A History of the United Nations

Fourth Year Trainee: 3965

In the year 2024, the world fell into chaos; whole countries were destroyed, Monarchs were toppled from their thrones, wars broke out all over the world-Civil wars, World wars, hell, even wars over bloody goats-until there was nothing left but rubble and dust and skeletons of once beautiful statues and structures.

But then the peace came.                                

People, religious leaders, rulers, and everyone else who survived what is now considered the half-century War realized that something needed to be done, needed to be changed.

Then, like a Phoenix from the ashes, a new nation was created from the wreckage. It was called the United Nations, a name taken from earlier recorded attempts at peace that were, unsurprisingly, doomed to fail. The real United Nations, as most began calling it, was made up of twenty-four leaders, four elected from the six of the continents by anyone who survived. The S.U.N-the Second United Nation-met once every year as Representatives for the people who elected them. Very slowly, in the year 2080, something astonishing happened.

The World was at peace.

For the first time in centuries, the planet and her people weren’t involved in any sort of conflict, any sort of war. The six surviving continents worked together perfectly, much like a well-oiled machine.

Of course this peace didn’t last.

In the year 2085, at an S.U.N meeting, Representatives expressed concerns over the slow rise in crimes and thieves in their Districts. A representative from The Islands Province, a country once called ‘Australia’ suggested that they create police-like ‘Guard’ to counter the crimes. Many of the other Representatives contemplated this idea, only few voicing their concerns.

What if they create another army?

What if, by giving adults with questionable pasts weapons they somehow wound up repeating history?

What if they weren’t adults? A man from what is now called the Indies Province suggested. What if they were raised as Guards from a very young age?

Of course there were some reservations about this; hadn’t child soldiers been one of the reasons that the world had fallen into chaos to begin with? What parents would allow their children to be trained in the art of war in times of peace?

What if there were no parents? A woman from the Kingdom Province asked. What if the child had no parents to speak of?

And thus, the Guard was created.

The outcasts of society, the ones who were caught-the orphans, thieves, prisoners-anyone deemed as ‘Undesirable’ in the eyes of the majority of the population, were called and given a clearly defined choice: death or become part of the Guard.

For those old enough to choose-most chose the Guard.

For those too young to choose-they were placed under the supervision of ‘Senior Guards.’ Taught at a very young age on how to wield practically any type of weapon, these children- ‘Trainees’, as they were called- scoured the underbellies of society, searching and, in most cases, eradicating whatever and whomever they were told.

They were soldiers, taught to obey any and all orders.

They were the Police Force, trained in all types of warfare.

They were the unnamed and faceless, invisible to society.

In the year 2087, seven years after the first Guard Unit was created, the Representatives from the Kingdom Province proposed a new law: along with being taught how to fight, the Trainees should also be given the opportunity to learn.  They were taught their basic math, reading, writing, and histories. In 2091, a new, darker branch of education was discovered; Magick. After a whole Unit-fourteen trainees-was destroyed by a collapsing bridge, the Guards took it upon themselves to find the cause behind the so-called ‘accident.’ In 2092, Cael Rivers-a State Province, former science teacher for the Upper City-was caught performing the dark magick in the name of Hekate, who, the Guard learned, was the mother, the goddess of dark magick.

Cael Rivers was put to death immediately with no trial.

After the Rivers’ ‘incident’, as most had taken to calling it, anyone caught performing the ‘Dark Art’ was to be executed immediately with no chance of a trial. But this man, This Cael Rivers, had opened the eyes of many citizens from the Upper City; young men and women, in an attempt to seem brave, dabbled in the dark arts for bets and dares; old women and even older men looked for under the counter ‘remedies’ for old age-despite the threat of death, some Under City outcasts had donned the name ‘hedge witch’ and sold these supposed remedies to the desperate buyers- and many imported ‘remedies’ entered the Provinces under the guise of health products, shampoos for the rich and powerful.

The Guard paid little mind to ‘momentary trend’ as they had taken to calling it, too busy keeping the rats and scum of the Under City under control. But, as the saying goes, ‘where there is one rat, ten more are in hiding.’ 

As the use of magick increased, the Representatives could no longer turn a blind eye to the steady rise of ‘magick’ in the Provinces. Magick, although illegal in all the Provinces, was legalized but with very defining restrictions. The Upper City was elated. The Under City Guards weren’t. Magick in the Upper Class flourished. Magick in the Under City was condemned and, although the Guard didn’t have the authority to pass laws, they made it very clear what would happen to anyone if they were caught performing any type of magick.  With this in mind, the Trainees were taught four indisputable truths that they were to live by:

1. The Upper Class citizens were to be treated as royalty; the Trainees were never to have any sort of interactions with the Upper Class. The Trainees were replaceable, they have no identity. They were nothing but ghosts.

