Summary: PROJECT: Agoge was the secret weapon the Ascendancy of Man used when its mad war for 'living space' against its people and various alien races pulled it towards ruin. In its jealousy and envy of Magic, it had kidnapped children to turn them into mystic soldiers, giving them powers in a futile attempt to gain final victory. Now that the Outer Colonies are free, Earth's arrogance and greed are humbled, and the Inner Colonies are paying reparations to the Compact of Species whose land and lives they tried to take, what lives can one of these magically-empowered soldiers have in a changed galaxy?
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Innocence Lost - Oneshot
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Innocence Lost - Oneshot
Part One: Carving Swans
I commissioned the artwork by Jitobeans.
The cries of civilians, both Outer Colonist and Alien, sounded from the burning city, as he and his squad fired into the crowds, sparing no one, man, woman, or child.
War was a game, a game with good guys and bad guys. The Outer Colonists were terrorists, while their Alien partners were eldritch sorcerers who wanted to destroy Humanity's Science, Reason, and Faith in either the Divine or themselves.
Local militiamen fired back, their weak rifle shots plinking onto his power armor's energy shields. They had to be punished for their temerity. So the boy lifted his left, and channeled good Magic; the Numerology that called on the power that should be Humanity's alone…
1884 - The numerical value of the phrase 'I have no mouth, and I must scream'.
And the foes around him found themselves melted down into bloody red slimes, unable to move, unable to act, and with no mouths to scream.
Leon Andrews woke up; screaming, crying, cursing himself for the crimes of four years ago.
He is eighteen now.
The walls were thick and soundproofed. The automated lights are homely and cozy. His entertainment suite - a gift given in luckily-rewarded naivete for his 'rehabilitation' - turned on by itself, and a dozen holographic programs, some AI, some real-life counselors woken up from sleep, and some both, lit up to look at him with concern.
There was only a small window of thick steelglass, with carbon-fibre bars he had asked his wardens to install as a reminder of his actions.
As a tray of food - his favorite seedless cherries - was deposited through a wall pocket, the boy, now a young man, thought:
This must be the most cushy prison in the universe.
-------
Daylight found him in the thick-walled, warm-colored, well-lit Prison Workshop, carving a bird from a massive block of glassy material; the workshop's energy knives were able to sharpen themselves to a monomolecular edge on command, yet turned off automatically when pointed at living flesh.
Carving swans was his refuge, his way of keeping his mind occupied from thoughts of murdered children, both human and nonhuman; all thinking beings, rendered into a paste by his thoughtless actions.
Unlike the others, he cannot blame the Ascendancy. Unlike the few remaining loyalists in their ranks, he cannot keep believing that the aliens were bad guys to be destroyed for the glory of Humanity.
He can only blame himself.
We do not kill children who have given up their arms, unlike your Ascendancy. We do not kill those who surrender, at least not by choice. And no, we will not give you your execution; so either be repatriated to your people or stay here forever, Leon Andrews.
The Warden was surprised when he chose to stay.
As the swan took shape, its glittering wings refracted the light into a thousand rainbows, and Leon, for a moment, thought he could create something beautiful.
Then he realized that he could have made a diorama of each city he had helped sack, sculpted statues of the people who had begged for mercy as he had shot their bodies into a mushy paste, or planted trees that would bear fruit that would feed new lives.
And misery was his' again.
------
The Warden was a Rau've, a plant woman who relied upon Magic to make the impossible aspects of her biology real. As she sat Leon down before her in the Prison Greenhouse, kept warm by clear crystal even harder than diamond, she looked at him, her green face and form resembling a human so well it did not feel uncanny. Her clothes were made up of pale living fibers, a shirt, and pants that fused the best aspects of cotton and linen. Then she said, warmly simulating a human voice:
"You're the last prisoner here; the others have accepted pardons. Do you still feel accountable for your actions as a child?"
Leon was in his prison outfit; a thick jumpsuit of fibers both natural and artificial yet infused with enough magic to protect him from his own punches and bites - The fact that such was needed was proof that yes, he did feel responsible for his actions under the now-fallen Ascendancy.
"I was taught war was a game, that you were all obstacles to Humanity's glory. That we had to be the top dog, no matter what. Even if it meant killing our own kind - Rebels who wanted to keep more of what they made for themselves. Even if it meant starting an unprovoked war against… You. Against the other species of the galaxy."
The Warden spoke, "Were you not a street kid? Lower class like the rest of them? The elites among the Ascendancy of Man, I was told, were not going to spend their young on a project that risked their deaths; not until victory was all but assured. That, and the others' testimonies all lined up - They were starving, of lower educational attainment, reliant on the extranet and its social networks for most of their information and trained to rely on personalities and individuals to do their thinking for them -"
"I was a bookworm. I was able to please the local librarian enough to give me access to forbidden books. I knew what Humanity's past was and its excuses for war," Leon, in his guilt, omitted the fact that he was ten; certainly intelligent, exceptionally so, but still ten when he was enjoying library access to restricted publications.
