World Weavers Entries

Day 3: Threads
Title: The Captain's Choice
Word Count: 2255

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Amani pulled the slits in her shoulder of her uniform down, attempting to bare more of her pale lavender shoulders. The cool air outside the Academy brushed them, and a chill ran through her. The changes she made to her uniform showed more skin than she was used to. She hoped it would be enough. It was her first time going to the entertainment district by herself.

Amani looked out from the mountainside the Academy stood on. Far below, lay the beautiful tangle of streaming lights of hovercrafts and buildings. The night was alive. She could almost feel the thrum of the city’s life. She passed her hands over her altered uniform nervously.

She had spent the last few solar hours cutting up her uniform, and adding the latest accessories to it. She was not going to be behind the times. Besides the Aeilonian Uniform they were expected to wear was dull and constricting. With its long sleeves and high collar that fastened up to the neck, the uniform was more apt for the elderly, and overachievers. None of the high ranked squads ever actually wore it as convention would have them. Amani may not come from a high ranking species, but even she knew that.

Still, she had to have a little bit of prudence. Her father had already bought her a new uniform when the last fashion trend had involved cutting the sleeves, and rewiring the material to display strips of neon lights. The uniforms were made of a hardy synthetic material that was protective against most weapons, and the nano technology embedded in the uniform connected her to the Interlink network.

Amani began fiddling with the receptor crystals she had added to the sheer portions inserted throughout her uniform. They would feed her all the latest news and gossip waves streaming over the Interlink at a faster rate. Everyone had them. Amani didn’t have as many as she would want, but she thought she could pass as quasi wealthy female in the entertainment district. She would worry about what her family would say later. They would not be pleased that they would have to buy another uniform, but that was what credit chips were for. Her father would understand. He knew how the Academy worked, and encouraged her to stay in touch with all the trends. That was how a middling female like herself would ever be accepted into the high ranked squads, but she had to look the part.

Amani accessed the Interlink, and flagged an Intercity Hovercraft for the entertainment district. Within moments, one silently zoomed up next to her. Amani boarded the Intercity Hovercraft. It was packed as she had expected it to be. She noticed that many of her peers had taken apart the uniforms of their various professions as she had, and added in the sheer parts with receptor crystals. Amani was amazed at the brazenness of some of the males and females, who defiantly showed almost every part of their body, so much so that she felt that maybe she had not done enough. As they twinkling lights of the entertainment district loomed ahead, knots grew in her stomach. She pressed against the wall as a particularly scantily clad couple of Erosilians pushed their way through the crowd.

Amani quickly got out of their way. She noticed the Shaitan guild marks on their supple limbs. They were from popular courtesan guilds, and they looked the part. Their lean, well toned gray bodies and large eyes drew a lot of attention. Amani felt even more self conscious of her look, and shrunk back against the wall.

It was at this moment that a core bulletin hit the Interlink. It was a Royal bulletin, which meant it was a serious one. Amani quickly pressed the crystal closest to her collar. It was linked to the lens in her eyes. She noticed that almost every creature on the hovercraft did the same.

The bulletin popped in front of her eyes, and her heart nearly thudded to a halt. There was a raid in the district closest to the entertainment district. Raids were common, but never in that particular district. It was one of the wealthiest sectors in the city. What was worse was that several mangled bodies of several missing females were found in the home of a prominent and high ranking Aeilonian. The squads who stormed the manse, including one cadet squad, reported finding illegal Infected, and as well as several survivors.

What was interesting was that squad thirteen took part in the raid. Squad thirteen was infamous at the academy. They had the rejects of all the other squads. They were the scapegoat for anything that went wrong, but they had yet to lose a mock battle in the Academy. What was most terrifying was that the captain of the squad was the son of a Helian.

Nightmarish tales were told about the Great War when the Aeilonian Royal Army finally cornered and quarantined the monstrous Helians on Helios. The Helians had terrifying powers, and did monstrous things before they were stopped. After the purge and the quarantine, some of their children survived on the other side of the quarantine. The captain of squad thirteen was one of those rare children.

