Nawx (Project IzeBorn Book 1)

by Andrew Jones

  "Have any idea what those are, Kryptonite?" Nova asked.

  Kryptonite nodded his head, "Those are called clouds. That's where the Heavens reside."

  Blaze gasped as she stared up at the clouds, "All of them? You mean the Heavens are all of those cloudy puff balls in the sky?"

  "Our world had no God, which means that there was no Heavens- resulting in no clouds. The clouds are made to protect the world's darkness and corruption from contaminating the Heavens. Clouds are made of the people's desires and beliefs. I mean, we are in Humanity's heart, so this shouldn't be surprising." Kryptonite explains.

  Nova blinked as she watched Kryptonite explain, looking back at the clouds afterward, "You think that's where the light resides?"

  Kryptonite nodded his head, "Most likely. I wager that the God of this world is the light representation."

  "Wait!" Blaze shouted at Kryptonite, "So, we'd have to kill a God?"

  "I don't know. Like I said, this is Humanity's heart so this so-called God could only be within their imaginations. You know, their desires for a God."

  Blaze grunted, "But still... Are we going to be responsible for disrupting the balance of this world? This place is full of enlightenment. How would we be different than Drakkar or Conrad if we go disrupting all of this? Even if this isn't real, our actions will take a toll on Humanity...."

  Nova sighed and placed her hand on Blaze's shoulder, "We have to do this. I-... We have to kill, or, purify the Humans and machines of our world. It's what I have to do, anyways."

  "You're right..." Blaze sighed as well as she answered in a wispy voice.

  Nova nodded her head as she looked back up at the clouds. They were so high up, like the distance between them was so great that it would be impossible to reach a height like that with anything.

  "Ugh, now to find a way up there..." Nova whispered in a frustrated tone of voice.

  Kryptonite shook his head as he shoved his paw in his pocket and begun shuffling through. Both Nova and Blaze tilted their heads in confusion as they heard the many things that were rambling on in his pockets. It sounded like objects were being broken, moved around, activated, but he was soon able to grasp onto something that caught his interest. His button eyes shot up as he tried to retract his paw. It took great strength, but he was able to pull out his flying contraption. Nova and Blaze stare at the contraption with awe, but they were sure it wouldn't help their situation at all. It was small, nevertheless, as it was basically just an inflated mattress with tons of blown up balloons attached to the sides.

  Kryptonite looked at both of the girls with a sly grin, he looked like he was quite proud of his idea. But it wasn't long until Blaze pulled out her spear and threw it at the balloons, popping all of them as it passed by them and stabbed into the green grass on the other side.

  "W-What the hell, Blaze!?" Kryptonite shouted as he watched the remains of the broken balloons fall to the ground.

  Blaze walked slowly to retrieve her spear from the grass, "What a stupid idea. You think a place like the Heavens would let anyone penetrate inside like that? Hell, if that was possible than the Heavens would be a great tourist spot..."

  "... That actually makes a lot of sense." Kryptonite crossed his paws and sighed as he looked down and shut his button eyes.

  Nova turned away from them and looked up at the Heavens. She had been feeling an odd sensation in her heart from the moment they spotted the clouds. She closed her eyes and held onto her chest.

  "Is this my light?" She whispered to herself, "Xanadu said that my light would guide me, maybe this is what he meant."

  She held onto her chest tightly and took a deep breath until the sensation in her heart released. She opened her eyes and watched as her body had lit up. The light that surrounded her flew up toward the Heavens and constructed into a long set of glowing stairs, the stairs had glowed the same turquoise color her dual blades shined, which meant the light was truly connected to her. The light shined brightly at Blaze and Kryptonite, so bright they had to cover their eyes until the light dimmed, but there was a guideway toward the Heavens now.

  "What was that?" Blaze asked as she pressed her foot onto one of the steps, to see if the steps were indeed real.

  "My... Light..." Nova whispered as she looked down at the palm of her hand which glowed the same light she had seen in front of her.

  Kryptonite chuckled, "Huh, that's amazing, Nova! Now we have a way up to the Heavens."

