Fables for Sable: Origins - Mellow Proudmoore

Oh, so you want to hear about me next? Heh. I’m flattered that you’d want to hear about my life story. Okay, hold on, lemme get some snacks.

…Hm? Oh, the brandy’s for me. None of you kids will be getting any of this until you’re older.

Now. Where to start.

My childhood wasn’t the prettiest or the easiest. I was born to a prostitute and grew up in the red light district of my hometown. The earliest memories I can remember were me running games, playing courier for the local gangs, and selling just about everything I could get my hands on to help my mother as she brought home the bacon. In the beginning anyway; there was this… precipe between us. Like she was on the verge of actually treating me like a son instead of a burden. She never hit me when I was a kid, but I got the feeling that she never really loved me either. I’d find out later on that there was a reason for that, but now isn’t the right time for the reveal.

Anyway, the red light district wasn’t the safest environment to grow up in, but I managed to survive seven long years in that hole; long enough to see my mother get knocked up by a random dude and bring my little sister into the world. Lily Proudmoore.

She was the first actual family member I loved. Enough that I started using my earnings for her instead of my mom. I remember her first words being ‘fak’ and I was too busy celebrating it to realize how horrible it sounded for a toddler to say something so vulgar.

As I grew older, my mother started getting rougher and meaner around me for no apparent reason. I didn’t understand why at the time, so I just stood there and took whatever abuse she threw at me thinking that at least Lily wasn’t getting hurt instead. It came to ahead when my mom smashed an empty beer bottle over my head and ranted about how I was such a failure and that my dad’s blood wasn’t worth the shit he had to put up with as she stormed out. I wondered about why she said that until I saw an autographed picture flutter to the floor, showing a guy that looked a lot like me.

I went around with that picture looking for answers until one of the gangers took me aside and asked me where I got the photo. He told me that the guy in the photo was a Chosen One, one Matthew Ignatus, back when he saved my hometown. It… didn’t take long for me to connect the dots; Ignatus being a young hormonal Chosen One riding the high of beating a world-ending enemy, my mother being a prostitute. I was a little shocked to say the least.

Now, my being filled with all the youthful hope and enthusiasm of discovering my blood father being a Chosen One meant he had a lot of money and power. I could get into contact with him and explain the situation to the guy, maybe he could lend a hand or ten regarding my situation.

So I rushed home, eager to break the world-shattering discover to my family, only to find my mother’s room empty and Lily handing me a note from her that said ‘you’re on your own’.

I steeled myself and thought ‘fine, I’ll do it myself’.

I threw myself into work; doing every odd job I could find, applied to every part-time job available, pulled in every favor and every bit of help I was owed to get as much cash as I could so that I could go to my dad and get some help. Even my sister got swept up in my efforts and pitched in, working as a kitchen helper for the brothel my mom used to work at. Between her efforts and mine, I think we managed to rack up enough cash to buy-out the entire brothel for a week straight.

Then my sister collapsed at work.

A panicked trip to the hospital got her diagnosed with a chronic heart-related disease. I forgot its name but I remember it partially being caused by something genetic, incurable, and needed special drugs to combat. When I went to visit her…

…

Sorry, I… had something in my eye for a second.

Anyway, I paid for her hospital stay, six month’s rent, and three month’s worth of her special drugs using all our hard-earned cash then faked my age to enlist in the military. It was an easy choice; I had a Chosen One’s blood running through my veins and enough grit to scrape a living from a red light district, so I figured that boot camp and whatever hell military life could throw at me couldn’t hold a candle. My sister was a little sad that I had to go, but she undertood that it had to be done for both out sakes. She sent me off with a teary goodbye as I boarded the bus to Army Basic.

Ten weeks of entry-level hell went by and I got sent to my first combat op a month after that in northern India. I got field promoted after my CO got fragged by a bombardment spell and I had to lead my squadmates back to enemy lines within my first month on the frontlines, got volunteered for various high-risk low-survivability ops into enemy territory, wreaked havoc with all sorts of death inducing tools of warfare, and generally made a name for myself as the scariest soldier the enemy ever had to face on the battlefield. Not because of the big booms I lugged around with me or the kind of bullets I fired, but because I was so hard to put down for good despite only being a bog-standard human.

