Nawx (Project IzeBorn Book 1)

by Andrew Jones

  "First of all, do you know how I've lived this long? How I lived past the Izequin Incident, and the fact that I'm still here about two hundred years after?"

  Nova looked up at him and tilted her head as she watched him explain to her. He looked sad, but she mostly questioned why he was telling her all this.

  "I'm a Machina, myself. I don't really know how I was created. But I know for sure that I created to make machines for Human support- and to create The Nawx Project."

  "Atreyu! It ain't gonna open anytime soon!" Bastion roared at him.

  Atreyu continued to use all of his strength to punch his way into the vault, but the glass door of the vault still looked undamaged. No scuffs, scratches or cracks were on the glass at all. His body fell against the glass, his face right in front of Nova's as he closed his eyes.

  "I see a sort of passion in your rage. Do you care for Nova that much?"

  Atreyu panted for air heavily as he opened his eyes and looked deep into Nova's face. He punched the glass door once again as he stepped away from the vault altogether.

  "Atreyu, answer the question. You cannot let yourself succumb to this rage."

  Atreyu growled in anger as he turned to Bastion.

  "Yes! Damn- I do care about her! So fuckin' what?" Atreyu yelled.

  Bastion chuckled, "Looks like we're not so different. I lost someone I really cared for. It's not bad to love someone, Atreyu."

  Atreyu turned around and didn't respond. He looked back at the statue of Nova before sighing silently.

  Nova stared at Drenawx as he confessed. She didn't see him as a machine, like herself and the others. She knew he confessed this to her in order to regain her respect, but this only lost more respect for her. This made her see Drenawx as a sort of dictator toward the other machines, acting like a God among them. Besides, the Gods aren't even real, they are nonexistent. One cannot control a horde of people so easily. The Humans don't even have Gods.

  "Do you know of The Nawx Project?" Drenawx asked. "It is the restoration of Humanity. Instead of breeding Humans, we simply create Humans. They are not machines or Humans. They are an evolved form of both beings. And you're the one and only one, so far."

  Nova looked down at her hand, looking surprised. She knew she had to have been different from the rest of the machines, but she didn't know it was by this much of distance. She now felt like she had a great responsibility, she was the key to a new future for Humanity. But she didn't quite know what she had to do with herself, or what her purpose was.

  A hard beat hit against her chest as the vault began to alarm loudly. She opened her eyes as the smoke that the vault was releasing inside was stopping.

  "Memory maintenance restored. All further repaired completed."

  The vault spoke in this robotic voice as the glass doors began to open, allowing Nova to be let out. She walked out of it and looked around the room. Her head was hazy, and it hurt to a great degree. She held her head as she fell forward onto a table, which helped her gain her balance back.

  "A-Atreyu?" Nova whispered her call to him.

  Her blurry vision showed an open door, signaling her to go toward it. She fell onto the doorway, seeing that the room was the same long hallway she had seen in her memories. Her head hurt more, she fell onto her knees and screamed out loudly as she grabbed her hair. She grabbed her hair tightly, as that seemed to help relieve the pain enough for her to get on her feet and drag her feet forward. As she walked, the room had changed into a picture of the area around the healing waters. She had been walking toward the healing waters, but it was not possible if she was still in the Kurutta Sekia. But before she could walk into the healing water, the area around her showed nothing but a static vision. There was no exit door, and there was no sight of where she came from. Even the walls next to her disappeared, as she fell into nothingness. She felt the winds blow up into her hair as she fell into a bottomless pit. Looking down below, a bright light sparkled, and it shined brightly into Nova's eyes as she stared into the light. The light she saw was the hope she had in her heart. She felt like she was dying like the vault had messed up her memory so bad that she didn't know what was a memory, she didn't know what was right in front of her eyes and real, and she didn't know what was going on.

  In a blink of an eye, she was sitting on the floor of another white room. A man stood in front of her, and another stood behind her. She had her eyes down like a force kept her head down so she couldn't look up and see the men.

