Knock! Knock! Knock!
"Come in," Anthony Hendrick|Professor Hendrick replied to whoever knocked on his door, turning his head left.
"Professor." The voice of a teenager was heard as the door creaked open.
"Oh, Tommy. Come in."
The professor, who wore a grumpy expression from all the work, immediately smiled gently as young Tommy walked in.
Tommy was a young survivor, 14 years of age, and he seemed to have lost all his family members, all alone in the world. He was a younger brother to one of Professor Hendrick's students, and happened to be in the university waiting to go out for a meal together. The two siblings survived, but three days ago, his sister went out scavenging with her group and they never returned, now assumed missing in action.
Tommy approached the professor and spoke:
"Professor, something's happening down there. Raj told me to get you while the others keep people inside."
As he heard that, the professor frowned and stood up immediately. A lot of secrets were being kept from the public in order not to spread panic, and his students wouldn't do anything that drastic unless there was a real emergency.
"Let's go."
The professor walked up and picked up his old brown jacket, and changed his reading glasses to his normal ones. The gray of his hair and the beard, which he had let grow the past month, revealed his age to be in his late 50s, a rare sight among the human survivors, who barely had any elderly left.
The factory they were using as shelter was built with red bricks, and it had two stories. The upper one was built with metal and had two rooms, one was the research room, and the other was the storage room. The survivors lived in camps on the ground level, which was vast enough to accommodate them all.
The survivors seemed tense for some reason, and everyone was watching the professor get down. There, he was met with Raj, a student of his that had awakened the Warrior class, and now acts as the defense patrol leader.
"Professor, there is something that you need to see," Raj said and looked at Tommy, "Thomas, wait here."
"Is it…"
Tommy was about to ask something, but it only irritated Raj.
"It is not your sister, I swear," Raj said and turned to the professor, "Please, sir. This is not something we anticipated."
The professor approached the gate, where most of his students stood guard. Stepping out under the cloudy blue sky, he found four of his students surrounding two Strangers, weapons drawn and ready..
The strangers were dressed in tattered clothes and heavily cloaked. One was even masked, and when the one in front removed their hood, Professor Hendrick felt a jolt run through him.
"This… can't be true!"
What he saw in front of him was the closest yet farthest thing he could have imagined of such a situation: two individuals of non-human origins, slender bodies, almost petite, one taller than the other. Their big eyes looked like a cosmic night sky and were larger than our own, the skin gray with subtle traces and patterns, and they had facial proportions which humans would call alien, yet not revolting to look at. However, what was a distinction between them and our imagination of them was how closely they looked like us, and how they had rather long pointy ears and sleek flowing hair. (A.n: Inspiration Art available for First Tier on P@treon)
On the 100th day of the world's end, Humanity encountered Aliens.
°°°
A hole had been dug deep enough to fit the large hatch door from the shelter. It was the morning of the 101st day after the apocalypse, and Adam and Kave were performing a burial ritual to the best of their battered abilities.
To dig at all, Adam had needed something new—something born from the all-night training he and Kave had spent refining his Puppeteer power. His invention was crude, reminiscent of the Gobzkin Shaman's grotesque constructs but much smaller. Built from scrap—can parts, wood sticks, and steel wire scavenged from the Tanaka garage and the ruins nearby—Adam shaped the puppet's hands like a spade and trained all morning to move it properly.
After making a mass grave for the raiders and covering them in silence, they turned to someone who mattered—Mr. Tanaka, Kave's father.
Kave chose the backyard of the ruined house. The place needed clearing, but the earth was soft. The puppet dug efficiently. Neither of them could perform a proper ceremony, so they just sat, shoulder to shoulder, in front of the grave.
Kave's face was stiff, unreadable. But Adam knew the weight behind the silence. Kave was rarely quiet—his nature was anything but.
"…So was your father."
"Hm?" Kave frowned.
"Mr. Tanaka. You resemble him."
"Bullshit."
"No, really. He was full of fire—loud, dramatic, couldn't bottle anything in. Always said you made him mad, but truth is, he was already half-mad before you were born."
Kave gave a faint smile, seeing through Adam's attempt.
[A/n: We have made it to chapter 11. Please consider supporting the author for this story to get bigger. You can always leave a comment to encourage the author, donate stones, or review the story]
"I mean, how many times did he chase us out? Beat us up, call our parents… He even caught me and Magpie down in the cave once. That was the most awkward moment of my entire life."
"I remember. I couldn't bring you over for six months after that." Kave laughed softly. "Though, he wasn't mad at you or Maggie. Just kept saying, 'Your friend can get girls. What's wrong with you? You no man?'"
