[h2]The Orphans (15 years ago)[/h2] [img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/d9/41/ee/d941ee36326b8029c42a87e81fc38bdf.jpg[/img] "Love...what is love?" "Love is the feeling of embrace when looked upon by God with grace my dear child, have you felt this before?" "I don't know..." "Have you felt deeply connected with something greater than yourself?" "I think so...but I can't quite remember." "Have you ever thought of sacrificing yourself to something or someone?" "Yes...I always said I'd give up everything just to see my parents someday, but...I know that can never happen." "Why my child?" "They died before I could remember their faces..." "I see, well my child, although you may not remember your parents, you felt them, and that feeling you recognize it is love, and by the grace of God, He will answer your prayer to see them someday." "How will I see them?" "When it is your time, He will call you, and if you answer, you will see them again." "I don't know if I understand." "You will...now go, the sanctuary is serving dinner." The little boy picked himself up from his knees, a tear slipping down his cheek as he thought about the feeling of love toward his parents. He raised his hands, clasped them, and bowed his head to respect his Elder's position. "Amen." His Elder responded with reverence pouring from his voice and eyes, raising his hands, clasping them together, and bowing his head too, "Amen." The little boy turned away sprinting toward the dining hall in the sanctuary on planet Rivo, a planet known for its more extreme climates, it was filled with desert dunes and high rocky snow-capped mountains. There were some regions of trees and forests, but it was not common, and most of the surface was covered inland with about 35-40% covered in water, 15% of that water is fresh. The little boy's stomach growled as he approached the Hall Master with his bowl, "Hello Caelum, happy birthday! How are your studies?" The little boy answered, "Thank you Luminary Daste! Some trouble, but Luminary Honas helped me find peace with it." The Hall Master smiled pouring a hot soupy pea-based meal into his wooden bowl. "I hear you have recently been invited to the Seventh Academy, how exciting!" Luminary Daste's grin gained more edge across his cheeks. "Yes I did, I don't know if I have any other choice, I am too young to join as an initiate of the Church, and soon I will be too old to be a permanent resident of the sanctuary." Caelum's face showed uncertainty and stress as he received one more spoon full of his dinner. "Do not fret, go speak with Luminary Meela, she has given great guidance in my days of strife as she has done for many in this very place." Luminary Daste's smile never seemed to leave his face. "Thank you," Caelum responded and moved to the side to grab bread. He headed over to a community table where several other children were eating their meals. "Welcome Caelum, we heard the good news! Evelyn received the same news yesterday, what are you going to do?" One of the boys asked eagerly. "I don't know yet, did Evelyn decide?" Caelum replied curiously. "Yes! She is leaving in two weeks, didn't hesitate, I don't know if I could go, I don't know if I am as brave." The younger boy's gaze slightly drifted to the side. Caelum saw his spirit begin to drop slightly as the young boy tried identifying his courage within himself, "I think when you are my age, you will be confident in knowing what you want, unlike myself." Caelum smirked. "Yeah, maybe! I hope you are right." The young boy sat a little taller in his seat. "If you'd like to join me after dinner, I am going to speak with Luminary Meela for guidance, we could race from the Hall to her office?" The young boy looked over, always ready for a challenge, "Yeah! The first one to Meela makes the other's bed!" Caelum nodded, "Deal." [h2][b]Master Lock & Key (Present)[/b][/h2] [img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/00/c5/32/00c532b41ff1e4d689857f40b91a1f82.jpg[/img] "General Octavia, is Major Baesili ready?" Mayven asked, the room was filled with top tier officers awaiting their commanding orders as the strategic plan for operation Master Key was delivered. "Yes," Octavia responded. "Good, because we received a transmission of Saxony's, they have declared their opposition against the Dominion. While the Dominion receives, activates, and responds, I want us to take full advantage of this opportunity. They will be distracted and attentive toward their Saxony counterparts. Operation Master Key is now greenlit." Mayven declared ith confidence in her General. "Great, Major Baesili will take point, she has the authentication code when entering the Dominion's restricted system. Protocols with procedures were extracted by our intelligence team, Major Baesili is currently being trained on them as we speak. She has ensured her team is ready and prepped with their last simulation resulting in 87% success rate, worst-case scenario was rated at a 61% success rate, with medium casualties. The Dominion transport ship is 97% complete in repairs after our initial encounter and takeover. We will have a battle fleet ready in case Major Baesili and her team are compromised. Warp coordinates will be transmitted from the team's location as they move through the interior. These pings are encrypted and will provide us a strong area of emergence for reinforcing their position if things move into our contingency phase." General Octavia turned her gaze away from Mayven after reporting, raised her hand to touch the screen in front of her initiating all screens to boot up with various information regarding