  "This Timeline is going all over the place. Might we have to seal it?" One of the men asked. "I fear what will come in the future."

  Nova heard the other man, behind her, chuckle at his response, "We must trust in our little Human savior. Nawx is much more powerful than we've yet to see."

  Was this a memory, or was it the reality? It didn't feel real, and it didn't feel like a memory of her's. She felt a strong power in that room as the two men continued their talking. They kept talking about this Timeline, and how it's grown too corrupted. One of them kept begging the other to seal the whole Timeline, and not just the branch, but the other one refused. Who were they, and did they know what was coming in the future. How did they know about what a Nawx was?

  The sounds of her screaming slowly made their way into Nova's ears, as she seemed to slip back into reality. She must've been screaming for a long time, and loudly. Because her throat hurt, and she had tears falling from her cheeks. She could not talk, her voice was slowly withering away. She could hear something amiss inside her, something inside her mouth, like her vocal cords, had become malfunctioned. Either way, she still felt extremely dizzy. But she managed to get to the door at the end of the hallway.

  She quickly opened the door and it led outside. It was dark, but the hellfire lakes around the area lit up the area quite nicely. Dragging herself out of the door, she fell on the ground before calling for both Atreyu and Bastion, but her vocal cords made her voice dim out, to where she was only really moving her lips. She whispered quieter than a normal whisper. And as she started to get up, her body was electrocuted from what she believed was a major malfunction on her body's hard drive. She opened her mouth to let out a scream, but her voice gave out completely. After the shock to her body, she panted for air, but she couldn't deal with the pain, she closed her eyes and blacked out.

  Branch A Ending - Verse XVIII

  The End of Humanity

  Nova opened her eyes, as she could visually see a man in a robe in front of her. It looked like one of the men she had seen who were talking about this Timeline. He was staring outside a big window, just looking into the storm as it enraged outside. Only the sound of the raindrops hitting the window was heard. But it was hard, almost like it was hail, something Nova had never seen. She sat on a sofa and watched out the window as well with amazement, but her focus came back to her as she quickly stood off the sofa. The room literally screamed royalty, it all looked so ancient- with different objects that lie in the room looking like it came from a different time from the other. She looked in front of her, looking toward the man in concern for her own safety.

  The man pulled back his black hood, she could see his sort of long and spiky black hair. He turned to her, and she could notice that he had bright green eyes. She let down her guard, as she thought the man wasn't infected with the Ruse virus. He smiled at her as he approached her, but she backed up into the sofa, falling back into a sitting position once again.

  "No need to worry, Nova. You're in a safer domain." The man spoke calmly. "I am Xanadu, by the way."

  Nova's eyes narrowed as she stared at the man. She glanced right behind him as she could see some numbers flying through the air outside. The light the air gave, a dark purple coloring as the storm began to calm down.

  "Where am I?" Nova asked Xanadu.

  "I... Uh- can't tell you that." Xanadu confessed as he sat down on a sofa in front of her, looking to have begun relaxing.

  "Why?"

  "The world you were living in, it's basical
ly heading into a break. Which ultimately means it has no way of recovery."

  Nova tilted her head to the side, "What do you mean?"

  "It means it's ending. You know- the end of Humanity, the end of the living life. The end of the entire Timeline. That's why I convinced my boss to allow you into this world, so you don't need to worry anymore."

  Nova gasped and stood up from her seat, immediately alarming Xanadu.

  "No-... What about Atreyu, Bastion... And the others?" Nova shouted in distress.

  Xanadu looked down, "It's hopeless, Nova. Nothing can help now. I looked into the future, I know what's going to come of this branch."

  Nova shook her head furiously, "No! Send me back! I have to help them!"

  Xanadu frowned as he looked up at her, "You'd rather go back to a distorted world like that to help your friends than to finally live a peaceful life here? I know what you are. You are the key that can truly build a new Humanity, and I can build a new Timeline. Together we can create a new world ourselves!"

