《Beyond The Veils, a Crimson Tranquility.》


 Echoes In The Alley, Part - 1

    A man was walking the streets of a rather calm city, it was almost sunset and he was trying to enjoy to view, but was interrupted by some whimpering coming from a nearby alleyway. There he saw a boy roaming around the alley, ransacking. He looked at the man, a rather tall and medium bulky individual, he looked up to the man and saw his face, he tried to ask him something but he wasn''t able to, he barely walked and made sounds, and say normal words, if he tried enough. The man took a better look at the boy, his eyes bulged a sore red, Tear marks down the boy''s cheeks, the boy looked barely 4-5 years old . Other than this, the boy was just like any other kid his age, He lifted him up and took him out of the alley, Back to his residence. He helped the boy out of his ragged clothes, and washed him, he rummaged through his cabinet for quite a while and found some clothes which would fit the boy.


    He fed him a bit of food and asked the boy his name, the boy who was silent through the whole ordeal, initially had a bit of problem understanding the man, but he eventually muttered something along the words "Tommy", and the man started to refer him that.


    After putting tommy to sleep, he wondered what that poor child was doing back in the alley, deciding he would question the boy once he woke up, he goes to sleep.


    The man woke up shouting and felt terrified to his bone, "it was just a nightmare?" he said to himself, "What was the dream anyway? A house...a woman and a child....beautiful scenery, a good house....happiness." he said to himself, tommy who had already woken up and was exploring the house was terrified when he had heard the horrifying howl the man had made when he woke up to the nightmare. After reassuring the boy everything was alright He fed the emaciated boy, and gave him general fever meds and antibiotics.


    The man wondered why he cared so much for the boy he had found randomly so much, this care for the boy was innate to him, he didn''t need to put much effort into taking care of tommy. While he was being administered his meds and his antibiotics, the boy looked up to the man, his face a bit relieved than the exhausted and feverish state he found him in yesterday, asked him his name "Gabriel ", he replied. Tommy nodded.


    The man had taken tommy to a doctor to get him checked up, While driving there, the boy didn''t say a thing to the man, only asking for water in between, very timidly. "Here you go, buddy" the man said, as he passed the bottle every time to the kid, with a warm smile on his face.


    The doctor said there wasn''t any problems with the boy, physically he just had a fever.


    The man was told the boy suffered a shock, and he wasn''t mature enough to comprehend it. But that, the man already knew.


    For the next few days, Tommy spoke little to nothing , but just a few words.


    But Gabriel always kept on speaking to him, in hopes of making the boy comfortable around him and improving his speaking skills too.


    Whenever the man tried to enquire about his parents, guardians or anything about his relatives, the boy would just gaze off into the abyss and would remain silent, or be distressed, so, the man eventually stopped trying to find out about his past, all he knew was the boy was not "infected". A few more days fly by in similar fashion, but one day the man had received a rather disturbing call.


    After he got off the phone, the man took Tommy and a bit of luggage and just left.


    The call was from his superiors, the man was informed to report somewhere.


    he reported back to a naval warship ready to undock and sail, it was rather calm there, not much rush as much as it would be expected of a safe haven departing. Gabriel met his superiors and tommy was left with someone else for taking care of him temporarily.


    "The world was different than what it was ,it fell. Initially there was nothing but simple cases of a foreign virus in a remote village, The news started to cover the ground zero but nothing seemed very unusual about the virus, people who had been infected had at most a sore throat and a fever.


    But that had changed one day. One of the original patients had....morphed. He became something...different than human, in many ways. He massacred everyone he saw. They had evolved so much, in a short period of time. And Humans out of desperation and neediness, turned on their kind.


    It was called the "Doomsday", the fall of the world.


    But i suppose something good, in a way, came out of it too-" Gabriel was cut short from the sounds of snoring coming from tommy, who was narrating to him a story after he had reported to his higher-ups.


    The man wanted to get the boy a bit of sleep, and he did, after the ship had undocked and left, and he did the same. Tommy woke up in the middle of the night to some rather loud conversations,


    "YOU ARE IMPOSTERS,READY TO STRIKE US AND KILL US ONCE WE LET OUR GUARD DOWN!" a woman shouted, when little tommy tried to take a peek from the wall, he saw the back of a man and the face of the woman who was shouting, the man replied, "If ''we'' wished to kill others ,we already could have, but we didn''t because we are you." the woman replied "WHATEVER JUST GO TO HELL,YOU CREEPS!", Tommy had become a bit agitated when he heard all the shouting and let out a whimper, the man turned to see the eavesdropper, and smiled at the curious boy. "Who do we have here?" the person who tommy was eavesdropping on, asks him . "Tommy", the child mutters, "Go back to sleep, little man", the mysterious person says, as he leaves the room after escorting tommy to his bed.


    After waking up from his sleep, Gabriel saw that tommy was still sleeping ,and was sort of happy since he doesn''t sleep much, and wakes up early.


    He meets the man of the incident from midnight, but he doesn''t know what happened, obviously. Gabriel greeted him "John! ,how Are you?", "Ah, just the usual, a whole lot of lectures from C.O. Luca. But, how have u been, Amico, i saw that kid u brought in, Who is he?" the mysterious man, who''s name is Johnathan asked Gabriel. "I found him in a alleyway", he replied, "I don''t know, I''ve grown quite fond of this kid for the few days he stayed with me, and I don''t know why that is the case myself" Gabriel explained. While they were having this conversation, tommy woke up and walked in on them, they both greeted him and asked if he wanted breakfast, "Yeah, sure can i have some shakshuka?" he said, to which Jonathan agreed. Gabriel, watching this whole conversation, was just happy how tommy went from that feverish and timid child to a nice, healthy boy who could communicate well.


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    After finishing up his breakfast, tommy was told they were gonna dock at Puerto Rico for them to visit their current deployment place. Lieutenant Luca came to brief his soldiers and took some time to see the boy, Luca was a big and wide man, which made tommy naturally be afraid of him, his face too looked like he was a battle hardened soldier, he extended a hand towards the boy while he was standing and when tommy saw his scarred, calloused hands he had even more reasons to be afraid but when Luca bent down to the little boy''s level and gave him one of the warmest smiles, he instinctively extended his hand towards him which even widened the smile on the Lieutenant''s face.


    Tommy had a bit of time before they docked so he roamed around the ship and since everyone knew who he was, he was greeted by every other person while walking around, he looked at some crew cabins and was offered some chocolates which he accepted with a huge smile on his face, which delighted everyone too. He stumbled across the most peculiar room with a tinted entrance, he pushed through the door and recognized it for some sort of laboratory. But this exploration session, was soo cut short by CO Luca when he saw the kid get into the lab, Luca immediately rushed to the child and bluffed him to get him out of there. Because the child would be scarred for life seeing the things happening there. Biologists, Biochemists, Ballistic experts had woven together their knowledge to experiment on the infected and test their resilience and the composition of their skin cells which enables them to create additional appendages at will and display inhuman strength, they experimented of the infected and tested what substance hurt their skin the most and disable their nerves quickly and the most efficiently, or they could forcefully destroy their brain''s functions and annihilate their limbs in a method of brute forcing their victory. The best method they could find was to use thick, high caliber bullets which could easily penetrate their skin and which had a bit of explosive power as well to destroy their organs to ensure victory or hindering their locomotion at best. He asked which country he came from and he replied "Italian", "so u serve the Italian military?" tommy asked enquiringly, "No, there aren''t any partitions by countries anymore, child. The remaining semblance of the world''s army joined their hands and become one giant force, fighting for the sake of humanity''s well being."


    After tommy, john, mike and A local officer who was from the country, with few others set out to survey an army base ,a bunker in Puerto Rico which could be of use to the coalition. Tommy came with them since he was quite uncomfortable with the other crew members and Luca was busy with something else. During their travel to the army base ,Gabriel took a good look at the team and realized the soldiers were just young lads who had just gotten administered into the army ,who looked a bit timid, and it was quite natural for them to be scared of the deployment. But the local man whose name was "Cassius", apparently, was strangely calm and emitted a bizarrely soothing aura as well, but it wasn''t of much effect considering he was silent through the journey and nobody talked to him much. But Cassius was always watching over the boy and helping him not fall off during the off-roading to the bunker.


    When they finally did reached the base after a long and arduous journey, they found the base in quite a normal condition exterior wise, but they were alert nonetheless. When they entered the bunker, they were absolutely horrified with what they say. Hallways of broken bodies and bloodied pathways filled the interior and they were fresh, meaning the "shadows of the past" were active, and their intelligence was increasing at an alarming rate as well.


    But humanity has been preparing, they developed weapons to neutralize different sub species of the "Shadows". Humanity''s only reason that they survived this long was their minds and they pushed it beyond and above to battle the shadows.


    Jonathan saw his team and observed Gabriel''s arms were shivering, "He still isn''t able to move on. Can''t really blame him, he is already handling himself pretty well", he thought to himself. Cassius took charge of the team and commanded them inside, in a dome sort of formation to protect tommy, since they didn''t have any other option than to bring him inside with them.


    The infected had slowly popped out from the hallways inside the base which seemed endless.


    The team made quick work of the infected with their cutting edge technology and their collective years of fighting them, despite most of it coming only from 3 three people. they flowed in like they''re endless and the squad made easy work of them flawlessly without much effort, while protecting tommy. But, then they encountered something which none of them wished to. A pair of people humming a song in sentient chorus, a familiar yet distant voice and faces. Something....human, yet even more monstrous then the infected. "Revenants", Gabriel cried out, in a shaky and horrified voice.


    The pair slowly approached the squad from the corner of a wall, from where they''ve been watching their fight with the infected for quite a while. One of them applauded the squad and said "Congratulations on crushing those bugs, you''ve made impressive work of them, i must say.", he said, with a disturbing smirk on his face. While the other person stared deep into Luca''s eyes with nothing but apathy. "But i wonder how long u can hold yourself against us.", said the first person with that smirk being replaced by a deep sense of malevolence.


    The person with the empty expression stayed still, while the other moved at blinding speeds and tore off an arm of a soldier who was in the team. Gabriel instantaneously covered tommy''s eyes and ears while Jonathan tried to aim towards the man. Cassius was able to penetrate through the leg of the revenant when he was tearing off the arm of the soldier and Jonathan managed to hit him in the head because of his reduced speed, thanks to Cassius.


    The second revenant was physically less bulky than the first one so Jonathan thought he wouldn''t be much of a problem to deal with. But he was proven wrong when the second revenant moved at speeds reaching the half of speed of sound, then returned back to the place he was, like he was trying show off his speed.


    Jonathan was scared to the bone, he couldn''t almost see the revenant moving at those blinding speeds. Cassius stood his ground strong, without even flinching, Jonathan was even more scared because of the fact that Cassius did not even pay heed towards the crazy revenant, he wondered why just a normal human was this confident in such a dire situation. But Jonathan had no time to think though, the revenant was ready to come at them again, and this time his predicted trajectory directed towards the group, Jonathan threw away his weapon and got ready to fight him with his own hands.

 Echoes In The Alley, Part 2

    "I never wanted to use this curse ever again, but i suppose i must survive this.", he thought to himself, while the team saw Jonathan manipulating his muscular mass like the infected did, All the while Gabriel was still holding tommy and watching the whole situation go down, "he never wanted to use that form again, it reminded him of his past and made him think how different he is from the normal humans, at least he is facing his fears..." Gabriel thought to himself while he was appearing increasingly frustrated and just clenched his fist, the feeling of helplessness displeased him. Cassius had seen it and said "It is okay to feel helpless, but do not stay like that, young man, i can tell u are doing everything you can, you truly are a great man to protect the life of that child over yours, it is truly commendable", hearing this from the man who rarely spoke moved Gabriel and he was a bit at ease.


    The other revenant who he had introduced himself as "Leon" and said, "So you ARE indeed one of us.", while Jonathan was about to charge at him, "I am nothing like you, you disgusting piece of trash, All you see other humans and revenants is as playthings and i can tell that from your expression, You truly disgust me." Jonathan said becoming increasingly agitated. Both of them got ready to battle and charged head straight into each other with their otherworldly speed and strength which broke even the firm reinforced steel walls of the bunker. The soldiers whose arms were torn off and who were heavily injured backed away along with the team and tried to stop the bleeding.


    Cassius handed them some medical equipment and clothes who block off the blood outflow, while also keeping an eye on the battle. It was like he was a heavily experienced military officer but he didn''t look of that age. But there wasn''t anytime for all of that, the soldiers had to treated ASAP. Gabriel got up and carried tommy on his back, who had fainted because of those horrifying scream and whines, while trying to help the soldiers address their condition, "The child is of the highest priority, he has no responsibility being dragged into this mess, take care of him first, Gabriel", said Cassius with that usual firm look on his face.


    They both were having a long drawn out battle which heavily injured Jonathan and Leon was suffering quite the damage too, with their primitive moves and attacks toward each other, one fueled by pure disgust and rage, while other with a superiority complex. Jonathan was filled with wrath, the worst kind. His attacks were unintelligible, and he attacked with only pure strength and let his body take control of his actions. His arms would just try to get an hang onto Leon and he''d try to rip his skin out, he''d try to push his fingers into his flesh and deliver the highest amount of pain, for such was his hatred towards revenants, and towards himself, the Jonathan everyone saw now was different from the calm and collected person who is kind and gentle with everyone. He was about to cry due to the overwhelming emotions he was feeling. The amount of accusations he had faced due to his nature weighed his compassionate soul down, deep down, he was just an emotionally sensitive guy who had wished for peace.


    Gabriel had put down tommy on a clean part of the floor and told the soldiers and Cassius to watch him while he was trying to gain a clear sight to shoot the cocky guy and put him down once and for all, he tried for a while and once he had his sight clear he shot Leon, an accompanying shot was fired too, by one of the soldiers with the purest emotions of rage and timidness looming on his face. This had slowed and weakened Leon and Jonathan took his chance and leaped right at the bastard pierced through his chested and pull out his heart and squash it before his eyes, without any hesitation and crushed his skull simultaneously to take no chances and completely kill him.


