Written pretty much off the cuff. No doubt numerous errors abound.
----
If you asked me for my first memory, I couldn't really tell you.
All I know of the hows and whys of my being here, I only learned later on in life, and in a somewhat ironic manner. Old records, forgotten research, scrapped projects ... there was plenty of that in the wake of ... but that's getting ahead of myself a bit.
Pheros, Cade Ignatius.
That's was my name for the first half-decade of my life.
Of course, life is not neccessarily existence.
How do you classify and quantify life? I wonder about that sometimes, and then I remember that, whatever else I may be, philosopher I am not.
That said, I know what life is not.
It is not nearly constant monitoring.
It is not regular, almost daily medical checks and procedures.
It is not being dosed with something that makes the mind race and the body act heavy and awkward as lead, and being sat before machines for purposes of indoctrination.
It is not running through gauntlet after gauntlet of test and examinations, time after time, and time again after _that_.
I was not a person. I was not even an animal. I was a thing, created for a specific purpose, which I achieved well.
Maybe too well.
Or maybe not well enough.
I knew that whoever was responsible for all this had high hopes. I caught bits and pieces here and there, when they thought I wasn't awake or aware. They'd talked about mass manufacture, and perfecting the indoctrination methods ...
Then something changed. It was a rather drastic change, and one that seemed to echo through my environs themselves, sterile as they may have been.
The project was cancelled.
From what I would later read, I would find out it was deemed impractical. After all, when a working prototype takes you a decade and a half to develop into some semblance of usefulness ... well, I've come to see myself that man is, at his base, a creature of unreliability. The human factor, you could call it.
But those who'd led the project were proud.
I killed for the first time when I was thirteen, after being sent out to deal with those who'd opposed the project's continuation.
To this day, I don't really know why, but after I'd done it and was left standing there, a knife in my hand and a cooling body on the rich rug in front of me, I just -stopped-.
The next thing I knew, I was no longer in the capital, and no longer wearing what I had been ...
What I did know was that behind me was the border, and in front of me ... I had no idea, but I discovered within myself that which they call hope that day, and I dared _hope_ that what lay before me was something better.
In a way, I was right. In a way.
Cade Ignatius Pheros was born that day, and while I knew that my actual birthday came at a different date - benchmarking it was a usually truly frightening array of procedures, so yes, it was a hard date to forget about - I didn't look back.
I didn't look back for years, while I grew.
My head had been crammed full of lectures and post-hypnotic suggestions on everything from insurrection to covert operations from the time I was five, so survival wasn't exactly that much of an issue.
Neither was law.
You can't try what you can't catch, after all, and I was never caught.
Until one day ... well, you could say I'd caught myself.
When I finally realized what it was I was missing.
The only thing I'd ever wanted was to be free.
Looking at the deep blue sky, and the streaks of white sheering through it at breathtaking speeds ... I knew that I couldn't rest until I'd tasted that freedom.
The freedom to go wherever I wanted, unrestricted by land, unhindered by water.
The freedom to soar.
I lied, I cheated, I stole and smuggled, but finally, I had amassed both capital and an appropriate fictous backstory.
Even if it took me years, I was going to fly.
And finally, eventually, I did.
But there were still restrictions.
I still wasn't free.
Flight was brilliant. I wanted it for myself.
I quit the military, and used what money I had left in my old accounts to purchase what was barely _not_ an old junker of a jet. And then I signed a contract.
While there were many things I did well, there was only one thing I did exceptionally well, and that was what I'd been trained for.
My freedom, like any freedom, ended up being paid for with blood. My blood, and the blood of others.
But much more of the latter than the former.
That didn't matter, though, because finally I _was_ free.
And then, a year after that, irony struck.
I had come home.
Below me, the country of my birth.
In front of me, those I would have called comrades.
Behind me, those whose blood I was made to shed.
I learned a lot from that conflict. Not just about who I had been meant to be, in the aftermath, but also who I was.
I learned about friendship, and pride, and anger. I was shown senseless destruction, and heroic sacrifice.
And, in the end, I was still flying.
Afterwards, I faded away. I didn't want anything of the fame, or of the glory.
I just wanted to fly this deep blue sky of mine.
The means were nearly omnipresent, it seemed.
There was always conflict somewhere, and there will always be conflict for as long as this world remains a human one.
And as long as there was conflict, I knew that I would be able to fly.
So it went.
From one to another, fading in and out throughout the sky, one name following the next, one theatre of war traded for another.
Right now, I'm in a lull. An old Osean friend, from back in that fateful campaign above what could have been my homeland, left a message. Seems he's the one giving me the means to fly this time.
I do wonder a bit about his reaction. It's been ten years since we saw one-another last, fifteen since we first met, and I still look as I did then. I'm sure it'll be good for a laugh.
I'm packing my bags.
Who am I?
I still couldn't really tell you.
I'm still learning that myself.
I've been called many things, but in a way, the first of these has always been the most accurate.
For my freedom, and to keep my place upon this deep blue sky, I'm perfectly willing to be a demon.
Thruthfully, I wouldn't have it any other way.
---
The Demon and the Deep Blue Sky
an Ace Combat short
by Griever
---
the end?
----
The Ace Combat setting is _ripe_ with superscience and weird crap that defies the laws of physics. So here's one way that the speculation that the various semi-nameless protagonist of several of these games Cipher - The Demon Lord of the Round Table, Moebius - The Ribbon, and Blaze - the Demon of Razgriz, are one and the same person could have one and the same.
If I ever get my hands on AC 5, I might write more. For now, this is it.
