Matthew’s POV

My vision stops swirling and gravity returns it’s pull again, the company’s earth branch building comes into focus. “What is…all this?...” Risa stares in amazement at the company’s private tunnel station “This is Zeaxar’s private teleportation and portal floor, the floor below us is the commons and offices while I do not have access to whatever is in the three floors above” I was in a rush and didn’t explain everything “This way, before someone…” a voice behind me seemingly calls out to me “Anderson? Hey Anderson!” but I ignore it and guide Risa to a teleporter. “Inside, don’t be surprised. A portal will open beneath us” I quickly fidget with the panel and select the destination, “Yo Anderson? You in a hu…” the voice of the recruiter I had met to join the E.A is cut off as we descend into the tunnel. “Hu….huh….” when we arrived out of the portal I glanced at Risa who was hugging herself and was slightly pale, “Warned you, let’s go” I open the glass door “She lives around here” I wait for her to exit the teleportal and then closed the door. We began walking down the side walk “So many buildings…why are the streets…so empty?” she glanced around the many buildings until her gaze fell upon a couple broken down ones…”what happened there?...”. I sigh “Many things happened to my people, we were invaded by beings that can travel through the stars, massacred by monsters from another realm and then… a power struggle that brought our numbers even lower and our patience to zero” I glanced at some vehicle crash nobody bothered to clean up “My race has had enough, we took things into our own hands and barely even trust our own allies. Currently our leaders are focusing on travel through the stars to chase some….thieves….while they “use” the E.A as a means to scout other realms before those realms come to us” We cross a road while having to walk around debris of some building, “Nobody bothers cleaning the streets or even repairing buildings we don’t have the numbers to fill, whatever we can salvage we do but…we have the weapons and the means but our numbers have dwindled to where most of our territories remain uninhabited” I suddenly stop and look down a specific path taking to our destination’s door. The three storey house was somewhat run down, “You should see the capital our oh so great leaders are building…bastards wasting precious resources for propaganda. I cannot really blame them though…another power struggle would possibly be the death of us, they try to keep the populace content”.

I keep staring at the grey brick house until Risa taps me on the shoulder “Is this it?...” my gaze falls on the aged wooden door and then on the open garage to the left “Yeah…we’re here…”. I began slowly walking towards the garage after opening the white fence gate “This way”, we walked to the garage that is almost half the size of the house next to it “Ma? You in here?” I shout for her attention as we step inside the garage workshop. Multiple mounds of machinery lay covered by clothe and desks engulfed in tools and parts was most of the inside, one specific piece of machinery lay half covered in the middle of the room with spot lights and tool boxes all around it. “Red? You back already?” a slightly low pitched feminine voice shouts out from behind the half covered machine, from my position the bottom part which was visible looked like mechanical legs each taller than an average human with a ladder to the other side of where we stood from it. “Yeah it’s me…where you at?” we venture closer to what I presumed to be a mecha when the ladder suddenly shakes “Ehh!” Risa screams and clutches my arm when Ma’s oil splattered face comes sliding down the ladder “I’m he…Woah there calm down!”. She stood almost two meters tall along with her bulky frame, I didn’t blame Risa for being frightened by this giant of a woman “What you building this time?” I momentarily eye the machine, Ma is an engineer and has spent every day since the third wave studying aether craft. “Nevermind that! Who’s this girly here? Don’t tell me you’ve been gone for less than a month and already you’re bringing back a woman? Huh red? And what the hell is on your head and around your neck?” she grinned and opened her arms wide in a joking manner, I sighed at this over grown child with oil all over her short blonde hair, face and clothes “It’s…complicated alright? This here is Risa, she’s one of the inhabitants from the realm the company’s first expedition was sent to. The information probably hasn’t been publicised yet but we’re on mostly friendly terms with them now, I need your help with a couple things Ma”. She eyed Risa and raised an eyebrow “No kidding, what do you need me for?” she grabbed a piece of cloth from her belt and wiped her face and then hands “Name’s Abbey, Abbey Clarke” she forwarded a hand towards Risa but she just stood there paling every second, “Ma It’s a long story but do you still have the faulty mana jammer?” she glanced at me and nodded “Yeah it’s in the back, why?” I rush past her towards the back of the garage with Risa still clinging onto my left arm.

