That is what the Order would have you believe.

In truth, the Order has for centuries found children with magical potential and slaughtered our families. We are trained from a young age to harness burgeoning magical powers into the pseudo magical abilities hunters display as proof of dedication and faith. A way of fighting fire with fire, the Order eventually issues a weapon that absorbs the overabundance of magic we exude and lock into fighting our own kind.

Upon the beginning of our training young hunters are stripped of our identities, our very names taken. Every month, we are given new names so we do not begin to develop individuality. Every hunter trainee wears a pair of heavy leather bracelets. Unbeknownst to us the bracelets were filled with aetherian steel shot which absorbed our abilities until we were given an aetherian steel weapon. These cuffs were to be worn at all times, and eventually when we took them off, the steel within them was reforged into bullets attuned to the trainee who wore them. Should that hunter ever manifest as a mage, the Order will use them to execute the hunter.

It is not until the weapon is bestowed upon a hunter that we take a name and are allowed to take off the cuffs. We do not get that weapon until we kill our first mage. The name of our weapon becomes the name of the hunter. Many hunters do not survive this process, and it is a sacred right of passage for all hunters. If a hunter loses their weapon, they are nameless and executed upon returning to the Order.

A hunter's identity is tied to our weapon, both in doctrine and in our minds. Our weapons are precious to us and constant companions. In this way, the Order has ensured we rarely manifest our mage abilities for centuries, covering up the rare manifestation that slips through.

All of this is to prevent the destruction the mages of Ither are capable of. It takes a true weapon born and bred to combat the raw powers of a mage, a will unbreakable, and specialized training to resist the influences and experiences a mage can bring forth. Should a hunter fail to eliminate a mage in time" Itherian mages eventually collapse. A collapsing mage releases all of their power at once, dying a blast of raw destruction that can extend for miles in every direction. As mages often manifest in densely populated areas" this can have unimaginable consequences. We view our training as a necessary sacrifice to stop this from happening. Sacrificing what is asked of us to save millions of lives.

It's true I am a hunter. I have taken the name of my sword, called Sain, my middle and last names simply words to describe what I am. A mage hunter. Nothing more. But I was not born. I was made. I have no soul, no mother or father, no body of my own. This is because I was created by a mage. A little boy.

That child was found by the Order. His family killed. The child taken to an Order branch where he began training as a hunter. The cruelty he experienced there drove the child into himself, where his psyche fractured and created a new personality. I am that personality. A shield to protect a child from the experience of hunter training and the horrors of fighting Itherian mages.

I sealed my sword when I realized the dangers it posed here in Rhy'din. Brushing against the wrong person could have serious consequences with that steel. The seals kept the magic absorbtion at bay' and after months it caused the mage within me to stir.

He took the name Eolai when he first manifested. It was then that I learned the truth about the Order, the truth about the hunters and what we were. Eolai was unbridled, mad with the memories of his brush with the Order and their cruelty. It took time, but soon he was able to control himself.

We share a body. To my knowledge, Eolai is the first Itherian mage to have ever manifested fully and gained control of his morality. As far as I know, we are the only example of a mage manifesting and then returning to a previous state. This has not stopped the degradation of our body. Eolai will collapse if nothing is done. It is only a matter of time.

My name is Sain. I was made to be a weapon by the Order of Gan Ainm. I was made to be a shield by a little boy hiding from the world.

Eolai and myself are on a tense relationship. Neither of us particularly likes the other. But I think we understand the necessity of each other's existence. Nowhere is the relationship between us more tense than when it concerns Clara.

Clara" she's an incredibly gifted engineer and researcher. Her abilities far exceed her age. By hunter standards she's already an adult, yet her ability exceeds even those of the Order's RnD Department as a whole. Her idea to solve the issue between Eolai and myself is nothing short of miraculous, and the fact that she has been able to pull it off is a testament to her supreme skill.

She wants to separate us. By building me a new body, and reinforcing the body Eolai was born with. I won't go into the details of Eolai's process, if only because I haven't asked about it and I don't want to presume things. I know it will involve some invasive and traumatic surgery so they don't want to do it before they split us apart....if only to keep both of us from suffering needlessly.

