Rogue

Four hundred thousand years, that was how long we had been stuck in this darkness, with only one way out - death. With each day that passed, at least one of us would breathe their last. At least, it was workable until a thousand years ago, when 64 of us - the most important and strongest ones, decided to go their seperate paths. We know not of why they did this, but we know one thing. They are not cooperative in fighting the Zirtues.

And that was why we called them the 'Rogues'. Those powerful enough to make a change, WERE willing to make a change but one day, without saying a thing, they just left.

The population right now including the Rogues was about two thousand, and these two thousand MUST be united, in order to fight against the Zirtues. The Zirtues were not just simple lifeforms, there were many types of them.

From weakest to strongest, the Zirtues were categorised as so: Tree(as in looking like trees), Crab and Platonic. Each category was divided into five grades: I, II, III, IV and V, with I being the lowest and V the highest. For example, a Tree-I would look exactly like a tree, had eyes and no stronger than a hippo, a Tree-V would look less like trees and were able to level small buildings. As of present, we only had the data of two Platonic grades, I and II, P-I a icosahedron and P-II a dodecahedron. So, based on current data, the Platonics would take on the shape of platonic solids, so a P-V would be a tetrahedron.

And these categories all had one thing in common: they were all much stronger, smarter and faster than humanity. But here's the catch: they are not made of just flesh. No, they are machines of blood and gore.

About 30 years after the start of the war, Erika realised this fact. She tried again and again, to somehow replicate the Zirtues, to create a Zirtue that was on our side. She did so for about 20 years before giving up.

But she did not do so before she made another discovery. It was accidental, but during one of the tests, she managed to integrate some parts of a Zirtue into a plant. And that was not long before she was able to do it with humans.

We all called that day 'The day hope was found', it was just that significant. Not only did it allow us to damage the damned things, which we couldn't do before, we also managed to do it more efficiently. The more we killed, the more materials we got. The more materials, the stronger we got. During that process, we produced a true powerhouse, Anastasia. She could theoretically fight infinitely, her body basically absorbed all the Zirtues that were killed, strengthen her, and heal her all at the same time. She was our hope, the last ray of light in an ocean of darkness.

Aside the Rogues, the remaining humans were all part of an organisation, the 'Union'. It was created with the idea of uniting all of humanity, or maybe it was just some scheme to make money, Erika also said something about this but I simply forgot. In any case, we were now making our way towards its very base.

***

Before getting into the elavator that led into the underground base, Erika suddenly spoke.

"According to Andre, a large number of the Rogues are grouping up... with Anastasia as their leader."

Hearing Erika's words, Jean couldn't help but sign. It was problematic enough for him to try and bring the Rogues back to their side. Now, there was a force that was steadily building up, for god knows why.

"Wow, very fantastic. Uhh, what's their exact number?"

"20."

That number left Jean speechless. For reference, Anastasia was a famous name amongst the surviving humans, tales of her taking on dozens, maybe even hundreds of Zirtues, were well-known to everyone. When she was still working with us - the Union, she was an important card that we could not afford to lose. Now, she was gathering people of similar strength to maybe go against the Union. Though this speculation was groundless, Jean was still worried.

He couldn't beat Anastasia, let alone 19 more that could dismember him without even breaking a sweat. It was normal of him to also break a sweat.

With that, they were now riding down the elevator. Still, he was quite confident about the place where he was standing. Located more than five kilometers underground. The main base was shaped like a cylinder with 50 floors, a diameter of 10 kilometers and each floor having a height of 50 meters. The walls were capable of enduring blows from a Crab-II, the walls of the elevator were also made of the same material.

Speaking of which, this elevator could travel to the main base in half a minute at max speed, but now it was only going at around fifty kilometers per hour. Which meant that Jean and Erika would have to wait six minutes, an awful long time. The reason the elevator couldn't go full speed right now was because it was under repairs.

Jean did not know what to do for six minutes, so he took out a red notebook and began reading it. This caught the attention of the girl beside him who was also bored out of her mind.

"Why do you always have that red notebook with you? Must be interesting, let me see too."

"It's just a diary, nothing out of the ordinary."

"Really? Crazy how it can survive with such minimal damage."

Jean simply laughed, he also did not know why the notebook was still here with him. Maybe he just took really good care of it. And after a torturous six minutes of interogation from the girl, the elevator doors opened, revealing a white interior with tons of people busily going about. Jean quickly walked in, leaving Erika behind, stuck in her own thoughts.

"How can it be in such conditions if it was a normal notebook, the materials should've- Huh? Hey! Wait for me, fucking damn it."