    Jonathan just fell down beside his enemy''s corpse and just lay there while his wounds started to heal at inhuman speeds, there he thought to himself "What the hell did even happen right now? Did i really need to kill like that guy or was there a way i could talk him out of it? I didn''t even ask why he was here. Am i really becoming inhuman like all people told me? Am i just a killing machine?", Gabriel rushed to John and lifted him up, who was still in a trance, Gabriel didn''t try to wake him up, he knew what it felt like. For he is far from human himself.


    Cassius, who was still vigilant and stood guard near tommy, searched for additional threats. The squad soon recovered and swept all of the bunker and took care of some more remaining infected and they thanked goodness, there weren''t anymore revenants. They got out of the bunker and reported to the ship and briefed C.O. Luca about what had happened and were told to evacuate and return to the ship. The soldiers had stopped bleeding for the most part and were still in shock about losing their limbs, for it was their first time to experience real serious combat, and they were the affected ones too, which further worsened their experiences. Gabriel took care of Jonathan and Cassius took tommy into his lap, it was quite weird to see a man known for his combat experience and ruthless methods to get the job done, hold a child so dearly, who didn''t even care what the crew thought of him and just held tommy close. Jonathan and Gabriel smiled and just thought what a crazy day it has been.


    They got here at evening time but now they''re leaving under the graceful light of the rising sun. One of the soldiers asked his experienced counterparts: "So what exactly are these "revenants" we had just learnt they''re some enhanced humans and we could deduce that much from the fight."


    Jonathan asked Gabriel to explain since Cassius didn''t talk much anyway and he was too tired. Gabriel started by saying: "They are the gateway between the infected and human. When humans are infected by the virus they turn into the vile mindless monsters who only wish to kill, their consciousness is completely dissolved and they become no better than a primitive animal. But revenants on the hand, are a special subset of people who''ve been infected but didn''t turn into the "Shadows" completely."


    He stopped for a brief moment giving the young lads time to process the information that''ve been dumped into their brains, he continued by saying" the reason why they haven''t been completely turned is because of extreme emotions of man- anger, love, pity towards being reduced to such stupid levels of intelligence. Their deepest desperation kept their sentience alive, but a cost of increased sensitivity to emotions and an ever present danger of them being turned. We wouldn''t know how scared they must be feeling because of the feeling which looms over their heart and suffocates them internally, the evil ones didn''t care about this and found liberation in giving into their primal instincts. What they is indeed true, "only those who tread the difficult path are the strong."


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    The newbies'' minds were blown by the amount of information dropped on them. They took a while to process the information and then one of them asked Gabriel a question "Jonathan is a revenant right? Then why isn''t he hostile towards normal humans?" Gabriel replied to this by saying "He sees no reason to do so. He was infected while trying to protect his girlfriend from the shadows and kept on fighting despite knowing he was bitten. After a while he couldn''t fight the seemingly endless crowd of the undead, and was paralyzed, he could feel his brain being turned, he could feel his soul withering away. His girlfriend was bitten too and was consumed by the horde. Seeing this, his heart was broken into million pieces and he was filled with a mix of the strongest wrath and guilt. This. This prevented his brain from being infected and his body was jump started by the neural signal sent by the brain, his body immediately went into flight mode and he fled the scene while still crying and wanting to go back there, but his body didn''t respond to his consciousness, he was in a sort of paralyzed state."


    "Damn." was the only thing the fellow crew could say. Even Cassius, the big apathetic guy had tears which were ready to flow out any moment. Tommy woke up at this moment, due to all of the commotion and asked Gabriel what had happened after he had fallen asleep when he entered the bunker, "Uncle John took care of the bad guys, and he is resting now, as u can see", said Gabriel pointing towards Jonathan who was in deep sleep, tommy cheered John and thanked him, and john could feel too, since his nature prevents him from falling into deep sleep unlike humans, this made john happy a bit, from inside, and comforted his soul a bit.


    The squad got back to the docks and the ship was already preparing to leave the dock, Luca met them on the docks and asked the medical staff to take care of John. He asked Cassius to come with them, to which he asked "What about the bunker?", "I''ve already sent my men to take care, and another division of the coalition will be coming to take over the bunker and make it a useful base of operations.", Luca replied. Cassius agreed to come with them and the ship has undocked to go to it''s next location and meet up with the continental headquarters of the American continent.


    Humans'' technology improved very drastically after the doomsday which had happened 27 years ago from now, the ship was fitted with the most efficient nuclear powered engines and was also harvest a great deal of energy from the sun, using the improved solar panels, which further cut down the power required from the ship''s fission reactor and it could be at sail for more then 40 years


    It was nearing nightfall and the ship had undocked and left for Brazil.


    A day passed since the ship left the town of Puerto Rico and set it''s course to Brazil''s port town of Rio De Janeiro. Johnathan was feeling better and the ship''s functioning was normal as usual, the crew were all busy carrying out their routine duties, Gabriel and Cassius were eating some snacks together in the cafeteria room while adoring the beautifully serene ocean. The entire crew had some sound sleep which they needd after the strenuous and stressful day they had gone through, yesterday.


    It was high noon and the Navigation department of the ship has called for CO Luca immediately, they had reported that there is an unidentified object flying towards them from about 500 km away, with it''s speed increasing by the moment, the object hasn''t been identified to be a flying missile neither a plane, it was too tiny to be either of those. CO Luca pondered on the course of action for a few minutes, and the navigation officer, the head of the navigation department urged him that there wasn''t much time and they needed to do something immediately since the object has already covered 70 km in the span of 2 mins, and now was just 430 km away. CO Luca commanded the weapons department to lock onto the target and launch a short range ballistic missile and fire the railguns towards it. The target stopped moving for 1 minute and 37 seconds and started moving again, a bit slowed from the impact, and was now travelling with 70% of it''s initial speed , it was now 310 km away after a span of 4 minutes after being hit by the weaponry. An alert was sent to the whole ship and defensive measures of the ship were activated and the ship was getting ready to dive.


    The ship itself was a submersible vessel which was both capable of moving efficiently on land with all it''s aircrafts ready to take off or become a submarine and dive into the ocean. When entering defense mode, a protocol is followed and the aircraft are pulled in because the platforms which they are placed on, are mechanically retractable pieces of machinery.


    The target was 100 km away when the ship completed it''s defense protocol and began diving, Cassius and Gabriel were watching the whole situation from the highest point of the ship, the Watchtower, which submerges at the very end of the submerging protocol, they could barely see the object but could make it out to be a humanoid entity. They both were absolutely horrified by what they had seen and, yet again their worst nightmares had come to visit them. Gabriel asked Cassius where tommy was and Cassius replied he is asleep in a secluded room on the ship with Johnathan there, "I''m sure Johnathan has made out the situation and is making sure tommy is alright." Cassius said.


    The ship was about 70% submerged, and the target was now 40km away. "So this is it. The time where I truly face what I am, use the accursed boon I''ve been given. Every time i used it, it was like it ate away a part of me away, it came with the worst feelings of guilt, self hatred and desperation, I believe we have both understood what that thing is? He''s like me."


    Cassius was deeply moved by this and thought of how strong humans truly are, facing their fears and being ready to accept an early, undeserving disastrous catastrophe. "I know what that is and I''ve heard what you are, You truly are mighty not because of your boon but your mind, your spirit, to sacrifice yourself truly and knowing it might be a painful death for the sake of others life is commendable, Mein signore. I hope you win and save your life over ours, but that just isn''t you is it?" Cassius said to Gabriel, "Oh come on man, you make it feel like I''m gonna die an agonizing death, I''m still facing my god damn fears, and i do not even know why i wish to do this, Honestly i don''t even know what i wanna do in general, but right now? I know that guy might be a threat and i must save the civilians and innocents on this crew, especially the ones I hold dear." Gabriel replied to Cassius''s over-the-top motivating speech. Gabriel picked up his radio and told Luca that he was going out, he could hear Luca say "WAIT GABRIEL WE HAVENT ASSESSED THE SITUATION YET,I''LL COME T-" but Gabriel turned off the radio and handed it over to Cassius and advised he get going now since the ship has already dived for about 95% now and the target was just over 7 km away. Gabriel took a deep, flimsy breath in and opened the hatch to the outside, and locked it.

 Beyond The Veils, a Crimson Tranquility. Chapter 1: Echoes in The Alley, Part 3.

    Beyond The Veils, a Crimson Tranquility.


    Chapter 1: Echoes in The Alley, Part 3.


    On the inside, Cassius turned back and prayed for his comrade''s wellbeing. Luca came running to the hatch to find Cassius who handed him Gabriel''s radio, "How could u let him go just like that?!! The coalition emphasizes strongly on assessing the threat for a reason, damn it!" Luca shouted at Cassius with a sense of duty and worry for his friend.


    "I could feel it, Officer. I am not like Gabriel but I could feel it, after all those years of working with people like him. Gabriel will come out unscathed from this affair, if he wishes to let go, that is." Cassius said, "Not like we can do anything except watch. The hatch is already locked from the outside." Luca said with worry and haste, as they rushed.


    They both went to a part of the ship where the parts of the walls are made in such a way that they could look at surface and the underwater too, this equipment being available to higher ranking officials.


    There they saw Gabriel, while the target was only about 3 km away. Gabriel was shaking a bit and he only just stared into the empty sky and did not do anything. He did not want to use his "boon".


    Navigation reported the surrounding region is experiencing a seismic anomaly and they were going to experience some turbulence and entire crew was warned to buckle up as the turbulence would only be getting worse.


    The target was now 1 and a half kilometer away, and Cassius called out to Luca and patted his shoulder for him to look at Gabriel once. They could barely zoom onto Gabriel but they could tell Gabriel''s tremors stopped and he stared at his palms.


    His eyes slowly started to glow red, his body being consumed by a dark thick foggy aura, beginning from his heart and spreading out in a fibery manner, stretching to all his body parts, forming a layer beneath it.


    He put his leg up onto nothingness, taking a step on air, using air as a staircase, as preparing for meeting the entity. He materializing in his every step was a dark aura as he stepped on air, leaping high into the sky, beginning to fly ,using that dark aura as a propulsion energy. That was the only reasonable explanation Luca could come up with, whenever he saw Gabriel do that.


    It was noon and the sun was growing increasingly torrid, exponentially so as the entity drew closer to the ship. He was RIGHT THERE, about 100 meters away from the ship. It was now too deep for Luca and Cassius to look at Gabriel and the other individual from the room, but they could make out that the individual was a humanoid whose body was emitting light.


    Luca scoffed saying "you are dead, intruder." , at this point neither Luca nor Cassius could make out what was happening on the surface. All they could see was that, in such a bright day ,they saw a dark figure emerging in their unclear field of view. "YES! He did it, I knew he could do it!" Cassius exclaimed with happiness.


    On the surface, Gabriel and the target came face to face, "So you are my opposite, when it comes to our essence manifestation?" Gabriel said. The glowing figure replied with "You killed my comrades back in the bunker, now the Organization wants me to take care of your friends and everyone involved, totally did not expect there''d be a force user here." with a cocky smirk.


    "I AM surprised by these turn of events, not that it''s much of a problem for me, i am one of the finest ones back there you know? And even more of my level are coming to ensure a sure victory. " the figure continued.


    "But, Where are my manners? Allow me to introduce myself, I am Aaron, and you, my soon-to-be-dead friend, are?", the man said.


    "I am Gabriel, and you talk too much.", "Ouch. That''s a lot of confidence for someone about to die in a few minutes, and just so you know, Once i am done with you i am going to light up that little ship and drown everyone in there, and you won''t be able to do anything about it." Aaron said.


    Gabriel went into a state of trance for a small amount of time, gazing off into abyss, his mind being flooded with thoughts.


    Aaron charged a blinding wave of light energy and released it towards Gabriel, a burst of energy so bright it created a screen of vapor around the entire area, engulfing both of them in a thick, unusual smog.


    Navigation informed Luca that there is another wave of these weird flying things inbound, about 1000 km away from the current position. A sense of dread and doubt washed over Luca and Cassius'' face as they were doubtful of Gabriel utilizing the complete extent of his abelites.


    Through the smog and the unusually thick screen of vapor, Aaron could make out a dark silhouette, his eyes now glowing a complete, scarlet-crimson glow, his body forming peculiar outgrowths.


    The overly bright day started to turn dark, the entire scene was covered in an unusual night. Aaron could make out from the silhouette he saw that this unusual phenomenon was Gabriel''s doing.


    "Try to touch them, I dare you, filthy torch." A voice reverberated resolutely in the unnatural darkness. The figure of a man Aaron was able to see disappeared with the conjuring of the night.


    Aaron felt a spine tingling sensation of foreboding wash over him. He, a very strong force user, able to annihilate entire cities in a blink, is now feeling scared and timid, against a lowly Navy Officer. For Aaron, this was very unusual, the feeling of true existential dread wash over him, as he slowly realizes the gravity of the situation he''s in.


    Gabriel, who disappeared into the peculiar night appeared right behind Aaron, who was still in a trance but managed to catch him. Only to know it was but a mere mirage of his opponent. "So much talk for someone this weak."


    Aaron was pulled out of his trance and started to take the offensive as he moved at high speeds and tried to locate Gabriel in the darkness. He found him and managed to land one hit after they exchanged some blows while flying at speeds exceeding Mach 2.


    Gabriel was unfazed by this attack and Aaron would see him do some sort of....stretching while he was fighting Aaron and simultaneously fly.


    Aaron tried to dispel his enemy''s conjuring and hopefully hold back, while the second wave of his comrades arrive. But while doing so, Aaron was forced to lower his defenses, consequently making him take a punch from Gabriel.


    Gabriel was a bit worried to his enemy smile after he took a punch to the face, "What''s so funny? Did that hit so hard it displaced your brain or what?"


    But Gabriel soon realized the reason behind his opponent''s unnatural reaction in such a situation. He was sensing 9-11 force users approaching his location. "Bought your friends to play, sniveling, spineless coward?" Gabriel said, his voice an echoing resolute command through the dark night skies.


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    Gabriel took a punch straight to the face and turned towards Aaron, "You''re done for, you arrogant wimp".


    Gabriel came face to face with the squad, "You''ll pay for what you''ve done to our Aaron, and our buddies back in the bunker!"