  Nova grunted painfully, as she looked at him. That's what she's wanted, and that's exactly what she was created to do. Create a new world, to house the souls that have been cursed into Kurutta Sekia. But she couldn't. She cared too much for the others. She felt terrible for even having to make a dramatic choice like this; Go with Xanadu and create a new world to save the trapped souls in Kurutta Sekia, the world of madness. Or go back to Kurutta Sekia and help Atreyu and Bastion. She felt weak, just as she looked back at Xanadu and spoke without thinking.

  "I want to go back." She spoke confidently.

  Xanadu sighed as he stepped out of his seat, not looking at her. He looked to have been disappointed.

  "He was right. You have a good heart, you know. And I can respect your choice. You're the only Nawx out there. This is a wasted opportunity." Xanadu spoke softly, with a hurt voice.

  But he turned toward the window again, as he somehow materialized a door made out of his crystallized power. The door on Nova's side was open, and it had a bunch of colors sparkling throughout the entry way. Nova glanced inside, but she looked back at Xanadu.

  "If you're going to face Drakkar, good luck. I'll be here watching." Xanadu said, with his more confident voice.

  He turned to her and gave her an assuring thumbs up, smiling. Nova looked confused for a moment at Xanadu's reaction. But the reassuring worked on her. She suddenly felt much better, she noticed. As if Xanadu helped her with her maintenance repairs. She felt completely new. She smiled back at him and nodded her head, as she would slowly step into the doorway that served as a portal.

  She saw herself floating, floating a realm of different colors. The floating numbers circled around her. As she looked into them, different scenes played, perhaps from a different time. She saw one that had blue skies and had clouds roaming through the peaceful skies. She wondered if that world had the guidance of Gods, something her world lacked. The people looked normal and happy. They gave off no distortion, no sense of chaos or darkness. The trees gave it a nice green scenery, the flowers bloomed in swarms and looked more colorful. It was a sight she could only image, as she reached her hand to it. But before she could make physical contact with the picture scene, the numbers flew away, as the numbers formed a pool of water falling downward. Nova looked at the numbers falling like a waterfall and screamed as she fell along with the waterfall of numbers. She glanced down, toward the end of the waterfall. The numbers seemed to form together and form an opening; a large circular opening that created a picture, but the picture begun to static every so often. But Nova was familiar with the imagery before it started to move and create a scene. She fell into the picture as a loud sound erupted in her ears.

  Nova eventually opened her eyes as the loud sound in her ears faded away. The area she appeared in was an open field, with the area locked away from anything else from a large, thin amount of hell fire, there was no way of getting away from the platform. She heard a rumble just behind her as a large clock tower over shaded her. When she saw the clock tower, a piercing pain hit her head once again, as she grabbed her head and shut her eyes. The sound of laughter was heard in front of her as Drakkar appeared before the clock tower. He was standing on Zephyr, his dragon as the two took on their darker forms and embraced their crimson red eyes. Drakkar's voice grew deeper the more he laughed like he had been possessed by the Ruse virus completely. He stopped laughing as he looked toward Nova- his mask that consumed half of his face was still completely white. But she noticed some red spots on it, like they were recent blood marks, as the blood marks dripped down his mask.

  "Where is Atreyu? And Bastion?" Nova asked, beginning to lash out at him.

  "Heh. The dragon got away from me, but your friend is within my grasp." Drakkar spoke, his lips that moved as he spoke were unseen behind his mask and the darkness that consumed the other side of his face.

  "Where!?"

  Drakkar grunted from his early frustration as he raised his hand upward and materialized a colorful orb in his hand. The orb showed an image, then cast a scene that showed Atreyu's head popping out of a dark cocoon-like structure. The cocoon was moving, in a motion that made it look like it had a heartbeat. It eventually glowed, showing a movement, that Nova assumed was the cocoon's heart.

  "W-What is that?" Nova asked, being frightened by the image within the orb.

  "It's the darkness of this world. After the cocoon hatches, it will consume Atreyu and he will be entwined with the darkness, creating a magnificent create who will be my slave." Drakkar explained as he opened his hand and materialized a dark blade In his hand. "Unless you think you can stop me before it can."

