M.E. 735
Sometime in the month of December
In the month where the winter becomes much crueler, the frozen wastelands become more and more of a purgatory. A land where the tundra never melts, where the frost never lifts, and where there is little life; Niflheim has become powerful and yet inhumane of their practices in search for the ultimate tool to ascend their power.
Through the stale and lifeless halls of the facility, so many have been robbed of their innocence. Unknowing infants being brought to and fro in the corridors, going room to room, never knowing the warmth of a mother's breast.
Countless needles pin into the soft flesh of the infants—followed by the natural wailing in reaction to the sharp pain—and they are returned to their transparent tube-like cribs once scientists are done with their obligatory report.
Every child has something in common—a barcode tattooed on their right wrists. Yet their distinction from one another are the numbers encoded in each issued bar. It can dictate whether the infant is immune, deficient, or potential to transmute into one of their creatures.
The Kingdom of Lucis hears the news of this malpractice and seeks to cease it. King Regis Lucis Caelum, the 113th King of Lucis, sends out his soldiers—the Crownsguard—to Niflheim with the sole mission to rescue as many children as they can with the condition of no discrimination among the children to take.
The platoon disperses across the facility, entering rooms and incapacitating the scientists who resist them and dispose of the Magitek troopers who attempt to apprehend them.
Diovus Platea, a soldier of the Crownsguard, along with other members who took his side, makes his way into one of the rooms filled with transparent, closed cribs. They quickly flicked the switches that kept the cribs closed, some of them even break the panels, each bring a single child.
Diovus searches for the cribs, but he had the time in the world—as if the adrenaline-pumping moment of breaking out infants has stopped time. He's laid his eyes on an infant girl and right next to her is a boy—slightly older. Both are wailing possibly due to the pain that they have received from those needles. He takes whatever remaining luxury he has to check their name cards attached to the crib for identification.
Neoma. The girl.
Orius. The boy.
Below each of their names are the barcode numbers inscribed in their barcodes.
It seems that their surnames have been gotten rid of. Perhaps the scientists did it so that they will have no recognized trace when someone tries to find them here.
Like the other soldiers who are with him, some of them planned to carry two babies while they have a companion to cover for them along the way out. Diovus himself does this. He takes both boy and girl in his arms and his second-in-command stays by his side.
"Alcimus, cover me!"
"Yessir!"
Alcimus—whose expertise is more of the arcane than the combat itself—takes the lead in front of his commanding officer. He conjures up a wall that deflects the bullets and the melee blows that would ever come to Diovus and the infants in his arms.
They make their way through the metal-walled corridors, along the way they bump into few of their comrades who don't have their hands full.
"Don't risk your lives for me, men! Risk for your own." Diovus roars.
"It is my choice to fight by your side, sir!" One Crownsguard replies, fighting off the MTs that come toward or behind them.
Warning. Security compromised.
The computer voice rung through the speakers in the entire facility, repeatedly acknowledging the presence of the Crownsguard thus alerting more of the MTs to apprehend them by all means. The artificial soldiers come pouring in from every doorway and hall but the Crownsguard was prepared for this. With Diovus leading majority of the platoon, it was assumed to be successful.
"The ones who don't have their hands full ought to be taking care of those chicken-walkers!" Diovus roars.
"They got it covered, sir!"
"Is our passage clear, Alcimus?"
"Yes sir, just clean up the remaining daemons and MTs there."
"Well, I'd hate to leave without a farewell party." Diovus blurts.
As soon as they reach the spacious garage that leads to the frozen wastelands, they are greeted by a band of MTs accompanied by an MA Veles.
"We got this, sir. Take the children to the car. We'll catch up!" Alcimus insists.
Yet Diovus is torn between standing with his comrades and saving the children. He very well knows that he cannot compromise either. So he carried both of the small infants in his left arm and drew out his sword on his free hand. Diovus fought his way through the MTs and crippled the MA Veles by the legs with one fell blow on each leg.
"Sir, the snowmobile—use it! We'll meet you in the rendezvous point."
Diovus did not waste time in positioning the children on the snowmobile and escaped the facility. He speeds through the slit of the door that could fit just a single snowmobile and then dashed to the general direction where the rendezvous point is.
Overhead, he can see the Lucian airships within the area. Ahead of him are more MTs waiting for him to close distance so they can get a better shot. Without risking the safety of the children, he takes out an elemental grenade—a Firaga in particular—and throws it to the cluster of MTs waiting for him. He speeds through the flames untouched—and so are the infants—then dodges and swerves away from the rocks and kept his eyes on the wide stretch of white and the Lucian airships floating above him.
He twists the acceleration handlebar up to a notch, picking up speed and flying away by sliding on upwards-inclined rocks that gained him distance and speed from the stationed MTs waiting for any target that isn't Niflheim.
Almost there. Diovus tells himself.
He speeds up some more and then reaches the rendezvous point with the rest of the Crownsguard.
"I see you got your hands full." One of the Crownsguard remarks as he notices the two infants in Diovus's arms.
"They're…" he pauses, then lovingly looks down on both children, "They're mine now. They'll be safe with me."
The airships flew off back to the Crown City and the small band of gunships obliterated the MA units and MTs before any of them could even fire a ballista at the fleet.