Fictions Mentioned:

Episode 17

OP Song:

Adele - Skyfall (Lyric Video)

Insert Song: Start

Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down (Official Music Video)

Somewhere in another world, there was the White House.

Actually, it looked much more futuristic and modified if one will than the White House that most people would be used to seeing. Aside from the white-colored coated paintings, there were the additions of silver colors. The layout of the building itself had expanded, with more buildings from the left to the right added to it. There would also be heavy layers of security measures that would make even the most paranoid bulk their eyes out, humble courtesy and suggestion to the SCP Foundation who implemented them for personal safety reasons.

Guess that would explain why there are barely any assassins or hired thugs stupid enough to actually attack the White House. It wouldn't be like a certain movie where everyone would be caught off guard at some terrorist group barging in guns blazing and with the main protagonist having to bust in and save the day. No, cliches like that have died a long time ago when it came to this place.

And of course, the White House itself was the home residence of the President. But not the President of the United States (USA). Rather, it was the President of the United Systems Alliance (USA). This world and many others form such an inter-multiverse federal parliamentary government that had long been established almost immediately after the wake of a great spatio-temporal war whose myths and legends still make an impact and impression today.

And speaking of said President, he was in his private office, sitting in his office chair and looking at the picture of his family. Him, his wife, and his daughter, all smiling in the photo that was taken years ago. His posture and expression were one of grimness and justified concern in light of the recent happenings that have been going on throughout the Multiverse.

The President was a man who looked to be between his mid-40s and mid-60s. He was Caucasian. He has a significant scar on the left side of his face, a reminder of the same spatio-temporal war that he had fought, wearing a black business suit with a black necktie. A black jacket and a white dress shirt. White socks and black leather shoes.

His name?

John Connor.

Once, he was the Leader of the Human Tech-Com Resistance, stretching from not just one, but every world that had a version of humanity going up against a rogue artificial intelligence. Most of them were named Skynet. Some were called Legion. Depends on what world and timeline that is to be referred to. It would be too long to list the intricate details but suffice it to say that John Connor's life was spent battling against these threats and threats from beyond the stars that all tried to wipe him out of history due to the importance of his role to tip the balance of the scales.

He was to rally the human race altogether in light of the crisis at the time. And he did. With a little help of course.

Now comes the present day. Now the most powerful man in many countless worlds, having a wife (Lady Griselda) and child (Lady Cassiel) who are from the Angelus race (literal Angels of the Lord type of race; the very first ones to be more precise), and lived the life of a man finally managing to achieve the happiness that he strived and fought for all his breath. Of course, being President demanded a busy schedule and involves politics. Lots and lots of politics. Fortunately, his very own First Lady who was just as experienced as he was if not more so would help him out when she wasn't busy with her other duties such as being part of the Council of the Dominations.

His daughter helps him out too, quite wise in the ways of the world and yet never losing that innocence and purity that made her the comfort and joy and pride for the old man who had seen horrors beyond reckoning.

Speaking of his wife and daughter, John was thinking about them as he was staring at the family photo. No doubt he thought that they would be heavily involved in what is happening.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

He heard a sound coming from the phone near his desk. He lift it up and decided to speak.

"This is the President," John said with a firm tone.

"Hello, my husband," there was the sweet voice of a woman that made John's heart soften along with his green eyes. He would recognize her anywhere.

"Griselda," John said, his expression taking a solemn expression and an inward smile. "How come you're calling me at this hour?"

"Should I not call my husband anytime I see fit?" there was a certain level of humor and a little bit of pouting that was accompanied by a rhetorical question.

"Well, no, but I'd figure that you would be extremely busy so I never wanted to disturb whatever it is you are doing right now, especially if what my advisors and friends are speaking to my ears right about now. Hell, even the Doctor decided to call me before you did and told me that he was doing something from the sidelines and asked me to keep my eyes on the lookout for anything. He also said that Touma's world got hit pretty badly by some unnatural dimensional convergence and multiple people got sent there against their will," John's expression turned to worry, recalling a young man with spiky hair, a fellow member of Team TARDIS.