    "Will I, though?" Gabriel said as he opened his arms freely and ascended even higher in the night sky, only thing echoing through the absolute calm skies being Gabriel''s unflinching voice saying "Shadow Technique: Apophis nightfall". As the skies conjured by Gabriel''s might grew even thicker, darker.


    His dark body grew a sort of armor decorated with thorns and his head covered in a medieval sort of armor headpiece, all of which was made by darkness covering his body.


    The squad finally understood why the area near this region was so dark, why the radius of the effected space spanning to about 70 km. They were terror stricken, all of them. But they quickly came back to consciousness and planned to attack him in squads with light users illuminating the area and dark users trying to hunt him down.


    The last thing they were able to see, before Gabriel disappeared, was him manifesting in his hands a great sword. His body looked like it turned into that weird, dark aura which surrounded him, disappearing into the atmosphere.


    The entirety of navigation gave up on their lives as they saw 8-10 targets lighting the whole room''s screens up, moving at speeds reaching twice of nearly the speed of sound. As they said their final players, they were confused, seeing their higher ups laughing like madmen , exchanging glances and as they congratulated themselves.


    "He did it! That crazy son of a gun really did it! You feel his overwhelming presence, don''t you?" Said Luca to Cassius, as they both started to cry as they laughed from pure ecstasy.


    Above on the surface, the force users were cowering in fear, uncertain of where Gabriel would strike them from, the light wielders used all their collective might to light up the sky, and thanks to their collective strength they were successful in doing so. The dark users spread out to find Gabriel and strike him.


    Down in the submarine Luca was thinking about how it all started, reminiscing of what he was told when he was young, all the while, feeling shockwaves from the battle unfolding up above.


    "Humans ,always defiant, fought their pathetic conditions. Finding agriculture in greed of having more accessible and reliable source of food. Used fire to be more efficient and slowly grew, discovering one thing and inventing another. During the earliest times of the dawn of mankind, we found out another source of energy. The body and soul itself.... Body strength coming from burning calories to exert physical force was one thing, but we found something quite......different." Luca''s grandfather''s echoed through his mind, experiencing the whole ordeal.


    He pondered how far humans have come, grew from simpletons and stupid cavemen to being able to level entire cities in a flick of the finger.


    On the surface, the light users were successful in illuminating the area and finding Gabriel. The dark users did their part and tried to pursue Gabriel and put this rabid dog down, once and for all. Little did they know, they were just giving themselves to him.


    Gabriel suddenly turned back and stared at the force users with his soul piercing scarlet-crimson eyes. They all charged onto him, carrying a sword and maces made from their essence, just like Gabriel.


    Only to their horror, their weapons went right through the silhouette. A whispery voice echoed through the night skies saying "You bunch really did not think you could take me down so easily like that."


    As he took out the light users who tried to form an offensive position in response and consequently stopped illuminating the area. The light team suffered 3 deaths. Following which, dark users closed in on Gabriel and landed some fatal hits. He shrugged them off like they did not hurt much and moved so fast it felt like he was disappearing.


    Just then, they all realized how much a power gap there was, they finally realized what their instincts were shouting from the beginning. To run and hide. to cower and beg, but it was far too late for that, as they heard Gabriel''s voice echo through the ether "I''ve had enough of this. I have a child to attend to. Just for you guys have a fair fight, I''ll turn off this darkness and not use mirages."


    As the unnatural darkness around the place disappeared and they saw a figure in the sky, his eyes resolute and his body a menacing posture. They all didn''t attack him thinking it was another trick. "Oh come on. It''s not a trick. COME AT ME!" he commanded with a sense of seriousness now replacing his previous smug and taunting voice.


    They mustered the courage to come at him, charging all at once. To this, Gabriel smiled, moving out of the way at speeds exceeding Mach 4 along with his great sword. They could keep up with his movements, but their bodies didn''t comply to follow him, striking him was an even distant aim.


    Gabriel slashed through the people and gave them a quick end. "May your souls rest in peace, young ones." He said before starting his short-lived massacre. 2 people from the squad, one wielding light and one dark, tried to run away from the raging force and put all their efforts into flying away as fast as possible.


    Gabriel, after dealing with all of them, realized there was a very high intensity signal trying to run away from him, and he remembered there were 2 more essence users missing, which did not engage in battle with him, Gabriel quickly realized their plans and took off, at his highest possible speeds, creating a giant wave below him, in response to the shockwave created by his sudden acceleration from rest to Mach 7.


    "You too sure are good at flying, I''ll give you that. But alas, you were destined to be my opponents. It really does break my heart. It''s been fun, may your souls find peace." Gabriel said after he caught up with the pair and slashed through them.


    Down below, Luca was still drowned in a trance, remembering his grandfather''s words, "The first essence user arose in the very moment of desperation and vengeance. A nomadic tribal man, 24,000 years ago went on a hunt alone since his tribe was injured fatally thanks to their previous hunts. He set out into the thick forest in hopes of finding food to keep his tribe alive and help his comrades heal quicker. He wished to secretly kill one of a pair of mammoths he spotted and followed for a while, but messing up his spear throw mammoth sure spoiled his plans. Confronted by the mammoths he was washed over by a feeling of hopelessness and dread. He could only pray for help and wish miracle would happen. But he knew there was no one coming to his aid, to help his comrades, his family, his tribe. Filled with new found hope and a peculiar defiance he held his spear and went back to his primal instincts, he shouted out loud, so loud he scared the mammoths and he threw that spear so hard it pierced through the mammoth''s thick skin, killing it instantly. The other mammoth ran away, and he dragged the corpse-trophy of his triumph back to his camp himself. People might call me crazy for still believing in these long forgotten myths....but Luca, you must know this, our heritage, our nature.....our past shrouded by these veils. One day, I know you will become as strong as that man, and you will protect the ones you hold so dear."


    "I''m sure you would be disappointed in me, Grandpa." He said to himself under his breath. Cassius shouted to wake him up from the trance so that he could hear what the ship intercom was announcing, "All threats have been neutralized. All units return to positions and assess the functionalities of the ship, please report any and all anomalies and issues in the ship''s functioning to navigation department, CO or The XO. We''re saved folks!!" as the ship started to re-emerge and resume normal functioning.


    Cassius and Luca rushed back to the hatch, which was opened from the outside, unlike when Gabriel had locked it from the outside. The opened the hatch and saw Gabriel in a peaceful stance, hovering above the ocean surface, with his unusual armor. He was in a state of calm after the fight and meditated mid air.


    Luca and Cassius were very happy since they made it through this situation since it felt so impossible, not because they doubted Gabriel''s strength but doubting he''d even use his powers. The entire crew knew they had an essence user among them, but they didn''t know they were so strong that he''d get them out of this entire problem by himself. They congratulated him through the ship''s speakers and some came to thank him through the hatch.


    Tommy woke up from his sleep and came out to ask John, who was watching over him, and Luca to ask him what was happening. "Your father saved us kiddo, from very bad people." Tommy jumped with excitement after hearing what his uncle said.


    The entire crew celebrated this victory and Luca announced on the intercom saying "Special dinner night for everyone today!" as he finally showed some emotions on his face which was usually very cold and resolute. He commanded the ship''s navigation to steer towards South America , to report this incident to the continental headquarters commander in chief.


    Amongst all this celebration, upheaval and happiness, Gabriel was digging deep into his memories to remember about this "organization", since he knew this skirmish against them had only began. He knew there will be more coming, but he didn''t know what they actually were.


    To Be Continued in chapter 2.

 Chapter 2: The Curse, Passed Along. Part 1

    Finally reaching Brazil after 23 days at the sea and a crazy adventure, the ship had docked at Rio De Janeiro''s port. The ship was to undergo some routine maintenance and the crew were told to wait at the Docks'' living space temporarily or can visit their homes if they live nearby. The docks was built in an area spanning over 20 hectares, used both for transporting commercial products and it was used by the coalition as well. Luca wanted to report to the Joint coalition''s continental headquarters and meet the Chief-in-Command of the headquarters after hearing something about the "organization" from Gabriel. He wanted to take Gabriel, Johnathan and tommy with him too, The kid would get to meet someone his age too, if he were to come with them. Cassius had to run an errand for a while and said he wouldn''t be able to visit the headquarters. After packing their luggage, All four of them left for the Continental headquarters with a vehicle provided by the coalition branch at the docks.


    The Continent headquarters was built in the heart of Brazil, the city of Brasilia. It was a huge megastructure almost as huge as the entire city itself, comparable to the Human nervous system, brain being the actual headquarters and the thousands of nerves connecting to everywhere in the body being the roadways diverging from the fortress, to the entire continent. It''s defenses were formidable, one of the finest Luca has come across. It''s aim not only protecting the higher ups of the society but everyone who resided in the area. The filtering was thorough and suspicious ones were stopped for even more of painful and tedious checking.


    The squad had finally got through and they were happy to see some life and some bustling activity after nearly a month of being at the sea, and being bored of the monotony it had to offer. The entire city and even the entire continent was one of the most secure places on earth after the doomsday, since this coalition''s branch was quite efficient at locking off evil activity and they were able to effectively countermeasure the infected from spreading and terrorizing people''s lives. The entire continent''s populace lived like there wasn''t any pandemic or a global emergency ever, thanks to the steps taken by the Chief-in-Command and a proper implementation of those.


    Tommy was very happy since he got to see that many people and he was also happy that he was among the company of many more kids at the staffing sectionc of the Headquarters, where the squad was temporarily at. After taking a bath and eating a bit, Luca and Gabriel left to meet the Commander-in-chief, while tommy was left in John''s care. Tommy asked john to take him to play parks and got him to buy ice cream too. After roaming for a while, both of them settled down at a park, completely exploring many others. While both of them are eating their second ice cream of the day, they sat on a bench and tommy all of a sudden, asked John, "Say, uncle john, why do you look a bit different than others? Why is your skin so pale and your eyes a distinguishing blue?", "woah, where did that come from all of a sudden?" John replied to tommy''s question. "To answer your first question, do u remember when we first met? There was a woman shouting at me in the middle of the night? The reason she did this is because I''m a bit different from the rest of us, but I''m still a human, nonetheless. It is because of this "difference" i have, my eyes glow blue and my skin is paler than the others."


    To this, Tommy said: "How are you different than others? say how are you different than me? I''m a normal human, how are you so different that the woman went so far and shouted at you?" Johnathan looking at the child, curiously ,as to how he is so mature for his young age of barely 7-8 years. Whether it was simple curiosity or genuine interest to know more about him, he was ready to answer the curious child''s questions. John was genuinely so happy that the child grew so much from the moment he stepped onto the ship along with Gabriel, and from the little timid child he was. It was just a few weeks but seeing him finally act like normal children made John happy.


    "Well, for starters, I''m faster, stronger and agile than normal humans. And my IQ is a bit high then normal humans as well." Johnathan said.


    Tommy: "How fast?"


    Johnathan: "Well i think i can run 1 kilometer under 50 seconds?(I don''t wanna blow this child''s mind and introduce him to such topics)."


    Tommy: "Woah!!! That''s so cool! But how strong are you?"


    Johnathan: "I think i can swing around a car with just one of my arms?"


    Tommy: "WOAHHHH!!! YOU''RE SO STRONG UNCLE JOHN!!(He said with a huge smile on his face) Can i become as strong and super cool like you one day?"


    Johnathan:(Not being able to tell the story behind his appearance and his inhuman milestones, he didn''t say anything much, regarding t his topic) "Yeah you sure will be. You''ll be even stronger than me one day, and I will be around to see that day and help you along the journey too. "(he said as he embraced tommy.)


    Tommy: "Thanks Uncle John and I''ll be stronger than you one day, remember that!! Hehe (Said tommy as he embraced john as well.)"


    The two of them left the park as they got a call that Gabriel and Luca were back and are waiting for them. It was already sunset, and john thought to himself about how genuinely happy he is when he is around tommy, he can forget all his problems and forget all his tensions and be around tommy indefinitely. Tommy asked John to not tell anything to Gabriel as he would angry that he ate so many ice creams.


    It was already like Gabriel was his...father. After both of the pairs met up at their temporary residence, they went to dinner together and had a great time, Gabriel truly enjoyed his time, as all others did, and tommy ended up getting more ice creams. When they came back to the residence, Gabriel put tommy to bed. Luca, John and Gabriel sat down in the balcony, in their hands each of them had a beer and were chatting about their lives and how different they were before the "doomsday". It was like these three were friends outside their professional selves. They held professional etiquette because of the nature of their jobs and respected their ranks, At the end of the day they''re the closest thing they had to family.


    Gabriel: "One hell of a day, eh? By the way, where did you both go, Johnathan?"This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Johnathan: "A lot of places, man. Kid''s the best guy to be around, his energy just hypercharges me, you know?"


    Luca: "That kid sure is a handful. But at the end of the day I''m happy that the kid''s grown. The kid became more lively despite the horrible conditions you found him in, Gabriel."


    Gabriel: "That we can all agree on. We can agree that he sure is a good kid."


    Luca: "Then why do you not adopt him? He doesn''t have a guiding figure and you are currently filling that role, and you are doing an excellent job, i must say."


    Gabriel: "I do wanna adopt that kid, man. After I found him i just...became more lively. I started to enjoy life again, after you know what happened... the only thing I''m hesitating about is that i might not make a good father, i couldn''t even protect my own children..."


    Luca: "Hey, come on ,man. Stop blaming yourself for something which you had no control over. you gave it your all to safeguard your family. I Agree that it is painful to let your family go, but please man, Stop exhausting yourself with something which is already done. We have a lot more stuff which could use your expertise and your attention, like tommy and the case regarding the "Organization."


    Johnathan: "Speaking of, what did the commander-in-chief say?? What took you so long as to you had to spend the entire day at the headquarters?"


