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Prologue
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August 14th, 1184[♫]===================================================================================================================
The skies were so serene, gentle, silent, with the occasional cloud drifting along the horizon. The scent of fresh baked goods and autumn filled the streets of
St. Tristine as children ran up and down the pebble walkways. There were smiles and laughter all around, it was a peaceful city. Everyone was like family to me, my
fellow classmates, the neighbors, the store clerks, even the post man who drove the trams from one city to the next. St. Tristine was indeed a large city, a proud city
known for it's massive barriers designed by our beloved Doctor Fausto. He was a kind man who wore a caring face before the lot of the civilians and soldiers that
protected both him and his research. The city of St. Tristine wasn't known for its political prowess, besides, it was monopolized by the research and development for
weapons and defensive structures. I remember when I was a little boy, I was very rowdy, in fact, my mother had to always scold me when I didn't go to bed... I believe
that was the first time I heard the term "Daemos". She would sit me down in my bed, and tell me these horrifying stories of giant creatures gobbling up naughty
children who didn't sleep by their curfew, and I would simply shrug it off and make her chase me throughout the house. I was a handful, I admit, but my mother
was all I had, and I too, was a reason for her to live.
12 years ago from today, during my gestation period, my father was drafted into the excavation department for Doctor Fausto's research somewhere out there in the vast sea of sand. To my mother's horror and dismay, my father never returned home with the excavation team. My mother had to work quite often in order to sustain our home and means to survival, she had to leave me with the neighbors quite often. She never remarried. My father was the only one for her, and so she stood by, denying his death and waiting for his return. Everyday, my mother would run her fingers through my bleach blonde hair and remind me how much I looked like my father... But most importantly, to her, I had the same eyes he had when they first met. She never told me the details on how they came to be together, but she always seemed to bite her lip to stiffen what sorrows she had for my sake. I may have only been a primary-schooler at that point in time, but I was always observant.
August 17th, 1184
I came home early today from my classes, unfortunately not for any positive reason. I was reported again for getting into another fight with one of the bullies at the primary school. My mother was quite vexed when she heard what happened. "Young man, you have a lot of explaining to do." She sat me down beside her at the kitchen table, rubbing her forehead as she sighed. I hung my head down and stated: "He started it..." And then she began to cut in "Did you at least knock one of his teeth out?". To which I swung my head up and nodded excitedly "Yes m'am!". She began chuckling as she ruffled my hair. "I heard what happened Alex... I know you were only trying to stick up for that girl in class you have a crush on." My face flushed red as I stuttered "Wh- Hu- NO! Girls are icky mom!" She couldn't stop laughing at that point, my mother loved teasing me like that. She's a strong woman...
August 20th, 1184[♫]===================================================================================================================
I was standing along the outer perimeters of Fausto's barrier again, peering out into the endless sea of sand. Everywhere around this city is nothing but desert, and according to the adults, there's nothing else out there but miles and miles of sand and cities. It was today that it all began. Soldiers from Doctor Fausto's faculty came over and told me that I was chosen to be a part of his SEED project. I was told that I was destined to save mankind from the monsters that dwell outside these barriers. That I, and other children like me were the only ones capable of doing such things. First, they took me home to gather my belongings, and the soldiers explained to my mother how they needed me to become one of Doctor Fausto's perfect "beings". She objected, screamed angrily, and did everything she physically could to keep me in her arms, to no avail, they pried us apart.
Halfheartedly, I accepted my fate, and followed the soldiers downtown to Doctor Fausto's main research facility. The glass doors slid open automatically as we approached the dormitory halls of the facility. I was welcomed by smiling faces of the staff and other friendly children around my age who were also chosen for the SEED project. The dormitory halls were separated with males on the first basement, and females on the second basement. The soldiers showed me to my room where I was greeted by my roommate. He was definitely one of the older participants of the SEED project. He had a burly, heavy set figure, and large hands that could swallow my whole head if he wanted to. But instead, he extends his hand out with a warm smile, round cheeks with a porky nose and dark brown hair. I awkwardly grabbed his index finger and began shaking his hand, his eyes were a strong, virulent green.