"Ah, of course. It is expected that my father-in-law would tell you to keep watch and you should heed his advice well. For I would tell you the same thing that has bothered and disturbed the minds and hearts of so many. Of the coming DARKNESS that has now sounded the drums of war. This same DARKNESS that was the same calamity that you and I, and everyone else with goodwill and intention had fought during the Last War in Heaven," there was a resigned tone in her beautiful voice, one that belonged to that of a mother and a warrior. "And speaking of Touma's world, our daughter just so happens to be there right now."

"Really?" John looked concerned. "What's she doing there?"

"She is on a personal assigned mission that I and my fellow sisters of the council had sent her to," the woman explained. "One of those would be to provide covert assistance to Touma, as well as looking out for the girl that I believe had caught the eye of the Sorcerer Supreme of 616. In fact, our daughter has already informed me in our prayerful communications that the two of them have met, thus bringing the connection points that held Touma's world together again at long last."

"...Oh, so it finally happened huh. Everything just comes full circle," John made a soft smile on his face. He knew of the intimate details surrounding Touma Kamijou and his timeline in general. He knew that the boy's life is no longer the same, details of which have already changed, many of which for the better.

"Our daughter also informed me that it appeared that there are children of Touma Kamijou from different worlds ending up in his world in light of the unnatural convergence," Lady Griselda smiled from the phone.

"Wait? Touma dealing with kids of his own? That's...honestly rather hilarious," John bemused. "I think that the odds are right that Ren would call dibs on being the uncle."

"One can say the same of you, husband," the woman reminded.

"Guilty," John admitted as he smiled with humor. "I can't really deny anything and hide anything from you. You'd just find out with your angel mojo. I still think that's a bit cheating."

"All is fair in love and war, husband. You should know that better than anyone," the woman reminded with a smile of humor.

"Heh. True," John smiled.

"And as much as I enjoy our little banter, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to make this call short. There is a special meeting that I'm currently attending to at the moment," Lady Griselda made a sad smile, not wanting to cut this call short but needed to for the sake of her duty as councilwoman.

"Of course," John made an understanding expression, not needing to ask further as he understood that his wife's schedule is just as demanding.

"For the sake of compensation though, when all of these problems that everyone, including ourselves, are dealt with, I was thinking of doing a bit of baking," Lady Griselda made a subtle excited smile as both of her hands were joined.

"Would there be your special cookies?" John asked, if only because he adores his wife's cookies. That was probably one of the reasons why his wife was popular among his entire staff considering the baked cookies that she tended to make when she shows up from time to time.

"Of course, they would not be omitted, and I would save a particular batch as always for you to keep and consume to your heart's interior delight," Lady Griselda said with an amused smile.

"Thanks. Love you," John said with a sad smile.

"I love you too," Lady Griselda said with a sad smile.

And then, the call hung up, leaving John to put the phone back where he lifted it and gathered up his remaining thoughts.

He sighed, thinking. "("Right...Better get to the vault...")"

He stood up and walked to the left. A few rooms away, he pressed his right hand to a scanner in the wall which scanned his entire biodata signature, confirming his true identity. The wall would open like a bunch of building blocks, revealing a room full of state-of-the-art weapons for the usage of warfare. Some of them were things that he had used before in his time as a General of the Army and even before that.

He walks through the door and through the room full of weapons as something caught his eye. Attached to the center of the wall was his old trusty assault rifle. A heavily modified M4A1 Carbine with a retractable M26 MASS. He slowly walks towards it while remembering a few things from his time in the War. All of the lives that had been lost, all of the enemies that he had fought, all of the horrors and atrocities that he had borne witness to, everything that made him into a man of many experiences that serve him well in his time in both politics and war.

He breathes in and out as he slowly touches his trusty old rifle and gets a good look at it, inspecting it from top to bottom.

"You and me, together again, old girl..."

John muttered softly as he had deeper thoughts into the future that lay in store. And then, he said one particular phrase that serves as a reminder of who he was...

"No fate but what we make..."

"("No fate but what we make.")"

Lady Griselda—Archangel of Warriors and Heroes—Guardian Angel of Earth thought to herself.

Lady Griselda was thinking the same thing as her husband, sporting a determined expression and watching from the balcony alongside her fellow Angelus, all worn in their normal religious habits, as she was conversing with someone.

