1 Prologue: “Gear Up!”
Sapphire Kingdom, a nation of the Orion continent .
July 27, 699
00:01 AM
Riones secret military facilities
Twenty-seventh day of July has just arrived in the year of 699. Sparkles from the scientific experiment which was happening inside, can be seen from the blinking & pulsing reflection of lights on the window if anyone was close by. Let alone close by, nobody was even near that whole town of secret military base. It's off limits to unauthorized personnels.
"I can't believe the day we've all been waiting for is here, from this day forth world will see the true power of Sapphire Kingdom, we'll rule over the entire world hahahahaha!" General Conor of the Sapphire Kingdom military started laughing abruptly, fascinated by the dream coming true.
"Y'know, there's a saying that, don't count the chickens before they're hatched." A guy arrived behind him in the small experiment room, he was wearing a black robe, black long sleeved shirt, black skin tight hand gloves, black pant, black boot & he had a silver colored minimalistic metallic mask on his face thus his voice was echoing in a robotic fashion, the mask only covered his face and left his head and backside exposed, his hairs looked like they were dying out white from the black color, his hair was spiky & messed up,"Just wait for the test subject run, if it goes well, then…"
"Yes, yes I know, but it's almost done, so there's no problem to count the chickens, hehe!" the General replied and also added, "By the way we can't thank you enough Master 'Hyde', you were the one who offered us this opportunity, of all kingdoms and other continents you chose us, that means something big to us."
In reply Master Hyde kept silent, maybe he smirked, who knows!
"Doctor Eizen, start the test run." General ordered the person in a white lab coat in front of him, Dr. Eizen has spiky beards on his long face, narrow jaw and flat chin. He was wearing glasses. Inside the glasses there were a couple of green pupils containing eyes, those were pure hints of him being a calm & cunning person.
[Doctor Eizen: Head of the experiment, Professor of Biochemistry & Biomechanics in Starnova Research Institute]
Let's start the Project Imperium test run!
They brought a little frog as their test subject. And it's set on the platform inside the glass cage.
"We will see if there's any physical or internal changes. If the test run results are positive, then we shall proceed with the full scale experiment." Doctor Eizen fixed his glasses back into its place by his right hand as he spoke up.
General Conor & other scientists and Eizen's personal assistant, all nodded together in reply.
As the test subject, the tiny frog was completely set into the chamber of the glass cage, a pipe attached to the cage, shot a green beam as the red start button in test run mode was pressed. Everyone's face lit up in the reflection of green light from the glass cage, they eagerly waited for 10 seconds.
Ping! Ping! Ping!
The main monitor of the supercomputer rang 3 times with its notification alarm. Confirming the success of the test run.
"The test run was successful, molecules of the test subject transformed into the furthest strong form in a subatomic level. Efficiency level of the Energy Gear ß is 83%. Probability of success in full scale Project Imperium is 88%".
Information of the female AI "Prima" was the ultimate confirmation they needed to proceed with the full scale Project Imperium.
"That's right, it's time to Gear up our special ops and to build the Shell Gears to improve the entirety of the Sapphire Kingdom military. Nobody, by that I mean nobody in the world would stand a chance against us. We will be the supreme rulers of the whole world Hahahahaha!" The General started laughing crazily.
Selected 10 candidates from the military were also present there in a short amount of time. They took the cables that connects to the main energy core from where all the Gears (Gears are the nano biomechanical and sort of chemical elements that rewrites the DNA of sentient life forms, giving them physical and/or inner abilities, increasing their overall strength to a certain degree) are stored and being transformed into the target object. For safeties all ten of them got into a pod while being connected to all those cables to their chests.
"Prima is the AI made for this very day. Her confirmation is more than a reassurance that our project is going to be a success. Now commence the full scale Project Imperium!"
In order of Doctor Eizen, his assistant Hugo Carter pressed the red button to proceed.
The energy core in the center of the small room was loading up with energy, courtesy of billions of nano biomechanical Gear elements. Soon enough the energy core started reflecting the chromatic color glow in the entire room. Bright light was almost blinding, so all of them shielded their eyes with protection goggles.
Doctor Eizen put a smirk on his face confirming his pride in his own work.
But suddenly after a brief moment....
Warning! Warning! Warning!
Energy level has reached a critical stage!
Energy core is overloaded with too much
Gear energy!!!
"What is actually happening, this was not supposed to be happening, right, Hugo? Hugo!" Doctor Eizen barked at him at the last time he called for him to shake him off of his awe.
"I-it is overloading sir, this is bad, real bad…. Plus I can't get the energy core to shut down." Hugo replied with a scare in his tone, he was shaking, like he lost all control of his body, because he understands the deadliness of the situation.
