Emilia, under the pressure of her situation, found herself back in her past. The dark and horrific past she wanted to forget forever.
It was approximately 5 years ago that on one cold, wintry night, her face pale and gaunt with fever, and her breathing shallow and labored, the young Emilia was found by a man clothed entirely in black.
As he observed her, the man couldn't ignore the peculiar sensation emanating from Emilia. The aura surrounding her was faint, but it was undeniably mana. He raised an eyebrow slightly, intrigued despite himself.
"Interesting!" the man thought, an eerie, almost demonic smile appearing on his face.
Emilia, too weak to make out what was happening around her, only felt the cold that stung against her skin.
"You seem to be an intriguing child. You might even prove useful to the cause. Fine. I'll save you. But know that from now on, your life is mine to do as I please," the man said, Emilia's vision growing blurry until they were shut closed while the man knelt beside her, stretching his hand to take her who knows where.
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Emilia's eyes opened to notice a white ceiling above her head. "What?" she whispered, her voice trembling as she slowly rose up from the bed she was on.
Pure, untainted white. She was in a white room from which escape didn't seem possible. Two doors laid out on opposite sides. One leading to a bathroom and toilet while the other remained completely shut.
"Glad to see you're awake and well, my dear," a man's voice resounded from the loudspeaker that was in the corner of the room.
"Who… who are you? Where am I?" Emilia asked, frightened and disoriented.
"No need to worry my dear. This is a very special place. And you, you are one very lucky and special girl," the man's words were reassuring yet his voice carried a deep, eerie tone which only made what he had just said more unsettling. "While you're here, you won't ever have to be hungry. You will never sleep in the cold snow. Every one of your needs will be taken care of and in exchange, the only thing you'll have to do is to help us with our research," the man added.
"R-research?" Emilia was confused.
"Yes, my dear. This research will contribute to the world like no other. Doesn't that just sound wonderful?" the man's excited tone only made the atmosphere creepier and more unsettling.
Emilia remained silent as the voice reminded her of what happened before she woke up in this strange place.
Red eyes. Dark, unsettling red eyes that glowed with malice and seemed to peer into one's soul.
Emilia froze up instantly as that memory etched itself deep in her mind while she started trembling in fear, and tears started running down her face which was filled with dread.
"I'm looking forward to your stay in our humble abode, my dear," the man said as the room fell in silence.
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Days passed and turned to months as Emilia had realized what kind of horrific situation she was now in.
Day in and day out, experiments were conducted on her and other children who were in a similar situation to her. Orphans that no one cared about, that had no family and were struggling all alone in this cold and harsh world. And true to the man's words, each of their basic needs were handled… but at the cost of their rights and freedom.
"Incredible!" a greasy man in a lab coat exclaimed while Emilia, completely unresponsive, was tightly attached to a medical table with a deformed arm with veins that seemed to be on the verge of bursting. "Oh! How marvelous. To think she's already absorbed an elixir with a concentration of 40% and she's still intact! Truly, our great benefactor is an unfathomable being."
The scientist's eyes were twisted in excitement and extasy as he then gave an order to the other scientists around him.
"Quickly! We need to prepare an elixir of greater concentration. If we manage to succeed, we will finally be to accomplish our noble mission."
"Yes sir!" the other scientists obeyed.
"In the meantime, put her in a cocoon. It'd be a pity if she broke at this stage. Hahahahahaha!..."
While the scientist laughed, with a heavy and labored breath, Emilia, her eyes tearing up and now shimmering with fading light, only had one thought.
"Please… someone… Please make it stop."
Her eyes fluttered shut, and her wishes only came true after a year. A year that was filled with gruesome experiments that continued without end, only piling up the corpses of the other children who could no longer take the toll that was required by the experiments.
She was among the few survivors that were still okay after the numerous experiments that were done on them. With their bodies completely mutated and part of their faces disfigured, the children had lost all will to live after what they went through.
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One day, the laboratory where the experiments were conducted turned into a tragic and blood-filled scene as a special corps of Realizers attacked it.
"All Sentinels, here are your orders! Kill every last one of them and secure the evidence," said a voice that resonated on the site… Victoria's voice.
As they emerged from the darkness of night, the cool night air met the scientists with a crisp bite as their limbs and heads were cut off from their bodies, their hearts and lungs pierced without mercy, and their guts exposed to the dirt on the ground.
Amidst the chaotic surroundings, the greasy chief scientist went into the lab to destroy all traces of the experiments, lamenting the way the events turned out.
"Curses! To think we were that close to reaching satisfactory results! Curse those Sentinels!"
While the scientist tried to start a fire, Emilia's dead eyes observed him from the giant tube that was her cocoon. Her mutated body seemed to start glowing with a certain blue light while her heart became filled with an uncontrollable and primitive urge. An anger and hatred so deep that she couldn't hold it back in her seemingly vegetative state as she unconsciously let it out in a stream of power.
'Crack!'
"What?" the scientist directed his eyes towards Emilia's cocoon that cracked, letting the green fluid that filled it flow out under the pressure of the surging power that emanated from her.
"O-oh my!" the scientist's eyes widened as pride and joy filled them. "A success! To think that all my work wasn't for naught… huh?"
The scientist felt the air getting colder and colder while Emilia's surging power grew more and more unstable, making him panic.
"W-wait! Stop!" the scientist's body started freezing similarly to how the lab's temperature dropped down as everything around Emilia froze up. "No! I can't die here! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! Stop it! STOP IIIIIIT!!!!!"
The scientist's screams were overshadowed by the explosion of Emilia's power which transformed the entire building into a sculpture of ice, short-circuiting the machines and causing explosions throughout the facility.
"Everyone! Retreat now!" the Sentinels, noticing something was strange from the surge of mana they felt in the air, all retreated as they saw the freezing landscape that continuously expanded.
At the aftermath of the battle, a stark contrast to the previous turmoil, the facility had fallen silent with murmurs of the sentinels who had barely managed to escape whatever they had encountered. One of the sentinels, clad in their usual black and red exosuits, approached Victoria with a respectful tone that reminded that of a soldier's. "We have finished clearing up and investing the area, captain."
"Status report?" asked Victoria, who seemed to still be in her late teens.
"We count a few dozen injured but no casualties on our side," the sentinel's voice carried the weight of certainty, leaving no room for doubt.
"Good. What about the mana surge that caused that?" Victoria asked, gesturing towards the ice sculptures that were all over the place.
"About that," the sentinel hesitated unsure of how to explain what he had witnessed. "We found a little girl on the sight of the explosion. She seemed to have been a prisoner from the state we found her in. And… we suspect that she is the one responsible for that mana surge."
Victoria pondered for a moment before making a decision.
"Lead me to her," she ordered.
"As you command."