"Hey, the name's Leonhardt Briggs, but you can call me Leon." he had a much softer and gentler voice then his physical appearance suggested, I responded with a smile as I attempted to clear my throat. "I'm Alexander Leparde, just call me Alex... Hey, how long have you been here...?" I asked hesitantly. "I'd say about... 6... maybe 7 months? Why'd you ask?" "Oh, I was just wondering... how long has this.. SEED project been going on?" "Now that, I don't know. But hey, stick by me for a bit, there are some things you should know about the facilities." I should consider myself lucky that Leon was kindhearted enough to look out for me. After a couple hours of trying to get to know each other a bit better, talking about our families and such, a soldier came down the halls bellowing: "Lights out! You know the drill boys, curfew time! You have classes in the morning!". I was mortified to hear this, and turned towards Leon with a rather distraught face. "It's not as bad as it sounds Alex... the academic classes are just battle strategies and some history for general tacticians for about 8 hours. And then we start physically training for battle for about 6 hours, you'll get used to it, I promise." Leon chuckled as he climbed into his bed which was parallel to mine. Within seconds, he was out like a light, snoring like an ox, and there I was, staring up into the ceiling worrying about the next day.
August 21st, 1184 [♫]===================================================================================================================
The academic session was awful, I could barely pay attention to the instructor while the majority of the participants were either napping or goofing off. However, there were a few participants who kept note of every single word the instructor said, responding to the lesson and interacting appropriately, they had to be around my age from their physical appearance... But they studied and prodded the lessons like secondary scholars, it was almost fascinating. Almost. I chose to doze off instead. However, someone took inception to that, I was just too unconscious to even notice. Before I even knew it, it was already time for the physical training. We strolled through the halls in small groups, everyone already began establishing their own ring of friends while I followed Leon with my arms crossed behind the back of my head with a pout and scowl from the interruption of my sweet dream of eating at the local buffet.
"Hey Alex, which battle class are you going to take?" Leon randomly asked. "Battle... class? What now?" It was then and there that Leon finally understood that I was an idiot. "...There are three schools here for the training facility, melee, range, and stealth... it's pretty basic... which one are you going for?" I thought for a moment, recoiling my hands slightly to ball them up into fists and loosen them back up. "I'm thinking... melee..." Leon broke into immediate laughter "Oh that's a good one... Alex, most of the melee students, like myself... are big burly guys, I don't think you'd stand a chance in a sparring match." And he was right, even at the school ground, I had the snot beaten out of me by that bully, but I got a good hit in at least... "Then, I guess range will do... I'm not the most... graceful guy around." I sighed reluctantly, only to shrug it off with a chuckle. Leon slapped my back "Alright then! I'll see you during the Cross-Class sparring matches!".
Again, I was royally confused, but Leon kept on walking and entered his battle class, and here I was, alone in a crowd of strangers, following them to my doom. On the lower levels were the ranged training facilities, it was nothing but a massive shooting gallery with walls armed with every firearm and bow known to mankind. The room was massive with an artificial sun high in the center, the ceiling was a beautiful azure, surprisingly close to the actual sky. On the walls mounted with firearms, some of the participants already knew what they wanted, and immediately grabbed a hold of it, I was wandering around for a bit, clueless. Within moments, I was the only one searching for a weapon that looked like a nice fit for me... Again, some people took inception to that, but finally they caught my eye. Dual pistols, oddly enough, they were much lighter then I anticipated, easy to grip and aim down the sight, almost like a dream come true.
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But then it was time for us to aim down along the gallery and practice our precision, and I was just god awful, firing everywhere and everything except my target, which yet again, some people took inception to. The pistols had a lot more recoil then I expected, and fired countless rounds into the air, thankfully, they were just stun rounds, so no one was actually harmed by my mishap. The ranged battle class instructor decided to guide me through the process of aiming and squeezing the trigger, rather than pulling it. After a couple hours, I had a fairly decent grasp on the concept, though I wasn't as precise as I'd like to be, I can definitely make killing shots. After about 2 hours, the gallery began splitting apart as massive gears, turbines, and pistons lifted and moved the entire room. The facility began to restructure itself and combine the three class rooms together into one massive arena, and there I saw Leon with his stun gloves in a boxing stance.
