As we approached the bench I noticed a twitch on the man's face, we waited awkwardly in front of the sleeping lump. He wasn't really old in his age, his features and personality simply gave off more maturity than he had. On first look you'd think he was within his late 30s but this snoring lump of a man was still within his late 20s, the youngest of the captains within the EA. While his brown hair sported no real style and with his ragged clothing if he wasn't wearing a uniform he could have been taken for a homeless drunk, also the bulging muscles that seemed to be trying to tear the uniform apart from within. Finally I got tired of waiting "Urm..Sir?..Captain?...CA!" I was about to shout but was abruptly cut off as a hand was shoved in my face shutting my mouth. "Fine fine...I'm up dammit.." The captain pushed me backwards as he got up and as I struggled to get his grip off my face. "MmmM!!Mghgm!" Only muffled sounds made it out until he released his grip, I took a deep breath and spoke "Don't use me as damn support!"

"Shut yer trap kid" he yawned right after and continued "Alright I see you brought lil missy with you, time to go then!","Lil?..." Anabel's expression contorted in what seemed to be a forced smile. "Time? You were sla!!" again I was given no time to finish my sentence. "I said, shut up when I'm talking." He grabs my head from up top squashing my hair and pulling me closer, glaring at me with a brown eye and a dead white one surrounded by scars. "Sir yes,Sir." I coldly glared back, Anabel's expression by now was riddled with annoyance and weariness "Sir..Shouldn't we go?..We can't keep the others waiting..." but we ignored her, our staring competition broken by someone else's yelp. Off in the distance a woman was rushing towards us with four station passes, she was wearing the same uniform as us but something was very much off...Some things where way off. As she ran they rattled and threatened to burst out at any given moment, obviously weighing her down as she made her way while shouting "Sir I got the pa..." You can say it was on purpose or on accident, neither could be chosen as a conclusion as she fell face first into the floor in front of us. We turned to her as she ran and watched as she tripped over nothing, our expressions had lightened up quite a bit as if forgetting our previous quarrel completely.

Anabel yelped as the woman hit the floor "Oh! Ah! Let me!.." She rushed to the woman and helped her up then looked at her face only to be left bewildered, not that she had no injury on her face from the fall but that poking out of each side of her head where two long pointy ears. She had never seen an Etyrian in flesh and blood before, their movements on Earth were highly controlled by the government. Anabel took a good look at the woman and with her height, ears and long green hair there was absolutely no way that she wasn't an Elf. After getting up the Elf walked towards the Captain and pushed forward the passes "I got them as you asked!" she exclaimed with a broad joyful smile. The Captain was still awkwardly holding my head lifting me off the ground a bit, he let go and took the passes out of her hands "Oh..Yeah..Thank you Ell." he then glanced at me and sighed. "No problem Sir!" Ell's smile seemed to grow larger by the second, like a child receiving attention. The elf was taller then the captain and with her long bright green hair and grey eyes she stood out like a sore thumb.

The Captain walked forward a couple steps and turned to us "She is the last of the new recruits, you three will be joining my squad of 4 maxing it out at 7. With the passes now in hand we will head to Etyria where you shall meet your new comrades and they will meet theirs." It took me a second to recover from my confusion, then i proceeded to follow the other three over to the tunnels. The tunnels were large enough to take in the cabin, slightly larger than the cabin itself. The cabins stood the size of a Boeing 777 holding approximately four hundred passengers, although requiring no space for a pilot unlike the plane. That space was used for the employees,to hold large baggage and commercial supplies advertised by roaming employees during the journey.

We entered the cabin and picked one row on the right to all sit at, I sat first next to the window with the rest to my left. Anabel sat second with Ell next to her and the Captain last, leaving an empty seat to his left. While we waited for the cabin to fill up I opened my package, I pressed my hand onto the rune inscriptions and it glowed. The other three watched as I practically tore the packaging apart revealing a black box half a meter in length and width and about thirty meters high, I squashed the packaging together and threw it into the trash pipe to my right within the seat. The box was black with grey lining the edges and a grey seal carefully carved on the front, I pressed my right thumb on the seal and it unlocked. I carefully opened the box and inspected the inside, on the top half there was two black gloves with holding seals made to holster the Bound Aethers within them when not in use using special magic. The bottom half held the Bound Aethers themselves, something to note was that normally a Martial Aether has a single Bound Aether to use but those with higher mana capacity are able to bind with multiple. Higher mana capacity is not something one is born with but achieved through years of meditation and forced expansion by using the mana within you, currently I can use both of them but for prolonged combat I could only switch in between them or only use one.

