Book One: The Last Son of Mars

Episode 1

On Mars, Billy is rejected from joining the Martian Honorguard under a fake identity and is returned to his mother, Ana Belen, citing his weak body as being unfit for such a role. As Billy's 19th birthday approaches, his mother arranges for him to attend a gala on the moon Deimos where the Ibraalic Imperial Palace resides, intending to put Billy forward as a suitor for the aspiring Princess Rútu, daughter of Emperor Yekkub’ Wútu Nyyemso, and the Heir Apparent to the Obsidian Throne of the Ibraalic Empire.

During the gala, Billy is tested by Rutu's cousins who eventually get into a physical altercation with Billy, leaving him injured. In the following days, as Billy recovers, Ana Belen is informed the Obsidian Throne finds Billy unfit for Partner, but will considering him as a partner for one of her noble cousins or one of Rutu's Consorts.

On Billy's birthday, his mother hosts a lavish party at their estate in the city but they begin to argue and eventually Billy says he hates her before abruptly leaving the party. Billy broods by himself in a bar for a bit before becoming wrapped up in the tales of a nearby adventuring knight. The knight eventually offers Billy a seat on his ship, to see the stars and seize the adventure his mother has been robbing him of; and Billy accepts.

Before they can even leave the street, Mars is consumed by a Realm Tear as Khaos Daemons from outside of space and time begin to fall on Mars, spelling the doom of the world. The warriors Billy was with are easily slain and Billy hides as chaos unfolds.

Within 2 hours, over half of Mars has been pulled into the Realm Tear and almost every major city on the surface has fallen. Billy, still alone, wanders the streets now quiet and dead, finding his way to one of the private spaceports owned by the wealthy city statesmen. He locates a starship, his means of escape, but is attacked by a Khaos daemon.

Before it could kill him, his mother, already on his last leg from the invasion, intervenes having finally tracked down her son. She gives her life so that Billy may live, allowing his starship to take off safely, bidding him farewell and reminding him that she loves him still.

Episode 2

In the Rho C’aleko Coronal Stream star system, the Atlas Heavy Industries COM Freighter LHG.4-1482 (the Ox for short) starship begins its slow approach to the planet Alpha Omega Xe'addon-7 (AOX-7), transporting some couple thousand tons of grains and livestock for some noble lord. Their starship informs them of a large space debris on their trajectory that AOX-7 law demands they pick up and deliver planetside as apart of its Clean Space Act.

The operators onboard pull in the debris and find a small starship containing Billy, who was put into cryosleep by the system to preserve his vitals. When the Ox pulls into port at AOX-7, they are forbidden from leaving until Billy is recovered and competent by the laws of AOX-7. Billy wakes up several days later and after being medically discharged by the hospital, the operators find him a place at a local dharamshala to stay at and a job at a local warehouse. With these meager accommodations, the AOX-7 authority legally releases them of responsibility for Billy and they depart. The older of the operators, Tamer, promises to check back in with Billy when they port in next month before departing.

Billy lives at the dharamshala while working at the warehouse for a few weeks but finds it hard and eventually makes a friend, Rhamona, a wealthy woman who takes a liking to Billy, comparing him to her own little brother who died some years prior. She is leaving AOX-7 to relocate to her home world and offers Billy the chance to come with her; he accepts.

Rhamona takes Billy to the AOX-7 Orbital Drydock and Portway (ODP), but once there, he is drugged and handed over to people in corporation uniforms. Rhamona accepts her pay bonus and continues to her starship for her well-earned vacation. She passes old Tamer on her way out who heads planetside to check in on Billy, but is disappointed to find that he has not appeared for a few days. He prays the young man found a way to get back on his feet before returning to his starship.

Three years later, in the Mirankien Quadrant star system on the planet Bognienides-9 (Bog-9), Xenalisflix Incorporated owned and operated a Nosferatu Blood Colony, the Bognine Research and Enrichment Facility (BREF), composed of about seven research, two administration, five storage buildings and one on-site security barracks. The BREF storage buildings housed thousands of assets, people who have their minds tortured or stimulated by magical and chemical means with the intent of creating a desired aroma for their blood, which is then extracted, processed, packaged, and shipped off-world for purchase by other Vampires.

