"Mommmmmmyyyy""Mommmmmmy help me"
He cried out over and over again for his mommy. Yuto"s tears rolled down his face as he screamed as loud as he could. In response to his tears and screams there was only silence.
Yuto was playing in his backyard with his new toy radio car that he just got for his 8th birthday. His mom had told him that since he was now a big boy he could go out back by himself. He had just taken the car out and was getting ready to start running it around the yard when he felt his feet leave the ground.
As he started floating in the air he was confused as to what was happening. The backyard, his house, his street, his neighborhood all started shrinking. No, that wasn"t right. He was getting further and further away from them.
It took a few seconds for him to realize that something was happening. By the time he realized and started crying out for his mom he couldn"t see his neighborhood much less his house.
Fear gripped him as he headed higher and higher into the air. As he panicked, he started kicking and screaming, his arms and legs were flailing around like the fish he would see after getting pulled up out of the water.
Due to the tears coming out of his eyes his vision was blurry and he couldn"t see anything clearly. As he looked up, he could see a grey blob floating in the air. Wiping the tears out of his eyes the blob was like nothing he had seen before but it was obvious that he was going up to or more accurately getting pulled into it.
After wiping away his tear-soaked eyes and focusing he could start to make out the blob.
It was huge as from where he was, he couldn"t see the end of it. From what he could see it was longer than 1000 meters and had to be taller than 200 meters. It was grey in color and appeared to resemble a crescent moon with a rounded front that stretched out to two points on either side. In between the two points there appeared to be some kind of glowing light that was so bright that it blinded him if his eyes fell directly on it forcing his eyes shut.
Just as he was able to start making out his surroundings, he felt that it was getting harder to breath. As he took each breadth, he could feel the difficulty increase and panic began to set in again. For some unknown reason it felt like he was in a vacuum and there wasn"t a single sound to be heard. Despite how fast he was moving up there was no wind, no pressure, no sensation of moving at all. It was as if the force of movement did not exist. Yuto was left with only the sound of his own heartbeat to keep him company.
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With each meter he moved up his breathing became more laborious. The world started spinning and the corner of his eyes started fading. Something was happening to his eyelids as they were getting heavier and heavier and he could no longer hold them open.
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"We just put the mark on his shoulder and it is impossible to remove. He is now a follower of your Majesty, there is no one who could argue otherwise"
Yuto could make out a conversation as he was waking up. At only 8 years old he had not heard many languages in his life but he was certain that he did not recognize the language being spoken but somehow, he could make out everything they were saying.
He tried to reach out upon waking up but his body wouldn"t move. He tried to call out to whoever was in the room but was unable to make any noise. He wanted to open his eyes but they wouldn"t open...nothing was working, Yuto could only listen as they spoke.
"Good, what about everything else, is it done?"
Scary...that"s all Yuto could make out, the voice that just asked if everything was done was scary. If he could move or talk, he would have started crying.
"The technology chip has been implanted in his DNA and once we are done, he should be able to understand all the known languages in the Empire. We also installed an illegal hack that will give him an affinity to advanced technologies. We weren"t going to do anything other than the language install but he was at the perfect age and was compatible. The hack is only illegal because some kids ended up dying because they were not compatible and they were trying to force it into them. In our case he was 100% compatible which admittedly I"ve never heard of".
At the age of only 8 Yuto was struggling to understand what they were talking about but he did realize they were talking about him. It sounded like they did something that could have killed him. Who were these people? Why were they doing this to him? Why can"t he scream out, run away, cry?
"Next time you decide to do something arbitrarily such as adding the advanced technologies hack to his DNA, asking him a question or looking at him without my permission.....you, your family, people you only met once.....every one of them will die." Anger from the person speaking flooded every pore of Yuto"s body and in exchange fear gripped his heart.
"Now before I can"t contain myself and cut you in half before you finish go and get the activation tool".
Yuto could hear the shuffle of footsteps moving faster than he could count. After a few seconds he heard the sound of heavy breathing and footsteps as he was guessing whoever it was ran off somewhere and returned.
Yuto felt his arm being lifted up and slid into a cylinder. He hadn"t realized before now but it didn"t feel as if though he had a shirt on. He could feel the skin on his arm come into direct contact with whatever the cylinder was.
The cylinder felt cold to the touch of his arm as it slid all the way up to his shoulder before coming to a stop. It didn"t seem to be made of metal as the material was smooth but had the sensation that it was slightly squishy. It almost felt as if though it was organic as if though his arm was being swallowed by something.
With that thought Yuto began to panic and he tried to squirm and move away. He was focused with everything he had and just as he thought that he was going to be able to move he felt a sting in the middle of his hand.
It was the feeling of being stabbed in the hand by a needle. The pain was unbearable and because of that all thoughts of trying to pull his arm out and escape vanished. He was left with only an unbearable pain that seemed to drill deep into his bone and even affect his soul.
Following that was another needle above the wrist followed by another into the forearm, then the elbow, next into the bicep and then the shoulder.
Each needle felt as if though it was driving deep into the bone as all 6 were injected into his arm. His mind wanted to collapse and he wanted to faint so that he would not feel what was happening. Despite the fact that he couldn"t scream or move his mind was fully functional taking in every bit of pain and suffering leaving him wide awake.
After what seemed like an eternity the cylinder started to expand and moved over his shoulder and began to spread down his back. The unrelenting pain continued as his mind struggled to cope with the torture.
Slowly the cylinders reach expanded to cover the right shoulder blade, then the left shoulder blade...it slowly slid down to the middle of his back as it finally reached his lower back.
Yuto had lost all sense of time. The panic of the cylinder expanding down his back didn"t even register as his mind was already beginning to crumble.
Suddenly in one motion 9 needles drove into Yuto"s back. Three drove themselves into the upper back area two into the shoulder blades, one each right and left and the top of his spine.
