New Persia 3049

I thank you for reading and God for my ability to write no matter how poor or well it is and thank you too reader for giving this a chance and choosing to be my audience for your time.

Praise God.

Aleph’s heart would never beat, but he was very sure if it could they would hear it pounding loudly relentlessly.

He felt a bit out, he wasn’t making his grief over his failures as clear as their disappointment and he wasn’t ignorant that they took this as complacency in his failures.

Again and again, he had failed, too painful, shocking, extremely agonizing wounds causing him to freeze up, he had half the mind to run away but.

Here he was again, facing down pain albeit a far more abstract version–Cold glares of the rest of his training unit, extremely gifted, far ahead of the curve and yet still retaking the same section of the training repeatedly wearing them out.

Aleph pained knowing he was the weak link to repeating this nightmare, holding them all back as the cold steel platform they were on loudly rose up to the top leading to the live-fire combat-hall.

“Have you done the mental exercises?” Saiyah broke silence starting then hesitating for a long while drawing Aleph’s attention.

“Did you at least try anything?” She started again straight with some bite, annoyed.

“The least he could do is anything other than squealing the moment he’s struck.”

Aleph feels his head throb, when he was younger, seven this made him cry once or twice in the academy that he was so pathetic,

“Son even if you fail now, you can get better you have to believe in yourself.” His father told him often he hated those memories now and only grew enraged, to be raised by a human of all things has held him back.

To be raised by a human has only made his life and duty impossible to live. He has half the mind to curse his long-passed father, but often on Saturdays he had him learn many things that would forewarn such a thing.

Aleph tightly grips the handgun tightly to his chest, his fingers tapping an uneven rhythm that betrayed his fear.

He can hear an ambient voice present on the ride upwards become louder and louder

“I’ll try my best.” He forces out straightly but with waning confidence, only earning an eyeroll from his team leader

“It’s not human to be kind, it’s purely righteous to be kind.” Aleph is flinching at Asaph’s words and only remembering more of the softness of his father, he makes sure to think on his father to stay angry.

He hates how that humanity his father had rubbed off on him, the kind that has him saluting when the other candidates refuse to salute another student, that has him hesitating on trading blows with his betters in training.

It made the words they spoke to him more biting, but he never took it as a mark against them, it was how they were raised, nearly from birth to treat every issue and problem like something that can be stamped out to show little relent even if it’s something apart of someone.

Even if the problem was another person.

And it was–Aleph was a problem, out of 144,00 Shock trooper candidates on New Persia currently he is the only singular participant falling behind.

They hear the clicking noise as the brakes on the platform are engaging, something being slotted loudly as metallic sockets and joints slam together and lock.

Albeit completely dark light seems to bounce into the rising platform

they are almost at the top

Saiyah seems to shoot Aleph a few glances at this “Aleph, you’re our best bet to finally get through this, if you can just make it to the end, I’m sure you can do it.” She is soft and encouraging her voice a bit high to reach him

Saiyah wasn’t raised by humans, but Aleph is left thinking she was sometimes.

Asaph is looking back at the two only to shrug and sigh.

Aleph nods his head in time with the bounce of the platform as he hears another set of impacts and locks engage as the second breaks are caught by the platform.

“I’ll try my best, it’s just–I feel the pain more than you all do.”

“I get it, Aleph, you feel it on a similar level most humans do, but get over it.” She’s still soft but bares her teeth near the end of the “pep-talk” she thinks she is giving Aleph.

They could all feel pain but for Aleph it was different, he feels more alive than most, wounds that would feel like pricks for them rightfully feels like directed agony made manifest for a human when you consider how painful being stabbed truly is.

For Aleph how he processed pain was exactly like a human.

“Maybe that’s going to make you stronger, smarter!” he can hear the only human he gives a damn about– he still thinks she is wrong, he feels like it’s only to enhance his torment

He grips the handle of the pistol.

Hopefully this time will be different.

The old platform makes a screech as it nears its stop, buckles and loud clamps slam together as its caught in place after it finishes its ride to the surface, a metal gate ahead of them screeches, their attention is caught to it.

