CHAPTER ONE : WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

CHAPTER ONE

20th January, 2173

6.2 million lightyears from earth

ID: Outer ring planet, Moniquexx region; Neapolitan

Damien

The thick branches and vines swept past me as I quickly sprinted in the grassy terrain that enveloped me. I was not here on holiday but on a training task that would be my last whether i died or not.

I was a recruit of the empire of Lancelot's grand army. I had spent at least the past five years training and writing bloody examinations to reach this point and I have no intention of failing at this point.

The planet we were on was not our home of Lancelot, but a neighboring planet named Neapolitan. Neapolitan was a planet of two climates; the ice region and the rainforest region.

Right now I was in the rainforest region in the southern hemisphere at 78 degrees west which was fairly less rain prone than the rest of the planet.

I quickly removed a pair of binoculars from my bag when I heard the sound of a siren in the distance, accompanied by the bright smoke fumes that were exhausted from our emergency transit kits.

There were three of us that were left on this planet for the training mission; Myself and my two teammates, Tobias Tessfaye and Sebastien Holloway.

We were each dispatched in equal distance between us and away from the rendezvous point which was about a kilometer from here.

The smoke I could guess was from maybe Tobias, who was sort of like the leader of the team. He was the one always giving orders, organizing our schedules and diets, and essentially he was basically our mom.

I saw another trail of smoke race to the top of the sky, which meant the two of them had already met somewhere in the near east which was way out of bounds for me due to the swamp that encompassed the entirety of that area.

I quickly used my gear to climb up one of the 18 meter trees, scaling the giant trees at an inhuman speed.

I saw a marsh of trees up ahead, followed by the sight of some mountains up ahead, which was the rendezvous point that was arranged.

Our mission was fairly simple, we were supposed to install a total of 88 power extractors on the surface of the planet.

Our planet was in a sort of a dying state, after the expansion of the empire began two decades ago, which was a monumental moment in our history.

We saw a spur in wealth and intergalactic trade, in which our planet excelled remarkably , leading the sector in the most trade profits and revenue accumulation in history.

But all this was to be left in the shadow of our planet's massive military capabilities and power which made that of the other planets seem weak.

The first generation of humans that landed on Lancelot were not in multitude but less than a thousand at most.

Lancelot was occupied by a species of people known as the Galatians who were a species that possessed a rare gene that was later named the " Montoya Blood type", this rare gene enabled them to transform into beasts of war and chaos.

Those who possessed this gene were exclusive to the Galatians, till the fourteenth year on Lancelot when a civil war broke out. This led to the small faction of anti-governmental people to reside in the mountains in unison with the Galatians.

The Galatians and these people soon began to breed which led to the mix of both bloodlines and creating the new race of Galatian-Lancelot hybrids.

Through the creation of the new breed came the creation of a new kind of Montoya blood type, that was fused with the human's natural ability and intellect and enabled them to transform and control the beasts that they transformed into.

These were named the shifters and were the sole protectors of the land in the mountains until they were eventually attacked and enslaved by the now powerful Lancelot empire's army.

The shifters were then forced to grow up in the harsh military to work as spies and weapons of colonization for the Lancelot army.

Shifters like me, Sebastien and Tobias had spent our whole lives training our minds and bodies to be the most efficient killers in the galaxy.

And now after eighteen years of being the tools of war for the government, we were to finally ascend and go on our first mission.

By now I'm sure you're wondering why if I have these amazing beast powers as stated before, I'm not using them to just disappear across the plain and escape the army's devilish control.

Well, to put it in simple terms( a nice way of saying im going to dumb it down), the Lancelot empire was not very fond of letting their hybrid slaves go on without a leash of some sort, and they took it quite literally by issuing each of us these collars known as M.C.Ds ( Montoyya control devices), these M.C.Ds made sure that if we ever got the sudden urge to be free, we would die as a result of a venom that will be injected in us through a tubule in the collar.

But in some rare cases such as off planet training sessions and missions, we had the collars taken off to enable us freedom, but only once we reached the rendezvous point.

I pulled my clock out of my pocket and watched the digits turn fast as a result of this planet's increased revolution rate and rotation speed. It was early evening and the sun was beginning to set, so i set up a small camp and waited for morning to come.

