Changing Fates: Chapter 1: An introduction to the company, and a glimpse of death.

Story by Jake Shadow Wolf on SoFurry

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#1 of Changing Fates

A new story, beginning chapter, similar yet strange world.


Legal Bull: First off any and all characters belong to me, Jake Fedor aka Jake Shadow Wolf, unless stated otherwise in a later entry. Second this story will contain graphic nudity, violence, and some themes readers may not find suitable meaning if you're under age or offended by any of the themes listed in the tags you may wish to stop reading this story right now. Third if you are underage and continue to read this story, I cannot be held responsible for your actions nor can anyone in your family blame me for your choosing to read this material. Fourth I don't condone any of the acts in this story other than those relating to defense of the innocent or one's own life. Finally all things is this story are a work of fiction and take place in a time period that has yet to happen, being such please don't get angry if any of the physics are slightly off or the material is not something your used to. I believe that should cover everything, so I think it's time to begin the story.

The year is 2555, shortly after the end of the war of oppression. I'm not sure what day it is, seeing as how my company and I don't really keep track of most dates, however I am sure that life is shit right now. My companion Ray Blitz, son of the infamous Damien Blitz, and I are hiding behind a god damn crate of metal shavings while a tribe of hot headed beasts, as most people who grew up on the streets called them, were trying to gun us down with old fashioned automatic rifles. Now that I've set up the scene of the present, I should probably give a bit more detail about my companions, myself, my company, and the state of the world. About five hundred years ago the United Nations got every country in the world to agree to dispose of their nuclear weapons. Ironically this wasn't a big deal because every country in the world had newer more subtle weapons.

The weapons in question were three different types of bio weapons. The first type was called chems, which were a special set of chemicals that increased the abilities of the user's body to ten times their usual limits. The second type was a specialized form of advanced cybernetics, which was eventually used in medical science. The third and final type was genetic bio weapons. These bio weapons were basically what many would call anthromorphic beings. However when they first entered the battlefield the name that stuck for their race as a whole in the mind of the public was beast or beasts, which eventually became their street name. Of course as time went and war seemed to be something that the world had grown out of all but chems began to become unused in the military field.

Beasts started to be sold at auctions as servants, chems became a regular dietary thing for fighters in the different military and police forces around the world, and cybernetics, which had advanced to specialized nanites, were now the easiest way to fix a problem someone had in the medical field. Things seemed to be going fine, until progression and subversion acts were passed. You see around the year 2100 all the world's governments had consolidated and the U.N was basically the head where everything was run from. About twenty years later, when chems, which was now the term for anyone who actually had a chem release, installed into their body, beasts, and cybers, as those with cybernetics were starting to be called, had become a big deal around the world a man named David Summers took control of the U.N.

He believed that beasts, whose ancestors were born in test tubes, cybers, who's bodies ran on cybernetics no matter how much it looked like flesh and blood, and chems, who were basically only surviving based on the chemicals the pushed into their body if they had a chem machine implanted within them, were all beneath normal humans, who the other three groups called humes. He was a conservative man, and believed that the world was going to destroy itself. He proposed two different sets of acts, one to be taken place in a couple hundred years, the other to be taken place as soon as the U.N. agreed he was right. The first set of acts was known as the progression acts. They would postpone study any further into the sciences that would alter the human body, and in all honesty would slow down the progression of ninety percent of the world's technology by proxy. The second group was known as the Subversion acts.

The Subversion acts, which would take place starting the year 2520, would make anyone with any sort of problem, or those not born of the human race, less than regular humans. Of course, this caused a lot of people to become angry, seeing as how many had family who were only barely holding on thanks to chems or cybernetics, and others had relatives who were connected to, in love with, or married to those the world called beasts. The people of the time were foolish and decided that the Subversion acts could be dealt with by the future generations, and instead focused on the Progression acts.

Sadly the government ignored those that had help build it, and the members of the U.N., almost all of which were proud men who believed stopping progression would enable them to have greater control, signed the progression acts. Only ten men proudly stood for the people. Those ten men resigned when they realized they could not change their companions' minds, and joined the masses as they rallied and rioted against the progression acts. After about two years half the world's populace had become dependent upon things that the progression acts were slowing down, and the human race was starting to suffer for it. The wealthy were fine; it was the common people who suffered the most. After another three years, the ten men who'd stepped down from the U.N. demanded that the acts be revoked, or said that they would be taking the people who needed the progress to continue and start a new nation.

