God Eater 3 – Starling's Start
Chapter 1 – Introduction
Name: Aurick Bird
Codename: Starling
Hairstyle: Type 2
Hair Colour: Dark purple
Face: Type 4
Eyes: Type 4
Eye Colour: Fox Brown
Accessories: Frizz 2 (Dark Purple)
Voice: 8
So, we're starting a God Eater 3 Fanfic, even though I haven't even finished my GE2RB fanfic yet. I will get back to it, I just haven't had the inspiration to do it yet. Hopefully working on this fanfic will inspire me to get back to doing the last few chapters I have planned for it. Regardless, I hope you enjoy this fanfic.
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE GOD EATER FRANCHISE.
Also, please leave a review.
"I never expected to find anyone out here." A husky voice croaks out of a fairly muscular man whose jacket shines in under the moonlight.
"So, what now?" My friend responds to the man. His voice does not betray the confidence he feels. I, on the other hand, do not share the same confidence as my friend, Hugo. I decide to stay quiet and let Hugo do all the talking.
"Now, you'll share the same fate as those that you left behind." The same man replies to Hugo with a stern, yet humoured voice. He must have found our attempt to escape funny. Honestly, he scares me, but not as much as the men and few women that surround us. They move forward step by step until there's no more than a metre between us all. Hugo and I are completely surrounded.
"Tsk." Hugo utters in disdain. However, like me, he is unmoving, and we let the people reach us without hitting back at them.
"Smart move, boys." The man speaks up as his subordinates capture us. "If you had fought us, you would have been shot. In a way, I kinda wish you had tried to escape again." A smirk crosses the man's face. Hugo and I both know that he isn't above murdering kids like us. After all, when he and his gang arrived in our little settlement merely an hour ago, he had tried to get us to go with him peacefully. However, when that didn't work, he shot the people that were opposed to him. Leaving us no choice to try and escape if we didn't want to be taken by these men. With the people surrounding us, there was no option to escape at all. We only had two choices; go with this guy or be killed. And so, Hugo and I are forced to walk with our captors, along with the kids that chose not to resist these people. The blood of many was spilled today, and it's something I won't forget.
"Hey, you. How about you let us see your face? I want to know the faces of my new soldiers." As soon as the husky voice of the man reaches my ears, I feel a sharp tug on my hood that was covering my face. At the same time, the scarf I was wearing to hide the lower half of my face is torn away from me. A few seconds pass as I feel the eyes of the crew stare at me. Those seconds feel like minutes as we continue being frogmarched. "Hmm." I hear the husky voice of the leader hum as he takes in the sight. I already know what they're looking at. There's only one reason why I cover my face, and that's so people don't see my bright purple hair. "Hey kid, are you the unique kind?" Again, I already know what he's talking about. I've had to put up with this sort of thing for a long time.
"I-I…" I can't speak up though, despite how irritated I am that my brightly coloured hair has been exposed for these goons to gawk at, I'm still in a pretty scary situation.
"Purple is his natural hair colour. What, you think that we'd find something to colour his hair with in our situation?" Hugo chimes in for me and I allow myself to breathe again, something I was unaware that I had stopped doing due to the fright.
"Somebody punish that brat for his sarcasm." The man says it so easily, as if he's given out these demands before. I care very little about that though, as the next thing I see is my friend knocked out cold after one of the man's goons hit him in the back of the head with their gun. I run straight over to Hugo in a panic.
"Come on, Hugo, get up." I speak quietly, remembering that we're currently in a bad situation.
"Listen up, kid!" The group comes to a stop as the man makes his way towards us. "Next time, you'll answer for yourself! Understand?!" A nod is all I can muster in response. "Speak boy!"
"Y-Yes." I manage to utter, beginning to feel weak under the sharp gaze of a man that can do a lot of damage to me if I did anything to go against him. After a few seconds of silence, the man's gaze is turned towards Hugo.
