Chapter Text
“How about we start in the beginning if you don’t mind” a young but intellectual voice suggested to his audience.
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It all started on one day in 1999 “it” decided to come into our world The universal will as it was later dubbed tried to enter the world through technology but was stopped just as fast as it appeared.
With humanity reeling from the shock of the event the UN hastily chose to ban all technology dubbing it black technology, but with no way to sustain themselves humanity was on a pathway to the dark ages at least until they showed up.
The apostles, four powerful envoys who were taught by the original himself showed humanity a new form of power magic.
From that day a new era began, one of discoveries and wonders.
Until...
Three scientist and good friends we’re put in charge of a project a goal so to speak to evolve humans down to the cellular level Frederick Bulsara, Aria Hale, and That Man successfully complete the gear project for the United States Government.
But after that is when everything went wrong
After the gear project was successful aria the reveals to Frederick that she’s ill with an incurable disease, refusing to go into cryo-sleep in fear of missing a life with Frederick she decides to live out the rest of her life with her friends.
Fortunately, or unfortunately That Man wouldn’t allow for that to happen for their sakes.
He chose for the first human gear to be Frederick causing the lab to be destroyed and halting the Gear Project to be shut down with Frederick losing his memory and cursing him to become the Flame of Corruption.
Afterwards, the project would get restarted culminating in the creation of various gears all around the world, but they were missing something a way to control them as so far they were nothing but animals running on instincts leading to the approval of the first command class gear “Justice” made from the body and soul of former scientist Aria Hale, it is unknown if she approved of this however.
With the first activation of Justice the command class gear malfunctions occurs and causes the destruction of the island-nation of Japan.
With the results of the test being clear various actions were taken first, That Man was to be arrested as a war criminal later known as the gear maker. and second, justice is to be terminated for the destruction of Japan.
Feeling the danger that was coming to her, justice takes control of all gears around the world and declares war on humanity.
And so, begins The Crusade The hundred-year war with Justice.
Many, many died, both gear and human alike, history was lost, treasures were made and heroes we’re born.
-Kliff undersn-one of the most famous war heroes of the crusades who not only lived during the crusades but was one of the few people who could fight justice to a draw.
-Sol Badguy- formerly the scientist Frederick Bulsara with most of his memories gone but firmly opposed to the gear project he wandered the world looking for That Man and destroying gear production bases from before the war from the government earning him the designation of “Badguy”. Later on, throughout his journey he comes across the immortal vampire Slayer and seeing his sheer radiance give him the name Sol, now as sol badguy he eventually joins the holy order of knight via recruitment after they heard about his work in killing gears single handedly. Later on, he left the holy order with the newly gifted (cough* stolen*cough) fireseal in hand he wanders the land as a bounty hunter throughout the years. Has a clear rivalry with Ky kiske. By removing the headband on his head, he enters a state called dragon install that releases the full power of his gear DNA allows him to reach incalculable levels of strength until he puts the headband back on.
-Ky Kiske- an orphan in the ruined lands of what was formerly London he managed to survive on his own at just 5 years old he encountered Kliff Understn and wanted to join the holy order but Kliff told him the if he could survive for 5 years he could join when he was 10 he joined the holy order by 15 he was a labelled a prodigy swordsman with his mastery over lightning magic and swordsmanship that he was given one of the 8 sacred treasures the thunderseal as his personal sword.
-The outrage-a weapon sol developed when the gear project was restarted to fight against the gears but due to its sheer power output of near limitless magical energy sol was unable to wield it himself, so he disassembled the outrage into eight parts later dubbed the sacred treasures each giving the wielder an unparallel increase in their respective element.
-The fireseal- a sword the allows the user to amplify fire magic to an unparallel level currently being wielded by sol badguy later being used to create the junkyard dog mark’s 1-3.
-the Thunderseal- another one of the sacred treasure’s held by the sacred order it was decided to give the sword to a young Ky kiske to be used in tandem with his swordsmanship and lightning magic.
