Thomas remained saluted while the soldier who told his men to point their rifles patted him to check for any bombs or weapons. When there were no signs of any weapons, the soldier visibly sighed, and told his men to stand down.
The commotion gave rise to some excitement, but the soldier told the motorcade to continue. The crowd who saw the scene, dispersed seeing that it was nothing.
“Thomas Armstrong,” the soldier cursed. “Can you not fucking appear like that?”
“I can’t help myself, Vito,” Thomas said. “Not when I know that you are coming here. You are doing good it seems.”
“I am. You?”
“Doing well. I recently found a good place to settle down.”
“That’s good. I have a place here in the city. You can come after this motorcade,” Vito looked over Thomas’s shoulder and saw Alden and Melia walking towards them. “Good, good on you, my brother. Let’s meet up in Avid’s Street Apartment Nine.”
Vito went back to the motorcade, and joined the company of soldiers that waited for him. Thomas lowered his salute before feeling a smack from someone’s hand.
“You fool,” Melia pointed a finger. “Can you not do that without warning? I thought they were going to shoot you dead!”
“Yeah, at least warn us.”
Thomas stared at the two and nodded.
It had not been long ever since he met these two.
But he liked them. He was fond of them and the orphanage they ran. Brother Alden was easy to get along with. Melia was a straight-lace woman, but kept it in her head while keeping it away.
Nana, the orphanage’s guardian, was a nice lady. She knew pain and had seen pain all her life that she was using the chance given to her by God to make amends.
“I, please forgive me for acting just now. That man was one of the few who had found me a way out when I needed help. I couldn’t find it in my heart to not take a salute.”
“Fine, fine, at least tell us, okay?”
“Okay,” Thomas agreed.
He could at least accept that. These two were the people he had to live with now. He rather not make a mess and make him dislike him. And they were probably concerned about him.
“Ah, my senior told me that I should visit him in his apartment for a drink, are we leaving today?”
“No,” Melia answered, “Nana has a small house in the city we can use. If you have business with that person, then you can go. Besides, it’s not like we own you, Thomas. Just warn us when you try to do something like what.”
“I understand. I'll be waiting here then. Please leave without me, it seems like I have business to care of in this city.”
Alden and Melia looked at each other. “Then keep yourself out of trouble. Lano Town is kind, but I don’t know about the city if they have the same reaction.”
“I understand. Besides, I don’t think they’ll realize that I’m magiborne so easily.”
“Then take care,” Alden said. Melia handed the papers they processed for him and left with Alden.
***
Thomas left the municipal hall, hailed a cab, and went to the military garrison here in the Capital City. Though Knia was called the Capital City of Holmia. It was only for Holmians, while the rest of the United Turian considers Velecha as the ‘true capital’ of Holmia.
The cab driver gave him a discount after seeing his service uniform. The military barrack guardsman who were on the front asked for his reason to be in the barrack.
Thomas quietly handed his service badge, and his identification papers. The guardsman looked at the papers, and let him in without a fuss.
The stuffy air of the barrack, the uniformed men and women gave a feeling of familiarity. He went to the deeper area of the lab, and looked for one of the doctors-in-charge of the operations.
“Oh, Thomas?” A voice said.
“Doctor Riley,” Thomas said. He approached the Doctor who held a clipboard. The Doctor lowered his clipboard, and scanned him.
“You dyed your hair?”
“I did. Since it’s better that they don’t know that I am a magiborne.”
“So what brings you here?” He started moving. Thomas followed his pace.
“I wanted to get myself checked.”
“Of course, you might have one of the better built magiborne, but there are chances that it might just go wrong.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here.”
Thomas followed the Doctor back to his personal lab. There was a medical tank with attachments meant for the limbs. Thomas unrobed himself, and wore the medical dress. He placed himself in the medical tank and had thick needles inserted into his limbs.
The sickening feeling made Thomas want to break out and break the Doctor’s skull, but the feeling was repressed by something else.
“Your vitals are stable, but like all of your brothers and sisters of the magiborne. You are degrading as time passes. As if there was a poison that keeps on burning away the nutrients and essence of your blood. I am going to wound your body.”
“Okay.”
A small cut was made on Thomas’s chest. Blood poured out of his body, and it was only when a minute came that the cut was sewn naturally by his own healing factor.
“Your regeneration cycle is considered one of the best, but your healing has slowed down considerably. Not to mention that I am detecting many problems in your heart.”
“How so, Doctor?”
“Dragon’s blood.”
“Oh,” Thomas muttered dully, “how long until it kills me?”
“I don’t know, son. You can probably live a longer life if you don’t exhaust your healing factor, but considering that your factor is healing your body fast enough to keep it alive. I say you can live a good human life if you don’t get yourself into accidents, but I doubt that.”