"You've got two options, kid." He looks at me again as he speaks. "You can either leave him here, or you can carry him. I've got no room for kids that will fight back." He quickly turns away and takes his position at the front of the pack. I know exactly what he meant by those words; he doesn't care about whether my friend makes it back to this guys' hideout. No, the only reason that Hugo isn't dead yet is because he knows that Hugo is my support. Without Hugo, he won't have me either. But, why does he want me that much? Am I just looking too much into this? Or is there a reason why he needs me specifically? Regardless of the answer, I quickly, but carefully, throw one of Hugo's arms over my shoulder and help walk him to walk with our group.
A short while later, Hugo regains consciousness and begins walking on his own. Giving me a smile in response after he calculates what happened. It isn't too much later that we find out what our destination is. A Port. Or more specifically Pennywort Port. Realistically, I should have been able to guess that we were heading to some sort of Port. There were always posters on walls trying to recruit kids to join Ports and help "save the world". As if kids like us could do that. So, I shouldn't be surprised that these Ports have people go out in search of others to join them. That is, if they can successfully become AGES.
As our group walks into Port Pennywort, we're immediately split up. I begin to panic as I see Hugo being marched away by a couple of people, but he turns back and gives me a smile,
"I'll see you soon." He says. However, I'm much more of a pessimist than he is. During our journeys, he was always the one to keep my spirits up. Now though, we've been separated.
"You'd best hope he survives, or you'll never see him again." The stern, husky voice of the leader of the kidnappers rings in my head as I come to understand his words. For some reason, this guy is in charge of me. I feel like I'd be in much safer hands if anyone else was in charge of me. I feel as though this guy has taken an interest in me, and I really have to say that I hope it isn't the case.
Ten minutes pass by before I'm forced to follow the same path that my friend walked down a short time earlier. The walls are barren and brown and lack much light, but as I eventually come to a door guarded by two people, I see Hugo staggering his way out of the room. His footsteps are short and easily show his fatigue. He eventually comes to a stop, a few metres away from me, and raises his head. Uttering a small, tired chuckle as he sees me. He looks like he's been through a ton of shit in the room I'm about to head into.
"Don't look so worried." He speaks confidently, but slightly short of breath. "We're not gonna die, I promise you that." He brings his arms up to solidify his words, but he unknowingly shows off a pair of Gauntlets on his wrists. His words, though, bring me a small amount of courage. Hugo was able to survive the ordeal he's just undergone, so I can too. I bring one of my own arms up and we give each other a fist pump. As we do this though, one of the guards walks towards us, before shoving Hugo out of the way. This isn't a friendly place.
"Next is… PW01408. That's you." The man speaks as he reads off of a device that looks similar to the electronic tablets Hugo and I were able to scavenge a long time ago. The man takes me by the scruff of my neck and into the room.
"Good luck, buddy." I hear Hugo trying to support me as I'm forced to sit in a seat, staring at the door I've just walked through. I manage to have a look around and see that the man is staring intently at me. I stare at my arms and see that I've actually been locked into the chair. There's no chance of escape and I can feel my heart begin to race.
"We will now begin the AGE aptitude test. Please try to relax." I can't help but panic slightly as the machine tells me to relax. "Stage one. Inducing Ashblight corruption." As soon as the feminine voice that emits from the machine finishes its sentence, I feel a sharp pain in my left arm, as if something had stabbed into my veins.
"Ngh… Argh…" The pain is unbearable and I can't help but squirm in the seat that I'm locked into. I see that black smoke as well as yellow tendrils and worming its way out of my wrist and around them.
"Ashblight corruption has been confirmed. Now progressing to stage two. Mounting God Arc." Despite the pain in my left arm, I manage to turn my head to my right where I see the machine lining up a God Arc with my right hand, but only after it swings in front of me and makes me think for a second that there's a fault with the machine and that I'm about to die. As the pain in my left wrist subsides, I reach out to the God Arc with my right hand, grabbing at its handle. A second later, my arm is clamped inside of the machine and inside of a gauntlet.
