Fen woke up long past the designated time for his Lesson with Raisen. With a groan, he barely managed to lift his head off his bed as a loud banging noise coming from his bedroom door startled him awake.
Turning his head and seeing the dimly lit room, he groaned and rested his head back on the comfortable pillow.
"I SWEAR TO THE HEAVENS FEN, IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR ASS UP, I'LL BLOW THIS DOOR OPEN-" An angry feminine voice thundered through his door.
"Alright! I'm up." Fen hurled himself off the bed without even changing into the Opfer uniform and threw open the door to see a pissed off Amelia holding a ball of fire in both her hands.
"...I ask this a lot, but what the hell are you wearing?"
He looked down to see that he was still wearing his sleep wear; the clothes that he last wore when he was on Earth. Of course the clothes were washed and clean now and were no longer covered in all that disgusting stuff- to be honest, Fen considered burning them- but they were much more comfortable to wear than what the Foundation provided the Opfer with so he decided to keep them.
The clothes weren't anything silly like a kids' extra-large or anything, but the shirt was a plain extra-extra large white t-shirt. Miko didn't complain much when he dressed comfortably, so he usually did. After his growth spurt in the Program the shirt was tighter than before but still hung low around his waist.
Fen's face twitched at the implied insult in her words. "What, I'm comfortable. What time is it anyway?" He pushed past her with bleary eyes and saw that the rest of the Squad room was empty, with only the two of them left.
"Did Gray and Qin already leave?" He yawned.
"Of course they did! What the hell were you doing all night to sleep past all our knocking?" Amelia exploded after stifling down her comment on Fen's choice of clothes. After a moment of silence she visibly recoiled. "Were you doing that...?"
"No."
"Okay..." She didn't sound entirely convinced.
Checking the interface, Fen was surprised to see that the time for his Mana manipulation Lesson was rapidly approaching. Actually, it looked like he hadn't just slept past the beginning of his Lesson with Raisen but also the ending as well.
He shot a look at Amelia.
"So why are you still here?"
"I came back from my Lesson, obviously. What, you think I'd wait all this time just for you-"
"I understand, got it." He cut her off before she could hurt any of his remaining feelings.
Without saying anything else, he walked to his room and changed into his black Opfer uniform. Although he was still pretty tired from last night, he still had to attend the Mana Lesson otherwise he'd lose out on potential benefits. Missing out on meeting with Raisen was acceptable, with just him in the Lesson, there was no one else who could gain anything out of it.
He decided to look at it like giving Raisen more free time. Who knew if the old Knight was getting any from the Foundation; it didn't look like they were the type of organization to give their members benefits besides opportunities to learn magic and other Class related information. Maybe that was why most of them were so mentally unstable; it was the complete lack of break time.
Probably not, but he could still believe that there was a chance they were sane after all, right?
****
A day before the start of the Program, within a universe that was also beginning it's attempt to Transition.
"Eat some more Osiris, we can't have you lose more weight." A woman with kind eyes scooped up more food and dropped it onto a teenager's already full plate, much to Osiris' sorrow.
"But mom..."
"No buts! You're skinny enough as is, and it's not like we don't have enough food for you to eat." Osiris' mother's stern voice cut him off before he could put up any attempt at resisting her efforts to feed him.
While mumbling about the unfairness of being born with a small stomach, Osiris shoveled more food down his mouth while his mother watched, smiling.
His father kept silent to the side. If he had the energy to, he'd also support his wife in feeding their son more food but alas, working had taken most of the energy he had. This time of eating was one of the few breaks the family got from work, so they took their time eating while also making small talk about each of their day's.
Osiris had just graduated from school two months prior, and now he was actively searching for work. While he could seek a higher education, he and his family were more than aware that he lacked the intelligence to gain knowledge higher than the third circle of school.
While he wasn't stupid, Osiris had a hard time wrapping his head around concepts such as mathematics and the natural sciences. His dream was to become an artist and have millions of fans admire his drawn stories, but he was aware that he needed to support himself before he could even start thinking about putting his thoughts onto canvas.
His mom and dad would support him no matter what he did as long as he was happy, even if he collected trash or, Heavens forbid, became a lawyer.
