Victor Style gazed across the project his unit was responsible for.
As the U.S. involvement in the war in Pakistan came to a close, he was stuck on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean for some god-forsaken country he didn't give two fucks about.
If there was one thing he had learned during his eight years as an officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, it was unwise to criticize the high command's stupidity openly.
Thus he kept his mouth shut as he and the other engineers mapped out the new F-16 fighter jet project while the enlisted personnel was hard at work engineering the beautiful jet that served virtually no purpose whatsoever to U.S. forces who were already pulling out of the country in large numbers.
That's right while they were pulling out while he was engineering a new type of fighter jet for this war.
Victor may not care for being stranded in the ocean on a aircraft carrier for months on months.
Still, he considered it a giant loss to pull out of the country when the Pakistani National Army was clearly incapable of contending with the terrorist without U.S. support.
In his mind, the U.S. had invested over trillions dollars in the war and thousands of lives, yet before their mission was complete, they were pulling out. Leaving a fledgling democratic country like Pakistan, which the US had installed as a puppet state to fend for themselves. This was Iraq and Vietnam all over again, and we all know how that turned out.
He was much more comfortable sitting in the state room in the middle of the ocean playing nerdy games like, rebuilding guns 101 and agricultural simulators.
When he wasn't working, he educated himself on fantasy worlds like dragons, elves, goblins. and so much more and when he was bored he would read about philosophy, politics, economics, and old technology.
After all, he was a super geek when it came to an educated individual, having graduated at the top of his class in Civil Engineering from Special Specs Military Academy.
During his youth, he always had a nerdy personality when it came to Engineering. If you gave him a gun, he was more interested in taking it apart and putting it back together than he was with shooting the damn thing.
As he grew through out puberty, he had spent most of his time on the web or in a library reading manga and engineering books.
Victor tried his hardest ever since he was a boy to make significant improvements in technology, and how to replicate them.
With a photographic memory and an high IQ, he could commit these things to his permanent memory.
During his high school years, he only focused on his studies, taking many unnecessary electives; by the time he graduated and entered the armed forces, he was practically a walking nerd of knowledge ranging from liberal arts to technical knowledge.
Obviously, this did not do him any favors when it came to woman...
Because this is how he chose to spend his free time, he was quite obviously very single and had no friends to rely upon him.
Not even a house pet, as he considered it but decided to hold off because he was going into the military and wouldn't be able to see them once he was shipped off to who knows where.
Yet here he was, stuck on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean, engaging in a project engineering a giant fighter jet in a country the U.S Military had already declared its full withdrawal date, which was only a month away. He didn't understand the brass' thinking, but it was just another enormous waste of the taxpayers' money at the end of the day.
While he was looking at the maps of the project and focusing deeply, he could hear the voices of a few Non-Commissioned Officers joking around in the background, discussing how they intended to go back home to their wives and kids.
These older men had been deployed for years and didn't have a shred of nationalism left in their bodies; as such, they did not care about the loss the country faced in this land; they only cared about going home.
Not that he could blame them.
Just as Victor was gonna tell them to start working again, the alarms went off on the carrier singling an enemy attack, a thunderous sound of a fighter jet in the near distance could be heard as it headed in the carrier's direction. Only a single thought crossed Victor's mind as he gazed at the fighter jet coming down straight toward him.
'Fuck its a suicide pilot!'
Victor made a dash toward the cockpit but tripped over a wrench.
With that final thought, his consciousness was engulfed in the flames and explosion of the fighter jet which crashed into the carrier, as well as the lives of the other officers in the area. He died by a surprising attack from an unknown group.
-----
Felix awoke with a shout as his startled voice echoed throughout a small wooden house.
His eyes darted frantically across the area. After carefully observing, he realized he was not killed by that suicide pilot but instead lying on a stack of hay with a small dog licking his face.
Near where he was laying was an older woman sitting on a broken wooden chair that was on the verge of falling apart, she looked over with saddened eyes.
Flora was his mothers name; despite her age, she looked extremely young, with long black hair and sparkling purple eyes that were the color of a Verbena.
As he gazed upon the shocked woman he quickly thought to himself.
'Shit my head hurts...'
Felix touched his head with his right hand trying to calm the pain.
Thousands of memories flooded his head and started playing like a movie.
It appeared he was inside the body of a 13 year old kid named Felix Von who was born into an extremely poor family consisting of a mother and an older sister whose name was Akari.
"Felix, are you awake!?"
Flora spoke excitedly, standing up from the wooden chair she hurried over to her son, grabbing his right hand off his head and pushing it against her massive breast.
Ignoring that his right hand was being squeezed between a pair of breasts, his eyes locked onto his mothers eyes and he couldn't help but ask.
"What happened to me?"
Even after seeing all of the old memories he still didn't know why he was laying on a stack of hay.
Flora looked toward the ground with rage in her beautiful eyes, clenching her left hand she responded to her son in an enraged tone.
"The knight order of the holy kingdom knocked you unconscious with a club and brought you back here and made me pay up all of our rations in the name of god..."
Just remembering when those pathetic holy knights came to her small house with her son bleeding from the head sent her in a frenzy, being restrained they started taking bread, wheat, and so many crops while they were saying "In the name of god we shall attain these rations for the greater good!"
Seeing his mother get angrier he held her hand with his own and stood up from the hay bed, once he was on his two feet he pulled his mother into a hug which surprised her.
He gently leaned into her ear and whispered.
"Thank you for watching over me as I was being judged between life and death."
Felix was about to detach himself but was held tightly by his mother who started sobbing into his shoulder.
"Tha-Thank y-you fo-for liv- living..."
Flora's words were hard to understand between all of the crying and sniffling.
Felix wrapped his arms around his mother once again and let her cry her eyes out, he truly was grateful to have such a mother who would watch over him while he was on his deathbed.
In his past life when he was shot in the leg his mother didn't give two damns all she said was "Will this affect your education can you still go to school?"
But in this life he had a mother who would wait beside him until he woke up.
Guilt started to crawl into Felix's body just thinking he stole this boy's body from a loving and caring mother caused him to start crying as well.
Both son and mother cried while hugging each other for the next hour.
He promised himself he would take care of his family no matter what.