CHAPTER 2

Well, here's chapter two. More backstory and detail for you guys to chew on. Sorry there hasn't been much of Sonic and his team. There's a lot to cover and I don't want you guys getting lost as many different things are happening early on. Also if you're here for the romance it'll be a couple chapters before we get there, as it comes secondary in this story. For those who have been sticking with me this far, I really appreciate you giving my story a chance. Please review, your feedback is a great help to making my story better.

Commander Jarving sat in his situation room at the head of a large rectangular table, with five other members of his research team, and four of his trusted advisors. Jarving was the ranking officer at this government site in Seattle, Washington located by the water. In charge of this particular site, which was a short distance from his previous secret testing lab for the not so approved of W.E.A.P.O.N. Program, he is one of 50 commanders operating in the U.S, one per state.

W.E.A.P.O.N. stands for Weaponized Elite Augmented Personnel Operating Naively. The program, at the start, was known of and not popular among the leaders in the IA, the original idea being the research and development of super soldiers, and its operations and research were kept top secret, for the program was supposed to have been shut down after a majority vote against it from the IA Council of Representatives, their reasoning being super soldiers weren't needed and the research and testing the subjects would endure would be horribly unethical. Unfortunately, someone had found out the project was still going, which had resulted in last night's raid on his lab. Jarving had watched the surveillance footage of his lab from the complex and wondered, as he drummed his fingers agitatedly on the table, who in the IA was after him and his research.

The IA, or International Alliance, had formed after the conclusion of the Extremist Wars, which ended in 2025, a decade prior to now. The war had lasted six years, starting in 2019 on July 7th, known as Day 77, when global organized terrorist attacks broke out as Islamic Extremists lashed out violently against all those they saw as infidels. Refugees fled cities as military forces assembled to suppress the terrorists and take back control.

Unfortunately, the refugees weren't always welcomed. In the U.S, when the government announced it was offering a safe haven to any who were fleeing the fighting, despite having suffered terrorist attacks as well, America First extremists revolted, opting for self-preservation instead of global cooperation, starting a civil war and hunting down any foreign refugees, killing or capturing them. Across the globe nations were decimated as Nationalists, who believed in their countries self-preservation over helping out those in need, fought Internationalists, who believed the only way to get through the crisis was to have everyone unite and provide any help they could, and militaries splintered as personnel fought an internal battle of duty to their country, or service to those commanded them.

The first countries to start what was to become the International Alliance were Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Australia in 2021, forming what they called PIA, the Pacific Islands Alliance, since they were all close enough to provide military support to one another, and were isolated from the larger wars on the continents. In 2020, Europe had banded together, along with Greenland and Iceland, but its militaries were too busy fighting terrorists within its borders and protecting the refugees, fleeing from the South and the East, from Nationalists to offer any military support to other countries at that time.

In late 2021 PIA started reaching out to nearby countries, offering aid and support to help take back government control and stabilize local military defenses. Then, in 2022, PIA made contact, through their new Russian allies, with the European Alliance and the tide of the global conflict turned in favor of the Internationalists, as the growing alliance began a massive governmental and military cooperative campaign, rallying Internationalist supporters and quickly crushing Nationalist movements.

The war went on as country by country, the Internationalists quelled and suppressed the Nationalists, using their selfishness to their advantage, as the Nationalists never tried to form any alliances with neighboring countries, having only their countries self-preservation in mind. The United States was one of the last to join the global alliance as its political control went back and forth from Nationalist to Internationalist leaders. Then, in the wee hours of the morning on October 17th, 2024, an assassin shot and killed three Nationalist politicians and the current president, who had taken control when the initial Nationalist rebellion forced the previous president out of office, ending the power struggle and allowing Internationalists to retake government control and join the ever growing earth wide alliance.

The wars officially ended on August 8th, 2025 when the current global leaders assembled together in Tokyo, Japan and formed a council. The council made an International Constitution, and formed a worldwide singular government they called the International Alliance. The constitution they wrote and collaborated on were rules that everyone must abide by, and was the foundation that they used to rebuild their respective countries into the massive interconnected global community that the IA is today.

However, within this newly formed global government, as interconnected as everything was, secrets were easily kept, and even though the global leaders who formed the council were all on the same page, those they commanded were not always so truthful. As the militaries of the world joined into a single force, sharing technology and information to better develop the world, some kept certain projects to themselves, plotting in secret, hoping to one day get ahead of everyone else and take control of the IA.

