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I looked down over the railing to the experiments going on below the upper stair-case. I’d already taken out the security guards and had the place infiltrated. The room was large and square, containing a clear coffin in the center with wires attached all over it. The wires all led to a large glowing techno-color sphere that was charging, gaining the energy it needed to activate.
I was determined to stop them, but my own curiosity stopped me in some way. I didn’t want Akiko’s death defaced like this, but I also wanted to know if I’d ever see her again.
It was Akiko’s idea to put a body on life-support directly after dying and restarting its heart at any cost, then using Skyevi’s remaining quarantined power to resurrect it. Akiko, being part of the Twi-LIGHT organization, had her idea taken to the next level.
Twi-LIGHT was a technological and military superpower, who was put in charge of Skyevi when my parents, the presidents of the continent, died. Their heir wasn’t either of their daughters, Akiko and me, but the president of the Twi-LIGHT organization, Robert Trenxi.
Trenxi was Akiko’s old boyfriend, so when he started Twi-LIGHT she followed him. By then, she was already his fiancée. I never liked him, not even when I was young and when she first took him to meet our family. Akiko had been eight years older than me, but when she was still alive, I was always the one protecting her. Trenxi’s friends had been trying to make a move on her shortly before she died, when I was sixteen. When I’d heard her scream and saw what they were doing, I’d gone into a blind rage, killing them all.
I was on my way to the market to pick up milk! And I’d found my older sister about to be raped! I hadn’t given them any time to defend themselves. I had a number of knives and other weapons on my person at all times, and I knew they were all convicts, released on bail posted by Trenxi.
I’d had a huge argument with Trenxi that night, and when I was on my way home, I was attacked by his thugs. I still had a number of scars to remind me of the encounter, and what greeted me when I got home. It was morning when I limped back; knowing that Akiko and Trenxi’s wedding was going to start in an hour. The capital building, my home at the time, was burnt to the ground. My parents had been killed when I wasn’t there to activate Skyevi. Oddly, Skyevi was taken by Twi-LIGHT that day to be checked for abnormalities.
I didn’t know why Trenxi kept me alive; maybe because he knew things would be too suspicious if I died too. He knew I couldn’t say what really happened that day; I could have been thrown in jail for killing those guys.
So, Trenxi decided to ‘kill’ me in another way. Akiko got the news on her wedding day. She’d gotten the news in a very rude way too, since I showed up at the cathedral covered in dirt, grime, ash, and blood. I wanted to kill Trenxi so badly at that moment; every cell in my body was calling to me to kill him. If it hadn’t been for the fact I could hardly walk at that point and Akiko was there, I would have. I most likely would have found the strength too if it hadn’t been for Akiko.
Apparently, she’d wanted to postpone the whole thing because my parents and I weren’t there. Our parents said they’d be late and arrive after me, but there were only ten minutes left before the wedding was supposed to start, and I still hadn’t shown up.
Trenxi told her it was because I didn’t like him, but he knew damn well it was because I was supposed to be seconds from death at the hands of his thugs. He didn’t expect me to have the fight to drag myself to my home and then to the cathedral.
Akiko had come rushing forward as I collapsed upon entering, and even though all the audience was horrified that a disgusting little urchin was trailing blood all over the cathedral, they didn’t act. Trenxi even called off his guards to seem like a good person.
I’d hardly had the strength to tell her our parents were dead, never mind how I’d nearly been killed and the entire story. Trenxi had taken the liberty of getting me bandaged up at the Twi-LIGHT hospital, and settling our parents’ will as soon as possible. I’d been an invalid hobbling around the base, unable to talk to Akiko for a week before Trenxi allowed me to see her.
I’d been informed that he’d told Akiko I was in a coma for a week and that’s why we hadn’t spoken sooner. He was in the room when we finally did talk, so I couldn’t tell her anything about the thugs or say a word about the men I’d killed. Even if he wasn’t in the room, Twi-LIGHT had ears. They also had claws, and I already had those claws poised to impale me at any time.
Trenxi had told me the news that my parents had left Skyevi to him, and the government papers to Akiko. They left all the material possessions to Akiko and me, but since they were all burned there was nothing to inherit. In our country, the presidential rule traveled the generations until the bloodline died out or was impeached.
Since Akiko and Trenxi were married by then, they were the rulers of the country now. I was still a minor, so there was nothing I could do. The will even said that in case anything happened to Akiko I’d be the one to inherit the throne, but Trenxi changed a number of laws in his first official day of being the new ruler. He would be the one to rule in case Akiko couldn’t, and all of his bloodline would inherit the throne, even if his bloodline didn’t intermingle with Akiko’s. So basically, I wasn’t of royal blood after Akiko died.
What really pissed me off was that even if Trenxi married again, it would be his children that ruled. Everybody questioned why it wasn’t me who would be taking the throne, but they couldn’t question the new law that spouses got the throne over blood.