The metal entrance screeches as it begins to split apart into two parts horizontal parts then as the rusty gate finishes opening, wisps of smoke from the gates drawn out contact with the ground coming toward them.

They all pass the titanium threshold, going through a long hallway dimly lit, the only sound is the shuffle that came from moving in the training suits,

purplish highlights on the spinal portion of the uniform casts on the five as they make way to a brighter arena.

The weapon is light in Aleph’s hands as he steps out into the arena with them.

Paved asphalt roads broken up by shelled craters ‘struck by artillery’, overturned human transportation, and broken buildings stick out to him –– likely places to take advantage of when the firefight begins.

Aleph watches his team-leader Asaph motion twice, left and right urging them to make the split and prepare for the engagement.

Aleph follows his command, going with one of the others to the right, moving with her by Asaph’s commands as they trail.

What followed next was as it always was.

He is launching ahead of the group as planned, swift enough to draw attention and avoid most of their hits for now, his aim is snapping between targets a whistle as his arm cuts through and creates a trail of wind like contrails around the bottom of his wrists.

They are facing the HK-5000 Series training bots made to resemble Mechra.

Similarly with great bounds of agility and supernatural ability toss themselves over wreckage and vehicles, precision aim as they aim for the weakened points of these machines, they closed distance fast and were now engaged closely with the machines enough to be trading blows face to face.

Albeit like usual they are doing terrible, saved by the bell.

Aleph is able to sweep around them, he launches himself over one of the overturned cars, he feels like he is in a storm as the sudden speed of him flying into the air causes it to sound like he is speeding through a tunnel.

He aims from above, flanking at an angle the machines can’t hope to expect, firing from above and freeing comrades who were held in physical holds that restrained them reminiscent of human martial-arts.

Their uniforms purple highlights now glow bright red, indicating in a literal scenario they would’ve died if restrained that long again only Aleph is left

He’s struck the ground by now already, and tucks downwards rushing the primary line of the machines, the machines are all armed with rifles containing live-rounds, whilst death was a possibility it was not his concern.

He dove toward the ground, rolling on the asphalt and evading the rounds rocketing out of those rifles – not fast enough.

His leg is hit, and he stumbles, they would’ve never stumbled but he did, the pain was unbearable he could feel the bullet fragment and expand throughout his leg. He tries to keep himself up, his eyes shoot left seeing his team out of commission, horrified expressions.

He counts the targets one–or two–

There is a dozen more.

He grasps the handgun gives accurate but sporadic fire to suppress and scatter them as they come from two locations bunched up.

One–then two drop from rounds to critical weak points and crumple, a crash as the machines drop down the servos and mechanical skeletons deactivating leaving the hulk of armor plating and internal systems collapsing down quickly.

Aleph knows hit the neck, disable visual optics bulkhead, strike the lower torso disconnect the pelvis. The Machines often will automatically shut down, chambered in his handgun is ‘.50 AE Training Rounds’.

On top of hitting key points Aleph knows the rounds will cause enough damage with the creation of internal shrapnel to hit other key infrastructure, the machines have an auto-reactive threshold so they are more easily recycled again for future training usage. Something this teammate behind neglect.

Launching himself to the side as rounds come his way, he breaks off into a sprint near a ruined simulated car, the sparks of rounds headed his way from the machines still firing his way– rifles in one hand as one motions, and they get ready to flank.

Terrible mistake on the machine’s for now.

Aleph is aware of this he’s done it many times, they close distance fast, the ones that had eliminated his teammates are now coming from behind, the computer calculates CQC Close Quarters combat as the most likely to succeed scenario.

Aleph can hear the thuds of a machine that sprinted over, he’s already thrusting his fist into the air like a spear guessing its location.

His left hand ignites in agony at impact and as it travels through the entire headframe of the machine

metal rips apart his fingers, slicing his ungloved hand as it soars through the entire headpiece of the machine.

“That’s one.” He wrestles out aloud, speaking to keep himself conscious and actively aware of his situation, he.

He can hear two more diving to assault him at once, he isn’t wasting the precious milliseconds to do something elaborate, he tucks himself down and rolls out the way, the machines don’t collide they recover with terrifying grace and speed up chasing him.