False eyes, made of soft plant matter, looked at Leon, seeing through this omission as the Warden responded, "You were taken for the 'Star Marine' program at eleven. You and the others debuted in the Sack of Plenty when you were fourteen. Two years later, you and they were captured in the final offensive at Proxima Centauri itself, attempting to board the Compact's flagship with the other Star Marines. In neither of those incidents were you old enough to be liable for the atrocities committed under the Ascendancy's command."
Leon, however, was not having any of it, "Kid or not, we had fun making other people scream. If not for the fact that the Ascendancy had no plans to keep their promise to give each of us a continent and advantageous marriages to Elite families once we came of age…"
It was warm, and not just because it was a greenhouse; The Warden was patting his left forearm as he sat in front of her in a living wooden chair. Her arm was giving off magical heat, her perfume lifted up his mood and senses with his sweetness.
Then she said, her tone slowly firming with steel, "The Ascendancy may have fallen, but the procedure to make more of you still remains. And the survivors of the Star Marines… They can pass down their magic to their biological offspring. Humanity will join us as a Magical Species, but if the process is replete with the brutality and horror that you have shown us and yourselves… The Compact of Species will relearn the ruthlessness that we have withheld so far, and make the Ascendancy's propaganda true."
Looking at him, her voice was intense; not cold, not furious, but forceful as a lava flow, "Unless you light up the dark. Unless you provide them with hope. If you are truly as awake as you say you are, awake to the Ascendancy's excuses and your crimes and that of your Star Marine kin, you will stop hiding from your past and accept the pardon so you can begin the process of atonement well outside of this place."
She continued, "If you cannot believe you've suffered enough, then change things so that other children do not suffer more."
Shock at the unexpected harshness. Then Leon Andrews' eyes lit up, as he said, "I am eighteen now. I am old enough to take responsibility for what I will do. But if you must give me a mission, it must be on different terms from what the Ascendancy gave me. I must truly be free to say yes, say no, and do it my way. I will not be a pawn again."
The Warden nodded and said, "Very well; what do you need?"
Leon answered, "A ship and a crew."
Part Two: The Xuanzang
"So you're telling me, that after what you did to Plenty, you're asking me to Captain your ship?" The Asian Woman looked at him as though he was ugly on the outside as well as the inside - Leon may believe many things, but that he wasn't handsome was not one of them. At eighteen, he had androgynous features that included a smooth babyface, as well as a lean, toned build that was evident under the spacer's jacket, shirt, pants, and boots he now wore in this space station.
Not that his prospect, Free Trader Natasha Zhang, cared about how good he looked.
Leon's eyes glinted as he faced her across the cantina's primitive fiberglass table and said, "You can slit my throat after we're done. Like it or not, I'm your best bet at making sure the Ascendancy's remains won't get strong enough to do it again. As it is, plenty of war criminals have escaped or violated their pardons and want to wreak havoc again - You're going to need a Star Marine with Gematria just in case you meet other folk - bad folk - with Magic in their veins."
Natasha retorted, "I'm not forgetting how you kicked my little bro to death. With power armored boots. How he cried and screamed, waiting for mercy that never came. When this ends, I'm going to cut off your head and no one can stop me."
Leon nodded in acceptance, then paid the bill with an extra tip so that he could walk Natasha to his freighter; the stiletto-shaped former Ascendancy frigate known as The Xuanzang as it waited for them in the shipyard, maintained by its Sapient AI, Joyeuse.
As Natasha's own crew followed; three Outer Colony Humans and three Aliens - a silicon-based Tayanaen encased in an almost-robotic metal shell, a pygmy pachyderm Korta with human-like hands, and a floating crystal Kaisoken whose magic almost rivaled Leon's in raw reserves of power - the now-Captain of the Xuanzang asked a question as they approached the red and pastel-yellow ship as it seemed to cut empty air with its sharp angles.
"Do you really want to hunt down your old comrades - People who conned the Rau've into giving them a pardon - so that you can feel better about yourself? Will you really sleep better at night if you do that?"
His answer to her was a nod, then a challenge, "Will you get in and have your pound of flesh, or not?"
------
The ship's first voyage was to Plenty, where scientists once employed by the Ascendancy were using the banner of one of Earth's remaining oligarchs to finance an expedition to draw blood from the slimes Leon had created in the first hours of the sack of the planet.
Now in his suit of Star Marine Power Armor, further enhanced by Rau've engineering, Leon descended upon the guards protecting the researchers with the fury of a falling star, and that wrath was what he declared when he said, "374 - Value of the Falling Star!"
And he lit up the night.
"Don't be a hypocrite, kid," Captain Zhang said as she accompanied him in her own Drop Trooper Suit, its bulk almost large enough to count as a small mech. "Burn only the guards; the Scientists are not to be touched."
She switched to nonlethals; a gun that sprayed globs of sticky foam and a microwave cannon that caused pain but not injury, then added, "Because they're mine."