Operation Master Key. A 3-dimensional blueprint expanded on everyone's screen showing a large structure with several layers and corridors, "this is the Dominion's highly classified maximum security prison, our target is reported to be here," a red dot pinged on the blueprint as it spun from a profile view to a birds view, "our team will enter here and predicted to move through these zones before arriving at our target." The blueprint compressed into the top left corner as a profile of the target expanded on the screen. "Our target was a highly decorated, loyal, and right-hand strategic officer of ours truly, Octo Smith," the target's headshot moved to the right of the screen as information about the target expanded for everyone to follow Octavia's briefing. "He was sent here after the Dominion made some fatal errors in command which the public demanded answers, instead of those answers, Octo Smith gave them a scapegoat, at least this is what I believe." Octavia swiped her hand from left to right which moved everything off-screen and presented another slide, "these are the discoveries our intel team managed to find about those particular events leading up to our target's condemnation, if we can secure our target, I think he will be more than inclined to help us with our next phase and generate a substantial momentum in our efforts against the Dominion." Octavia lightly tapped the screen powering it down. She raised her eyes to meet everyone in the room once again. "Your units are critical in this mission, make sure everyone is geared, prepared, and ready to move out in 72 hours, any questions?" The room had none, "Thank you for your duty to our mission, you are dismissed." The officers moved from their seats and out the door in a single file fashion, Mayven looked over to Octavia, "well done, I look forward to hearing about your success." Octavia nodded in respect, turned toward the door, exiting with an order to her demeanor displaying why she was the commanding General of the OPAO. [h2][b]Club Denizen[/b][/h2] [img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/02/7c/d8/027cd822f0a0722250a4c820760860d5.jpg[/img] The room smelt of sex, booze, and sweat. Half-naked bodies, dirty floors, and lights that flashed only to provide an over-stimulating environment to give those who entered a place to distract their guilt, shame, or otherwise constant restlessness. "Do you want a tall order of me, hot stuff?" A slender woman wearing a tight mini-skirt, high heels, and a thin top bent over revealing her cleavage and a beauty mark just above the left tip of her lip. Her brown curled hair dropped over her shoulders as the lights revealed gloss across her lips. She was leaned over at a table where a middle-aged man with slightly disheveled features had been sitting. You wouldn't notice his high-stress levels by looking at him under this light, but his eyes contained blackened bags beneath them, his facial hair slightly grown out, a tie which appeared to have been worn for days with a few visible stains in the right light. Nothing about his dress spoke, "maintained", two of the buttons were not locked, sleeves rolled up unevenly, and about four drinks deep in scotch. "How much is that order?" He smiled feeling something in his gut about her, but he was too intoxicated to actually identify what it was. She leaned in close to his ears and whispered, he replied, "Yes." Her hand slipped down his waist in between his legs and back up to his hand, gently she guided him to a private room where she placed him on a lounge couch. "Mmm, let's start with the lights off shall we?" He had succumbed to her seductive personality, without even being aware of her claws in his head, he nodded and leaned back. She slid her hand back digging into his skull just enough to raise sensation in an otherwise numbing body. She turned around showing off her long legs and back end strutting over to a light switch. Turning back toward him, her hand slipped over the switch pushing it down. A few seconds passed which for him felt like an eternity, the excitement built and he was beginning to become impatient, emotionally regulating while intoxicated was no man's game. Then he felt a hand cross his inner thigh, he perked, and then a strong sensation of pain cracked across his skull. His eyes tried opening but his vision was hazy, the lids closed shut once again. Seconds later he tried them again, but they began to shut. Cold water blasted across his face firing his body to awaken without his control, "what the fuck?" he reacted as he coughed up water from his lungs. He began to feel his hands, but they were tied behind his back, his legs, but they were bound to the legs of what felt like a cold steel metal chair. Lights were directly in his view unable to see anything distinguishable past their position. "Where the hell am I?" A surge of electricity was felt as his body tensed up uncontrollably until it didn't. He looked down at his bare naked chest with electrodes pressed into recently shaved areas, a voice responded before he could think to ask another question, "You are here, and we are asking the questions, understood?" The bounded clubber spit back, "fuck you!" A reply quickly regretted as more volts crashed into his nervous system initiating all sorts of bodily reactions. "You are working with the Martinet, you were bought by them for security codes, security codes they used to infiltrate the Bastion Enterprise HQ in Daedalus, correct?" A voice, definitely feminine in nature and sharp in its structure. "I don't know who the fuck you are or what you are talking about-" before he could