He can hear three more coming toward him, a mechanical fist sailing through the air.

He feels the bones in his arm shatter, he had thrown it up to counter the fist, he did do well but the machine threw the punch with such force the metal digits forming a fist caught fire.

It’s own hand was broken trying to break the bone of his forearm with ease, in this moment he notices something unnatural.

They shouldn’t be moving this fast, this calculating, and they shouldn’t be durable enough to send punches with enough speed to nearly re-prove faster than light travel

Aleph feels pain but it’s different time, there’s a real threat here, Moreso than being dismembered limb from limb again, that hit would’ve absolutely killed him.

The risk of death is always at any time in this training twenty-percent, no one’s died, but he would’ve proved the facilities calculation.

He draws in breath hearing another machine coming in and he doesn’t hesitate.

He kicked up dirt as he shot his knee into the pelvic plate of the machine to partially unbalance it.

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He shatters the entire plate and knocks out the synthetic mesh that allows it’s joints to rotate and still have durability compared to most composite armor. –

He thanks the one unnatural thing he has far from being human is what they all unanimously call their Seventh sense– it is the reason he ducks another strike that would’ve cleaved his skull.

His eyes are able to just pinpoint a machine that was swinging its hand for his neck in a chopping motion.

Aleph is fast, faster than all the others just so he can last long enough to be worthwhile as an asset and to avoid the crippling pain that can be incurred by this machine or his fellow shocktrooper candidates.

He initially moves to make a smooth recovery diving back up lead by his fist gun in hand,

The machine flies up with him and he is in a fair amount of pain as its entire head and visual receptor piece rocketed off of the chassis, it comes out with enough force to take out some more vital components.

Disabling it.

The synthetic fluid powering this machine coats him as he is getting violent, but less deliberate and less mindful.

The machines work faster, they kick into gear readied

ejecting magazine out of his handgun– he is prepared to start to reload and keep them at a range–

But he is suddenly left unable to move as he feels pain spread out from his shoulder as a hot blade glides through the durable flesh, he can still move it, but it only hurts more.

He is struggling against the machine now, his movements frantic as he sees it trying to drag the knife upwards as it rips through his shoulder blade, his flesh follows behind regenerating behind the blade.

Blood is pouring out of a gruesome wound made more swiftly than his capacity for regeneration.

as the blade is twisted up toward his neck his wound opens more, and he doesn’t dare look, now soon being assailed by other machines. He rises more to struggle but the machine only pulls him back, another blade shoots into his stomach.

More machines than on the dossier for this training mission are here

Humanoid machines are gathered around and fully equipped with combat knives of all great degrees.

He screams

Saiyah and the others look on helplessly, they’ve had a few limbs twisted, wounds, but they see how the ones on Aleph are trying to kill him holding him still.

It looks as if they are bloodletting him

He can’t stop the constant screams that begin to burn his throat, He sees them for the first time in their life terrified. His suit is ripped open with dozens of gashes surrounding the entry wounds of the knives as he is viciously cut open again and again, coated in red.

He can’t pass out from the pain, nor will this kill him, for some odd reason the lights on suit won’t turn red no matter how much he’s obviously lost and been restrained…Wracked with enough pain he begins to slobber, he’s lost enough blood he thinks to kill him.

Regrettably there’s still more, he’s nearly lost his mind and nearly begging for death. But that feeling desiring for death grows and grows until it blooms into something else.

He should never feel it, but he does as if something courses through his veins and it hurts.

Thump

He is terrified to feel that organ move. He wasn’t human…it was helping something pulse into his veins

His mid-torso is an open gaping wound as the machines continuously and viciously dig in, he can hear servos whir as they grind his ribcage and bones tearing through him and sending chunks of him into the air behind them, he can hear blood shoot out from wounds and strike the boxy metallic frames.

He howls in agony again

One of them twists his neck back as if to tear off his head, he feels the skin split and something sparks–

He surged up with a roar, his arms surged up and flung wide. Tossing the machines off… His entrails hanging out from his stomach as he roared with anger his mind lost in a moment of pure survival,

and he has what could be a bloodshot stare, signs of adrenaline had he been... human or– still alive.