And as Leon blasted flesh, cybernetics, and turrets alike, as he cut apart those foes who yet stood against him, he heard her make the scientists, most of them amoral researchers used to inflict torment with casual banality, scream.
Gematria is the magical practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word, or phrase by reading it as a number. It normally does not work without Magical Energy, but Star Marines can channel that through their bodies due to the genetic modifications infused by the Ascendancy. These genetic modifications are intended to be both passed onto the Star Marines' future children or 'copied and pasted' to the elites' offspring once the process has been perfected.
Or onto the adults.
In sudden fury borne from realization, Leon saw another facet of the Ascendancy's plans; win or lose, the elites will have perfected the process of making themselves magic, then dispose of the Star Marines due to their lower-class origins.
For a brief moment, he turned towards the scientists, now cowering as Natasha rounded them up for arrest. Then he saw the slimes he had created, squeezed into tanks so that their blood could be used for experiments, their torment extended, and saw a chance.
"2032 - Value of the phrase, 'I return your Humanity'!"
And the containment pods glowed.
------
"I can't believe you undid one of your crimes," Captain Natasha said as she ate with her crew and Leon in a mess hall designed for a larger force - Leon had ran back into the Xuanzang after seeing that he had succeeded; after hearing the withheld screams of the people he had doomed to such torment four years ago. "How powerful is that Numerology of yours', anyway?"
He faced her, then said, "Not powerful enough to bring back the dead… Not yet. And only a few people at a time."
The Kaisoken crewmember, Do'rmu, asked telepathically, <You know… You Humans already had mastery of science and technology - Was the prospect of Immortality enough to possess your ruling class to dissect, and then break apart so many innocent aliens just so you could have Magic as well?>
"Yes," Leon answered, and his voice seemed to fill the cavernous hall. "We feared death and craved to be on top. Of course we'd want Magic. Even now, the remaining elites of Earth are content with the fact that they tested out the process to make themselves magical, and are now sure it works. We cannot stop them forever; all we need to do… is to make sure they do not hoard it for themselves."
He didn't expect Captain Zhang to say, "Then make me Magic, then; first chance you get."
Part Three: The Gift of Magic
Joyeuse, the AI of the Xuanzang, chose a holographic projection of a long-sleeved, long-skirted, heavily-built woman whose blue-white body was topped by a generic matronly face whose large lips, eyes, and nose, as well as loose, short straight hair, were meant to be familial but not conventionally attractive. Spared due to the Compact of Species ruling that she was a victim of 'AI Enslavement', she had joined Leon's crew willingly after being informed of his plans by the Rau've Republic High Command.
This was important, as she was telling Leon as the two stood inside the ship's large medical bay, "This ship and its equipment are capable of administering the perfected version of the 'Spartiate Procedure' to those who want it - This version does not need dead, ground-up, and liquified Kaisoken as the catalyst for awakening magical powers; compounds from interstellar space mixed with hydroponically-grown algae can be used as a substitute."
A day after Captain Zhang's request, Joyeuse was telling him that the first opportunity was already there. However, she expressed reluctance by adding, "Will you let her euthanize you, then? She and you both know that even if that is done in a way that brings her brother back… killing someone who is trying to make up for their crimes is -"
Leon snapped, "I want to die. Even if I win, even if everyone I hurt was brought back to life, they'll be traumatized. And life means that they'll suffer more, especially as the remaining elites on Earth will make themselves magic and then keep it all to themselves. At least this way, we get another Magic human from frontier origins, ready to defend her home against Earth's resurgence."
Joyeuse frowned disapprovingly at Leon, almost glaring, and then she said, "Very well, I will prepare Captain Zhang for the procedure. Until then, wait outside the Mebay."
Leon nodded and went outside to tell the Captain.
------
Once Captain Natasha Zhang was safely sealed inside the medical bay, her crew of six; three Outer Colonies frontier folk and three aliens changed their mood, certain now that Leon wouldn't resist what they wished to do to him. This was confirmed when he ordered Joyeuse to, "Do not interfere unless I am at the brink of death."
The first mate was a burly redhead whose punches came first, knocking out the young man's teeth in the first few blows, even as the rest of the crew, including the Tayanen in its metal shell, began beating Leon to within an inch of his life, showering him with curses and insults.
"Bastard!"
"You killed our families!"
"You're a f-king insult to everything we stand for!"
<You cannot undo your crimes. I intend to heal you only to double your pain.>
"We will never stop hating you."
{Incoherent Screeching indicative of a Tayanen making sounds from a metal shell.}
Healing. Then beating. Then healing again. None of it made Leon feel better. None of it made the crew feel better either as their insults grew louder, their expletives more detailed. They showered Leon with punches then blamed him for not making them feel better.
Then, they dropped Leon to the ground, as the redhead said, "You're not worth it, Bastard. You're not worth anything."
That hurt worse than any punch.