"Are the preparations going well, Lord Baraquazeil?"

She was addressing with a kind familiar tone to a tall colossal entity that stands over one thousand feet in height, with ten luminous wing-like appendages sprouting from its shoulders, back, temples, ankles, and wrists. His skin was luminescent white and his eyes were of a pure hallowed bluish-white that looked as if it were in flames. And the same can be said for the rest of his kind that was flying around from several directions into the vast expanse of the unknown void. Distinguishing him from his fellow brethren would be that his skin appeared to be glittering like twinkling evening stars and that he was wearing regal attire that befitted that of a king.

The Gate Guardians, also known to be designated by the SCP Foundation as SCP-001 under the official document called Dr. Clefs Proposal, were one of the countless numbers among the higher races that had answered the call as the drums of war lay down upon all.

"Of course, my Lady," Lord Baraquazeil nodded respectfully as he lowered his head. "My people throughout several cosmoses are already scouring amongst the endless void and journey to act as the ethereal watchmen that would sound the alarm. And they will defend their posts not only of duty but of courage in the face of a greater evil. As a point of fact, I have already received official communications from some of the finest of my watchmen who have now engaged upon the enemy. I am pleased to inform you that they are successful in driving them back. But I fear that these may only be an advantage force. Showing an apparent sign of weakness that could keep us to potentially underestimating them."

"Hardly surprising," Lady Griselda showed a grim expression. She eventually looks to the horizon, somewhere beyond the cloud-like ground and the peerless beautiful night skies.

In spite of the fact that she had full trust in her daughter's capabilities as a Principality, even she couldn't help but feel justifiably worried for her. A mother's heart never leaves her even as she was a warrior by blood and spirit. And she can only smile softly from afar, peering beyond as her invisible dove-like wings flapped.

"("No fate but what we make.")"

Lady Cassiel—Archangel of Tears—Guardian Angel of Earth thought to herself.

That was Lady Cassiel's common thought ever since this mission began, the common thought that was a valuable lesson that her father had taught to her when she was very young. She took it to heart from the very beginning and had since then been trying to follow in the footsteps of her parents and grow as her own person. She was the daughter of two of the greatest heroes in the Time War, and she had very large shoes to fill as a carrier of that treasured legacy that she had been told stories of since she was young.

Currently, she was walking very silently, but with a hurried fashion that makes one think that she was in a hurry for something important. That was more or less true when she was walking towards a person lying down on the floor, spotting her with her angelic sight. This place was one of those back alleys of Academy City's District 7. Nobody was here at the time, unsurprisingly due to the Emotionless attack that had been recently fended off by two of Kamijou's alternate children and Sota Mizushino.

She knelt down on the ground and examined the body, who to her relief was breathing.

It was a very young girl, about 14 for an approximate age. She had long straight hair of black color. Her eyes were closed due to collapsing out of tiredness, but those eyes carried the pattern of stars. An elegant beauty in spite of her ruffled clothing consisting of a brown coat that appeared to carry traces of snow, making Lady Cassiel guess correctly that this person had experienced a long winter, probably somewhere around December...

She was wearing a worn-out white dress shirt, with a grey skirt that reaches the knees. She also had a pair of white gloves and stockings. There was a shoulder bag with a star adorned on the middle, however, it appeared rather old-looking. It was located just to her side, clutching it as if her life depended upon it.

And there were noticeable tears in her eyes. Ones that showed a very deep sorrow accompanied by fatigue.

Lady Cassiel made a grimaced expression as she immediately recognize the person lying down on her floor due to her angelic sight. Just like before, she can confirm that this girl is another child of Touma Kamijou from an alternate reality. And this girl would need to be brought straight to Touma Kamijou immediately.

First things first...

"Benedicat tibi Dominus et custodiat te Dominus faciem suam super te, et misereatur tui, Dominus vultum suum in te et dabo tibi pacem. "("The Lord bless you and keep you: The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you: The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.")"

Lady Cassiel raised her right hand as bright yellowish-white sigils were sprouting from her fingertips as she make use of the hallowed language of the Holy Word in order to stabilize the respiratory functions, healing slight wounds here and there, and give the poor girl a calm peace of mind. She can already tell that this girl had undergone a great ordeal before inadvertently coming here. She didn't need to be a mind reader to know as her clothes were a clue for her to fact-check.