He is shaking scared at how his strength rises with the fear of death and realization these training machines are aiming to kill him; he doesn’t know where this kind of strength is coming from yet but the idea of what it might be has him trembling more than his fading vision.

His head is pounding not with pain but with renewed fury, it was a blur when he had thrown those machines off by sheer strength and panic alone, reaching a new limit despite the sheer loss of blood.

He can hear the grinding of his broken ribcage, excess bone falling out as new flesh, new bones begin to seal up albeit even after such losses incurred, he’s still standing, he should be much weaker after having lost so much stored up blood, but he’s always been an enigma amongst his caste for better or for worse.

The machines charge in, whilst stunned and catching themselves almost falling off balance they shoot straightway up as their spines arc their bodies up with them and their torsos shoot straight up

Gyroscopic stabilizers are working double time as they throw themselves back at him.

He swings his left fist into the first one shouting in pain as the machine barrels its fists forwards into the newly regenerated stomach, Aleph is struggling to fight against a metallic fist that has burrowed itself into his stomach and exploded out the other side.

Another machine grips his neck and digs its mechanical fingers in.

They shouldn’t be this aggressive and eager to go for the head it’s like they’ve been programmed to kill him.

Aleph throws himself forwards even as the metallic hand grips his spine and crushes it, disabling most of his lower torso, by sheer will still standing– although more credit because of being held by the machine aiming to behead him with its sharp fingers.

His spine begins to regenerate in the hand of the machine holding him, he quickly brings both fists splattering into the torso of the machine shredded by shrapnel as his hands rip through a titanium frame and the layers of armor, his hands resembling mangled meat before they too regenerate.

The pain is causing Aleph to speak incomprehensibly, more of the machine’s pummel and overwhelm him. Far more than he counted.

Dozen–twenty he can see far more groups of them come as he is being buried in the violent mechanical hands, whilst his teammates watch on with expressions of fear for his likely death.

hands full of knives or balled into fists begin breaking his body, tearing chunks of flesh causing him to shout and lose all sense of language.

He throws his hands, fists sailing as they begin to strike machines until he they begin to cease, each hit splattering his hand as it impacts the frame of the machine but destroys it all the same, he can feel empty as the blood left in his body is nearly gone.

He’ll die from blood loss if this keeps up, only if they can’t quickly decapitate him first.

They aren’t moving faster, these machines have always been quick, sharper than even the Shock trooper castes albeit most of them are still only fifteen including Aleph, but

he knows something is wrong, they are eager to quickly decapitate him in training, usually they restrain until a shock trooper is counted out or dismember them; to decapitate made it clear someone’s adjusted them to kill... But oddly enough he is the only target.

He more quickly starts to kick, strikes, headbutts and pummels machine after machine until he can’t even see anymore, shivers trail down his broken body struggling to regenerate.

His fists swing and land on nothing falling limply at his sides, the chunks of flesh exposing his skeleton, his face covered in blood with only the glow of his soul emitted through the socket of his eye.

The bone structure of his face fully exposed, nerves and flesh reforming back over it like, washing over the greyish darkened bone like a wave.

\Success! ~/ A robotic but sharp loudly announced, he still can’t see. His vision darkened. For the first time ever, he’s finally succeeded.

He hasn’t held them back, but he’s not joyous. He’s–he can’t move… He nearly died, this was different the machines, it wasn’t unusual for the machines to rip you apart and to go for the neck, but he knew it was going for a quick decapitation…. he surely would’ve had little ability to survive that...

It shook him not to know that he was on the verge of death, but his only hope was being pushed on the brink of almost being guaranteed it….

He’s been here for decades, albeit his body and mind fifteen, the unique way this facility had built displaced him from the time of real space, it provided the safety of lengthy training and yet still emerging at most only a handful of years later.

In all those years he’s never had such strength, able to grow it was always a possibility even as a Vampire,

but this was different, this sensation tickling him, it wasn’t his innate vampiric resilience or strength,

it was primal,

he can feel time slowing as he was nearly decapitated the terror of death spurring him on a mindless rampage with precision, working in double time, yet the pain wasn’t fading.