When I was healed, Akiko had spent a lot of time telling me about Trenxi, trying to make me think a little more highly of him. She also didn’t really like the idea of me not getting the throne if anything happened to her, but since I’d still be a minor for two and a half years, she didn’t have much of a choice. She also knew when my parents were writing their wills, before she got involved with Trenxi, I’d said,
“I don’t want to be a queen of any sort. Give it to whatever idiot Akiko marries if she can’t, I just wanna learn more kendo.”
They’d all laughed, and written it so if I was of age I’d become ruler anyway.
Akiko tried hooking me up with a number of guys, even though I’d just said I thought marriage and dating was a fraud. She’d laughed, but hadn’t stopped trying to introduce me to guys saying it’d be a good distraction for me since I couldn’t leave Twi-LIGHT. “With the assassination of your parents, the best place for you to stay is here so you can be protected,” Trenxi had stated. So all I could do was train.
I’d resumed my kendo training with teachers Akiko and Trenxi had hired, and used personal work-out equipment all day for moths. I trained in kendo, worked-out, swam, and basically focused on making myself as strong as I could.
Akiko started getting worried after a month of this, because whatever femininity I had in my shoulders was gone. I told her I didn’t want to ever have to do something because I wasn’t strong enough to stop it. My true reason: next time, I’d make it in time to save my loved ones.
I’d left Akiko a letter but Trenxi most likely destroyed it on the night I tried escaping. I hadn’t succeeded; instead I was taken to the Twi-LIGHT underground labs, where they put Skyevi to good-use… Since Skyevi was a divine being that crashed on earth and was preserved many years ago, she was enshrined and kept “alive” through state-of-the-art technology. Twi-LIGHT had apparently been plotting to make a superhuman army from the start, and Trenxi had decided I was going to be a part of it.
I’d been injected with Skyevi cells, had my DNA exposed to straight Skyevi energy, and had my mind harmonized with Skyevi a number of times. I’d fallen into a coma, and when I woke up I learned that Trenxi had told Akiko about some of their ideas, like the ones about bringing humans back to life.
Akiko’s ideas had helped the project a lot, but Trenxi had more ideas than just resurrecting those who had died recently. He wanted to have bodies manufactured that matched the genetic structure of our parents and me, after he’d told Akiko I’d been found dead. She agreed to try it now that her only family was dead.
It failed, so in a year of that, Trenxi killed Akiko. He’d said she committed suicide, buried one of his spawned bodies in place of Akiko‘s, and kept her body alive for further experimentation.
When I woke up, I read all this on a computer set in the room full of the experiments. I was five years older than I was when I broke out. I learned that tonight was the night Akiko was to be resurrected.
So, here I am now. Sitting all scrunched down, watching this all happen. I wasn’t used to my body, even though I was adapting well. Being taller and bigger made combat a lot easier. I didn’t really like the clothes I was dressed in though: black sleeveless shirt, black pants, black army boots, and black gloves. It was too close to the Twi-LIGHT soldier uniform for my taste.
I saw Akiko’s motionless body in the clear coffin perfectly from my vantage point from above. She’s always had pale skin, but now she looked dead even though she wasn’t completely dead. Her long golden hair fanned out around her, and her hands were clasped over her heart like that of a corpse. She wore a simple white dress, with no shoes or gloves or any of the like. I really wanted to see her blue eyes open again, if only long enough to apologize for not saving her and not killing Trenxi when I had the chance. He was standing in front of the group of people, watching as Skyevi charged. It was nearly as painful not to try to kill him now.
The length of my black hair was annoying me, since I wasn’t used to long hair. It had grown a lot in five years, way past where I usually kept it at my shoulders.
I looked up for a moment, and across the room on the other side of the metal overpass, I saw another person. I cursed, examining him a few moments before realizing who he was. He wore a uniform identical to mine, and I could tell from the tattoo on his shoulder that he had escaped after me.
TWI-LIGHT
SPECIAL FORCES
AGENT #98
Mine said “Agent 99” so he was the one abducted before me, obviously. He had rather cold looking eyes, a strange mix of violet and blue and short blond hair.
“Why does he look so damn familiar?” I muttered to myself irritably. I couldn’t pay any more attention to him for a moment though, because then I heard a computerized voice.
“Skyevi Drive charged to one-hundred percent.”
“Good,” Trenxi said evenly with no emotion. “Begin power transfer process.”
As the power transfer began, the entire place began to shake violently.
“It’s a 7.9 on the Richter Scale and growing!” One of Trenxi’s twenty or so assistants exclaimed. Trenxi cursed, saying,
“Continue the power transfer! We can’t let an earthquake stop us!”
“Sir, but we can’t do-!” A female helper in a white lab coat like the rest of them pleaded, “The quake is coming from the center of the base, and it’s coming directly from Skyevi’s sphere!”
He shook his head dismissively saying,
“That’s even more reason to keep going. The base can hold up to a 20.5 before it starts to crack.”