-Griever
----
If you asked me for my first memory, I couldn't really tell you.
All I know of the hows and whys of my being here, I only learned later on in life, and in a somewhat ironic manner. Old records, forgotten research, scrapped projects ... there was plenty of that in the wake of ... but that's getting ahead of myself a bit.
Pheros, Cade Ignatius.
That's was my name for the first half-decade of my life.
Of course, life is not neccessarily existence.
How do you classify and quantify life? I wonder about that sometimes, and then I remember that, whatever else I may be, philosopher I am not.
That said, I know what life is not.
It is not nearly constant monitoring.
It is not regular, almost daily medical checks and procedures.
It is not being dosed with something that makes the mind race and the body act heavy and awkward as lead, and being sat before machines for purposes of indoctrination.
It is not running through gauntlet after gauntlet of test and examinations, time after time, and time again after _that_.
I was not a person. I was not even an animal. I was a thing, created for a specific purpose, which I achieved well.
Maybe too well.
Or maybe not well enough.
I knew that whoever was responsible for all this had high hopes. I caught bits and pieces here and there, when they thought I wasn't awake or aware. They'd talked about mass manufacture, and perfecting the indoctrination methods ...
Then something changed. It was a rather drastic change, and one that seemed to echo through my environs themselves, sterile as they may have been.
The project was cancelled.
From what I would later read, I would find out it was deemed impractical. After all, when a working prototype takes you a decade and a half to develop into some semblance of usefulness ... well, I've come to see myself that man is, at his base, a creature of unreliability. The human factor, you could call it.
But those who'd led the project were proud.
I killed for the first time when I was thirteen, after being sent out to deal with those who'd opposed the project's continuation.
To this day, I don't really know why, but after I'd done it and was left standing there, a knife in my hand and a cooling body on the rich rug in front of me, I just -stopped-.
The next thing I knew, I was no longer in the capital, and no longer wearing what I had been ...
What I did know was that behind me was the border, and in front of me ... I had no idea, but I discovered within myself that which they call hope that day, and I dared _hope_ that what lay before me was something better.
In a way, I was right. In a way.
Cade Ignatius Pheros was born that day, and while I knew that my actual birthday came at a different date - benchmarking it was a usually truly frightening array of procedures, so yes, it was a hard date to forget about - I didn't look back.
I didn't look back for years, while I grew.
My head had been crammed full of lectures and post-hypnotic suggestions on everything from insurrection to covert operations from the time I was five, so survival wasn't exactly that much of an issue.
Neither was law.
You can't try what you can't catch, after all, and I was never caught.
Until one day ... well, you could say I'd caught myself.
When I finally realized what it was I was missing.
The only thing I'd ever wanted was to be free.
Looking at the deep blue sky, and the streaks of white sheering through it at breathtaking speeds ... I knew that I couldn't rest until I'd tasted that freedom.
The freedom to go wherever I wanted, unrestricted by land, unhindered by water.
The freedom to soar.
I lied, I cheated, I stole and smuggled, but finally, I had amassed both capital and an appropriate fictous backstory.
Even if it took me years, I was going to fly.
And finally, eventually, I did.
But there were still restrictions.
I still wasn't free.
Flight was brilliant. I wanted it for myself.
I quit the military, and used what money I had left in my old accounts to purchase what was barely _not_ an old junker of a jet. And then I signed a contract.
While there were many things I did well, there was only one thing I did exceptionally well, and that was what I'd been trained for.
My freedom, like any freedom, ended up being paid for with blood. My blood, and the blood of others.
But much more of the latter than the former.
That didn't matter, though, because finally I _was_ free.
And then, a year after that, irony struck.
I had come home.
Below me, the country of my birth.
In front of me, those I would have called comrades.
Behind me, those whose blood I was made to shed.
I learned a lot from that conflict. Not just about who I had been meant to be, in the aftermath, but also who I was.
I learned about friendship, and pride, and anger. I was shown senseless destruction, and heroic sacrifice.
And, in the end, I was still flying.
Afterwards, I faded away. I didn't want anything of the fame, or of the glory.
I just wanted to fly this deep blue sky of mine.
The means were nearly omnipresent, it seemed.
There was always conflict somewhere, and there will always be conflict for as long as this world remains a human one.
And as long as there was conflict, I knew that I would be able to fly.
So it went.
From one to another, fading in and out throughout the sky, one name following the next, one theatre of war traded for another.
Right now, I'm in a lull. An old Osean friend, from back in that fateful campaign above what could have been my homeland, left a message. Seems he's the one giving me the means to fly this time.
I do wonder a bit about his reaction. It's been ten years since we saw one-another last, fifteen since we first met, and I still look as I did then. I'm sure it'll be good for a laugh.
I'm packing my bags.
Who am I?
I still couldn't really tell you.
I'm still learning that myself.
I've been called many things, but in a way, the first of these has always been the most accurate.
For my freedom, and to keep my place upon this deep blue sky, I'm perfectly willing to be a demon.
Thruthfully, I wouldn't have it any other way.
---
The Demon and the Deep Blue Sky
an Ace Combat short
by Griever
---
the end?
----
The Ace Combat setting is _ripe_ with superscience and weird crap that defies the laws of physics. So here's one way that the speculation that the various semi-nameless protagonist of several of these games Cipher - The Demon Lord of the Round Table, Moebius - The Ribbon, and Blaze - the Demon of Razgriz, are one and the same person could have one and the same.
If I ever get my hands on AC 5, I might write more. For now, this is it.
-Griever