-The Zessen- twin fans used to control and amplify wind magic used to be held in the Japanese refugee colonies but were taken when Anji Mito escaped the colonies to satisfy his curiosity of the world around him/
-The Flashing Fang – a lightbulb shaped sacred treasure that amplifies light magic for the user. Used to be held by the conclave but was stolen by sol badguy in order to create the junkyard dog mk 3.
-Baikal- location unknown used to be held by the conclave
-dominator- similar status to the Baikal.
-2 unknown treasures
Eventually the final battle with justice would occur between Kliff and Ky managing to make justice retreat but being too injured to chase after the commander class gear to finish her off, sol then intercepts justice and weakens her enough to seal her in a dimensional prison after she finds out that sol is a gear but she can’t control him due to being the prototype of all gears and calls him the flame of corruption.
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Five years later rumor of justice’s return becoming more prevalent and the Post War Administrative Bureau (or P.W.A.B for short) see that the seal on justice’s prison weaking they decided to hold a tournament to find the strongest warriors with the promise of single wish. as the reward many enter but all find out that this was the plan of testament the adopted son of Kliff who was illegally experimented on after they’re presumed dead and turning into a gear eventually making him fall into the rule of justice, he fought Kliff to the death but survived and orchestrated the events into justice’s revival via the tournament. But due to sol’s interference there wasn’t enough energy to revive justice, so he sacrifices his own power to revive justice from the seal and making the final confrontation with justice ending with the peaceful death of Kliff undersn and end of justice at the hand sol who realizes with her final words that justice was aria and vows to kill That Man.
Afterwards Ky meets and questions the newly discovered and wanted daughter of justice Dizzy an innocent pacifist with a heart of gold and discovers that not all gears are evil after his strong sense of justice was challenged after the final confrontation with justice and decides to take care of dizzy after leaving her with the jellyfish pirates to settle some work. One year later after living together both dizzy and Ky decided on an informal wedding and later have their child sin.
With the death of justice and Dizzy's “death” the remnants of the Eu and Russia band together to create the kingdom of Illyria and chooses 3 kings to rule them over. First is Ky kiske chosen for his popularity with the public becomes the first king. Second is Leo Whitefang famed soldier that managed to strategize ways to avoid certain death and overcome adversity was chosen as one of the three kings. And Daryl as the third king.
With the stress Dizzy's inhumane pregnancy, having his guilt and immorality tested over his sins, and the breaking point being the conclave a shadow government indirectly threatened dizzy, he sits alone in a church as a shell of his former self praying to god for help up Until sol got there and fought him to bring the old Ky back from his confession that sol said “took too long” eventually having sin stopping the fight in order to not make his mom sad.
With his spirit somewhat healed he decided to ask Sol to take sin with him while he creates a place where both humans and gears can live together in peace.
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Eventually the universal will would make its move by sending Valentine an artificial being with an appearance like Aria’s to bring someone with justice’s DNA to unlock a cube that allows one to access the backyard which allows one to change reality at will.
With the help of Dr paradigm an intelligent gear with an intellect only matched by the smartest of scientist such as That Man and sol, help’s figure out Valetine’s plan and frees Ky from his self-made prison and tries to destroy dizzy unaware of Ky's love for her until it’s revealed to him his feeling for her.
Afterwards Valentine kidnaps Sin to unlock the gate she goes in but makes Sin fight Sol eventually freeing him of his mind control. They reach the gate but can’t go inside until that man still alive shows up and makes it so sol and his friends can go inside the backyard without being crushed by the sheer amount of information flowing through it.
After beating Valentine and destroying the gate sol stays back to hold valentine of with his dragon install and ends her once and for all but is stuck in the backyard.
At least until that man shows up and free’s him telling him that the universal will is going to come back and make the crusades look like a playfight.
These events would eventually be called the baptisma 13 incident.