Clara intends to take the consciousness that I am and place it into a body she made for me. It's genuinely incredible. She gave me some of the specs on it the other day. It's a metal skeletal structure using titanium foam filled aluminum bones. Flexible enough to mimic human bones, but several times stronger. Add into that synthetic musculature anatomically correct with the necessary circuitry allowing for a fully functional human reflexive system. It will mimic efferent, afferent, and other mixed conductive fibers, and it even has a full mapping of psionic conductors and transmitters attuned to the important bit in the skull that holds" well" me.

That important bit' An AI matrix and positronic brain capable of reading from a crystal insert that holds my consciousness. Effectively, the entire body can be destroyed and I can just get a new one. A backup system will ensure that even if the crystal is destroyed, I won't lose more than a day's memories. On the outside will be a true to form skin without any seams or creases. For all intents and purposes I'll look completely human. It'll be a silicone based thermal plastic elastomer. A synthetic skin that feels real all the way down to the hair follicles. Fully lined with input and output receptors to give me my full reflexes and reactions" even feelings.

The body is enchanted to self-mend in the event of injury, in the same manners as a human body would. It runs off of a power source that lets me convert water and nutrients from food" so I can still eat and drink" I'll be able to hear, see, taste, smell, and feel the world around me. It's stronger, faster, nearly indestructible, and even if the body is destroyed a new one will simply replace it. I will have all of my current abilities, a series of crystal manifolds and receptors for using magic, and an aural feedback loop that will allow me to utilize my auric abilities, and the psionic mapping will let me use my psychic abilities.

It's finished now, for the most part. We still need to add in some things and customizations. But largely it's done. I'll be transferring soon.

I won't be human. I won't be a mage. I won't be a hunter.

Clara says she'll love me no matter what. That the body doesn't matter. I believe her, and I love her all the more for it. She's built me this incredible thing. She's" built me.

It doesn't really matter though. I have no soul, no body of my own, so whatever I become isn't really for me to decide. It's easy for them to make a show of talking like I have a choice. I don't. Not really.

I'm not a real person. I am a parasite that stole Eolai's life from him. A shield that became a prison and a jailer. A fractured piece of a little boy's psyche that pressed him into the dark for decades. Clara could have made a jar to put me in and it would have changed nothing.

Still" it's a really, really nice jar.

Hunters aren't human.

It still takes me a minute to understand this every time it occurs to me. Hunters are mages, shaped and molded. It has raised some questions in my mind that don't seem to add up. I think I've figured them out though. As much as I can anyway.

My first question came when I realized that as a mage I shouldn't be able to touch my sword. The aetherian steel it is made of should have immediately injured me. Some key observations helped clear this up. Chief among them is that Eolai cannot touch the blade despite sharing a body. This leads me to believe that the blade is still affecting my body in some way, despite my not being fully aware of it. Next, I realized that the cuffs given to me at the beginning of my training are filled with aetherian steel. This means that I've had this substance affecting me my entire life. I feel that it is likely my body has adapted to the aetherian steel in the state it is now, allowing the use of auric and psychic abilities due to the extreme stress of hunter training. But when Eolai manifests, the steel reacts to the massive amounts of magic he puts out in a much more violent manner.

The order kept the cuffs of every hunter it trained. I believe this is so that if any hunter ever manifested, they could forge the steel within them into a bullet capable of destroying the resulting mage.

You may be wondering how aetherian steel does what it does"

The secret to aetherian steel is still one I am unraveling, but I believe I have the pieces to the puzzle. Aetherian steel is unique to Ither. This is because of the method of its creation, which requires Itherian mages. Not just their magic" but their entire body. When a hunter dispatches a mage, their job is finished. The order disposes of the body to protect the public from possible curses and lingering effects the magic may have. At least, that's what they've told the public. No doubt it is partially true, even dead an Itherian mage can be dangerous. However what they do with the body is not disclosed to the public. It is sent to the steelworks. There, the body is broken down and one particular element is extracted.

Iron. The iron in the blood of an Itherian mage is extracted and then heated to melting point. There, it is carefully preserved until more can be added from another mage. And then another. The average human body contains between three and four grams of iron spread throughout the body. A mage has a slightly higher content, but not by much. To make a weapon like my sword, the iron from more than fifty Itherian mages was forged together and alloyed with carbon from their incinerated remains.

