Far under the ice, armed with his newest camera, George Henders was searching for the illusive yet beautiful loggerfish that had been recently discovered roaming the freezing waters under the Nordic icecaps. George was a nature photographer for Blue Sea magazine, and very passionate about his work. It allowed him to explore wondrous landscapes, photograph amazing animals and share his findings with the world. The loggerfish was a bottom dweller, so down to the seabed George went. It was unusually rocky in this area. Big boulders were scattered all across the sand.

‘Expedition crew, this is Henders. Can you hear me?’

‘We can hear you.’ The deck mate responded. ‘Connection is pretty bad though.’

‘There’s huge rocks everywhere. Were these on the map? I’ve never seen these kind of rock formations this far north.’

‘Strange, I can’t see them on sonar. Have a look around. This might be good material, over.’

‘Will do, over.’

As George swam on the boulders grew larger, and more of them were appearing. He swam in-between them to take a photo of this one-of-a-kind landscape. As he was taking the picture a sudden current, coming from between the rocks, pushed him away. George tried to escape the current by going up, but in vain. The current pushed him against boulders the size of trucks. He used his hands to protect himself from the impact. He wasn’t only being dragged away from the boat, he was also descending deeper into what should have been a flat ocean floor. His heart was racing. His breathing tripled. Finally, after three intense minutes of fighting for his life, the current weakened. Leaving him swimming above a green mossy rock plateau. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. His heartrate went back to normal.

‘Hello! Can anyone hear me?!’ He shouted into the microphone. No response…

His oxygen was running low. He had to get going, but where was he? The giant boulders were now a small spot in the distance, but how could that be? George looked around him. Everywhere he looked there was only water and this odd rocky plateau.

He felt something pulling his leg. He looked down. Within a second the ground beneath him broke away exposing a man-sized hole into the rock. He was sucked in with an extreme speed. His air tube snapped scraping across the wall. Air bubbles blinded his vision. Water started to seep into his helmet. George screamed as loud as he could while holding on to his camera. While still accelerating, the tunnel soon made place for a vast cave. George landed on his back smashing his helmet to smithereens…

Several hours later he woke up. He opened his eyes, expecting to be dead. The room was lit dimly by huge crystals on the roof. His helmet lay broken on the ground next to him. He stood up with relative ease, considering the fall he just made. His eyes were now drawn to a vast cave opening up in front of him, but this wasn’t an ordinary cave. The water that nearly drowned him moments before seeped away quietly into seems in the wall. The walls were decorated with intricate carvings. They illustrated ancient cities of incredible magnitude, and their destruction. He stepped towards the wall bumping his foot into his camera. No way, he thought, picking up the camera. Miraculously, it turned on. George, standing still on the spot in disbelief, switched the camera to recording mode and started walking alongside the walls. The carvings continued to go on describing many a city falling to horrible disasters. One carving described a huge tower, at least 30 meters high, falling onto the city’s residents. The cave, looking more like a temple, narrowed down the further he walked, eventually leading to a raised altar with a bright, green stone with a yellow tip. George walked up to it. The stone, shaped like an egg, had a warm hypnotic glow about it. As he keeps looking at it, it feels like his entire body is urging him to pick it up. He moves his hand closer to the stone in a state of trance. A loud crackling noise from behind. Swiftly he turns his head around, snapping out of the trance. He looks around him, feeling as if he is being watched. He slowly turns his attention back to the stone. His hand had not moved away from the stone, but now he could think clearer. Slowly he moved his hand towards the stone. He starts hearing sounds. Whispers coming from the stone itself. His hand fell onto the stone and the temple faded away replaced by a white, empty plain. A tall, cloaked figure came rushing towards him with an aggravated look on his face.

‘Well you’ve done it now!’ The figure said. ‘Your ignorance and curiosity have just caused some massive trouble for you, George. Not only for you in fact, but for every damned creature on this godforsaken planet.’

George rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

‘Wait a second, where are we? And who are you?’ George stuttered out with great strain. He had major difficulty talking.

‘We are right here talking, silly boy!’ the figure shouted out. ‘I assumed you could figure that one out.

‘Not helping.’ George responded

‘If you want helpful information, then why did you ask me who I am. Even if I wanted to tell you my name, I would tell you my name is fake. Now, back to the subject.’

With lightning speed the figure put his hand on George’s head. George was carried away in a maelstrom of visions of an army, from the depths of space. Millions of horrifying creatures marching into giant vessels.

‘A storm is coming, and you cannot stop it. It would wipe you out in a matter of days. All because of your actions, Mr. Henders.’

’’Fake’’ pulled his hand back, flashing George back into the white empty plain.

‘O my god, what do I do?’ George said in horror of what he just saw.