“You know, Doc?”
“Vito told me how you got out. We are still tracking your movements.”
“Miss Nana, she outright told me that Officer Karlan allowed me to get into their home because she knew who I was. I didn’t think that.”
Thomas recalled him and Nana’s first talk.
She knew who he was. And knew who he was as a soldier. Even then she told her to stay.
“Nana’s the best one there is.”
“I was skeptical, but then again who doesn’t have some bad parts in them?”
The first thing that Thomas saw from Nana was a picture of her executing traitors and hanging demikins with a rope. Yes, she was in the medical team, but it was also a commissariat that disciplined soldiers and executed non-friendly oppositions.
Saying that she was the kindest truly was an understatement. Then again, he understood that by seeing the town of Lano, and the people around it.
Melia and Alden might have been clueless, but then again, that was years ago, and he saw how she acted when meeting with her daughter.
The old Commissar had enough of that light, and left to retire in the town where no one other than Officer Karlan knew who she was. Thomas thought that Chief Zackary might know as well, but they were silent.
“Everywhere I got everyone’s hiding their skeletons.”
Doctor Riley nodded. He typed in a command line on his computer, and started the treatment.
“Talk to me, Doc. Why were the magiborne born?”
“I don’t know, son. What I do know is that back then the original ones were called Hounds. And that they were much stronger and stable than the current generation of your kind. No one knows what they fought during the last days of the year 1923 or what they had to stop that caused most of the original-blooded to die off. But we do know that because of the Emperor’s desire back then to heal the Eldest Daughter of the Noble Blood, they had hunted down most of the Hounds, crushed them, and it led to a war that broke most of the Old Empire.”
“Then the magi appeared, led by Duchess Mildred Anastasia Whitefall, and she had helped in acquiring the seat of Empress, personally leading the ‘Magi’ and ‘Nuller’ and beheading the newly crowned Emperor, and shutting down the 108th nobles who stood against them. The Lazonians were the first ally of the Empress, then the rest followed, knowing that they could not possibly win when the Empress’s forces had secured those nuclear armaments with the Lazonians.”
There was no one of the hounds that survived when most of the founders were killed. It was even said that the Master of the Hounds had found its end after facing a being from another world. It was seen everywhere and Holmian spies saw how that red pillar of light descended into Lazon’s highest peak.
Vinam’s Blood, the blood that runs on all magiborne. How someone could have defeated a being that even the best weapons of that time couldn’t repel was beyond them.
From 1924 to 1930 there was a civil war that broke out. It ended with the unification of the Old Empire, and the formation of the Confederate of Athesia.
It was only a few months after the seven-year war that another war happened. No one really knew what sparked the war and how it led eight hundred-thousand people lost, including the soldiers, and the remaining civilians.
It was during that time that the Magi had presented themselves to the rest of the continents in an effort to stop any of the coming war. It was also them that brought forward the ‘solution’ to the problem with the demikin. With Nuller magi-technicians working closely with Holmia, they developed the endoskeleton models that led to faster and tougher powered suits that spearheaded the Demikin Wars that lasted years because of the massive and war-like nature of the beasts.
From 1935 to 1970, the world was always at war with the demikins who, through war, had also developed. It was only when they started Operation Sunfall that the demikin were reduced to a mere small nation back in the southern seas where their dominion was.
With an estimated death toll of seven hundred million. The combined alliance of the three continents defeated the non-humans.
The demikins are still fighting. And that was a problem that they couldn’t understand. It was said that if the Magiborne wielding the Vulcan units and powered exoskeletons didn’t exist during the era, there might have been another way.
Dialogue could have been possible, but because of a loose magiborne, it became fact that there was nothing to be done. Magiborne were bred, augmented for war, and perhaps it was their kismet that they were born like this.
Born from Hounds that were said to be a nightmare to kill. Then reborn and named as magiborne after the world hadn’t had enough and wanted more of them to win against the non-humans who were different from them.
The Nullers Sect had warned about the ‘green wind’ that it would cost them and so when they couldn’t use mankind’s greatest weapons, they turned to greater warriors.
“And now the warriors have nowhere to do other than go mad or hunt down more of their enemies,” Thomas mournfully said. “Doctor Riley, if I do start to go bad, I want you to put me down.”
The Hounds of the Magi were always put down when they did not serve well. Even the bits of happiness that Thomas had from the past days were...momentarily.
“The order will be commencing. I believe Colonel Vito will be instructing you, Thomas.”
“Understood, can I use the phone? I need to tell my new acquaintances that I have a job. I doubt that this will ever be a one-time thing anyway.”
“Not with the way you got out, Thomas. The world’s going to shit again, and this time we don’t have the demikins to blame our problems to.”
Thomas knew he wasn’t going to be free from what he was.