One of the instructors stood in the center of the arena and announced to us all "Alright, you know the drill people, pick two partners, form a small team, and find another team to spar with!" he then retreated back towards the gallery he taught and Leon walked straight towards me. "Oh~ Those guns you got there look fun, hey, I want you to meet someone." Without hesitation, grabbed me by my wrist and dragged me over to this frail looking guy with a near perfect complexion, he seemed a bit older then me, but what stood out the most, was his curly black locks. "Mister Briggs, what is this peasant doing before the esteemed presence of Nikolai Brandy, heir to the Brandy tram industries~?" Wow, I've honestly never wanted to punch anyone more than this guy. The snobby attitude was more than I could tolerate, but if that wasn't enough, he was fixing his hair the entire time, focusing solely on the mirror he held before his "glorious" face.
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It was only seconds before a buzzer went off, signifying that the sparring session had begun. There were no words spoken, no requests, we were suddenly attacked by a rain of hell fire. My adrenaline was pumping far too quickly to process what was going on, and before I knew it, somewhere along the dust caused by the raining bullets I met a pair of eyes. These eyes belonged to a complete stranger, intangible, unrecognizable, a blur. And within that split second, Leon came in with a ferocious yell and killer right hook, sending the assailant back to the ground. "Keep your head in the game Leparde!" Quickly Leon pulled back into stance as I armed my pistols, back to back we stood as the enemy team surrounded us with no Nikolai Brandy in sight. The man who was knocked back by Leon's punch pulled himself back up, wielding a chained kusarigama, a chained sickle of Eastern origin in hand. He kept his body low, squatting slightly as he began to spin his blade around, nice and slow as he made eye contact with Leon who focused right back at him in return. As for me, my eyes were in the sky, one of the enemy team members was gliding through the air with not a rifle in hand, but a bow, and a bow alone. Somehow skating along the air as if it were ice with a sort of azure glow surrounding her legs.
My eyes opened wide as the airborne assailant made her move, raining down more shots from above at us, Leon quickly pushed me out of the way before he dove for the man with the chained sickle. Diving along the ground, I fired the pistols up into the air, trying my best to fire her right out of the sky, to no avail with the artificial sun inside my eyes. I was helpless on the ground while the third member of the enemy team closed in on me with a stun baton, leaping down for a finishing blow, that was, until a complete stranger stood in the way, holding a massive buster sword with one arm to block the attack. he had short red hair, a slim build, he seemed to be around the age of 17, with steel blue eyes and a slender face.
"Now now... that was a dirty move for you all to just crowd the new guy like that..." The red-haired stranger chuckled, a smirk breaking across his face as he swung his buster sword back, releasing a massive ethereal shock wave to disorient the surrounding enemies. Leon managed to catch wind of the red-haired stranger's appearance and leaped out of the way in time before his stun attack, and there was only silence as the enemy team fell back to the ground. "AH! My hair! My beautiful hair!" That was a very sad, but not unfamiliar sound, which explained why our team member was nowhere in sight. He was at a safe distance away from the skirmish panicking to fix his hair from the aerial storm hailed by our enemy archer.
Distraught by the sudden intervention, I scrambled to get back onto my feet, hands tightly gripping to my two pistols as the red haired stranger got into stance for combat. Quickly, I scanned around for our opponents, just as quickly as they were knocked down, they were out of sight, the clouds of dust rising all throughout the arena from the individual battles between all of the participants. As if some sort of second sense kicked in, I tilted my head towards the right as an ethereal arrow shot past me, grazing me by a single hair as I pivot my right foot to turn my body, firing immediately in retaliation. The force of my shots alone were enough to clear the dust in my way, only to reveal nothing. The same trick won't work twice on me... I thought to myself as I jumped back, dodging another rain of arrows... Up there!... I braced myself in a power stance to withstand the recoil as I fired every last round in my clips right above where I was previously standing. Not only did I clear the away the dust that rose from her arrows, but I nailed her repeatedly along her chest and abdomen with the stun rounds.
While in mid-air, she blacked out and began falling down towards the ground... Almost instinctively I dropped my firearms and ran towards her point of descent, leaping ahead in a grand attempt to catch her. The catch was a success, unfortunately, I roughed up my knee sliding along the ground just to make sure she wasn't injured from the fall, how ironic. I was so enthused by my one on one with her, I paid no attention to the kusarigama wielder lurking beyond the dust. After setting my opponent back onto the ground gently, a chain was violently wrapped around my neck, dragging me back along the ground. Panicked, I tried to pull at the chain as my legs were being torn up by the ground beneath me, rocks and debris cutting at my back. The constriction around my neck made my thoughts fade as fear began to sit in. He's... he's trying to kill me...! I thought in a frantic voice. My eye lids grew heavy as my neck was bruised beyond belief, but right before I black out, Leon comes back into my range of view with his killer right hook.
