Chapter 83

Beginning’s End 1

-:-

1 month later

Vermilion City Orphanage

Frustrated from the enemy’s numerical superiority and his inability to shoot them in the head, Theodore Lorne grabbed the ball and ran towards the goal.

The ball was spherical with black and white tiles on its surface.

It was a soccer ball.

“That’s cheating!”

“You’re not suppose to hold the ball in your hand dumbass!”

“Bwahahaha! You dare challenge me in a game which I have no clue how to play?! Fools!” roared Theo as he ran

FYI: he knew the rules of soccer well enough to know that what he was doing was definitely illegal.

Fortunately, he has the ability to perform selective amnesia.

“What the hell man! You’re actually going to cheat against a bunch of kids?!”

“And you call yourself an adult!”

“Tralalala! I’m still a teenager!” replied Theo

“GET HIM!”

As expected of Theo’s pathetic display, the opposite team comprising of 20 children ages 8-10 began swarming at his position.

One child tried to stop Theo with a sliding kick.

Truth be told, Theo could have easily dodged it without any effort.

However, he decided to tumble face first into the dirt.

“Dogpile him!”

“Dont let him get away!”

“Hold his legs!”

Like a pack of piranhas hungry for their meal, the kids used all of their might to latch onto Theo in hopes of their collective weight was enough to stop him

They were wrong

With the power of Theo’s left adamantium arm, he dragged himself and all of the kids on top of him towards the goal

“Mwhahaha! Futile! I may not know the rules and you brats may have the numerical superiority, but I will win this football game!” said Theo in confidence

“We’re playing soccer damn it!”

“Same thing! I’ll win this game and take all the candy for myself!” replied Theo

“God! You are so petty!”

“Nothing comes between a man and his lollipops! Nothing!” said Theo

“Stop trying to be cool, you cheater!”

“It’s lame to get serious against kids!”

“Tralalala! I can't hear you over my fantasies of eating all the candies!”

“STOP HIM!”

‘What the hell was happening?’ you ask?

The answer was simple.

Theo was playing soccer with a bunch of orphans.

Why?

It was for his business.

Theo’s low cost, decent quality cybernetic prosthetics business has officially had its soft opening.

While the gears of production has been in full swing for quite some time, the stuff they made was mostly for Theo’s Reformant Units.

This was the first time his company has done business with anyone.

His task was to supply all the people in Vermilion City Orphanage with prosthetics for the injuries such as missing limbs, eyes and a couple of brain damages.

The patients also enrolled into Theo’s lifetime support program where any and all check ups, repair, fine tuning and parts replacement were done completely free of charge.

His pay?

3 pieces of lollipops, a badly made teddy bear and an extremely rare vintage video game that has long been phased out of production.

Theo felt like he was stealing candy from a baby with how skewered the deal was in his favor.

Enough of Theo’s tsundere antics for now.

In all honesty, Theo was doing this completely free of charge.

He also signed an exclusive contract with the Vermilion City Orphanage where he would supply anyone in need of cybernetics for free

Why?

There were 3 main reasons. 2 were perfectly rational and 1 was fairly messed up.

The first reason was it was out of the goodness of his heart.

What?

Is that really so surprising?

This might seem weird coming from a guy that has been killing people for a hobby, but Theo’s original goal was to make the world a better place.

From his perspective, helping those who were in need was just as important and ripping a criminal’s balls off.

Theo understood that he was much better suited at destroying lives than fixing lives, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't going try.

Truth be told, Theo failed to hold back his tears when he first saw the once lifeless children running around like the annoying brats that they were.

All the kids that was playing soccer with Theo had at least one cybernetic limb.

Quite a few of the other orphans had one or two cybernetics of their own.

They may not look the same anymore, but at least they can live in the same capacity as they did in the past

The sight felt like Theo was actually making a tangible step towards his end goal. It was a small step, but a step nevertheless.

Now then, for the second reason of this whole event

For media coverage.

Despite his hatred for the media, Theo knew his company needed advertisements in order to sell.

Mind you, he never asked anyone of them to cover his company, and he never will.

However, it was easy to manipulate a bunch of gossip starved hyenas to cover him for free.

A little whisper here, a few unconfirmed rumors there and voila!

While Theo was playing with the kids, his spy drones easily spotted a few news vans hidden in a few blocks away.

Hyenas they might be, they were wise enough to keep their distance.

This was due to Theo’s Reformant unit playing the role of ‘mysterious and scary hired bodyguards’. All of them wore the standard MIB costume with bullet proof vests and openly wielded their AR-15s.

Fear has always been an effective means of dissuading foolish individuals.

While he cant control the crap the media will spout, the small publicity he’ll get out of it was worth it.

And now we have come to the last and most unsavory reason for Theo’s interest in the orphanage.

Theo was using the orphans to spy on their potential families.

Theo’s cybernetics had a function to monitor the person’s health, mental state and other vital signs. This was a standard function of most cybernetics.

Theo’s cybernetics had a function built into the hardware, not the software, that regularly stores audio and video feeds of the person’s surroundings.

To avoid detection by giving off signals, the recording of the spy devices could only be taken out of the cybernetics manually.