Lady Cassiel realized that this person had been running from something, basing it upon reading past experiences.

As a personal self-imposed rule, she would not read the minds of anyone that she comes into contact and see their intimate thoughts. She heavily prefers it if people told it straight to her instead of her prying into people's secrets. And with regards to said rule, she applies it to this particular young woman who was lying on the floor.

After healing her, she needed to carry the woman to safety...

"Goddamit! We lost her!"

"Where the hell is she?!"

"She's probably over there a few clicks to the left?! We should go check it out?!"

...And not a moment too soon as they both disappear by the gust of the wind, with Lady Cassiel making a side glance with narrowed brown eyes. By the next few seconds, there were a couple of soldiers coming out from both directions, east and west.

The soldiers' uniforms consisted of a ninja-like appearance with a bulkier physique, with pauldrons and hoods. They have fully-covered gas masks concealed within the hoods. They were all colored in black camouflage, accompanied by a few letters found on the side of the shoulders: MERD - standing for Magician-Esper Response Division. They were carrying advanced sleeker rifles with black camouflage colors.

"Dispatch to Beta-2, no sign of Mental Broker on the left side!"

"Damn it, search for her! We can't have her lost in this godforsaken world when we were so close!"

Who was the young woman that Lady Cassiel found?

Her name was Hoshina Kamijou, also known as Mental Broker. The daughter of Touma Kamijou and Misaki Shokuhou. She comes from a world called ACMI Alpha Universe-173005.

What was the history behind this world?

Well, it started in the year 2012. A bit cliché if one were to admit it. It was a timeline set a few years ahead from the main timeline of ACMI Universe-Prime as the current year was 2008.

Sometime between the winter months of November and December, the most terrible catastrophe occurred for all mankind that could ever be remembered.

There was a roar. What looked like a mushroom cloud like it was never seen before burnt the clear blue skies of what was once a quiet and peaceful day, turning the world to an era of darkness as the sun gets blotted out.

It was sudden, like the snap of a finger. So sudden in fact that no one could have ever foreseen this catastrophe. No one could have conceived that the clash between Aleister Crowley and The Great Demon Coronzon would turn up quite like this. England was the ground zero of this particular event. And from there, it simply spread throughout the world, as if they were enveloped by the black mantle of the Greek God, Morpheus. The earth and the sea started to boil with rising temperatures.

It was a flash, and it was enough to reap millions of victims around the entire globe.

Those who survived...would never be the same. Around the same time was the beginning of what would eventually be known as the Second Great Depression, a darker period of great economic depression worldwide.

And then, one month later after the Mushroom Incident as people tended to call it by now, there was a member of the dreaded Kihara Family that rose to prominence, setting his sights on bigger dreams and ambitions. With Aleister out of the picture permanently, it was simple to take over the now-defunct Academy City, reconquering it and rebuilding it from the ground up. And aside from Academy City, the entirety of Japan soon followed as they fell under the rule of this Kihara. This Kihara had proposed strange and horrific ideas coated with good intentions, and these kinds of ideas slowly spread through the world and entered into the general awareness of many of the people that made up the survivors of the world that more or less accepted the general consensus.

That this world crisis was the result and the fault of magicians and espers.

Naturally, the next step made out of such a public opinion that was given such a consensus can only result in one thing.

Extermination. Not blatant but subtle to the point where most people wouldn't know out of their own preconceived ignorance.

Magicians and espers, and anyone that had powers and abilities that needed to be dealt with extreme prejudice. Wiping out the slate clean so to speak. And so, this Kihara founded the internationally funded organization called the Magician-Esper Response Division (MERD) who are tasked with hunting down and containing magicians and espers. Well, that was what would have been believed by the public at large. In secret, there were unethical experimentations conducted under the official orders of this Kihara in order to improve upon the perfect utopian ideal of the Kihara Family.

To assist with the task of hunting down the magicians and espers, there was an invention called the Watchmen, killer robots with synthetic skin made from an unknown material that can adapt to any magician or esper power by analyzing them, and in a matter of seconds, develop specific ways to counteract them, displaying their sense of ingenuity.