The U.N. denied their requests for five more years, and the ten of them were forced to watch as the world around them started to crumble. Most of those in the U.N. didn't notice anything, and those that did just smirked as they realized they truly had complete control of the world at large. Finally the ten men started to form an army as they realized that without progress the world they loved would die. They started by getting former military members. It was easy for them to do thanks to the fact no one had ever thought to revoke their clearance to the central database, which was a high priority database that had information on just about everyone in the world at the time. This was because in the year 2105 the U.N. had come out with memory chips that allowed people to register themselves as citizens. This was a double edged sword, it allowed the U.N. to monitor the people, but it also allowed them to access all but the most secure of databases in the world without specialized equipment.

As they gathered more and more men, the U.N. continued to deny any attempts at peaceful negotiation they made causing them to believe that David Summers had taken complete control. Their belief turned out to be completely correct in the year 2135, a mere five years after their last delegate had been told that to return to the U.N. was to court death, David Summers announced himself to be the head of the U.N. for the rest of his life and that the world would become a monarchy. He said that in two years the U.N. would have a big enough army that they could police everything without ever having to leave their main building or hire citizens as soldiers.

The ten, who would eventually be known as the heads of the progression party ironically, realized that time was short and maximized their efforts. By the end of 2136 they had every beast, chem, and cyber that had been trained previously as well as every man, woman, and teen willing to fight for both freedom, and the progression of the world. Three days later, on January first 2137, when the U.N. had finally finished their army, the forces of the progression party attacked. They stormed the U.N. and destroyed any soldiers who got in their way. Sadly they weren't completely prepared for what they faced. They assumed the enemy are would be only beasts, chems, and the occasional mercenary, however the U.N.'s forces tricked them by having a group that would later be known as hybrids or nekos, depending on who you asked, hidden within the human ranks.

The hybrids had all of the skills of the beasts, but looked more human except for a few distinctive traits. As the progression party's army started to realize what those traits were they turned the tide back in their favor. Sadly before the fighting was over summers had escaped and taken most of the highest ranking members of the U.N. with him. The war lasted another three bloody years as those who enjoyed the new regime turned against the progression party. By the end of it the ten leaders who'd all been normal humans had changed. Four were now cybers, two had become chem users, and of the remaining four, only two were able to not have emergency transplant of their minds into the body of willing beasts.

The world continued moving forward after that, though summers' family and the families of his lackeys returned. The people mostly ignored them, though they became slightly powerful thanks to the fact that they all had funded a lot of the newer projects of the world. Ten years later, in the year 2150 a statue was erected of the ten men who'd started the revolution to move forward, and a smaller statue was erected of the eight who had changed after their change with the words "We will always remember your sacrifice," Carved into the base.

Exactly fifty years later the rift project was started. It was a project to see if it was possible to tear a hole to another dimension. The original ten men, who now led the country, were there for every moment of it and helped with the designs of the project when the project heads were low on ideas. The project went on another hundred years, with the original ten founders dying and their children replacing them as members of the project team. They'd convinced the people to elect their leaders again, and as such things were kept in balance as the people held the power. On the one hundredth anniversary of the project the rift was finally opened allowing a ton of new beings to enter the world. The two most prominent of beings to enter were the angels and demons. They realized just how powerful the ingenuity of the humans would be, and tried to coerce them to either side in their eternal battle.

Most, not all, but most humans managed to stay out of the conflict. However the opening of the rift had released tremendous energies that caused the crust of the world to shift and change. The angels and demons called the power that surged through the land magic; however the humans just called it pure energy. Whoever was right doesn't really matter, because either way the world was warped and twisted into strange new shapes. After another hundred years or so things settled back down and the wars between angels and demon's died down to almost nothing. The world was pretty much at peace with the individual groups each doing their own thing and staying out of each other's way.