2. At the age of twelve, all Trainees are assigned a partner. These partners, known as Philia, are to be the right hands of the Trainees; no matter where one might go, the other is to follow.

3. Trainees die at young ages. To avoid being blinded by any sort of emotions, Trainees are not allowed to have strong ties to anyone besides their partner.

4. Anyone found in a relationship of any kind stronger than the Philia relationship will be sent to another Province without their partners.

4. Magick, of any kind, is forbidden.

2: The Hunter

The sound of rushing wind was the only thing she could hear. Having been taught her entire life how not to make a sound, she and her Philia moved quickly and quietly through the ghost town, neither making a sound, even when jumping from dilapidated roof to dilapidated roof. Sidestepping a large, barely concealed hole on one rooftop, she raised an eyebrow behind her Philia’s back.

“Are we there yet?” she asked quietly, knowing that the question, asked for the fifth consecutive time, was slowly driving her partner insane. She managed a faint grin when he shot her an irritated look over his shoulder.

“Do you want him to hear us, Tre?” he demanded, pronouncing it ‘Treh’ and emphasizing the name with a terrible accent because he knew she hated it. Sure enough, she winced slightly before levelling a look that said ‘don’t mess with me.’

“Besides,” Tre continued, keeping her voice low and attempting to ignore the stupid nickname, “They can’t hear us; no one ever listens for ghosts.”

Despite himself, the boy in front of her grinned, white teeth flashing against lightly tanned skin. Turning his head away from her, he paused in his steps and crouched at the edge of the building they were on, the faint sound of cursing and shuffling escaping through the open window hole directly below them. Stepping forward, Tre followed her partner’s movements and crouched down next to him, brushing some of her curly, dark-blonde hair out of her face. Try as she might, even when she put it up, strands of hair still managed to fall into her face. It still hadn’t managed to recover from when she had sheared almost all of it off yet. Dammit.

“What do you think?” Her partner asked, keeping his voice low so as not to draw any attention to the two. Tre resisted the urge to roll her eyes; of course they wouldn’t hear them. Like she said before, no one listened for ghosts.

“I think you’re over analyzing things again, Ruof,” she told him, pronouncing it like ‘Rah-oof’ and ignoring the glare he shot her. Leaning farther over the edge, she barely managed to catch a peek at a tall, greasy haired man in an oversized, black coat-

Black, she thought while wrinkling her nose, why is it always black?

-Pacing the length of the room (from the door to the open window) before Ruof grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. Before he could so much as blink, she had turned on her crouched legs, grabbed the wrist resting on her shoulder, and was bending it in a way that she knew would break it if she applied just the right amount of force to it. The two stared blankly at each other for a moment. Then, Ruof’s lipped twitched upward  the barest amount on the side. Tre’s reaction was much the same; she fought back a laugh and released his wrist, snickering when he rotated the limb in a circle, as though checking to make sure it was still intact.

“God, Tre, what were you trying to do?”

“Exactly what we were always taught,” she huffed, imitating the lofty accents of the spoiled Upper Citizens. Ruof snorted but quickly turned serious. Leaning forward so that his hands rested on the edge of the building, he slowly lowered his upper body down like Tre had done earlier. Tre rolled her eyes, her body humming with adrenaline and the rush of the battle that she knew was coming; it wouldn’t be nearly as good as some of her other catch-and-obtain missions, but it was still something at least. Better than being trapped back at the Base anyways.

“How should we go about this?” Ruof asked quietly, pulling his upper body back up. Tre shot him an ‘are you serious?!’ look and leaned forward, her hands resting on the roof’s edge and her entire body ready to spring.

“Like this,” she told him and, before he could stop her, she tightened her grip on the edge and, on her crouched legs, pushed herself forward, using her momentum to catapult her body just enough so that she could easily clear the top of the roof’s edge, but still manage to make it through the window in a single bound. After years of practicing this, both on and off the training mat, it came as no surprise to her when she felt her body fly forward and her drop to end suddenly with the balls of her feet planted firmly on an overused, outdated carpet and her body bent in a crouch.

A perfect landing, if she was being honest…. And maybe a little smug.

The man in front of her had just finished another lap of pacing and had been facing the door when she had made her graceful entrance. When he turned, he seemed surprised and astonished to see the blonde girl crouched on the ground, an easy smirk lighting her face. Tre wasn’t surprised by his reaction; on a normal day, she moved like a cat. During a mission, she moved like a ghost. Plus, she admitted grudgingly to herself, the carpet helped in muffling any sound she could have made. Very slowly, she pushed herself out of a crouch and leaned back against the opening that she had just flown through. With a quick glance, she took in her surroundings; the moldy walls surrounding them, the shitty bed sagging against the back wall, and an all-around abused suitcase resting on the bed.

