I guess it all kind of started when I was a student at a local art school. I really wanted to get into the kind of photography that would make your grandmother blush like a schoolgirl. Don't ask me why, I've just always been drawn to that kind of stuff…. well, that and Maverick outbreaks, but that's beside the point. It was a project for my class that I got mixed up with the Reploids the world would eventually come to fear as the 'Witch' and the 'Reaper'. I first noticed her, she was holding onto her brother's arm as if her life depended on it. They were walking along the sidewalk carefully as if they were expecting a trip wire somewhere but it was her that caught my eye.

She was really pretty you know, before… everything happened that took away their innocence. I honestly could never wrap my mind around it; how could two creatures, so timid and certain of their world, go on to do such atrocious acts of violence toward their own kind and humans alike? But I approached her first, rather forgetting that she was attached to her brother, and requested that she be my model for a shot or two. Not a spare second that my request left my lips, her brother started to ask me this laundry list of questions that all had something to do with who I was, what I wanted to with her, if I knew their creator, and the rest of that kind of stuff. It surprised me. When you ask most people if you can take their picture, they either give a short no or you boost their ego for the day with a yes. But it wasn't this way with him.

He made me feel as if I had been caught sticking my hand into the cookie jar five minutes before dinner.

Embarrassed with cheeks burning fiercer than fire, I explained to him my project for school for nearly fifteen minutes. He listened with a deep intent, while she gave me this funny look that made me think she was scanning me nude or something. It felt weird, and it was weird. After some time, he finally decided that I should see his creator, a notion that his sister didn't take too kindly to. She had mumbled something about their creator not being happy when he finds out that they've been 'let loose' again. Her brother either ignored her, or he knew it full well and figured taking me straight to his creator could alleviate a part of their punishment. Maybe.

Imagine, as a young art student around seventeen years old, how surprised I was that the creator of the two Reploids I wanted to photograph were designed by Master Albert of the Sage Trinity.

Admittedly, I wasn't really into who or what the Sage Trinity was at the time. I was still a kid at the time, but that didn't mean I haven't heard of them before. Master Albert's general presence was overwhelming. I don't know what it was about him, but when he told me to tell him about me, I told him everything that I could easily recall. I told him that I was a victim of a Maverick outbreak when I was three, causing the doctors to rescue me to replace both tendons in my feet with cybernetic counterparts because the Mavericks had fired near the area and it nearly burned the skin enough to hit the muscle. I then told him that I was in the middle of the deadly Area H Maverick attack that left me to an inch of my life, a hero in red saved me on that day and after that I worked and lived at a local transporter service because that was where I had woken up. I worked for the transporter service for three years before I decided to go into photography, which is what led to me having to explain all of this to him. For a moment, all Master Albert did was sit back and think over what I had told him. I felt so… bad. I had this feeling that was equal to the way you feel when you just know something horrible is going to happen, like… like the death of someone. You could see it on his face.

"I believe you."

That was what he had said- as if I needed his approval or if there was any doubt that I would lie to him about that. But it was what he said next that nearly shook me to the core.

He hired me.

Master Albert proposed that I be the Sage Trinity's personal photographer- the person that would follow them around and take good shots that helped the public see that the Trinity was there to protect them, to serve the masses, to be the everyman to change the world. Of course I agreed. What idiot wouldn't agree to a deal like that?

It wasn't until my eighteenth birthday that Master Albert and I became more intimate.

When I think about it, it was more for appearances than anything. I was loved by a Reploid before, and I knew that look in his eye whenever I walked into the room or I said his name in passing- Master Albert never had that look in his eye when I came into the room, or when I said his name is passing. I learned a lot about Master Albert's past and it wasn't too difficult a pill for me to swallow that he could never really love someone. I understood, but I still felt as if I knew so little about him.

I don't think I ever understood how little I knew about him until the whole Ouroboros fiasco…