    Gabriel: "Oh. That. Well, the chief first introduced himself as "Matteo". He said he wanted to know what had happened in the bunker. I briefed him about our adventures there and informed we had a revenant from our team help us out. He searched for your file and how you were turned. We told him about the entire story and further delved into the main focus of the visit, we briefed him about the incident that happened at the sea, which deeply concerned Matteo. "so who dealt with them?" he asked, Luca pointed towards me and Matteo shouted "YOU ARE A FORCE USER!? No matter i felt a familiar feeling from you, You are a dark user aren''t you? The moment you walked in, i could feel resonance, our strengths match in magnitude and it truly is a big milestone considering you are just a ship X.O, I''m a light user, and I''m so glad to see someone match my strength. You truly don''t deserve to be there, come to the headquarters, I''ll place you one of the best and deserving ranks, even the vice Commanding officer in chief." He truly tried to woo me with all of those ranks and power. I just rejected him since i work under Luca because he is my friend. "Oh working to stick near your friends, yes? I respect that...for they''re all i have as well." Matteo said. "Well, it is what is, I suppose. May I ask you, what awakened your strength? And why it was exactly darkness? I''ve heard the people who were the most wrathful and vengeful awaken light, and the people who were full of hatred awaken their dark energy."


    From the dawn of humanity there existed 2 forces, 2 sides of the same coin, after the news of the fantastic strength of the first person who awakened his "life force" spread among the tribes, the man who initially wanted to keep it a secret, had now disappeared because he disliked popularity and attention, he went deep into the nearby mountains seeking peace. Rumors followed that the man grew exponentially in strength and trained everyday to increase his power. In which he was quite successful. The people who lived in the areas surrounding the mountains, Saw a thick, strong gleam of light everyday around the time of 7-9pm after nightfall. Over time, the people of the surrounding valleys developed myths that there was a person who had divine origins and strength. A lot of people trekked the mountains and tried to debunk the myths surrounding the gleaming light but only few made it to the top and witnessed the true nature of this wondrous incident. But only a select few could make it through the journey and none returned to tell the tales of their voyage to others. The myth of one time became legends for the following generations, the legend of "The mountain''s divine", died out. Where this was exactly on earth is unknown but scriptures across multiple continents were unearthed who spoke of this mysterious man and hint at the subsequent development of mankind''s force utilization, it gave hints on how such power of humans originated from, although they were subtle and vague they still dropped some crucial information, nonetheless.


    Matteo could see Gabriel''s distress and asked him to stop if he didn''t wish to, "Thank you." Gabriel said.


    Matteo: "No need man. It was kind of negligent on my part too you know? Anyways. I''ll ask our reconnaissance team to look into this "organization " and get more information on them. According to the intel we have on them now, they''re a typical organization who wish to brute force their ways to conquer the world and have the riches of the world for themselves, a truly cliche goal indeed. They plan to do this by slowly taking key points around the world and neutralize any and all of the coalition''s activity around those areas.",


    Gabriel: "Is there any way we could stop this madness? And put an end to the organization''s activity once and for all?"


    Matteo: "Well its not that simple. They existed from more than 5,000 years and no one could pin point their location. They are headed by a group of dreaded force users who show no mercy when it comes to enforcing their goals"


    Gabriel: "Well, how the hell did you get this much of information from? I thought they were secretive when it come to their activities and plans."


    Matteo: "Thanks to our reconnaissance team and the special operations squad, we could capture their representatives and extract information from them, although, they wouldn''t initially talk, we got them to do so by our very "humane" methods you know what i mean?"


    Gabriel: "I know exactly what you mean, hahaha, i once had the opportunity to see their methods, truly "humane" indeed."


    Luca: "So how many places do they have troops garrisoned at? How many places do they exactly have planned to take over? And are there any places they have taken over??"


    Matteo: "They did not take over any place till now, well up to our knowledge at least, but they do have troops garrisoned at 3 continents, which are: Antarctica,


    Europe and North America. Where they are exactly, is unknown. They might be anywhere, we couldn''t pin point there locations because that''s all our subjects told us."


    Luca: "Well, something is better than nothing, i suppose. Well then, we shall get going now, Commander. I thank you for the time you''ve given us."


    Matteo: "One last thing. Gabriel, take care, not as your superior but as a fellow human, take care of yourself. You are too strict and harsh on yourself when it comes to the incident which awakened your powers, it truly is a boon but often it only comes through a curse. Humanity''s been blessed with this boon but in the exchange for a curse. It is indeed a fact that we only get something when we lose something. The law of symmetry and conservation applies to something as abstract as the human thought and relations too, is truly humorous. I know the pain since I''ve lost something too."


    Gabriel: "Thanks, chief. Take care."


    (Back to the present at the balcony.)

 Chapter 2:The Curse Passed Along, Part 2.

    John: "The commander of an entire continent being that humble, huh? that does not fit right whatsoever."


    Luca: "That''s true, but i suppose it was due to Gabriel''s strength that he had such behavior towards us. Man, sometimes i just feel useless because of my powerlessness when compared to both of you, I''m pretty useless aren''t I? John is one of the strongest revenants there ever was and Gabriel is also among the strongest people I''ve met. You both are incredibly strong and can protect against foreign threats, on the other hand there''s me..."


    John: "You do know these powers are nothing but curses to us don''t you? As for your supposed "uselessness", You are a Damn C.O. of one of the most feared crafts in the world. HOW ARE YOU EVEN USELESS MAN? WHY DO YOU THINK OF YOURSELF LIKE THAT?"


    Luca: "That''s true but I wish to be more, I wish to be useful...I wish to be like you."


    Gabriel: "it is like that sometime, Luca, but trust me when i say this you do not wanna awaken this strength, and no you aren''t useless. I know how it feels to be in that position, but you aren''t useless, you are one of the best humans I''ve seen. Stop blaming yourself over something you don''t have control over."


    Luca: "It''s MY life, why should i not be able to choose what i wish to be? I wanna be more, it''s not like i have anything to lose anymore, my parents died a natural death, the love of my family whom I loved so much died to those sick revenant bastards and i couldn''t do anything, The only thing which temporarily distracted me was my job, and i finally could talk my heart out for the first time when we became friends, Gabriel. The only love of my life whom i met in my college left me...mama, papa, Suzie... all of them...gone. I''m sure you both know the feeling. I''m getting old now and i Believe I''m becoming more of a liability to the navy rather than an asset."


    John: "Our stories match commander, they do, with the only difference being that i didn''t get to marry her. Since we''ve came to the topic of powers and age, how old are you both, really? I''m just 37, I know Luca is Around 49, But since Gabriel is a force user you must be older than you look right? I''ve heard that force users can replenish the health of their newer cells and sustain them at a particular vitality without their quality decreasing over time. So, essentially they can look the age they wish to look like, i think you use that too? I mean you look like you''re a healthy 30 year old, but you aren''t are you?"


    Luca and Gabriel: "YOU DON''T KNOW MY/HIS AGE?"


    Gabriel:" Seriously, kid? You don''t know how old i am? Well, be read to have your blown, I''m Actually 58 years old, and I''ve awakened my darkness power 24 years ago, when I was 34 years old."


    John: "DAMN! I''m sorry but damn you''re old.... You''ve never told me how you awakened them, I just knew it was a very traumatic experience and it''s related to your family. Could you tell me what really happened?"


    Luca: "Don''t, John, it''s painful for him and he''s already hurt after using his powers back in the sea."


    John:" OH! I''m sorry then. You don''t have to if you don''t want to."


    Gabriel: "It''s okay Luca, sorrows weighs less when shared to another person. Let me tell you this beforehand, John, the entire story''s gonna take a hell lot of time coz I like narrating stories."


    John: "Well, then let me bring us another 2 rounds of beer then."


    Gabriel: "Well then. Where do I start? Oh right, with my entire biodata first, We''ll move on to the two of you once I''m done."


    Luca and John: "Fine with me "


    Gabriel: " Well, since we have the beers too, let me begin. My father had a normal 9-5 desk job. The doomsday happened in the year 2028, and i was born in 1997, my mom was a housewife and we came from an German family, my blue eyes and my distinct blonde hair should''ve gave that away. We lived in Munich and i had a normal childhood. In my college, I met a beautiful woman, "Anna" Whom i loved the first time i saw her, we talked and i proposed and she said she liked me too. Everyday with her was bliss, she was the only reason due to which i had the motivation to attend my college everyday. After college, I got a job in the Army, i introduced her to my family of my mother and father after i graduated. We got married after i talked to her parents and both of our families agreed to our marriage."


    "Every time i looked at her in college, it was pure bliss and blushing. I couldn''t even come to accept the fact that she''s gonna be my wife. She hailed from a French Family and none of that mattered to me, i was like a kid around her and she was my comfort. I had to be away from my home due to my army postings, from one side of our family , or both of them came to stay with her so, that she wouldn''t be lonely. We had a kid after 2 years of marriage, who was a girl and i put a request to work at a station not be posted away from home for months and months. My request was accepted after 2 months and i moved into Zurich where both our families were near and fortunately my office was near too, We named our child "Lana". Everyday with my wife was beautiful, man. It was so....pure and blissful. my kid, my wife...my home...and peace. We had another kid who was a boy. By this time it was 2022, and my life was so freaking smooth, everything was so good and we were just a lovely family and I was a clingy husband. My father died in 2023 when Lana was only 6 years old and my son, Timothy, was only 1 year old, my mother died in 2026. "


    "My wife was there when i was feeling down and i was there for her when her parents died too. She was the beacon of light in my life. After the doomsday, we had to move to the capital to stay safe, the journey there was...hard and deadly, some remaining semblance of the German army set up a safe haven, and i got my friends to allot me a place there, we had to travel through road and the journey was deadly, turned monsters everywhere ,trying to destroy our car, desperate humans who tried to scavenge our cars due to hunger or were begging for a ride to the capital. It was so....miserable. All of it. Children seeing their parents die or families being turned or parents and children being orphaned, but somehow, we pushed through and made it to the capital."


    "There we got a room and a bit of rations from the army, who were trying to manage the shelter and protect the city from external threats too. Remember by this point, no one knew something called "Essence users" existed, or humans had any type of "powers". After a few days of living in fear and high tensions, i had to serve in the shelter too, since i was part of the military too. The coalition didn''t exist by now. it was formed after 8 years of the doomsday, in the year 2036. After a few weeks of trying to survive and hold off the infected, the capital was attacked by some humans. They came quickly in some helicopters and dropped some humanoid creatures, they were both revenants and modified "shadows" who were even stronger, they killed everyone in the shelters and i managed to flee the scene, with my family. I was wondering where others were, while holding my rifle and trying to hold off some infected on our tail, i saw....them. The same people who attacked our shelters managed to neutralize the city''s military forces. The ones who managed to do this impossible thing were...force users. The first time i saw them i was...horrified. They showed no mercy and killed off any and all people without mercy, while i tried to comprehend the horror while also trying to flee without being spotted by the force users, one of the infected tried to take a hit on me, luckily i fought him off and we started running again, but firing off rounds attracted the infected towards me and my family and we ran into a dead end a horde of infected surrounded and i tried to kill them off, one by one, with my arms, my legs...and my wife took care of the children meanwhile. But...I wasn''t enough...from the mindless horde came a revenant, whom i didn''t know what they were back in the day, he rushed at me and i dodged him, while i tried to hold him off, my daughter got bitten and was turned in front of my 2 very own eyes. My wife soon followed, while she was trying to get the infected off my daughter. I rushed to there aid and try to calm my son down, amidst all the chaos."This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    "By this time all the force users had already evacuated and the remaining few revenants who didn''t evacuate, were told to kill off the remaining civilians, the instructions coming from a helicopter in the air. The revenant spotted the crowd and came near it, to find a human family, my family. I was scared to my bone when i saw him, his peculiar eyes, his skin was.....moving. He could manipulate his muscles and grow appendages at his wish, like u might know, John. He killed my son and....there i was...amidst all of this chaos...with my family in my arms, they''re bodies mutilated and dead. The revenant said, "What a beautiful sight, hahaha.", just a few weeks ago everything was normal, everything was so....peaceful, it was plain and normal. But....now...my....wife, son...daughter....gone. All because of this person and these infected. "I hate you all. I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU , I HATE YOU!!!!!!!" i shouted, to which the revenant only laughed and the mindless "shadows" charged at me. But...My anger grew...my hatred grew...a feeling to avenge my family came over me and I wanted that person''s laugh turn into begging to let him go."


    "My body temperatures shot up and i could feel it because the skin of my family was being burnt. I turned into a mindless monster who only wanted to destroy, The ground began to rumble and all suddenly turned to naught, every light ray was absorbed by body. Before this, all i remembered was i put my family''s bodies down and slowly walked towards the revenant who was laughing maniacally, i wanted him to pay, i wanted every infected there to pay. After the blackout was over, i was directly looking over the revenant, towering over him and once he looked at me, he instantly begged for forgiveness and said he didn''t know it would came to this. I grabbed him by his throat and chocked him while i was crying, my mind racing at unfathomable speeds, frames of my life, which was normal till now...the frames of my life being displayed over the screen in my mind, all the times I''ve been happy, all the times I''ve been angry, but every time that happened I was alive, but now....I died with my family, only a shell of what i was remained.


    My body started to be consumed by darkness and that revenant tried to escape my hands but to no avail. Once he saw my body being consumed by darkness  he begged for mercy and said he''s ready to do anything, but i only heard him, I didn''t listen to what he was saying. The memories of my family overwhelmed my mind and suddenly my thinking capacity was reduced to nothing. I stopped thinking. I threw him on the ground and my body exploded and every ray of light was consumed by my body, a scorching wave of nothingness spread over the city, it was like i exploded in a supernova, but in my case, i released onto the world a horrifying darkness. After the explosion, all of the city became nothing, everything was leveled and the remaining city was engulfed in flames. The entire area in the radius of 20km was lit up, my family''s bodies were burnt and so was that revenant''s. The explosion attracted some attention and some force users came to subjugate any threats. There they saw a figure wandering around, engulfed in darkness, a barely visible shadowy figure who limped with no thought and was stumbling in his every step. One of the force users who flied over to the ground zero tried to illuminate me, by using his light to see what I am."


    "All of them were scared out of their mind, they were levitating over me, who was walking around making a whimpering sound while i was crying, they were flabbergasted by the sheer amount of energy being released by me, i could hear them while i roamed around without a thought, one of them shouted to others and told them to stay away from me. One of them charged at me and to supports him, one after another followed, I made quick work of them, I didn''t even know how to use my powers I just killed off every single one of them in hopes that it would fill the empty void within, but it did not, it was just hoping I''d be able to feel something after losing my entire family. It was for nothing. After many hours i was just roaming around the city ruins like a maniac with nothing on my mind, i was conscious but my thinking capacity had died, when it turned to day time, i was laying on the ground when some of the German soldiers woke me up and glad to see me alive. They took me to a base somewhere, they had enquired about what happened and were sorry for what happened to me. After a while, they released me, deeming me innocent and i joined back into the force after many months of psychological help and guidance. It didn''t help me at all but helped me with the random outbursts of the dark energy which i had. I didn''t join back the army but went missing for the next 4 years to train my power and come back, i had no idea how i would do that but i tried, and i somehow succeeded."


