Whoosh
"Oh, Hello."
"Good evening, my little acorn."
"Do you wanna have another tea party?"
"Not tonight."
"Aw."
"Why don't I tell you a story?"
"Oh, okay!"
"Now, just lay back and relax."
"What kind of story are you going to tell me tonight?"
"Well, I was thinking that tonight I could tell you a special story. Would you like that?"
"Yeah!"
"Hm… Alright. Here we go.
Once upon a time, in a land far far way, there were two races that were at war with each other. One race embraced the ways of a form of dark magic known as the Ixis Magicks. They lived to serve and follow their leader, the immortal Ixis Mogul. They strived to use their evil ways to rule the world with Mogul leading them with an iron fist. They were the Ixis wizards.
The other race was completely made up of echidnas. While the Ixis wizards embraced the ways of dark magic, this race embraced the advancements of technology. They strived to protect the world from falling to the Ixis wizards. They used there highly advanced technology to fight back against the wizards' dark magic. They were the Albionites, also known as the Templar Knights of Albion.
As the war raged on, the Ixis wizards knew that they needed more troops to fight with. So they began "making" more. That is to say, they had children and raised them in the ways of the Ixis Magicks. In order for this work, the Ixis wizards had secret camps where wizards were forced to choose a mate and have children with them in order to create more warriors to fight in the war after they were properly trained. They even had them live in family safe houses in these camps; however, …
These children were never loved; they were never treated like family. To their parents, these children were nothing more than future soldiers. They were usually abused by their parents as a way to make them stronger and thought that it would make them more ruthless when they matured.
Years after the Ixis wizards made the camps the Albionites found out about their plans to make more soldiers and decided that they needed to act. They knew that if this plan had succeeded, then the Ixis Wizards would out number them hundreds to one. They knew that in order to keep the odds in their favor, they had to make sure that these future Ixis wizards never got the chance to fight. The way to ensure this… was to exterminate them. They had to stop them from ever reaching maturity.
The Albionites executed well planned out raids on all known Ixis camps, destroying every Ixis wizard there, young and old. Parents and children. All of them, no survivors. Only the best Albionites who could destroy without regret were assigned to this mission. The raids were… like something… out of a nightmare. Fire everywhere. Sounds of screaming adults and children.
The young wizards were… inexperienced but… formidable. They were strong despite their young age and little to no battle experience, but they fought viciously, just as they were raised and trained to fight. They did not care for their parents. They did not care for their siblings. They did not care for their fellow wizards. They were raised to care only about themselves and the destruction of their enemies. They managed to take out a few Albionites before falling themselves.
The Templar Knights couldn't let even the smallest infant live. They would have destroyed them all… if it weren't for one individual Knight. She was aiding her team raid a wizard family's home. Unlike the rest of the wizard dwellings, the parents seemed to be alone. After she and her team took care of them they were sent to search the rest of the house for the children.
While the rest of her team searched the rooms upstairs, she searched downstairs alone. After her team reported finding nothing, she was left to wonder where the children were hiding, and also why they were hiding.
"The rest of the wizard children attack without hesitation," she thought, "and all of homes are supposed to have children. So why are these children choosing to hide. Even if their afraid, aren't their parents supposed to make them fight? This doesn't add up."
The lone echidna searched the entire lower region as her team awaited her at the entrance. She reported not finding anything yet, but she was still searching, until she came across a lone closet in the living room that she overlooked. She heard something inside and prepared for the worst. With her weapon set, she kicked the door open and took aim; however, despite how prepared she thought she was, she was totally unprepared for what she saw.
Ixis wizards were raised to not care about their kin, and yet she was taken aback when she witnessed a lone Ixis child, a boy by the looks of it, jump up in front of his siblings, arms out stretched and a look of determination in his eyes. She looked behind him and saw another boy, who appeared to be younger than the one before the Knight, with his arms around a young girl, who appeared to be holding a wrapped bundle in her arms, a baby no doubt. Perhaps no older than an infant. The younger boy shared the same look of determination while the girl looked scared with her eyes going from the Knight to her siblings to the bundle and back again.
"I'm warning you," said the oldest before her, moving his arms and getting into a fighting stance, "If you want to hurt my family, you're going to have to get past me first! Do you hear me?! I won't let you hurt them!"
She was stunned to say the least; she didn't know that Ixis wizards could care so much for one another. The look of these children reminded her of her dream from before the war. She had always wanted a family of her own, and when she finally found love after joining the Templar Knights she thought that her dream would eventually come true after the war. That is, … until her beloved was killed in cold blood by an Ixis wizard.