The Bound Aethers I received were like any other, customised for the user and their mana's signature. Ah yes...Mana signatures... This is a complicated topic we do not fully understand yet but basically it is like a finger print for our mana and its aura, the signature is related to our mana's efficiency with certain elements. Humans had a natural efficiency to the chaos element which had affinity for modelling reality and objects, but other than our natural element each being had a certain efficiency rate with the other elements. No single being had the exact same signature but some came very close, these were mainly close family members like parent and child or siblings. My signature was as any other human mostly chaos, the exact rate was 62% chaos with 23% fire with the other 15% scattered through water, wind, earth and nature. Dark and light efficiency for us humans was always 0% as well as corruption, but this couldn't be confirmed 100% since our technology gave a rough estimate of the rating and so did the Etyrian's.

I looked down at my new Aethers and was relieved to find their form being one I was already acquainted with, two pistols lay inside the box with a smooth design. The hand was a smooth black rectangle slanting forward with bumps on the front for the fingers and the barrel was a 20cm long black cylinder,one had two long red crystals on each side while the other pistol had two long purple crystals. There was no reloading mechanic in sight as the pistols simply devoured the user's mana as ammunition by condensing it and amplifying penetrative power by giving it shape. I put on the gloves and took one out, instinctively I poured my mana into the glove and the pistol glowed red faintly and was then sucked into the glove as if being deconstructed into dust. I did the same with the other pistol and closed the box, I turned to glance at the others right after. The Captain was snoring away while Ell was staring at my gloves excitedly, Anabal was doing the same but her expression was more of disbelief.

"What?..." I asked them both, as they noticed i was aware of them staring. Ell was the first to answer "Ah..I knew about how Bound Aethers worked but I've never seen ones with such a unique design before!" Anabel continued "They're just pistols, nothing special. What I really dont understand is how you can handle two?!" she pouted in jealousy and then glared at me "Being able to bind and control one is rare enough, but two? No way you can actually use them both." Oh right I forgot to mention...The chance of someone being able to bind with a Bound Aether is currently less than 2% and is extremely painful, If you attempted to bind with a Bound Aether and fail a coma is all but guaranteed. "See it as you may, I can bind and can utilise both.Tonight I will bind them and then be able to use them in combat. Seeing as these two have been customised for me they will be much easier to bind and use than the training Aethers we are given to test with at the academy." I was annoyed at her disbelief, was it that hard to believe that I had talent? No...Was it that unbelievable for her that she wasn't the only one with talent?

"Oh! Can I watch your binding?!" Ell practically squished Anabel between her mounds to move closer to me, her excitement almost making her eyes shine."I..Erm..Sure.." my mind was too scrambled to think of an excuse so I just accepted. "Alright its a date then" Anabel had a snide grin on her face before she turned to get Ell off her, which made the elf yelp when she noticed the girl under her. "Great!! Us girls will have our own rooms so lunch time sounds best!" Ell got back into her seat and started chatting with Anabel. "Wait...I didn't mean..." I stared at the two as they introduced each other and chatted away, when did I make my binding a public show?...Oh right...

In the end I dropped the conversation and continued staring outside the window, when suddenly the cabin doors closed shut and a voice could be heard on the intercom "Please take your seats and buckle your belts, the jump will happen momentarily". After that everyone started shifting making sure their seat belts were in place while employees walked in between the seats to make sure, when every one was checked they returned to the front and after a minute or so the cabin began to move forward and into the swirling tunnel of green and blue. When inside the tunnel the windows were closed with automatic black shutters as the effect of the light was unknown to us and safety precautions were taken, the "jump"(Travel through a tunnel) took around three minutes. While inside the cabin it can be felt when the jump starts and ends as within the tunnel there is no gravity and any movement can end up in awkward or dangerous positions without the belts.