The raid had been successful, as the bulletin stated, but now a request for backup cadets was requested. It was an extra precaution. The Helian squad leader never left the Academy without his Nix bands on, and a full squad of guards. The cadets must be needed for extra security. Amani felt all eyes around her land on her uniform. There were other cadets on the hovercraft, but her uniform was most noticeable. Amani sighed, and signaled for the next stop.

.....................

Amani nervously fiddled with her weapon as Squad Thirteen approached. The street she waited on with the rest of the cadets was wide expanse of opulent shops. It was light up in soft, pale lights, and the buildings were sculptural beauties, snowy white and elegant. If it wasn’t because of the fact that she was a cadet called in for crowd control, she would never have been able to even step on such a street. Only the very wealthy dared lay eyes on the shops here. Even now, as she looked about her, a crowd of the most fashionably dressed formed on either side of the street. She had never been close to such wealth before.


The crowd in the street was growing just as the squad and its captain drew closer and closer. Already, Amani could feel them pressing in to get a good look at the captain. She would be lying if she said she was not curious as well. She was both nervous and excited by the prospect. Amani adjusted her uniform, and as she did so, a curious thought crossed her mind. Would the captain even be wearing the uniform of the army that quarantined his kind? She heard the rumor that he had not willingly come to the Academy. The leaders of the Academy had their reasons for wanting him, but it still made her curious.

The squad was closer, and Amani felt her body tense up. The captain came into view. He was tall as she had heard, but so far that was all she could make out. From what she could see of him from this distance, he looked calm and seemingly normal.

At that moment, the crowd surged closer. Amani, and her fellow guards, had to fight to keep the crowd back. And that was when she saw the Edorian Guard loyalists. She recognized the patches they wore on their arms. The Edorian Guard had been on the front lines during the Great War with the Royal Army, but unlike the Royal Army, the Edorian Guard made it their mission to wipe out every Helian that existed, especially those on their side of the quarantine line.

Amani felt a stab of cold fear slice into her. She looked at the growing crowd behind the loyalists, and she looked at the approaching captain, in particular his arms. All five of his Nix bands were off. The Nix bands were metal bands that helped control and contain the Helian captain’s power. She knew he was allowed to take three of the bands off for the mock battles, and was absolutely lethal, but never all five at once. Did the higher ups know? Was their some sort of gross oversight?

Amani shakily reached for one of her receptor crystals. She had to tell someone. The leader of the crowd control cadets had to know of what could easily become an explosive situation, but before she could do just that, the crowd shoved forward. Amani lost control of her footing, and fell to the ground. The crowd was going to trample her. She knew it. The last thing she saw as she hit the ground was the squad captain standing stock over one hundred metras away, and staring straight at her. Amani went to raise her arms to protect herself when in a flash a pair of common cadet boots stood just a metra in front of her.

Behind her, the crowd pushed away from her as if she herself was an infected. She turned to see who it was that was her savior. Expecting to see her own captain, she was startled to see the captain of squad thirteen looming over her. Her breath caught in her chest as fear rolled over the entirety of her body. She had heard of the flash movements that the Helians were known to use, but she had never seen it before up close. She wanted to push away from him, but was too paralyzed in fear to do so.

And that was when the Helian captain did something completely unexpected. He knelt down, and extended out his hand to her. Terrified, Amani avoided looking into his eyes. She had heard stories that they could control people with their eyes.

Instead, she focused on his uniform. To her surprise, the uniform was pressed and clean. There were no alterations, or any wear or tear. It buttoned all the way up to the captain’s throat, with not a thread or button out of place. He wore it with care and pride.

Amani looked behind him at his squad, and noticed that every member wore their uniforms differently. Some were like her, and had altered it to their taste. Some had cut the sleeves off or left the collar undone. Some uniforms were dirty or rumpled, and some had colors purposefully splashed across the front. One member wore the sigil of a group of well known trouble makers and anarchists, but none looked as pristine as the captain’s did.

Amani looked at the hand offered to her, still too afraid to look the captain in the face. His hand was delicate and soft, much more so than she had expected. Uncertain what to do, Amani stared at his uniform in dumb fear. It was at that moment that a member of the loyalists charged forward with a container in hand. Amani looked up in horror as the loyalist dumped Sorvinian excrement over the captain’s head. The black ooze dripped over his face, and down his immaculate uniform.