The only places anyone saw any real sign of what went on beneath the surface were in the different cities named after gods of the old religions. Odin's hall, Hera's valley, Zeus's be, and Osiris's tomb. These were places where all the different groups were joined together in large cities where they lived together of their own free will. This worked out fine, until the year 2520 finally rolled around and David Summers descendant Sandra Summers took over the government with the help of a few of her followers and brought the Suppression Acts to life. Five years later, those segregated by the Suppression acts rose up against the army that had once been on their side and fought for their rights and freedom. My father joined the forces fighting against the suppression acts. Five years later he met my mother and the two started to make a life together.

In 2540, when I turned fifteen I accepted the mantle my father lost five years before and formed a small company that my friend Ray Blitz named Changing Fates. I'm starting to think the name was right because we turned the tide in the battle in favor of those who'd been oppressed. Our company consisted of Ray, Jerry Thomas, and I, the only humans, Berry Alan, Keith Littan, the two anthros in our squad as they called themselves, and finally James Roran, Leon Koras, and David Alex. Sadly out of our entire company, only Ray, Berry, Keith, David, Leon, and I survived. James and Jerry died the day before the war ended protecting a group of children that had gotten caught in the crossfire between us and the enemy. That was last year, now Changing Fates is a private Investigation company.

Private Investigation means something different from what it supposedly meant back in the twenty first century, now it means that you're basically willing to take on job that the world throws our way. Primarily that is missing person's cases but occasionally, like today, that means dealing with illegal chem runners. Chem runners are people who buy and sell defective chems that completely change the biochemistry of a chem user. They don't warn people about the possible side effects and as such, when we found out about it, we found out we figured we should probably do something in the name of Jerry, and James. James always said that the chems would kill him, however ironically they were the only reason he managed to save the life of a little girl.

With all that out of the way I should introduce myself and pick up where I left off. My name is Jason Blaze. My family is descended from the original ten however I've never told anyone else that, and the only reason I'm recording it in this video journal is that I figure someday someone will want to know everything about me. With that said I think it's time to pick up where I left off. Ray and I started providing cover fire as Leon and David snuck around the enemy using the roof tops, and Berry and Allan stopped the chem runner's reinforcements on a side street. I glanced at Ray as a bullet whizzed by my head and said "Twenty bucks says one of us is going to need a temporary chem shot after this is over." He snorted and said "I'm not taking that bet, you're almost always right on this shit."

I grabbed Ray's hair as I heard the sound of an explosive round hurtling toward us and shoved him down swearing softly as the crate exploded sending shrapnel everywhere. He rolled behind a crate to our right and I rolled to the left swearing again as I realized that they were moving in on Ray, since they'd seen blood in the direction he'd rolled. He'd had a piece of shrapnel get lodged into his shoulder locking up his god damn gun arm. I quickly jumped to my feet whistling for the beast chem runners to focus on me and started running. They gave into their instinct, knowing it would make killing me all the sweeter, and started chasing me down a side street and along an alley. I swore as I continued running and was forced to try climbing a wall as I found myself in a back alley.

I let out a hoarse yell of pain as claws raked down my back and blinked as a young neko girl held her hand down to me. I grabbed it as I felt someone or something tear into my shoulder like it was a raw bloody haunch of meat. I tried my best to help her get me up, however as I was about to pull my lower body on top of the building the wall was connected to several arms grabbed my legs and dragged me into the alley. I fell hard and heard the bones in my shoulder snap as I landed on it then closed my eyes resisting the urge to scream out in pain as the world started to go dark. I growled softly and reached down then pulled out my pistol and started firing into the nearest chem smuggler muttering "Damn beast, your nothing like the anthros I know." I emptied my clip into him and the one on his right then felt my gun fall from my hand as something pierced my right wrist causing the nerves to go dead and sending liquid fire up my arm.

I smirked at the one who did it and said softly "See you in hell," as my vision narrowed to a thin point of light. I felt my body convulsing as a figure wearing a black robe walked up and studied me. I looked at them questioningly and they sighed then said "I'll see you many times in your young life, but this time you escape my grasp." I smiled and said "Glad to hear, death." I woke up to find myself grinning in a loopy way at Ray who was waving a hand in front of my face. As I started to come back to myself he studied me and said "Three options, cyber implants, chemical implant, or animal DNA. That's your only choices before you ask. The usual shit won't work." I shrugged and said "How long?" He cocked his head and said "Two days, that's all you got." I nodded and motioned for him to leave as I laid my head back and slipped into a light doze dreaming of the girl who tried to save me.