Agent047
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967 - “What is your pledge?”
🕑 Added 2025-08-21 03:10:05 +0000 UTCThe moment the avatar-making process started, the situation finally became clear. Although a large number of people chose to create their own avatars from scratch ot bring their imaginations to life, the majority of humans used the Universal IP option. Some chose to become Space Marines, others Hell Divers, clone soldiers, Jedis, Superman, and more.
Every strong and famous character from any world of entertainment, be it movies, comics, anime, books, and more, was selected. The empire allowed free range, so long as their abilities were things they could replicate in some way or form.
Not stopping there, and to help dissociate what they were about to do from their actual selves, the empire went ahead and even gave all of these characters a backstory. For those who were custom-made, the empire improvised depending on the person’s dreams and imagination about their character. For those who chose legacy Universal IP characters, the backstory matched closely to their original counterpart, with slight modifications to fit their situation, but for a few, nothing was changed, as their stories fit the situation perfectly.
………………….
‘What happened? Where am I?’ Anushka asked himself as he opened his eyes, feeling lethargic and trying to remember the last thing he did before ending up here. As his memory came back to him piece by piece, he finally remembered the last thing he did was approve the purchase of his avatar, followed by everything going black.
Just as he was about to try sitting up and looking around to see where he was, he heard someone speaking, his voice sounding as if passing through a mask: “Praise the Emperor. The wound was fatal. You survived only through the Rubicon surgery. We remade you. You are a PRIMARIS now.”
As the man spoke, it finally clicked in his head. He immediately understood what was going on. While feeling excited on the inside, he asked, “Why?”
“Lord Calgar issued the command himself,” came the answer.
“Is he here?” he asked, not even needing to look at the script that appeared in front of him, as he already knew the words by heart.
“Gone. Summoned by the Primarch.”
“I must get back to the Watch Fortress,” he said, following the answer. It seemed the AI understood that he knew the script by heart, as no more transparent line-feeding attempts were made.
“You have been reassigned.”
“My place is with the Death Watch,” he said as the music and ambiance immersed him even further.
“The Inquisition can find no stain on you, Titus. Accused of heresy, you have served penance in the Death Watch for almost a century, but not once have you faltered. But you will never know redemption until you have faced the judgment of your brothers. Prove yourself to us and know true absolution.”
As the response was completed, his surroundings became darker. This time, he kept his senses, trying to stifle his excitement, knowing and preparing for what was to come. Within a few seconds, he finally heard something:
“What is your life?”
“My honor is my life,” he answered with full conviction as he felt a painless sensation of things being inserted into his body.
“What is your fate?”
“My duty is my fate.”
“What is your fear?”
“My fear is to fail.”
“What is your reward?”
“My salvation is my reward.”
“What is your craft?”
“My craft is death.”
As he answered each question, the music and ambiance intensified. More and more pieces of armor were placed on him, one by one, with everything completing just before the final question was asked.
“What is your pledge?”
“My pledge is eternal service,” he answered as everything around him went dark. His story was now ready; only serving remained for him, and he was excited for it.
Similar foundational stories were taking place for everyone, pumping them up and changing their mindset about what they were about to do, making them look forward to it.
…………………..
“........” John, who was watching select scenes of people undergoing their characters' foundational stories, was speechless. He looked at GAIA, the one who knew the imperial citizens best, and realized she had taken their basic plan of including imperial citizens to control avatars and join the fights, but she had gone all out with intricate planning, backstories, and even parsing through all the conversations that had taken place in Pangaea following the Emperor’s address to modify her overplanning.
{Why are you looking at me that way?} GAIA asked, acting as if she were naive.
“Nothing. I’m just surprised you went into that much detail for a plan made in such a short time,” he said, not hiding anything.
{Isn’t that the reason we’re responsible for the breakdown of decisions to implementation? Because we are the best at time compression?} GAIA said, satisfied that her attention to detail had earned an emotion from the rock-like John.
But just before they could continue their conversation, as they watched the process unfold with the number of participants increasing every second, a question from Nova interrupted them.
{Sir, are you alright?} Nova asked with a hint of urgency in her voice, causing everyone in the room to turn to him.
Aron looked like he was feeling something uncomfortable that he couldn’t pinpoint, placing his hand on his chest where the discomfort was coming from.
“Nothing much. Continue with the plans and update me if there are any changes,” he said, waving them off for a moment before logging off, leaving everyone in the room silent. They felt a pit in their stomachs, wondering what had happened to the Emperor.
…………………..
BAM!!!!
Instead of waiting for the door of the VR pod to open, Aron punched it, his hand cleanly going through. Using the hole as leverage, he dislodged the door and floated out of the VR pod. He didn’t bother stopping or even removing the door still hanging from his hand as he disappeared, leaving behind sonic booms as he sped through the corridors to the elevator.
Blowing through the elevator doors, he entered the shaft and descended underground, blowing through another set of doors as he headed to the room containing a star gate connected to Mars. Without hesitation, he instantly went through the already active gate and appeared in one of the bases on Mars, which was still busy processing soldiers and completing final preparations.
Before anyone could even see him, Aron disappeared again, this time heading toward one of the still-inhabited and un-terraformed locations on Mars. He crash-landed there, finally losing the forceful control he had been maintaining over his body.
“Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Aron screamed as he clutched his chest, feeling excruciating pain spreading all over his body.
Nova, who had now overridden a mana observation satellite, turned it and focused it on Aron, trying to deduce what the problem was. However, the satellite, despite its automatic filters, was nearly blinded by the sheer amount of mana that Aron was forcefully expelling from his body, as if it were a parasite. This forced her to immediately dispatch a few ships equipped with the capability to absorb mana in order to prevent the mana Aron was expelling from creating a mana vortex, which would not bode well for anyone.
At the same time, she was filtering through the sensors in the vicinity to observe Aron, as the sensors in his body were either fried or incapable of transferring data due to the mana overload they were experiencing.
Just as the empire was preparing to confront its main problem, another issue emerged. No one yet knew the cause, but to anyone who saw it, one thing was certain: it wasn’t good news.
Comments
Norito Menteval
Think of all the System points he is getting
SomeNotTakenName
Unlocking of faith aspect mana? Could be that with so many people pledging personal loyalty in such short amount of time.
