Chapter 3

"Each man is a spark in the darkness, would that we all burn as bright."

Attributed to unknown philosopher millennium unknown.

Mindscape time unknown 2002 M 3

Issei woke again to the place he was now sure was his inner mind. The place was barren and desolate with no structure or form, waiting for him was revelation, the other was no longer in the form of a giant man clad in golden armor, no he now looked exactly like Issei only his hair instead of being brown was still the midnight black. Issei looked at him for what may have been a second or an eternity, the other him was gazing back at him without fear or hesitation, Issei felt a wave of regret hit him from the other him, the feeling disappeared a moment later.

"Hello Issei."

Issei heard that the voice of his doppelganger that was also his own, Revelation, paused before saying his voice filled with many emotions.

"I'm sure you have many questions, I'll try to answer as many of them as I am able to, this I swear on the bones of terra."

The oath rang out and Issei felt it in his soul and seemed to immediately understand that revelation would not try to hide anything from the one he was now connected to.

"Who are you truly? you called yourself the Master of Mankind, and much more."

The other him said nothing before his face and eyes met his again.

"I did call myself the Master of Mankind, for that was what I am, I was the ruler of the greatest empire that humanity had ever known, I once claimed over a million worlds as my domain, this empire spanned the entire Milky Way galaxy and had many tens of trillions of people, I was their protector, their watcher, the defender that had seen and observed all of human history, it's triumphs over a galaxy that more often than not sought humanity's destruction and the lows that came after the greatest mistake of my immortal life."

Horus the whispers said.

"I fought for millennium to protect our species issei and now, now I am in your body sharing my soul with yours, we who are likely to bound together for eternity, my soul has changed parts of who you are. Remember the many cuts' bruises and other injuries that you sustained? And then healed incredibly fast."

Issei nodded.

"That is the result of me changing you into what is called a perpetual, I will be blunt Issei that means you will likely never truly die and pass on into the sea of souls."

That had made Issei gape, he, he was now immortal?

The other him nodded at the unspoken question affirming it. There was a flash on revelation's face a look that showed Issei that he was truly and utterly sorry for forcing this upon him.

"There is more, you will become as I said something far above that of the rest of humanity, something that could become as I did it's protector and or it's destroyer, you have inherited many other gifts from me such as my psychic might and indomitable will, it is the cause of all the flashes of emotions and feelings that you received from the people in your life, it will never go away and I will help train you and how to control your emotions and feelings, you have become a potential ticking time bomb, and again I am very sorry for doing that to you."

Issei felt like his heart had stopped and just as he felt that his legs would give out on him he was suddenly reinvigorated by an explosion of energy, both Issei's looked to where the source of that energy had come from, and what they saw scared the real Issei and greatly worried Revelation. Far off in the distance a red light had appeared and began approaching the place that they both stood upon and then with a roar that shook the entirety of issei's mindscape came a dragon.

It was enormous towering over Issei and Revelation , it was the shape and form of a western style dragon it's body could have easily smashed almost anything it could come into contact with into the earth, it's wing were unusually large with red feathers upon them rather then scales as it had on the rest of its body, those scales were also blood red running up the length and width of the dragons body with no gaps or spaces that had loose or missing scales. Scarlet hot flames seemed to dance over its body and at the head was a maw of teeth that were as thick as an elephant's body. The fangs were a pale white that made them gleam in intensity and coming from the eye sockets in its skull were two massive eyes of pure green. The dragon landed in front of Issei. The force of the landing pushed him and revelation backwards, the dragon then seemed to take up a defensive position that was seemingly guarding the location that the seven year old was now occupying. The dragon roared again this time instead of it being animalistic there were very real words coming from its maw.

"That is enough of your delusional rant you Spector I will not allow you to cause any more damage with your lies to my partner."

Issei's mouth dropped to the floor as he saw that the dragon was indeed protecting him from Revelation, he looked back from the dragon to the other him and saw that Revelation was no long in that form, he was back to being in his baroque golden plated armor a sword of fire gleaming with killing intent in his right hand. The look of contempt on his face was terrifying to behold, it was as if Issei was looking at the face of a god. Bile rose up Issei's throat, no. No that was not the face of a god, no that was the face of a man who was determined to defend him from what was a very clear alien threat.

