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3 - ⏰

A nameless man sat at a table with a number of other nameless men. It's not that they were really nameless, they were just trying to remain anonymous, and saying you were nameless sounded cool. They still had numbers to refer to each other by. This particular nameless man was 265. 265 drummed his fingers on the table. The discussion was the same one it had been for over five weeks.

“Houdini Tech!”

"Hexobotics"

"Applied Enchanting."

That was, what the official name for the hybrid of magic and technology should be.

"Mechanomancy."

"Voodoodustrial."

"Sorcererscience!"

This discussion was mostly pointless. This was theatre to mask the real reason for the existence of the organization known as The Council. If they were arguing about this, they wouldn't get into another magical war.

In the mid 80’s, the planet Earth decided that it was tired of all the fighting humans on its surface. It decided to release all kinds of miraculous magic into the world. The Earth had reasoned that, if humans had access to magic, they could solve all their human squabbles and create a wondrous society. Instead, humanity was engaged in all out magical war by the 90’s. One could be inclined to think “Magical War? That sounds awesome!”. In fact, that was the exact tagline used by a number of recruiting agencies to snag optimistic youths who had no idea what they were getting into. While “Magical War” sounded cool, it was decidedly less so when your platoon was on the receiving end of a mech that fired compressed high-explosive rainbows, or mortar shells that transfigured your bonded comrades into fruit while simultaneously transmitting movie spoilers directly into your mind.

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For nearly a decade, the horrific ingenuity of humans combined with the extraordinary power of magic to pioneer an entirely new blasphemous discipline of technology. A thousand matches of tug-of-war constantly raged on as whole continents were scarred. Power imbalance was rampant, as single individuals could defeat armies, or small groups could unleash devastation upon a much larger country. This continued until an independent group of the most powerful individuals to have ever existed banded together in an effort to create peace. They confronted any and all world leaders, figuratively (and sometimes literally), beating them with their own arms until they agreed to a cease fire. 265 happened to be one of those involved in that shit kicking spree. Rogue individuals were meticulously put down and stripped for parts until no one wanted to continue fighting.

Afterwards, most countries wanted to practice isolationism. However, most soon found out that it was difficult to maintain an Iron Curtain when even the lowliest peasant had the potential to magically fire 2,800°F heat beams from one or more orifices. Globalization still occurred at a rapid pace. Ideas were exchanged, and magic was retrofitted to non-war apparatuses. Any organization that benefited from creating magical weapons of war in the past rapidly shifted to domestic production. Buildings, appliances, vehicles, and all manner of other things stood to benefit from enchantment.

Despite the war having ended, all was not perfectly well. Dangers still coagulated from the villainous gloop of civilization. Giant spiders, doomsday weapons, undead sea creatures, or even maniacs who harnessed enough strength to single-handedly level cities. Other types of perils existed, astutely keeping to the shadows, where their machinations could stay away from the public eye. Some of those kinds of cunning perils even had seats at The Council.

The Multinational Oleaceous Organization was amassing resources that he knew they would use for nefarious purposes. The fact that their magical olive oil was an important lubrication gave them an incredible amount of power. 265 made a mental note to make a physical note to have his secretary remind him to do something about it.

There was also the Consortium of Undead Sea Souls. Those terrible revenants sought ill-will against all living and all surface dwellers. It was a rather long list of targets. Luckily, Ace Sando was set to fight these undead. He had returned after his victory over Neanderthal, and was looking for his next fight.

265 knew that the fiends would soon begin crawling out of the woodwork. Thankfully, there were always those willing to rise up and topple these fiends, or at least hire morally gray mercenaries to do it for them.