  Nova frowned as she pulled out her dual swords and charged toward him. He smirked under his mask as he jumped off Zephyr, allowing the dragon to fly up into the sky.

  "Zephyr, find and eliminate Bastion," Drakkar whispered as he watched Nova.

  Zephyr nodded his head while he was in the air. He flew high in the sky and quickly spotted Bastion with his dragon senses. Zephyr charged into Bastion, knocking him straight out of the air and into the clock tower just behind the scene where Nova and Drakkar began their fight. Nova grunted as she saw just behind Drakkar, Bastion's reaction to hitting the clock tower. The clock tower to a dramatic hit, forcing it to break in half. Some of the structure was falling on top of them. Drakkar kept his smirk on his face as he lifted his hand and grabbed one of the falling structures with an unseen force, then shoots it toward Nova. She watches as she uses her dual blades to create an x as a way to block it, but as she felt the pressure of the structure hit her blades, she forced the structure off her blades and right back into Drakkar. He gasped, shutting his eyes and letting the structure hit him quickly.

  It broke through him, but he only fell back on one of his knees, looking like he had been staggered from the sudden impact. Nova took this opportunity to dash to Drakkar quickly and slash him with her blades with a five-hit combo before Drakkar shot a dark wave around himself, shooting Nova back onto the ground.

  "You bitch! I knew you'd be this much trouble since I first laid eyes on you!" Drakkar shouted.

  Even his shouts had shot some dark waves down into Nova, as his voice grew even darker. He began to float up in the air as he seemed to somehow change the background of the area. They area changed into a familiarity of the Forgetful Forest. Nova was caught off guard as she was looking around, amazed by the new environment as she was struck by Drakkar. He pushed her into a tree, kicking off her body to gain some distance from her again. The damaged she had while she fell back against the tree were minimal, as she only had the pain of his powerful kick as he kicked off her, and the pain of the attack of his blade, which made a long cut on her cheek. She panted from the sudden pain as her hand made it's way up to the cut. She could feel the metallic machinery that laid under her skin, which made her believe that she was truly a machine once again.

  "You ain't got much time, Nova." Drakkar laughed in the deep and dark tone once again.


  Bastion grunted in pain as his head shook any of the structure pieces off of him, he was still laying under the destroyed ruins of the clock tower. He looked forward and saw the dark dragon flying just above him. Bastion roared louder, sending a wave of sound in the direction of Zephyr's way, but Zephyr had countered that with a roar of sound going Bastion's way. The two roars entwined and created a mass explosion. The land around them was covered in thick smoke. But as it faded away, the land was filled with nothing. Just an open field with the clock tower still standing high behind Bastion.

  "Zephyr, why have you given yourself into the human's suffering?" Bastion asked as he stood up, shaking his wings of any of the bits of the structure.

  Zephyr roared loudly as a response, but Bastion couldn't translate any sort of communication from it. The roar was just a battle cry. Bastion roared out a battle cry of his own as he flew up into Zephyr, lunging his wings into him. His wings were long enough to be used for melee attacks, especially since the end of them had grown large and sharp claws. The claws penetrated through Zephyr's dragon scales and created a large cut that permanently stained onto his scales. Zephyr roared as if it was a painful scream. He fell to the ground, but as he fell Bastion noticed the scar of his previous cut from Blaze, the powerful single slash on his soft spot. Bastion lifted his head and charged up a powerful beam within his mouth, one that created a circle around his open mouth that had symbols of light circling around as well. He quickly looked down and shot the beam down toward the soft spot of Zephyr, directly on his stomach. Zephyr quickly stood up and used his wing to block the powerful beam attack. But it proved to be a high risk, as the power of the beam cut his wing clean off. The dragon roared even loudly, as the pain looked to have been excruciating. But the dragon stood there, and a dark aura formed around the part where his wing was cut off. The darkness slid out of his open wound and slowly formed into a replacement wing. Zephyr flapped the wings slowly and grinned up at Bastion, who gasped as a response to the otherworldly power of regeneration.