It was something human and that thought terrified him more than dying ever could have hoped to.

Thirty minutes draw on, albeit it feels like hours and seconds, the strange nature of the anchor this facility was built around has space still destabilized, he’s often having to count twice how long time has passed due to the strange nature of it.

By the time his vision returns he can hear shouting, he’s been taken out of the simulation hall, grabbed and restrained, pulled out...

At the very least he can have comfort his team will finally be going ahead with the rest of the training sections now, but he is unsure what’s going to happen to him.

He’s thrown somewhere strange but familiar and as his vision comes back along with most of the flesh around his eye-sockets he’s realized

“He needs to be failed immediately.” He had recovered by now.

It’s been approximately two months of him failing this exam, he’s finally succeeded and still he sticks out with something wrong about him it hurts but he can’t help but feel a small smile that he wont be holding anyone back

Delara, someone who had taken up much of her time to watch over Aleph is standing straight, she towers over him but not by much, he’s well over six feet but she stands in stark contrast at a full seven, he considers she’s nearly eight feet and honestly and much older.

She’s a vicious Shocktrooper much like him, older than him and from another time, she has no scars, but she bears them in the way she carries her voice.

“Denied he succeeded; we asked for your assistance in training courses.” The instructor retorts, leaning his hand on his palm as he sat on his desk, smoke rising from the cigarette pursed between his lips

“You set him up to die and by pure chance and unforeseen circumstances regarding his–.” She pauses for a long while glancing down at Aleph

“Due to his strange Condition. he survived.” She balled up her fists and hesitated. She is formal, but her tone is shifting angry, but sharp never loud always low and sharp, deliberate as she works herself through a constant pain.

“If I had my earlier authorities, I’d execute you and every other bit of your filthy caste.” Her hands crossed behind her back; she says with dead confidence, slow building rage dancing with her voice.

Aleph is desperate to speak up for himself to prove to her he deserves to be in

Aleph’s respected the woman who took him in, his senior, 33 years his Senior and the only survivor of the generation of Shocktroopers before him.

A woman that saved his life, that brought him here and most importantly helped him after his father had been sentenced to death.

A woman with a silver fire in her iris, a faint emissive glow to her eyes, her hair perfectly matches her eyes in color and haunting appearance, a woman pale like a ghost.

“The machines saw a 200% spike in capability simply from a scan, we were watching the machines be scrambled like they were being hit with electronic countermeasures each time he struck one!”– Aleph is surprised to hear this.

During the fight, he could recall the machine’s stumbling, but he blamed it entirely to the force exerted on each one, he questions how he couldn’t notice.

“I’m not pushing him further for a clear indication of his caste being altered at birth for some unknown enhancement he may not repeat so he can die! I’ll kill you and every other instructor here first!” Sharp and strong, full of calm rage but professional.

Aleph is always thankful for how she protects him–Not always And this was one of the few times he recognized it. She doubted him, even when he managed to succeed other times with less questioning circumstances this came out.

Delara didn’t seem to outright hate the Vis-stasi caste, but she often made it clear she blamed them for the second generation she watched die around her.

“They tried to kill us.” He recalls her mentioning it often, she never told him details, he’s seen vampires show fear, but her fear recalling it silently was almost human.

“You can go now.” She’d end off any personal talk with as more of a command than suggestion, When she reminisced, leaving him before he himself can follow,

he can almost still sense the salt of tears where she would’ve been sat back where she kept him.

She carries an unknown hell unspoken of that she seems to be taking to the grave.

“Sergeant Delara.” Kommandant Krul speaks with vicious monotone She’s cut off during her demands and remains silent of him to speak

Aleph had been making moves to speak against her similarly, but he held his peace as she gave him a sharpened glare, much like a mother would.

“This comes from the Empress herself. He will be pushed further ahead we have the info we need” He simply states blankly.

“That doesn’t speak for itself.” Delara speaks in a low vicious mocking cadence– “Is that why the machines were tampered with? To target and decapitate him, kill him assuredly?”