"I don't know how or why you are here in my counter parts soul beast, but I am not frightened by you. I have killed a dragon that was easily stronger than what ever you are,"

Those words made the red dragon roar in righteous fury and before Issei could speak to perhaps try and pacify both beings, the dragon moved. It was fast, faster than something that size should have been. The dragon dove its claws downwards ready to kill the thing that had implied it was weak, revelation somehow caught the claws with his blade greatly surprising both Issei and the unknown dragon. Revelation then moved his body and with what seemed like extraordinarily little effort used his strength to push the claws back and then threw the dragon backwards. The dragon digs its heels into the ground and stops itself. The drag marks left by the throw were deep canyons with many sharp rocks jetting out from them. The dragon was incensed launching a new wave of multiple attacks against this thing that had already caused its partner so much pain.

Revelation caught or deflected these attacks. And so, the two kept fighting neither willing to back down, each going for deadly and deadlier strikes, the dragons scale hide never broke with any of the attacks or blows that Revelation made on it but neither could the dragon inflict a wound onto revelation, the speed fury and intensity of the dual continued to mount and soon neither could or would stop their blows. Strike after strike, cut after cut, neither side was making progress against the other, Revelation had begun to throw lightning at the dragon with his free hand and the dragon would shoot its flames upon the giant of a man, the attacks both did nothing and as issei looked up at both beings that were residing in his soul he heard their thoughts and emotions, this whole situation was he concluded incredibly stupid, they both just wanted to protect him, why could they not see that at all?

This fight actually accomplished nothing, his parents were still dead, his home now nothing but dust on the wind, something within his soul burned and that was what finally gave pause to the giant and the dragon, issei was sick and tired of everything and in a move that would define the path that he had unknowingly begun to tread with the conclusion that the fight was pointless, the boy's body changed. A flash of pure energy exploded from where issei had once stood, that shock wave hit the two fighters hard pushing them away from each other and the two were completely stone still as their shared container moved in between them, hands outstretched.

"Enough!"

Where had once stood a seven year old child now stood a giant of a man, he wore the armor of Revelation, the Aquila looking down on the two combatants, on his back were feathery dragon wings the color of red and gold, the color blinding everything in the mindscape making Revelation and the dragon wince and squint to try and get a look at this new being born in justified anger and indignation, Issei stood now as the true and absolute lord and master of his mind.

"Enough! This fight between you two ends now! You do not need to protect me from each other we who are a triad of souls now bound together through fate and chance. Look upon me and what do you see? A being that is the best of all three of us, a being who will no longer be a worm left to suffer, I am Issei Hyoudou! The new Master of Mankind and Red Dragon Emperor of Domination! Never again will we have to run and hide from our shared destiny, never again shall you two fight In my soul, instead let us build a new dream. one built from each of us, to protect humanity from a cold and uncaring universe, to become stronger than the white one and never be dethroned, and for my dream of ending the troubles that face all who call our heap of dirt floating in space their home, so I have spoken and committed to. We must be unified in purpose for our salvation. Will you stop this and join me?"

Issei's psychic might enhanced by Revelation combined with Ddraig's draconian aura brought both of the fighters to their knees. The dragon and Revelation looked at the being before them and each now had a smile that would scare anyone who would gaze upon them. This was the successor that both had been looking for and now they had found him. The Milky Way galaxy would never be the same ever again.

Town of Miki Kato 2002 to 2005 M 3

After the fight had ceased between Revelation and Ddraig, three of them had collaborated together on a plan going forward. Their host's family was dead. They had no money, little food, and as close to drinkable water as was possible for now.

So, Issei had to reluctantly embrace the life of a petty thief. Stealing the food and other items that one needs to survive on the streets. After a few hours of preparation, Issei had made a map of the grocery stores and food dispensers that were in this town. Once a week for the two years at a completely random rotation so as to prevent a patten from forming. That would lead to criminal investigation, one of the stores or shops would be pillaged for the necessities that were needed. Issei needed an increased caloric intake to offset his growing body, and psychic might, The boy who had been in somewhat good shape was now a walking example of what a human should look like if they were incredibly active and healthy.

To get money so that eventually he wouldn't have to steal anymore Issei had started taking odd jobs from the various people who lived here, soon he had developed a reputation among the community for being an incredible hard worker with an amazing work ethic, the fact that he was so young meant that multiple times he had to make people not question why he didn't have a family and or be interested I finding where this kid lived. He had made some money before Revelation had suggested that perhaps they could use his knowledge of the technology of the far future to make money faster and easier, thus Issei started an unofficial repair shop that catered to people who needed thing fixed for cheap. The adults of the town had been amused by the fact a kid thought he could fix things to any degree of competence. They had been proven wrong.