Thomas remained saluted while the soldier who told his men to point their rifles patted him to check for any bombs or weapons. When there were no signs of any weapons, the soldier visibly sighed, and told his men to stand down.
The commotion gave rise to some excitement, but the soldier told the motorcade to continue. The crowd who saw the scene, dispersed seeing that it was nothing.
“Thomas Armstrong,” the soldier cursed. “Can you not fucking appear like that?”
“I can’t help myself, Vito,” Thomas said. “Not when I know that you are coming here. You are doing good it seems.”
“I am. You?”
“Doing well. I recently found a good place to settle down.”
“That’s good. I have a place here in the city. You can come after this motorcade,” Vito looked over Thomas’s shoulder and saw Alden and Melia walking towards them. “Good, good on you, my brother. Let’s meet up in Avid’s Street Apartment Nine.”
Vito went back to the motorcade, and joined the company of soldiers that waited for him. Thomas lowered his salute before feeling a smack from someone’s hand.
“You fool,” Melia pointed a finger. “Can you not do that without warning? I thought they were going to shoot you dead!”
“Yeah, at least warn us.”
Thomas stared at the two and nodded.
It had not been long ever since he met these two.
But he liked them. He was fond of them and the orphanage they ran. Brother Alden was easy to get along with. Melia was a straight-lace woman, but kept it in her head while keeping it away.
Nana, the orphanage’s guardian, was a nice lady. She knew pain and had seen pain all her life that she was using the chance given to her by God to make amends.
“I, please forgive me for acting just now. That man was one of the few who had found me a way out when I needed help. I couldn’t find it in my heart to not take a salute.”
“Fine, fine, at least tell us, okay?”
“Okay,” Thomas agreed.
He could at least accept that. These two were the people he had to live with now. He rather not make a mess and make him dislike him. And they were probably concerned about him.
“Ah, my senior told me that I should visit him in his apartment for a drink, are we leaving today?”
“No,” Melia answered, “Nana has a small house in the city we can use. If you have business with that person, then you can go. Besides, it’s not like we own you, Thomas. Just warn us when you try to do something like what.”
“I understand. I'll be waiting here then. Please leave without me, it seems like I have business to care of in this city.”
Alden and Melia looked at each other. “Then keep yourself out of trouble. Lano Town is kind, but I don’t know about the city if they have the same reaction.”
“I understand. Besides, I don’t think they’ll realize that I’m magiborne so easily.”
“Then take care,” Alden said. Melia handed the papers they processed for him and left with Alden.
***
Thomas left the municipal hall, hailed a cab, and went to the military garrison here in the Capital City. Though Knia was called the Capital City of Holmia. It was only for Holmians, while the rest of the United Turian considers Velecha as the ‘true capital’ of Holmia.
The cab driver gave him a discount after seeing his service uniform. The military barrack guardsman who were on the front asked for his reason to be in the barrack.
Thomas quietly handed his service badge, and his identification papers. The guardsman looked at the papers, and let him in without a fuss.
The stuffy air of the barrack, the uniformed men and women gave a feeling of familiarity. He went to the deeper area of the lab, and looked for one of the doctors-in-charge of the operations.
“Oh, Thomas?” A voice said.
“Doctor Riley,” Thomas said. He approached the Doctor who held a clipboard. The Doctor lowered his clipboard, and scanned him.
“You dyed your hair?”
“I did. Since it’s better that they don’t know that I am a magiborne.”
“So what brings you here?” He started moving. Thomas followed his pace.
“I wanted to get myself checked.”
“Of course, you might have one of the better built magiborne, but there are chances that it might just go wrong.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here.”
Thomas followed the Doctor back to his personal lab. There was a medical tank with attachments meant for the limbs. Thomas unrobed himself, and wore the medical dress. He placed himself in the medical tank and had thick needles inserted into his limbs.
The sickening feeling made Thomas want to break out and break the Doctor’s skull, but the feeling was repressed by something else.
“Your vitals are stable, but like all of your brothers and sisters of the magiborne. You are degrading as time passes. As if there was a poison that keeps on burning away the nutrients and essence of your blood. I am going to wound your body.”
“Okay.”
A small cut was made on Thomas’s chest. Blood poured out of his body, and it was only when a minute came that the cut was sewn naturally by his own healing factor.
“Your regeneration cycle is considered one of the best, but your healing has slowed down considerably. Not to mention that I am detecting many problems in your heart.”
“How so, Doctor?”
“Dragon’s blood.”
“Oh,” Thomas muttered dully, “how long until it kills me?”
“I don’t know, son. You can probably live a longer life if you don’t exhaust your healing factor, but considering that your factor is healing your body fast enough to keep it alive. I say you can live a good human life if you don’t get yourself into accidents, but I doubt that.”
