“Alright. On to the elephant in the room. How should we deal with the awakened?”Youssef and Jeremy remained silent. Neither of them had any idea of the full situation at all, having only been ministers for a few hours now, so to throw out suggestions now would simply show their inexperience rather than their abilities. One thing they had realized, however, was that the emperor was an awakener himself. But how was that possible? He hadn’t been absent at all, let alone for the weeks it would take to undergo an awakening!Still, it didn’t matter, so they pushed the thoughts about that until later when they at least knew what they should know as ministers.Aron could see the thoughts on their faces, but didn’t care. As the highest level members of the government and part of his inner circle of advisors, the two had a valid need to know about everything save the existence of the system. “From the data Akeso collected, it seems they’re already capable of immense destruction if they’re trai
After the meet and greet with the rest of the council was over and everyone had familiarized themselves with each other, the council room was left empty and dissolved into the qubits from which it had been created.The two new ministers were in turmoil, each of them considering many different things. The meeting itself had been extremely productive, which surprised Youssef; he was too used to meetings where the main focus was on snatching credit and being seen by upper management rather than resolving issues and enacting plans. Conversely, the emperor, despite his lofty position, was willing to involve himself in even the most minor details of the operation of the empire. Not that he was a micromanager, either, but he had actually listened to the advice and suggestions of his advisory council instead of stubbornly insisting that his was the only voice that mattered.Jeremy, on the other hand, had no experience in society and had felt that the council meeting was more akin to a group
“By the way... when do you think His Majesty became an awakener?” Jeremy askedYoussef thought for a moment, trying to come up with a timeline in which the emperor could have awakened without noticeably being absent from the public eye. But he couldn’t remember a stretch of even a week since the founding of the empire where Aron hadn’t made an appearance. “If it happened after the empire was founded, it was probably in the first few weeks. But that isn’t feasible either... so he must’ve awakened much earlier than that.”The younger man nodded at the idea that Aron had awakened before founding the empire. He hadn’t made that many public appearances at all up until The Last War, only showing himself when it was absolutely necessary, he was forced to do so, or when he introduced his first products.“Even if he did awaken earlier, it just goes to show that he’s a very patient man and seems to have hidden it quite well. I can’t think of anyone I personally know that wouldn’t parade their n
Lab City.Aron was in a lab, his focus on a smartphone-sized brick of metal. His fingertip was tracing back and forth on its surface, leaving behind line after line of glowing golden rune script.“No, that’s not it...” he sighed, tossing the brick over his shoulder, where it landed atop a waist-high pile of other metallic bricks of similar size and shape.He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, his perception turning inward in meditation until he saw his runic heart. It rhythmically pulsed, flashing a dark gold light with each cycle of contraction and expansion. Over the past ten weeks he had spent in Lab City, he’d been deciphering the trillions of lines of rune script that had been carved into his heart by the system, focusing on increasing his library of useful runes beyond those imprinted in his memory by the knowledge he’d bought from the system.What he had discovered was... absolutely nothing. He still couldn’t grasp how they worked or what they were supposed to do. Wo
“Shit! Run, you fucking idiots!”Master Sergeant Jose “Tekillya” Cuervo was in a ruined city with the rest of Reaper Team 22. It had started as a nice, quiet little metropolis full of busy little worker bees going about their day, until a supervillain had kidnapped the son of the city’s mayor. Reaper Team 22 had been sent in to neutralize the criminal, save the child, and prevent the situation from spiraling out of control and escalating to an absurd level.Obviously, something had gone wrong. Tekillya fervently cursed Murphy as he ran at top speed, the shadow of an entire skyscraper surrounding his team. As it turned out, the kidnapper was part of a team of criminals, and one of them had ripped an entire skyscraper off of its foundation and simply thrown it at the hapless reapers.Naturally, it wouldn’t kill them if it hit them. It wouldn’t even really cramp their style all that much, much less part their hair on the wrong side, but it would still be embarrassing. After all, who wou
The world was still in the recovery phase after the economic and financial crash. Thanks to an immense amount of stimulus and other aid payments on behalf of the government, companies had been hiring people in droves, driving down the global unemployment rate by quite a lot.However, due to the disparity in education among the population of some former countries—either as a result of devastating wars or just plain bad leadership—some areas were still suffering. The economic growth seemed to have passed them by; after all, if they don’t know a program exists to help them, how can they be helped? Thus, they were only surviving on life support thanks to the Coeus Foundation donating funds and building free clinics and schools and such. But recovery in the worst areas would still remain slow until their education levels caught up to the global standard. And that, unfortunately, was a problem that only time could solve.Among those areas still in the grip of an economic downturn was the fo
Although the Bank of the Universe building had been requisitioned by the empire, they’d done a deep scan to ensure it would be safe for use as a temporary branch of their bank. After the scan discovered no issues, they had decided not to renovate it, as it would be a waste of resources. Some things had been done, however, such as upgrading the security system and installing a monitoring VI to ensure rapid reporting of any issues to the higher-ups for further evaluation and decision making.*A superpowered individual is currently attempting a bank theft. Situation: rainbow. Casualties: one. Damage: white. Evacuation in progress.*(Ed note: Rainbow is the key word for situations involving awakeners, since they introduce a level of uncertainty into how dangerous any given situation is. So it could be anything from harmless to catastrophic at any given time.)……The moment the report came in, the imperial agencies sprang into action. Orders were passed to the imperial health agency, the i
(Ed note: Trigger warning: gore)When the negotiator mentioned that his hostage was almost dead, Kim Ho Song’s hands stopped burning. However, the girl already had scorched flesh on her neck and had fainted once again. This time, though, she was actually on the brink of death, her brain having nearly been cooked by the heated blood flowing to it through her carotid arteries. Her situation was critical.“Listen here, you unblessed peasant filth, I’m superio—” he began, but before he finished his sentence, something passed through the wall, buzzing like a swarm of bees, and hit the left side of his waist. It passed through his entire body, shredding everything around his pelvis and leaving a cavitation wake so severe that even his skin and the organs in his abdomen practically exploded from the overpressure and following vacuum. Then, after it passed through his body, it continued, passing through the other side of the vault and finally digging itself ten meters deep in the ground in th