    Luca: "Puts tears into my eyes every time."


    John: (he was already crying and said) "I''m sorry man. It must be hard being this person you are. To overcome your grief and be strong for the sake of others. You are a role model, Gabriel"


    Gabriel: "Thanks man. well that''s it for my story, now onto the 2 of you."


    Luca: "i don''t have anything more to say than the story I''ve already given you, My mom and dad died a natural death and my wife was killed in an infected breakout in our city, which was supposed to be safe, i went to my job and when i came back...all i saw as her remains. From then on, I''ve been a nomad, no place to stay at, just keeping on moving, and i tried to distract myself from the workload."


    John: "Well, you both already know my story so no point in reciting it again, well then, i suppose it is quite late, let''s go to sleep now."


    Gabriel: "yep. and remember john, take care of yourself. Don''t let your grief get to your head. Nothing good is gonna happen if it does, and Luca, you still are seriously one of the strongest humans I''ve come across."


    Luca: "Thank you."


    All of them went to sleep, and wake up next morning and Gabriel deicides to start with the proceedings to adopt tommy. Not because he feels so familiar to his son but to gain closure by raising another child and guiding him. Gabriel explains what''s going on to tommy and he accepts, the authorities didn''t do any issue , for they didn''t know who the boy is and they couldn''t find information on the boy too. Tommy was adopted by Gabriel and they celebrated it by going out to dinner.


    After a few days of staying in the place provided by the headquarters, Matteo called Gabriel and informed them that their ship had completed it''s maintenance and said they were assigned a mission to investigate a place in Australia, which might be related to the organization. The squad packed their bags and left the town of Brasilia to go Rio De Janeiro.


    After reaching the port Luca took his position and ordered the crew to board the ship and take their positions, Tommy, Gabriel and john came too and tommy was told that they were going on another journey. At this point, tommy was habituated to this life of travelling as well. They were later joined by Cassius who was assigned to this operation as well.


    Gabriel was a bit guilty since he couldn''t tell what actually happened with anyone, even the ones who considered him their best friends, it was because of his training, sure, but the truth was important too.

 chapter 2: The Curse, Passed along ,part 3.

    Part 3:


    After Gabriel was released from the army after they verified that he was the victim and not related to the group who attacked the capital, Gabriel had nowhere to go now, No building, no place could feel like home. He had no apparent aim, still traumatized by the event, and reprocessing their death was the most painful thing ever, his perception of reality was getting inaccurate and he failed to distinguish reality from dreams, nights and days passed by like they were mere minutes.


    He''d roam around forests, ruined cities and around the ruins of the country, whenever he''d come across infected he''d just blast them away or punch through them with his newfound, inhuman strength. He didn''t know what he was doing in this period, it was like he was in a trance, like the one people are in when they just wake up abruptly after a very deep sleep. He did this for 3 weeks before finally coming back to his senses in a mountain, when he got some peaceful sleep after bathing in a nearby waterfall.


    He scavenged for some berries and fruits in the morning, as he was quite hungry since he basically didn''t eat anything from the past 3 weeks, after his family''s death. While searching for food, he found a man in the forest, feeding birds and the animals there, they didn''t seem to be afraid of him neither did seem to be hostile against him too, he radiated a calming and a serene vibe from him, he wore a red and yellow robe like those Tibetan monks he saw in the TV a while ago. While Gabriel was taking peeks at the man, the man seemed to notice him and said in a very smooth and calming manner, "They won''t hurt you, you can come feed them too if you wish to."


    Having some conscious, sensible interaction after so much of time was....peaceful for Gabriel and he went to the man and slowly tried offering the birds some fruits which the man give him, they gladly accepted and sat on his shoulders and head. "You look emaciated, young man. Here take these for now, I''ll make you something more whole once we get back to my home up in the mountains." Said the mysterious man while he passed on a makeshift basket made from plant fibers and wood, which was quite strong , filled with fruits. "My name is Gabriel, what''s yours? " he said to the man, while eating hastily, as expected of a starving man. "I went by many names over the years, but none knew my real name, but the one given to me by my parents i Arnav." said the man.


    Arnav took Gabriel into a shack in the mountains, it was quite resilient despite it''s fragile looks, and the interior was very tidy for a normal shack in the mountains, "Make yourselves at home. I''ll make you something to drink." Said Arnav as he went to the back of the house, where he had kept a bit of wood and a pot on a wood-powered stove. After a couple of minutes Arnav came back with a wooden bowl which had a bit of soup. "This''ll help with the cold weather too, I''ll make you a complete meal in a few hours, at dinner time, this will fill your stomach now." he said as he handed the bowl to Gabriel, "Thank you. It''s fairly quite here and it''s very relaxing. I needed this. By the way, back there, you referred to India like you don''t come from the nation? You speak like you are ancient, what''s going here? Care to shed some light?" Gabriel said as he started to eat from the bowl Arnav gave him.


    Arnav: "I am not what i appear to be, fellow human. And yes, I am what you can call "Ancient", I think i turn 13,352 years this October."


    Gabriel: (He starts laughing uncontrollably, while Arnav was just smiling through the whole ordeal, after stopping to laugh he turns to Arnav who didn''t laugh and had a bit of serious and smiling face on.) "Wait, you aren''t kidding? How is that even possible?" (He leapt from the chair he was sitting on and took a few steps back as he said) "You aren''t a monster, right? Wait, what even are you?"


    Arnav: "No need to worry now. If i wished to kill you or harm you, I easily could''ve, the moment i met you down at the foothills. Take a seat and complete your soup, they contain some vital nutrients to replenish your vitality."


    Gabriel: (he slowly sat back down, started to eat his soup and was still was a bit timid of Arnav) "So...what are you anyway? You look human"


    Arnav: "That is because i am. I can sense a faint bit of energy from you, you don''t know how to control it I''m sure. You were definitely the reason for that huge explosion in the capital, a while back. Such energy....such power....and such sorrow. Reminds me of myself."


    Gabriel:" How the hell do you know it was me?! And how do you "sense" this "Energy" from me....Wait no....don''t tell, you have these weird powers like all those people I killed that day."


    Arnav: "You killed the perpetrators that caused the incident? It feels kind of peaceful knowing that. Well, I am indeed a force user like you. You use darkness if I''m not mistaken? Allow me to show you, I use light." (As he made his entire body glow and stopped after a level, Gabriel knew he had so much energy that Arnav could kill him off in a second) "So? believe me now? I''m a human, it might make you more suspicious of me but I wish no harm to anyone. As for your strengths, I''d like a demonstration tomorrow, to estimate till where they extend to in the initial stage."If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Gabriel: "Not like i have anywhere else to go or i have anything to lose."


    (Gabriel fetches some water from a nearby fresh source of flowing water, on Arnav''s request, and Arnav makes them a dinner of handmade flatbread and a side dish made from "panner" as they called it back in his homeland, and spinach, while they ate dinner, Gabriel thanked Arnav several times for his warm hospitality and asked him) "So after you check the extent of my abilities, what happens to me? I mean, what''s next?"


    Arnav: "I train you. You need training and you aren''t in a shape to use your powers in an unsupervised environment."


    Gabriel: "Train me? Train me for what? I''m not using something which came from the death of my family and reminds me of them. "


    Arnav: "Believe it or not, human civilization has fallen, Gabriel. And evil will come out to profit from the disaster, the strong have to help the weak. For example, you have a son and he falls down while  riding a bicycle, you don''t keep in the house 24/7, neither should you leave him unsupervised, you must teach him to stand up and realize what he''s doing wrong and correct it. Similarly, I''m not going to show you what is what Gabriel. I''m only going to show you the path on which you must walk and only you can fix your sorrows and respond to the trauma, I''ll be a shoulder to lean on and more or less like the father in the example i gave you, The thorny path of having peace with yourself is to be treaded only by you. You can''t say "no" to your duty, your responsibility. You were given this strength by fate for a reason. Tread the path of justice and benevolence . I, along with many others will guide you. And you training shall commence shortly."


    Gabriel: "I didn''t even say no to any of this. How are you going to drop such important pieces of information just like that man? Fine, I suppose I have no other option than to go with the flow and train."


    Arnav: "There are only a bunch like me and we all will teach you one aspect of the force. I''ll be your first trainer, and no, none of this was planned before hand. We''ll meet the other people who I told are alike, after you''re training with me is done. And worry not, none of them will mortally wound you, but only force you to train even harder, for now go to sleep."


    Back in the ship, After Cassius and Gabriel meet, Cassius tells him he has to talk to him personally. They both go to a secluded room and Gabriel asks


    Cassius, "How are you man? How did your errand go?"


    Cassius: "It went quite well. But, I need you to give tommy to Luca and come with me."


    Gabriel: " What?! Why?! Why do u even want me to come with you? What''s up, something wrong?"


    Cassius: "I''m the final piece, Gabriel. I am the final ancient you must meet."


    Gabriel: (After hearing this Gabriel''s face turned pale and he said) "WHAT??!! Quit joking. Wait even if you were joking you wouldn''t know about the final piece or even the ancients. YOU ARE THE LAST DARK USER I NEED TO MEET?! That doesn''t make any sense, Arnav said the last one will meet me in my travels since he is working in the army since he wished to be closer to humans. But to think you were the one, You knew this from the very beginning? And you are 14,310 years old right?"


    Cassius: "No, i did not. The errand i needed to run was meeting up with Arnav since he called for me few weeks ago and i got his letter after i got to the Rio De Janeiro port. And yes, i am indeed 14,310 years old. Now show haste, we need to leave."


    Gabriel: "What?! I''m not coming! I adopted tommy and I need to take care of him."


    Cassius: "Nothing like last time is going to happen and we''ll be meeting them before they dock at the port in Australia, it''ll take them 35 days to get there , and our training will take 30 days, for this is the final part."


    Gabriel: "Fine. Damnit. I don''t wanna leave that kid alone but....i suppose it must be done."


    Cassius and Gabriel hurry to the ship which is about to undock in 15 minutes and Gabriel requests Luca and Johnathan to take car of tommy, because he need to leave on an urgent personal matter with Cassius. He refused to disclose anymore information to Luca or Johnathan and packed his bags and went to tommy and apologized saying he needs to go somewhere and it was for everybody''s sake, after some crying, tommy agreed and Gabriel told him to ALWAYS stick around Johnathan and Luca, and not trust anyone else. "Bye Bye, papa" Tommy said to Gabriel as he left. After hearing those words, Gabriel was almost brought to tears that the kid had called him papa after so much time. He left Tommy in Luca and John''s care and told him to take absolute care of him and of themselves. He told them to call him if something was to happen and said he''ll rendezvous with them at the port in Australia where they are headed to."


    Cassius watched Gabriel about to cry and said "It doesn''t suit you, young man. Stand strong, nothing shall happen to that child. Now for the final part, I''ll be training your overall combat and travelling. I''ll hone your general and overall skills. We''ll let them leave and launch into the air in a secret place so that no ones sees us, we''ll dive into the water and once we are about 50-80 km away from any coast we''ll come out and Launch towards a place in India, where Arnav is currently at and asked us to come to."


    Before the ship Cassius took a deep look at tommy, a child barely 8 years old, he stared into the child''s eyes, he was interrupted by Gabriel who said "Something strange in this kid''s eyes, no? It''s like....he is more. He''s hiding something in his soul"


    They both wave goodbye to the leaving ship and went to a secluded corner of the port and dived deep down up to 2300 meters in the sea and took the same stance Gabriel took before flying into air. They launched at speeds reaching 90 meters per second while trying to not disturb nearly aquatic wildlife in any way. They both resurfaced after Cassius gave Gabriel a signal to come out of the water and they launched at hypersonic speeds once they were 8-12 km in the sky, as to not attract attention when they launch at such impossible speeds and release shockwaves.


    To be Continued in chapter 3.

 Chapter 3:Apathizing Agony, Part 1.

    Gabriel and Cassius slowed down when they approached the Indian subcontinent and flew even higher to not be detected by radars, they landed in a secluded part of a mountain range covered in snow and all he could see till the horizon was just glaciers and barren mountains covered in nothing but snow, Gabriel immediately recognized the place to be the Himalayan Mountain range. It was about to be sunset and the journey from Rio De Janeiro took less than 5 minutes to complete. It seemed like they landed in the middle of a blizzard and Gabriel started to feel the cold slowly creep up to him, so he created extra layers of darkness on his skin, instinctively, Cassius too had a thick layer of darkness surrounding his body. Both of them had to do this so that they''re body won''t be hurt by the wind when they travelled so fast. "You kept up pretty well, young man" Cassius appreciated Gabriel.


    Cassius examined his surroundings and seemed to stare at a shack in the middle of nowhere and shouted and pointed towards the shack, indicating Gabriel to come to the shack. They both leapt at doorstep of the shack and once they got a bit closer they realized the shack was.....glowing from the inside, both Gabriel and Cassius could tell it was Arnav''s light energy, he was doing this to keep himself warm and not let the shack fly away due to the violent gusts of the blizzard. Gabriel knocked on the door and the wooden shack, which looked poorly assembled, but still resilient nonetheless, seemed to fall apart, to reveal a robed monk, who was Arnav. His body too, quickly was engulfed in layers of light to protect him from the harsh weather. Arnav greeted the both of them and told them that they''ll fly to another place and he wanted them to follow him.


    Gabriel, Arnav and Cassius flew out of the mountain into the sky and Arnav, who was flying in front of them, stopped. And said, "This should be the best place to set up camp for now, what do you say Cassius?". "Hmmm, it''ll suffice for now." Cassius replied. "There''s no way we are gonna set up camp here." Gabriel said, but he was shocked to see both of the other people started to materialize an entire floor and some furniture to sit on, which was a bit yellowy and red, which helped to differentiate it from the sky. They were literally making a base in the sky. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Once their base of operations, near to the exosphere than the surface of Earth, was set up. Arnav said that they should buy some food from the surface and bring it back to their base and enjoy the food while they chatted under the gentle moonlight. Cassius and Gabriel both agreed and Arnav took them to a city in India called "Mumbai" famous for it''s street food.


