Lights. Explosions. Fire everywhere. Buildings torn down. There are people screaming and running everywhere, and in the middle of all of this, there is a single child standing at his doorway not knowing what to do.
War is erupting all over the planet, and humanity is getting massacred to what seems like no end.
The child hears somebody shouting something, but it's too quiet for him to hear.
It comes again this time, almost audible.
One more time, loud enough for him to hear it but he is too much in shock to realize.
"ALARIC!"
gasp
Xavier wakes up with a deep inhale of breath, still wondering where he keeps getting these nightmares from.
"I swear, ever since my father died these things have been getting worse and worse..." he said to himself.
Xavier gets up out of his bed, and starts getting dressed, ready to start his day. He walks over to his nightstand and picks up a picture of his dad and him. This picture was taken on his 16th birthday, right before his dad died. They say Alaric died in an "accident," but Xavier doesn't believe that for a second.
"Sorry dad... But you're gonna miss another birthday."
Today is Xavier's 18th birthday, and it's almost been 2 years since he has been living on his own in his father's house out in the woods.
For some reason, the biggest corporation in the world was investigating his father right before his death, and Xavier would bet anything that they are the ones who did it. PHI, or Precision Horizons Industries. The corporation pretty much controls pretty much everything, from the government to something as small as making pens. Anything that involves technology, they have their roots set deep into. Their motto is "Today's dreams are tomorrow's reality!".
What utter bullshit Xavier thought.
Well, nothing to do about it now he shook his head of negative thoughts. As he walks out the door, down the familiar worn down dirt path to the city, he starts thinking about what he has to today.
I still have to go to the damn academy, but nothing's happening so I'll just skip that again... I have enough money to last for years since I got rights to everything since my father died...
"Hey Xavier!" a feminine voice appears out of nowhere
"Hey Lorie. Why are you all the way out here?"
"Oh nothing. Just came to see my favorite friend, no big deal."
A girl about half Xavier's height comes swinging out of a tree and lands softly on the path next to him, and walks with him. This is Lorelai, who's been his "best friend" for 4 years. She has pink hair, in a pixie cut bobbing just above her shoulders.
"Happy birthday by the way! You gonna actually come to class this time?"
"...Nope."
"Oh come on! I get you're super smart and all that, but the least you could do is keep me company!"
"Well, I could. But I have things to do today."
"So what you're saying is I have to convince you?"
"Nothing you can do will convince me Lorie."
"Ugh, you're no fun."
They continue walking along the path until they reach the sidewalk onto a street of the city. Here they walk along the sidewalk, cars speeding by on anti-gravity speedways, both close to the ground and high in the air.
"Hey X, what plans do you have today anyways?"
Xavier thought about it for a moment, and replies with "I'm gonna get awakened today."
"WOOAAHHH!" Lorelai exclaims, "You're actually serious!?"
"Yup. The law says you have to be 18 first, and my father never let me do anything when I was younger, so it's also a good time to figure out what to do with my life."
"Mhm..." Lorelai says skeptically, gently staring at his face with a slight smile
They keep walking for a couple more minutes, until Xavier clutches his head in pain and stops walking.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
"Woah dude, you okay?"
After a groan of pain and shaking his head, Xavier replies with "I'll be fine. Nothing I can't han..."
Xavier falls face first onto the pavement, and almost passes out cold.
"Xavier!" Lorelai runs over to him, scraping her knee in the process of kneeling down but the adrenaline pumping in her lets her ignore it.
She shakes him lightly, hoping to get him to wake up, as blood slowly comes out of his nose.
"Xavier! Come on man, don't die like this! HELP! SOMEBODY CALL AN AMBULANCE!"
The last thing Xavier saw was Lorelai's face screaming at him to not die on her. He briefly recalls her making a reference, saying something about coming with her if you want to live, until everything goes black.
----------------------------------------
Xavier drifts in and out of consciousness, seeing bright lights of a hospital rushing past in his weary state. Eventually, he can't keep himself awake and passes out again.
He is in an endless void, seeming like he's floating in space. He sees scenes rushing past him, too fast to make out what's happening in them. One of them he briefly recognizes the scene in his recurring nightmares, which got progressively worse after his father died. Then one scene stops in front of him, and everything flashes away. The scenery of a green field encases his surroundings. It seems familiar, but he is sure he's never been here before. He turns around when he hears a voice.
"Happy birthday son."
Xavier whips his head around to see his familiar old man standing there behind him in the field, and his face goes through several expressions. Anger, shock, grief, depression, regret, he feels it all, until his mind eventually settles on one feeling; pain.