Currently Osiris was on track to start work in a chemical plant as an entry level hire, and while the work environment could be a little gloomy, the pay and hours were perfect for him. In his free time he planned to begin thinking about what stories to draw and storyboard.
Their nice evening was interrupted when a pulse of energy shook the table and the whole house.
"Earthquake! Get under the table!" With a shocked expression, his dad immediately started barking at his wife and son, pulling them underneath the hard wood table. All of them were stunned at the sudden shaking. Such natural disasters were extremely rare where they lived; in fact, none of them could remember the last time they even heard of an earthquake much less experienced one.
But the shaking ended as quickly as it started.
After a minute of silence and apprehension, Osiris poked his head out from underneath the table while his dad hissed at him to get back. The uncertain youth shook his and pointed at the window, his eyes shaking as his mind struggled to comprehend what he was seeing.
Seeing their son point and gape, his parents got out from underneath the table and looked out the window. His mom gasped and clutched at her mouth while his dad opened and closed his mouth. None of them knew what they were seeing.
The event that captured all their attention was the changing of the sky. The color of their sky was rapidly transforming, no, pulsing into different colors!
Gold, blue, red, purple, green, all these colors seeped into the sky seemingly from nowhere. When the sky became completely polluted by these energies, the ground trembled once more and sent the family to the floor just to remain stabilized.
The shaking continued increasing in intensity until it stopped once again. Even more anxious and uncertain, Osiris peered into the sky again and saw that the colors in the sky had stopped moving.
Before, when they were pooling into the sky, the colorful energies flowed freely without any restraints but now they were frozen in place. Slowly, the energies started moving again; this time however, the started condensing in certain areas to form balls of violent energy.
His parents got up too. Instead of pulling their son to safety like they did for what they believed to be an 'earthquake', they watched silently as massive cracks began to form in their sky where the energy was condensing.
These balls of energy were all pure white, forming small balls across the sky. All of the condensed balls of energy were the exact same distance from one another, and inside the balls small cracks formed as dimensional Rifts were forcibly torn into their reality.
These Rifts expanded in size until it looked like they'd be able to devour entire mountains, and it was at this point that a massive surge of energy erupted from one of these Rifts and connected to all the other white Rifts!
Osiris watched with horror in eyes as an army of soldiers armed with weapons of white metal and wings attached to their backs flooded through the dimensional cracks. There didn't seem to be an end to them as they continued to fly through the Rift and use their wings to stabilize themselves in the sky.
None of these white soldiers were facing the ground however. Every single one of them looked upwards at a single black Rift which continued to grow in size despite the immense army glaring up at it. With a terribly loud crack, the black Rift burst open and two beings exited out from it, looking like tiny dots compared to the massive crack in the sky.
The dots and the white army stayed in place for a few moments, and Osiris assumed that there must have been a conversation taking place. Just as he began to wonder what they were talking, another flood of energy invaded their reality.
This time, the energy came from the black Rift in the sky, seemingly called down by the two individuals that exited from it. The white army shivered in place as they vibrated their wings, emitting white light as each of them exploded into energy and crashed themselves against the wave sent by these two beings.
A battle between unfathomable powers was taking place in the sky, as hundreds of thousands of white winged soldiers pitted themselves against just two people. Osiris's heart pounded as he watched the power that they used, emitting powerful beams of energy that sent dozens of those soldiers into the afterlife. As he watched, he saw a single soldier get too close to one of them and get their body slammed across the sky.
His body burning from forcibly being thrown across the sky, the winged soldier crash landed on Osiris' house through the roof. Flames erupted along this soldier's body as they groaned and pulled their bleeding body off the ground. Their eyes gleamed with yellow light as they looked straight at the terrified family in the house they landed in; Osiris didn't dare to move a single muscle while under that powerful gaze.
[Vitul? Here? Ha, just my luck... Come here, you.] The winged being spoke in an unfamiliar tongue and reached across the room towards Osiris, ignoring the grievous wounds across it's body. It's white and silver armor was dented beyond recognition, but that didn't stop it from moving.
His parents could only stand by as they watched the white soldier get closer and closer to their beloved son. Not even their endless love was strong enough to overcome the pressure coming from a Stage five Warrior.
