Ascelmo stepped off the ramp of the transport ship, his ID papers in his hand. A few feet in front of him 3 officers stood, waiting to receive everyone’s papers. Ascelmo stepped into one of the three lines formed in front of them. He stood at attention as he moved forward, trying to make a good first impression. As he got closer he could hear the deep voice of an Orc. “Papers, please. Move along.” Is all he said, over and over again. Finally, Ascelmo stepped up in front of the orc, he was dressed in class A and a beret bearing the insignia of The Void Regiment rested on his head. “Papers please.” Ascelmo handed him his ID papers and watched as the officer scrutinized every detail, after about 10 seconds he handed them back. “Move along.” Ascelmo stepped to the side of him and continued on. He slipped his papers into his pocket as he stepped onto a moving holo-bridge.

As Ascelmo moved through the tunnel as he continued into the next part of the long and winding base, he looked out through the window into the vast emptiness of space. Below him, he could see his home planet, Aebelon. He could see a large portion of it from up in the base, it actually looked very beautiful. Ascelmo was cut off from his thoughts as the bridge came to a sudden stop and he was thrown off balance. He regained his footing and looked around, hoping nobody saw him stumble. Luckily, it looked like nobody did.

Ascelmo continued on for a couple yards until he was stopped by what he thought was a person until he saw the blue light stripe on his neck, indicating that it was a working-class android. “Arms to your sides please.” The android instructed. As Ascelmo obeyed, the blue light emitted from its eyes. It moved up and down Ascelmo’s body and suddenly shut off. “You have been assigned to group Dragon, right over there.” The android pointed over at a group of 5 other new recruits with an officer standing in front of them. They all looked about 17, the same age as him. Ascelmo walked over to join them. As he walked up to them the officer looked at him. “Alright, that’s the last one. Let’s get going.” He said. The group started walking down the hallway in a 2x3 formation, with the officer in front of them. They finally went into a room that had a silver plaque that read “Dragon” on top of the door frame. The 6 cadets spread out into the wider space as the officer stepped onto a platform that raised from the floor. Everyone stood at attention as he began to speak. “You all know why you’re here. You’ve been drafted into The Void Regiment to fight in the war against the Obsidian Coalition of United Systems, or OCUS. You are about to begin your training, But first, we need to find out if you’re standard infantry or someone who’s talented with magic. We call them Magi. Behind me, you’ll see Mage Warren. He’s here to help find out if you’re a Magi or not. He’s going to perform a ritual that will allow us to detect any magic essence in you. So we’ll have you step forward, one at a time, if you’re a Magi then move over to the left, if you’re infantry, then move over to the right.” As Ascelmo got closer and closer to Mage Warren he saw that there were 1 Magi and 4 infantry. Once he stepped up in front of Mage Warren he began the ritual. As he was going he tried to make small talk, like a barber when they’re cutting hair. “If I had to make a guess I’d say that you’ll be a Magi, elves are more likely to have magical essence in them than most other races.” Once he was finished, he had a somewhat surprised look on his face before he wrote the results down on a holo-pad and pointed to the left with his pen. “Magi.” Is all he said as he continued writing.