Abbey follows us to the back “Hey? What’s going on?” we reach a table full of covered machinery, “many things are going on, I just found out that apparently my damn soul is actually two different people, that gods are playing war games with our lives and that I wasn’t the only survivor of the Cerberus project!” I uncovered several things until I find what I was looking for. The mana jammer is a small project I had worked on a year ago with Ma, it was actually supposed to be a mana collector but the mechanical glove turned out to disperse mana and mostly nullify magical activity. Abbey put a hand on my shoulder “I..Uh…want to talk about it…them?...” I turned around and hand her the glove “Yeah…” I take a couple breaths and look myself over, my trembling hands, my dripping sweat, my quickening heartrate and crazed breathing “Yeah…I need… I need to sit down…” Risa pushes away from me slowly while half blue and looks at me “S..Sorry…”. I step back rest my back to the table behind me “Ma…” I look up at her “They’re alive…some of them…are alive…I need to see them…I need to know what’s happening to them…” she shakes her head “Not like this you don’t, just how quickly did you rush here?! You look like you’re running away from the devil! Sit the hell down and take a breather, explain…slowly”. Ma pulls out some chairs and we sit down by the table while she turns on the mana jammer, “The company’s CEO Zeaxar…he employed Heiken…” a spark flew from the glove when she heard his name “That god damn slug!?” I nodded “They forced it out of him somehow, he then told me…what I am…I…Ma…I died before…back there at the lab…I died…I was brought back but…as a different person…” I stare down at my whitening right fist being squashed by my left hand “then…they…the beings that represent the main elements…they…spoke to me…it wasn’t a dream…it wasn’t a hallucination…I thought I was doing what I wanted to do but…even now I’m still a fucking puppet…The Cerberus project…Chaos…and now Zeaxar…they are all pulling my strings…and I just followed blindly even now…Risa is one causality…She was forced into a ritual of her people’s by her brother who was probably used by Zeaxar…she was marked with…” I look at Risa who is already opening her coat and lowering her shirt “The mark is triple layered, a seal, a curse and a barrier. You’re the only one I know who could remove it, can you?” Abbey eyed the runes and then rose to bring her chair closer to Risa.

She sat down by her and raised the gauntlet looking glove to the runes while taking out a flat blue crystal the shape of a rectangle from her pocket “Stay still” the glove turned on as green liquid filled the pipes inbetween the metal sheets that covered the rest of it’s machinery and then place the crystal infront of her left eye as she closely inspected the runes “The barrier is currently inactive while what I think is the curse is being mostly jammed although somewhat working I can deactivate it first, the seal should then be deconstructed but it will take me several hours to do so. Matt” she lowered the crystal and looked at me “I somewhat understand your predicament, no I will not pretend to understand what it feels like to have been reborn or what it feels like to have spoken with some damn gods but it’s clear what question you need to answer first. The cerberii, what will you do about it?”. We looked at each other until I broke the gaze and looked down at Ember who slept soundlessly around my neck, Abbey sighed “Red, you cannot just stay indecisive. If you don’t have it in you to keep going then just stop, do what I did and settle down somewhere.” her eyes began to redden. “I can’t stop… if I don’t keep fighting… what purpose do I have then?...” I rest my hands as blood returns to my fist , “Then drop the glum look kid, stop doubting yourself. You can’t be both human and a soldier, I know that well enough. If you’re going to save them then just do it, the government is blinded by fear and hate. The only reason you’re even public knowledge is because my unit commander refused to stay quiet, the only reason they weren’t is for military power but you knew that already”. She looked back down at the glove “Second guessing only brings more casualties boy, what will you do the next time you face one of these “gods”? What will you do if the government decides to take you back as a weapon? Your problems only increased since you left and you cannot run away from them” we sat there for a couple moments as she let her words sink in, “I know…I know!...But I can’t use my magic anymore…test my damn efficiency…if I keep using it...chaos will take over and I will die…I saw what happens when my element goes to 100%...I will kill…without care for anything. I will become a real monster…lose myself to insanity…there is nothing I can do…the power I rely on is not even mine to begin with…”