‘Go and hide this rift ingot, or stone as you call it. ’’Fake’’ responded. ‘I will try dealing with them. So hide it, and hide it well. More people touching the ingot would only draw them closer to you. Now go, quickly. Getting out of my temple would prove easy.’

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

‘But, but, but…’

‘I will not waste any more time talking to some far away descendant of an ancient house just because he doesn’t understand the obvious. Goodbye, Jardinian. I have work to do.’

’’Fake’’ produced a grim smile and with a clap of him hands George fell back onto the cave floor.

He stood up in a flash. The stone was attached to his hand, he couldn’t let go of it. He felt an overload of energy in his body, but also anger. He could still see the visions in front of him. Visions of a war, a terrible war. Houses burning, children screaming, the dead being piled up by the invaders for consumption.

George had to release his anger. He smashed his fist into the wall. With a flash of light the entire wall came crumbling down. Water came crashing into the cave. George didn’t understand what was happening, but that wasn’t necessary. He knew what he had to do. Hide the stone where no-one will find it. Pointing his fist up he broke through the roof, blasted through the water and flew into the sky. He flew far, and went deep down into a high mountain range. Here he buried the stone, never to be found, and himself with it, encapsulating the stone with his body.

Part 2

There are few that still imagine Earth to be the center of human civilization. Most of what we knew of Earth has been eradicated. The Earth today has been formed by the events on the Day of the Crying Dead. On that day, within an hour, the eight and a half billion strong population of Earth was laid low due to the hands of one man. He has been called many names, but most have settled on the Triggerman. No-one saw it coming. Afterwards there was no-one left to resist. The only ones to witness the spectacle were the people on the lunar colonies. Earth was concealed by a cloud of radioactive dust. The dust forming a mantle around the earth glowing yellow. It didn’t look like earth any more, this was a dead planet.

On the colonies, people were not sure what to do.

Following the day of the Crying Dead panic raged over the remaining humans. While the grand Martian cities experienced heavy uproar, the colonies on Luna had the heaviest riots. The president however did not organize a reconnaissance flight to earth to record the destruction. He said that the cloud of radioactive dust that now surrounded the earth was impenetrable and that Luna could not afford to waist any resources in these troubling times.

Anarchy was sweeping the colonies. People were talking about the final apocalypse, others were going mad with grief because of the loss of their family.

President Vallum was faced with the impossible task of bringing back peace to his dying nation. The police had failed, and just before the government decided to start throwing bombs on major riot zones, Vallum came with an answer. Harnessing a special Ore found scattered over the moons’ uncountable craters he created a specialized army to bring back peace to the colonies, these ‘Guardian Marines’ were the pinnacle of infantry warfare. clad in black-scaled exosuits and fitted with the latest military technology. They did not act as a single unit, but were split up into groups of two to five. Each marine specialized in wielding different weapons than the next. But these soldiers had another trick up their sleeve. The Ore embedded in their suits gave them superhuman abilities, making them able to process information and assess situations much faster than any normal human could. The Ore boosted their agility and strength considerably.

Just days after the founding of the Academy to train these soldiers in, Vallum surprised everyone when he deployed the first fully trained Guardian Marines. and only a mere couple weeks passed between the release of the first guardian marines and the return of the peace. President Vallum re-organised the government system and replaced the old politicians by new ones of his own. In charge of the Academy was Exode-General Victor Stormborn. A former military commander from the flash wars. In these terrible conflicts, he singlehandedly lead the allied troops to victory against the Borhesian rebels after the general had fallen. They say he saved the life of one of his soldiers by jumping in front of him and blocking a knifeslash with his left arm just before an enemy could slash the soldier in the back, and that that is where he got the massive scar that runs all the way down his lower left arm. It ends where his ring- and little finger should have been. The story then goes on about how Commander Stormborn choked that enemy with the same arm he took the knifeslash with and that he kept fighting until the battle was over, even though he had a gaping wound in his arm, rooting fear in the hearts of the enemy. Fear of the ‘Man that feels no pain’. And thus the flash wars were ended. All people of Luna know the story. But Exode-General Stormborn wasn’t only respected because of his heroism, but also because of his tactical genius in the years before. Even the supersoldiers that come forth from the Academy have huge respect for him, and would never dare to betray him. Stormborn is respected by them, honoured by them, loved by them.

Exode-General Stormborn was put in charge of all Lunar military activity and the proper running of the Academy. He also gave his adopted daughter Sarah a job as a researcher at the Academy. After a lot of arguing, the President agreed with this decision.

The first expedition to earth came years later. The dust cloud had not settled yet, still concealing the surface of Earth from the people. Scanning equipment couldn’t penetrate the thick cloud, that is why somebody had to go down there to find out what remains of what was once the birthplace of mankind.

- Luna Archive Database (LAD) - august 2132?