One local contracted Dreamweaver employee arrives late to work one day and after clocking in, heads to one of the central security nodes for Storage Building 03, disabling it and the silent alarm. She opens a back cargo port, allowing a group of hired guns in, led by a man Rishfi, who has come to save his sister. The employee asks about her husband whom they kidnapped several days prior to force her compliance and they shot her, leaving her body in a trash Shute.

Rishfi and his hired guns infiltrate the building and after taking control of the facility begin releasing people, a distraction to keep the on-site military busy when they do escape.

Billy, currently submerged in an altered dream of the night his mother died, turned up to 11, is pulled from the dream suddenly. To Billy, just a few seconds ago he was speaking and laughing with Rhamona at the AOX-7 drydock. Disoriented as the chaos grew Billy finds his bearings as the BREF security forces arrive and a fire fight breaks out.

Billy manages to stumble into Rishfi and his crew as he escapes whom take Billy with them as they escape. They stop at a sewer output and they leave Billy there as they plan to go back in. After a few minutes, nobody returns, but the BREF forces loose spider monsters in the sewers to clean up any loose ends. Billy flees for his life until one catches him, gravely wounding him. Billy breaks off one of its pincers to slay it, being covered in its acidic guts as more arrive. Billy crawls and scrambles out the sewers and into a waterfall, washed down stream.

Billy emerges from the icy water, washed up at a small estate with food and drink prepared on a table. He eagerly feasts on it like a wild animal, almost choking himself on the food he shoves in his mouth until the owners arrive. It is an older woman with a platoon of armed guards to are forced to detain him as he tries to attack the women with his pincer weapon in hand. Billy, bleeding from open wounds with overgrown hair, covered in monster guts and wielding a pincer like a dagger, strikes a concerning image. However, the woman finds the look in his eyes interesting and orders her men to bring him with them. They shock Billy, forcing him to fall into a deep sleep.

Episode 3

On the planet Las Plingaroid at the 21st Paambi Thegnuruta Sisukhee & Ndi Sendōjō of Pakfot, Master Togomi has a private meeting with Nalan Neepsloffillit, another senior admin of the sendojo who is responsible for admitting students. Nalan has the utmost respect for Togomi and her craft, but he wishes she would take any of the more than qualified candidates the sendojo receives every year and not this lost cause, Billy. Extensive medical examinations of Billy’s body and mental capabilities reveal several flaws that do not lend themselves naturally to the environment of the sendojo.

1. His body is physically weak and prone to sickness
2. A low Mana Cell count indicates low to mediocre magical ability, if any, to speak of at all
3. He has no Inherited Magical Technique
4. He seems to be a slow learner and struggles with understanding

Togomi argues that it is these very imperfections that drive him to victory; he is the unexpected variable, the underdog, and she has a soft place for them. Nalan requests that, at the very least, she take on other students in addition to Billy, but Togomi refuses, her teaching style favors having all of her attention on one pupil at a time to guide and mold correctly. Nalan can get Billy’s approval, but this will not be a popular choice, even for her. If Billy fails out or becomes anything less than exceptional, it will stain her reputation. Nalan asks if she is willing to put that on the line for this stranger, and still, she agrees.

Togomi, with Billy’s admission in hand, returns to her quarters on the sendojo grounds, where Billy is being kept for the time being. The journey from Bog-9 back to Las Plingaroid allowed her staff to stabilize Billy, heal his wounds, and mend his broken bones. He looked healthier, but mentally and emotionally, Togomi could tell he was still within his shell, haunted by what happened at the Blood Colony.

Togomi has a private dinner with Billy that night and informs him of the results of his medical examinations. She admits that, perhaps, she was a bit overzealous back at her Bog-9 estate, Billy’s entire anatomy is wholly unfit for this kind of work. Instead, Togomi tells him to forget about the sendojo and says she will arrange for Billy to be an Overseer of one of her larger estates here on Las Plingaroid, the Palaside Estate just outside of Pakfot city. It is a large and lavish estate staffed by some 200 employees and on-site security personnel.