Suddenly Risa stood up and stepped towards me, I raised my head only to be slapped by her again “Don’t give me that…” she was visibly shaking “You who brought my kingdom to its knees within a night…you who is seen as the devil by my people…you who made a birth trained champion kneel to you…Is your race so formidable that any of them could do these and more? I don’t…I can’t believe that! Alexius told me…even with your power you can’t beat him…but still…you did…You who I want to hate so badly…but I cannot…Matthew…I know what you are feeling now…you made me feel it yourself…I was useless, just useless. But you are not me…you killed so many…to stop worse…Don’t sit there and say you are powerless…” her latin like accent along with her stuttering “You have many lives on your shoulders…don’t drop them…don’t fail them after what you have done to them…don’t make those sacrifices worthless…don’t give up…” made me realise just how better her English was than I first thought. Risa stood there for a couple more seconds while I stared at the wall to my right, she then turned and stomped out of the garage after stumbling on a couple sheets “Nothing else for me to add there Red, remember what you told me when we first met? “I’m not a monster by creation or birth, but a demon by cause and effect.” I think humanity has had enough time asleep. So much so that the government is acting behind our back again, someone needs to remind them of what that brought. Someone needs to remind them what you are Matthew Anderson, remind them why Cerberii exist in the first place”. She stood up and chased after Risa who had walked out of the garage “I’ll take care of the girl, you do what you must do”, their words sank deep. I also stood up and headed to the door that took to the actual house, three years I had spent here, eating , sleeping, building, wasting my time, sulking. (“If I only searched more…if I only payed more attention… I could have noticed them… I could have known earlier… But they are right….It’s not too late…”) I reached the spiral stair case in the kitchen and began ascending (“I will remind them… I wasn’t made… I wasn’t created or built… No… I was trained… Blood and sweat… burning lunges and aching bones… I was squashed and remade… I was deconstructed and repurposed… This is what their back handed methods made…”) I reached the third floor and looked to my left.

The room that stood in front of me was where I mostly spent my time here, I opened the door and entered. “I don’t need to use my power…No… we’ve advanced beyond that…” several tools and crates lay inside with the only bedroom like part being the bed itself “I will gather mana from the environment… I will craft… create… use my machines… my weapons… ” I lay my hands on the largest of crates and wipe some dust off it “Ember, Wayne wake up” I felt movement around my neck and on my head “We have a lot of things to discuss and prepair… if I cannot use my own power then… I will rely on other things…”.The dragon around my neck slithered “Yesss massster… we sense your lust…” , the dragon on my head stood “We sense your desires…” and the demon that is me never felt so alive as my mind raced with aether tech knowledge, the location of spirit magic information and the uses for my past creations bending to repurpose them. Ember slithered off my neck and onto my right arm as I pulled open the crate, inside lay multiple parts and materials I had collected or purchased, each crate held either and there was a total of five two by two by two meter crates in the room. I wasn’t sure how far I could go with my ideas, tricks and toys I could craft would only take me so far in firepower but utility was unlimited. I couldn’t use my own mana as it would only shorten my control over my body, what happened in Kjuri’s underground… wasn’t an option and I wasn’t going to let my mind bend like that ever again… what I did to those knights… went beyond the realm of insanity. So I will not use my current mana, instead I will take a page from Etyria’s books and rely on my spirits to then make them my arms and finally fists. I began taking out my tools and materials, I bent metal, wielded, connected, screwed, hammered and made Ember with Wayne infuse their mana into the aethertech. I went through books and information I found using my tablet, went through multiple calculations in my head and simulations on the device. The same fire burned inside me which drove me to plan Kjuri’s subdual, the pure drive undistorted by chaos that drove me to not only protect my race from their fear but Risa and Alexius’s race from us as well.

What I created was what I had failed to before and never seen the need in repairing as it’s by-product use at the time seemed much more useful, after all it was something us sentient beings did subconsciously but now even the smallest usage of soul’s mana gathering property would then contaminate my body more with chaos in the end refining my efficiency for chaos even more than it already is. This wasn’t a weapon, no not even close. I had come to this conclusion years ago, I am already a weapon myself. What I made was a tool to improve myself, to change and enhance myself. Like a blade needs refining and a gun needs maintenance I needed so as well, unlike how clubs and sticks were upgraded to swords and maces I needed to go further and upgrade from already advanced firearms to something new and untouched by mortal minds. I went through everything I am and could be, what magic I could use to what I cannot and why. In the end the conclusion I came to opened my mind to a mistake the Cerberus program had made, they were afraid spirits would take over a body and transcend into something they couldn’t comprehend. They gave us limits so their own comprehension could keep up, I didn’t need those limits any longer and so would transcend them forcefully. Etyrians had a similar magic called spiritmaster but I needed to go further, they focused on control of a spirit’s physical body similarly to how Martial Aethers controlled their aethers spiritmasters controlled their spirit’s body but without using their own mana. What I needed was similar, power over my spirits without the use of mana but also allowing me the physical enhancement properties that aether magic did. The answer was very simple, instead of just using aethers as the medium to hold the spirits I will also use my own body. I will continue the Frankenstein’s project that was already done to my body, this time without filters.