Suddenly, another being crashed through the roof of the building, landing right next to Osiris. A beam of light erupted from the spot this individual landed and struck the winged soldier in the chest, sending them flying through a wall of the house and back outside, killing them immediately.
Osiris creaked his neck to the side to see one of the individuals from the black Rift standing next to him, putting a warm hand on his shoulder. The being stood at least 2.5 meters tall (8'2'' roughly) with perfectly proportional limbs packed with muscle. Its face was startlingly twisted into a frown filled with anger, with two visible veins pulsing on it's forehead. Just by staring at it, he felt a strange feeling of pressure.
It looked human. And for some reason, despite it's twisted features and rage-filled expression, Osiris struggled to describe it as anything but beautiful. Its eyes were the deepest red he had ever seen, with tiny pinhole pupils that showed complex feelings of loss and grief.
While he was watching, Osiris failed to notice the sudden quietness of the surroundings. The sky around their home was clear again, with no trace of the desperate struggle the white soldiers put up against the two powerful beings that came from the black Rift. The only evidence that there was a fight were the destroyed homes and buildings littered across the city, with corpses of white-armored soldiers lying everywhere.
In the short time that it took the white soldier in Osiris' home to reach out to grab him, the two beings from the black Rift had already managed to eliminate every one of their winged enemies.
Lost in thought, Osiris failed to notice that the giant's gaze had shifted over to him, it's perfect red eyes affixed onto him.
[Huh. Looks as if their predictions were right, Aiko. What a coincidence that a stray angel landed in a house with a family of Vituls.] The same foreign language spilled out from the angry man, causing a puzzled expression to form on Osiris' face. [Eh? Aiko? Where are you anyways, I thought we already finished over there.]
The giant turned it's head upwards towards the ceiling where the other being calmly floated down.
Osiris felt his body freeze in place as his brain took in this other person's appearance. He wasn't frozen from fear, but rather his heart seemed to have stopped. That was perfectly understandably of course, as this person was...
'Argh!' He couldn't even find any words to describe her. And it was most definitely a 'her'. She wore heavy metal armor and bore a terrifying staff at her waist made from the bones of monsters, but those tools of violence did nothing to take away from her natural beauty. She had waist-long silky black hair and a face that made eye contact an aerobic activity, with gray eyes free from all stress. The second she entered the room, the three ordinary people felt a sudden pull towards her as if her beauty was so significant that it had a gravitational pull.
[I'm here Helmer. I was busy getting evidence, unlike you, who can simply charge away and do whatever they want.] Aiko snorted. [Oh? You found the-]
Helmer cut off the beautiful lady before she could mention the presence of the family of Vituls.
[I did. So? Where is this evidence?]
[Right here.]
With a pop, two winged soldiers were dumped onto the floor by Aiko as she used a magical spellwork. The two were in very bad shape, with their wings barely hanging onto their bodies with their bones being visible in multiple places. One of them immediately tried to take advantage of their freedom to circulate Vital energy around their body in a last-ditch effort to try and escape, but the giant muscular man pressed their foot against their back, crushing their spine and killing them.
The other one, apparently much weaker-willed than their friend, shivered and stopped moving as they watched the violent death of the other winged soldier. Shaking, it began to speak words filled with regret with an undertone of anger hidden underneath.
[How dare you... To rely on the help of Chaos Primordials is a sinful thing... You will eventually die for your sins.] Despite it's hateful words, it never raised it's eyes off the floor as it felt the weight of the power carried by the two individuals.
[Heh, do you actually still believe in that sin crap? You're the ones that still rely on your Seraphs to win your battles, you cowards.]
Helmer removed the hand he had placed on Osiris' shoulder as he backhanded the white soldier, obliterating it's jaws into powder and almost shattering their neck.
[Oi! Be careful, he can't tell us anything if he dies.]
The giant smirked, their wrathful expression morphing into something much more sinister. [Don't worry, he won't die. He'll only wish he had.]
[What about them?] Aiko gestured with her chin towards the cowering family, Osiris' parents using their hands and bodies to shield the eyes of their son from the horrible sight of the crushed white soldier.
[Let them watch. It'll help them understand the truth of the universe faster before we bring them home with us.]