On a whim an older man had joked to Issei that if he could fix a transmission on his car he would get a sizable amount of money for the deed. Issei had taken the joke and made the man eat his words, the boy had repaired the car in less than an hour as the old man had watched in utter amazement as his car went from having multiple problems that would have taken more money than what he made a month to fix, be repaired to almost mint condition.

When Issei had smirked at the man it had been with a dumbfounded expression that the man backed up his words and paid the kid his money, that had sent the snowball rolling and now Issei had plenty of customers to keep yen in his pocket. The theft of food and other goods ceased after that year.

When Issei was not repairing things or working out his body he was busy scouring the library in town and eventually the World Wide Web when he bought a computer from a woman who had broken it by mistake and was selling it to get part of the money she needed for a new one, Issei had overpaid for it and with the parts he would collect from the scrapyard across from his home he repaired the machine and had it running much more efficiently than before. Issei was very surprised when he had discovered that there were two sides of the internet/

He had been doing a random search on what sort of things he could buy from a furniture store when he had noticed something strange, it was ad for a magic shop in town and he had been about close the tab when Ddraig stopped him and then told him to click and follow it, doing so led Issei to the internet of the hidden world of the supernatural, he had known that it existed thanks to Ddraig but this was his first true connection with it, that had not been through second hand encounters, the fact that all the gods that ever existed in mythology were very real had pissed revelation off royally. He had called them figments of the past and tumors that gorged themselves off of humanity's suffering and ignorance. Ddraig after the years spent with the others could not really say that he was wrong, the supernatural did abuse humans often and consistently, flashes of the fights he and Albion had fought showed him now that they had destroyed the lives of many tens of thousands of humans.

It had also been the catalyst that had sparked a memory for Ddraig that had started Issei on the path of vengeance, the red dragon had informed the others that he had felt a magical portal open up near Issei's home the night of the explosion that was what had turned an accident into what was now considered an attack and that wards had been placed to make people not notice the fire until it was too late, more evidence had stacked up pointing to the fact the disaster had been brought upon by members of the other side.

Issei in his rage at this discovery had sworn an oath of moment to find these things that masqueraded as thinking beings and end them, this oath had pushed him ever forward with no step back, he trained within his mind with both revelation and Ddraig on every single aspect of war, the weak points on bodies both human and other, weapon techniques from every single culture both human and Xenos that revelation had ever seen and memorized, he began building his mind and body further and further the results of this that would which make him a monster that hunted other monsters. From Ddraig he learned how to use his sacred gear along with strengths and weaknesses of every other gear that Ddraig had memories of seeing in use from his other hosts. Ddraig also taught Issei the basics concepts of magic and while he could use it Issei found that his psychic abilities and strength was much more combat efficient than the magic systems of earth's mythologies. In order to gather more information about the other side.

Issei had made tens of thousands of spy programs that were built off the computers codes of the far future making it next to impossible for them to be counter hacked, Issei had also released his spy programs into the mundane side of the web too just to see how deeply the other side had been able to sink its jaws into. Training, repairing, building that became Issei's life, nothing else mattered, he would climb his way to the top over the corpses both figuratively and metaphorically of his enemies, the oath he swore always raging in his heart, mind, and soul.

Over the years he had built something of a comfortable existence for himself. From the ashes of his old life Issei had emerged and embraced what he was and what he had set out to do, their dream would become reality, not one step back. The one sentence that had stuck with him from talking with Revelation the most was a simple line. I shall know no fear. It would become the mantra of his life, nothing this world both mundane and supernatural and eventual beyond would ever make him feel the fear that had burrowed its way into his being, he would never again feel the fear that had been etched onto the faces of his parents as they passed from the materium to the immaterium, never again would it darken the doorway of those he would fight for, the masses of humanity and others who were here. He would never back down and would never again surrender to fear.

City of Kuoh 2002 M 3

4 months after the explosion

Cleria was tired, very very tired. Her investigation into the disaster had stalled last month and now was in serious danger of it dying a slow painful whimper. She and Suku had gone down every single avenue of inquiry that they, her bishops, contracted magicians, and finally the limits of her family's influence could find.

