"I journey to Hell to meet friends; damned souls anew. They are the same as me and they are all I'll ever be. We all have the same sins: lust, vice, wrath and avarice; we are myopic, cruel, and capricious. Off to the sky to do battle they go; but I'll stay on the Earth…I only await my rivals on the battle ground…and that fate is all I'm worth."

Chapter 1: Eyes

August 18, 2037

We lived in in Pikes Hugo, Alaska. As in most places in Northern Osea, the weather always had a wind attached to it. It was a time far removed from simple war, where planes fought and tanks drove. Osea was a much different land then. It had only been twenty years since the last war, but the world was still in conflict. Everything and nothing changed like the seasons which always began where it started. Leaders changed, ideals were thrown away…and yet the grassy plans of Akerson Hill were untouched and the white powder miles from Sand Island was a timeless guardian of that perfect scene when I first learned what love meant.

The ice of Northern Osea was still its harmful beauty; the snow was as dangerous and wondrous as the sun to a person's eyes over a short time. When I was a child, I could look and see how thick or thin the white blankets were on a clear day and plan accordingly. Everything I saw became a part of my memory and it never left. But I was not alone.

Brandon Black was my name. Well, not quite. My hated third grade teacher called me "Ran" by mistake. Children were children and the name stuck to my life forever. Though I forget when I fully embraced it. That was strange for someone of my…condition. And Black? It was just a pseudonym my parents had for last names.

The eyes told all. They were the first thing I saw because when I remembered the bright light, and the doctor holding me. I stared into my mother's chocolate eyes for the first time and I knew she loved me more than anything else. And yet, I didn't need to see the crook of her left eye look toward another person. I looked left and remember more brown eyes staring back at me. They were eyes of my other half, my twin sister. We were everything we saw in the other person.

I was born nineteen years ago. I was conceived in a war and everything about it since has been against that awful idea…at least to some people.

"Soldiers are different from night and day, but it's all the same. Our duty is concerned primarily with taking lives...not preserving them, no matter how much we want to think otherwise. Those who wish for peace are eternally disappointed."

I remembered a lot of things. Those words were from the sergeant who first taught me how to kill. Ironic, since my parents were those to whom my superiors were talking about. Ironic, since they were killers in a type of combat that was faceless and yet was equally cold as the war on the ground. They were the ones who fought in the air.

Of course, everyone and their mother, sister and third cousin removed knew that. See, I grew up with a lot of secrets I had to keep. My parents raised me and my sisters with knowledge only government types in sunglasses and bad, charcoal suits would have only known. The world thought they were dead; not true obviously.

My parents were feared and hated by a land that was a shell of its former self. You see, they were the nightmares of every Yuktobanian pilot six years before I was even on the world's surface. In some instances, they were in the dark corners of their own allies' minds. My mom never read that story to me though; that is, the story for which they were named. She read me something different. Of course, I'd remember each picture in the book and every goofy layout and fractal design the artwork had. They always made me laugh.

I knew, Tasha knew, even the youngest sister, Astrid, knew. We knew were the kids of people who were the monsters inside so many dead memories.

Things had changed obviously since my parents haunted the world. See, the world evolved while David Lovecraft and Kei Nagase were still in the shadows. One might think Osea didn't…well…after all they hadn't been in a war since they pulled out of Versua in 2017. I sure as hell didn't think it changed. Some people complained about that quite enough. But typical for them, no one acted on it…not because they didn't want to do anything, because they couldn't.

I was not a soapbox person. My sister wasn't either. We did something about our lives. We enlisted in the Osean Army on the same day.

Why? Ironic that after the talking my parents did about peace, I joined the machine. Though, I didn't follow my parents into the air. Again, not because we didn't want to…it was because we couldn't. First, I couldn't get into any of the Officer Candidate Schools. Some nitwit in the Osean government cut funding to colleges and negated some access to the military. Then again, I wasn't that good a student anyway. We were smart, just not that smart. I wasn't bitter though. Now Tasha, on the other hand, was pretty bitter at first. I got by with dreams and my sister often looked up to me, even if we were the same age and dimensions. I would have made the perfect pilot; I certainly had the eyesight for it. I think I got it from my dad. The doctors couldn't explain it. My eyes were almost telescopic. They called it Octostoma, some strange name that didn't matter past my fifth birthday. Everything I saw though became a part of my memory. They called it a photographic memory; I called it a gift.

