Holmcross Project

Prologue: Awake again…

[System restart…]

That was impossible; there was no one alive to awaken him now. But, still, he could feel himself being pulled from the grips of what he intended to be an eternal stasis, distant voices reaching his ears. And cold…why was it so cold…?

"Hey, he's alive after all!" Another man's voice cried in surprise. "Rudy, what did you do?"

"Nothing…I just touched his shoulder." A boy's voice replied, his voice almost a whisper.

"Are you the one who woke me?" Lips unused for what felt like decades said, as the man curled up in the human-size ARMs case slowly uncurled and sat up. Blue-green eyes gazed into orange ones, a man looking towards the boy standing with a hand still on the man's shoulder. The boy looked flustered and pulled his hand away, his other arm grasping that one awkwardly. "Why?"

"You ask 'why', but we honestly didn't know you were alive!" A girl with short, blonde hair replied. "When we saw you inside we thought this was a grave!"

"It was intended to be." The man replied shortly. "Why have you awakened me? Are the Demons back?"

"We don't even know who the heck you are!" A blonde man said, walking over. "Why would we intentionally wake you up? We thought this was a treasure chest! Anyway, sorry, but the Demons are all dead. Have been for a few years."

"Dead…?" The man breathed. "All of them? Even Alhazad?"

The blonde man frowned. "Yeah. You seem shocked."

"I had been trying to kill him for years before his sealing." The man said, slowly standing up. The blonde man noticed he was shivering and offered his trench-coat. The man took the jacket and looked at it thoughtfully, an almost confused expression on his face, before he pulled the jacket on and secured it shut over his light clothes, the dirty brown an odd contrast to his light-blue hair. "Thank you."

"I'm Jack," The blonde man said. "This girl is Cecilia, and the one who apparently woke you is Rudy. Who are you?"

"…I am H-08: Wesson." He looked at Rudy. "…You can use the ARM, can't you? And not like other humans."

Rudy looked at his right arm awkwardly, shaking his head.

"Rudy's…not a human." Cecilia explained. "He's…well, we were told this at least. He's a Holmcross, made of Living Metal."

"…Really?" Wesson's eyes brightened. "So…he must be little H-09."

"Explain what the 'H-0number' thing is, please?" Jack looked annoyed.

"'H' stands for 'Holmcross'." Wesson explained. "The numbers are the order we were made in."

"'We'?" Jack shook his head. "Wait, you mean that YOU'RE one, too? I heard Rudy was the last!"

"As far as everyone knew, there were none left. Little 9—Rudy—being discovered must've been a recent development. Otherwise, I doubt he would've lived this long." Wesson said grimly.

"Why?" Cecilia asked. "Rudy hasn't hurt anyone, ever!" She shook her head quickly in disbelief.

"Doesn't matter. You heard all Holmcross were dead, well, we didn't ALL die by the Demons' hands." Wesson said, climbing out of the box and closing it, sighing. "I'm getting a little ahead of myself. The only way you'll understand is if I tell you of when things really began to change for us."

"When was that?" Rudy asked quietly, looking at him.

"You might wanna pull up a rock." Wesson suggested, reaching into his box and pulling out a revolver and old, dusty goggles. "This might take a while."

"Wait, Emma and Jane might want to hear this!" Cecilia ran into the other room.

Wesson blinked. "There's more people?"

Rudy gave an apologetic smile and settled himself down on a rock.

A blonde girl with an orange dress and an older woman with green hair and glasses were ushered in by Cecilia. "Emma, Jane, this is Wesson. He's apparently what Rudy is."

"Sounds like we're gonna hear his life-story." Jack said, settling himself down. "If you don't wanna be bored, walk out now."

"Jack, be nice!" A voice from Jack's pocket squeaked, and then a blue mouse head poked out. "He's just woken up after, what, 1000 years? Let him have his closure."

"Fine, fine. Wesson, this is Hanpan. He's—"

"A wind-mouse." Wesson smiled, his eyes brightening. "I haven't seen one of those since I was stationed near one of the Elw encampments. They had the most forest, you know."

"Yeah, we've seen their place." Jack remarked, thinking of the Elw dimension.

Wesson sighed softly. "Well, as Miss Cecilia said, I am H-08: Wesson."

"Let's hear your story." Emma said, seating herself down on a piece of ruined building. "For one thing, what is this place?"

"This place? An old, abandoned ARMs factory." Wesson said, nodding towards the crumbled building. "All kinds of things were made here. But, it was discontinued before I went to sleep." He closed his eyes. "So…let's go back to seven years before the war with the demons ended. I think all the big trouble started around the time that we returned from that evacuation mission in Harvey's Corner…."