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After the Baptisma 13 incident sol and sin go after the flashing fang to upgrade the junkyard dog mk2 in preparation for whatever threat the universal will create while killing one of the 4 four members of the conclave. After this sol creates the junkyard dog mk3
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A year after the baptisma 13 incident a being that calls herself Ramlethal Valentine declares war on the world.
King Ky hires the services of Sol to confront Ramlethal for one million world dollars after a rough negotiation.
With Ky, sin, and sol heading to confront ramlethal in the ruins of the country that used to be Japan where they fight and defeat ramlethal but realize that ramlethal was a distraction for the emergence of the cradle which destroys the city of Babylon by an information flare from the backyard.
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After the appearance of the cradle ramlethal surprises sol with a sneak attack and attempts to kill sol.
Until Ky's secret weapon showed up, the marriage obsessed maiden Elphelt Valentine, a valentine unit that unlike her predecessors has a full range of emotions and in turn deciding to turn away from her “mother” otherwise known as the universal will.
Due to elphelt being a valentine unit from the same maker she was able to neutralize all Ramlethal’s offensive weaponry and forcing her to surrender ending the battle but not the war.
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With the situation with ramlethal over Ky, Sin, and Sol listen to the news of about Babylon and citizens speculating about the catastrophe being cause by St Elmo’s Fire a massive lightning bolt that strikes every thirteen years with the Illyrian castle being used as a lightning rod to redirect the lightning bolt.
Eventually elphelt decided to reveal the conclave’s plan to “conquer the world”.
Knowing that the conclave could have been listening in on their plans Ky decided to organize and make plans within the only place where the conclave could not spy in.
Zepp is an ultra-dreadnaught class ship the size of a small country made up of black technology in defiance to the United Nations will for the destruction of black technology.
With the help of Dr.paradigm he explains the goal of the conclave.
Using the cradle to house the body of justice and teleport it into the backyard and keeping it there only showing up once every 26 hours to resupply for air that will be the best point of attack requiring 3 weapons for this assault to succeed.
First, Sol badguy to help break into the barrier with his sheer brute strength.
Second, vagilanda, a missile built with a perfect mix of both black tech and magic capable of flying 5.2 km/s (or 11632.1 mph) to send sol riding on the back of it to the northern black sea to intercept the cradle’s next appearance.
And third Paradigm’s secret weapon, That Man otherwise known as the gear maker himself much to the shock of everyone there.
Fortunately for the conclave they activated Absolute Defense Felion, a barrier made to block out all magical and physical attack a spell so complicated that not even the gear maker could dispel it in time.
But he didn’t need to dispel it, just destroy it with just him and sol.
So, with both of their respective abilities they manage to create the force of a small microverse from the power of sol’s fist.
With the barrier destroyed the bombardment from all the ships that could have been mustered opened fire until the only thing left standing was the full-size corpse of justice standing at 255 meters (762 feet).
With the conclave still standing by the end of the bombardment they retreat into the backyard with justice’s corpse in tow.
As That Man goes to stop them the mysterious assailant only known as Bedman kidnaps the gear maker away, meanwhile sol was weakened from the punch and tries to go after them but elphelt saves him as he was too important to lose in the backyard.
After the operation’s failure they determine that the conclave plans on using St Elmo's fire at Illyria to bind the leader of the conclave’s soul to justice as his vessel.
With the city being evacuated they plan to overload justice with energy to prevent the conclave’s system from activating.
With dizzy now being free from the seal reunites with both Ky and Sin volunteers herself to overload justice and help with the evacuation.
With the battle between the opus units and the conclave’s soldiers in full effect Ky gets shot by one of the conclaves with a black tech gun but stand his ground and kill the conclave member with a weird power from his eye like a gear’s.
With St Elmo’s Fire striking it justice awakens but with dizzy overloading justice sol takes the chance to strike justice and collapses from the strike.
With the whole ordeal done elphelt’s secret programming come into effect and reveals that her programming was to awaken justice just in time, keeping sol alive, and taking justice’s corpse away.