All Billy would need to do is live there and administer the bookkeeping of the farmland, oversee the lands, and maintain the property. Almost all the work would be carried out by the staff. Billy could retire there, and with her connections and influence, she could easily find his positions within the city’s government and high society. Within a few years, he could find himself a lover or two and have a few rug rats running around. If he loved it there, she admits she is open to the prospect of even selling it to him to own one day.

Billy refuses the lavish offer, and still, Togomi presses him, the path ahead for someone like him is not an easy one. The journey will be long, and the pace will be hot. Everyone expects him to fail, and if by some miracle he doesn’t, they might help him fail all the same, they will kick him when he falls and ridicule him for even trying in the first place. She promises Billy absolutely nothing along this path except pain and adversity; there will be no glory, and there will be no riches to obtain. Billy steels his nerves; he puts all his fear and weakness deep down in a place that can't touch him anymore. He will see this through to the very end: win, lose, or draw.

Togomi smiles, pleased with the answer he has given, the easy path in life is often so boring, and Togomi hates to be bored. She has Billy kneel, and he dawns an Obediadem, a magically binding headband that links him to his master as a symbolic sign of a Master-Student relationship but can also wound him if his Master chants a certain prayer. She gives him his admission and has a dorm room prepared for him. His days will be taken up by lectures and training delivered by Professors in addition to personal lessons and training directly from his master.

Over the next few months, Billy gets settled into his new life and meets his master's previous pupil, Cliffjumper, a mild mannered stoic academic. He and Billy form an older brother/younger brother relationship. Billy also meets Ehud, a young man in a similar position to him who also trains religiously to make up for his own shortcomings. They find that they are both of a kind, and as they grow closer make a pact between just the two of them; power, by any means, so that never again can they be at the mercy of others.

Episode 4

Over the course of the next three years Billy and Ehud become good friends, often involved in their own hijinks and adventures outside of the sendojo grounds. Some of their smaller adventures are as follows.

1. Ehud's father purchases a failing vault company on one of the moons of Las Plingaroid that Ehud and Billy secretly break into in search of alien treasure and get caught up in a violent corpo war waged between Ehud's father's company and rival companies.
2. Billy and Ehud once went Sea-King Hunting on Ophelliah Prime, a planet two star systems away. Sea-Kings are massive titanic sea creatures known for both their breathtaking beauty and breathtaking violence. It is illegal to hunt Sea-Kings on Ophelliah.
3. Billy and Wu'Hurror, another pupil, were forced to track down a magician once off-world when she trapped Ehud in a painting for his rude manners. They would trap her in a painting before releasing her after she promised to yield. She immediately trapped all three of them in another painting and kept them in her lunar manner for a few months until her granddaughter helped them, and others similarly trapped, escape.

One day, Master Togomi takes Cliffjumper and Billy deep into the woods of a wild untamed world where she meets with and celebrates with the Okami of that planet. During that meeting, Togomi has Billy perform the last steps needed to learn a certain spell that calls for a blessing from a cloud nymph. Billy goes off on his own and Togomi orders Cliffjumper to keep an eye on him.

Billy follows a vast river several miles into a forest and wanders through rolling hills and fields until he comes acorss a great storm nymph, Symaithis, who needs help saving her sisters and her mother who have been kidnapped by off-world magicians seeking to harvest their magical wind powers, promising the needed blessing in return.

Billy would aid Symaithis in facing the magicians, attacking their makeshift war camp, and forcing them to flee. Symaithis would later be captured and Billy would board the pirates ship and slay their captain before rescusing Symaithis and her family. After safely returning them planetside, they swiftly departed without giving Billy the blessing for the spell he needed. Billy would awaken after his battle to find Cliffjumper by his side. Throughout this adventure, various animals had been protecting Billy and aiding him, revealed to be Cliffjumper following master's orders.

Tired from their days long excursion, Billy and Cliffjumper returned to Master Togomi and the Okami's mountain where they rested. Togomi would gift Billy with a Bifröst Blade made from living Bifröst, a gift from the Okami for his daring deeds. Billy names it 'Over the Rainbow' (OTR).

Episode 5

At a regular practice sparring match at the sendojo, the students practiced a form of ceremonial-ritual combat as apart of a local custom. Billy and Ehud arrived, and Billy learns Ehud had requested a different sparring partner, claiming he wanted to test his skill against a fresh opponent. Billy would do his math against another peer and take to the stands to watch the others.