And so, for the next few years, the magician and esper population were systematically wiped out from the face of the earth. The world was conquered under a dictatorship that only answered to this Kihara, and the normal people, by the time they realized their mistakes to support this Kihara, were already too late as they were forced to live under his rule.

Now, there were only a few survivors in what is termed as the Watchmen Onslaught which is a series of events where the Watchmen were hunting and succeeded in killing thousands of magicians and espers, many of whom tried to stand up against this weapon of man, to no avail.

For the machines appeared to replace the magicians and espers as the dominant power of the world.

In these turbulent years, Touma Kamijou and Misaki Shokuhou were in hiding. They married and had a child whose name was Hoshina Kamijou. Unfortunately for Kamijou, Shokuhou died in childbirth, leaving it to Kamijou to have to take care of his daughter alone for the next few years.

In these few years, Kamijou had long since given up his "heroic ways" and simply spends his days in hiding, working on a farm, and raising his daughter in a remote location in America somewhere in Kansas, somewhere beyond the Kihara's usual reach.

Things were peaceful for the most part for the father and daughter. Although the father never really told much about his past to his daughter through the years, only told stories such as about how he met her mother and saved her from a bad situation, and told her what she looked like and how she acted. On a few specific nights though, Hoshina would look into her father's journal when the latter was sleeping and read the notes that her father had written, detailing extensively about his past, about how he met her mother, about saving many lives, about dealing with the complex political situations surrounding the magic and science sides, about experiencing an Infinite Hell, about saving a Magic God and becoming the enemy of the world, about remembering the memories that he had with her mother, about how he was involved in the battles between the late Aleister Crowley and the now destroyed Coronzon, and everything else.

Even in spite of all that information, Hoshina never really had the courage to tell her father about what she had found out.

Just when things seemed peaceful, Motoharu Tsuchimikado, whom Touma Kamijou hadn't seen for so many years, suddenly appears looking worse for wear despite his good-looking appearance never changing the least, asks him to hear out what he was about to say. It was an offer that he couldn't refuse.

What was it that was so important that Tsuchimikado had to track Kamijou down to the remote countryside of Kansas?

Simple. There was an experimental interdimensional gateway that was their ticket out of this hellhole. A chance to live free from the fear and tyranny that engulfed this world.

Kamijou didn't hesitate to take up on that offer, especially when shown hard evidence by Tsuchimikado. If it was for the sake of giving his daughter a better life than whatever hell this world was, he'd take it. It was the promise that he made to Shokuhou right before she died. And he would keep that promise up to the very end.

Through it wasn't so smooth sailing as they had to deal with a few turbulent situations that involved a certain Kihara who had already achieved world domination and eradicated most of the magician and esper population, had plans to hunt down any or potential Level 5s that could be in hiding, no matter what country they were in.

At the end of it all...

Touma Kamijou had died protecting his daughter...

He urged her one final time to go to the door and escape from this world..and that he only wished that they had more time to spend together...and that he was sorry...

Hoshina was devasted as she sees her father's life suddenly snuff away. She held her father's hand as he died. She cried and cried as she was forced to ran for dear life while the armored troopers of the MERD were chasing her.

Following the final order that her father had given her, she eventually selected a random destination from the control panels of the laboratory housing the interdimensional gateway and immediately begins to run for it.

That random destination was ACMI Universe-Prime.

By a stroke of fortune, ironic as it sounded, Hoshina Kamijou ended up in an alleyway in District 7. Due to the experimental nature of the doorway and not wearing any protective gear, Hoshina collapses due to the side effect of hopping through worlds. She falls to the ground...and only uttered her last words as she lay unconscious...

"...Pa...pa..."

Insert Song: End

ED Song:

Terminator Salvation - Break The Silence (Soundtrack)

Main Companion Protagonists:

John Connor - A: Michael David Edwards

Main Love Interests:

Lady Griselda - VA: Ayako Kawasumi

Main Companion Protagonist's Family Characters:

Lady Cassiel - VA: Kana Hanazawa

New Characters:

Hoshina Kamijou

Baraquazeil (SCP-001 - Gate Guardian)