“Nice place ya’ got here,” she commented, her voice lightly laced with sarcasm. Turning her head from side to side, she pretended not to see him reach for something in the pocket of his overcoat. Tre knew she looked unarmed; she was wearing a pair of torn shorts, a beige-colored tank top and a torn, green jacket. What he didn’t know though, was that in her back pocket rested two small, easily concealed daggers and that her normal looking jacket was bullet proof. Her hands were buried in the pockets of her shorts so that the man couldn’t see the ‘tattoos’ that marked her wrist. To him, she probably looked like a little girl trying to play the hero. It kind of sucked for him that she wasn’t a hero; she was more of a soldier. She stepped forward, her head swiveling from one side of the room to the other. “Like, seriously, if you dirtied this place up a little more you could probably turn it in to a trash heap; I heard they make a lot of money nowadays.”

“What do you want, kid?” The man demanded his accent unfamiliar and strange; she would almost call it a Kingdom Province accent… But, it wasn’t like that exactly. There was just… something about him. “I mean, haven’t mummy and daddy ever taught you that spying on strangers is bad?” 

Tre shrugged and leaned back against the wall, crossing her legs at the ankle and crossing her arms over her chest.

“Mummy and daddy were never around much,” she told him, a small part of her enjoying the look on his face and how his face paled even more against his already pale skin. He stared at her, his small mind probably putting the pieces together. Finally, something seemed to click because he scrambled backwards, his hand still buried in his pocket. She watched as the tendons on his wrist tightened and the way his wrists twisted just the barest amount. Finally, he spoke, “I-I’ve heard of you lot. I-I look, I-I don’t know what you want with me b-but I can make it worth your while if ye just turn ‘round, r-right now and preten’ you ne’er seen me.”

Tre raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if he was serious. Of course, she was used to bribes and the like in her line of work; rich kids trying to make it home without mummy and daddy knowing what they were doing in the dark, common thieves like this idiot who no doubt just made some money, etc., to be honest, she found this really funny; once or twice she had been tempted to take the money and arrest them anyways. But then she reminded herself that she didn’t need any money at the Base; everything was taken care of. 

“Come on, mate” she told him while pushing herself off the wall and stepping deeper into the apartment. She watched him tense and found herself almost giving in to the battle jitters she so often felt at times like this. “I can’t just let you walk away; I’d get in trouble with my superiors, you’d just have some other big bad Guard tailing you. When you think about it, this is a lose-lose situation for both of us.”

“Why are you lot after me to begin with?” The guy demanded with his hand still buried in his pocket. What was he doing in there?! “I-I mean, I haven’t broken no laws, have I?”

“It’s the principle of things,” she answered, still moving forward slowly like a predator cornering its prey. “I mean, we get a memo that some fraud is trying to sell something that may be frowned upon by my superiors, so they send me in to make sure that that those so-called claims are just that; claims.”

“Come on!” he exploded, stepping forward. Tre stilled in her steps, watching him warily; a moving target was very volatile, capable of erupting at any moment. “I haven’t done nothin’ to draw your eyes on me! Don’t I-I have rights, or something?!”

“Old laws,” she drawled out, waving her hands as though to emphasize how far out those old rules actually were. “Like, very, very old. Like, early 2000’s old.”

 Before she could say anything else, he exploded into action; in his pocketed hand appeared a strange little black sphere-about the size a bullet-rested in the center of his palm. Before she could say anything, he chucked it in her general area. As soon as it touched the ground, black smoke surrounded her. Her vision blurred and slowly filling her lungs. On instinct, she reached behind her, grabbing the hilt of her little dagger. With a quiet click the blade appeared, invisible to her but she knew exactly what her weapon felt like when it was extended. Closing her eyes and holding back a cough, she forced all of her attention on the tiniest, most insignificant noise. She heard it; to her right, she heard the sound of feet dragging against carpet and coming closer and closer to her.

“Silio,” she heard him whisper somewhere at her side. She made to leap at the assailant-she knew where his general area was now-but her feet remained on the ground. A ball of fear slowly began unfurling in her chest.

Was this-was this magick?

Almost as though he wanted to prove her theory, she heard his feet continue on in their loud pace, coming closer and closer. Fighting with everything she had, she tried to get some limb, any limb, to move. She felt the body heat of another human being at her side and she knew that it wasn’t Ruof; she could pick out his heat signature in subzero temperatures and from anyone in the dark. Fingers wrapped around her throat, cutting of her circulation as she felt her dagger slip through her fingers and fall to the ground. Still unable to move, she was pleased to know that she could still make a noise: she let out a low, vicious snarl; a sound that, if any other Trainees heard it, they would easily clear a path for her.