In one of the matches, Wu'Hurror was pitted against Ehud in what was meant to be a normal sparring match. However, during the match, Ehud would unleash devastating flames that consumed the area and quickly killed Wu'Hurror in cold blood.

In the aftermath of the attack, Ehud is forbidden from leaving the sendojo as the executives perform an internal investigation. Billy is deeply troubled by the event and sneaks into Ehud's quarters to speak to him, only to find he has already left. Instead of raising the alarm, Billy uses magic to track Ehud and follows him into the city districts to a religious meeting where Ehud is indoctrinated into an order of some kind. During this ceremony, he plainly admits to sacrificing the soul of his friend Wu'Hurror to complete his entry.

Billy is found out by other Dragon Cultist who drag him out and demand Ehud slay him to complete his ascension, else he will never be free from the illusions of this world. Ehud, hesitant to kill his only friend, has the decision made for him when Billy attacks him, realizing Ehud choose Wu'Hurror when they switched partners.

Billy defeats Ehud and then faces the members of the city's draconic cult who try to kill him. Billy is forced to flee with a restrained Ehud through the lower levels of the city, slaying whatever cultist get too close. After a few hours, Billy rests in a trash heap and wants to wait until dawn, but Ehud tells him that down here, in the cracks of the mega-city, the cult run things. They will never get to the high levels safely.

Billy and Ehud speak for a while as Billy tries to understand how his friend, a man he once called brother, could fall so far to such deplorable levels. Ehud starts to eventually reveal intimate details about himself and his past. He was born a female, but his sex was changed at birth by his Lord father who wanted all sons. This caused Ehud to grow up in a body that was foreign to him all his life.

His father rejected him and so Ehud spent much time with his mother, his only source of comfort before her passing. With her death, Ehud was effectively alone and turned to his father to fill the hole of love in his heart. His father always had a high bar set for expectations and saw Ehud as a failure the more Ehud failed to meet his measure.

When, among his brothers, only Ehud was accepted into the sendojo, his father began to accept him more and Ehud found that his advances at the sendojo were directly related to his father's love. And so, he followed it as much as he could, but at some point, he reached a glass ceiling where his improvement began to stutter and flattened out.

It was around this time that he began to become involved with the draconic cult whom could aid him in improving his magic and knowledge to fill the gaps in the bridge he was building to his father. And it worked, for a time, but to progress, he needed to earn his stripes and offer up the soul of a close friend to burn. He could not bring himself to slay Billy, so he offered up Wu'Hurror.

Billy tells Ehud that the reason he chose Wu'Hurror was because Ehud knew he could take Wu'Hurror, more scholar than warrior, as opposed to himself, as he and Ehud were always neck and neck. He killed Wu'Hurror because it was easy.

Episode 6

Several weeks after Billy returned Ehud back to the Sendojo, the Sages began to deliberate on his trial for the murder of Wu'Hurror. Billy is conflicted about the entire situation and goes to Togomi for guidance, but she offers none. Instead, she asks what Billy will do.

Ehud is visited by his father who is disgraced to know his son was involved with the undercity draconic cult and has now humiliated the family with killing a member of the Hurror Dynasty. He has had to make significant concessions to the dynasty to save many of his business operations. He informs Ehud that as of this moment, he is no longer a son of his, and remarks on how foolish he was to have ever considered him for heirhood.

One night, Billy goes to see Ehud, and he asks Billy to do him one last favor before his verdict. Ehud wants to to see the Hanging Gardens of Olfia-9 a star system over one last time before the sages render their verdict. His mother used to take him to see the Hanging Gardens ceremony every 2 years, but after she died, his father forbid it, deeming such behavior unbecoming of a lord's heir.

Billy and together, they escape the sendojo, fighting Wei'Hurror and his armed detail in their escape who had come to see justice down for the death of the young lordling. Ehud takes them to one of his many private star ports where his father's men were actively engaged in reclaiming assets and property since Ehud was disowned.