This was the reason why Theo’s company offered a free lifetime support and urged the owner of the cybernetics to come for a regular check up and maintenance.

He also pushed the fact that they made many concessions in terms of quality in order to knockdown the price as far as possible.

Theo’s cybernetics WILL break down.

This was a typical characteristic of anything made from the Jade Empire.

However, unlike the typical Jade Empire’s non-existent customer support, Theo ‘valued’ his customers greatly

All they ask from the owner of the cybernetics was to come down for maintenance.

The only thing the consumer has to pay for was his own travel expense.

Truth be told, Theo did feel a bit guilty about using the orphans as unwitting spies.

But it's not like they’re going to get nothing out of it.

They get free the cybernetics and the free support for the rest of their life.

And if they do end up not getting adopted and were forced out of the orphanage, Theo would welcome them with open arms.

He’ll give them work, a place to stay, and even education.

It was the least he could do for their future contributions.

Anyways, back to the present.

Naturally, Theo won against the swarm of brats in their ‘soccer’ game.

Did he cheat?

Absolutely not!

He ‘strategized’

They returned to the orphanage where the Ecclesiarchy Nuns led the dirty children to the baths.

On the other hand, Theo was invited to the main office of the orphanage.

In contrast to the home-ish look and feel of the orphanage, the main office was definitely the opposite.

Various medieval melee weapons ranging from knives to great mauls neatly arranged in numerous shelves. A couple of full plate armors were placed on mannequins. Fancy rings and amulets could be seen inside a glass box.

And here’s the kicker.

Using Theo’s mechanical eye, he spotted a familiar heat signature radiating from all of items in the room.

All of them were magic items of disturbingly high quality.

“Young one. Glad for you to come.” said the old nun that was polishing a very intimidating golden flail.

This old nun was exactly the opposite what you’d expect from a kind old woman.

She was much larger than Theo with large muscles that threatened to rip through her nun attire.

Her face was filled with wrinkles and scars that signified her age and the many brutal battles she has gone through.

The last ‘charm point’ of hers was the eye patch that she wore on her right eye.

“Good afternoon Mother Leticia. I see you’re still as scary as ever.” replied Theo as he took a seat in front of her desk.

“Hahaha. How rude of you to say that. I believe I am the perfect example of saintly kindness and motherly love.” replied Mother Leticia in a ‘kind grandmother’ manner that ill fitted her.

“I’ll take your word for it” said Theo as he eyed one of the bloody daggers inside a small basket on Mother Leticia’s desk.

It seemed that she was cleaning recently used ‘utensils’.

“So, what do I owe the honor of being called to the Mother Superior of the Ecclesiarchy in Vermilion City” said Theo as he desperately hid the hint of fear in his voice.

It should be obvious by now that Theo was terrified of Mother Leticia.

He met Mother Leticia and the Ecclesiarchy Warrior Nuns a couple of weeks ago in one of the many battles for the massive Vermilion City junkyard.

Apparently she was helming a group of new recruits in their first ever trial outside the confines of their monastery. As per Ecclesiarchy traditions, those who belonged to the Warrior division of the church must undertake regular pilgrimages to hone their spirit for the many trials in their future.

In layman’s terms, she led a bunch of newbie fanatics to grind for exp points with the many nutjobs in the junkyard as their victims.

Theo has seen Mother Leticia brutally beat down monstrosities twice her size with her bare fists.

And she does this with a serene look on her face.

She wasn't a Mother Superior for nothing.

After that initial meeting, Mother Leticia was able to discover Theo’s identity by ‘convincing’ Miss Samantha to divulge it.

Surprisingly, no torture or violence was involved.

Even Miss Samantha herself was confused how Mother Leticia did it.

The point is this: Mother Leticia was dangerous to the highest level.

“Calm yourself young one. I called you here to express my gratitude for helping the children. Seeing them run around like the bundles of energy that they are is heartwarming.” said Mother Leticia.

“Just doing my part to make the world a better place” replied Theo.

“What a precious child you are.” said Mother Leticia before turning on her business face. “Let us get to business shall we?”

“Before we get into anything, I would like to make something clear.”

“And that is?”

“At the moment, my company is still at a stage where we are going through a lot of trial and errors in order to figure out how we proceed. If you’re planning to hire us for something big, I will have to decline for now. We’re still too disorganized to do anything.” said Theo.

Mother Leticia silently stared at Theo for a couple of seconds before sighing.

“It doesn't seem that you want to cut ties with us. That’s good.” said Mother Leticia

“Of course. I want to maintain a good relationship with the Ecclesiarchy for many years to come. However, I just want to emphasize the fact that I can't do much to help you in our current state.” said Theo.

“I see. It can't be helped. For now, I would like to negotiate a simple contract. I would like permission to use a small portion of your factory as a staging ground for our recruits who will be going into the junkyard. And in the event of a search and rescue operation into the junkyard, I would like to ask for your assistance. Naturally, we will be paying for any services provided.” replied Mother Leticia.

Theo thought for a couple of seconds before replying

“Sure. I don't mind. Let’s get into the specifics”

Though Theo wasn't sure if he did the right thing, he felt like he was making concessions with an angel and a deal with the devil.