Tanner Jarving was originally one of those people, however recent events had changed him. He had first proposed the idea of a super soldier project to the council five years ago in 2030, only to have it rejected for the inhumane tests and experiments that would have to be done to potential recruits. One of his superiors, however, liked his idea and told him he would secretly fund the program and provide him with some test subjects.

Jarving was given the promotion to commander so he had enough authority to deny disclosing information about what he was up to too pretty much anyone who questioned him, and, as one of 50 commanders in the States, pretty much have free reign to do as he pleased. His superior set him up in an IA government complex in Seattle, Washington, where he filled the recently made vacant commander position, and was given a separate warehouse, located downtown from the complex, to use for his research lab, where he had access to state of the art technology as well as the isolated wilderness of the Olympic Peninsula, a short helicopter ride away, providing a perfect outdoor training ground away from the prying eyes of the city.

Shortly after Jarving had set up shop, he asked his superior about getting some test subjects to begin his research. His superior brought him to a prison in Utah where people were being kept for crimes committed during the wars. He brought Jarving to a secret underground part of the prison where there was a single cell. Inside the cell was a single man of average height, just shy of six feet. He was malnourished and skinny, yet Jarving could see well defined muscles that showed hidden strength. When he approached the cell, the man slowly looked up and stared at him. Jarving saw the eyes of a killer and felt a shiver go down his spine. The prisoner's eyes were dark brown, almost black, with no warmth, but cold and calculating. He glanced at his superior and nodded his approval.

"I'll take him. What is he in here for?" Jarving asked as an afterthought. His superior responded with a chuckle.

"That man is the assassin who killed those Nationalist politicians near the end of the war."

Within a week the prisoner was transported to Jarving's warehouse. Rigorous training began and over the course of a year the prisoner was worked up to a peak of physical conditioning. At this point the project stalled as Jarving tried and failed with many attempts at further pushing his subject's abilities to new limits. Then, his superior contacted him saying he had a drug he was sending him. When Jarving asked about it he was brushed off and told to focus on his research.

A few weeks later a shipment arrived from Japan. As Jarving examined the strange blue liquid he was sent in his lab he tested it with different applications. He used mice, not wanting to possibly damage his main subject and have to start over, and found direct injection into the blood stream gave the mice a strange demeanor. Intrigued, he risked giving a small dose to his primary subject. He made the man do his normal physical training activities and did tests. As Jarving looked over the results he noticed that the drug affected the man's brain, not so much his body. He noticed his brain activity was minute, the parts controlling emotional responses and rational thinking practically inactive, essentially making the man a manipulatable, emotionless shell. It was this that gave him an idea for his name. He was an empty shell, nothing, zero. He thought of the military alphabet, and it hit him. He approached his subject and got his attention.

"You will do exactly as I say, for you are incapable, empty, worthless, and nothing, understood?" He ordered.

"Yes." Responded the man blankly.

"You will refer to your superiors, which is everyone, as sir."

"Yes, sir."

"Finally, you will respond only to your military designation."

"What is my designation, sir?"

"Zulu."

Jarving continued working and analyzing the effects of the drug, noting it wore off after approximately 12 hours, which returned Zulu's individuality back to him. Jarving tried but never succeeded in making the effects last longer, as Zulu's peak physic and health had his immune system purge the drug from his blood stream quicker each dosage. He left the drug as it was and began focusing on improving Zulu.

After another year, he had made a process to reinforce Zulu's body making it all but impervious to harm. He dosed Zulu with the drug and secured him to a special table surrounded by needles and tubes of various substances. The experiment began, lasting for eight hours. Jarving had left after 30 minutes, for Zulu's screams of pain as the drugs that were injected into him augmented his bone structure and organs were, oddly, too much for him to bear.

Jarving presented Zulu, who had grown to be around seven feet tall during the augmentation, to his superior, who was very impressed and supplied him with six more ex-convicts for the program. What neither knew was that someone had gotten wind of what they were up to and wasn't happy about the project still happening. Plans were made for sabotage as Jarving pressed on with his research, continuing to augment his subjects further until he had made the perfect soldiers, or weapons, as his superior liked to refer to the men, which sparked the name for the program.