A terrified hush fell over the crowd as they stared in horror at the captain. For a moment, everything stopped. In the next moment, a flurry of action exploded around her. Armed guards surged closer to the captain as his subordinates strode forward to attack the loyalists in the crowd. Amani saw the apparent danger she was in being caught in the middle as did the captain.

The captain stood, and held out his arms, stopping his subordinates. His carefully kept uniform was destroyed, and Amani expected the loyalist who did it did not have much time left to live. Helians were known for their pride, and defending that pride, but once again Amani was surprised.

“Everyone stand down!” the captain commanded.

His voice was smooth, and calm. It brought everyone to a halt. Amani dared to look up at his eyes, but what she saw was no murderous, cold beast as she had expected. What she saw was concern for her welfare peppered with sadness as if he had expected this to happen.

“Squad thirteen move out!” he commanded, before he turned, and strode down the road alone. His squad, angry and frustrated by what had happened to their captain, was stunned by the command as was the crowd. Everyone had expected him to exact retribution. Amani watched in amazement as the squad followed dutifully behind without one word against the loyalists. Nothing was as she had expected.

As Amani stood and watched him go, a small amount of pity welled up in her as she thought of his pristine uniform destroyed after all the care he had taken with it. Nothing got the stench of Sorvinian excrement out. He came from a prisoner pit, even she knew that, and more than likely had no credit chips to buy a new one.

That pity deepened as she thought of the lives he had just saved, and how proudly he had worn his uniform. Amani looked down at her own tattered and altered uniform. Had she ever proud wearing it as he had? She looked once more at his retreating back covered in disgusting black excrement. For the first time, she felt what it truly meant to be ashamed.

Day 4: Monsters
Title: Helios
Word Count: 1367

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The raw winds raked over the bone dry land, and howled through the carved out canyons. They rolled over the desiccated fields that had once been bountiful until they crashed to a halt against the forbidding high walls of the Helian capital. The city sat proud and severe on the side of a mountain. It was cold and merciless as it was beautiful with its stark spires, and sharp edged architecture. The cityscape looked as if it could gut the very sky above.

A small train of creatures battled the mighty winds as they approached the city. Their steps were weary, and their bellies hungry. The last of the food fields had wilted and died, swept away by the very wind they pushed against. All that was left was to get to the city, and everything would be fine, or so they hoped.

Iliriel watched their hopeless trek from his cell at the top of one of the highest towers. Imprisoned as he was, there was not much he could do, but watch the city his clan had built whither and die. After the bombs had fallen during the war, Helios began to suffer major droughts and food shortages. Their world grew savage as hunger brutalized the residents.

Iliriel, one of the few left of his clan, was nothing more than a hostage to the barbaric Menlic clan. Their brutality was what gave Helios the bad reputation in the first place. His clan, the Ikari, did their fair share of violence, but never against the helpless. That was ignoble. His clan’s greatest flaw was their pride. It was the reason why they were a dying breed. They considered it beneath them to mate with any creature other than their own species, which was problematic considering that the females of their kind were few in numbers, and most were infertile.

The Menlics, on the other hand, copulated with whatever creature they could find. It was part of the reason that so many atrocities had been laid at Helios’s feet. They were strong. Not as strong as the Ikari when it came to physical powers, but they had the numbers on their side. The Royal Army may think that they had defeated the Helians, but all they did was put up the barrier between the two sides. The Helians themselves were their own greatest enemy.

During the Great War, the Ikari had been willing to negotiate with the other side, despite their pride. They had no great love for the Aeilonian’s addiction to peace, and acceptance of all, but they hated the Menlics even more. Helios had once ruled the universe under Ikari control, and had once been respected and feared. Over the solar years, as his clan grew fewer in number the Menlics grew stronger and more aggressive.

Compared to the rest of his species, Iliriel was considered to be young, despite the fact that he has lived for three hundred solar cycles. Yet even he could remember the awful civil wars that had tore Helios apart even before the Great War had even started. He remembered the cities that were sacked, and the blood soaked battlefields. He remembered how the temples burned to the ground, and the dispossessed roamed the land. He remembered the assassins in the night, and the countless amounts of murders and betrayals. Even now, the Menlics fought the Atarians, who held the southern sector of the planet, and the Ba’el, who controlled the east.