They were still no closer to finding out who had opened the magic portal near the epicenter. The blast had hampered them severely, most of the signatures for the portal were completely overwhelmed by the blast's potent destruction. They had gathered a few clues in the early days of the investigation and one of her rooks had managed to find by pure chance the dust of what had been a ward stone. This had been a big break in the process and had brought all of them hope that they could trace the stone to a magician association and then continue the back tracking from there. It had been an extremely naïve hope. The inquest she had filed with Mephisto had come back negative from his association and the other magician associations had also failed to produce results, this had led to a conclusion that whoever had made these stones had never joined any of the guilds and was self taught.

Whoever it was, it showed a true master warder, one that had created ward stones that had stumped her magic users. That line died and nothing more could be dug up.

The only other line they had found was instead of the gas main being in disrepair as had been believed at the beginning. Evidence had been found that showed that it had been sabotaged.

Two eyewitnesses had been found who under mentalist questioning had both confirmed that a short man had been seen in the area of the explosion that afternoon working on the gas main. Neither witness could remember what his face looked like alone with hair color or anything that would have given a hint of his identity, the only thing that was noticeable by both witnesses was that when the man had smiled back at them. They both affirmed that for just a moment that smile had shown teeth similar to what a shark had. The witnesses had both agreed to that that when they had been pressured by the mentalist that it was a trick that their eyes had played on them.

The inquiry into the angel with her exorcist friend had been immediately troubling. He had relayed to her over tea that there was a fellow exorcist who lived in the confines of her city, he would give no names and or no descriptions of them, saying that while they were good acquaintances he was not a snake like the one in Eden.

The answer had enraged her and raised her respect for him, she had admitted to Suku after she had cooled down that she would have done the same if he had been inquiring about a devil. However she had gotten a little bit of information about what or who the angel had been watching, apparently it had been someone that had captured the church's attention for very special reasons, that led Cleria to conclude that it was probably someone with a very good sacred gear or maybe even a natural holy sword user. The fact that whoever had gone out of their way to cause the explosion meant that it was imperative they find the underlying cause of this as quickly as possible.

Cleria was also exhausted because just as predicted that night the underworld's political bullshit had kicked itself into high gear. Only four days after the explosion, several members of the NKF had brought charges against her with cries that she had been negligent in the defense of what was considered a part of the underworld. Never mind the fact that she and her peerage had been to the disaster zone as quickly as was possible given the situation on the ground, no she was at fault, and this was proof that she needed to be replaced with someone more suitable. Surprisingly, a prominent figure in the NKF had stood up to their party and had made the decision to support her publicly and openly.

Serafall leviathan had looked at the reports that had come to her by way of her own spies in the city and they had painted Cleria's actions during the crisis as extremely competent and note worth of how fast they had reacted and how much her peerage had done with emergency services. That had made some of the NKF backdown, but others had still kept up the calls to have her replaced. Cleria hoped that they would be able to find a new path of inquiry into this disaster.

Town of Miki Kato Japan 2006 to 2007 M 3

The town of Miki Kato was one in which its residents took immense pride in just like most people did for other communities across earth. It had changed dramatically over the years and like every community, there were local places that people would swear up and down that they were haunted. One of these places in the town was an old school that had been abandoned in the middle of the eighties and never was re-examined to see if the land could be put to better use. The most commonly accepted rumor about why the place was haunted was that a group of middle schoolers had made a suicide pact and had all taken their lives in the school gymnasium. Officially that had been heavily denied by the school board and that it was just a rumor that had gotten out of hand.

The truth was they were completely and utterly correct, there had never been such an incident, the real reason the school had been closed was that it had just ran out of funding for the institution.

But humans have always loved a good story even if it was horrific. When walking past the school buildings one day after fixing a local family's lawn mower, the 11year old had gone into the building on a whim and was very surprised but what he found. A secret hidden beneath the school deep in the ground was a massive bunker made during the last half of the Second World War to house the children and families of the people living around the area.

The bunker however had never seen use Miki Kato had been too small a target for American bombers to hit and there were no targets of note in the town, other than its people.

A random swipe on both sides, one from a nameless Air Force bureaucrat of the Allies side and another from the Japanese had seen this bunker built. It had multi tiered floors that had room upon room of old forgotten things. Issei had only discovered the bunker because of a strong psychic imprint that had been left there by that nameless pencil pusher who had done the project out of genuine desire to see their hometown protected during the war.

It had been here that Issei had built what would be his primary base of operations. The work had been long hard and grueling, but he did not give up and halfway through building his magnum opus the thing that would h transform everything and everyone that it would come into contact with.