Unable to escape that way, Billy gets them passage on a transport at a public starport. From here they took another shuttle from the surface up to the Orbital Drydock and Portway, where Ehud's starship was, the Zeraph Aerospace CIV Light Fighter SKY.9-0032, AKA the Sunseeker, a type of civilian starfighter used for private security firms, independent contractors, and high-end racing leagues. They boarded the Sunseeker, departed the ODP, and were off into the unknown.

While traveling in the Bifröst to Olfia-9, the Sunseeker encounters a fatal calculation error, forcing the starship out of the Bifröst and back into Realspace. Billy and Ehud find themselves diving nose-first to a planet that seems to be blanketed in a dark cloud as the heat shield reaches its limit and the wings begin to break. Billy is rendered unconscious as the starship blares alarms and warnings of an imminent crash.

Billy grew up in a pampered gilded cage, safe on a massive estate in the Martian capital city, always escorted by armed bodyguards, carrying the power of being the son of Lady Ana Belen; to touch him was death. He was shielded from the harsh realities of life in a cosmos that does not care about you or your well-being in any way.

When the Realm Tear on Mars happens and the Khaos Daemons desolate his home, he is shell shocked as his stability is eradicated right in front of him. He survives but ends up stranded on a distant world where nobody knows who he is or cares about him. Here, while working at a community center to earn a bed and food, he is easily manipulated by a woman, Rhamona, who has the same trappings of luxury and wealth that he had back home on Mars, one that he was so desperate to return to.

Rhamona was, in reality, an alias and she was a Sourcing & Developing Manager II for Xenalisflix Incorporated. With Billy snared, she would sell him into slavery to a XI blood colony where he remained for 3 years. Billy is starting to learn that the world is a big and scary place and begins to see that he took the security and stability provided by his mother for granted and called it overbearing when it was the bare minimum needed for such a cosmos.

By the time Billy escapes from the XI blood colony, he is forced to violently fight for his life before meeting Master Togomi. By this time, he is more feral than man, a wild animal brutalized by a wild world; "Institutionalized" by a system that put profit over people.

The cosmic lord in charge of Space-Team Seals for Mars neglected his responsibility to pursue greedy ambitions. The starship engineers who found Billy drifting in space found it unprofitable to make sure he was safe once he got to Ikon-4. Nobody on Ikon would aid Billy unless he could work for them or give them value. Its why Rhamona could trick Billy so easily, he was weak and naive. And even at the Blood colony, where his mental stability could be easily maintained if XI spent the extra coin to invest in better equipment, but refused to because it didn't yield more profit.

When Billy finally meets Master Togomi, he knows she wants something from him or to use him, he is feral and she describes him as having the eyes of a wild dog backed into a corner who was done barking.

Togomi, by force, has Billy captured and brought back with her to her sendojo and seeks to enlist her as her new pupil. This is still apart of a system at a higher level, but a system where Billy has a choice, something he hasn't had since being tricked by Rhamona.

When Billy was a boy, he claimed he wanted a hard life to test him to be a man; when Mars fell, so did he and needed his mother to save him, costing her her life in the process. When on Ikon-4 he had the chance to strive for that hard life he dreamed about so much; but instead he chose the path of pleasure and paid dearly for it. And now, once again, Master Togomi stands before him and says he can simply retire to one of her many protected estates as an Overseerer because the path ahead, the one at her sendojo, is hard. The pace is hot and the road is not paved well.

Billy chooses to attend the sendojo all the same.

External Expectations

Billy doesn't really know what he wants, not really. He knows he was born weak, brittle bones and paper-thin skin, and he feels lesser for it. In the society he grew up in, he is told masculinity is one thing, a thing he thinks he cannot be. He seeks belonging and social connections in a meaningful way, one that can be obtained by becoming a man. But he can't, because he is protected by his mother who knows the ways of the world and avoids it for her son.

So, Billy blames his mother for keeping him weak and her expectations for him to marrying into nobility. But, Billy does not want to be a pampered noble lord anymore than he wants to be a certain version of a "man", but he still does not know what he wants, not really.

When on Ikon-4, Billy has no more expectations from his mother but is still unable to follow the path of hardship, and with nobody to blame for holding him back anymore, he quickly falls back into his old ways, seeking the pampered life he had originally because it is all he has known. This allows Rhamona to easily trick him.