After some more standard procedures, the cadets were shown to their barracks for the night. They were all handed a standard cadet uniform before being left alone. As everyone got into their beds, one of the other cadets, an orc, was the first to break the awkward silence. “So what're your guys’ names? Mine’s Orokas.” The only girl of the group, a blaze elf, looked over at him from her bunk, Ascelmo remembered her as the only other Magi in their group. “Elenaire.” She had the look of someone who didn’t want to be bothered. “Talen-Ra.” Ascelmo heard the name from above his bunk. Based off of the voice, it sounded like a Teelian, a reptilian race. The monkey-like Volkmir in the bunk next to Asclemo’s spoke up. “Cydum.” Ascelmo looked at everyone else before finally speaking up. “Ascelmo.” Everyone looked over at the last cadet. He was a snow elf, like him, his hair was dyed a deep blue, it was messy in the front and slicked back into a mullet in the back. He didn’t say a word, he just stared blankly at a wall. “Aranail.” Ascelmo looked at him, there was something about him that he was drawn to but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Geez, you guys sure are a talkative bunch.” There was a hint of sarcasm and humor in Orokas’ voice. Aranail glared at him. “Look I’ve had a long day, I just want to cut the bullshit and get some sleep alright?” Orokas was somewhat taken aback. “What the hell is your problem? Y’know like it or not, we’re stuck together for the foreseeable future, so you’re better off just cutting the lone wolf bullshit.” Elenaire slid off her bunk, looking at Aranail with narrowed eyes. “It hasn’t even been a full day and you two are already at each other’s throats?” Talen-Ra had an annoyed look on his face. Ascelmo sighed and rolled over in his bunk to face the wall, trying to tune their bickering out as he tried to get to sleep.

Mage Warren stuck his keycard into the slot of the lock and pressed the buzzer. After withdrawing the card the door shot up. He went in to see Commander Bradford sitting at his desk. He gave the mage a friendly smile. “Ah Warren, have a seat, you want some tea?” Warren respectfully declined and sat down. “We need to talk.” Bradford was confused about the serious expression on Warren’s face. “Something’s off about group Dragon, specifically this one.” He pulled up Ascelmo’s record on his holo-pad. Bradford raised a brow. “What about him?” Warren sighed. “When I performed the ritual on him, he had the strongest magical essence I’ve seen in anyone to date, including myself.” Bradford looked at the holo-pad, and then back to Warren. “So what do you want me to do about it? You’re the Magi here.” Warren picked up the holo-pad. “Just keep an eye on him okay?” Bradford shrugged. “Alright, whatever you say.” Warren gave him one last look before he left. “Thanks, Hector.” He gave him a friendly smile before the door closed behind him.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Ascelmo was woken up by the voice of Commander Bradford on the intercom. And as he looked around, it seems everyone else was too. He changed from his fatigues into his uniform and everyone else did the same. Bradford’s voice came on the intercom again. “Group Dragon report to the firing range.” They lined up in a 2x3 formation and started following the signs to the firing range. When they arrived Bradford stood there waiting for them. He stepped to the side with his back facing the wall and a platform rose up from the floor. “Today you’ll begin basic weapons training.” He looked over at Ascelmo and Elenaire. “Now as for you two, Mage Warren will come to get you shortly, so for now you better stay back.” Elenaire looked up at him. “Why?” The door opened behind them and Mage Warren entered. “I’m glad you asked.” He looked at the whole group. “There’s a reason Magi aren’t permitted to use weapons. For reasons we don’t yet understand, whenever a Magi comes into contact with the crystals that power our weapons, the crystals release an extremely powerful blast of energy that can be very painful.”

Bradford nodded as the platform descended and he pulled his pistol off of his belt. It had a very sleek design, it was black with glowing light blue accents. He stepped in front of the firing range and pressed a few buttons on the control pad. “Before we get started, I’m gonna show you what you’re gonna end up looking like.” As he said this, 3 training bots appeared from the floor on the other side of the range. Bradford relaxed his muscles and aimed the pistol down range. But before the simulation even began he was knocked onto the floor by a blast of plasma from one of the bots.

Ascelmo looked back at the bots to see their eyes glowing red, they were shooting rapid fire at the cadets. Warren quickly moved in front of Ascelmo and Elenaire and raised his arm, yellow energy formed in his hand, following this, a yellow shield of energy formed around the cadets. Ascelmo looked around, he had to do something. He saw a panel of the wall retract only to replaced by a rack of weapons. Ignoring the warnings of Mage Warren, he sprinted towards the weapons, as he got closer he kept bracing himself for the aforementioned blast of energy but as he picked up a pistol he felt nothing. He aimed the pistol down range and squeezed the trigger, a light blue bolt of plasma came out and hit one of the bots squares in the head, sending it to the floor. He aimed at one of the standing bots only to watch both of them fall to the ground as a bolt of yellow lightning hit them. Ascelmo looked back to see Mage Warren’s other arm extended in the direction of the bots. At that moment Bradford regained consciousness and groggily sat up. He looked around the room but froze when he saw Ascelmo holding a pistol in his hands.