"Right? We were, like, eighteen. And he still tried to call our folks. Can't believe he even humbled Mr. Dorset that day."
"Fuck Mr. Dorset."
"…But your dad, man. The way he saved you."
That brought silence again.
Adam lowered his gaze, then spoke with quiet honesty.
"He went out like a badass. And he loved you something fierce. Said he wanted you to move out, sure—but when push came down to shove, he was the one to chicken out."
Kave broke. His face sank into the dirt, fists clenched. Grief poured out in silence, raw and heavy.
Adam patted his back for a time, then left him to grieve alone and say goodbye in private.
An hour passed.
Now he leaned against a fence post—an old marker they'd repurposed for the grave. He scooped a fistful of earth, kissed it, and smeared it over his face. Then he stood—not as his father's boy, but as his own man. He had inherited a debt—a weight of sacrifice—and he knew now it must be turned into something great.
"Tōsan…" (Father…)
He knelt once more, lowering his head, hands on the ground.
"…gōmen nasai… arigatou." (… I am sorry… and thank you.)
He raised his head, standing up and turning back. He walked through the half-burnt house, filled with memories, picking up things as he went, each with a memory dear and near.
He then sucked in a breath of cold air and saw his reflection in a half-broken piece of glass at the kitchen. His hair almost all gone from all the madness and hair-pulling he went through, his beard scattered and messy, and his overall looks miserable.
He opened a drawer, taking a pair of scissors and standing against his reflection. Not two minutes passed, and he got rid of everything.
"Sorry, oka-san."
He looked at his mother's favorite sewing scissors and put them in his pocket, and went outside to meet with Adam, who was sitting on a nearby garden stone.
"I am ready. Let's do this," Kave said.
Adam looked back at him, paused for a while, and revealed something in his hand.
A miniature, of course, that's what made them friends from the start. The hobby that will turn into power.
Adam placed the miniature back in the tool box alongside the many unique others they made and painted to the best of their ability all night long.
Summoning more people from a war-torn world to an apocalyptic one in hopes of saving it; what can go wrong?
There was hesitation, but eventually, Adam found a friend to lean on.
"You decided on the first one to summon?" Kave asked.
"Yes." Adam nodded and picked up the most important miniature in the set of nine they have.
Kave looked at that miniature and nodded to his friend.
"That's some fine work," he said.
"It was you and me working on this together, after all," Adam agreed.
In his hand, he held a miniature of a female Man-at-Arms Sergeant: medium blonde hair, blue eyes, a face scar right beneath her sharp gaze, and red lips. Her left arm was a glowing red bionic prosthetic, while her right hand held a light Blazer gun. She wore an elegant black and red military coat and a black, red, and gold peaked visor cap emblazoned with the winged-sun of the Solarium. [A/n: The cover girl.]
Adam put the miniature on the stone he was standing on and raised his hand over it. He closed his eyes, and remembered the feeling that he was perfecting all night.
He took in a deep breath and reached out to the Puppeteer Rune within him, surrendering most of his mental capacity to it and delving deeper into its mysteries.
He felt that every aspect of his energy was being drained. He would faint if it draws more than this, but he needed to push himself further and further. He clenched his teeth and knew that he was against something far greater than himself… but he can't let it overwhelm him, that's for sure.
It demanded more power, and once its conditions were fulfilled, Adam opened his eyes that were beaming with power.
"ARISE!"
And he collapsed!
≪ Your Psyche has improved! (II → III) ≫
≪ Your Sanity has improved! (I → II) ≫
Kave rushed to help him, but then light flashed in front of his eyes, almost blinding him, and from the light she emerged, a presence brimming with power and authority stepped ahead.
Kave was speechless, gulping from the overwhelming scene no man could comprehend.
As for the figure stepping from the light, the moment she walked a step, the whole aura of light disappeared behind her, and she took one step to stand in front of Adam, who was down on his knees, holding his head from pain.
She offered a hand, the left one before his face, and as he held to it, she raised him with one pull without even trying.
One look at her eyes would unnerve any man, and the scars beneath them only asserted her dominance in the madness of war. Still, one like Adam who survived 100 days in a world that tried its best to kill him was not easy to unnerve or scare. He seemed tired, but his eyes demanded authority and his ambitions spoke clear volumes.
She approved of him right away with a growing feeling of patriotism igniting with her, fueled by his tired yet unyielding eyes, and she spoke:
"Sergeant Mechanic Elena Skarn, reporting for duty!"
≪ You have gained 1 EXP! ≫