------
He had expected Captain Zhang to be unsympathetic; he had kicked her six-year-old brother to death, after all. But when she came out of the medbay, all dressed up in her jumpsuit and glowing with magical energy, what she said was, "Sounds like it'd hurt you more to live - You're a sad kid."
Her next words were, "I haven't been completely honest with you; Earth is currently undergoing protests - Seems even they are fed up. We're barging in there, busting up some oligarchs until they listen to their people, then after that, we're bringing my brother back if his soul isn't in heaven already and letting him decide your fate. Fair?"
Leon nodded a bit too eagerly and said, "Fair."
------
"564," Leon did not add that it was the value of the word Calamity; the wreckage of the picket fleet Earth's Oligarchs dispatched to keep him out and keep the strikers/protesters/activists from getting offworld showed it.
He could have killed the crew except Natasha - or even her, as she was not as trained in Gematria as he was - if he really wanted to. It was his self-loathing and his commitment to justice that stopped him. But right now, the sky was lighting up with beams and railgun fire as Earth's remaining defenses tried to blast the Xuanzang to bits, only for the boy, inexplicably more powerful than his fellow Star Marines, his words given force by his belief in himself and his cause, to stymie all of their efforts.
360 - Faith is a Shield.
415 - All Shots Fail.
As the ship punched through the interweaving volleys of energy and metal shells, enduring explosions that would have torn apart larger craft, Leon's faith held, even as he sensed four Star Marines who had violated the spirit of their pardons soaring towards his ship, uttering their own Gematria numbers to use Numerology's potential against him.
"91 - Famine!" said the first powered-armor Magus to fly towards him as he invoked a black hole that sucked mundane light and magical energy.
"293 - Plague!" said the next as she created a cloud of rot and decay that ripped through spellwork, metal, and plastics.
"981 - War!" another Star Marine said in a desperate tone, conjuring up a volley of swords, spears, arrows, rockets, and bombs, all of which craved to tear apart magic and spill blood.
"119 - Death!" one last soldier spoke, but she cast it on the first three, stopping their hearts, their lungs, and their brains, and their spells fizzled out as their armored corpses spiraled down to the earth.
This last soldier turned in the direction of the accelerating ship and by some miracle, had enough time to salute gracefully. This gesture was caught by the Xuanzang's cameras before the vessel's bow splattered her to bits.
The ship was closing in on the Oligarchs' Governmental Palace, now surrounded by a hundred thousand lights lifted by savvy protesters in the night.
But Leon was now a pulsar of distress as he thought of his ex-comrade and wondered, Why did she do it? Why did she kill her team and herself for me?
Captain Zhang decelerated her ship with a halt so abrupt that if not for her newly-fueled spellwork, it would have been torn apart. Her next words were, "Leon, don't lose faith now."
The lights of the protesters' cordon could be seen all around the Government's Palace. The young man, a former soldier who had gone through so much, took heart from their courage and knew that they had to succeed.
But this time, no one had to die.
"Show them the Light - 1448!"
And the light of truth shone, chasing away unreasoned presumption. The mental walls preventing guilt and barring repentance fell down, allowing this light to shine. But this light did not discriminate, for all; even the innocents, had their own biases, their own flaws, and their own false assumptions about how the world worked plus how things should be.
The light engulfed Leon, Natasha, and the motley crew who had, despite their reservations, accompanied the war criminal on his quest for redemption.
Part Four: A Promise Kept
Earth was at peace. The Inner Colonies were paying an indemnity. After the light of truth had shone, the Xuanzang had flown back to the Outer Colonies, the frontier of Human space, knowing full well that old hatreds were merely caged, not purged entirely.
But that was enough. Now, Leon could process what he has seen in the light.
He cannot run away from his sins. Not by dying. But he cannot undo all of them, as Natasha's Crew had said. All he had to do was live, live, and try to make sure no one went through what he had ever again.
He will fail, but he will at least save some people.
But first, he had to go back to Plenty once more, to where he had killed a little boy. The boy's body was gone now, completely incinerated except for a few DNA samples, but he didn't need them.
Hope and self-belief will be enough to call the boy back from the brink of passing on. If there were indeed Gods or just one God, they'd understand.
He and Natasha were alone, on a grassy hill covered with wildflowers. It was the dawn of a new day, and both were in normal clothes; no power armor, no protective gear, just clothes appropriate for grief and maybe… renewal.
"Together," Natasha said.
Leon Andrews affirmed it, "Together."
"1137 - True Resurrection!" the two, tenuously bound together by the slightest of bonds, exclaim.
Another light burst from the top of the hill, rivaling the rising sun for a moment. As the glow faded, a black-haired boy, of Chinese and Western features, wearing a shirt, shorts, and small sneakers meant for a six-year-old, stood on top of the hill, frowning, fearful, but above all, alive.
Leon could almost collapse. Faced with one of his victims, he wanted to die but knew that he could not, that he had to endure the judgment of this kid who had suffered by his hand.