My sister was always in my memories. I could pick up a picture and it was in my head. One was of me and her when were fifteen. I knew everything from the dimple on her cheek, the trace of her tan skin and the perfect, yet asymmetrical black hair she had; the kind that could make a guy's heart explode at its beauty. Beneath them were my own eyes, as she was always a part of me. I didn't act like her though and she didn't act like me either. She was often an outright rebellious teenager, I just did a lot of silly things like jump ramps in an ATV or jump into our pool from the roof.

"What's out there? There's nothing but the same grass you've seen a million times." I heard the liquid silver voice say. She didn't sound like a soldier.

We were both in regular uniforms. She was in the Charlie suit, the olive pants and greenish shirt. I was in the special, bluish green uniform given to the elite soldiers among which I found myself. Her hair wasn't her long black. Instead she was bald. It wasn't because of cancer or anything, or respecting the fact I had to shave off my hair. She had an "accident" three days before when her hair caught on fire. Go figure.

"It's the last time I'll see it for six months." I said, my head slightly turned for the ground.

My parents' house seemed alien to me. I'd been gone for nearly a year and I'd forgotten the gray siding, the bluish green grass and the clashing dark blue, turquoise, white and yellow paint jobs all around the home. My parents were Blaze and Edge in the sky. They were unified, like me and Tasha. They were always in sync and one would always die to protect the other. But their interior decorating was a bit of a weakness.

"Why does that matter so much? It's not like you'll never see it again." my sister said.

I just turned my head to her and gave her a look of curious disapproval. Tasha laughed.

"Damn, I was just kidding..."

My…how times had changed. Everything was almost unrecognizable in our time. The carriers looked more like cities than fighting ships. Planes were almost spaceships and the guns were something out of my memories of terrible sci-fi movies. They didn't shoot lasers though.

I was born into this world. The face of the new war was total battlefield control. However, it was only in its infancy when I started. The top officers had definitely learned some valuable lessons from the last two wars. For almost twenty years, this country had not been in a major war. Oh, there were a few minor conflicts like the Versuan Oil Crisis when I was just seven years old. This long period of relative peace was not wasted as they had been after the Belkan War. Everyone had to be ready.

Of course, the planes were always advancing. Everyone knew that. My father made that quite clear in his not-so-tall tales about the past. Now, the ground war had caught up. That recruiter at my high school made that quite clear as well. The lines between air, sea, and land warfare were beginning to blur. The advent of the Osean Marine Corps' Power Recon Division changed the rules of war…or at least, that's what the higher ups said at the time.

The idea was that soldiers could function from any environment with only minimum training with the help of a new, ingenious piece of equipment: The Ultimate Warrior Suit. It was seemingly perfect combination of body armor, computers, sensors and every other tiny gadget invented by Osea in the past fifty years. It was designed for total battlefield access. Every bit of information could be attained from the suit. Everything could be monitored and even those X-88 Automatic Rifles that replaced the M4s in 2021 could be patched into the system for better accuracy. It was amazing.

I was hooked.

I threw all my parents' cautionary tales into the abyss and began my journey. But typical Tasha…she wasn't coming without me!

Ran, are you crazy? You're doing what?!

I'm joining the Marines! I want to be a part of that stuff. That UWS thing they showed us…unbelievable. Forget trying to get into the officer corps. I want the title of Power Recon Soldier.

What? You're insane!

You know me better than anyone.

Well, you're insane if you think you're going to run off to Camp Angel without me. I'll do something. They let us carry guns too.

Tasha…Tasha…they don't let women onto the front lines!

Well, you're still not going alone. I will come kicking and screaming if I have to...you know this better than anyone.

I'll never be alone.

No, you need me…I'm your other half. We're nothing without each other.

You still believe that…even for a seventeen year old with a makeup case the size of Belka?

Yeah...I do.

Fine. We're going into the fire together.

Mom is going to kill us.