Jarving's superior was on his way back to the States after visiting with his contact in Japan when his plane went down. It was covered up and blamed on an unfortunate engine failure, and the fact that he was on the plane remained unknown to all but those who had caused the accident. He had been meeting with his contact about transporting a device they had made state-side and had arranged for it to be shipped to Seattle to make research for his project easier, as the machine would provide Jarving direct access to any "assistance" he may need.

A spy was set up to act as Jarving's superior and he wasn't told of the shipment for him. The ship arrived in Seattle and its cargo was stolen, taken to an abandoned warehouse where it was studied and, after a lot of trouble, made operational, where its true purpose was discovered. Meanwhile, Jarving had, over the course of a year and a half, put Zulu and his team through four more augmenting processes and told who he thought was his superior that the W.E.A.P.O.N. Program was complete.

A plan was made to eliminate the team and destroy the machine in one go, luring the soldiers to the portal and causing a meltdown, as well as sending a strike team into Jarving's lab to kill him and seize all information on the program. Six months later, Jarving was contacted by his superior telling him to expect some men who were to take his team to investigate a strange occurrence in the city. Jarving assembled Zulu and his team, gave them their special gear he developed, administered the combat drugs, and sent them on their way, feeling a sense of pride for his team.

Shortly afterward, he got a phone call from Japan. It was his superior's Japanese contact, who was asking if he had heard anything from his superior about the shipment that was sent, because he was supposed to confirm when he got the shipment. Jarving realized something was very wrong as he told the contact that his superior had never mentioned a shipment. He ended the call and tried contacting his superior, but got no answer.

Quickly, he and his research team gathered as much equipment as they could, loading it all into three large trucks parked outside, sent all projects files to a secure backup server he had set up and fled the lab, heading for the safety of the IA complex. Half an hour later a massive explosion rocked the city. Outside his lab armored vans pulled up and unloaded three squads of armed men who rushed into the lab, only to find it empty.

Jarving looked around the room at his researchers and advisors. They all looked exhausted and nervous. He sighed, feeling concerned about Zulu and his team. He had heard the explosion and knew it involved the mission they were taken on.

"Sir." One of his advisors motioned to him. "Got a call from a man in Japan, says it's urgent."

"Put him on speaker." Jarving replied hurriedly.

"Hello? Commander Jarving?" crackled the speaker.

"Speaking."

"Ah, very good. Listen, I wanted to inform you that we are working on a second machine. Your superior wanted a failsafe in case something happened to the first."

"What does this machine do exactly?" Jarving asked.

"The machine started as a way of quick transportation. Back in the wars, the PIA were trying to develop a method of being able to quickly transport troops to the other islands. They weren't successful, and the project got scrapped. Around five years ago, I was in charge of cataloging old information from the wars into the Japanese IA database for historical references. I came across a few files detailing the machine and brought them before the council. Unfortunately they weren't interested and turned me down. However your superior got in touch and agreed to fund a project to create the machine. Two years later we were testing our prototype. When we turned it on it created a portal, as well as sending out a massive EMP."

"A portal? You said a portal?" Jarving asked skeptically.

"Yes, a portal, we sent someone in and they returned saying they had appeared in a building and were greeted by what looked like military personnel, but didn't wear any recognizable uniform."

"So they had a portal too?"

"Correct, our test subject also noted they had some very high tech machinery. When he returned I informed your superior, who rushed here as soon as possible. He himself went through the portal and was gone for quite a while, returning a couple hours later with a blue vial which he told me to study and replicate if I could. I asked what he had done over there he ignored me and told me to tell no one of what we had discovered. The next time him and I spoke he said to send the liquid to you."

"Ugh." Jarving shook his head, his brain was throbbing trying to comprehend all this. "Ok, well, let me know when you finish with your second portal." Jarving said, ending the call. He slowly glanced around at everyone in the room. "I'm sure I don't need to say this but nothing we just heard leaves this room, understood?"

"Yes sir!" his team and advisors all responded.

"Good, now I really need a drink. I want you guys to get as much information on that explosion as you can. I want to know what happened to my boys by tomorrow morning. Clear?"

"Sir!" They all stood up and quickly left the room.

"Damnit Zulu." Muttered Jarving. "You and your team better be ok."