When Billy finally meets Togomi, she has no expectations for Billy and does not push him one way or another. She is there to support him as best she can but makes it clear only he can walk his path forward, and not her.

Ehud also has expectations from his father who wants his son to be the son he wants. When Ehud and Billy meet, Billy is somewhat released from the illusion of external expectations (though he will struggle with it for awhile) but Ehud is still caught in the maw of what others want and expect from him.

A 19-Year-Old Billy is a young frail man who lives in a culture/society that enforces a certain brand of manhood. Billy wants to be a man to prove his weakness wrong but is smothered by his overbearing mother who strives to protect him. He thinks she is holding him back from being a man, despite he himself not fully understanding what a man is, only what the world seems to tell him a man is.

Ana Belen finds Billy's headstrong nature charming but foolhardy, the cosmos is full of brave fools, why not a wise one for once.

Mars is consumed by a realm tear which leaves Billy the sole survivor as his mother gives her life to save his own, ensuring he could escape Mars on his birthday. Billy lands on another planet, destitute, where he is eventually seduced by a charming woman and sold into Blood Slavery to Vampires for 3 years.

Billy manages to escape the Blood Harvesting Colony facility after literally fighting for his life, tooth and nail, and comes into contact with the warrior master Togomi, who takes Billy under her wing as her new student. She has him admitted into her sendojo where he would begin a new stage of his life. He meets another pupil in a similar position to him, Ehud, and they become quick friends on their path to power.

Over the course of the next 5 years, Billy and Ehud train at the sendojo under their respective masters, growing in power and skill and confidence. They have a pact to seek out power so that they may never be used or manipulated ever again. They are also known for a fair amount of hijinks, notably raiding Ehud's father's lunar facility, illegally entering starship racing tournaments, and hunting titanic Sea Kings.

Billy continues to grow internally, but buries his own trauma within, refusing to revisit the past or even celebrate his birthday. Ehud, ever eager to prove his worth to his father and peers, also buries his own insecurities and becomes more desperate for power.

At a ritual sparring event at the sendojo one day, Ehud goes to far and accidentally kills a fellow student, Wu'Hurror. Billy is disturbed by this event but finds Ehud unfazed. He has been growing distant as of late and Billy finds it difficult to connect, as if trying to yell out to a person across a vast void.

Billy follows Ehud one night off campus and into the city where Ehud meets up with cultist from what a sort of draconic cult who further accept him into their ranks after he reveals he has completed his fire blood ritual; slaying a sacrifice with their fire magic. Wu'Hurror's death was no accident.

Billy intervenes to call Ehud out and disburses the cult before he is forced to fight his own Brother-in-Arms. Billy wins and brings Ehud back to the Sendojo to be arrested an tried by the sages for murder.

Billy comes to visit Ehud one day in his cell and he seems remorseful about his actions but asks Billy to help him atone. Ehud wants to to see the Hanging Gardens of Olfia-9 a star system over one last time before the sages render their verdict. Billy agrees but vows he will return him back to this cell one way or another if Ehud betrays him again.

On the flight there, Ehud reveals he was born a female, but was altered at birth by his Lord father who wanted all sons. Ever since, he has always tried to make Ehud fit into a mold of what a man should be and Ehud has always failed to be just that. His mother was his own respite, who took him to see the Hanging Gardens ceremony every 2 years, but after she died, his father forbid it.

Ehud has not been back since her death years ago.

Ehud had fallen into a dangerous cycle he admitted, the power the cult gave him allowed him to be the man his father always wanted, but at a cost. He wants to see the gardens one last time before he meets his maker.

However, before they could arrive, a cosmic anomaly forces the starship to crash land on an unknown world.

• Billy ibn Ana Belen

• Ana Belen: Mother of Billy and Martian Geisha
• Ehud: Fellow pupil at the Paambi Thegnuruta Sisukhee & Ndi Sendōjō

• "Rahmona" | Xenalisflix Incorporated Sourcing & Developing Manager II: An employee of Xenalisflix Incorporated responsible for identifying people who can be incorporated into XI's Blood Colony on Bognienides-9.