The boy walked towards him; he instinctively flinched.
He felt a kick at his shin, barely felt through the black jeans he wore, as the boy said to him, "Now we're even. Don't do it again."
Leon could weep. He had aged up to twenty in his journey, a journey that had worn him out even as it taught him more about himself. And now the words of a child had brought him new life.
"I won't. I won't do it again."
END
Part One: Carving Swans
The cries of civilians, both Outer Colonist and Alien, sounded from the burning city, as he and his squad fired into the crowds, sparing no one, man, woman, or child.
War was a game, a game with good guys and bad guys. The Outer Colonists were terrorists, while their Alien partners were eldritch sorcerers who wanted to destroy Humanity's Science, Reason, and Faith in either the Divine or themselves.
Local militiamen fired back, their weak rifle shots plinking onto his power armor's energy shields. They had to be punished for their temerity. So the boy lifted his left, and channeled good Magic; the Numerology that called on the power that should be Humanity's alone…
1884 - The numerical value of the phrase 'I have no mouth, and I must scream'.
And the foes around him found themselves melted down into bloody red slimes, unable to move, unable to act, and with no mouths to scream.
Leon Andrews woke up; screaming, crying, cursing himself for the crimes of four years ago.
He is eighteen now.
The walls were thick and soundproofed. The automated lights are homely and cozy. His entertainment suite - a gift given in luckily-rewarded naivete for his 'rehabilitation' - turned on by itself, and a dozen holographic programs, some AI, some real-life counselors woken up from sleep, and some both, lit up to look at him with concern.
There was only a small window of thick steelglass, with carbon-fibre bars he had asked his wardens to install as a reminder of his actions.
As a tray of food - his favorite seedless cherries - was deposited through a wall pocket, the boy, now a young man, thought:
This must be the most cushy prison in the universe.
-------
Daylight found him in the thick-walled, warm-colored, well-lit Prison Workshop, carving a bird from a massive block of glassy material; the workshop's energy knives were able to sharpen themselves to a monomolecular edge on command, yet turned off automatically when pointed at living flesh.
Carving swans was his refuge, his way of keeping his mind occupied from thoughts of murdered children, both human and nonhuman; all thinking beings, rendered into a paste by his thoughtless actions.
Unlike the others, he cannot blame the Ascendancy. Unlike the few remaining loyalists in their ranks, he cannot keep believing that the aliens were bad guys to be destroyed for the glory of Humanity.
He can only blame himself.
We do not kill children who have given up their arms, unlike your Ascendancy. We do not kill those who surrender, at least not by choice. And no, we will not give you your execution; so either be repatriated to your people or stay here forever, Leon Andrews.
The Warden was surprised when he chose to stay.
As the swan took shape, its glittering wings refracted the light into a thousand rainbows, and Leon, for a moment, thought he could create something beautiful.
Then he realized that he could have made a diorama of each city he had helped sack, sculpted statues of the people who had begged for mercy as he had shot their bodies into a mushy paste, or planted trees that would bear fruit that would feed new lives.
And misery was his' again.
------
The Warden was a Rau've, a plant woman who relied upon Magic to make the impossible aspects of her biology real. As she sat Leon down before her in the Prison Greenhouse, kept warm by clear crystal even harder than diamond, she looked at him, her green face and form resembling a human so well it did not feel uncanny. Her clothes were made up of pale living fibers, a shirt, and pants that fused the best aspects of cotton and linen. Then she said, warmly simulating a human voice:
"You're the last prisoner here; the others have accepted pardons. Do you still feel accountable for your actions as a child?"
Leon was in his prison outfit; a thick jumpsuit of fibers both natural and artificial yet infused with enough magic to protect him from his own punches and bites - The fact that such was needed was proof that yes, he did feel responsible for his actions under the now-fallen Ascendancy.
"I was taught war was a game, that you were all obstacles to Humanity's glory. That we had to be the top dog, no matter what. Even if it meant killing our own kind - Rebels who wanted to keep more of what they made for themselves. Even if it meant starting an unprovoked war against… You. Against the other species of the galaxy."
The Warden spoke, "Were you not a street kid? Lower class like the rest of them? The elites among the Ascendancy of Man, I was told, were not going to spend their young on a project that risked their deaths; not until victory was all but assured. That, and the others' testimonies all lined up - They were starving, of lower educational attainment, reliant on the extranet and its social networks for most of their information and trained to rely on personalities and individuals to do their thinking for them -"
"I was a bookworm. I was able to please the local librarian enough to give me access to forbidden books. I knew what Humanity's past was and its excuses for war," Leon, in his guilt, omitted the fact that he was ten; certainly intelligent, exceptionally so, but still ten when he was enjoying library access to restricted publications.
False eyes, made of soft plant matter, looked at Leon, seeing through this omission as the Warden responded, "You were taken for the 'Star Marine' program at eleven. You and the others debuted in the Sack of Plenty when you were fourteen. Two years later, you and they were captured in the final offensive at Proxima Centauri itself, attempting to board the Compact's flagship with the other Star Marines. In neither of those incidents were you old enough to be liable for the atrocities committed under the Ascendancy's command."