She speaks a bit higher and in bitter tone, possibly protective as she shoots Aleph an assuring look.

“That too, she suspected Aleph is lost property modified from standard production base. And we confirmed he was, had he not been what she was searching for he would’ve died.”

Aleph seems to shoot up at these words, I was in the eyes of the empress, of her. He’s terrified to think someone like her, wanted to find him or wanted anything from him.

“Be more careful in your speech Vis-stasi, No one on this planet can exact judgement if I take your life.” Her voice isn’t low, but it’s a dead weight.

The Vis-stasi seems reminded of his position, of the disparity between all castes and the shock troopers, his shoulders slump and he lean back tugging his own collar

“Wait stop!” He can remember the voices of Vis-stasi after his father was executed, begging minutes after they took his fathers life,

Aleph in one moment was staring down the barrel of a gun and then a mountain of purple protected him.

Fury, she was a blur as she had nearly killed all of the Enforcers sent to exact ‘Judgement’

“Her words.” He apologizes for tapping his hands as if he has had the same memory.

Krul was there to exact ‘Judgement’ on word the child of a Shocktrooper raised by a human was there, he’s had a deep hatred of them ever since the ‘first rebellion.’

“She won’t have him, I reject the circumstances of his success this round.” Delara is absolute in this.

I need you to back-off.. he often found himself speaking of her to himself, but he feels so fearful of speaking it aloud, he’s guessed so much about her past he fears how she will react if he verbally distances himself from her

“No arguments she’ll personally be here to oversee the rest of his and the 144,000’s training.” Krul replies with a wide smirk. Sitting up straight again, confident in what these words will elicit

“To hell with all this! She’s coming here!?” Delara is for the first time visibly surprised, her voice breaks and she takes two strides toward the desk.

Surprising Aleph “Delara.” He speaks up quietly but is completely ignored.

“Right now!?” Delara is demanding this.

Krul jolts back, but as his eyes scan slightly frantic he locks onto Aleph and smiles.

“Delara wh-what is so wrong. About how I succeeded I beat the test.”

“You channeled something unusual, adrenaline! Like a human! You shouldn’t even be able to!-“– She doesn’t finish snapping at him, nearly about to shout she can see his expression.

but Aleph’s expression is already sour.

Aleph didn’t mind when she had an outburst, he felt sort of in tune raised among humans he saw humanity in this outburst,

but her last words in that sentence remind him the mere existence of emotion isn’t exclusive to human’s neither is letting them insult those around you.

“Aleph–..” she hesitates, he only gives a slow nod in reply.

“Delara, the time I’ve spent here betrays how old you think I am; I’ve been here for what feels like lifetimes, I’m too old, you’re not a mother.” He seems to stay low in tone toward Delara, fearful even.

Calm collected it’s all Aleph can remember, she’s betraying the stoic attitude he sees in her, it’s like the mere mention of the Empress drives her made.

So much hatred and yet. She looks like her spitting image often made Aleph daydreams often they are related, maybe it’s an open secret he isn’t let in on.

it would explain the magnitudes of courage it takes to say something bordering on treason, she spoke now and often in private with Aleph.

“She’s a murderer and a liar.” He often recalled her speaking of the Empress, he hardly ever believed it, everyone and everything else said otherwise

“He will not be going ahead; she’s clearly tampered with him at birth.”

“She has, and she’s chosen him.”

Aleph can feel it, a voice pricking at his head.

“Split from her.” An angered voice voices, splitting his mind and intruding, he feels like a worm just pierced his frontal lobe and began wriggling around a terrifying tickling sensation as it seeps in.

It makes him pause, and what now becomes another spiteful exchange between the two becomes muted, ignored and feeling pacified he doesn’t think to speak to them, but that voice in his head.

He turns his head, feeling it come toward one ear. The presence of a woman nestled on his shoulder.

He feels the interior of this room cloud around, darkness, he recognizes what this is from the words spoken by others.

“I have chosen you, son of the rebellious, arise amongst all you will be first ‘Aleph’, second to none.” Aleph is so stunned the two heads in the same room turn to him.

He’s in fear, he’s heard her voice! She is near!