But at the last moment Ramlethal after various talks with sin and elphelt that helps her understand her emotions helps elphelt realize her true feeling to ask everyone to help her and free her from her mother she teleports away while everyone has a sense of finding her and freeing her from the universal will.
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After dealing with the conclave Ky decides to investigate the conclave’s old opera house as that was one of their most well-known hideouts in hopes of discovering more clues about the universal will when he runs into Potemkin elite guardsman from Zepp also sent here to investigate the opera house.
After finding some evidence Chipp Zanuff president of the eastern chipp kingdom shows up and converses with Ky about the universal will and how it may not be a force but something with a will and hatred for humanity and proposes the Sanctus Maximus Ariels leader of the Sanctus populi the leader of the largest religious institution in the world as his main suspect.
Upon hearing this Ky is appalled but chipp leaves him with a message that boils down to him realizing how much power he has not as a soldier but as a king too.
Meanwhile sol gets a visit from raven the immortal and right-hand man for the gear maker for help in tracking a specific person that can help prevent justice’s revival and finding elphelt sol agrees with Sin and Ramlethal joining them.
Together they all meet up with I-no the time traveling hard-rock witch and second of the only three people working with That Man who gives up in tracking the third of the gear maker’s partners, to which she says that she is more interested in his seed much to sol’s anger after which she runs off.
Demanding answers from Raven says that the universal will wants to replace the old humanity with a new one by combining one of the valentine units with justice will accomplish this, but that man created Jack-O valentine the one their trying to find as a replacement to prevent this from happening acting as a gate of sort.
Upon finding Jack-O sol begins to have a headache to her appearance similar to the ones he has when meeting a new valentine unit, afterwards Jack-O looks at sol and remembers something but forgets just as she remembers.
Upon taking off her mask, she revealed herself to look almost identical to Aria much to sol’s shock a both her face and last name valentine.
Jack-O was created by the gear maker to house not just Aria’s soul, but she also calls herself the scales of Juno to balance humanity.
She was created to reunite with the other half of aria’s soul that currently resides in justice and thanks sol for fighting as the flame of corruption, she and raven will shortly leave waiting for That Man to become free from whatever trap he was sealed in by bedman.
Before they leave both Sin and Sol realize that the Flame Of corruption is not a nickname but the seed that sol was implanted with for the source of most of his power.
Upon returning from his investigations Ky request a meeting with Ariels to discuss some concerns with the opus units but that topic quickly finishes and ariels invites Ky to a banquet being held in celebration of the end for the crusades after he accepts, he remembers the words of chipp and ask Ariels just one question:
“Can you still say that you love humanity”
Upon answering that if she even needs to dignify that question Ky leaves with confirmation that Ariels is the universal will is all but confirmed.
As Sol was riding back on his bike the Firewheel MK2 he encounters a monster that self-destructs as soon as it shows up causing sol to make a rough landing, after this Sol agrees to work with the gear maker for help.
After every meeting up with Ky they group up with Dr. Faust framed doctor and an expert in biology, Zappa the leading professional with the supernatural, and Dr.Paradigm the one who knows the most knowledgeable about the backyard to figure out what the information flares that keep occurring around the world are.
Eventually Faust manages to deduce that the flares are the result of Japanese people becoming gears and turning into antimatter which has been happening before even the crusades and the reason for That Man to destroy that man and the gear conversing was kept in bay via vaccines, but until recently the vaccines were replace with placebos, with this information Faust works on a cure.
After sol has a talk with Leo about his intentions Dr.paradigm with Zappa’s help informs them that the resulting information flare from the Japanese colonies could contain enough power to fuse elphelt to justice within 52 hours.
Within a pocket dimension That Man is freed from his prison by chronus and gets told that he should reveal everything to sol as two people who share the same master.
Back in the Illyrian castle the sensors trying to track elphelt’s signal begin to detect her, but the others assume that it's a trap so ramlethal volunteers herself to investigate.