It was because of that tragic event, that she thought she could go through with the extermination plan, because she had nothing left to lose. However, after looking into the young wizard's eyes, that is exactly what she saw. He knew that he had nothing to lose from protecting his family. So long as they lived, he didn't care if he had to die.
She began to raise her weapon and the boy raised his fists, but… she couldn't raise it to firing position. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't bring herself to… finish the job. Looking into all of their eyes, she saw fear in them. Not fear for themselves, but… fear for each other. From underneath her visor, she could feel tears running down her face. She hadn't felt this way since before she lost the love of her life. She lowered her weapon.
The boy watched her suspiciously as she slowly removed the strap from around her body and lowered her weapon to the ground with her hands up. Just as she was getting up, her helmet created a static like noise and then a voice could be heard from it.
"Lieutenant!" said the voice from her helmet, clearly someone from her team. "Lieutenant, report!" She didn't know what to do, but she knew that if she didn't report something soon, then they would start to investigate. She raised her hand up to her helmet while the young wizard watched her every move, ready to fight if it came to that.
"Yes, sir," she said with her hand on some unseen button, "My apologies for not reporting in, I…" She looked to the children who were clearly waiting for her to finish the sentence. What would she do? Would she report them, or would she…? "I thought that I saw something," the boy gave her a dead serious look. "but it turned out to just be a rat, but I feel that I should keep searching the house. You all go on ahead, I'll report back when I'm finished."
"Understood, if you don't find anything we'll have to assume that the children were among those killed trying to escape. Then we'll proceed to burn what's left of this camp to the ground."
"Yes, sir. Understood, sir. Lieutenant Lia-na out." She removed her hand as the line went silent. The boy never took his eyes off her. She slowly raised both of her hands up to her head and began to remove her helmet. The boy readied himself for anything.
After her head was fully revealed, the children finally saw her true face. Not like the soldier who just kicked the door in, this woman… this person had a gentle face only flawed by the lines of dried tears that ran down her face from earlier. She lowered herself onto one knee and gave them all a gentle smile and said "Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you." But the boy up front never moved from his battle ready stance.
"Why should we listen to you?" he said. "You're one of them!"
Lia-na smiled at them and said, "You're right, from what I've done, you have no reason to trust me, but still believe me, I won't hurt you. You have my word." She placed a hand over her heart while reaching out with her other hand. The boy slowly and cautiously approached it and slowly reached out his own hand. The moment that she took his hand into hers, did he understand that she was truly honest.
Her hand was so warm and welcoming and her eyes held so much kindness. Never had he ever witnessed anybody like her in the camp, especially not an adult.
"Why?" he said to her while she stared curiously at him. "Why are you being… so nice to us? W-we're the enemy… aren't we?"
She shook her head and said, "You're not like the rest of the Ixis wizards. The other children that I… w—well… They all attacked me. I—I… am sorry, but…"
"You were just following orders?" She was surprised that the young wizard understood her so much as to finish the sentence. She nodded and he continued talking, "We were ordered to fight… but… we were also forbidden to care about one another." He looked back to his siblings and she looked too. They were still scared.
"You are not soldiers, you're just children."
"Our parents told us… we're just tools to be used to win the war and… nothing more."
She watched as tears then started running down the children's faces, and then she too felt more tears run down her own face.
"No you're not!" They all looked at her with wide eyes. "You are children. You don't deserve to be treated like that! You don't deserve to be with people… who don't love you."
"W—we've never been loved… by anybody but each other." Lia-na was surprised when the little girl spoke.
"And our parents would… punish us for it." This time the second boy spoke. She couldn't believe that people could be so cruel, even Ixis wizards. Punishing children just for feeling love.
Lia-na watched as the children started to silently weep. Even the oldest who tried his best to keep his composer but ultimately failed as he too began to shed some tears.
"What are your names?" she asked.
They all looked at her, they were unsure of how to respond. She was Templar Knight after all. Then again, she was also supposed to destroy them, but… she didn't.
"M—my name is…" said the oldest boy after a long minute of silence, "Tenebris."
"I-I'm…" said the second oldest boy, "Ventus."
"I'm… Amilliana, and… this is Millonius." Said the girl holding up the bundle enough for Lia-na to see the face of a sleeping infant. It slept so peacefully despite how loud the conversation had been earlier.
She smiled at the sleeping baby and then faced them all and said, "My name is Lia-na."
The younger children began to nervously smile at Lia-na, but Tenebris' face remained to be in a scowl. "So what now?" he asked. "Are you going to follow your orders and finally destroy us?"
