A/N: Happy Halloween!
====[DW:NG]====
The scene at New World Preparatory was something that, at first glance, appeared normal. Both of Luke's parents had dropped off their little boy at the designated area and went off to do their work as they needed to go into the office today from the events of Christmas.
This mildly upset Luke as he was just barely out of recovery from his first death in his new life, but he had to let his parents go work. Despite Luke having the ability to summon endless resources using Anima, he didn't want to overstep and disturb the global economy by generating endless amounts of gold ore from Gielinor or something more valuable. Thus, his parents had to go work.
However, Luke and Michael both felt something in the very air. All over the school grounds, there seemed to be a dreadful shadow looming. Luke knew that something was here and felt both angry yet scared for some reason, but Michael was more adept at seeing the source of this looming shadow.
"It has to be him," Michael thought to himself as Luke walked carefully towards his classroom. "The boy with the obsessive yellow eyes. I knew something was wrong with him from minute one, but I'm sure that he is like this because he must have found out something..."
Michael understood that there was a fateful connection between Luke and the yellow-eyed boy (which we know is named Monarch), but he couldn't understand the very depths of that connection. He tried to see, but it was like seeing into the depths of the Abyss.
All he knew was the boy and Luke shared a connection that couldn't be broken. They were fated to be entwined with each other, yet Michael felt that this connection only existed because Luke reincarnated here. A faint shiver went through Michael's energy form as if diving any deeper in that direction was forbidden.
Luke, however, entered the class room while Michael pondered all of this. As he entered the room, the looming shadow disappeared instantly and was replaced with a much brighter scene before him as if the universe itself sang in joy. Unaware to Luke's immediate notice, the source of the dark shadow spotted him immediately and regained that hope.
The Monarch witnessed Luke's death at the hands of the Sycorax Leader with his own eyes and felt a rage unlike anything he had ever felt before course through his veins. He felt like he lost that flickering light of hope, of divine love, when Luke died. He didn't know that Luke was a type of immortal being until he walked into the classroom at that moment, but now, the Monarch felt something cement into his very essence.
At first, when he first looked into those soft blue eyes that held both an ancient spark of soul and a frailty beyond mortal understanding, his then-cold heart thawed slightly. He saw a beauty in this young yet old being that he never understood was a mere seedling that fixed itself firmly into his very core. The very sight burned itself into his mind so much so that it became akin to a drug that never dulled.
His handsomeness made him go insane with possessiveness that he wanted all of him to himself. The sight of seeing Luke come to class everyday made him feel like the very universe sang in joy and made him smile in happiness, yet when he needed more, he would observe him in a type of soul state. This is what led him to witness the fight he had with the Sycorax Leader and his death.
That death of his beloved, even at a mere seed of what it would eventually become, tore his soul apart in madness-induced grief. He knew he could do nothing while in the soul state, but that did not mean he couldn't do anything about it. To fix himself in such a way that he would drown the cosmos in blood and fire if they so much as dared to end Luke again.
Thus, the first death of the Lord of Anima brought into being the very monster who would go to war against the cosmos and hunt the Lord of Anima: the Monarch.
Meanwhile, Luke felt the lingering shadow vanish when he entered the classroom. He wasn't stupid as some might think when he knew that the cause of that looming suffocating shadow had vanished altogether. Before he could detect what or who caused the shadow, the class soon began.
====[DW:NG]====
Later that day...
He went home somewhat exhausted. The day was long in all of the classes he undertook when it concerned mathematics, history, geography, and science. He didn't know what his fathers were thinking when they built the school right in the heart of London nor what possessed them to make it like a college with a mask of a pre-school. From what he understood of his fathers' intentions, they wanted to make use of the minds of children while they were still young to foster geniuses that understood the current capabilities of twenty-first century Earth.
He didn't know why or did he want to know the reasons behind what they did, so the Monarch went to his bedroom and shut the door before either of his fathers came back from work. All he wanted now was to enter into his soul state and watch his beloved, but just as he was getting ready to do that, some mysterious force prevented him from entering that state.
This sudden prevention angered him greatly as he couldn't watch over his beloved, yet he considered it only a temporary setback. He was willing to overcome this hurdle and set himself right so that he could enter the soul state, but he wasn't aware that such occurrences would become more often until he was unable to utilize his soul state ability to watch over Luke Stryker.
The reason why?
Because his very essence, the Mantle of Divinity, was beginning to form.
====[DW:NG]====
Continued in: Prelude I.