t about to watch the District grind him into metal dust. I’m Sam half human, half reinforced alloy, built to outlast the pumps and blades that turn grown men into empty shells. But him… the moment the machines froze at his presence, I understood. He was special. Dangerous. Untamed. Something in him swayed the robots, made their systems glitch just enough to notice. So I decided: I’ll teach him everything. How to keep his breathing steady when the clamps dig in. How to walk with purpose so the cutters don’t smell fear. How to vanish when the overseers scan for weakness. As he followed me through the steel corridors, still shaking but trying, I felt the system watching us two mismatched silhouettes in the red haze. The veteran built from metal and pain. And the boy whose sobs could halt a robot mid-strike. Together, we were becoming something the District wasn’t ready for. I trained him until he became unpredictable