Valor and L.I.F.E.

           Valor and L.I.F.E.

A door being kicked down. Heavy boots on old, rotten, wood. The arming of a rifle. Screaming. Esmond slowly opened his eyes, the soft rock of the train speeding along the tracks below him. A quiet sigh escaped his mouth as he rubbed sleep from his eyes, glancing out the window at the blur of buildings passing by. Esmond turned his gaze upward, through the glass, at the massive L.I.F.E. building that was built in the center of the city, in the center of Valor. It's smaller regional government buildings scattered in areas of high population density.

"No matter where you are, you'll always be in their shadow." Esmond softly mumbled to himself. Supposedly, many years ago, the government cared about its citizens but that time was long gone. L.I.F.E., Logical Innovation of Fuel and Energy, controlled everything now. The only reason they took care of their citizens was because that's how made they made money; things had been getting worse though, there's rumors of starvation even in the rich areas, closer to the tower.

He looked at his palm, a symbol engraved in it, the symbol of a member of the elite military that worked for L.I.F.E. . The unwilling servants of them, their enforcers. Taken as children and augmented using magic procedures. Most are forced to stay in for life, or die early. Esmond was lucky, he got an injury. They had no choice but to let him go, but he was still on their leash. His stop would be coming up soon, the train began to slow down and he stood up.

The train stopped at the platform, it brakes screeching slightly under the strain then going silent. He walked forward towards the now open door, a limp to his step. He was the only one to step off the train, and he began to walk home. The walk through the clustered and dirty streets was mostly peaceful, anyone he encountered either ignored him and went on with their business or gave him a look of hate. Those who did neither just sat still, watching him, too starved to move. He overhead a news report coming from an old television inside a random shack. "Here we can see the devastating attack on a L.I.F.E. research building by the terrorist group known as the Midnight Order." The reporter said, she began to discuss the damage and death toll but Esmond had left the speaker range of the T.V.

The basic and falling apart two story apartment complex he lived in came into view. He started to walk up to the stairs that were bolted onto the side of the building. It looked as if it could fall at any moment, rust eating away at the metal, and it creaking even when sitting idle. He raised and lowered his foot onto to the first step, gripping the railing of the stairs. Then he froze.

It started as a tingle in his palm where the insignia lie, then a rush of wind. Before suddenly the regional government building exploded into bright blue flames, the colorful show rising high into the dark sky. A look of shock and surprise crossed Esmond's face as he stared up at the flames. "A magic explosion!" He exclaimed to himself. A shockwave followed, the force of the explosion spreading across the local area. He stepped back as the stairs started to sway when suddenly some of the bolts, already loose and weak from years of wear and poor construction, began to pop out of the metal wall and the stairs started to fall. He reacted instantly, raising his hand as the symbol glowed and he used a spell to roughly weld the stairs to the wall.

As the last of the metal staircase melded with the wall and stood still, multiple L.I.F.E. soldier transport vehicles flew overhead towards the burning wreck. The damage would be reported later tonight, thousands of dollars in damage, and hundreds of innocents dead. The Midnight Order was responsible for this attack against the government and the death of innocent civilians. Esmond would never know exactly what is was the drove him to follow the government aircraft but he ran after it, it may have been out of curiosity, maybe he just had a feeling, or maybe deep inside he saw a way to destroy the people that took him away from his childhood home. That destroyed his life.

He began to get closer and closer to the building, moving faster than a normal human despite his injury. As he quickly got closer to the area of the attack, the wreckage and destruction is had caused became more apparent. Building reduced to nothing but pieces of scrap, bodies and injured lying underneath. Then he suddenly turned to the right, pushing a piece of metal to the side so he could climb through the wreckage of a bakery and start towards a drainage pipe. There's a hidden black market on the edge of the slums, where people could buy anything outside the view of L.I.F.E., Esmond knew that would be his best chance to find the people responsible for the attack, Midnight Order or not.

The chain-link fence groaned slightly as he climbed, wincing slightly as dropped down on the other side, a sudden stabbing feeling going through his leg but it quickly faded. He walked down a muddy slope to a large drainage pipe, a hole in the metal barring that was meant to keep people out. He squeezed into the hole and started to walk into the pitch black cave made of concrete. Water or sewage no longer came through due to a better system being constructed by the local population, and after turning a couple corners, lights hanging from the sides of the tunnel began to appear. Then a much brighter light appeared at the end of the tunnel as it ended.

Two armed guards in basic body armor stood at the opening, they left him pass through without trouble but the expression on their faces showed they didn't trust Esmond. He walked into what the average person would call chaos, people and booths everywhere, nothing but noise. All squeezed into a fairly large underground area, about the size of a small gymnasium. It was clear that the explosion had also affected this area as well, dust falling from the high ceiling and a couple damaged booths or some even crushed by rubble, merchants attempting to save their goods from the wreckage. Esmond wasn't here to buy anything however, there was a system of ships that could items and people to and out of Valor. The Midnight Order should be there, they wouldn't want to stay in the city after the attack.

Hidden in the maze of booths and people is a small doorway, which not a lot of people know is there. The only reason Esmond knew it was there was because one of his operations in the mission required him to do some work here. He grabbed the handle and pulled the wooden door open, stepping inside before quickly shutting it behind him. He was now in a much a larger room, the sound of rushing water. The room had one end wide open, water rushing past it from one of L.I.F.E.'s tests using water for energy. There was 2 ships, one closed and off, the other active and open, a group of about four people loading crates, they all had a deep blue bandana wrapped around their heads. A crescent moon of the same color painted onto the side of the ship. Esmond quickly ducked behind some barrels near the door to avoid being seen, watching. Then suddenly he felt movement to the side. He tried to raise his hand but was half a second too late, he was hit over the head and everything went black.

When he slowly came to, he was on his knees, hands tied behind him. His vision took a couple seconds to become blurry and he looked up. 5 blue bandana wearing people stood in front of him, holding firearms. The center one, a young man with frizzy white hair, wearing a deep blue lab coat, held a revolver right in front of Esmond's eyes. He spoke, having an odd accent. "Why shouldn't I put a bullet through your skull?" The gun clicked, as he drew the hammer back.