Sector 37 - Outermost Reaches

It was here, yes here, the Phantom knew it. The Phantom had come to an old abandoned Gothic Cathedral from well before the disaster twenty years previous. The Phantom did not have to look long and hard for what he searched, for it greeted him in the center of the church. An ancient and twisted looking statue from some long since extinct civilization, a statue that entombed an ancient being long feared. He could only smile silently to himself, pleased with how careless the people who kept this relic were. The statue was an agonizing looking figure of something far to demonic to be found in any church, but that did not scare the Phantom. Reaching a hand out from within his dark cloak, he touched the smooth and dusty stone a yearning. As he did, the stone began to crumble bit by bit until traces of something began to emerge from the stone cocoon. Stepping back as he watched his miracle, he could only say one thing to the mass of shadow that rose before him.

“We have work to do, servant of Lilith.”

xXx

Sector 14 - DDO

As I followed the old man with Tasha beside me, we passed deeper into the DDO that would soon become my new home. As I was greeted by various different people we passed, I spoke up loudly to the man in front of me. “What is the DDO? How come I’ve never heard of it before?”

Still keeping his exact same pace, he answered my question.

“The DDO is a secret organization that has been around since before the disaster twenty years ago, and in fact help stop the rest of that disaster from tearing apart our world. We were unknown before that time, surviving off of anonymous donors and busting small time criminals. But now we are payed and kept secret by the government, with several branches of our office in other countries such as the US and Britain.” Pausing for a brief second, he opened a door with a wave of his hand and beckoned for me and Tasha to go first. Entering the room, I could tell it was an old science office, thick with dust and piled with books throughout. As I tried to navigate the room, the old man moved past me and continued his speech. “Your parents were both members of the old DDO as it would be known now, and they both helped stop a lot of big name criminals in their youth. In fact, your mother was the same age as you when she first used her enigma gear to help stop a mass murderer from claiming more victims.” He walked to a large cabinet and placed a hand into his pocket, fishing for something as he spoke with a soft smile. “Later on she grew older and when she reached her early twenties she became a top commander here. And then she met your father, who was still learning how to be an enigma user. Heh, those were very good times indeed. Until the disaster happened….”

The disaster, I knew the basics about it. It was still the rage to talk about in New Tokyo, but everybody always said it was a miracle the city rebuilt so fast. I was not alive during the time of the disaster, so I never knew what life was like when it happened. Speaking up again, I asked him another question. “What was the disaster? No one ever told me what exactly happened, just that something big hit and then vanished. And suddenly the city was rebuilt.”

“It was a Fallen.”

I turned my head to look at Tasha, who had uttered the words. Not understanding what she had said, I prodded for more information. “A Fallen? What’s a Fallen now?”

Puting a key into the cabinet before him, the old man frowned. “Ah the Fallen. That is what we call them, those creatures from somewhere else. We believe the Fallen to have once been something amazing,” Twisting the key in its hole, the man opened the cabinet as he spoke. “This world is highly mixed with biological and technological life these days, but back thousands of years ago basic civilization existed. It was from them that we found old carvings and paintings of Angels.”

Taking something out of the cabinet, he walked back to me. Placing some sort of weird looking metal bracelet, he continued. “Or what were once Angels of great purity and honor. Everything we had seen were images of twisted and dark Angels, nothing like what we had read in books. We came to learn something happened and they were twisted, having went against their own God to spawn a new race. A race to compete against the only other race at the time.”

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“They hated Humans and who created them.” Said Tasha, knowing this story I was hearing from both of them. Speaking a bit more for me, she added, “They went and created their own race, the Tears and began to slaughter mankind. But God and the rest of the Angels we saddened by losing old friends, having made merry every day in Heaven together. One by one, they sealed away the twisted ones and their spawn somewhere. The end.” Not seeming interested in what sounded like an old bedtime story, Tasha sighed in boredom. But I was intrigued by such and ancient tale. “So these Fallen are the Angels or the Tears?” I asked them both, wanting to know more.

