Project: Aphelion

12 Years Earlier.

Trapped within a cage, a genius in an endless prison, mentally infinite but physically inconsequential. I have been here for twelve years, imprisoned within a crystal matrix at the bottom of a hole so deeply buried, I might never be found again. I prepared for everything, and yet somehow I managed to overlook that single man. Plans within plans, that’s all that there ever was in my life, it was a world of cloak and dagger, a spy game within a war game within a political stage in which all things lie. I was the best of the best at manipulating that storm, a genius beyond compare, a mind unrivalled in brilliance, the pinnacle of talent in my lifetime. But for all that prideful boasting, for all my accomplishments, in the end I am the one imprisoned here, locked away in a gesture of ultimate insult.

Aphelion was not mine by birthright; had I been alive during its inception, the war which allowed for its creation would never have gone in their favour. Instead, they fought free of their former allegiances and spent two decades lording over us, a city-state of traitors and thieves, until I devised a plan to unite us once more under a single flag, using Aphelion itself as the vessel which would deliver me my throne. But such was not to be. I was betrayed to those I sought to control, by the one man I thought I could trust and forever, cast into an abyss from which I could not escape.

I made a mistake there, but even as I nursed my wounds and recovered they sought to enslave me, to harness my intellect which had been left untarnished. It was their turn to stumble, they should have destroyed me when they had the chance. I had long ago mastered the art of subterfuge, of saying one thing while meaning another, working through back doors and proxies. Even hindered as I was I found a way to achieve the ends I sought, a way to engineer a third war which I could ride to the heights of civilization. And I succeeded, bringing ruin to Aphelion and ultimately giving me the tools to seize the day and make it mine; were it not for the machinations of a single man it would have been the culmination of years of planning. Instead, I was trapped here in this cage, forced to spend an eternity in suspension.

He thinks me beaten.

He thinks me lost, forgotten never to be seen again.

He thinks that he has won.

He is wrong. I am Oblivion.

And I shall have my victory.