“You know, Doc?”
“Vito told me how you got out. We are still tracking your movements.”
“Miss Nana, she outright told me that Officer Karlan allowed me to get into their home because she knew who I was. I didn’t think that.”
Thomas recalled him and Nana’s first talk.
She knew who he was. And knew who he was as a soldier. Even then she told her to stay.
“Nana’s the best one there is.”
“I was skeptical, but then again who doesn’t have some bad parts in them?”
The first thing that Thomas saw from Nana was a picture of her executing traitors and hanging demikins with a rope. Yes, she was in the medical team, but it was also a commissariat that disciplined soldiers and executed non-friendly oppositions.
Saying that she was the kindest truly was an understatement. Then again, he understood that by seeing the town of Lano, and the people around it.
Melia and Alden might have been clueless, but then again, that was years ago, and he saw how she acted when meeting with her daughter.
The old Commissar had enough of that light, and left to retire in the town where no one other than Officer Karlan knew who she was. Thomas thought that Chief Zackary might know as well, but they were silent.
“Everywhere I got everyone’s hiding their skeletons.”
Doctor Riley nodded. He typed in a command line on his computer, and started the treatment.
“Talk to me, Doc. Why were the magiborne born?”
“I don’t know, son. What I do know is that back then the original ones were called Hounds. And that they were much stronger and stable than the current generation of your kind. No one knows what they fought during the last days of the year 1923 or what they had to stop that caused most of the original-blooded to die off. But we do know that because of the Emperor’s desire back then to heal the Eldest Daughter of the Noble Blood, they had hunted down most of the Hounds, crushed them, and it led to a war that broke most of the Old Empire.”
“Then the magi appeared, led by Duchess Mildred Anastasia Whitefall, and she had helped in acquiring the seat of Empress, personally leading the ‘Magi’ and ‘Nuller’ and beheading the newly crowned Emperor, and shutting down the 108th nobles who stood against them. The Lazonians were the first ally of the Empress, then the rest followed, knowing that they could not possibly win when the Empress’s forces had secured those nuclear armaments with the Lazonians.”
There was no one of the hounds that survived when most of the founders were killed. It was even said that the Master of the Hounds had found its end after facing a being from another world. It was seen everywhere and Holmian spies saw how that red pillar of light descended into Lazon’s highest peak.
Vinam’s Blood, the blood that runs on all magiborne. How someone could have defeated a being that even the best weapons of that time couldn’t repel was beyond them.
From 1924 to 1930 there was a civil war that broke out. It ended with the unification of the Old Empire, and the formation of the Confederate of Athesia.
It was only a few months after the seven-year war that another war happened. No one really knew what sparked the war and how it led eight hundred-thousand people lost, including the soldiers, and the remaining civilians.
It was during that time that the Magi had presented themselves to the rest of the continents in an effort to stop any of the coming war. It was also them that brought forward the ‘solution’ to the problem with the demikin. With Nuller magi-technicians working closely with Holmia, they developed the endoskeleton models that led to faster and tougher powered suits that spearheaded the Demikin Wars that lasted years because of the massive and war-like nature of the beasts.
From 1935 to 1970, the world was always at war with the demikins who, through war, had also developed. It was only when they started Operation Sunfall that the demikin were reduced to a mere small nation back in the southern seas where their dominion was.
With an estimated death toll of seven hundred million. The combined alliance of the three continents defeated the non-humans.
The demikins are still fighting. And that was a problem that they couldn’t understand. It was said that if the Magiborne wielding the Vulcan units and powered exoskeletons didn’t exist during the era, there might have been another way.
Dialogue could have been possible, but because of a loose magiborne, it became fact that there was nothing to be done. Magiborne were bred, augmented for war, and perhaps it was their kismet that they were born like this.
Born from Hounds that were said to be a nightmare to kill. Then reborn and named as magiborne after the world hadn’t had enough and wanted more of them to win against the non-humans who were different from them.
The Nullers Sect had warned about the ‘green wind’ that it would cost them and so when they couldn’t use mankind’s greatest weapons, they turned to greater warriors.
“And now the warriors have nowhere to do other than go mad or hunt down more of their enemies,” Thomas mournfully said. “Doctor Riley, if I do start to go bad, I want you to put me down.”
The Hounds of the Magi were always put down when they did not serve well. Even the bits of happiness that Thomas had from the past days were...momentarily.
“The order will be commencing. I believe Colonel Vito will be instructing you, Thomas.”
“Understood, can I use the phone? I need to tell my new acquaintances that I have a job. I doubt that this will ever be a one-time thing anyway.”
“Not with the way you got out, Thomas. The world’s going to shit again, and this time we don’t have the demikins to blame our problems to.”
Thomas knew he wasn’t going to be free from what he was.