Leon, however, was not having any of it, "Kid or not, we had fun making other people scream. If not for the fact that the Ascendancy had no plans to keep their promise to give each of us a continent and advantageous marriages to Elite families once we came of age…"
It was warm, and not just because it was a greenhouse; The Warden was patting his left forearm as he sat in front of her in a living wooden chair. Her arm was giving off magical heat, her perfume lifted up his mood and senses with his sweetness.
Then she said, her tone slowly firming with steel, "The Ascendancy may have fallen, but the procedure to make more of you still remains. And the survivors of the Star Marines… They can pass down their magic to their biological offspring. Humanity will join us as a Magical Species, but if the process is replete with the brutality and horror that you have shown us and yourselves… The Compact of Species will relearn the ruthlessness that we have withheld so far, and make the Ascendancy's propaganda true."
Looking at him, her voice was intense; not cold, not furious, but forceful as a lava flow, "Unless you light up the dark. Unless you provide them with hope. If you are truly as awake as you say you are, awake to the Ascendancy's excuses and your crimes and that of your Star Marine kin, you will stop hiding from your past and accept the pardon so you can begin the process of atonement well outside of this place."
She continued, "If you cannot believe you've suffered enough, then change things so that other children do not suffer more."
Shock at the unexpected harshness. Then Leon Andrews' eyes lit up, as he said, "I am eighteen now. I am old enough to take responsibility for what I will do. But if you must give me a mission, it must be on different terms from what the Ascendancy gave me. I must truly be free to say yes, say no, and do it my way. I will not be a pawn again."
The Warden nodded and said, "Very well; what do you need?"
Leon answered, "A ship and a crew."
Part Two: The Xuanzang
"So you're telling me, that after what you did to Plenty, you're asking me to Captain your ship?" The Asian Woman looked at him as though he was ugly on the outside as well as the inside - Leon may believe many things, but that he wasn't handsome was not one of them. At eighteen, he had androgynous features that included a smooth babyface, as well as a lean, toned build that was evident under the spacer's jacket, shirt, pants, and boots he now wore in this space station.
Not that his prospect, Free Trader Natasha Zhang, cared about how good he looked.
Leon's eyes glinted as he faced her across the cantina's primitive fiberglass table and said, "You can slit my throat after we're done. Like it or not, I'm your best bet at making sure the Ascendancy's remains won't get strong enough to do it again. As it is, plenty of war criminals have escaped or violated their pardons and want to wreak havoc again - You're going to need a Star Marine with Gematria just in case you meet other folk - bad folk - with Magic in their veins."
Natasha retorted, "I'm not forgetting how you kicked my little bro to death. With power armored boots. How he cried and screamed, waiting for mercy that never came. When this ends, I'm going to cut off your head and no one can stop me."
Leon nodded in acceptance, then paid the bill with an extra tip so that he could walk Natasha to his freighter; the stiletto-shaped former Ascendancy frigate known as The Xuanzang as it waited for them in the shipyard, maintained by its Sapient AI, Joyeuse.
As Natasha's own crew followed; three Outer Colony Humans and three Aliens - a silicon-based Tayanaen encased in an almost-robotic metal shell, a pygmy pachyderm Korta with human-like hands, and a floating crystal Kaisoken whose magic almost rivaled Leon's in raw reserves of power - the now-Captain of the Xuanzang asked a question as they approached the red and pastel-yellow ship as it seemed to cut empty air with its sharp angles.
"Do you really want to hunt down your old comrades - People who conned the Rau've into giving them a pardon - so that you can feel better about yourself? Will you really sleep better at night if you do that?"
His answer to her was a nod, then a challenge, "Will you get in and have your pound of flesh, or not?"
------
The ship's first voyage was to Plenty, where scientists once employed by the Ascendancy were using the banner of one of Earth's remaining oligarchs to finance an expedition to draw blood from the slimes Leon had created in the first hours of the sack of the planet.
Now in his suit of Star Marine Power Armor, further enhanced by Rau've engineering, Leon descended upon the guards protecting the researchers with the fury of a falling star, and that wrath was what he declared when he said, "374 - Value of the Falling Star!"
And he lit up the night.
"Don't be a hypocrite, kid," Captain Zhang said as she accompanied him in her own Drop Trooper Suit, its bulk almost large enough to count as a small mech. "Burn only the guards; the Scientists are not to be touched."
She switched to nonlethals; a gun that sprayed globs of sticky foam and a microwave cannon that caused pain but not injury, then added, "Because they're mine."
And as Leon blasted flesh, cybernetics, and turrets alike, as he cut apart those foes who yet stood against him, he heard her make the scientists, most of them amoral researchers used to inflict torment with casual banality, scream.