As ramlethal arrives to the location a large antimatter gear appears and detonates she tries to flee but fails to get away because of her decision to save a little girl instead thanking sin for showing her the meaning of emotions.
After her sacrifice the remains of ramlethal were recovered for a funeral.
Eventually Dr.Paradigm manages to contact the gear maker and he teleports into the room ready to explain the universal will’s plan.
The universal will’s plan is not to destroy the world but to create an absolute world, a place where both the backyard and the real world are combined which will destroy anything that cannot survive the initial combination of the two.
But thanks to the original the first person to discover the backyard subsequently creating the theory of magical-science made the two components needed to create the absolute world into two seeds, the Scales of Juno, and lastly the Flame of Corruption.
Eventually leading to the creation of the original sin.
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When the original discovered the backyard, he only had one wish, everlasting peace for mankind.
To accomplish this, he built a single robot named The Universal Will and programmed it to find the path for eternal happiness for mankind, but under no circumstances should it harm humanity.
After the original left with the tome of origins the robot was left to calculate for an outcome for peace, unfortunately it reached a conclusion after many years.
“Humanity does not exist yet”
With this result in line the universal will set about creating an absolute world where this new humanity will be born and the old one to be erased.
After learning about the universal will’s betrayal, the original left his five pupils behind four of which would become the conclave and the last one becoming the gear maker both looking for ways to stop the universal will.
But now the robot has decided to become human to understand the human mind after Sol’s interference becoming Ariels.
After this revelation sol ask a question to that man why create the gears in the first place?
The gear maker reveals that he didn’t want gears to become tools of war but only for peace to achieve that he made justice.
Sol then questions why use Aria, but That Man’s responses was because aria said that the only way for her to accept any kind of treatment was for her lover Frederick to become invincible.
Sol then tells him that it was all for naught because he was the one that killed justice, killed aria.
But Jack-O then reveals that half or aria’s soul was saved and made into Jack-O creating an ideal vessel to bring aria back if they can fuse her with justice which has the other half of aria’s soul, they can bring her back not as a gear but as a human.
All this was the gear maker’s goal the entire time.
After having Sol leave the room with Ky to calm down the gear maker says the one chance, they have of finding elphelt, during the banquet to celebrate the crusades.
Finally creating a plan of attack Ky and Leo will infiltrate the banquet because of their royal status and track elphelt’s location from ariel’s, switch elphelt with Jack-O and kickstart the spell to bring aria back.
But that beckons the question where they would get enough energy for the spell to work?
After discarding the idea of using the outrage sol proposes the idea of St oratorio an energy source that sol developed as Frederick Bulsara which can work if sol modifies it a little bit.
After the meeting is over, they discuss the method of transportation to get to elphelt and Dr.paradigm already arranged for johnny of the jellyfish pirates to transport them on his fastest airship.
With the banquet underway Ky and Leo ask Ariels about her intentions and reasons for wiping out humanity with her response being that she wants to get rid of all redundancies taking great offense at people calling themselves humans even more so now that when she now is a human.
After going on a tirade on everything that was wrong with humanity ariels unleashes three antimatter gears to blow up the city while ariels threaten the party goers to keep both Ky and Leo in place for a bomb to go off and knocks out both Ky and Leo.
When she goes to finish them of chipp Zanuff alongside the entirety of Zepp arrives to help stop the three antimatter gears from blowing up.
Meanwhile Faust is running with a cure he recently developed to stop the antimatter explosion, with the help of various factions helping him cure the gears with only one of the three gears blowing up in a safe distance.
After the banquet ariel’s signal disappeared, but with some help from a virus Ky, Sol, Sin and Jack-O depart with johnny to the coordinates in the north Atlantic, meanwhile That Man prepares for St oratorio.
After they depart Daryl makes it clear to Leo that Sol and company will be shot at with specialized weaponry to destroy justice once and for all.
