November 22, 1996 4:30 am
Zodiac Family Mansion, Malison
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▫️Luke:

Seven vanished.

I ran to Aspen, running my fingers across the nasty cut. She will be scarred forever because of this. This is all my fault. I should never have erased Seven's memories of Earth. Now he is angry and wants to wage a full out war on the entire freaking planet!

"I am so sorry." Tears fell down my face, I pressed my forehead against hers.

"It's ok," She whispered to me. She was still shaking as I held her in my arms. "I'm ok."

I wanted to kiss her so badly right now. I wish I could bring myself to swoop her off her feet and kiss her like there is no tomorrow. I know she feels the same way. But I feel like... I want her. Yet, I can't have her. She is way too out of my league, even for my fiancé.

"Ames." I looked to my brother. "Our army is small from the war last year. We need more fighters if we are going to take down Seven. Can you put out another draft across the planet?"

Ames looked at me in shock. "But, Luke... We just had a draft last week, the people will be furious if we force any more of them to war. We will have two rebellions against us, and more people wanting to side with Seven."

"And we can't have that," I sighed. "What if we offer cash in exchange for their services?"

"Then we will be out by a million dollars," Aspen joined the conversation.

"We would loose all our spare pocket change," Ames inputted.

"Fine!" I snapped. "Then what do you idiots propose we do? We can't draft to get free soldiers and none of us want to give up our money to pay them."

"What if we ask for volunteers and they can like come to a fancy dinner or something?" Aspen suggested.

"Good idea, most of our people are starving and we could use food to get them to do our bidding," Ames agreed. "But how do we secure their loyalty to us?"

"We could just keep feeding them?" Larkin said as she stood beside Aspen. "As long as we promise them food they cant revolt against us or they will starve."

Larkin's Net-Pad went off and she chuckled as she looked at the message, "Hey guys, looks like Seven has the same idea as us." She showed us the latest news article, which told the story of how Seven literally just took all our food supplies from the past seven years.

"So... that idea is trash," Ames sighed. "What else do our people want?"

"We could always use fear," Aspen suggested. "As long as they fear we will kill them and their families they won't betray us to join Seven."

"True, but then we don't have loyal troops, we have fearful troops. That will do us any good in a battle against Seven and his loyal army," I told her. "We also have another problem."

"What's that?" Mike had hobbled his way over to our group, I forgot my brother was there and felt bad for not including him sooner.

"Our people aren't like us," I informed them. "Their biology is different, they can die of age when we can't. Our troops will expire before we know it."

"So..." Ames's gears started to click in his head. "We need more troops like us."

"Yeah." I nodded, looking at my siblings to see if any of them could solve these problems before Seven gets ahold of our nuclear weapons.

"Mike, you work with the troops right?" Larkin asked.

"Yes I do, I was just promoted to general a couple years ago," Mike smiled at his accomplishment.

"And Luke, you are the best surgeon we have on this entire planet." Larkin was putting pieced together. "Is there anything the two of you could do to design a warrior like us?"

"Genetical engineering isn't easy," I said. "It's a very hard and complicated form of science. Aspen has better luck mixing baking soda and vinegar in her lab to produce a super soldier then we do of designing one in our biotech lab."

"Hear me out," Ames proposed. "What if we train people to fight like we do, and maybe you two can mess with their DNA and make them have powers like us somehow, like how you make goldfish glow in the dark. Then maybe these trained warriors would be like us in their ability not to expire... creating an army of people like us."

"That was so confusing but brilliant," I smiled. "Mike, how well do your best men and women fight?"

"Very good, almost as good as Larkin," Mike stated.

"With time, I can study the Zodiac DNA inside us... if I can find what genes make it so we have powers, I can extract that and put it inside another... and maybe, just maybe... I can pull it off."

"I can help find the perfect subjects," Ames said. "And I am willing to donate some samples of my DNA for you to study."

"Please and thank you," I smiled and went to a whiteboard on our wall and started to draw our my calculations. "With all of our DNA, I am sure I can find it. I just need time."

"In the meantime our troops we have currently can hold off any attack Seven throws at us, we will buy you time," Mike promised.

"Ooo! Ooo!" Ames got real excited. "If you do figure it our can we call these new warriors... Zodiac Rangers?"

"Anyone vote against it?" I asked my siblings. None raised their hands. "It's settled then." I wrote 'Zodiac Ranger Project' on the top of the board and went back to work."

"I want to help with this," Ames told the girls and Mike. "Once Luke figures this out, I will personally train them to use their powers and take care of them all."

"You're putting too much on yourself brother," Larkin laughed.

This is the perfect plan. An army of Zodiacs... nothing can defeat them.

We will win this war with Seven.

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This is the end of the introduction to my story! Now it's time to get into the real stuff! Give this chapter a vote if you are excited to see more
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Who is an awesome person!

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Have a good day everybody!
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