|Codex: Are you awake Darius?|

My head hurts and everything around me is a blur. Voices stir me awake.

“Did it work? Is it awake” A voice says.

“I told you we shouldn’t have wasted it on the boy” another voice says. “What a waste of an emerald tablet”.

“Now relax my dear Jove,” said another voice, “experiments like these take time. If he wakes now, it’d be too soon. His heart would reject the tablet and he would die”.

“Best to wait for these kinds of things”

I wake up to find myself sitting upright on a bed that resembles a stretcher. Three stunned faces stare at me as if they've seen a ghost. I look around and realize that I'm in an abandoned storage area. My memories are hazy. How did I end up here? I ask myself.

One of the people surrounding me is a man in a doctor's attire. He wears rim spectacles and a leather muffler over his mouth, looking gravely concerned. "Oh, dear, you weren't supposed to wake up now," he says. I'm about to ask him what he means when I suddenly feel an immense force come over me, attacking my heart and body. I try to breathe, but the pain is too much. Green blood surges from my stomach and pours out of my mouth.

One of the men, a short, gray humanoid with pitch-black hair and red-purple dotted lips, looks at me with contempt and shakes his head. "What a shame," he says, but I don't think the pity is for me. The other man, the one dressed like a doctor, holds onto me as the seizure takes over. Whatever lucidity I have starts to strip away, and everything fades slowly. I lie back on the stretcher and look up at the ceiling and the sun, which are slowly getting closer. A girl with a menacing face peers over me. "It's too bad it didn't work," she says with a smile, "but at least I have a new body to play with." Her words send a chill down my spine and whatever feeling I have left in it. Everything slowly fades away. Everything is dark.

|Codex: Are you awake Darius?|

I’m sinking.

My name is DariusThunderweaver. The son of Saggitaruius Thunderweaver. I was born to a noble celestial family. But not just any noble celestial family, the direct son of the god himself. On my mother’s side my family was of the Shadowcaster lineage. Our Patriarch has thousands of children who then have thousands of children of their own and on and on. Our family is vast. Many stray far from the family’s branch, their blood and inheritance diluted but not me. I was the scion of the man himself. I was born in his main system in a grand castle. A prince.

My earliest memory was of the invasion of the Servekkers. I remember being wrapped in the hands of a family attendant as we straddled his hovercraft in the sky and watched the invasion unfold. It was a grand spectacle that painted a majestic image. Our main armada descended on the planet of the rebels with a cruel fury, Pillars of lightning descended from the sky and tore mountains, set fires to forests and dried up the rivers. The Servs fought on their war beasts; they were spectacular but paled in comparison to our war beasts and soldiers. I was taken there that day to witness the might of our family. And I grew up being very proud of them. Yet as I remember that day, I remember crying watching the Servs and their armies and beasts fall. I remember everyone else celebrated. I suppose that was not the first time I felt out of place in my family and it got worse.

The memories pour in. I was in a bright room, beyond me and past a crowd of other purple haired children a man stands on a podium and gives a lesson. He’s saying something but I can’t hear him, I raise my arm and everyone looks back at me, they whisper but I can’t hear them. I say something, and they all laugh, the teacher shakes his head.

I remember the pride I felt when I was chosen to be part of the lancer class. A special class designated to the direct children of Lord Sagittarius. In our first lesson we were taught how to fight with lightning. Lightning was the unique element of our family. I remember the trees swaying that day as we were paired one on one against each other. My opponent was a frail girl with dark hair. She was not of the direct line, and I was annoyed at her for that. When the teacher signaled for us to begin, I used a lightning step to break the distance between the both of us and landed a bolt punch on her chest. That would have been enough to do her in but I had learned my lesson and decided not to show weakness amongst my peers, she was not of the main line, I was, she was a mongrel and I was basically a demigod, she had to learn her place I thought. So I used a low sweep to knock her off her feet and landed a heavy kick on her stomach when she fell on the ground. She let out a pained cry and a look of immense hurt spread through her face as she held herself. It was enough to make me feel bad, |Codex: Are you awake Darius|, but I looked around me and everyone cheered, even the teacher looked in approval. Yes, that’s how it was in our family. You had to be in the main line and I was. If you’re weak you’re not fit to be in the upper ranks.

Then my lightning began to falter. I was sick, a shadow mark the shape of tree branches carved itself on my body when the sickness began. I was not able to move, I could barely eat and worst of all, I lost my lightning. A doctor was appointed to check out my disease. He was a regal man with a soft gray glow to his hair which was how I knew he was from the Moonwhisper genus. The Moonwhispers have a unique celestial symphony that allows them to control water and emotions. They can move the tides of planets, heal wounds and dispel curses. The doctor used a herbal solution on my scar and he was able to enter the source of the disease itself. He shook his head solemnly when he was done.

“May I speak to the boy’s mother,” he said to the attendant.

The attendant, a low ranking member of my family who had taken care of me since I was a baby in the crescent cradle estate till I left for the academy, shook his head. “The boy’s mother's identity and whereabouts is unknown,” he replied. “All we know about her is that she was of the Shadowcaster genus. What is the matter doctor” he said.

“Ah” the doctor said as he stood to face the attendant, “that explains it. What the young Lord here has is Salene's fever”.

When the attendant’s face turned from the doctor to look at me, it was pure pain. “What is Salene’s fever?” I asked. My voice was coarse and barely audible.

“It’s a mixed born disease” he said. “Now I know that sounds strange since the noble celestial families intermarry all the time. But It becomes a problem when the families have different attributes. It becomes a much bigger problem when the parties involved are highborn. The young lord here is the son of Saggitarius and his mother, whoever she is, is most likely a high ranking Shadowcaster. These two powers, the light of thunder and the darkness of shadow are fighting within you, if you were older your body could handle it but you’re not. So the struggle of these two celestial powers are struggling inside of you and that is why you are sick”.

“Is there something we can do?” asked the attendant.

“Nothing difficult” said the doctor “his affliction can be cured, as for his celestial core. I’m afraid that can’t be fixed”.

The news hit me hard and judging from the look on the face of my attendant it hit him hard too. When he took the news to the family higher-ups they conspired to hide my lineage deeming it impure. I was no longer fit to fight, so soon enough I was kicked out of the academy. The news of my fall went viral. Direct sons are regarded as demi-gods; the fact that I was no longer officially considered one made me privy to the wolves in my family. 

Since I was officially cast out of the family and I was a child, my family sold me to a small, fledgling household where I was adopted as their son. I thought things would get better from there but it only got worse.