    They made sure to land somewhere isolated and blend into the crowd and get some food, once they had what they came for, they went to the secluded spot they landed at and they took off to their base in the sky. They enjoyed the delicious food under the beautiful grace of the full moon light. They chatted about normal human stuff like how work was too tough for Cassius and Gabriel and how life''s just been. They spent some time together like this and after a while, they got up and Arnav said to Gabriel that from now on, he''ll be in the last phase of his "beginner training" for using the force. Cassius said that he''ll teach him how one can use the force and make it one with the user. Meaning, the user is human and a biological being but the way they''re gonna use darkness is that they''ll become one with the darkness itself, they''re gonna integrate every cell of their body with darkness.


    Gabriel: "How the hell is that gonna be completed in 30 days?"


    Cassius: "You''ve already made peace with yourself and your body already uses darkness on a cellular level, you might''ve already noticed that, since you''ve seen how fast your wounds heal. How you require less sleep than others, less water and less food. Your body automatically uses darkness as a fuel, as a base to nourish your cells and your body. We don''t really know why and how it works but it does, and we can only learn to control it."


    Arnav: "That''s right. Your body is quite the strong one. Especially yours, Gabriel. You are scary. The strength you had gained just from your awakening was...mind boggling. I have never seen a newbie with that strength and believe me I''ve seen more than 350 users and no one''s awakening was as strong as yours. Not even ancients awakening strength is this good."


    Cassius: "Since the topic about ancients came. Gabriel, please start the jog down memory lane today, so that we can fully start your training tomorrow. Reminisce each and every detail your previous masters have taught you. And the reasons and moral obligation they passed on to you by preaching their knowledge to you."


    Gabriel acknowledges Cassius''s words and nods to him.

 Chapter 3: Apathizing Agony, part 2.

    Arnav: "Tomorrow we both are gonna train you. You might not realize it now but Gabriel, the strength you have at the time of your awakening only, is more than all of the strength 4 ancients had, when they awakened, combined. And i hope you realize how much of a responsibility it is."


    Cassius:" Please Gabriel, don''t turn to the bad side. You are almost as strong as the youngest of the ancients, Xoroth. I believe you haven''t met him in your travels of understanding the force?"


    Gabriel: "Nope. But where does he live? Does he work a job like you do?"


    Cassius and Arnav: "Oh. You didn''t know?"


    Cassius: "I believe you''ve left for Brasilia to meet the commander-in-chief of the south American continent?"


    Gabriel: "Yep, what about him?" Gabriel face slowly turns to a shock as he remembers the commander saying they were similar in terms of strength. "Wait don''t tell me. HE IS XOROTH HIMSELF?"


    Arnav: "He is. I am sorry I couldn''t introduce to him, but during our travels for your training, we didn''t meet him since he was too busy with his own work."


    Gabriel: "I am similar in strength to an ancient? A gosh darn ancient?!!"


    Cassius:" that''s right. And it''s understandable, i heard u destroyed an entirety of shelter and an area of 20km radius when u awakened? You don''t realize how strong you were when you awakened."


    Arnav: "It almost makes me jealous" (Cassius turns to Arnav and gives him a doubtful look) "Come on, I''m still a human!"


    Gabriel: "It won''t change anything from the fact that i still have to work on my darkness even more right?"


    Arnav: "Yep, you still are just at the weakest ancient''s level, meaning, we still need to brush you up."


    Gabriel:" Damn. Ok. I was tortured during my training with Thallus and Orionis and now I''m gonna be tortured while training under not ONE but TWO?! Why was i even given this power, well it is what it is i suppose."


    Arnav:" Isn''t that something we all are asking to ourselves?"


    Cassius:" That''s true, isn''t that what we all are asking?"


    Gabriel: "Well, I''ll be damned, Look at the time, I suppose we all should go to sleep? Wait can you both even sleep?"


    Arnav: "Of course i can, we can only extend the time we can stay awake without sleeping when we train our force''s efficiency, we still have to get some sleep once in a while, y''know?"


    Cassius: "Of course we do! I still remember Arnav sleeping for 3 days straight and me guarding his ass, after our fight, we had for fun. See, when force users are exhausted they DO need food, water and sleep, because they improve our body''s condition and improve our control over our emotions."


    Gabriel: "That''s a lot of info dumping for one hour. I wanna just sleep because of being reminded of Orionis'' training."The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Cassius: "That guy sure doesn''t hold back when it comes to teaching newbies, he went too hard on me as well."


    Arnav: "Watching him treat Gabriel sort of made me laugh and made me pity him too"


    Gabriel: "No wonder you were always smiling when he used to train me."


    Arnav: "I mean can you blame me? You are like a child to me when i trained you and when i brought you to others to do the same."


    Cassius: "I''m pretty sleepy, let''s all go to sleep then? Arnav, I''m sure you''ve made the walls strong so that we aren''t gonna be attacked randomly?"


    Arnav: "Of course, idiot. I can''t afford our guy getting hurt, even more so, when he''s with 2 of the great 5."


    Cassius: "Fair enough, retard."


    Gabriel has a laugh seeing all of this and was asked why he''s laughing, to which he said he found it amusing how two of the oldest beings are fighting like children. They all go to sleep after this, happy and delighted because of the simple fact that they were with their friends.


    <in the past>


    Gabriel was trained by Arnav after he was told that he''d evaluate his strength and determine his level. Arnav told him to focus and lift objects with different weight and evaluated his speed too, by throwing towards him stuff randomly and testing his reflex speed and trained him on how to use his force to run at high speeds and how to use the force in physical forms, from there he tested his biomechanical response to the force. Arnav also observed that Gabriel was so immersed in this training despite of the trauma of losing his family.


    He could tell he''s doing this because he wants to use this as a distraction from his trauma. He knew he''d slowly learn how to deal with it. Arnav slowly taught him the very basics of how to use the force to enhance his basic biomechanics features of using the force and pushing them further. Which meant Gabriel had to train it like any ordinary human. He had to run, lift weights, learn holding his breathe, learn how to sprint and slowly learn how to float a bit as well. Gabriel trained without knowing day and night for 4 months. At first, he was weak, he could only run 10 kilometers in 30 minutes, that was thanks to his being in the army too. He could barely lift up 200 kilograms too, after a month of guidance from Arnav himself, Gabriel could now lift a rock which weighed more than a metric ton and he could run 10 kilometers under 10 minutes.


    Arnav was flabbergasted by this development, but remembered how much Gabriel trained, he barely slept and would only keep on meditating, excersing and lifting. His awakening was pretty strong too, Arnav now saw why his awakening was so strong, his adaptability was out of this world and his will to develop was unreal. After 2 months under Arnav''s care, Gabriel could now control his "outbursts" where he randomly becomes very frustrated and his darkness goes out of control and Arnav had to interfere to stop him. Arnav took care of the man and guided him and wasn''t ever frustrated by Gabriel. Arnav once explained what ancients Actually were.


    One fine evening when Gabriel was eating his dinner with Arnav, usually. Arnav said "Say Gabriel, remember i mentioned you''ll be trained by different ancients right? Ever had the doubt of what they actually are?"


    Gabriel: "Yep, what actually are you guys?"


    Arnav: "We basically are humans who are super old because of our force awakening. There are 9 ancients in total and the top 5 are called the "Great 5", i am one of them."


    Gabriel: "makes sense, you''re stupid old, gramps." (said Gabriel as he laughed)


    Arnav:" OH COME ON! I''m not THAT old. Looks like i need to increase your meditation sessions."


    Gabriel: "Fine, Arnav. I''m calm but it''s funny, the way you react when i talk about your age."


    Arnav: "You''d understand if you were as old as me too, kiddo."


    Gabriel:" I suppose. By the way, do you guys like have a leader? I mean someone who controls all the ancients?"


    Arnav:" Yep, the first human to awaken his force, used to lead us, but 4000 years ago he left after saying his responsibilities are fulfilled. From then, an ancient called Orionis took over. You''ll be trained under him in your path of mastering the basics of the force."


    Gabriel: "Well what are we waiting for then, let''s get back to our training I can''t wait to meet him!!"


    Arnav: "I like enthusiasm kid, but let us first get on your lessons on basic floating."

 Chapter 3: Apathizing Agony, part 3.

    part 3, chapter 3


    Gabriel trained under Arnav for a total of 4 months and he was taught the very basics of using the force, The most important thing Arnav taught Gabriel is something called "Deathly stillness" Which is crucial for every force user. It is a state of a being to not act upon his emotions and be completely free from his emotions controlling their actions. Gabriel was made to meditate for more than 4 long hours every day after he was made to follow his tough regime of running and lifting like every normal human trains for their strength and endurance.


    Arnav made sure Gabriel wasn''t slacking off and made him train for 19 hours a day, after his schedule was over he slept only for 4 hours and used 1 hour to freshen himself up. He slowly increased the intensity used to train at, then also taught him more on deathly stillness later on. Gabriel was told he could leave anytime he wanted and he wouldn''t be punished or be facing consequences for it, in any way possible. Arnav said he is willing to provide Gabriel guidance till he is fit to go to other of Arnav''s kind for Gabriel, but only if Gabriel wanted to. "Why are you doing all of this for me, Arnav? It''s not like you are obligated or were told to take care of new force users?" Gabriel asked Arnav one day, to which Arnav replied "I only do this because i think it''s the best thing to do. I know how it feels when you have nowhere to go. You don''t know what''s happening with you....to feel your humanity drift away...I know how bad it feels, Gabriel, that''s why I''m helping you Gabriel.". "Thank you, I''m eternally indebted to you Arnav." Gabriel said.


    (Back to the present)


    Gabriel couldn''t sleep and he decided to leave a note saying he''ll be gone for a while, since he wanted to be reminded of his training with other ancients and he''ll be starting from the forest itself, where it all started.


    After thinking this to himself, Gabriel broke through the strong walls quietly and dropped out of the sky, without actually flying since he didn''t want to take any chances and wake up both of them.


    He flew towards the capital of Germany, Munich, and specifically towards the forest where he met Arnav.


    Flying to the destination, in a relatively slow manner, Gabriel''s mind was filled by sorrow and misery he was inflicted by fate, when it took away his family and his only source of purpose and peace.


    He had a sense of nostalgia rush over him and he was delighted to see how the forest is... serene and calm like always and that thick canopy and a bedlam of chirpings... with the sun shining gracefully over the extravagant forest. The view of the forest shining a thick, bright shade of olive was just pure bliss for Gabriel as he watched it from above, in the skies. It was a beautiful jungle spread over nearly 300 acres. Gabriel still remembered the shack Arnav used to live in, when he strolled by and ended up in the forest. A rush of nostalgia hit him as he took a walk around the waterfall and saw the spot where he first saw Arnav, not knowing they''d develop such a beautiful relation over time, he could remember Arnav''s eyes, they gave off a cold gaze, yes, he was lively but he had that feeling of being isolated, of thinking he''s different and of his depression.


    Gabriel walked around the forest and came to the shack again, which was very run down and covered in moss, as expected, since it has been more than 20 years the shack was used by someone. Gabriel was thrown back to the time when he trained under Arnav''s care. He now understood how important they were because without his teachings, Gabriel couldn''t have excelled in his training with the other ancients. Arnav''s tough training regime inculcated a sense of discipline in Gabriel and increased his base strength, speed and endurance by manifolds, compared to normal humans. Thanks to Arnav, Gabriel is where he is currently at, his strength and the peace he has, which he did not have when he first awakened.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    The main skill taught by Arnav to Gabriel, Deathly Stillness, a skill crucial for all force users. It is just a state of absolute peaceful, an absolute state of tranquility, of controlling the flow of thoughts in one''s mind. this is crucial because the output of one''s force is directly proportional to one''s emotions, and to control how your emotions are gonna behave is to essentially control the flow of force itself and be at peace with yourself and not hurt anyone around the user, even if it''s unintentionally. Gabriel was asked to meditate for 4 hours in extreme conditions like underwater or near volcanoes or even on the thinnest branches of the treetops, this irritated Gabriel initially but he started to like this, after 2 months of his training, Arnav told Gabriel to use this state and be in the state while running, lifting and everything, he said it helps with not using too much energy.


    Gabriel took strolls around the forest and ate some fresh fruits from the trees themselves, he was hit my nostalgia on every turn, and he was reminded of the beautiful time he had spent together with his friend.


    Gabriel took off from the forest after roaming there for an approximate of 3 hours and left for the next Ancient''s destination. While he was flying there, his mind was filled with this warm yet uncomfortable feeling of being reminded of his training, since his training was one of the most hardest journeys he had to experience, second to the journey of accepting his family is gone.


    After Arnav was done training Gabriel, he told Gabriel on a fine evening that today was his last day of training under him, and told him that tomorrow they''ll be leaving for the Atlantic ocean, there they''ll be meeting an ancient called Thallus, who''s gonna teach Gabriel about flight, propulsion and other stuff. "That''s cool, but how am i gonna travel such a huge distance?" Gabriel remembered asking Arnav, not knowing the nauseous ride which awaited him. "OH THAT? don''t worry you''ll see tomorrow" said Arnav. believing him, Gabriel went to sleep happily thinking he''ll be having fun on the ride tomorrow. The next day Arnav literally created a box from his light energy. And told he''ll be fine since he''ll be using something like a thread to carry him. Gabriel literally stared at Arnav for 30 seconds straight with one of the most disappointed looks.


    After that he just accepted his fate and got inside, The ride was lightly bumpy but that was negated because of the fact they got to see such beautiful sights and after travelling in the ocean for a bit, Gabriel saw something which was different from the endless, blue horizon, he saw a dot in the sky which slowly got bigger and turned out be a beautiful island floating over the ocean, it literally looked like it was a paradise. Which had waterfalls, thick jungles and a medium sized house. Arnav landed in front of the house, there they were greeted by a young person who looks he is around 27.