Nightmare inducing pain erupts all over his body, coming in waves of different sensations such as feeling like pins and needles to feeling like he is burning alive. Wave after wave of different kinds of pain erupt all over his body, from the edges of every strand of hair on his head to the tip of his little toe. Eventually, the pain subsides after what seems like hours.
He collapses to the ground in a cold sweat, thinking about what the fuck just happened to him. He has a fleeting thought about how he is able to feel pain when he is in his mind, but he quickly dismisses it ashe remembers his father standing next to him. He looks up at his father, the familiar blue hair that runs in the family and the gentle smile he always gave him. He goes to speak, then realizes that he can't, and just sits there staring at his father.
"You're probably confused right now. Sorry about the pain too, it's just part of the process."
The process? What the hell does he mean by that? And yeah, I'm super confused... what the hell is going on?
"Well, first thing's first, I should probably explain a little bit. See, when you were 15, I injected a set of nanomaterial inside of your body, actually the same set I had. You've probably noticed your muscles are defined without working out, and you have amazing stamina with anything you do. That was your body getting used to the nanomaterial, and eventually fusing with it."
WHAT? Dad what the hell is going on? Why the heck would you inject whatever the hell that is into me?
"Now I'll tell you why. Here's what I know. PHI has actually been after me for a very long time, and I've managed to elude them for a couple hundred years."
HUNDREDS OF YEARS? Okay... Just calm down. Let him explain first.
"See, our family has a bloodline. Actually, not just any bloodline, it is one of the originals, and the most powerful of them all. Our last name 'Seiryu' means 'Azure Dragon', an apt description for what it is. Hence the blue hair, and our bright purple eyes. The nano machines extended my already long lifespan from the dragon blood running in my veins, and all it did was optimize my muscles and the rest of my body for peak performance. Not only that, they let me escape PHI forces for just that much longer, because they couldn't hack their holy grail. See, I stole it from right under their noses. I used to work for them, right after the void era."
Hold on a damn minute, he worked for PHI? And he stole their 'holy grail'?
"My time is running out, so I'll just say this. You need to awaken your bloodline. Then you'll be ready. Figure out what really happened in the void era, and just remember to NEVER trust PHI. They are the cause of it all. I've kept you away from the world for a damn good reason, and that reason is because PHI has their hands on everything. Why do you think I taught you how to fight, or why I always took care of your injuries whenever you got hurt? I set the nanomachines to activate fully on your 18th birthday, and you are probably at a PHI hospital right now. My advice? Get out of there. I love you son. Use your powers wisely, and don't let your emotions take control"
What? Dad? WAIT! AT LEAST TELL ME IF I CAN SEE YOU AGAIN!
"I'm sorry."
Everything rushes away from him, and the green fields return back to the void he first ended up in. This time there's no scenes flashing by, just an endless expanse of nothingness inside of his head. He starts crying, not even realizing what's going on outside of this space.
----------------------------------------
Lorelai is pacing in the hospital lobby, after she rode in the ambulance with Xavier. She keeps wondering if he is okay, what the hell just happened to him. Then she sees the doctor assigned to him come out of his room and talk to someone, trying to be quiet. She reads their lips and she makes out a few words, like "He has the grail" and "contact... up there." All she knows is something bad is happening, and she needs to do something.
She rushes up to the doctor, and a guard goes to block her but she starts running and slides between his legs to run to the doctor.
"What is going on!? Is Xavier okay!?" She grabs the doctor by the collar of his shirt and screams "TELL ME DAMNIT!"
The doctor calmly looks at her, and says with a condescending tone "Please calm down miss. He is fine, we are just going to... run some further tests. We have to move him somewhere else to do that though. Now if you would so kindly let me go and patiently wait in the lobby, we will contact you once we know more about his condition."
She stares into his eyes with determination burning within her heart. The doctor stares back with a smirk, knowing she can't do anything to him in this situation.
"If you refuse, I will have the guards escort you out."
Lorelai sighs in frustration and lets go of him, stomping over to the lobby and sits down, glaring at the doctor as he smiles at her. She sits there waiting, trying to think of a way to get herself and her best friend out of this situation safely, when suddenly alarms start blaring all over the hospital, and she has to get evacuated along with the citizens. As she is practically getting forced out of the hospital, she sees people rushing into Xavier's room with guns and other things. She starts fighting the crowd to try and get to him, pushing and shoving people out of the way despite her small frame.
"XAVIER! NO! I CAN'T LOSE YOU FOR A SECOND TIME! DAMNIT!"
She eventually gets past the initial crowd, just to run into some guards, with stun weapons.
Everything goes black.