Magic is incredibly drawn to the weapons thanks to the adaptations of mages. Their". Our" bodies adapt to vast amounts of energy being pumped through them constantly, and so eventually create pathways for this energy to dissipate in an attempt to stave off the collapse all mages eventually experience if not executed first. As their body attempts to survive as long as possible, it creates the instruments of their systematic destruction at the hands of the order.

Hunters use these weapons, our bodies having adapted to the material that seeks to siphon and dissipate as much magic as it can. We wear the cuffs that keep us from manifesting as children, and carry the weapons that see us through adulthood as hunters, all the while brainwashed into seeing the weapon as our identities. Of course we'd never let go of those weapons. Of course if we returned without such a precious material, in danger of manifesting as a mage and setting the order back a hugely valuable weapon, we'd be executed. The order has made every intention perfectly clear. Their methods brutally efficient.

I've seen what happens when an Itherian mage collapses in a populated area. I've been to chicago. Little more than a crater now, a population of 2.7 million' gone. The mage that collapsed there was one of the oldest and most powerful the order had ever seen. The crater she left behind was filled by Lake Michigan, the ashes of the city muddying the water into the white banks that now ring the crater. The ashes of a city of millions, unmade in the blink of an eye. Their molecules ripped apart into nothing more than carbon. Mages can manifest anywhere in a population. Anyone, anywhere, can become a walking weapon of mass destruction on a biological timer. The order does what it does to prevent these people from collapsing and destroying everything around them...

Is it worth it' I don't know. Unification of world religions, global peace, an ongoing fight against poverty in Order controlled nations, these are what we bought with weapons forged of the blood of Itherian Mages. We lived in a peace created by uniting against a common enemy with soldiers stolen from the children of the very enemy we fought.

My sword is Sain. My sword is a monster

My sword is born of the blood of mages. I am born of the mind of a mage.

All my sword has ever been is a monster. All I have ever been is Sain.

If I am my blade" am I a monster" If I am not my blade" what does that make me"

So the split was successful.

Obviously. Or I wouldn't be writing this. Clara....risked a lot to get me here. More than I could really have ever asked or wanted her to risk. I'm sure I don't even really know the half of it, that's just the kind of person she is. The body is incredible. It really is. Sometimes, I even forget that it's artificial. Suppose that was the point. It's little things though, that remind me of the newness.

The instant numerical understanding of just how hard I'm holding my sword for instance. Or for that matter the strength and agility differences are something to really write home about. My body is now totally terminator-like. It's been ruggedized, so there's no risk of something like an EMP pulse bothering me, and it's even got a food cycling system that pulls water and components from the food I eat to produce some of the power and other uh, biological simulations.

That's another difference. My teeth. They're" different. I had this one crooked tooth on the bottom....that's not there anymore. Now they're just....not perfect, but I guess as average as average gets" My smile isn't any different, but the way my tongue rests against my teeth is. It's a small thing, I'll get used to it. But it's always there. On the outside, it looks fine. It's just another way I know I'm different, even if no one else does.

My abilities somehow got stronger. I guess with Clara worried about not being able to match my natural abilities, she created a system that's more efficient than the biological version. Both my aura and my psychic abilities have been kicked up a notch. They're taking some getting used to, especially my psychic abilities. They're much more sensitive, so I've got to keep them under control. After my experiences here in Rhy'din, I've come to understand just how rude psychic prying is, so I'm trying my best not to allow that to get out of hand.

The crystal network that's integrated into the consciousness crystal is genuinely impressive. The layers of defensive enchantments and crystal resonances make for a veritable fortress. But with that and the added in magical receptors and the framework that mimics the chakra points, my aura has really gained intensity. I'll have to be careful to remember to reinforce my body when I use it, or there's a chance it could tear itself apart no matter how durable it is.

But this is me now. The cooling system has a pulse" so I have a heartbeat of sorts....I eat, I drink....but I don't really have to breathe except to exhale the oxygen the reactor produces. It's interesting though, my subconscious still does it. All the mannerisms I used to have, I still have them. I still breathe naturally, even when I don't think about it.

What's more impressive" Pain still hurts. Sure the physical stuff, that's easy to simulate.