I quickly followed this by starting a fire and taking off my gear to take a bath in a nearby stream.

The stream had almost translucent water and stared back at me in a way that said that I was my own enemy, or perhaps it was my own sunburnt conscious speaking.

I took off my underwear and dipped my toes in the water to see how cold it was ( water here is way colder due to it being on top of major ice caps below ground).

I then entered reluctantly, trying to ignore the pain in my receptors telling me the water was way too cold.

I chose to ignore the chills and submerged my head completely in the water, and closed my eyes in almost a daze.

It was rare that soldiers like us ever got a chance to relax and feel almost at one with nature, rather than our constant acts of purging life.

I would like to say I felt compassion for the millions of people that have died at the hands of our empire, but as we were taught at a young age, it was all necessary for the greater good.

A question then occupied my mind, what was free will? Well the answer was going to have to wait, as a loud explosion spread across the stream and the ground below it.

The shock of the explosion made me jump out of the water at god speed launching into a battle stance.

After recognizing the lack of a one on one attack attempt I quickly raced to the campsite in only my boxers and put on my boots and my tree scaling gear and began to run towards the sound of screams and large explosions.

The gap between the explosions and me was closing down quickly and before i knew it i was standing face to face with the cause of all the commotion, it was a shifter in beast form, not just any shifter it was Sebastien and he was out of control.

The figure of Tobias racing in the night sky could be made out as he dashed between the tree tops, shooting blasts at the out of control Sebastien.

While Sebastien in his beast form continued to thrash around bursting flames in all directions causing a fire to spread throughout the forest.

Sebastien's beast was the strongest of the three of us and was more prone to cause damage on a large scale. It was going to take our combined efforts and at least fifty more of us to stop him, and unfortunately they were not fifty more of us.

I quickly removed a pair of scythe from the case slung on my shoulder, and their gold color glinted in the moonlight of one of the thirty-two moons in our system.

I readjusted my belt and laced my boots as I launched myself off the ground once again, this time in an attempt to stop Sebastien or this beast from doing any more damage than it was already doing, which if taken further might lead to the blight of all life on this planet and also ours.

I used my gear to soar southward until I was a few trees behind Tobias who had half of his hair burnt, possibly as a result of the outburst from Sebastien.

I looked at the form of sebastien below in disgust and looked away valiantly, turning my gaze to Tobias who now sat perched on a tree branch breathing heavy and shallow breaths in a loop of exhaustion.

" What bloody tarnation happened here?", i asked

" We were attacked u dumbass!"

" By whom, were we supposed to be the only bloody people on this planet ?!"

" Not who, by 'it'"

" What is it?"

" That"

I turned around and I saw the shape of a blue beetle pass before our eyes. Well, I wouldn't be concerned if this was a normal and gentle beetle like the rest of them back on Lancelot, but this one was two feet long and a foot wide.

" Did that..?"

" Yes, it bloody bit half his neck off, including the collar, and activated the regenerating cells in him, hence causing a transformation"

" We're in shit aren't we?"

" More than we have ever been in"

" Call HQ?"

" You know they will not hesitate kill him"

" Okay…, how do we fix this?"

" Lazarus?"

" Lazarus", I agreed.

Lazarus was our instructor and second in command to the generals of the army. He was just like us, a hybrid. But he was celebrated as a hero to our empire for valiantly conquering 13 planets as the head of the mission.

He also happened to be one of the most efficient killers and alcohol drinker on the planet, so he was essentially always an option.

I quickly fumbled in my bag and realised i left my communicator by the campsite which was probably in flames by now.

I looked at Tobias and asked him if he had his, which he replied by saying his got burnt in the flames of Sebastien's beast.

The last communicator was the one that was at the top of the mountain.

" Dammit, this is bad"

" You figure something out Damien?"

" Yeah "

"The last communicator is the one on the mountain top"

" Aint that a two hour trip?"

" I can do it in an hour, thirty"

" Go, ill try to slow him down"

" Tobias…, be safe"

" I will", he replied as i rode through the outcrop of bushes and the tall trees of the forest that was soon turning into a collage of a thousand flames dancing in the night sky.

One thought spread through my mind, i had to save Sebastien.