"What's happening doctor Eizen, your AI told it was gonna be a success, now don't tell me you messed up!" General Conor shouted at Eizen.
"Impossible…." Eizen completely ignored the General, kept his eyes locked at the monitor which was giving warnings after warnings while gritting his teeth.
"Master, where are you, we need you, tell us how to fix this, master Hyde?!" General went crazy & started looking for the black Robe wearing guy, but he was nowhere…
All of the ten candidates suddenly started to get electrocuted, after a few seconds they completely disintegrated into nothingness inside the pod.
That scene alone was enough to make them go crazy.
General was just shouting like a mad man. All of a sudden, out of nowhere Hyde popped up from behind him. Before the General could get relaxed by discovering Hyde's presence, he was stabbed from behind, not by a knife or anything, it was his hand which became knife edge sharp, which killed him. Before any of Eizen or Hugo had the chance to react to the death of General Connor, Hyde reached Hugo with a speed blitz and killed him in a similar fashion. "I had to go with the old-fashioned kill method, I'm actually at my weakest state, I can't just afford to lose my power in a simple task like this." Hyde looked at Eizen while he said that.
"Why did you do this? You were helping us out to build an army full of Gear powers. I don't understand…" Eizen asked and was hoping that he shouldn't be killed as well.
"I never help anyone, help to others come from me as an act of helping myself, if helping myself doesn't help anyone out, then I am not responsible, I was just like always, was helping myself in this case, which didn't end up well for you guys, I wasn't able to control all of these Gears all by myself as I was in my weakest state, I needed you to do my work for me, you see, it's part of a bigger plan that I have plotted. I killed them because they've served their purpose. And they know a lot, thus I can't let them leave. They are nothing but meaningless life forms, worse than pigs. Same can't be said for you though, EIZEN!!!"
"Does this mean you are letting me live?" Eizen got a bit of hope as he saw some light in the infinitude of darkness in the words of Hyde.
Hyde dragged Eizen by his collar. Dragging him on the floor. Eizen was not protesting, waiting for his reply.
"I am not sure if I can call that LIVING!" Hyde replied to him with an evil tone in his voice.
"Wait, w-what are you planning to do with me?!" Eizen got ten times more scared than he already was before.
"I am going to let you live, in a twisted life!" Hyde hissed cold heartedly.
After that it was only Eizen protesting with
"No! No! Nngh! AARGH! Stop!"
But all was in vain, Hyde opened a portal. And took Eizen with him. Nobody was in that place. All the dead bodies also faded away, like their existence was erased. Hyde escaped to his place without letting any trace behind. Nobody would actually be looking for any trace, because what followed shortly after that chaos was a…..
KABOOM!
Although the place was unharmed, the explosion resulted in a shockwave which spread throughout the entire world.
And on that fateful day, everything changed, almost all of the living being on the Earth received amplifying Gear elements which changed their life in all kinds of way.
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Unknown Time in the future
Black empty infinitude
"Finally this is the time I was waiting for…" Hyde looked at his hand where an energy orb was glowing in chromatic color.
"Not quite…" A light started bursting out of his chest, like something was coming out forcefully.
"Impossible!" Hyde was in utter shock at the certain turn of events.
The bright chromatic light blasted its way out of Hyde...
Rewind....
30 Years later after that Fateful day of
Secret project "Project Imperium"
July 30, Year 729 in XYZ calendar
Garage 4, Merbeus Town of the royal capital Zona I the Sapphire Kingdom
"You know we can't be in this garage for long, it's one of the abandoned garages and it's in downtown doesn't mean we are safe from cops." A long faced silly & thug looking guy who's wearing a sleeveless black shirt asked that to his team leader.
[This guy's name is Jackie Ren]
"I know that, you guys have to shut your crap. You guys are nothing but talk." The team leader replied the guy, he has a medium long messy spikey, black hair with a small branch of hair as bang falling on the right side of his forehead, he is a 16 year older, handsome looking with a medium long face and pointy chin, he has green wider eyes.
[This guy is the main character of the story- Storm Lecvolt, more details about him will be given in next few chapters]
The other guy who was deadpanned, lackluster, it was unusual for him. He had a black long hair up to his shoulder & he was also short in size.
[He's name is Jimmy Ren, he's the younger brother of the other silly guy in their 3-men group.]
"Is anything the matter Jimmy? You look unusually off." Storm asked him with a concerned voice.
"N-no, I'm fine, nothing's wrong!" Jimmy choked on his words, but assured him that he was fine by putting a big grin on his face.