When the Great War started, the Aeilonians would not have stood a chance of winning against Helios if it hadn’t been for the infighting. Aeilonians relied too heavily on their technology, and that was all they really had, whereas the Helians had mental and physical powers that terrified the Aeilonians, and trumped their technology. Iliriel himself could create and control both fire and lightening. It was easier for the Aeilonians to label all Helians as monstrous. To have a common enemy that could so easily stir up hatred was a powerful unifier.

For the sake of all Helios, the Ikari stowed their pride, and approached the Aeilonians for a truce. The Helians could not fight each other and the Aeilonians at the same time. It was madness, but the truce never happened. The negotiations were leaked to the Menlics. His clan was branded traitors, and handed over to the Menlics by the Aeilonians. His species was hard to kill without a heavy price in blood, but that did not stop them from being captured when outnumbered. Now they languished away in prisons all over Helios, and watched as the planet tore itself apart.

Iliriel stepped closer to the edge of his prison, and looked down on the plain below. The meager train of the dispossessed had disappeared into the maw of the city. They came here for a reprieve from the brutal winter to come, and the growing food shortage. Little did they know that death and cruelty awaited them in these walls. If his father had been running this city, this would not have happened.

He sighed as he thought of his family, and where they were. He had never been close to his siblings and his father. To him, they were connected by heritage and nothing else. No, when he thought of family, he always thought of her. The only person in his long life that had ever been able to stir his heart was his servant girl. Katherine was not like all the others. She was bold like a brilliant flame in his otherwise monochromatic world. No one knew he had taken her as his lover. No one could ever know.

Children of the Ikari, illegitimate or not, were powerful, and growing more and more rare. The Aeilonians and Menlics alike would fear his son. He couldn’t stop the Aeilonians from knowing about his son; his clan’s mark would pass to his son and appear on his arms. What he could hope for was that it would never be activated. Without an Oni spirit, his son’s powers would never awaken. To his knowledge, none of the Oni spirits had escaped the quarantine.

It was better that Katherine and his son lived on the other side of the barrier than in this dying world. It was better that his son had a chance at a normal life than chained to this life of war and chaos. The Aeilonians would soon forget what the marks on his son’s arms ever meant. He would never know who his father was, and maybe that was for the best. His son would have what he could never have. He would have a family, grow old and die peacefully as any normal creature should.

Traitor, monster, they were all names Iliriel had been called over the years. It was a legacy he did not want to pass to his son. He knew he could not save Katherine from the persecution of knowing him, but maybe his son would have a chance on the other side. Did it make him a monster for loving his servant? Did it make him a traitor for wanting her to survive even if it meant living in enemy territory? The Aeilonians could call Helians monsters, but it was their kind that dropped the chemical bombs which wiped out the food production on Helios. Did it make them the monsters for killing millions with hunger and disease? War could turn even the most idyllic creatures into beasts.

Iliriel looked up at the glimmering night sky. Somewhere out there Katherine lived, and his son was free. Though he was happy of that fact, a small part of him wished Katherine and his son were here with him. He knew it was selfish. His son would be enslaved, and Katherine killed as retribution against him for daring to take a slave as a lover. Their only chance lay out there, but a small part of him ached to hold her again. Did it make him a monster for having such a selfish desire? He guessed it was all a matter of perspective.

Iliriel sighed, and turned away from the night sky. The stars suddenly felt too cold to look upon anymore.

Day Five: The Great Abyss the future
Title: Taliah
Word Count: 1633

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Everyone had heard of the seer of the fourth district. Some joked that she was nothing more than a fraud with sharp eyes and educated guesses. Others truly believed that she could glimpse the future. Taliah liked to keep people guessing on the true nature of her ability. If they knew the truth of whom she was or what she saw, she would end up back in a prisoners pit.

So it came to no one’s surprise that the famous Marika Eneal, the most sought after Shaitan courtesan in the city, came down to the fourth for a reading. Her recent troubles with the guilds and lovers were splashed across the interlink in less than flattering ways. Taliah thought that the reading should be an easy credit maker. She already knew so much about the media icon. She would have to make some educated guess because her ability would more than likely not work.

