North Star Academy: The Jewel of North City, was a prestigious institution for the brightest human children in all of the four cardinal cities. There, they put their intelligence to rigorous training in several different fields: science, the arts, history, religion, spirituality, and philosophy. Only those with the best stock of genetic material were considered for acceptance, and even then, those who ruled were very particular. God's Chosen, the Kaneren, had evolved beyond humanity. And even as they allowed many to progress and become intelligent, they would never allow a human to advance the genome and become as they were. It was this sort of limiting that spawned the first of the rebellions. Each time the populace rose up, more limitations were set. Two students at North Star, Samuel 9 and Elsa 2, suddenly found themselves pulled into conflict.
"Uncle J?" Samuel 9, with his short, scraggly hair, answered the door of his dormitory to find a tall, tan-skinned man waiting for him there. The man was extremely muscular, had neatly buzzed, black hair, and dark, tribal markings covering the left side of his face. One of his eyes was entirely mechanical, and had what looked akin to a camera lens that was zooming in and out. Samuel was ten years of age, just a boy: his hair was a caramel brown, short and unkempt. He stood there in his school uniform, which was silver with various white and midnight blue panels: North Star's colors. "I was just about to change into my pajamas-..., what are you doing here? Is dad okay?"
"Pack up your things." The gargantuan man spoke in a deep, firm voice. "We're leaving the city. It isn't safe for you here." Suddenly, the young boy looked absolutely terrified.
"Is dad okay?" He stood right in front of the man he called uncle, looking up to him. "Please tell me dad's okay! I knew I shouldn't have come to this school; they found out, didn't they? That I'm not a number-"
"Quiet. I will explain everything when we get to the new compound."
"Dad wanted me to be able to come here- he knew I was smart and he wanted me to." The boy turned towards his things and started throwing them into a large satchel. "Wait, new compound? What happened the the old one?"
"We don't know who can hear us. Hurry up." The tone in Jed's voice had a sense of urgency.
"Wait, there's something else I have to go get!" Samuel 9 ran out the door from around the large man's side, dashing down the hallway.
"Sammy!" Jed called out in protest, but the boy was long gone. Up a floor, where the girl's dormitories were located, was the room that belonged to another student, Elsa 2. Elsa, twelve years old, liked to build things. She was the star of engineering, but she had a secret: her real passion, was painting. She sat up in her loft with canvas and dozens of brushes, painting strange and ethereal things. They were beautiful; Sammy told her all the time. The young girl with her purple pig-tails had found the academy all the more bearable in the boy's company. Truth be told, without Elsa 2, Samuel 9 would have never made it through those long and arduous days. A knock sounded at the door, which started Elsa, who was lost in a doodle. Unlike Sammy, the twelve year old had already changed into her pajamas. She answered the door with her usual, cheery smile. The one that filled the ten-year-old boy with hope and determination every single time he saw it.
"Elsa, do you trust me?" The girl tilted her head and pressed a finger to her chin in thought.
"Well..., yeah, -duh-. What's going on? Ooooh, did you get in trouble again? I told you that if you're going to sneak into the staff refrigerator, you need to use one of my silencers so your tracker goes off radar!" For a moment, Samuel looked to the metal bracelet attached to his wrist and grimaced.
"Listen, I don't have time to explain. We need to go."
"Go where?"
"We're going to go on an adventure, okay?" He put his hands on her shoulders, and she gave him a confused stare. Though after a few moments, she found herself giving a soft little giggle.
"Okay! Lead the way, Commander Sammy!" He moved his arms and grabbed onto one of her hands, dragging her down the hall.
"Alright, Sergeant Elsa. Leave everything to me."
"Promise that our days will be filled with fun and excitement?"
"You know I wouldn't have it any other way."
"You look scared, you know. It's going to be okay, whatever it is."
"I hope so, Elsa. I hope so."
"Thank you..., for taking me with you. I'll follow you wherever you go-...., you're my hero!"
"I'm your hero? No, no. You're my hero." After making their way downstairs, they bumped into Jed, who was standing outside of Sammy's room with a bag full of his things.
"No. You are not taking one of the numbers with us."
"Elsa goes where I go!" He stands in front of the girl with a defiant glance at his uncle. "Dad will understand! She's my only friend!" Elsa swallowed audibly in her nervousness at the situation.
"Listen, Sir-..., I promise that I'll-..., wow you're really tall!"
"You're not bringing her!" Jed gave a booming yell, which caused the two kids to burst into tears. Sammy turned towards his friend and hugged her, as she buried herself in him.