The assailant lost his grip and collapsed to the ground, Leon's eyes were filled with a grave look of stifled anger, outraged by what the kusarigama wielder attempted to do during a simple sparring match. As my eyes began to close, I could still see Leon marching over, forcibly straddling the assailant's waist as he began to assault him, one heavy punch after another, painting the ground in his opponent's blood and teeth.
August 22nd, 1184[♫]===================================================================================================================
Slowly, my eyes open, a pure white ceiling welcomes me with somber ambiance, the scent of antibiotics and disinfectants grows pungent as the nurses and faculty shuffle up and down these halls. I turn my head towards the door, trying to read the reversed letters on the glass panel above its frame. "Infirmary..." I muttered to myself as I turned back up to my dear friend, the ceiling. Eventually, the shuffling stopped, and silence has crept in onto my little world, my eye lids growing heavy just before a voice pierced the air. "You were knocked out for some time you know." It was a female voice, gentle, reassuring, I turned my head towards the source to find someone laying beside me in another bed. It was my opponent from the cross-class sparring round.
At the time, I was more worried about avoiding the hailstorm of arrows, but now that I've gotten a chance to really see her, she turned out to be quite the looker. Emerald eyes that pierced beyond the veils of human deception, much like Leon's with short blonde hair that would hang so delicately along her frail cheeks. And to my surprise, she greeted me with a smile. "...Really now? Well, I've always been a heavy sleeper." I chuckled softly turning back to the ceiling, stretching my arms briefly, only to wince in pain as I accidentally turned my back. "Gck-! Your pal did a number on me..." Slowly I reached back, attempting to rub my cuts as she interjected. "Orlo's just over protective over me, please don't think too badly of him..." I blinked for a moment as I turned back towards her "Hey, I never caught your name." She smiled at me again "Anna, Anna Kleines... though, Orlo likes to call me Anne, it's strange really, you'd think my name would be too short to come up with a nickname for." She chuckled. She seemed to be a bit older than me, around the age of 15, I'm certain of it...
"Well, I'm Alex, Alexander Leparde... Sorry about earlier, it felt like you were going to kill me, haha..." I chuckled with her awkwardly, only to be astonished yet again as she broke out with a snort, laughing hard. "It's perfectly fine, didn't hurt a bit... And Alex...? I appreciate you catching me back there." She said those things in such a warm tone, it was almost inspiring actually... So I spent the day laying beside her in the infirmary, just talking about things. Like our interests and hobbies, our homes and our families, and our experiences so far at the facility. It was a pleasant day despite the injuries.
August 29th, 1184[♫]===================================================================================================================
It was a long morning, and a long afternoon, but today didn't stand out because of the training session, no... It was lunch where things got interesting. As much as I would love to simply eat the "healthy" gruel scooped onto our plates, I have to thank Leon for making that day very interesting. Ever since that little scuffle between him and Orlo, who wore long black hair with ferociously golden eyes with bandages around his jaw from the sparring match last week. Those two kept jumping at each other's throats like cats and dogs... Or as Anna likes to put it, a married couple. Now that would definitely be an interesting occurrence. Anyhoo... I decided to sit by Anna and continued our conversation from before, which if I remember correctly, we argued over whose mom was a better cook. Orlo took great inception to this and immediately butts in, prying himself between me and Anna. "Well looky here, the new guy's lost! Your buddy's over there by the way short stalk." He muttered as he points towards Leon who just received his "lunch" too.
Slowly, Leon made his way towards the table we were all sitting at, and sat across from me, staring dead at Orlo the entire time. I could feel the intensity from the way these two stared each other down. After some awkward silence, Orlo opened his mouth "What a-" Only to be cut off by a face full of sloppy gruel that Leon so kindly decided to share. Anna gasped then giggled as Orly slowly wiped his face clean, staring dead at Leon as if a challenge was issued. "Figures you'd try to lose some weight and drop your trash off with me... Porky." He mumbled as he scooped up some of my lunch with his bare hands. "WHY DON'T YOU TAKE SOME BACK!? YOU EARNED IT!" He yelled after smacking Leon's face with my lunch. before I could even say anything, Anna grabbed me by my collar and tugged me under the table as an entire war erupted in the cafeteria, slop and food, and rather petite participants flying everywhere as random people used their abilities to shoot projectiles all over the place.
