September 24, 2016

267. DAUGHTER

Daughter was born to a mother and father whom she would only know as “Mother” and “Father”. She came of age sometime in the middle of the 25th century, during a time when the leader of the planet was a man simply known as “Leader”. At this point, Leader had been in charge of the world for the better part of a century. There were many questions surrounding how he had come to power; and there were many questions surrounding who he was in general, as he was a recluse who commanded from inside a massive complex, – known as City 306 – in the center of the United States where Platinum City used to be. But one thing was certain: no one questioned Leader’s status.

Well, no one except Mother and Father, who believed Leader was less of a “leader”, and more of a dictator. With that in mind, they began engineering a child in whom they would instill and implant all of the tools and skills needed to bring down Leader once and for all.

Bio

Birth Name

Unknown

Aliases

Daughter

Species

Human; female

Birth Details

Serenity Island, Pacific Ocean, Earth (Core Reality); Mid-25th century

Powers, Abilities, Weapons & Tools

Daughter is trained in a multitude of combat techniques and is proficient in the use of several weapons, including fire-arms and blades. Her hyper-tech armor increases her durability, reflexes and speed.

The Story

So, you’re probably wondering, out of all of the millions of people on the planet in the 25th century, why had no one challenged Leader yet? The answer is religion. Not in the traditional way we usually think of religion, in which faith and a specific set of rules dictate the way one lives their life; but in a way in which a supreme being appeared on Earth one day, and was able to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was THE supreme being of the universe. At the time of Leader’s accession to the throne he now sat on, anyone who questioned his status as god was summarily wiped out by his followers. Furthermore, Leader was somehow able to create two physical and tangible afterlives that were constantly on display for the people of the planet, as they could simply look toward the sky, and actually see the tortured souls of those who did not live according to his will. Conversely, at any given time they could visit one of the hundreds of Harmonic Well Springs, in which you could see the souls of those who followed his commands, enjoying eternal satisfaction and divine rest.

There was no room for doubt – or faith, for that matter – in Leader’s world, as his presence, the presence of rewards for a good life, and punishment for a bad one were all proven. Unless if you were Mother and Father, who, despite all of the evidence present, had cultivated a healthy and unshakable belief that things could, and should be different. When they were both young, Mother and Father began working as genetic engineers inside of City 306. At that time they had no idea that over the next forty years they would learn everything they needed to eventually infiltrate the complex, and end Leader’s reign.

The entirety of the City 306 complex was based on genetic identification. The thousands of workers in the sprawling facility were hired or created specifically for different jobs, and would only be allowed to move throughout the complex according to their GEN ID. In other words, if you did not have the correct genetic makeup you (both figuratively and literally) could not walk through certain doors. No one in the complex, except for Leader himself, was able to walk through every door. It was up to Mother and Father to make sure each worker and each door were correctly coded, in order for the complex to run like the well-oiled machine it was. But even the two of them, by design, had limited access.

After their forty years of service, they were usurped by a young woman, simply called “Sister”, and they were able to retire to a quiet life on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Of course, that life wasn’t very quiet at all, as they immediately began creating Daughter – a girl who would have a GEN ID that could pass through any door in the City 306 complex.

The process began in the fetal stages, as each of the millions of GEN ID combinations had to be layered in her DNA, one at a time. It was a painstaking process and Mother and Father, despite their advanced age, worked around the clock, in order to not miss a single sequencing run. After the ten-month-long pregnancy and a much too short childhood, Daughter’s combat and espionage training began, as the complex was, of course, filled with guards and military personnel. Mother and Father, who still had good-standing connections with members of the City 306 staff, brought in specialists from their former place of employment to train her in firearms, bows and arrows, swords and knives, all kinds of hyper-tech, and more. The story was that they were training her to become one of Leader’s top security personnel. Then whenever they were alone with her, they trained her not to trust her eyes; that despite Leader’s great works of wonder and the constant presence of heaven and hell, the world they were living in was somehow false, and in order to figure out just how much of a fantasy they were in, Leader would have to be dethroned.

She took to all of the teachings well, and by the time she was 18 years old, she was a living lethal weapon, who was more convinced of the mission than even her parents were. They equipped her with everything she needed, and set her on her way. As she approached the entry point of the complex, she was suddenly met by none other than Sister. Daughter immediately prepared to defend herself, until Sister proved that she was indeed in cahoots with Mother and Father, and would serve as a guide through the nine sections of City 306.

What Sister did not reveal, was that she actually wasn’t Sister at all. The mind, soul and body of Sister had actually been embodied by the essence of a time-traveling hyper-being called Maximilian Finch. Max had been conscripted by Captain Infinity in the 22nd century to jump to several points in the future, in order to fix and reconnect the Core Reality Timeline, which had been fractured due to a metaphysical collision between the Core Timeline and the now presumably destroyed Infiniverse Reality timeline. Max had successfully fixed the first fracture point in the 23rd century when he had jumped into a future alternate version of himself and triggered the powers of a young orphan named Kina, whose chronokinetic energy allowed Max to fuse those portions of the timeline back together.

The next breakpoint was in Daughter’s story, and the trigger was Leader himself. By helping Daughter to complete her mission, Max – by way of Sister – would be one step closer to completing his own. After discussing their plan, the two of them set out into City 306. Just as her parents had said, her GEN ID got her through every single doorway without problem. And so did Sister, who had also set herself up to bypass the GEN ID security protocols. Everything was going smoothly, as Daughter and Sister made their way through the first of the nine sections. As they came to the end of the final corridor before moving to the next section, they were suddenly ambushed by dozens of guards, including the head of Leader’s security, the sinister and deadly Deathknell. A brutal confrontation ensued, and at first Daughter was able to hold her own against what seemed like impossible odds. After all. she was trained well. However, things took a turn when Sister suddenly betrayed Daughter in a move that led to her capture.

Daughter was taken prisoner, and put into an induced coma. She awoke suddenly in a heavily wooded forest, not far from the Complex entry point she had previously chosen. Sister was sitting nearby. Again, Daughter prepared to fight, but Sister was ready this time with a set of highly skilled combat techniques herself. After their spat came to a stalemate, Sister apologized for the betrayal, explaining that in that moment it was the only way to save her life. She then told Daughter that she was actually inside of a Dream Cell. Dream Cells were designed to make the prisoner relive their failed criminal act over and over again. They would be stuck in the Dream Cell eternally, unless they found a way to actually complete the criminal act they had initially failed to accomplish – in this case, destroying Leader.

Daughter at first had no interest, as she was resigned to her fate of eternal imprisonment, but Sister insisted that it was the only chance they had at getting another shot to complete the original mission. Finally Daughter agreed, and they set out to do just that. They made it back to the end of the first section again, and again were ambushed. This time, Sister did not betray Daughter, but Deathknell and his minions were too powerful, and thus they were defeated. At the point of defeat there was a flash of light, and Daughter and Sister ended up back in the woods. They would have to start over.

This time, using what they had learned from the previous experience, they successfully navigated the first section of the complex and were able to avoid the ambush, thus finding passage into the second section. However, once there, they were ambushed again, suffering another defeat, and were forced to start over yet again. And yet again, their previous experience helped them on the next go. The Groundhog Day/video game pattern continued, with Daughter and Sister learning more and more during each cycle, until eventually they had indeed made it to the eighth section of the complex. Leader was on the other side of the door, but Deathknell was standing in their way.

Daughter was ready, as the experience from the dozens of other attempts had transformed her into an even more formidable and deadly warrior. The problem, however, was that Deathknell had also grown more powerful through the attempts, and at this point a more brutal war machine himself. He brandished his war-ax and charged….