continue more voltage raised hell in his neural network. The voice repeated itself, "correct?" The man tried moving his body but could not, he was in the place he was afraid of, and living the nightmare he was attempting to run from at that club, figures it brought him exactly to the same place. "3...2...1..." The voice counted down with the man not responding. A dark silhouette revealed itself from behind the light with no recognizable features, it was large and tall, most likely an A.I. The machine moved its way to the man's chair, tipping it back, "no! no! wait!" Without stopping the A.I. stretched a wet towel across his face and poured water over it. The experience of drowning was a terrifying one, especially in a situation where flailing was not even an option, every part of the biological instinct was halted in its attempt to stop what was happening in reality. The seat lifted back to a level position, the towel pulled across off his face, but the A.I. remained standing behind him. He coughed up water as his body kept moving through impulsive defenses. The voice repeated itself again, "correct?" "I don't know-" Without a passing moment, the A.I. swung a large metal rod across the shin bone-breaking it. Pain switches flipped on as a deformed leg remained after all of the agony released from the clubber's mouth. "STOP! FUCKING STOP!" He screamed, his mind beginning to race, it was done. There was no way out of this, they knew and were going to keep him alive until they got what they wanted. "Chief Information Officer of Bastion Enterprise, I.D. 07089528, born in the Swallows, class of no-one-will-remember, father of three kids and a wife who will be reminded of your treason and last moments at a gentleman's club, by the end of this you will be a Denizen to your own family and friends...are you certain you wish to continue telling me, you do not know?" The voice became more fierce, a sense of bubbling anger and determination began surfacing in tone. The man started to cry, the pain, the situation, the decisions up to this point, and now the possible defamation of his name across media channels which would have a direct psychological impact on his family. He composed himself, raised his head slightly, "Yes, you are correct." "Good, now may we have a civilized conversation, Mr. Williams?" The voice asked. "Yes, what do you want?" Life seeped out of him with every memory of deceit passing through his skull. "I want to know who contacted you and where I might find them." The voice claimed. "Ok." [h2][b]The Orphans Pt. 2 (Present)[/b][/h2] [url=https://imgbb.com/][img]https://i.ibb.co/HVbmjqg/Demis.png[/img][/url] A large power suit smashed down from above creating a shock wave sending machine dummy soldiers up into the air and on the ground. A tailored officer sat in the observation tower of a training hangar with an open skylight, "So that is a Demi?" The large power suit engaged an arm shield with a large beaming blade. Before the dummies could get up, the Demi jetted toward one impaling it quickly dividing the body in half. Swiftly pivoted to another just getting to its feet swiping at the head popping it off. The third raised his weapon but already the Demi found its blade placement in its forehead while pulling a sidearm out to hit the fourth dummy in the right shoulder, this shot directly malfunctioned the dummy's ability to pull the trigger of its weapon, a second shot pierced the solar plexus exiting the sternum. The Demi called over comms, "All units neutralized." The hangar shook slightly with a large horizontal platform at the far end released moving underground. Seconds later a tier 1 mechanoid unit climbed to the surface powered by a photon cannon and three mini-guns. The tank fired its mini-guns forcing the Demi to dip, duck, and dodge while moving toward the target. [img]https://i.pinimg.com/564x/2b/e9/c5/2be9c5c810822d8c755df33ef9145d4d.jpg[/img] The officer looked over at the other, "no fear?" The other officer who had been head of the Demi training program smirked, "Yes, but their fear starts and ends with God." The Demi closed in getting chipped in the shoulder forcing it to dodge and roll. All the guns were trained on the Demi's location and as it was about to fire, a second Demi dropped from above, two explosions occurred before the Demi hit the top of the tank, the Demi's blade cut directly through where the explosions happened, resulting in the Demi to cleanly pierce all the way until it was beneath the tank. Jetting out to the side, the tank with four legs supporting its heightened position collapsed to the floor with its main source of power eliminated. A precise hit for the second Demi, a Demi which had a feminine build compared to the first one. "Now, all units are neutralized." If you could see the second Demi's lips they'd have displayed a playful resolve connected to her comment. The training officer pressed a button to blast their order from the intercom speakers located around the observation tower. "Good work, Evelyn, Caelum, return to base for a debriefing." The officer clicked the intercom speaker off. The two Demi's looked up and nodded, only to jet off back to HQ. "Was this substantial enough for field approval?" The training officer said. The other officer with wide eyes replied, "Yes, more than enough, great job, I can't believe the pace of this program and to think they started off as orphans." "Don't underestimate our Order commander...they've been here longer than the principalities and the Dominion." The training officer turned away and exited. The other officer a little perplexed by the comment followed behind.