It was utter chaos, and I enjoyed it so much... Only, Anna didn't allow me to join in on the fight. After a rather hectic session, the faculty members broke down the fights. As I pulled myself out from under the table, all I could see was a sea of dazed, stuffed participants with food and gruel slapped and spread all over the walls, ceilings, and floor. And on top of that pile of participants stood Leon and Orlo Slugging each other in the face back and forth... "Yeah... this is going to be a very interesting experience..."
December 14th, 1185[♫]===========================================================================================================================
It was around this time that the faculty members announced: "It's time for the second phase of the experiment". And one by one, they would guide each participant down to the lower levels of the facility. We were told that Doctor Fausto would be ready to operate on us in order to help us release our true potential, and hone our abilities. Now that I think about it, out of the entire time I've been here, not once has any of the participants have actually seen or heard from Doctor Fausto. It was hard to believe that enough time had passed for this phase of the experiment to arrive. The second phase had been going on for nearly 3 months, and only half of the participants that came down for the operation came back up.
Even those that came back up, changed drastically. Breathing was difficult for them, and moving any muscle in their body was painful. There was one poor sod who couldn't even blink without screaming in pain. Was the operation really that horrible...? I had my doubts, twiddling my fingers as I sat on my bed, silent and distraught, only to feel the warmth of Leon's comforting hand on my shoulder. I turned to him, still silent, and he too the same, eventually a gentle smile made its way onto my face as he smiled right back. "It'll be fine Alex... I'm sure." Those words will forever be etched into my memory.
December 17th, 1185
It was my turn to lay on the operation table, staring into the bright lights as faculty members surrounded me, but there was one pair of eyes that hung over a surgical mask that stood out to me, they were an unnatural violet color. Dark, yet bright, alluring in the way a mystery would be, and yet, there was a sort of suffocating feeling about them. Slowly, the surgeon removed his mask and smiled softly at me. "What's your name?" He asked a rather fatherly tone. "...Alex..." I whispered, the fear was evident in my watery eyes. But the surgeon only smiled at me "Well Alex, don't worry, I'll take care of you, I promise..." He playfully ruffles my hair before applying the anesthetics. Within seconds, my eyes would shut tight, and just as quickly as they closed, they opened right back up.
But my body couldn't move...
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Slowly, and precisely, his scalpel bisected my chest, my skin peeling away like paper as he would cut me in such a clean fashion. The anesthetics kept my bleeding to a minimum for their operation... Unfortunately, it was the only effect that was working properly. The cold touch of the blade was reassuring, it reminded me that I was alive, that I was human, that I can suffer, that I am suffering. The pain was almost unbearable, but I couldn't even scream. Tears streamed down my cheeks as one of the doctor's assistants notices that my pupils began to dilate repeatedly. "Doctor, I don't think the anesthetic is working properly". Shrugging off his assistant's comment he coldly stated "We're already in the middle of the operation, suffering right now will only make it easier for his body to adapt, keep a notation for some observation for his development."
Those were the last words I could hear clearly before he began prying my ribs open, all I could hear was running water as he began picking and prodding inside my chest cavity. The pain felt like an eternity, but the restructuring of my organs was only to make room for the implant. The Doctor and his assistants all wore hazmat suits as they unlocked a steel container. And inside that container was what seemed like a glowing azure tumor with living tendrils waving back and forth. "So far, from the past experiments, it seems that the most applicable location for the seed is somewhere underneath the heart..." The doctor mumbled as he slowly and carefully placed the tumor inside of me. There was a sickening clicking sound coming from the implant as its tendrils began to coil and unwrap around random bones and bits and pieces of my muscles as if it were scanning about inside of me.
But eventually, it made it's home nestled between my stomach and heart, burrowing deeper inside as it's tendrils began to pierce my nerves, spreading like wildfire as a burning sensation ran through my body. It was unbelievably painful. That 3-hour operation felt like it went on for decades. Slowly, one by one, the doctor would move the organs back appropriately, and stitch me back together after fixing my ribs. They removed the anesthetics, and there I laid, silent, my eyes opened wide with tears running down my cheeks as that thing squirmed around inside me...
December 19th, 1185[♫]===========================================================================================================================