Lia-na was surprised that he would bring that up, but then as she looked down at her helmet, she began to wonder the same thing. She was supposed to destroy any and all Ixis wizards and children. But… how could she…? The rest of them were either like bred wild animals or reckless undertrained soldiers, but not these children. Theywere special. They were smarter and more caring. They were actual children.
She shook her head and said, "No."
"But won't they get mad at you if you don't?" asked Amilliana.
"Don't worry." Said Lia-na. "The others will most likely believe that you were already dealt with. So you can escape."
"But how are we supposed to escape?" asked Tenebris. "They'll see us if we try to sneak out of camp on foot."
"Can't you walk through shadows like the others?"
"Only I can. They never learned how to shadow meld. Ventus might be able to go with me and take it the best, but shadow melding still takes its toll on those not use to it, it's too dangerous for Amilliana to try, and Millonious probably won't survive it. He's too young."
"We could probably just wait until they're all gone." suggested Ventus.
"But then they'll burn down the entire camp-" Said Lia-na.
"Don't worry," said Amilliana "Tenebris can just use his fire magic to move the flames out of the way and Ventus can use his wind magic to-"
"That won't work either!" interrupted Tenebris. "The other Knights will probably see the fire and smoke moving, and even if they don't… there's nowhere else for us to go. We'll be all alone with no place to go."
Lia-na watched them as the children started to cry again. They knew that they wouldn't survive long on their own, as did she. They may have been wizards, but they were still only children after all, and she wouldn't allow these innocent children to meet the same fate as the other wizards. They needed a place where they would be safe. A place where they would be cared for and loved. They needed… a home.
In an effort to calm their tears she reached out both of her arms and wrapped them around the oldest child, bringing him into a loving embrace. This was something he had never witnessed from an adult in all his life. It felt so warm, so safe, so… loving. It only made him cry more as he wrapped his own arms around the echidna woman.
She looked up to his other siblings and reached out her other arm toward them. They were nervous at first, but they eventually gave in to the request joining in the loving embrace. For years, Lia-na dreamed of this. Having children of her own to embrace in such a way. They just sat there for a moment, crying while embracing each other. She then smiled and said, "Come with me."
Needless to say they were all taken aback by her request. "Wh-what?!" asked Tenebris.
"Come with me. I can take care of you."
"Y—you mean it?!" asked Amilliana.
Lia-na nodded.
"B-but I don't understand." Said Tenebris. "We're the enemy, why would an Albionite want four young Ixis wizards? Why would you… want us?"
"Because I know that you deserve to be with a family that loves you and cares for you. I may not have much reason for you to trust me, let alone accept my offer, but if you do, I promise to treat you and take care of you the way that you should have from the beginning… with love."
Looking into her face the children knew that what she said was the honest truth. They were so overcome with joy that they embraced her once again with tear filled eyes, and she too was happy. Even Tenebris, who fought back his smile as best he could, but could hold back his tears of joy. Even Millonious somehow managed to smile while sleeping.
After reporting back to her fellow Albionites, Lia-na told the children what to do to escape without being seen. While she snuck Amilliana and Millonious out of the camp with her, Tenebris and Ventus used shadow melding to escape and follow them. Soon after, the entire camp went up in flames, but the four siblings were safe.
Lia-na hid them in her quarters and later asked her superiors to go on leave. After she was allowed this, she took her new children with her, where she then adopted them as her own, and they all lived together in a big house where they all lived happily ever after. The End."
"(Yawn) That was good story, but a little scary."
"I'm sorry if I scared you, my little acorn."
"It's okay. At least it had a happy ending."
"Hm… yes, it did. Well, I think I kept you up long enough. Time for bed."
"Aw… are you going to leave again?"
"I'm afraid so, but don't worry. I'll be back again tomorrow night."
"Could you at least tuck me in?"
"Hm… I don't see why not."
"And kiss me goodnight?"
"I… suppose that a kiss on the forehead won't hurt."
Smooch
"(Giggle)"
"Goodnight, my little acorn."
"Goodnight, Mr. Shadow Man."
Whoosh
Creek
"Sally? What are you still doing up?"
"My friend, Mr. Shadow Man, was just telling me a story."
"Ah, I see. Well I think it's time that this "Mr. Shadow Man" left for the night. He probably has his own family to go home to."
"Don't worry, Daddy. He already left. I wish that you could meet him."
"Ah, well I'm sure that we will meet someday, dear. Well, goodnight."
"Goodnight, Daddy."
Creek
Click
"Heh-heh… That girl has some imagination."
