The Wrong Era: Chapter 1

(Hello everyone of YWS!! It's been some time (Almost a whole year) since I've uploaded anything. This is a startover of an existing story that I've finished, but I can never seem to find satisfaction in the completed story. Please let me know if this draft pulls your interest! Thank you!)

It was an ordinary day like any other thank you very much. At the very least, that was the reality for Professor Augustis Kamui. He sat in the darkness of his office scrolling through an endless list of children at his desk as old news played at the corner of his holotable. The only light that lit the room was the neon glow of holograms floating above the holotable.

“Word just in, New Mamba has released an updated count of their casualties from the Bloody Holiday. After their latest search-and-rescue mission, their total casualty has been reduced to fifty-eight million with an estimated two hundred and fifty thousand still missing beneath the rubble. The surviving political leaders of New Mamba continue to push hope onto survivors stating that they will not give up on clearing out the damage and saving as many lives as possible. However, with the time it takes to remove the debris, many have given up believing that if the destruction did not kill their families and friends, injuries and starvation will.”

He was still conflicted as to why he kept something so old playing. Nothing he did was going to bring back the dead. Perhaps it was guilt. While he sat in his seat day after day sipping his hot mug of lightly sweetened coffee, hundreds of millions of people were out there suffering. Maybe he needed to be reminded as to why he was doing this in the first place. Or it could be the feeling of his gut tying a noose with itself after learning the government was well aware of the disaster and chose to do nothing about it. At the same time, who could blame them? Who would believe a warning from a random person with no credibility from over a millenia ago? If anything, it sounded more like religious ranting than anything. Then again, even had they prepared for the Bloody Holiday, there was no stopping that ocean of flame. Not after seeing the damage it left behind. Even if they had constructed a shelter for all scenarios, that would have only gathered everyone for the world’s largest barbeque; leaving no survivors at all rather than some.

But what’s done is done. The government leaders have finally decided to take this ancient prophecy seriously; albeit secretly. Phase two was right around the corner after all. The Bloody Holiday was only the calm before the storm.

Prof. Kamui spun the floating holograms around until he found the app he wanted. With a push of his finger, a screen enlarged and dialed out.

“What’d you find?” Answered a woman with a strangely deep voice. A bored hollow tone drained of enthusiasm. She wore a cloak that hid her body with the exception of her eyes; a cloudy gray iris that looks like it's being pulled into her dark constricted pupils like a black hole. A hazy, spectral void that redefined the word eerie.

“Hints, or...zombies...maybe?” Prof. Kamui said as he leaned over his holotable to grab a blue neon letter and tossed it into the video call.. “A pyramid if anything, Jennifer…”

“Goooood morning ladies and gentlemen, how is it going everyone? I am Tracy Schmidt! And I’m Josh Velez! Coming to you live for the daily Honolulu news! I’m sure everyone has questions regarding today’s phenomenon. Snow! For the first time in Honolulu ever!”

It was just the news for a city. An old one at that, five years to be precise. But, she trusted this man, and waited patiently for the video to play out. Augustus Kamui was after all the only man she considered an ally.

I’m not sure if ‘strange’ is the word I would really use. I mean, I think it’s nice for the locals who lived here their entire lives to finally see the ground covered in fluffy white cotton, but they without a doubt already experienced it in VR. So there’s really no point. Anyways, I think we talked enough about the weather, and we’re not even the weather forecast! Next up is a kidnapping at Beretania street at a nearby convenience store. A little girl was nearly kidnapped but thanks to the heroic actions of her older brother, he was able to chase away the child traffickers. We seem to be getting a lot of those these days huh? I believe we went over this already when we discussed about the gifted children suddenly appearing--

The video cut out. Once so, Prof. Kamui tossed another neon letter into the video call. It was a fake police report regarding a gas explosion that destroyed an entire apartment complex. Which meant that the real report was underneath. This one was recent; only a week old. If Prof. Kamui had this, then it only meant one thing. Jennifer skipped the cover-up and dived straight to the important bits. According to the Deputy chief, Lt. Mendez, there was an attack by a druggie that overdosed on roids. At the very least, that was the subject the report was written as. It was the closest description, and face value he wasn’t exactly wrong either. However, pictures from public security cameras told a different story. This was no druggie. No, Jennifer was all too familiar with this thing.

The picture showed a man on all fours due to the weight difference between his lower half being small compared to his oversized torso. He stood at least seven foot tall and his arms were as long as its entire body below the shoulders. Almost like a gorilla, but more of a mutated human than an ape. The muscles on this thing were massive being about three feet in diameter. The size of its upper body made its head look like a tiny bean. Quite literally an overexaggerated expression of skipping leg day.

Things still didn’t add up though. It was Jennifer’s task to eliminate abominations like these. If there was a cover-up report filed already, that meant someone eliminated the abomination. Thankfully, there was a video included along with the pictures.