    The moment he saw Arnav he said, "YO! Old man, how you''ve been?!" As he hugged Arnav and Arnav too hugged him back tightly. "I''ve been fine, gramps, how you''ve been?" Arnav replied to the mysterious man''s question he asked earlier.


    After a casual banter between both of them, the man, whose name Gabriel did not know by that time, turned his gaze to him and asked Arnav, "This the rookie you''ve found this time?" to which Arnav said "Yep, that''s right. Gabriel meet Thallus, known as "mercury" among the force users, because of his speed of flight, and running too. Thallus meet Gabriel, i know I''ve said this many a times but, this guy truly is different." Thallus said "I wouldn''t have believed you if it weren''t for the raw output of this kid''s energy, i could sense his signal from 1500 kilometers away, I''m so eager to see how this kid turns out, for now, come on in." Gabriel who was confused, had a blank face. He had met a plethora of important people in his military career but the aura these "ancients" gave was....quite different. Gabriel found himself dumb around them, when he first met them, like in the case of Arnav too, he only responded to his commands and didn''t try to strike an actual conversation with Arnav in the very beginning.

 Chapter 3: Apathizing Agony, part 4.

    Thallus made both of them sit down and served them a bit of tea, Gabriel was perplexed that Thallus bought them a cup of tea, since he couldn''t see a kitchen anywhere, all he could see was a big hall with beautiful furniture and fabulous, non luxurious lamps and chandeliers. There was one room which could be the bedroom, Gabriel was truly surprised because of how beautiful the house was, the place, the house, the scenery from the island were all so enchanting.


    Arnav, Gabriel and Thallus enjoyed the tea, and while they were drinking the tea, Thallus started the conversation by formally introducing himself.


    Thallus: "Yo, newbie. I''m Thallus, nicknamed mercury, I am generally called, thallus mercury by my peers, I come from the continent of South America and I''m a light user. I''m almost 13,800 years old and my abilities match a bit with Arnav here, but i focus on speed and agility and he focuses more on being calm and his destructiveness."


    Gabriel:(He was startled by the sudden talk thallus started but understood what was happening and he introduced himself too.) "I am Gabriel. I come from the country Germany, and I am a dark user. I don''t have a nickname and I don''t even know which role in the battlefield i am going to fill."


    Arnav: "Oh that''s fine you''ll learn soon."


    Thallus: "Your first teacher and i have great expectations from you, kiddo. And remember, you''re never too old to learn, we both have lived for more than 130 centuries and we still continue to learn. Sure it is uncomfortable to learn and continue to grow, it makes you tear up, but once you get used to it, you can''t let it go, even though it hurts, because you know it''s the only thing which gives your life meaning.... Never stop to grow, kiddo. Now, to the topic on what I''ll be teaching you. I''ll be teaching you the basics of flight and energy conservation while moving and your ability to move objects."


    Gabriel: "The ability to move objects? Wait isn''t that basically telekinesis? I thought this powers have some logical explanation behind them but making objects move? really? How does that make sense?"


    Arnav and Thallus start laughing after Gabriel said that.


    Arnav: "You still haven''t understood, Gabriel? The powers given to us by fate are truly confusing and non logical, in the most basic sense. We could only make sense of some of it''s abilities and for the others...we just rolled along with them."This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Thallus: "Don''t worry newbie, you''ll get used to it soon. As for now, Arnav will be leaving you in my care and our training till they reach a certain level of mastery and a specific set of conditions, as for what these conditions are.....they''ll be revealed slowly during your training."


    Gabriel: "That''s....confusing, but ok, i suppose I can''t be peaceful now, if I quit at this point. Well, I suppose I am awaiting the great stuff ahead of me....but.... what would Timmy think if he was still alive? His dad being this strong and learning to fly and all....heh."


    (there was a silence in the room and all of them looked down, in a way empathizing with Gabriel.) "I''m sorry to spoil the mood like this, everyone." (Gabriel stood up as he said this) "Well then, i suppose its time to get serious and become responsible with my powers, it''s like i don''t even know what happened those 4 months i trained under Arnav, they seemed to pass in a few moments, and now here I am. Orphaned by fate, destined to be a wanderer among men."


    Arnav: "We understand you, Gabriel, we do. But try not to let it get to your head and try to process it first. Sometimes we are so overwhelmed by the stuff happening around us, we don''t actually separate our thoughts and our consciousness as two different beings. It''s hard to process it for you now but after many years of existing and thinking there isn''t anything to look up to, we''ve grown to respond to must stuff with nothing but apathy, but it isn''t really the best reaction is it now, Thallus?" he said as he turned to Mercury.


    Thallus: "That''s what being human primarily means, no? To be mistaken and find the true meaning. To try and to be better."


    Arnav: "I''ll tell you what, I''ll share with you the true nature of my powers and my backstory too, only if you excel in the training with the next 2 ancients."


    Gabriel: "Now I have to pass an exam to know my friend''s backstory too? You know what, bring it on, I''m starting to like this torturous training with you oldies."


    Arnav and thallus: "OLDIES?!"


    Arnav: "You did not just call us that, kiddo. You know what Thallus, double his training intensity!"


    Thallus: "You got it my man."


    (all three of them laugh together and Arnav left after a bit of catching up with thallus, leaving both of them alone.)


    Thallus: "It''s always so good to talk with that guy, so positive and uplifting. Well then, new acquaintance, our training will last about........ I don''t really know, depends on your performance."


    Gabriel: "It''s already evening now, I believe we will start training tomorrow?"


    Thallus: "That''s right. We''ll be focusing on your ability to float first and then start training flying and telekinesis."


    Gabriel: "Sounds intimidating. But i suppose my very existence is like that so...Good night for now. Where do I sleep again?"


    Thallus showed him his room upstairs which Gabriel didn''t notice the stairs to. Gabriel slept peacefully and didn''t notice anything while he did. He had now developed an ability to not be completely unconscious while sleeping, which doesn''t affect the overall quality of his sleep too.

 Chapter 3:Apathizing Agony, Part 5.

    (back to the present.)


    Gabriel saw the island and was delighted to see his previous training grounds still intact and beautiful as it was back in the day. He roamed around the floating paradise uninterrupted, either because thallus decided not to or he didn''t notice him. The beautiful forests reminded him of his training, and how thallus made him train for a miserable 20 hours a day, most of which included meditating on the top of the trees thinnest branches, in an attempt to get the concept of floating into his head.


    The concepts and teachings related to the force are usually so complicated that it isn''t possible to pass on knowledge exactly as they intended to, to the next generation. So many force users end up having special skills in different areas due to this reason. The diversity arises from the most basic concept that the force is beautifully complex and perplexing.


    After Gabriel learnt floating, Thallus made him meditate under the waterfall and told him to float upwards, regardless of the force of the waterfall and to be absolutely calm while doing so, through this he tried to inculcate a sense of duty over his powers when he was using them and made him use them properly. Gabriel resented the initial stages of his training a lot, as he did with Arnav too, but after a while, he just rolled with it and performed better and better everyday and pushed himself despite of much pressure from his teachers, this is Gabriel''s blessing, adaptability, given enough time, he''ll love what he''s doing and do it better than yesterday too.


    (back to the present)


    After seeing the waterfall, Gabriel went to the house to meet thallus in person and knocked on the door, there emerged a figure with arms covered in flour and his nose a bit covered in the same substance as well, he didn''t see the person''s face when he opened the door and said, "What is it now Zorael? I''m busy now, I''ll teach you to master your spe- WAIT GABRIEL? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE KIDDO!!?" Thallus said as he hugged Gabriel tightly, the moment he realized his visitor was Gabriel himself, "Come on in!!" he invited , as he magically made the flour disappear off his body. "Still trying new stuff are you, Thallus? That is so you." Gabriel said, Thallus replied to this by saying "That''s right baby! I love doing new stuff, I mean literally don''t have anything else to do. I''m trying to bake from a few days and let me just say this, I think i found some time pass for a few months. But now that you''re here, i think I''ll have heck loads of fun for a few days!! So, what should we do? Race around the globe or swim around and untangle water animals??!!" Thallus said, excitedly and very energetically and vividly.


    Gabriel still remembers how closed and cold thallus was for a few days when they initially met, and not being in Arnav''s company also worsened the case, but after getting to know each other, they became good friends and Gabriel learnt that...Thallus was a being bored out of his existence so he aimed to master his speed so much that he could surpass the speed of light itself, he was still unsure of how that is possible or how true that is, since he hasn''t actually seen it and only heard about it from his training days. Amidst all the commotion by Thallus, and Gabriel still responding to him, Gabriel was thrown back to the exact moment when his floating and slow propulsion turned into flight, actual flight.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    Coming out of his trance he started to hear Thallus again, "Should we have a baking competition on who bakes the best chocolate chip cookies?! or wait, we can cook any flavor and the fastest wins, provided it''s edible of course. OR We can have a competition on who untangles the most marine creatures in an hour?"


    Gabriel: "Thallus. Thallus." He said until thallus stopped and acknowledged him. "Have you been ok? Anything out of the ordinary in the last 2 decades?"


    Thallus: "Oh right. I was so excited to see you that i couldn''t contain the excitement. The last decades have been quite the same, to be honest, 1 visit from Arnav, one from Lyssa, 2 from Xoroth, 1 from Orionis and many from Zorael in the last few months as he wants to increase his speed. That''s it for me, how''ve you been, how''s your life in the military coming along? I believe you completed a lot of training from the other ancients? Who all exactly did you take your training from again? I forgot Arnav mentioning it 11 years ago, lyssa and Zorael mentioned you too."


    Gabriel: "I trained under all of the great 5 except Orionis and the Grand one. I trained under you, Arnav and I''ll be training under Cassius, and the actual reason i came is to catch up on my training so that Cassius''s training is eased."


    Thallus: "Aww man! I thought you came here to visit me because you missed me or were concerned about me."


    Gabriel: "I think you''re forgetting what you are. You are an ancient, A literal god among men.  A godly man."


    Thallus: "Still a human. And i liked to be around people too, so, what you wanna do?"


    Gabriel: "Remember the first time i actually flied, not levitate or slowly propel? When i actually started to fly?"


    Thallus: "Ah yes. I do, how could I forget. You were such a natural at it. You learnt it so quickly, just under 8 months I believe? I don''t remember, teaching you was so immersive i forgot the passage of time, like i usually do, it took me another 10 months to make you a master of flying, and swimming underwater and walking on water."


    Gabriel, after this was thrown off into a trance, remembering when he actually learnt flying, when he upped his game a notch, when he ascended into the sky at his will, fluidly and smoothly. It was near the waterfall on the paradise island, where Thallus was teaching Gabriel to stand on water using a steady use of the energy to create a physical layer to stand on. Thallus asked Gabriel to launch himself up into the sky by pushing down on the water hard and trying to fly up using his energy, he instructed to Gabriel that this transition from physical force should be unseeming and there Gabriel gained an important insight into the force. What feels like a work which is mostly done by the energy should not be interpreted so and be treated as one whole, meaning, physical parts and the energy shouldn''t be seen as 2 different beings, or parts, or rather should be seen as 1 thing. The consciousness of the owner encompassing both physical and energy halves of himself.


    When he realized this, Gabriel was able to fluidly use his darkness and make his body and his energy one, resulting in fantastic results of propulsion and flight. After seeing this, Thallus laughed and hugged Gabriel in the sky congratulating him and patting his head. Thallus continue to help Gabriel master his flight and swimming techniques. But thallus taught him something else too, telekinesis. Gabriel was able to learn it fairly easily and showed tremendous outputs, so much so that, after only 6 months of training, Gabriel was able to move the paradise island, floating over the ocean, which weighed more than a hundred thousand tons.


    One fine day, Thallus sat him down and told him, his growth was very abnormal and his strengths were like none he had seen before, excluding an ancient named Orionis, who is able to move moons around, without much effort.

 Chapter 3: Apathizing Agony, Part 6

    (back to the present)


    Gabriel: "By the way, i adopted a child."


    Thallus:"...."


    Thallus:"........you what? YOU ADOPTED A KID??!! AND HOW ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT SO CALMLY?! What''s his name? Where is he now? "


    Gabriel: "His name is tommy. He is under the care of my friends, since Cassius urged me to leave him with them and come with him since it was time to complete the final part of my training. I wonder how the kid is doing now.....


    (back at the ship.)


    Tommy: "Should we call papa now, uncle john?" (Tommy asked Johnathan as they ate breakfast.)


    John: "He might be busy now kiddo, I''m sure he''ll call us whenever he has some free time."


    Tommy: "Aww man. I was hoping to talk to him today."


    John: "It''s ok little man, he is an important person after all"


    (Luca walks into the room and greets good morning to the kid.)


    Luca: "Enjoying your breakfast, little man?"


    Tommy: "Sir, yes, Sir! These pancakes are so delicious, especially with this chocolate syrup!"


    John: "That''s right."


    Luca: "I wonder how Gabriel is doing, you worried about him, John?"


    John: "I do not know what his urgent work might be but.."(john stood up and whispered into Luca''s ear and said) "I believe it might be related to his force and everything, it''s not like we actually do know what is what."


    Luca: "That''s true."


    Tommy: "Why are you both whispering all of a sudden? Is something bad gonna happen to him?" (he said, when they both could see him starting to tear up.)


    Luca: "No, no, little tommy, it''s going to be alright, your father will meet at us at the port before we even reach there." ( I wonder how he even is going to accomplish that.)


    Tommy: "OH! That''s great then! I can''t wait to see him!"


    Suddenly the P.A systems in the ship call for C.O. Luca, asking him to come to the ship navigation section immediately.)


    (Back at Gabriel)


    Thallus: "Oh it''s fine, I''m sure your friends are taking great care of him. So, you don''t wanna hang out a lot of time then? "


    Gabriel: :" Not really, thallus, It''s not that i don''t want to, but it''s that i must visit my other trainers and return to Arnav and Cassius too."


    Thallus: "Oh. That sucks, But i guess i still can go back to baking then. I''ll be sure to visit your training and watch you, my disciple."


    Although they are friends, Gabriel and his teachers have always had a sense of parent-child relation''s inkling in their bond. And thallus was very proud of Gabriel to control his immense strength at this young age and continuously try to improve himself.