Not if Dad strangles us first.

Why did I do that? I thought about it later. Was it those stories of Mom and Dad being Edge and Blaze once upon a time? Was it was all that horrible news about Yuktobania? No, it was all those stories about heroism that filled my soul as a boy. I wanted to be that kind of person: the larger than life man, the person everyone would look up to and respect, and the kind of person that the wrong people would fear. I wanted to be a hero. The problem, there weren't a whole lot of heroes in the world. There were even fewer in Yuktobania...if there were any at all.

If the Underworld was on this world's surface, Yuktobania was it. It was bad enough that the country had been torn apart by civil war back then. Now some other extremist group had taken over. But there was no one to fight back against them. Apparently, that land couldn't catch a break. Mother Nature was a bitch. Yuktobania was going through a famine of biblical proportions in some places. There was no way to explain it. Entire spans of crops failed and with the country already in economic ruin, everyone started tearing themselves apart.

My parents had taken in an orphan from that terrible war. But she'd left for her homeland a decade ago…and now she was trying to get the hell out of Yuktobania as quick as humanly possible…again. She was married and in her thirties now, Sueltana Devia-Ariev. I always liked her. She reminded me of myself. She made me want to take on the world. Well, that lasted for eight years. Now everything was gone and some strange fascist group known as "Soma" was making her homeland a living hell. However, this all started the moment we left home for training. No one knew much about them.

Our parents weren't displeased with us for joining the Corps; at least, as we had thought before. They were worried out of their freaking minds, however. I remembered the warm cheek of my mother's teary-eyed face before I left her for months. Camp Angel at Arizona Island was only the beginning of the fiery baptism. There was no resentment at my choice, however long I ached and nursed one bruise after another. It took nearly eight and half months, but I made. I was a Power Recon Marine, a master of sea, air and land…sort of. I was a rookie, a Private First Class in a company of men who were all better than me. But I made it and it was that mattered.

Private First Class Brandon Black, Power Recon Marine, Company A, aka "Werewolf", Team 2 under Lieutenant Dickerson: that was my title.

It was there that I realized that everything was a continuous process.

My name is Lieutenant Moute, and I'm going to be training you for our newly established Power Recon Division. It used to be called Force Recon…but everything changes. War changes and war never ends. You privates, along people from every rank above your own, have been chosen for the backbone of the division based on intelligence, aptitude, and skill. But I don't see it from any of you! Not yet though. You have to earn the right to wear these new uniforms and use the new equipment. And you will earn it gentlemen. There are seventy of you here…only ten of you will make it.

Come on! Concentrate! Men are dying out there! Focus on your surroundings Black!

Forget everything about thou shall not kill. Not only will you kill, you must…or you're going home in pieces. You are a target and everything out there is trying to kill you.

Observation is very important, as is awareness. You have to know what's going on a moment's notice. You have to be masters of detail.

Fear is a weakness, distrust is a weakness. Trust your equipment and the people above and below you. Take care of those things and they'll take care of you. The suit and the rules will protect you.

Those men in planes are the cocky ones. But you will be ones who win the war!

Those words were locked into my brain like it was some powerful hard drive.

I'd been based at Arizona Island near St. Hewlett for the previous three weeks. Training had wrapped up and now we were going on a humanitarian mission of all things. But I knew better. Our mission was not just for charity. It was so different from Sgt. Welling's ironic statement in boot camp. The Soma group was pushing east toward the coast and aid groups were in trouble. No one had declared any official war yet. At the time, my father bitterly remarked that history was repeating itself. Then again, my dad was right all the time. That was something I'd admired about him. When I did something dumb, he was always right. He was always on my case. He was worried about me, but I saw that slight smile on his face when we came back from Camp Angel. He was proud of us. He loved our stature and the way we were now guardians of the free world.

Tasha was just in a transportation company. My sister still had the audacity to wish she could serve on frontline duty...but she had no idea what that truly included. As such, she wasn't coming with me. As I looked at her, I didn't seem like I was a guardian of any freedom. Yuktobania was on its last legs as a nation. We were taking steps into the unknown. But it wouldn't stop what I believed in. I wanted to be the man who made a difference.