I mean when someone rips my heart in half, I still feel it. It still crushes my chest, my stomach still turns, my face reacts to all my emotions?

I still have emotions. I wasn't sure I would. Gods I was so scared I wouldn't...

The emotions still hurt the same way they did. The same familiar ache, the catch in my throat, the little breaks in my voice when I don't mean to...

It's impressive...

It really is almost human.

The Order of Gan Ainm.

The order of the nameless. It's a worldwide organization stretching back more than six hundred years. I've touched on the order before, talking a little about the front they put on and the truth behind it all. But I'd like to clear some things up.

The Order is necessary on Ither.

I don't like saying it, but the truth is the order really is all that stands between the world and, well" utter chaos and destruction at the hands of the mages. At its beginning, the Order wasn't very successful. See, the problem was that no one wanted to listen to the madmen who raved that the gods had fallen to the earth during the black death. A massive plague that wiped out huge portions of the world population' it woke something in humanity. It woke those fallen gods who reared up their heads and seared the earth in a terrible arcane fire.

They were the first mages on Ither.

In a way, their collapses eventually halted the spread of the plague. The mages saved humanity, but at a terrible cost.

The order was founded shortly thereafter, near the end of the thirteen hundreds. An organization at the time that modeled themselves after the templars, but sought only the destruction of mages.

They were sorely outmatched. The Order nearly ended there. Had the mages of the time been more thorough' it is likely the order never would have made it this far. However the knights back then were tenacious, and spread their manifestos through the world.

Unlike the templars, the Order preached tolerance and unity for humanity. They preached that to come together against the mages was the only way. They would accept anyone who came forward. Man and woman alike, no matter their religion or creed. So long as they would take up arms against the terrifying power of a mage.

That was the other thing, back then the mages were often thought of as fallen gods. After about twenty years, the order began to move away from this concept and began calling them mages. The order became known as "mage hunters" or "Witch killers" or many variations of the terms. But back then, hunters were simply anyone willing to take up a sword.

The first hunter".

She was amazing. That much was clear in the writings. She appeared about fifty years after the establishment of the Order. They say she was tall, with plain eyes and dark skin. But she wielded an axe called Sunder, and that was what they called her. She was faster, stronger, and tougher than any man or woman in the Order at the time. She was always there when she was needed, sometimes the writings are even contradictory as to where exactly she was. For nearly ten years Sunder led the Order and under her guidance they managed to keep any collapse from occurring. It was the longest stretch they'd ever had all over the world.

That was when she disappeared, and left behind her writings. The Holy Light of Unity: Principles of Humanity and Kindness, The Treatise on Divinity and Worship, The Huntsman and the Flock, The Manifestation of Virtue". These four texts that described a time soon to come when men and woman born to stand between the mages and the people would rise to serve the Order. These four texts that described a world in which all humanity could stand united under a single god" that god was simply all gods.

In the Treatise on Divinity and Worship Sunder and many other contributing authors over the centuries, describe the many faceted god. A concept of divinity in which all gods and spirits are simply facets of the same immense and incomprehensible jewel. The depths of which, humanity will never know and so we should not presume to understand any one "best' way to worship such a divine thing. In essence, all manners of worship were valid, and all gods were true.

Under this new faith, the order spread faster than the plague it had been born from. The message of tolerance for all humanity and unity against the mage threat went well with Sunder's track record, a decade of peace.

It would be another fifteen years before the first generation of Hunters appeared. Sunder may have been the first' but she was only one woman. The first generation of hunters was said to number in the dozens. Men and women who'd been touched by divinity, who's auras manifested as light and who were faster and stronger" like Sunder herself.

They wielded the first Aetherian Steel weapons. Weapons that could cut through magic. While not as sophisticated or nearly as powerful as those used today, they were a vast improvement over the normal steel the Order had used until then. Weapons a mage could not affect with magic.

It solidified the order as a world power. Since then, they have only grown in power and influence all over the world. While the order is a faith based organization, it holds complete immunity to all international and domestic laws? this is because it simply has grown beyond reproach.

On Ither, the hunters truly do protect and serve humanity.

Despite the order's brutal methods they are all that has stood in the way of mages for hundreds of years.

Now, they're coming here.