Gematria is the magical practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word, or phrase by reading it as a number. It normally does not work without Magical Energy, but Star Marines can channel that through their bodies due to the genetic modifications infused by the Ascendancy. These genetic modifications are intended to be both passed onto the Star Marines' future children or 'copied and pasted' to the elites' offspring once the process has been perfected.
Or onto the adults.
In sudden fury borne from realization, Leon saw another facet of the Ascendancy's plans; win or lose, the elites will have perfected the process of making themselves magic, then dispose of the Star Marines due to their lower-class origins.
For a brief moment, he turned towards the scientists, now cowering as Natasha rounded them up for arrest. Then he saw the slimes he had created, squeezed into tanks so that their blood could be used for experiments, their torment extended, and saw a chance.
"2032 - Value of the phrase, 'I return your Humanity'!"
And the containment pods glowed.
------
"I can't believe you undid one of your crimes," Captain Natasha said as she ate with her crew and Leon in a mess hall designed for a larger force - Leon had ran back into the Xuanzang after seeing that he had succeeded; after hearing the withheld screams of the people he had doomed to such torment four years ago. "How powerful is that Numerology of yours', anyway?"
He faced her, then said, "Not powerful enough to bring back the dead… Not yet. And only a few people at a time."
The Kaisoken crewmember, Do'rmu, asked telepathically, <You know… You Humans already had mastery of science and technology - Was the prospect of Immortality enough to possess your ruling class to dissect, and then break apart so many innocent aliens just so you could have Magic as well?>
"Yes," Leon answered, and his voice seemed to fill the cavernous hall. "We feared death and craved to be on top. Of course we'd want Magic. Even now, the remaining elites of Earth are content with the fact that they tested out the process to make themselves magical, and are now sure it works. We cannot stop them forever; all we need to do… is to make sure they do not hoard it for themselves."
He didn't expect Captain Zhang to say, "Then make me Magic, then; first chance you get."
Part Three: The Gift of Magic
Joyeuse, the AI of the Xuanzang, chose a holographic projection of a long-sleeved, long-skirted, heavily-built woman whose blue-white body was topped by a generic matronly face whose large lips, eyes, and nose, as well as loose, short straight hair, were meant to be familial but not conventionally attractive. Spared due to the Compact of Species ruling that she was a victim of 'AI Enslavement', she had joined Leon's crew willingly after being informed of his plans by the Rau've Republic High Command.
This was important, as she was telling Leon as the two stood inside the ship's large medical bay, "This ship and its equipment are capable of administering the perfected version of the 'Spartiate Procedure' to those who want it - This version does not need dead, ground-up, and liquified Kaisoken as the catalyst for awakening magical powers; compounds from interstellar space mixed with hydroponically-grown algae can be used as a substitute."
A day after Captain Zhang's request, Joyeuse was telling him that the first opportunity was already there. However, she expressed reluctance by adding, "Will you let her euthanize you, then? She and you both know that even if that is done in a way that brings her brother back… killing someone who is trying to make up for their crimes is -"
Leon snapped, "I want to die. Even if I win, even if everyone I hurt was brought back to life, they'll be traumatized. And life means that they'll suffer more, especially as the remaining elites on Earth will make themselves magic and then keep it all to themselves. At least this way, we get another Magic human from frontier origins, ready to defend her home against Earth's resurgence."
Joyeuse frowned disapprovingly at Leon, almost glaring, and then she said, "Very well, I will prepare Captain Zhang for the procedure. Until then, wait outside the Mebay."
Leon nodded and went outside to tell the Captain.
------
Once Captain Natasha Zhang was safely sealed inside the medical bay, her crew of six; three Outer Colonies frontier folk and three aliens changed their mood, certain now that Leon wouldn't resist what they wished to do to him. This was confirmed when he ordered Joyeuse to, "Do not interfere unless I am at the brink of death."
The first mate was a burly redhead whose punches came first, knocking out the young man's teeth in the first few blows, even as the rest of the crew, including the Tayanen in its metal shell, began beating Leon to within an inch of his life, showering him with curses and insults.
"Bastard!"
"You killed our families!"
"You're a f-king insult to everything we stand for!"
<You cannot undo your crimes. I intend to heal you only to double your pain.>
"We will never stop hating you."
{Incoherent Screeching indicative of a Tayanen making sounds from a metal shell.}
Healing. Then beating. Then healing again. None of it made Leon feel better. None of it made the crew feel better either as their insults grew louder, their expletives more detailed. They showered Leon with punches then blamed him for not making them feel better.
Then, they dropped Leon to the ground, as the redhead said, "You're not worth it, Bastard. You're not worth anything."
That hurt worse than any punch.
------
He had expected Captain Zhang to be unsympathetic; he had kicked her six-year-old brother to death, after all. But when she came out of the medbay, all dressed up in her jumpsuit and glowing with magical energy, what she said was, "Sounds like it'd hurt you more to live - You're a sad kid."