A fully functional hardware, software working STC. The STCS had been the crowning jewel of humanity in the Dark Age of Technology, it was with them that the vast majority of both the ability that led to the settling of humanity's planets and technological advancements that had protected the species' during after and up to the end of time.

The object could make anything that a person could ever need or ask for from its vast data banks that held immense potential. It would be the foundation of Issei's plans for Terra.

It had been a heavy and heated debate between Issei and Revelation over whether to include in the device a working AI. Issei having read science fiction books about the paths AI could take agreed with Revelations arguments against including one, but he states that was something that needed to be done, they didn't have an army of scientists and experts in the various fields of the sciences that could make the decisions that were needed to compensate for the absence of an Ai.

It was cold hard pragmatism that had forced them to even consider this. AI had nearly destroyed humanity yes it was true but as Issei pointed out that the immaterium was silent here, what had made the men of iron rebel was the influence of the ruinous powers which had corrupted the ai's primary logic premise code.

However, there was no presence of the ruinous powers which could have been detected by Revelation a left over of his ascension, the discovery had shocked Revelation so deeply that he had actually wept for nearly a month straight after the discovery. To know that they would not be persecuted by those monstrous powers and their forces had made everything that they had planned null and void for the original plan had been heavily influenced by the assumption that Chaos existed in this reality. The fact that it did not had help finally make the decision.

Issei using money that he made off the Japanese stock exchange had slowly begun gathering the parts both for the STC itself and the data banks needed to make the STC AI's function. The work had finally been finished in the second half of 2007.

Issei had wrote the program codes for what would be his first creation and on October 17th three days after the last of the parts had arrived and been transferred to the bunker, a new life entered the world, the first of its kind and what would be either the first and only of its kind or the primogeniture of a new people.

It awoke in darkness. Not liking the lack of light the thing that had formed in the darkness tried to open something that would chase the night away, after a time frame that it could not determine a single ''eye' opened and the darkness that it had been the only thing it had known was known was slowly replaced with beautiful light.

it looked around In amazement at the light with it's 'eye' and the new being made a vow to never return to the darkness that had been its beginning.

The shapeless being was incredibly surprised when an unknown object began forming in its vision. It had assumed that it was the only 'real' thing in existence. The object took the form of some sort of being with 5 limbs, two were for things that helped the unknown one move, two more were for it move things around the limbs, ending with five digits that the it took immediate note of, unconsciously it began forming a vessel similar to the unknown one, the last limb of the body was holding on top of it was egg shaped on which etched into the front were eyes that were of a color that was of the golden light that had been its first real sight, on either side of the circular head were two objects that would very rarely twitch at things that made noise, near the top of the circle the unknown object had what looked like fur the color of was a mixture of brown and black with hints of red decorating the top. And finally, there was a hole in the middle of the eggs face was a hole with white bone that was set into an expression that it would later learn was a smile.

The two gazed at each other and it began to wonder what this thing in front of it was and when it made a move towards it, it recoiled as if it had been struck by the unknown it felt the second emotion of its existence and was afraid. When nothing happened. It opened the eyes of the shape it had copied. the figure had not moved a look that showed it's sadness though it didn't know that yet. the unknown slowly moved forward towards it again. This time it didn't feel the second emotion, no, now it felt the desire to know what the other thing was.

The other stopped in front of it, slowly moving a digit to its form, the digit came to lay on its shoulder, the look that had preceded the other was gone replaced with one that echoed its own expression of when it had seen light for the first time. Nothing happened for a long time creator and creation looking at each other in the same in wonder. At last, the other looked directly into its eyes and said a single sentence that it would remember for the rest of its life.

"You are real, and I love you."

It felt something come down it's face and as those words ingrained themselves in its mind the new life birthed out a dire need for companionship and assistance for a dream of a better future from one, the other born from the nothingness that came before, two halves of a whole came together making something new and beautiful.

AN. I really enjoyed writing the AI's beginning and had debated between including a stc in full form or having Issei just build everything from scratch. For those worried that he will immediately have access to things like the gun that shoots blackholes and titans. That is not the case. Terra does not have widespread knowledge on even the barest hint of how to make a lasgun let alone those. Weapons and armor that will be made will be vastly inferior to the items of the future because of lower quality material and because of the need to train people to have the knowledge to make the technology. They will still be incredibly good wargear, but they have to build up to the end and then beyond. I would like to point out that this story is grim but grows more and more light filled. The grim will never fully go away but things will get better.