Then, her hand was on my shoulder and a smile came across her lips as if she was staring into the face of some deity.

"Here's to the end." Tasha said.

A door cracked, and loud steps were heard. Then I was assaulted by some eleven year old monster, scientific name: Astrida Arachnida Horrendus…or Astrid Black, my other little sister. Her clothes were all dirty, probably from some softball game she was in. My other sister looked nothing like us. She was tiny for an eleven year old. She looked more like my father with the exception of the strawberry brown hair, one that was a few shades lighter than my mom's crown. Tasha and I were carbon copies of Kei Nagase in a few aspects, save our father's hair color.

"Hey!" Tasha said, as she took her sis into her arms and kissed her on the forehead; the same thing she did to everyone else. My dad said Tasha reminded her of someone he served with in Versua; a rather famous woman in Oured: Lillian Izzo.

"We took her out of camp early so she could see you off." My mother said.

My mother looked a few years younger than her even fifty years in some places. Still, I always saw those same eyes of compassion my father loved even then. I paid no attention to the wrinkles around them or the graying, chocolate hair or her withering, skeleton-like hands. She was as pale as she was when she was twenty three. She may not have looked or acted like she was fifty…but something in her looked frailer. I never could figure out if it was solely her worrying about our military training or her cancer scare a few years back.

My father was the same statuesque figure he always was. He was like that mountain in the distance, always there, always reliable and always watching over everyone below him. A person couldn't pick him out of a police line-up though. No wonder they'd stayed hidden all these years.

"Thanks." I said. I then took my hand and messed up Astrid's hair. I always did that to tick her off, but that time she just laughed.

"I'll miss you. Can you see if Sueltana is alright?" she said, her cherry voice flooded into my ears.

Everyone loved Sueltana and her charm. I still missed her, but I knew more than anyone else in the family. The chances of her being alright were slim.

"I'll try." I said, my voice soft.

My dad then turned away and looked like he'd seen his dead mother in the mirror. "I haven't heard anything from her. I hope she's okay. It's pretty damn bad over there."

I heard a horn blowing outside and everyone's heads snapped towards the downstairs area.

"Oh! That's Brandon's girlfriend, isn't it?" Astrid said. Tasha lightly smacked her upside the head. I'd dated Dulcinea for a year, but it was not her. Kei gave her a disapproving look once Astrid got ticked off, and I let out a chuckle.

"No…that's just my buddies. They're taking us to the marshalling area." I said.

Tasha scoffed and shook her head. She put her sis on the ground. "I don't know how you put up with those guys."

I wasn't going to let Tasha talk about my buddies, Micho and the Sheck, like that. "You wouldn't say that to their faces."

"Whatever." Tasha added.

We walked down the carpeted steps into the living room. The house was always quiet. My parents never liked that much buzz about their home. They took a lot of pride in that. My parents were much more sentimental. The carpet was a beautiful powder blue.

"Cormorance's son is also in your squad right?" My father asked. I hadn't talked about my Recon Training with him...mainly because he wouldn't understand all the murderous training and cutthroat competition that went on at Arizona Island, our training ground.

I looked to the left and I saw a talking head on a muted television. I arched an eyebrow and said, "Yeah…wait…turn up the television."

Tasha reached for the white, plush couch and flipped the remote with some brilliant sleight of hand. The volume came up and some woman in a black blazer was on the television.

…there is no word on official casualties, but if you're just joining us we have a breaking news story. An absolutely terrifying event has taken place. A massive blast, believed to be a nuclear explosion, has just rocked downtown Ocktabursk.

There was this pause where the Earth stopped spinning and everyone froze. The Moon's tide stopped. Everyone's mouths were open and their feelings torn, sweat was dripping down their faces and fingernails were bit; all were waiting for an answer. Our community became silent. Lips trembled and tears were shed in a few places. My blood was thick as cold syrup. Everything in me came to a complete stop and I could only stare at my sister. Tasha and I locked eyes and we saw the terrible truth as a sun's wrath rained down on some major city across the Ceres. History, it seemed, never stopped.

The only question was...did anyone else realize it?

Next Chapter: The Werewolf Company