Taliah’s ability only worked in certain circumstances and for certain creatures. She only ever saw future violence either done by the client or to the client. Sometimes the vision was muddled and confusing, and sometimes sharp as a Mayan crystal. She never knew what it was she was going to see, but she knew it would be awful. They always were. Then there came the added dilemma of whether or not she told her clients. What would they do? Some would laugh it off not wanting to believe that something that absurd could ever happen to them or be done by them. Others would take her words as fact, and instantly grow terrified, which led to even more complications. Soon people would question the veracity of her visions, which would eventually lead to questions about the source of her power. Where did it come from? How could she see the future? And those were the answers she did not like to give.

So when Marika requested an audience with her over the interlink, she thought it would be a quick way to make credit. She hadn’t had a real vision for years. Taliah was even more surprised when Marika made the request to come to her abode in the fourth district instead of Taliah coming to her. Was she ashamed to be seen with the seer? To this day, Taliah had no idea why Marika did what she did.

Taliah remembered that day vividly. She had taken the extra time to make sure the very best of her carpets were laid out, and that everything was clean. She put out her finest chairs, and lit incense to chase away the pungent scent of the fourth district. When Marika arrived, none of that seemed to matter.

Marika was tall and lean. She was not the youngest courtesan anymore, but her former beauty still peeked through her old age. Her once luminescent gray skin was now wrinkled and sagging. The skin on her face seemed to have been artificially tightened, and the tentacles on her head were beginning to show spots of white.

Taliah had never seen a famous Shaitan courtesan up close before. The media did wonders to make her look younger than she actually was. It soon grew clear though that Marika was not happy to be in the fourth district as was seen from the obvious disdain of her surroundings. Her words were sharp when she spoke to Taliah, and she wrinkled her medically reshaped nose in disgust when she looked around her humble abode. Taliah would normally have taken offense at such behavior, but her curiosity and need for a large pay off kept her temper in check. Something had driven Marika to come to the fourth district even when she clearly despised being here. Fear. Taliah remembered sensing it coming off her client as she primly sat down on the chair opposite the seer. Something was terrifying her.

Taliah remembered knowing exactly what she would say to Marika before her stubby, horned hands reached out and took Marika’s dainty ones. She had the most fanciful prediction and story all ready to spout out, but she had not been prepared for what happened next. One moment, she was taking Marika’s hands, ready to dramatically unfold her fanciful prediction. The next moment her mind and body were slammed with one of the strongest visions she had ever had. Her world spun as violent image after violent image crashed down on her. Her body went rigid and began to shake violently. She distantly remembered the courtesan shrieking in pain as she crushed her hands in her grip.

When asked later what it was exactly she had seen, Taliah would clam up in terror. It was the most horrifying flash of images she had ever seen. When they finished, she remembered vomiting everything she had eaten earlier in the day. She remembered the look of disgust on Marika’s face.

Taliah couldn’t bear telling her all the gruesome details, so she told her what she could. Marika would be abducted from a party. It was no ordinary party. It was an opulent party thrown by a well known and wealthy citizen in the city. When pressed on whom, Taliah had no answer to that because she never saw who it was. Marika would then suffer an entire year of unimaginable and degrading torture of every kind. When asked what happened after a year, Taliah again had no answer. She wasn’t certain what would happen to Marika after that, but she knew that Marika would not be the only one this fate would be visited on. There were other females in the vision, alive and dead.

When pushed by Marika for more information, Taliah had no more to give. What she had seen was enough, but not to Marika. Calling her a fraud, Marika stormed out of Taliah’s tiny abode without even paying her the credit chips they had agreed on. Later, Marika spread the claim that Taliah was a fraud all over the interlink. In one day Marika destroyed the tiny reputation Taliah had built.

A couple days later, Marika Eneal disappeared in suspicious circumstances. An extensive search was set up to find the media icon to no affect. Marika was taken, and the media remembered that a prediction had been made by the seer just days before. When they went to find Taliah to hear the story from her of what happened that fateful night, Taliah had packed up, and disappeared. She had known exactly what would happen once news of Marika’s disappearance hit the interlink. She knew a storm of questions were coming her way.