“The Fallen are both in some sense to us, however the one at the time of the Disaster was a twisted Angel. Your parents both fought it together in a long drawn out fight that I and the rest of the team had to watch from the sidelines. It was horrible what the creature was, it was neither Angelic nor Sublime, but rather a dark demented force to be reckoned with. It was eventually killed thank goodness, but that amount of energy used took a lot out of your parents. But it also brought them closer together as a result. And what they used was this.” He pointed that the thing in my hands, the hunk of cold metal that cooled my skin. “What is it?” I asked.

“Well why don’t you put it on your wrist?”

Doing as he said, I slipped it over my hand and felt a quick jolt of cold yet friendly energy wash over my entire body. Something a bit more relaxing than the previous memory headgear from earlier. As I looked at it, the old man instructed me to close my eyes and think slow, calm thoughts. To drown everything out and then I would be able to fully know what this was. It amazed me what the power of doing what he said could do, making it seem like you were alone. All I could feel was me and the thing on my wrist, until suddenly it was as if my eyes were open and watching. Standing before me was my Mother again, smiling as she saw me.

“Ah Blue, it seems the time has come for you to receive this enigma gear I have entrusted to my old mentor Mr. Yaoti. If you are seeing me here like this, it means I never came back to be able to do this myself and I apologize for my tardiness.”

She laughed and it made me smile, something about remembering her laugh made me so very happy. It was the most pleasant feeling in the world to have just to hear her voice fill my ears. Even though I was just remembering that feeling, it was not strange to me. “I know it may seem weird to you, but for some reason all humans have this special kind of energy inside of them that makes each of them resonate differently. But we are unable to access the new potential within ourselves, because no one knows of it. Well not until this recent century at least. What you have on is called the Enigma Gear, a device that comes in many different forms that can access the hidden energy and thus the potential in all of us. The one you have was my first one I got when I joined the DDO in my early teens.”

I could see her smile at the thought of her first time with what was round my wrist, and it made me smile just as much. Just having something like this from my mother made me feel better in this world, a comfort I never had. Interrupting my thoughts, my Mother continued. To activate the gear, you must just think clear thoughts and it will activate. The more you do this the faster it will happen. I bet you are already in your other self huh?”

I jerked my attention and looked at myself and to my amazement she was right. My old clothes were gone, having been replaced by an old looking squad outfit that had a patch imprinted on it that said “Toyama Squad”. At my both my hips were two fully automatic pistols in their holsters, and the outfit was complete with a old gas style gas mask around my neck. Looking at my mother again, I saw her eyes closed, smiling at me. “This is the other body that runs off of that special energy in us all, it fuels this other form forever until it has been damaged and so forth. You will find many feats are now capable in this form Blue and I hope I can see you use it one day! Oh but I must be going, but don’t worry Mr. Yaoti will help you with the rest I cam certain!”

The scene with her began to grow more distant, her feeling that she somehow put into the gear attached to me vanishing. I began to feel empty, as if this was the last time I would see her. But something she suddenly said before she left brought me up. “No matter what Blue, always look forward. I will always be there with you no matter what, so never be sad or alone. And I am sure there are other things you are unaware of at the time that will help as well. Farewell.”

Suddenly I was with Tasha and Mr. Yaoti again, however I was in the same outfit as the vision I was in. Looking back and forth at them both in embarrassment, I apologized. “O-Oh I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened!”

Laughing at me, Mr. Yaoti patted me on the shoulder hard. “My dear boy, it is certainly alright! You must of had some sort of vision to help you, because you were muttering to yourself like crazy. But it seems you have unlocked your Mother's old squad uniform, tailored to suit you though.”

Smiling softly and looking at Tasha, I saw her shrug at me without a shred of emotion. “It looks like he will be useful after all, but he’s weak even with his Mother's old guns.at his side. There's no way he could amount to anything.”

Gulping as she spoke about me being weak, Mr. Yaoti ignored her and reassured me instead. “Don’t listen to her, you may be weak, but you are still trainable. You have use with guns, so that will help you train fast. There is so much for you to learn and study here, and before long you will be a fully fledged agent like Tasha.”

Huffing a bit to herself, Tasha turned and left me in the room alone with Mr. Yaoti. “She doesn't like me does she?” I asked him

“Nonsense boy! I can tell you for a fact that she likes you a bit, after all she rarely exhibits such emotions. She’s a very special girl, and I think she can help teach you quit a bit here. I think in the morning we will have you will start your training…”

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