Storm initially frowned in reply, but seemed to let go of any kind of suspicions. "Alright, it's time to move out, the dark gearer circle, Deadeyes asked us to get the plasma energy core to them from the storage house of Mecino Research Facility in the center of the Sanforte Town."
Then they headed for the research facility. But not in the straight way, in backdoor. They know a secret tunnel in the downtown which created a shortcut which ended up directly in the research facilitiy's storage house in the underground section.
"You two stay here, it will be hard to get out of the facility if I have to babysit you two." Storm said them abruptly.
"Hey, don't say, we are a team, we've gotta do it together." Jackie cried out in a silly way.
"Yeah, right, we're just a team on page, a team where the leader literally needs to babysit his mates. I do all the work, you guys are not even involved indirectly." Storm replied to him with a straight cut statement which shut his mouth.
Saying so Storm entered the storage house. It was easy to locate the plasma energy core, because it was in a special locker room, and the title on the door of the locker was also specified as his target object. He extended his fingers exposing black gloved right hand, positioned and placed his hand & disabled the electricity of the locker in the process and unlocked the locker, and took the energy core. He knows the backup electricity was about to kick in, but he can't afford to waste his Gear energy by trying to disable backups by absorbing, he's already filled with electricity energy to max level, absorbing while filled up to max level will only cause him losing energy plus it will also weakens him physically. So it was pointless. His best bet is to run for it at an instant. And he did exactly that. Others followed him through the tunnel as well, but this time in another way, this time they were heading towards the Deadeyes guild to deliver their thing.
[Storm Lecvolt
Gear: Electricity/Lightning
Powers & abilities: Electrocution, Electrokinesis & more]
10 minutes later
Underground base of operation of the
Deadeyes circle fortress (A branch Gearer circle of the BLACKNESS)
"Ooooh, you did it quite easily, boss will be very happy." The fat guy licked his lips in a creepy way. "By the way boss-man asked to check it if it works or not, in a hardcore fashion." Saying so, he absorbed some of the plasma energy core's energy in the Gear powered gun and shot a bullet at the unusually silent guy Jimmy.
But at a flash Storm distorted the Gear bullet & shot an electrical energy at the gun as his right gloved hand glowed with golden sparkling circled aura of electrical energy. Flynn gave the fat guy a deadly stare which shook him from the core. "I could be a mercenary, but I won't let anyone die without any reason, let alone my friends."
"These dudes look useless, what is the need for them to live." the fat jerk asked him.
"Everybody has a purpose to live, who you see useless today might someday become important & highly useful. Nobody deserves to die because of that & it's not up to any of us to decide whether they live or not." While saying that he readied his both arm in a fashion of creating an energy ball, "HAMMERING LIGHTNINGBOLT!!!" He shot a lightning ball at the guy and hurt him with that in his stomach and down parts of his chest. "Are you going to change your mind now?"
The guy got up and said rashly, "You cocky sparky brat, do you think this little attack is gonna work on me?"
"I was just warming up and I gave you a final chance to change your mind, just so you know that I could be a mercenary and killing people is not my style, but if you insist and give me a good reason, I won't hold back!" Storm replied by balling his right hand into fist, his body was sparking in a blinking effect. At that moment he looked like an undefeatable strong pillar. He's shapely slim fit body was exposing his veins on his biceps, and it could be seen by others because he was wearing a sleeveless black fit shirt with a couple of parallel golden curved lining in both of the sideways, downward of the shirt.
"You wouldn't dare, the boss man will kill you then!" The guy replied as he tried to stand up.
"I'll see about that afterwards…" saying so he didn't allow him to stand up and he swayed his right arm in a slashing manner and chanted, "LIGHTNING SLASH!!"
The guy was killed instantly as the slash struck him in his throat, blood spilled out like water spilling out of a big leaked hose pipe.
"Impressive!" someone, a male, came from behind, clapping his hands.
Storm immediately readied another attack as reflex.
"Wait wait wait, hold your attacks, I'm not here to fight you neither to arrest," the guy was in navy blue Sapphire Kingdom military suit & by the look at his badge Flynn recognized him as a Colonel, "even if I want to, I can't, because I'm here to recruit you as an official Gearer of the official circle- Phoenix Zero! And it's an order!"
To be continued…
In Chapter 1: "The Phoenix Zero!"
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A/N: This is my first time writing an OG serialized sci-fi fantasy (more fantasy than science though!), I am actually a Fanfic writer, so I hope you enjoyed the prologue and intrigued you, stay tuned for more, I can't wait to share the greatness that's about come up in the future, see ya!