After an awkward conversation regarding the weird familial ties of sol, dizzy, and Ky much to the despair of sol and Ky, they arrive at the location with Ariels waiting for them on a platform for the confrontation with elphelt hanging at the top of justice’s head.
During the battle Ariels holds sol’s junkyard dog MK2 to taunt him but sol unleashed a level 3 output of the junkyard dog with enough power to destroy a mountain, but ariels tank’s the blast with no damage.
After taunting Sol for his inability to use dragon install to not aggravate the information flares, she then mocks Ramlethal’s sacrifice as those are the only threats to her for now.
After hearing her mocking of ramlethal and her emotions Sin goes into a rage giving him a burst of energy to temporarily surprising ariels the battle continues.
Meanwhile as Jack-O is preparing for St oratorio pieces of the land begin to break off causing justice’s coordinates to wander of risking the mission.
Realizing this both Sin and Ky leave to hold the chains in place while Sol distracts Ariels with the junkyard dog at twenty-fold power.
After telling Ariels the reason for helping humans instead of ruling them he then has to leave Ariels to hold a broken piece of the chain, nearly allowing Ariels to finish sol off.
With raven appearing at the last minute with ramlethal with a prosthetic for two of her limbs who he rescued at the last minute from the explosion, using her swords she holds the chains in place while sol fights Ariels again.
Believing that she has won she fails to notice St. Oratorio firing in her direction causing her to hold the spell in place until sol hits her with enough force break her shield and allow St. oratorio to hit justice freeing elphelt and knocking ariels out.
Unfortunately, the information flares are still happening, Daryl’s ships arrive to destroy justice and the merge didn’t happen because of aria’s unconscious mind rejects the merge.
Ideally they could jumpstart the merge if they hit justice with the same amount of energy they did before, but That Man can’t build up enough power for a second time, so sol tells him to fire it anyways thinking of using the junkyard dog to boost the energy.
But Daryl decides that their time is up and allows for the ships to fire their beams to destroy justice.
Leo tries to make Ky remove Daryl from power but Ky refuses since Daryl has a point but asking if he can teleport everyone but him and sol out of there, Daryl accepts but also teleports Ky out much to his dismay.
As the ships fire both Jack-O and Sol talk one last time until Axl low the time displaced friend of sol freezes time and explains that he can’t go back in time to reunite with his girlfriend but at the very least he can help Sol out.
After promising that drinks are on him sol enters his dragon install and uses the junkyard dog to amplify the blast hitting Jack-O and successfully completing the merger.
As the ships hit their mark Ariels uses the last of her strength to protect sol and Jack-O believing that sol is the last beacon of hope for the world and entrusting her daughters to him falling unconscious afterwards.
With Jack-Os hair turning red the merger is deemed a success.
After this That man and his partners raven and I-no meet up with Sol and Sin and thanks him for helping aria but not before declaring that his final task is to settle the score with sol badguy finally taking his hood down and revealing a young man with white hair and a wing themed eyepatch.
Initially sin was confused by this until sol explains that the gear maker has the eyes of someone who you don’t need to understand.
But not before sol reveals the identity of That Man, the world’s most wanted man the creator the gears and most powerful magic user alive and second strongest magician in history.
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“That Man’s name was Asuka R. Kreutz” finally the man narrating this story reveals his own part in the story in a classroom at an academy for young huntsmen.
“b..but Mr. Kreutz w..why, why would you do all of this?” asked a young voice capable of breaking away from the sheer shock that the rest of the audience had for the mild-mannered man standing in front of the audience being the cause of a scale of destruction few in the world that they reside in are capable of understanding.
“Well, Miss Rose it because I did it for them” Asuka says as he gestures to both Sol and Jack-O sitting together clearly waiting for the rest of their explanation to finish.
“But professor Kreutz that still doesn’t explain how you and the rest of the professors got here.” asked a young lady with white hair.
“My apologies Miss Schnee, but this next part will clear all this up” the man that was formerly known as the gear maker clarifies beginning the next chapter of their explanation for the situation that they were in for his audience.