My big break came when I unlocked my Null field.

It was a simple forward recon op into enemy territory; wander to the outskirts of some random village and see if it starts shooting at you. My squad and I got shot at by a brigade of Bombardment Mages, and boy was that retreat the scariest four minutes of my life.

One of my boys got his leg fragged and the squad was torn between leaving him for the enemy or dying with him as they tried to drag his ass back to safety. I took up all the explosives the squad had, told them to run with the wounded, and threw myself into the enemy mages’ crosshairs cursing the day they didn’t dribble down their mothers’ legs. I managed to dodge the first few artillery lasers and down three of those mages before one such beam hit my dead at my chest.

I’ll be honest; my last thoughts were me wanting to see my sister one last time.

An instant later, the red of the artillery laser filled my vision and I braced myself for the brief flash of agony before I died, but that never came. No, the beam fucking stopped a few feet before hitting me and all the excess heat charred the plants and slagged the rocks outside a five meter radius around me. When the heat and laser beam faded, the mages and I just kinda stared at each other for a bit before I started laughing and fired my guns. Reinforcements picked me up an hour later halfway back to base as I was dragging three of those mages for interrogation.

My COs took those mages into custody and pulled me aside for questioning about my apparent survival against a brigade of what were basically anti-building specialists. After I demonstrated my anti-magic abilities to them, they put me in with Delta Force and learned how to kill things better with more specific weaponry.

My status as an anti-mage asset got me sent to a lot of sabotage and assassination missions on battlefields all over the world. I was deployed so often that I got nicknames despite the secrecy that Delta Force afforded its members. The memorable names I was called included ‘the Equalizer’, ‘Mage Killer’, and ‘Silver Bullet’. Some of my Delta squaddies used to joke that the COs might as well make me into a one-man squad since I was getting so famous.

I used to laugh with them whenever it got brought up since it seemed so impossible that I could handle the kind of ops that a spec ops squad usually does. Then I got called away by a government suit and told that I would be leading a special operations organization covertly founded other government suits from other countries for the sole purpose of helping Chosen Ones and making sure that their mistakes or failures don’t come back to haunt the rest of the world. It was christened the 909th Special Operations Force.

Now, can you guess my reaction to that?

No, I didn’t puff out my chest and grimly accepted the responsibility nor did I jumped for joy at the porspect of leading such a high-profile organization.

I outright refused.

Wha-- c’mon, don’t give me that look! I had my reasons!

It was too high-profile for a spec ops shitbird like me to handle, since I was used to leading squads and doing the dirty work in the field rather than giving out orders from behind a desk. Really, could you imagine me in a suit sitting behind a posh desk in an office giving orders and debriefing operatives? Hell no you can’t, and I’ll be the first to accept that I wasn’t fit to lead something that big.

What’s more, I had my sister to look after. I enlisted for her sake and not to make a career as a soldier, so I had no qualms about getting deliberately court-marshalled and dishonorably discharged if it meant being able to keep her safe and sound with all the experience I racked up from the battlefield. Besides, all the hazard pay I got from the deadly missions and such would go a long way towards her recovery.

But then the suit cut me a deal; I join the 909-SOF as its head honcho and my sister gets the medical treatment for her condition in a government-funded hospital at the government’s expense, plus an early retirement plan plus benefits when I turn forty. It was too good of a deal, so I couldn’t turn it down.

Thus, the 909-SOF was born.

I’d go on a hell of a lot of adventures under the organizational mandate of saving, protecting, and generally making sure Chosen Ones stay alive or cleaning up after their mistakes. I’d go on to help and recruit a pair of blossoming goddesses, a man who was literally physically strong enough to beat gods to death, a prophet to an eldritch god who has a thing for machinery, and your father the direct descendant of King Arthur Pendragon. I’d go on to make friends in every high place imaginable, build an army that regularly fought against world-ending threats, and forge a better future for the world in the Chosen Ones I helped and the inheritors who’d go on to grow into the leaders of the future.

Its a shame that I died before I could see that future come to be, but sacrifices have to be made to build something worthwhile.

…Hm? Oh, you want to know how I died? Sorry, but that’ll have to wait another day.