“A Sage…” Ascelmo barely heard Warren mutter to himself. “What happened? Why was there no blast of energy?” Elenaire looked just as confused as him. “He’s… a Sage.” Bradford looked at Ascelmo. “In all my years I never thought I’d see one.” Ascelmo tipped his head to the side. “What’s a sage?” Warren looked him dead in the eyes, seems to be recovering from the shock of the situation. “A Sage is a special being, they naturally possess more magical power than a Magi could ever obtain through study, so much power in fact, that crystals don’t react the way they do with Magi.” Bradford looked at the cadets. “All of you go back to your barracks, we’ll pick this up tomorrow.” He then looked at Ascelmo. “You come with us, we need to have a talk.” He looked back at the group and watched them leave before following Bradford and Warren.

Ascelmo sat at Bradford’s desk where they sat across from him. Bradford looked him dead in the eye, the man who’d shown him to his barracks was gone, replaced by a stone cold military officer. “Alright, listen, kid, this war has been a stalemate for decades, but with you… you might finally be able to turn the tide.” Warren nodded. “And then there’s the matter of teaching you and controlling your powers, a normally you’d spend the day with either myself or Bradford, depending on if you were a Magi or not. But with you, we’ll have you spend half a day with each of us.” Bradford looked at him. “And of course we’ll have to notify the Emperor about this but chances are that’ll take a while to get through the chain of command.” He stood up and opened the door. “C’ mon we need to notify your squad about this.” Ascelmo stood up and followed him. Warren left too but went another direction. Ascelmo got more and more nervous the closer he got to the barracks, thinking in his head about all the ways this conversation could go wrong.

Bradford opened the door to the barracks and took a few steps inside. Ascelmo swallowed nervously as the eyes of his peers focused on him. His eyes shifted around the room, trying to avoid eye contact with everyone in the room, especially Aranail, who he could tell was giving him a glare. “As we have all discovered, Ascelmo here is quite special. Now normally we’d go through several tests to decide who leads a squad, but this isn’t a normal situation, so I’m assigning Ascelmo as your squad leader.” Aranail had a mixture of shock and anger on his face. Everyone else just looked surprised, including Ascelmo. “Now I know you’re all thinking that this is bullshit but trust me. Soon enough you’ll all be agreeing with me.” He looked at Aranail directly. He turned around and left the barracks, the door shut behind him.

The room was dead silent for what felt like hours. Everyone was avoiding eye contact with each other. Finally, Talen-Ra sighed. “Sooo are we just not gonna talk about it?” Orokas looked at him. “Talk about what?” Aranail glared at him. “What the hell do you think?” Cydum was reading some sort of manual. “You know, if you keep this up, you’ll more than likely end up dead on the battlefield.” He spoke without even looking up. Ascelmo got out of his bunk and stood up. “Enough!” Everyone looked over at him, surprised at the raising of his voice. “We need to stop all this pointless bickering, it’s getting us nowhere. If we’re gonna be stuck with each other, we can at least get along.” Aranail slid down from his bunk and was face to face Ascelmo. “What so Warren says you’re special and now all of a sudden you’re a leader?” Ascelmo tried to make himself look as calm as possible. “I’m owning up to the responsibilities I’ve been given. Can you say the same?” Ascelmo braced himself, expecting to get punched, but instead, Aranail climbed back up into his bunk and threw the covers over himself. “Good night.” He muttered, barely audible. Ascelmo sighed and did the same. As he laid in his bunk, he wondered to himself what he’d just gotten himself into and if his life could ever go back to the way it was again.