“How. Did. They. Find me?” The damned Mage demanded, his breath hot on her face and his fingers still wrapped like vines around her neck. She felt herself being lifted into the air and felt the pain rush up her back as he slammed her into the moldy wall. Swearing at him seemed to be the only thing she could do, so she did it with zeal; she called him everything she could think of along with some descriptive names she had come up with on her own. If she was going to die, he would know exactly what she thought of when it came to his kind.

Suddenly, the pressure around her neck vanished and she had full use of her arms and could bloody move. She dropped to her knees, black smoke surrounding her, and the distant sound of fighting in in front of her. The battle rage hummed within her, likely a finely tuned guitar string, followed by her own fury; how dare he use magick on her. Reality came crashing back to her; this was no longer a snatch-and-grab operation.

This was an execution.

Rising to her feet, she made a grab for her other dagger, the one in her other back pocket, and stepped forward, ignoring the thick, black smoke that blinded  her and going on every other sense-just like she’d been taught. Hearing the sounds of a struggle, she slowly followed the sound of fighting. She must have found the perimeter or something for the smoke screen because as soon as she reached a certain point, the black smoke evaporated and she could see again. She glanced around the room; there, in front of the bed, the man and Ruof were wrestling. There was a large red spot on Ruof’s arm that she knew would bruise and there was a trail of blood coming from his nose. Tre realized that, whoever this was, not only was a very capable fighter- dammit, he had taken out two Trainees!- but was also a very resourceful, very dangerous fighter as well. Then, the fool made one large mistake; he pointed a weapon-a small knife, probably a kitchen knife but a real, physical weapon, nonetheless-at her Philia.

Hell. No.

She launched herself forward, grabbing the man’s wrist that held the weapon, just as his hand found Ruof’s neck. Putting all of her training into action, she jerked the wrist back-the same way she had done Ruof’s wrist earlier-but this time, she didn’t stop. She deafening crack of his wrist seemed to reverberate off the walls of the small room but Tre didn’t care; he had used magick, he had hurt her partner, he had hurt her. With a loud wail, the man’s wrist went slack and Ruof took the opportunity; he kneed the man in the stomach-hard-and scrambled to his feet, clutching his bleeding nose with his hands.

“What the Fuck was that about?” Tre demanded, her hand still gripping the man’s wrist with him still making pathetic whimpering sounds. “Dammit man! We were only going to arrest you! Now we have to…” Her voice trailed off, not wanting to say it out loud but knowing there was no way they could bring him in now. He had used magick; he was in the Under City and he had used magick. There was nothing either of them could do; they were bound by the laws of the Guard.

The sentence was death.

Still clutching the man’s broken wrist, she shot one last glare at the whimpering figure curled up on the ground, tears falling from his eyes, and snot dripping from his nose.

Tre had never seen anything as pitiful as this. Forcing him to his knees, she glanced over at Ruof, who nodded grimly. Releasing his wrist, she watched as it fell limply to the ground, his other hand covering his face and a loud, blubbering cry erupting from between his lips.

“You have used magick on a member of the Guard,” Ruof intoned, his voice getting increasingly louder as the man’s wailing increased in volume as well. “You have been accused of importing and exporting ‘remedies’ in and out of the Kingdom province. What say you?”

Slowly, the man’s blubbering subsided and Tre lifted her dagger, the black fog-still, somehow, as foggy as ever-reflecting off the weapon’s shiny edge. The man looked up at them, his eyes red-rimmed, his face blotchy, and his nose running. However, Tre noticed something off about his eyes; they were too focused. Tre leveled her blade at the man’s throat, watching as blood pooled out around the edge of the dagger, the trail bright against the man’s pale skin. He studied them both with strangely calculating gray eyes.

“The King awaits,” he drawled, his eyes glazing over. Before Tre could do anything except share a surprised look with Ruof, the man jerked his head and seemed to bite down on something in his mouth. The second her mind caught up with what he was doing, she dropped her dagger and reached for his mouth in an attempt to pry it open; no use. The only thing she got from this experience was a lot of saliva on her fingers. She wiped her fingers on her shorts, straightened up, and fell in step beside Ruof. The two watched on, their faces stoic, as the man convulsed on the ground before finally going still. The two studied him, not entirely sure what to do now. Tre glanced up at Ruof,

“Sooo… What now?” At her side, Ruof marched over to the so-called ‘bed’ and grabbed the dead man’s abused suitcase.

“We go back,” he sighed, his eyes trailing over the room-the suitcase cradled on his arms. Tre let her gaze wander to where the black fog had once been, not overly surprised to see it had disappeared.

“Oh, joy,” she muttered sarcastically while crouching down and retrieving both of her weapons and placing them back into her pockets. “And here I was thinking that this day couldn’t get any better!”