"Please, Uncle J....Please, I won't leave her! She doesn't belong here! She belongs with us!" For a long moment, Jed stared at the two children, until eventually giving a deep sigh.
"I don't have to time to argue. Don't make me regret this, kid!"
A sixteen year old Sammy leaned down to tie his shoes, seeming to fumble with the laces. He was dressed in olive-green cargo pants and a navy tank; he always seemed to dress very casually. His hair, still short and messy, was matted beneath that hefty pair of goggles that he always kept with him.
"Still can't tie your shoes, Commander?" Elsa appeared to him then, having walked down the corridor. Despite reaching the age of eighteen, the girl had a youthful aura that seemed to radiate from her voice alone.
"Shut up, I've got this..." Elsa leaned down anyways, swatting his hands away and doing the job for him.
"I'm always going to have to take care of you." She gave a little laugh, looking to him as they were both kneeling.
"Yeah..., I guess you are, Elsa." He reached up and pulled the goggles off of his head, putting them on hers. She looked to him in confusion. "Everything changes tonight. So you better come back afterwards and look after me some more." The young woman reached up and ran a few fingers over the various components of the piece of headgear.
"I can't take this..."
"I'm not giving it to you, I'm letting you borrow it. So you better bring it back, you hear me?" Elsa couldn't help but smile at him affectionately. "Is that understood, Serg?" His eyes began to well up with tears. The girl raises a hand up to wipe some of them away, and then leaned up a bit to plant a tiny kiss on the boy's cheek. He reddened, pulling back from her, embarrassed. "Elsa-" She stood then, giggling.
"Don't be so dramatic. I'm going to go blow some stuff up and then I'll be back. Keep Umbra steady for me." She started walking down the hall, but Sammy yelled after her.
"Elsa!"
She turned back for a moment and looked at him with a lofted eyebrow. "Hm?"
"When this is all over-..." Before he could finish, the young woman pressed a finger to her lips. Sammy stood, watching her silence him; and then she was gone.
Underground somewhere, beneath the desert dunes, was a large, highly-advanced compound. There was a conference room where the masses gathered, and poised on a podium, preparing to speak, was the boy wonder, Sammy. The crowd roared with cheers as he approached the microphone, which he adjusted to his height.
"Alright, guys. You can hear me, right?" The masses cheered louder in uproar. "Okay, okay. That's enough, now. Listen up!" As they quieted down, the boy began to look just a little bit nervous. "Um, well-..." He saw Jed standing nearby. The brutish figure nodded at him, giving him the composure that the youth needed. "Tonight is the strike that will win us New Babylon. No, not just New Babylon..., but all of West City! You have placed your confidence in me, just like you did with my father...- and I won't let you down! Our core-..., the central team of The Eclipse, we have set a plan in motion that will guarantee us victory!" The crowd gave the boy a round of applause, which he soon silenced with a hand gesture. "But not everyone is going to understand what we're doing. The citizens of West City-..., many of them think of us as the bad guys. That we're going against the system. They follow along blindly, like sheep. We much teach them otherwise! That we are going to liberate them! We will block out the sun, and under the shade of nightfall, we will right the wrongdoings of the Kaneren!"
"Fire." As Viper's voice resonated through the com-link of The Shroud, Elsa suddenly found herself positioned in its cockpit. She reached up onto her head, pulling goggles down over her eyes: Sammy's.
"Wooohooo! Yeah! Take that! Now, come and chase me!" She got her wish even sooner than expected. Fire came at The Shroud from behind, though after the first couple of shots rocked the mech, Elsa fired up the shields. "I know you take pride in your technology, Kaneren. But I take pride in mine! Let me show you what Shroud can do!" Traveling at high speeds, the massive craft began to slice through the air like a knife. Several craft followed in pursuit, but the young woman utilized evasive maneuvers. "Just like I practiced! Now..." She flipped a switch on one of the overhead panels, and suddenly, The Shroud had disappeared. The enemy craft circled in confusion, until suddenly, shots fired. One by one, the six craft fell, The Shroud appearing behind them in a blur and eliminating them. "Yeeeeaaaaah! That's what I'm talkin' about!"
Elsa looked through her goggles into the cloud of smoke and debris left behind in The Shroud's wake, but she saw something troubling. Another humanoid mech had appeared: it was black, with electric blue energy surging along its side platelets. Hovering around it were several mercurial spheres, liquid metal, and the air was filling with currents of that blue, alien energy. Its head was triangular, and had a strip of that blue energy around its length. "Uh-oh." Elsa set her hands on the control sticks as Sammy's voice sounded on the com-link.
"What uh-oh? Elsa?" She was silent, staring down her opponent. "Elsa!"
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