• Planet Bognienides-9 in the Mirankien Quadrant star system: Location of the Xenalisflix Incorporated Blood colony, the Bognine Research and Enrichment Facility (BREF), composed of about seven research, two administration, five storage buildings and one on-site security barracks.
• Planet Alpha Omega Xe'addon-7 in the Rho C’aleko Coronal Stream star system: Alpha Omega Xe'addon-7 is also called Ikon-4 or AOX.

Billy's Life on Mars Prior to the Start of the Story

Billy is the son of Lady Ana Belen, a Geisha on Mars who works at the Olympian Okiya Palace located within the Martian capital city of Olympus Mons. Lady Ana Belen is a wealthy woman with several of her own businesses, including a Pillow House franchise staffed by skilled informants whom she uses to gain influence over Martian people of power.

Ana Belen was originally from a planet called Krie, where she was the daughter of a Law-Woman and a Knight. Krie slept with one of her father's men whom she had a crush on and realized she was pregnant with his son soon after he was killed in a battle with her father. The family found the scandal inconvenient and planned to remove the baby once he was born. Ana Belen wanted to keep her frail son and instead left her family, taking the name Ana Belen and relocating to Mars.

Billy grew up on his mother's primary estate within the city near the Olympian Okiya, staffed by servants, guards, and tutors for his private education. Billy, unlike his mother, has lived in luxury his entire life because of her efforts. She has been preparing him to be a potential suitor for Princess Rútu, daughter of Emperor Yekkub’ Wútu Nyyemso, and the Heir Apparent to the Obsidian Throne of the Ibraalic Empire, the ruling power of Mars.

Billy is quasi-noble because his mother is a prominent member of the planetary faith and access to the higher echelons of society, but this marriage would cement them as nobility forevermore. Billy, on the other hand, behaves as a privileged child would behave and is indifferent to the plans of his mother, instead pursuing his own goals.

The Pakfot Sendojo

The 21st Paambi Thegnuruta Sisukhee & Ndi Sendōjō of Pakfot is where Billy was trained by Master Togomi. Pakfot is a mega-city on the planet Thegnuruta, the 7th planet from the sun in the Ushur star system along the outer spiral of the Theta Calesius galaxy in the Middle Ring.

The sendojo is staffed by educators and teachers in addition to highly skilled Masters, like Togomi. Masters are expected to take pupils directly under their wing to educate them in combination with the hired sendojo teachers and educators. The executive arms of this sendojo receives significant funding for the sendojo from local nobility and state officials who, in turn, expect a guaranteed seat for their children and heirs under infamous Masters.

Master Togomi is one such Master who is known for not taking many students often and only picks pupils she sees value and worth in training. She has a soft spot for broken and weak things, whom she believes make the best students because they aspire for success all the more, even amidst her admittingly unorthodox methods. However, she is often pressed by Sendojo executives to make a selection.

Xenalisflix Incorporated Blood Colony

Vampires are a type of people who consume blood to survive, as can be assumed. A Blood Colony is a facility or location where people, referred to as assets, are held, sometimes willingly sometimes not so willingly, and fed with vitamins and liquid Foodstuff to keep them alive while their minds are suspended in a type of mental illusion. Blood is Life, and the dreams and experiences of a person can be tasted through the blood. Clients of a Blood Colony will input requests and the colony will tailor the dreams of the asset to fit the desire to produce the desired blood effect.

Xenalisflix Incorporated (XI) is a company that has dozens of blood colonies across a certain star system and most definitely do not aquire assets with consent. They hold assets in a deep dream scape where their imagination can be used to flavor their blood while their subconscious mind is severely suppressed, so much so that they are not even aware of where they are or what is happening on any level. If a asset is awoken in this state they will have severe memory loss and no idea of their situation. Additionally, it is chaper to further suppress dreams than it is to wipe them. So, when a new request comes in, instead of wiping the slate clean to preserve mental cognition and stability, XI simply further submerges the dreams and builds new ones on top.

XI is not in the business of waking up assets and will use an asset until they run dry. When the mind finally unravels, and the asset is braindead, they are still used to produce just raw blood with machines that pump their organs and maintain their body until death.

To be captured by XI is a fate worse than death.