When Marika’s personal journal was found and published, particulars of the vision hit the interlink like a whirlwind. The hunt for the seer grew even more intense as both the authorities and the media alike wanted to speak with her. Questions were dangerous for her. Questions often led to the source of her power, and her past. So Taliah went into even deeper hiding. The fourth district had been her home for years. She knew all the secret places the authorities had no idea of.

She vowed to never tell a soul what it was she saw that day, but when other females started to go missing, Taliah began to question that vow. How could she tell what information she knew without giving away her dirty little secret? Taliah had Helian blood running through her veins. She even had a Helian mark, which was small enough to easily conceal. Everyone knew of the terrifying powers the Helians were supposed to have, including being able to see the future. Taliah was a fourth generation Helian. Her great grand ancestor bore a child to a low ranking Helian, and his powers had passed down to her. Taliah hated that part of her lineage, and did her best to hide it, but she wasn’t sure what to do if hiding it meant more females would go missing. And then there was the added problem of whom to tell, and who would believe her. If she told the wrong creature, she could be shipped off to a prisoner pit or worse, and the information would never be used. Taliah didn’t like those odds, so she decided to stay in hiding.

This all changed when the first cadet went missing. The Royal Army announced that they were taking over the investigation. Taliah knew there was one creature who would believe her because he was just like her. When it was announced that cadet squad thirteen would help with the investigation, Taliah could no longer ignore the signs around her. Only the captain of squad thirteen would believe her because only he was like her, a creature of Helian lineage.

It was at that moment that Taliah came out of hiding, and went to the intercity police force where the investigation was being coordinated. For once she wished she could see what the future held for her. Would she be able to talk to the captain?

Taliah was not brave like the captain, who faced ridicule over his heritage stoically. She had never been like that, but she also couldn’t stomach knowing what she knew. So she allowed herself to be captured by the authorities when she came into the second district. She quickly made it known that she would only talk to the captain of squad thirteen. Little did she know, but the captain had already been searching desperately for her. It was a member of his squad that had gone missing, and she was the only potential witness. When Taliah arrived at the front doors of the police headquarters, the captain was already there, waiting for her patiently.

And for once, Taliah felt some good could come of what she was. She hoped what she knew would be enough.

Day 6: Hot Topic
Title: Hearts and minds
Word Count: 1499

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It was the eve of the mock battle, and squad thirteen was abuzz with the rumors floating around the Interlink about their captain. According to the Interlink, he was a fiend. He was a glutton of sexual depravities, and he killed without remorse. Every imaginable horror was laid on his name, an ever growing collar of shame meant to wear him down. Every time a mock battle was scheduled for his squad, these rumors would spread like wildfire over the Interlink.

He never knew who spread the lies, nor did he really care. Lies were lies and rumors rumors. He would give them no power by acknowledging their existence. They were an underhanded tactic to disrupt his squad’s trust and harmony with him and each other, and a way to turn popular opinion against them. Not that the last aspect really mattered. Popular opinion had never been on their side, not with the sort of creatures that found their way on his team

Alexander did what he could to keep his squad focused. He trained them daily, from terrain practice to hand to hand and specialty skills. He trained their minds with strategy, and their bodies in conditioning. He honed each member’s skills, striving to reach perfection, and still that was not enough to keep their time occupied. Inevitably, they found their way to the Interlink, and the rumors that run amok there.

Some of his members that had been with him the longest had learned, like he had, to ignore what was said about their squad. It did no good to linger on what were wild, and often contradicting stories. Other members of his squad had still not learned to block it out. It still brought them an endless source of shame, but winning was their imperative. It was their only imperative. For many on his squad they had no other choice but to win. Each loss meant that a point was taken from each member’s record. If too many points were deducted, the cadet could find themselves booted out of the Academy, or worse death, and for prisoners with death sentences, that was exactly what awaited them. On a normal squad, this was not a worry the members really had to contend with. A loss, while bad and embarrassing, only lost them some points. Those could easily be made up in other areas. His squad was special. It was made up of all the rejects from the other squads. Oftentimes, he had no say over who he got on his squad. So he made do with what he had as he always did.

Instead of wallowing in the lies spread about him, Alexander scrolled through the files on each of the potential squads his squad may be facing tomorrow. No one was supposed to know who it was they faced in a mock battle until the day of, but most often every squad knew because it was leaked on the Interlink. This was the one disadvantage to his limited access to the Interlink. Not only would he have to sift through each sick lie made up about him, but his account was often hijacked.