"Urrrgh… Auuugh!" The grunts escape me as I begin writing in pain once again. Black smoke bathes my right wrist as the machine continues to do its process,
"Progressing to stage three. Final stage. Implanting Adaptive Oracle Cells." I turn my head to see my left wrist, grunting through the pain of how heavy my head feels. I only have one gauntlet on at the moment, and I remember seeing Hugo had one in each wrist, so that means a similar thing is going to happen to my left wrist, again. Just as the machine finishes its sentence, the other gauntlet snaps onto my wrist and I can't help the anguished scream that escapes my mouth.
"Gahhhh!" The black smoke and yellow tendrils seem to fade into my left wrist and I feel my breath beginning to return to me. "*pant*… *pant*…"
"Status confirmed." As the machine speaks again, I take the time to look over my new accessories. "Ashblight corruption had been neutralised. Subject's vitals have returned to normal. Aptitude… is positive. Congratulations. The process is complete. You are now an Adaptive God Eater."
"So you survived…" As soon as I hear the man who dragged me into this room speak, my attention is turned towards them. He looks at the electronic tablet and seems to be in a minor amount of shock. "Grade A… Huh, we haven't seen your kind around here before." The shock quickly fades. "How does it feel to give up your humanity." The machine releases me as he speaks, and I quickly find myself hurtling towards the ground. Thankfully, I'm able to clutch onto the God Arc and slowly try to coax myself into a standing position. However, my legs are too weak after all the pain I've just went through and I find myself collapsing onto the floor anyway.
"Hey, don't go and croak on us, okay?" I hear the man speaking again as I try to regain the energy to lift myself back onto my feet. "Your life belongs to the Port now. You're of no use dead. Here, I'm going to need you to sign this contract." He lowers it to me as I raise my head to it. I fumble around for a second of two before I manage to make my way onto my knees, taking the contract from the man. Without even reading through it, I sign the contract on the bottom with my name:
Aurick Bird
Just before my consciousness fades, I'm able to see the boots of the leader of the kidnappers as he walks into the room.
"Grade A, huh? I knew there was something special about you, kid." As the man speaks my consciousness fades.
"C'mon, let's go." I blink my eyes in rapid succession to break myself away from a sleepy state. As I turn towards the speaker, I see Hugo standing before me shrugging as he waits for me to sit up and get ready for a mission. He's much taller than he was during my dream of our first day here. Now, we've been here for what feels like forever. Judging by the difference in our heights compared to the heights of ourselves during my dream, I'd say it's been at least ten years since we arrived here. "Hey, you okay?" I turn to Hugo as he speaks, spinning my legs over the side of my bed as I try to wake myself up properly. "You seem pretty out of it. Bad dream or something?"
"Something like that." I speak up, something I'm still not too used to doing. I definitely speak more than I did when I was a child, but I still wouldn't regard myself as an active talker.
"Anyway, rise and shine. I went ahead and asked about our next job." Hugo sits on my bed as he speaks. "It's in a pretty thick spot. Looks like there's not too much time left for you and me, huh?" He's right, we've been getting worse and worse missions lately. Soon enough, we'll meet our maker and probably die on the battlefield.
"Fighting in ash this thick will ruin a body in no time. And if we can't work? Well, I doubt the folks at the Port will want to look after us. Eventually, we're either going to run out of the bias factor we need to live… Or we'll end up as Aragami snacks, or bait, and… that'll be that. A time-honoured end for AGEs like you and me." In response to his words, I give him a stern look. "Yeah, well, that's not gonna happen to us. I promise." I give a supporting nod to show that I'm with him. Hugo is my leader now, just like he was in the past. If we're a team, there's nothing that can stop us. "After all, we've got too much riding on our shoulders… We'll keep going for the ones we couldn't save." As Hugo says this, I can't help but turn my head to the pictures on the wall of the AGEs that are no longer with us. "It's a vow I made to them all; I'm never going to give up, no matter what happens. So, that's that." He turns towards me. "We are not dying."
"Of course not." I give a smile along with my words, standing up from my bed as the drowsiness fades from my mind.
"The two of us will keep moving forward… On to whatever tomorrow brings."