Hand Of Magic

Prologue: Building the Forge

I remember a time when things were normal, things made sense, but that was before we came to be, we are the combination of one and another, we exist within each other, we meddle and we toy.

I remember hearing of a time when weapons other than these…things…existed, I hear about wars where only guns and bombs were used, they called the use of them inhumane, but they didn’t know how far humanity would fall. Humanity had invented something beyond what could be controlled.

It all started after the 3rd world war, they said it would be the end war, the war that would decimate humanity, but just like before, humanity rebuilt, and starting planning their revenge against each other again. There was talk of a special UN squadron in that war, a squadron that never took sides, no-one knew who they were and they say the reason been nobody lived to tell, they are rumoured to be the first, the first to use the new weapons. But when the war ended in 2025 they all just disappeared. So what does this have to do with my...our…story?

I wasn’t a hard-core WW3 hero, nor was I related to any of those UN agents, I wasn’t even born near the time, about 100 years after in fact. We were born 20 years after, yet 120 years before. Tension was tight, the world had undergone major changes, in an attempt to train soldiers in secret, countries like the USA and Korea built colonies on distant planets that were intended to be secret military bases, however, when the UN caught on, the superpowers of the time had to quickly cover their tracks and started shipping civilians, some countries like the USA decided to resolve their issues by taking prisoners sentenced to death and to train them when they reached the planets in secret, they told everyone that they were simply giving prisoners sentenced to death another chance to redeem themselves, Korea started shipping specific civilians out whom they had chosen to develop weapons and to be trained as soldiers themselves. However when after enough sabotage and deceit the 2 powers started testing their soldiers out on earth, in the year 2020, the USA and Korea signed a declaration of war against each other. The war started with Korea advancing into China, claiming that they had been betrayed, China put up an effort to defend itself, however found itself completely defenceless against the new super soldiers, the USA sent in their own soldiers and the fighting was long and hard, the war spread as countries took sides, as the war moved out of Asia and into Africa, the casualties rose and the war got dirty and guerrilla war-fare became the norm, by the year 2022 the war was at a stale-mate, the UN had started getting involved as an independent organization and started trying to weaken both sides to a crippling point. The UN started claiming independent territories as leaders of countries fell to the war and no-one stood up to take the mantle of leadership in times like this, they started by claiming the now war torn lands of Africa, Nigeria became Bloc 172, Zambia became bloc 256 and so on, the UN started by sending aid to the countries, however when it became evident that it wasn’t enough they started moving soldiers in to try stop both sides, unfortunately the UN, or what was left of it was made up of only those few countries that had refused to join the war. That’s when the rumours of these agents started, the UN soldiers were not enough for the training of the US and Korean soldiers. The UN set to work designing a new weapon to tip the scales, they developed what became known as the “Hand Of Magic” code name “HOM” the fighting on both sides of the war was brutal, but all of a sudden soldiers started disappearing, neither side paid much attention until entire bases started getting destroyed over night without anything to track those responsible down. The USA and Korea grew scared, by 2024 the war started to become a losing battle for both sides. So they fled to their colonies on distant planets, and the UN picked up what was left of earth and started rebuilding, claiming that the 2 sides destroyed themselves and that they had not intervened. Nationalities became irrelevant as people of different races, religions and nationalities picked up the pieces of what used to be home and started building again. The UN planted the blue prints for the HOM in both of the previous warring sides in the hopes that the knowledge of the powers that be would cause enough fear to prevent another war of even greater proportions. Society changed, people went back to their roots, Earth became known as the Kingdom, people turned to creating monarchies according to their Blocs, Mars ironically became known as the Red World, dominated by Communist rule, and the only remaining player in this game of war, driven by a need to maintain a democracy had abandoned their planet in fear of Red invasion and had built Station Blue, the first and largest space station known to man, it supported itself and kept growing. I was born in the year 2125 in the Kingdom, the ruling Monarch was elected every 5 years as in a normal democracy, however only among the ruling lords. I was a member of Sparrow House, we never stood out in the elections, we were known as the ‘White Knight Family’ as we had given up on chances to rule we accepted our fate and every generation joined and distinguished themselves in the White Knights, the elite units and masters of the HOM. So upon my rejection to the White Knights I was cast out of House Sparrow. I lacked 1 crucial requirement of becoming a White Knight, I failed the final test. The war had left many places scarred for all eternity and the after effects of the HOM were devastating, strange creatures that had been built to fight and the sometimes side effects of the HOM on certain nuclear development sites had created mutated creatures that had been the bane of the Kingdom.

The final test is a test of dedication to the White Knights, armed with your first set of White Knight equipment which you expected to keep as a crucial part of both uniform and combat you were given an objective and had to complete it in a set time frame, it didn’t matter if you were the last one to make it back or if your whole Unit made it back, the objective was all that mattered, if a team mate slowed you down, orders were to kill or abandon.