Her next words were, "I haven't been completely honest with you; Earth is currently undergoing protests - Seems even they are fed up. We're barging in there, busting up some oligarchs until they listen to their people, then after that, we're bringing my brother back if his soul isn't in heaven already and letting him decide your fate. Fair?"
Leon nodded a bit too eagerly and said, "Fair."
------
"564," Leon did not add that it was the value of the word Calamity; the wreckage of the picket fleet Earth's Oligarchs dispatched to keep him out and keep the strikers/protesters/activists from getting offworld showed it.
He could have killed the crew except Natasha - or even her, as she was not as trained in Gematria as he was - if he really wanted to. It was his self-loathing and his commitment to justice that stopped him. But right now, the sky was lighting up with beams and railgun fire as Earth's remaining defenses tried to blast the Xuanzang to bits, only for the boy, inexplicably more powerful than his fellow Star Marines, his words given force by his belief in himself and his cause, to stymie all of their efforts.
360 - Faith is a Shield.
415 - All Shots Fail.
As the ship punched through the interweaving volleys of energy and metal shells, enduring explosions that would have torn apart larger craft, Leon's faith held, even as he sensed four Star Marines who had violated the spirit of their pardons soaring towards his ship, uttering their own Gematria numbers to use Numerology's potential against him.
"91 - Famine!" said the first powered-armor Magus to fly towards him as he invoked a black hole that sucked mundane light and magical energy.
"293 - Plague!" said the next as she created a cloud of rot and decay that ripped through spellwork, metal, and plastics.
"981 - War!" another Star Marine said in a desperate tone, conjuring up a volley of swords, spears, arrows, rockets, and bombs, all of which craved to tear apart magic and spill blood.
"119 - Death!" one last soldier spoke, but she cast it on the first three, stopping their hearts, their lungs, and their brains, and their spells fizzled out as their armored corpses spiraled down to the earth.
This last soldier turned in the direction of the accelerating ship and by some miracle, had enough time to salute gracefully. This gesture was caught by the Xuanzang's cameras before the vessel's bow splattered her to bits.
The ship was closing in on the Oligarchs' Governmental Palace, now surrounded by a hundred thousand lights lifted by savvy protesters in the night.
But Leon was now a pulsar of distress as he thought of his ex-comrade and wondered, Why did she do it? Why did she kill her team and herself for me?
Captain Zhang decelerated her ship with a halt so abrupt that if not for her newly-fueled spellwork, it would have been torn apart. Her next words were, "Leon, don't lose faith now."
The lights of the protesters' cordon could be seen all around the Government's Palace. The young man, a former soldier who had gone through so much, took heart from their courage and knew that they had to succeed.
But this time, no one had to die.
"Show them the Light - 1448!"
And the light of truth shone, chasing away unreasoned presumption. The mental walls preventing guilt and barring repentance fell down, allowing this light to shine. But this light did not discriminate, for all; even the innocents, had their own biases, their own flaws, and their own false assumptions about how the world worked plus how things should be.
The light engulfed Leon, Natasha, and the motley crew who had, despite their reservations, accompanied the war criminal on his quest for redemption.
Part Four: A Promise Kept
Earth was at peace. The Inner Colonies were paying an indemnity. After the light of truth had shone, the Xuanzang had flown back to the Outer Colonies, the frontier of Human space, knowing full well that old hatreds were merely caged, not purged entirely.
But that was enough. Now, Leon could process what he has seen in the light.
He cannot run away from his sins. Not by dying. But he cannot undo all of them, as Natasha's Crew had said. All he had to do was live, live, and try to make sure no one went through what he had ever again.
He will fail, but he will at least save some people.
But first, he had to go back to Plenty once more, to where he had killed a little boy. The boy's body was gone now, completely incinerated except for a few DNA samples, but he didn't need them.
Hope and self-belief will be enough to call the boy back from the brink of passing on. If there were indeed Gods or just one God, they'd understand.
He and Natasha were alone, on a grassy hill covered with wildflowers. It was the dawn of a new day, and both were in normal clothes; no power armor, no protective gear, just clothes appropriate for grief and maybe… renewal.
"Together," Natasha said.
Leon Andrews affirmed it, "Together."
"1137 - True Resurrection!" the two, tenuously bound together by the slightest of bonds, exclaim.
Another light burst from the top of the hill, rivaling the rising sun for a moment. As the glow faded, a black-haired boy, of Chinese and Western features, wearing a shirt, shorts, and small sneakers meant for a six-year-old, stood on top of the hill, frowning, fearful, but above all, alive.
Leon could almost collapse. Faced with one of his victims, he wanted to die but knew that he could not, that he had to endure the judgment of this kid who had suffered by his hand.
The boy walked towards him; he instinctively flinched.
He felt a kick at his shin, barely felt through the black jeans he wore, as the boy said to him, "Now we're even. Don't do it again."
Leon could weep. He had aged up to twenty in his journey, a journey that had worn him out even as it taught him more about himself. And now the words of a child had brought him new life.
"I won't. I won't do it again."
END