About five seconds after the cabin fully exited the tunnel the shutters opened to reveal the outside, the Etyrian station was similar to the ones on Earth but had its own cultural and technological differences. The lights were pure white crystals embedded into the roof while the people around working had more differentiation in race, Elves, Dwarves, Demons, Giants, Beast-men and some others could be seen from within the cabin. When the cabin exited the tunnel runic inscriptions on the ground kept it afloat while mages carefully set it down, right after the employees within opened the doors and started checking around for anyone who might be effected by movement sickness or simply snoring away. The captain woke up before being bothered by any of the employees and told us to take off the belts and gather our baggage, we kept some bags under the seats and some up inside slots in the roof right on top of our seats. Once we gathered our things we exited our seats and began to leave the cabin, when we all got through the exit we walked down the path towards the inspection line.

"Follow me" the captain glanced back and told us while stepping to the side of the line walking towards the inspection personal next to a door off to the side of the detector, he showed the armed beast-man our passes and he let us through the door. Since we were not normal civilians we had the company to vouch for our weapons and therefore bypassed that inspection.This was my second time in Etyria and last time I had to go through it, I had came here to meet with the recruiter for the EA and present a sort of combat "resume". That was last year the same year I left the military unwillingly, but that is in the past and now I have a different future I simply cannot fail. The city we were currently in was Rosevalt the main city of the elven races and the first destination between Earth and Etyria, our next destination would be another tunnel which will take us to DarkGlade Fortress the company's HQ.

"Before we head to HQ you will meet your squadies, there they are." The captain pointed over to the waiting area at the entrance where three figures sat looking in their general direction. The waiting area was a sort of cafeteria with tables and chairs on both sides of the exit door, at each end was a bar with employees taking orders. We followed the captain towards their table and as we got closer Ell's excitement could no longer be held back "Uncle!" She charged the elf as he got up, barely standing his ground as she collided with his chest. "We're in the same squad!" the man was slightly taller than her with short dark green hair and grey eyes, although not looking any older than 30. "It seems so little one, sister will be overjoyed to hear." he sighed at the young elf's excitement.

"Everyone take your seats, we'll proceed with the introductions." the captain took a chair, rotated the back towards us and sat down with his arms crossed. "Let's start with me, Kale and so on." Everyone sat down around the table, After everyone settled the introductions began. "My name is Carlos Houghes, Age 29 and Captain of Houghes Squad. I specialise in physical chaos arts as my combat style." He nods for Kale to continue. The elf with dark green hair nodded back "I am Kale Lious, Age 987. My combat specialisation is the bow and I am the squad's first ranger." at the mention of his age Anabel seemed to try to pronounce an assortment of words but only ended up with "900?!" Kale raised a brow as everyone turned to look at her "Yes child, our kind can live up to a thousand and five hundred years. Surely you've heard before?"

Anabel's expression quickly went red as she responded "Oh..Yes yes! I knew its just...Its difficult to believe..." , the captain sighed "Continue the introductions, Anabel no more interruptions." Ell stood up suddenly and started "I..Um..Ell Kellent, Age 82! Second ranger...Uh..That's...it? " she sat back down smiling. Next to her one that caught my attention stood up, she looked human until you saw her ears and tail. This was a beastwoman and she had the ears of a feline with the tail to go with. That is until her form started to change and grow till her beast features took over showing a large humanoid lioness.She then begun to introduce herself "I'm Lia of the southern pack, Age 30. Earth physical style." she glanced to her left, done with the introduction.

The next was a rather interesting individual, one that caught my attention the most. Similarly to a kobold the being had reptilian features but a humanoid frame, except bulkier almost twice the size of a normal human. This was a Drakon, more specifically a Drakeling. He sat further from the others due to his large frame but mainly the large reptilian wings on his back, his scales were a dark blue but went straight black on his wings and tail. "My name is Jerrald Cloudfang, Age 43. I'm a spear wielder and act as the squad's medic." next to him lay a dark grey spear with a jagged tip and a dark grey kite shield with embedded crystals and carved runes that glowed menacingly. The spear was twice the length of me and the shield nearly twice my length and three times the width. He turned to Anabel and nodded for her to continue, she was currently as pale as a ghost.

"Anabel, it's your turn." The captain saw her pale expression and raised his voice to wake her. "Uh..Oh..Yes..Yes...I'm Anabel Connery, Age 19. I specialise in Support magic and Runes, my combat magic ranges from chaos to water and wind." she looked around taking in everyone's expression. Seeing that she was done...well even if she wasn't...I introduced myself "Matthew Anders, Age 21. Ranged Martial Aether, Chaos and fire affinity."

Edited by; Birse

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Author: Thanks for reading and remember to rate :D.