With the perfect mana infusing glove in hand I finally faced my two bound spirits, “Ember I want you to do exactly as I say” I turn to the serpent that I sat right next to “Yesss masster” I put on the thick mechanical glove and put it’s palm to my heart “Drain me of mana” I then forward my left arm to the serpent who looks up at me sceptically “But… that will…” I nod “Yes it will strain my pores and weaken my mana usage, but it will also feed yours as you have no fixed physical body. Wayne you do the same, I will use the glove to control the drain rate so just go all out” Wayne looks down at me for a couple moments but then slides down to my right arm while facing my shoulder “Are you sure?...master…Matthew… you will have to fully bind with us… we already have physical bodies and a connection… your body… your body will change… ”. An almost maniacal grin takes it’s place on my face “There’s no stronger parasite than one that lives inside you…I know what I am doing, my body may suffer changes but that doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t have the resources to fully rely on aetherweaponry like the government does, I cannot rely on my own mana anymore so it’s useless to me and I cannot use your aethers without my mana signature. I’m left with no choice, I have hidden from becoming this for too long. I’m done sulking over my problems, I want to face them and to do that I need power. You both know just as much as I do… this fucking crazy existence we live in is full of mistakes… it’s on us to choose whether to fix them or ignore them…” I bite my lower lip “If humanity is to survive then something needs to shake its corrupted foundations… How can I continue subjugating other beings in the name of my race’s survival if we aren’t able to trust ourselves?!” they both continue to stare. “Damnit just bite! Drain it! Grow!” it took every part of me to supress myself from using my aura, “This isn’t even my body anyway… What is a scale or two compared to what it has already been made go through?”. I breath in and out multiple times, “Do it” “As you wish” “Yess” both spirits bare their fangs and sink them in my skin. Purple veins appear around the wounds, they bulge, pulse and shimmer as my mana uncondensed as it’s being sucked out.

Using the fingers of the glove as controls I use every definitive movement of them to control the amount of mana within me by continuously draining mana from the air and forcing it into my system so that my mana supplies don’t run out and my body does not require to pump mana from the pores, this meant unrefined mana was flowing through my system and would cause me pureness poisoning. Mana was like a drug, before our bodies had it they didn’t need it but now that we do the body requires it to function properly but if the dose is too pure then there are side effects and possibly damage to the pores. My unnatural high efficiency to chaos made most of the mana I was now gaining highly damaging to my body but this was counter acted by the other event currently happening within me, as my spirits drained my highly abundant mana they grew stronger due to our connection which made my mana more nutritious for their power but this also had side effects. If one looked closely enough they could notice it…their bodies ever so slowly merging with my skin until eventually becoming part of me fully. This meant my mana efficiency would shift with the addition of the new pores, I regulated the mana with the glove as Ember and Wayne’s physical bodies melted onto my skin and began to merge with it. “Ah….Ahhh….” a choked scream escapes my lips, too quiet to be heard by anybody “Ahhkkkk…” I feel my vision shift as mana flows from my body into my spirit’s system and then breaks back into my body again. An infinite loop of mana flow begins as the two bodies integrate themselves with my own, I feel liquid in my eyes that then begins to flow down my cheeks. Then it finally starts, the flow of mana within me is reversed as Ember and Wayne’s pores begin to suck everything in while I pump in more and more mana with the glove. I then start forcing the pure mana into my pores while leaving some to release the mana that currently resided with my soul for Ember and Wayne to consume, this meant my soul didn’t need to produce more mana but will also be left damaged by the purity. I was injecting something too pure straight into my core, I stood by deaths door for hours while I endured the pain. It felt like my insides were being sucked out and then refilled over and over, I could barely breath and my heart had completely stopped pumping as the movement of mana within me was the sole thing keeping blood flowing albeit in a strange flow.

I could feel my consciousness fade but I fought against my weariness to stay awake, I tried to stand but fell on my knees and onto my arms as I slammed my head onto the floor. “I…Ahh…w….oont….” I raised my right arm and formed a fist then slammed it into the floor as hard as I could “fall….” Blood splattered all over the floor as the purity of mana was highly obvious within it from its unnatural silver gleam. “What…ever you are….who…ever you are….gods….atlan…tians….if you…are watching…if you can…hear me…then…listen on…I will not….give…in….so damn….easily…I will…not…be toyed…with…I…AM…NOT…YOUR…PUP…PET!...” they said they were watching, so something inside me wanted them to hear “Chaos…be damned…I don’t…need your…power…I’m done…being…a…ho…hou….houndd….” I felt many things inside me break as my sense of touch was suddenly shut off “I am not the reaper’s hound… to protect those I wish to protect… to carry on my my sole purpose…I will no longer be the hound…you no longer pull my strings…” with my sense of touch gone the pain went with it.

“To gain power, to protect those I hold close, to defend the innocent…” Although the pain was gone my voice still retained its choked sound.

”I will become the reaper itself…” for several more hours I remained like so, even after someone knocked at the door although no one came in. After what felt like days although was probably only hours, my consciousness faded and I plunged into darkness.

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Edited by ;Birse

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