Three into the middle of his back along his spine and finally three more into his lower back following the base of his spine and just above his hips.
Yuto could hear people in the room exclaiming in surprise through the pain. Their yells momentarily removed his focus from the pain of the needles as he heard them yelling to each other.
"What"s going on!" the angry voice called out to the room.
Silence answered his call as no one wanted to be the one to incur his wrath.
"Chief answer me now or you will die in a way that your imagination could not even come up with. I have too much invested in this for it to go wrong".
The Chief engineer was exuding fear as he collected his thoughts.
"....Certainly, this is good news your Majesty. I have heard that the more powerful the candidate the more of their body that will be activated. In theory as the activator expands the candidate should be growing their potential. At this point there should be nothing to worry about".
"Let"s hope...." Yuto couldn"t hear anything else as the pain from the needles digging into his back captured his sole focus once again. Heat began pouring out of the needles and flooded into his body. The feeling as if though he was going to melt from the inside out overtook his thoughts.
It suddenly occurred to Yuto that this has to be a nightmare, he has to be at home asleep in his room. He is going to wake up yelling any moment and his mom is going to come running into his room and give him a huge hug and tell him everything is ok.
Time ceased to exist any longer. Past, present, future hold no meaning to Yuto as the heat moved from his spine through his whole body. He found himself begging in his mind for the pain that was originally only his right arm.
Again, the object began to expand and move from his left shoulder down his left arm. At his lower back it began to move down his thigh across his legs until his feet were completely covered.
Yuto had the feeling he was being swallowed whole with only his head still left exposed.
Just as soon as the despair felt as if though it couldn"t get any worse it started to slide up his neck. Feeling it slowly crawling across his skin as it approached his chin, went over his lips, cover his nose, slip past his eyes and finally wrapping him completely left Yuto feeling the certainty of death.
All sensation was gone. Is he breathing? Is he still there? Had he died? These thoughts were scrolling through his mind.
As if to answer his minds questions needles suddenly broke his skin from head to toe. Needles in his feet, calf"s, thigh, left arm, neck, face and the top of his head. Somehow despite the pain his mind has full awake.
Why can"t he pa.s.s out? Why won"t he die already?
Heat sept into every bone in his body. His every muscle felt as if though it has burned to nothing.
Just as he was going to lose himself to the indescribable heat and torment it suddenly stopped.
Exhaustion beyond words sets in as Yuto"s mind finally began to relax. For an innumerable time Yuto believes that he must have died.
Crawling....it feels as if worms are crawling all over his skin. He can feel it from his skin to deep into his body, worms are everywhere.
He"s still alive, this thought again occurs to him.
Surrounded by silence left with only the feeling of worms invading every centimeter of his being he finally can"t take it any longer and just before his mind truly snaps he felt himself losing consciousness.
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"Explain to me what the h.e.l.l is going on!?"spit flies out of his mouth as he screams across the room.
The Chief realizes that he has to be the one to answer. Earlier he had gotten through by making up a story about how this little boy was going to be a strong candidate.
Admittedly he was not a leading expert on "Activation" as there are engineers that have dedicated their lives to it, but what engineer doesn"t know a significant amount about it.
Of course, telling his Majesty that everything was going to be ok should be no issue. Of course, saying he was going to have a significant chance of being a strong candidate should have worked out.
Never had he heard of a candidate dying during the Activation....The Activation is for them and only works on them, it"s completely safe.
If he told him that he was going to be strong he should have had 5+ years to figure out his real strength. It"s not like a candidate instantly becomes unbeatable.
How could any of this happen?
As the Chief stared down at the boy who was now exposed after being completely covered by the "Activation" he was left speechless and scared.
There were far, far too many unexplainable activation events that even the most knowledgeable "Activation" expert would not be able to offer his Majesty a reasonable excuse as to what happened.
First was the "Activation" surrounding his entire body. No doc.u.ments, records, examinations, or any written/verbal story mentions anything about a full body activation. There is no record that even mentions about it going beyond the middle of the back as it expands much less legs and head.
Secondly and most importantly is the tattoo. When a normal activation occurs, a tattoo exists in one to three locations on the Emperor Candidate.
The right arm will always have a tattoo that will appear and it is typically from the elbow to the shoulder.
The chest connecting from the shoulder on the right side to the middle section of the chest which can extend as far as halfway down to the midsection of the torso. This tattoo always connects to the right arm tattoo.
The back can also have a tattoo connect to the shoulder working its way down to the middle of the back and up to spine level going across. This tattoo always connects to the right arm tattoo as well.
If all three tattoos are present the will all connect to each other which signifies unity and strength to the Activation experts.
Typically, the tattoo is indicative of the strength of a candidate. While there are plenty of examples of candidates only having the arm tattoo and being extremely strong contenders usually the more tattoos a candidate has the more powerful, they will become.
Candidates can have tattoos on the arm, chest and back with each tattoo representing a different ability. Candidates can have up to 3 different abilities if they have all 3 tattoos. While having more abilities does not signify more strength necessarily as each ability can be weak it is usually indicative of a more powerful candidate.
As Emperor Candidates have existed for billions of years almost every tattoo and variation of them is known and the ability is doc.u.mented. While they are doc.u.mented almost n.o.body knows what the tattoos abilities are. This is due to the fact that all records pertaining to the tattoos are secured with the Emperor and no one is allowed to access the information. This has been true for over a billion years. Further any attempt to research the origin of Emperors, the abilities of tattoos or any information related to Emperor Candidates will result in immediate death.
While the Chief Engineer stared down at the boy his eye was drawn to his tattoo. His face frozen in confusion, fear and disbelief.
On the boy"s right-hand pinky was a tattoo of a ring.