The police had set up a barricade outside of the complex that had a giant hole in its walls. A civilian covered in blood limped out of it. The abomination came charging after him ready to crush the citizen. Except the civilian disappeared just before the abomination smashed the ground. The police began firing their weapons; plasma charged glocks and rifles. Under any normal circumstance, these weapons would easily melt through iron and turn flesh into jelly. However, their weapons proved useless as it only gave blackened burns on the abomination.

Jennifer paused the video, she didn’t care what happened to the police, there was something more important. She played the video back to the civilian and played it frame by frame. There was a blur that stuck around for no more than five frames; three going in, and another two exiting. On top of that, these cameras recorded at 240 frames per second. Simply put, the person that rescued the civilian was moving faster than the eye can blink. No, that was an understatement. Whoever this person was, he or she was moving nearly twenty times faster than an eye blink.

Jennifer swatted the video clip away and moved to a different angle, one with a full view of the incident. Thanks to that, she now saw that there were two bystanders nearby despite the fact that the area should have been cleared out. Kids? Teenagers? It was hard to tell but it was a boy and girl. She fast forwarded back to the disappearance of the civilian, and found he was now in the arms of the little girl. At this point, Jennifer let the video play out. Once the shootings started and the abominations started attacking the police, the little girl passed the civilian over to the boy next to her and darted forward to stop the abomination from killing one of the officers. It sent warm tingles down Jennifer’s spine. The girl stopped the abomination’s attack with one hand, the abomination that was able to trample and tear through walls of steel and concrete like paper mache.

The rest of the video was pure bullying. Whoever this little girl was, the abomination didn’t stand a chance. At no point in time was it allowed to fight back. She fought with such swift ferocity that it could not keep up with her speed. But the most surprising thing that Jennifer caught was the fighting style this girl used. She recognized it all too well. Some, if not most, was her own developed martial art. She had seen enough, and closed the video.

“Explain.”

Prof. Kamui stood from his chair and began pacing himself around his holotable with his hand behind his back.

“The two you saw in that video are the same children in the news from five years ago. However, they left out some very important pieces of information. There was no evidence of injuries, so the video file was deemed glitchy and erased. Us, however…”

Once more, he grabbed a video file and tossed into the call. It was the day of the kidnapping the news had mentioned. At this time, the kids looked no older than six. The video started already with the girl being grabbed and taken by a group of men wearing black suits. That is until daggers were hurled at them. The brother had arrived to save his sister and he fought them off valiantly. However, one of the men had pulled out a gun and shot a hole through the brother’s chest before fleeing.

“40mm plasma chamber pistol. Blasted a hole right through the boy’s chest. Should have been an immediate death. Yet the news never reported a casualty. Now here he is next to his sister, five years later alive and well.”

“These daggers,” Jennifer rewinded and zoomed in on the clip. “That’s not something you can buy at a local grocery store or make just from sharpening stones. The quality is too well done. The only place with the equipment to make them is the magic schools, the one place where they are not.”

“Bingo, but one thing still doesn’t make any sense,” said Prof. Kamui.

“How did he survive?” Jennifer finished his sentence. “If she has superhuman physical strength and he can make weapons, then who healed him when he was shot? Unless…”

He nodded at her and said, “Familiar martial art? Superhuman strength and speed? I think you might have an unknown successor without even knowing it.”

“How did these two escape your eyes for so long? I thought you had a list of all the children gifted with magic.”

Profi. Kamui pulled up some pictures and enlarged them. A picture of a young girl with an asian wavy bob cut as well as a boy with straight neck-length hair and a single line crease wrinkle following his nose beneath his eyes popped up. Although the highlight would be the clean red scar around the girl’s neck. It looked as if she was strangled by fishing wire. “Cecilia and Ren Asa, are their names. At least, that’s what is listed at the orphanage they’re staying in. Bloody Holiday survivors. No records of their identity prior to the disaster. I presume their official government documents were destroyed during the destruction and they’ve lived under the radar since then. There’s been no records or reports of them ever having used magic. Not on camera at the very least. It’s an old orphanage with 21rst century technology.”

“So they hid themselves by staying in the ghettos with forgotten technology. They’re smart…”

“Only the brother…” said Prof. Kamui. “Cecilia was born the same week the Bloody Holiday took place. She was no more than a few days old. Everything that’s been done since was most likely his doing.”

“You must really want these kids if you’re sending me as the invitation.”

Prof. Kamui walked over to the window in his office. With an upward gesture, the shades shifted letting the natural light of dawn brighten his dark office. Prof. Kamui stared out into the calm ocean and rustling trees.

“Us adults have already failed. If what the prophecy says is true, then all our efforts are for nought. These two however, I haven’t even met, and they’ve already impressed me. With these two spearheading the project, I finally see a light at the end of this long, dark, miserable tunnel. I honestly believe we might just have a chance.”