    Thallus: "I suppose, as your second mentor i failed to teach you one of the basic things, which is not so basic."


    At the ship, Luca was informed by the crew that they are potentially a target of yet another assassination attempt, aimed to destroy the ship, They deduced this as they saw 13 targets pinging their RADARS and 2 pinging their underwater SONARS, Luca had a chill run up his spine and he was visibly distraught. His face sank and he was scared for the lives of his crew and more importantly about the guarantee he gave his friend that he would protect his child at all costs. He commanded the ship initiate submerging protocol and fire missiles at above water targets and torpedoes at the underground ones, and try to neutralize the threats by any and all means necessary. Luca''s face was harsh and cold like he usually was but deep down he knew they aren''t gonna survive this attack, if the targets are force users from the "organization" which sent another batch of troops to take out the ship, after a failed attempt. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Luca''s feelings of being useless came back and his heart began to sank, he asked John to distract Tommy and take him to a secure room and try to protect him.


    The targets drew ever closer, faster than the last time and the folks from the navigation department had informed Luca that there are more troops inbound and they are sent in waves, 1500 kilometers apart, for now they''re only able to recognize 2 waves, with the first wave''s only 3 being neutralized after concentrated fire. Now after reloading and firing, the targets were too close and fired back at the ship too, this time they could only take out 1 user. The underground force users were all dead and the 9 surface force users managed to blow a bit of the ship off.


    The force users were able to overwhelm the ship''s defenses and managed to blow off a huge chunk of the ship''s main hull and managed to kill a few crew and injure a lot, all the while Luca tried to protect the ship and activate the defense protocol which fired off all the weapons at the same time, which did no damage to the force users and now they''re face to face with the 9 force users who''re are plucking out each crew member and torturing them in the sky, while the rest watched in uncertain horror.


    The entire crew was drowned in sorrow. Misery and fear surrounded the entire environment, screams of agony and people crying out for help, only to be not answered, filled the skies. Luca fell down on his knees and he was staring into the force users squad torturing his crew members, his mind racing at very high speeds and his feeling of not being adequate and not becoming the symbol of hope and strength he had always wished to be, rushed in and numbed his senses, he wasn''t able to feel much of anything anymore, for a normal human like him, this was far too horrifying to watch.


    The force users eventually spotted Johnathan and one shouted out to the rest that there is a revenant on board, and all of them flew towards him, with no obvious good intentions, Luca, Still paralyzed by this situation sank deeper into the pit of misery and was scared for tommy, the crew started to mess with Johnathan and while he tried his best to fend them off, it was all for naught, they enjoyed the screams of the crew members, their despair and their agony.


    Thallus: "Apart from the obvious light and dark manifestation of the energy, there exists some forms of the manifestations where they aren''t neither dark nor light. There exists a set of people who awaken their strengths in other forms, I only know a handful of them and one of them is an ancient, Zanis, a human capable of bending gravity at his will and something more than that which i don''t remember."


    The force users managed to rip off john''s leg and hurt tommy a bit on his arm. Making him lose one of his fingers, listening to the child cry out, excited them and made them torture the others more. Luca, who thought he was responsible for not protecting the child and didn''t stand on his word, fell down on his knees and started crying.


    Thallus: "These people are normally the most confused and wrathful when they awaken, and have no restrictions or no moral obligation holding them back as they awaken."


    The force users stopped their maniacal laugh and realized they didn''t hear cries or anything of that sort from the environment. Tommy was staring at the navigation center of the ship and one of the crew members pointed the whole squad towards it.


    What they saw that day was....Horrifying, utterly horrifying. It was not that the screams of the crew stopped, it was that a sound, a hum greater than that, reverberated through the entire ocean and they could hear it too. And it was terrifying and bone chilling.


    What they saw there, was a man floating in air, emanating a faint emerald hue from his eyes, unlike any of the awakening they''ve ever seen. This figure, who was almost dead, just floated in the air like a corpse.


    When one of them tried to do something to the corpse, the moment they moved, the floating corpse of the man moved like it responded to the intent of the force users. The man stood upright with his eyes glowing a full emerald glow and emanating sparks too. The mere sight of the tall individual with this unusual awakening, frightened them.


    They didn''t know why such strong individuals like them were scared, neither did they understand what the abilities of this person might be. They heard the little kid they tortured scream out to the man, on the top of lungs, saying, "Uncle Luca, help me please, it hurts! These are bad people, take me away from them please!!" he said, as he was sobbing uncontrollably.


    Luca stared into the very souls of the force users and they had a feeling that they messed up really bad. Luca started to cry and leak an emerald liquid from his eyes and said "I failed, yet again." As he let out a painful shriek... But the force users were more concerned by the fact that the entire horizons were covered by black clouds, and a thunderstorm started... and the very ocean too, behaved weird. Like it was...moving?


    Johnathan, in his half awoken state extended his arm towards Luca in the sky and said "He''s....done it. We''re saved, tommy" as he coughed blood and said very faintly.


    To be continued in chapter 4.

 Chapter 4: Verdant Ascendance. Part 1.

    Luca was born in Naples,2005 into in an Italian family with close knit bonds with his father, mother and his sibling. His father worked in the military and was well respected among his peers for being a soft hearted, strict man, who''d try his best to keep peace and help everyone. His mother was a normal housewife who took care of both of her sons, Luca and Marco. His sibling and he would play lots and he had a relatively normal childhood, didn''t make any girlfriends till he was 22 years old and found his "the one" when he was about 23 years old, it was a connection made by fate, both of them liked each other and wanted to get married when they turned 25 years old. And so they did.


    Luca still remembered that day when his father returned not with gifts when he came back from his deployment, but in a coffin. He still remembered the state his mother was in on the day of his father''s funeral. All of his memories faded a bit and all that remained were mere glimpses of his leftover memories which he could barely conjure.


    He didn''t even shed a tear when his father died. He could feel it, all that sorrow, the love he had for his father..... The sorrow and the pain, the memories of his past lives. He was actively troubled by it all, by the way he feels his emotions, the way he isn''t humane in any traditional way. He disregarded it thinking he was too young to be fully emotionally mature, as he was just 19 when he lost his father. He soon lost his brother too, who was caught in a gang crossfire.


    He still didn''t shed a tear. But he was at his limit. Losing both his father and his brother, broke him from within. He didn''t scream or neither did he rage, his internal perception just numbed away and he was filled by apathy, and only sometimes did he break his character of apathy and sometimes just broke down and cried to himself, at seemingly random things. When all the pent up emotions came out, when they reached the lid of is being, alone.


    The Doomsday changed a lot in the world, economically, socially and even physically. A viral outbreak which seemed to be just another instance of a flu spreading was proven to be the most devastating hit humanity would suffer and something which would worsen Luca''s life.


    Following his father''s footsteps he joined the military as well, the Italian Navy. Only after a few years of his joining did the Doomsday strike humanity, a period of time which left it in shambles. It happened so fast no one could properly understand what was happening, a virus outbreak from a place spread onto some unknowing individual and went global. For the first few months, Luca could keep his family safe, but when he was away at work, he was called to be informed by his wife that infected spread to the city and she wanted him to come back quick.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    Luca rushed back quickly from his work, but only to find his home in ruins and his wife and mother, dead.


    He cried that day. He cried till his eyes were dry, he cried till all his sorrow was drained. He got up and dug out a place in front of their house to bury his wife and mother. After crying so much, he felt no sorrow, as he held the corpses of his loved ones, the last anchor to his humanity.


    As he buried his mom he remembered his days when he newly got into the navy and his mom admiring him in an officer''s outfit, reminding her of her dead husband. Luca was a big man. He was 6''2 and was pretty muscular from his childhood. But he didn''t see himself as others saw him, he saw in himself who couldn''t even avenge his brother, despite being the way he is. His perception of life became mundane and he could only feel his humanity coming back to him when he was with John and Gabriel.


    The infected haunted Luca''s dreams, as well. He would either have no dreams or would have dreams which rotted him from within. Which only worsened over time.


    His thoughts collided at unrelenting speeds.


    The infected were....weird in many ways. They mutated into different types of physical bodies. But ''rotted'' would be a better way since their bodies looked very...decayed. Their primary features were seamless creation of muscle mass and manipulating it, like growing additional limbs or even extending it.


    The feeling of not being adequate to save the life of his loved ones, hit harder than anything and he developed a complex. He behaved normally but he still thought he was inferior to everyone, this developed when he couldn''t avenge his brother''s death and neither could he save his wife from dying, despite being in a big position in the Italian navy and having a relatively big build, he still failed to do anything meaningful, or so he thought.


    He was a very inspiring figure for everyone under him and his peers as well, even his superiors were inspired by his work etiquette and his never ending pursuit to be better and help. But beneath what all people saw, there was a Luca no one know, a man pained by his very existence, his belief in supernatural powers and his endless pursuit of being better made him feel as if he''s still not doing a good job and was merely a useless human, a waste of space and food.

 Chapter 4: Verdant Ascendance; Part 2

    (Back to the present)


    Right before Luca went completely limp and fell down on the floor of the navigation department, he said to himself "It was never being the person I wished to be. It was never about thinking about the next big thing, it was never about being the best out there. It was about enjoying everything I2 did and treasure those moments. It was about being my best in those."


    The force users saw Luca in his feral state as he was hyperventilating while staring at them. The skies turned black and a violent thunderstorm began. Luca''s eyes started burning a green emerald flame and the ocean was.....moving even more violently. Luca extended his arm towards the ocean and a huge tide seemed to form as it was responding to Luca''s gestures.


    The tide was moving unnaturally carrying the corpses of the defeated essence users which died due to the torpedoes fired earlier, the tide responded to Luca''s strength and heeded his command.


    "That''ll be soon you, Scum." Luca said with his reverberating voice and dropped the corpses back into the ocean.


    The team members could feel Luca''s power skyrocket, his power wasn''t masked since he was still new to essence. The team members did not know anyone who was this strong only at their awakening. A man from the team, holding a great-sword said to the leader "His growth is....unnatural. Do i take him out?" as he gripped the clothe covering his sword. "Not now. We still have time. I''d like to observe. Gaftz, keep relaying the information to command."


    The leader said, look at a man with some sort of antennae coming out of his dark essence covered body, this is the man who is responsible to telekinetically relay information to command, whenever this squadron was sent to take out anyone.


    The organization is very strict on monitoring their enemies abilities and right now, the command is getting a live feed of Luca''s unnatural awakening. Feeding their understanding of the essence.


    <A person sitting in front of a monitor in the organization''s nearest base enjoys the view and behind him stand another 3 people watching the live feed, all of their essence a dreading aura around them, dark and light.>


    Luca, rose even higher into the skies and looked at the dark ether he said


    "Oh heavens, listen to my cries and the woes I''ve made!"


    "Oh Earth, heed my command!


    And you accursed beings, fall!" as he rose his hands and lightning struck his arms and a fire was summoned around him, taking the shape of multiple rings around him , while being so hot that it was vaporizing the ocean down below. The force users tried to charge at Luca and attempt to end him, but all who tried to charge at him were struck down by lightning and the fire ring around Luca, burnt them simultaneously.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    After Gabriel and thallus both sensed the huge surge in the force pinging their senses, they stopped their banter and acknowledged they both did sense it. Thallus decided to tag along with Gabriel who was going to visit the ancient who taught him, to probe deeper into this issue and investigate what was going on.


    Tommy was watching Luca and was smiling as he saw him defeat the people who hurt him moments before. Tommy was cheering for him and applauding for him. Luca let out a short-lived smile and immediately stopped, shaking his head.


    The attackers were confused on whether they should take down the new opponent or wait for reinforcements, "What are we waiting for? Let''s take these people down and go home already!" a voice declared from the crowd. Another voice said "Yeah! We clearly overwhelm him, let''s just take him down." And they turned to Luca, expecting an answer.


    Luca just stared into the crowd of attackers, dumb and blank, he didn''t say anything and leaned forward, making his arms freely swing. The squad braced for an attack, which didn''t come. They looked at Luca and saw his emerald aura thicken.


    From the crew, a curious young lady was watching Luca in awe after his awakening, unable to control her smile, she giggled in approval and happiness.


    "What is this place? Where even am I? Wasn''t I supposed to be in the ocean?" Luca said, as he woke up in a blank, endless white room, an infinitely big expanse of white void. He walked around and to his surprise.....saw Suzie, his wife. Who was staring at him from a distance and ran away when he tried to get closer to her.


    "Suzie! Is that you? Wait- Don''t go, stop! Suzie!" Luca ran after the image of her wife, not realizing the surroundings were turning eerie and dark. She abruptly stopped and turned back at Luca, as she was being surrounded by a horde of infected which slowly crept towards her.


    Luca couldn''t move the moment he saw the infected and saw his wife being consumed by the horde, he could only stand their and watch her wife dying, "Why? Why do you only watch Luca? Can you not help me? Why couldn''t you come and help me?" Luca dropped down on his knees and clenched his heart, as he felt something twist.


    <on the outside>


    The force users charged at Luca''s awakened body, with some manifesting entire bows, guns ,swords. Luca summoned lightning and violently burned the force users while holding off the force users using the water as a shield which would absorb their attacks.


    Realizing they weren''t doing much by charging him upfront, they decided to form a 6-sided attack with 2 users storming him from each side.


    Luca couldn''t keep up with them since he wasn''t whole, and could only hold his own against 3 sides at most, as they attacked in marvelous symphony and in confusing patterns. He got thrown around and suddenly he wasn''t so scary anymore, he was just another target they''d play with. Another target which would be hunted by the pack.


    The curious young lady watched Luca getting tossed around. She knew this was to happen, since a newly awakened individual wouldn''t be able to keep up with anyone who was experience with using the essence, no less an entire squadron of them.


    Luca caught glimpses of Johnathan struggling to stay awake and hold onto tommy and the little kid cowering in fear. The ocean''s weird movement stopped and the thunder clouds thinned. The chaos caused by Luca, changed to normal and the force users squad stopped attacking Luca, after seeing this sudden shift. Luca just stared at his friend and the kid he vowed to protect.


    A tidal wave, which appeared just like that, washed all the levitating force users, including Luca, away from the ship.


    <To be continued in part 3>

 Chapter 4: Verdant Ascendance, Part 3

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