The assistants traded worried looks, and waited watched the power transfer percentage grow as did the power of the quake. When it reached 10.5, I fell back on my butt from where I was on my knees. I cursed as the bars I was holding onto continued to shake with extreme power.
“No…” I muttered hanging on in a death grip that was failing me as I leaned dangerously to the open spot between the bars at the corner. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the quake gave out. I regained my hold on the bars and my footing, glad this place had black walls and wasn’t lit from above but only by the techno-colored sphere and the computer screens. I looked to where the guy I’d helped escape had been, but I heard a few footsteps from the shadows across from me, and I saw an automatic door open and close.
“Lucky him…” I muttered. I had no intention of leaving.
“Power transfer twenty percent complete. The quake lasted ten minutes.” A frazzled assistant said standing up with the rest of the group.
“There’s no damage to the base, or the surrounding area.” A researcher, this one wearing a black overcoat, said. He sounded unnerved.
“Good.” Trenxi said. “Keep going.”
“Bastard…” I muttered looking down at him.
I guessed Skyevi would revolt again, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon. I was scooting away from the open corner I could go tumbling though, and wasn’t braced for another quake as it started. This one picked up where the other one left at 10.5, according to one of the computer screens that surrounded the sphere and coffin ten feet away from it in a half circle with an opening where Trenxi stood.
I didn’t get a good grip on the bar, and my footing was bad. I was jerked to the left and found myself hanging on to the safety rail by one hand that was slipping fast. I tried to pull myself up, but my muscles were stiff after so sudden activity and so little use over the last five years. I was surprised I’d lasted this long without the stiffness getting the best of me.
I felt my hand slip off but I didn’t fall far because a strong hand grabbed mine and pulled me up without hesitation back onto the platform.
“Are you alright?”
I came face-to-face with the guy I’d helped escape before. His eyes were impassive, and though he did look strong, his shoulders and upper arms weren’t disturbingly large. He had a silver broadsword in a harness on his back, even though it was a double-edged blade, unlike the usual broadsword.
“Yeah, thanks to you.” I said surprised, “Why’d you come back?”
“Returning the favor; you didn’t re-lock the doors. Now let’s go, we can’t stay here.”
“But that’s my sister down there!” I objected, “No way in hell I’m going until I know what’s going to happen.”
“We don’t have a choice, do we?” He asked, his emotionless, hard gaze not moving from mine. I glanced back at Akiko as the quake subsided, but as I did so Trenxi looked up at me, his eyes meeting mine. There was no surprise in his dark eyes, no emotion whatsoever. He looked away first and I did second, saying, “Let’s go. I’ll lead the way.”
My fellow escapee nodded and we both stood, my abused muscles obeying my commands without much protest this time. I didn’t know if I was imagining it or not, but I had the feeling Trenxi had warned one of his assistants about us. I broke out in a dead run, my companion following me. I inwardly noticed that he was a little less than a head taller than me too.
We ran into a platoon of ten guards, but my helper made quick work of them with less than ten strokes of his large blade. Two more came up from behind me while another five, these ones with double-edged swords, attacked my fellow ex-to-be-soldier. I sprang forward, elbowing one of the sword-bearing soldiers in the stomach, distracting him before smashing his nose in with a punch and an elbow to his temple for good measure. The other soldier tried grabbing me from behind, but I jerked around and slammed myself and him against the wall. I heard the air leave him in a whoosh, then elbowed his jaw and gave him a black eye before nailing his temple.
“You’re good,” my fellow combatant said calmly.
“I’m better armed and armored. Let’s go.”
We were able to get out without combat, even when we were on the ground floor, running down an empty hall until we reached the main exit. The two soldiers that had been guarding the place lay dead on the floor, shot through the heart. I was silent, but dismissed it as a blessing in disguise as I typed in the codes to the door that would let us through.
It was pouring rain and the smooth black pavement was covered in nearly an inch of water, but that didn’t stop us.
“So, what’s your name?” I asked as we ran.
“Anan Nimbostratus,” he replied.
“Anan Nimbostratus, eh? Isn’t ’nimbostratus’ a type of cloud?” I asked sarcastically, despite the tension and blaring alarms from Twi-LIGHT. “Anyway, it sounds like some kind of problematic part of the brain. I’ll be calling you Cloud for short.”
“So what’s your name?”
“I’m Akhy, and I don’t want to be called achy, itchy, or any other words that sound a little like it.”
“Akhy’s the name of girl I used to know. By any chance is your last name Ragnorork?”
“Akhy the rebel, not dethroned princess.” I answered plainly.
I stopped as I heard the sound of metal scraping metal. We were close to the iron gate that’d lead us to freedom, the only way out since the walls were all ten feet high and made of solid concrete. A figure walked out from the shadows, holding a Japanese katana in each hand.
“Hello, Akhy. I’m afraid you won’t be going any further than this.”
He wore the uniform of a Twi-LIGHT soldier: black pants, boots, gloves, and long-sleeved shirt. He had a number of katanas, a double-edged sword hanging from his belts, and a large broadsword in a harness on his back.
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