Aiko I: Wardens

I - Newly Unfit Family Ties

"Why do you run away from the truth when you know I am right? I am saving humanity by taking away what caused their downfall: freedom" – An unknown entity, time unknown.

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Know now there is no time...no space...between the fiction and the real...

Our story begins with her, a soldier bonding with powers of origin she knew not of, and a Seraph with motives to avenge a lost lover he sent to hell, in a romance between a pair of unlikely creatures...

I am their daughter, forsaken and long gone, un-loved and discarded, birthed yet ever-ignored: I am Aiko...

The Ward has tried to fix the remnants of humanity destroyed by the Second Great War, but to no avail...

This brings us to our stage, where the Ward fights desperately to revive the ideals of a human race that no longer exists...reality changes when monsters are unleashed upon the land...and monsters, are everywhere...

- Aiko, end of story

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They found the right in the pull of the trigger that night as a cylinder of a foreign strange metal went whizzing past the runner's head. Arcadia ran to the nearest statue, which depicted and honored the current overlord of Cambodia, a figure whose name was forbidden and was only referred to as "The Lord", but he was a pawn of a much greater foe. Cambodia, to the average inspector, was an area brimming with an atmosphere of poverty and desperation, but amongst the rubble and decaying corpses was a potent energy source that the Ward required to operate with full function. Arcadia, while catching her breath and under fire, checked her suit to make sure it didn't tear during her escape. The suit was a requirement for a member of the newfound Ward, which was an active resistance organization against the new rule of a foreign species commonly referred to as "the Imperious", the rule of which were accepted by most besides those with a sense of dignity and humanity left in them. After regaining her strength, Arcadia peaked out from behind the foot of the larger than life marble shape, barely avoiding another bullet coming from the Northwest. On the communicator, Arcadia heard a gargling sound of what she came to know as the sound of one of the Imperious' soldiers, the Vipers, dying.

"All's clear, one from the North down but there are two more coming in from the East. Arcadia, I'm going to need some help if we want to take these soldiers down, quit fooling around on patrol" Stella joked as Arcadia overheard her searching through the opposing soldier's remains for ammunition or anything to salvage for an autopsy back at the Crow. Stella was also a member of the Ward, both her and Arcadia joined in together when the Imperious destroyed their homeland in Chicago in the United States. A soldier with outstanding aim and a natural talent at falling in line along with a love for the cause and a knack for fighting, Stella also had a lighter side outside of combat. She was Arcadia's best friend in the Ward after her former friend had died while pursuing a lead on an Imperious base. Arcadia never mentioned her fate or her story. Stella also was known to go quiet at times, not speaking to anyone for hours at a time, but simply doing what seemed to be her own form of meditation. Stella was a troublemaker among the guys at the Ward, constantly causing conflict over who would win her over, but she enjoyed the attention and encouraged it at any turn, leading one guy on for months at a time and then going after his roommate the next week. This had been going on since they arrived at the Ward about 6 months ago, in March. While Stella knew on the inside that romance was unlikely in the hell-scape she resided in, she tried to cling onto whatever of her old life she could.