In the end, it never did them good. In the past whenever he found the answer, he realized that it was what his educated guess could have already told him. Each mock battle took place in brackets, and only a handful of teams occupied each bracket. He basically studied each team’s tactics and past mock battles which were available to every cadet. Fortunately, that particular store of knowledge was not connected to the Interlink. The Academy’s separate database had become his refuge.

And this was the very thing he was doing right at that very moment. Alexander scrolled through each potential team’s data from the statistics of the team, to the academy record of each member to the collected recordings of each mock battle. Knowledge was his team’s best armor, and he would know everything. He just wished his squad could ignore the lies and focus on the truth as he had.

Alexander sighed, and looked down at the pulsing marks that extended up both arms from his wrist to his shoulders. Whenever he was agitated, his marks would begin to pulsate. Alexander traced the delicate lines that arched and whirled in strange and ever shifting patterns on his arms. He found them to be delicate and beautiful, not monstrous as everyone would have them be. This was the legacy passed down to him from his father. It was what physically marked him as different.

To Alexander, they were both a blessing and a curse. There were countless times in his childhood when he wished he had not had the marks. He had even tried burning them off. All it did was cause him immense pain, and give him the harshest tongue lashing his mother had ever given him. The wounds healed as all his wounds healed, quick and without leaving a mark, but her words stayed with him.

His marks were nothing to be ashamed of nor was his father. That was the first time his mother ever spoke about his father. He had always assumed that he was a byproduct of force as did everyone else in the prison pit he grew up in. His mother’s stories about his father seemed to be a complete contradiction of what rumors had said about the Helians. His mother had fallen in love with his father. According to her, he had never hurt her or taken anything from her by force. He was patient, intelligent, strong, and kind. These were all traits that contradicted the lies.

Now he understood how quickly lies and misunderstandings could spread. His marks were no longer a source of shame. Everyone who saw them thought they automatically tainted him evil, but he saw nothing evil about the beautiful patterns that danced just below the surface of his skin. The Oni spirit he had had since a boy was not evil either, but every story on the Interlink would paint it as so. The misunderstandings, and blatant prejudice could be wearisome at times, but it was a burden he had learned to bear a long time ago.

There was only one thing he could do to lighten that burden, and that was to win. Every irrefutable win brought them a little more recognition from the Academy. Their first win had been attributed to a fluke. Their second win was a coincidence. Squads tried to find ways to refute them, but the recording crystals never lied. They won, and they won fairly. Everything he did, from how he wore his uniform to how he acted in public, he did to conform to the rules. He could not control the rumors, but he could control his actions as well as his squad’s. Members of his squad knew better than to break a rule. That was one thing he was ruthless over was the rules.

Hearts and minds. That was how he planned on chipping away at the mountain of hatred directed at them. He would win over one heart and mind over at a time if he had to. And it was working. Every win used to be scrutinized for foul play at the request of the losing team. Most often, more evidence of cheating was found on the losing squad than on his own. Now, every win was accepted, and soon expected. Squads trembled when they thought they may have to face squad thirteen.

His attention to following the rules was beginning to change the sort of rumors spread about him as well. Even though he never went on the Interlink, his squad still reported the largest lies and scandals to him, indirectly feeding him information he used. In the beginning, the rumors used to focus on sexual deprave acts he was rumored of committing in the entertainment district. Females would even claim to have been ravaged by him. When it became clear that it would be almost impossible for him to leave the Academy without someone noticing, the rumors of his nightly adventures in the entertainment district grew fewer and fewer. Soon even the rumors of sexually deprave acts began to whither when it was clear he never made contact with any females or creatures for that matter outside of his squad.

Hearts and minds. He would change creature’s perception of him and his squad just as he had changed the very rumors going around about him. When he didn’t acknowledge their existence, it made creating them no longer fun for the creators. Though certain members of his squad were still affected by them, the lies were meant to cripple him, and they never did. No, he didn’t need to fight fire with fire. He would win the public over one victory at a time. And one day, maybe, he would be able to walk proudly down the halls with his marks showing. One day, he would know true respect.