  Nova nodded as she begun walking up the stairs. But she felt Blaze grab Kryptonite and rush past her. As she passed by, Blaze grabbed onto Nova's hand and forced her to hurry up the stairs.

  "H-Hey! I'm gonna end up falling!" Nova shouted as she tried to prevent tripping on the stairs.

  Blaze laughed as she ran faster up the stairs, "We don't have time to just walk up these stairs!"

  Kryptonite looked back down the stairs and his button eyes widened as he saw the stairs shattering into little bits of light that would disappear. The shattering of the light made it's way up the stairs toward Blaze, Nova, and Kryptonite quite fast.

  "Jokes aside, we have to hurry! The stairs are disappearing right behind us!" Kryptonite yelled.

  Blaze looked back as she kept her running pace, witnessing the shattering of the light, "S-Shit!"

  She dashed faster up the stairs to the point where Nova was floating over the stairs like the passing winds were carrying her alongside Blaze. The entrance of the Heavens was within grasp, but Blaze could feel her footing was off because the shattering light had caught up to her. She grunted and tossed both Nova and Kryptonite onto the platform of the Heavens, jumping across afterward as the stairs disappeared.

  She rolled onto the platform and laid down on her stomach with her face on the ground, panting heavily. Nova sat up and rubbed the top of her head as she looked aside at Blaze and Kryptonite.

  "Everyone okay?" Nova asked.

  Kryptonite nodded his head as he stood up, "I'm a-okay! Aside from being tossed across a shattering staircase, of course."

  Blaze scowled as her face was still on the ground, but as she caught her breath she looked up and observed the area.

  "This is the Heavens, huh?" Blaze asked as she stood up.

  It looked like they were in a courtyard, a courtyard that was surrounded by beautiful grass life. There was a giant golden gate just behind them, which led directly to a large building. But as Blaze tried to push and pull the gate open, it wouldn't move or open at all.

  "This is only one island that makes up the Heavens. But judging by how big this building is, I'm guessing this island is an important one." Kryptonite explained.

  Nova looked up at the gate and saw a small gap between the top of the golden gates and the ceiling. So she grabbed Kryptonite by his back and threw him up toward the gap.

  "H-Hey! I'm not a toy!" Kryptonite shouted as he was successfully able to cross past the opening gap to the other side.

  "Heh, nice toss." Blaze laughed, "Bear, try finding a way to open it from that side!"

  Kryptonite mocked her as he looked around for some kind of button, "Try finding a way to open it from that side..." He whispered in a frustrated tone of voice until he found a red button being hidden behind some bushes, "Oh! I might have found it!"

  Kryptonite jumped onto a small tree and climbed across a branch that had sprouted toward the direction of the red button. He reached his small paw toward the red button, letting out a small grunt as the pain of stretching his paw so far came into effect. But as he shut his button eyes, he could feel his paw press on the button, it took some effort to actually press the button though.

  Loudness sounded, but the golden gates still didn't move. Blaze grunted in frustration but just before she would use her battle axe to try to break through the golden gates, some walls had opened. Nova and Blaze looked at the three walls that arisen, noticing the Synths that had been standing behind the walls armed with big blaster guns and swords. Blaze grunted as she looked toward the Synths.

>   "Wrong button, bear. Find the right one, quick!" Blaze shouted as she dashed forward at the Synths of one of the rooms.

  Kryptonite gasped as he fell off the branch. He grumbled, but as his vision came back to him after hitting the ground on his head first, he noticed several different red buttons.

  "There's more than one button! I don't know which one to pick!" Kryptonite shouted.

  Nova sighed as she blocked an attack from a Synth, "J-Just press them all!"

  Kryptonite panted as he jumped up and pressed all of the buttons that he could. Lots of noise then erupted, so much noise Blaze and Nova had to cover their ears. To Blaze, however, the noise seemed to affect her in an odd way. She screamed and fell to the ground as did the other Synths. Nova frowned and stood around watching all of the Synths and Blaze scream before looking over at Kryptonite.

  "Shut it off!" Nova screamed at him.

  Kryptonite panicked as he began pressing random switches again, "I can't! I'm must be some kind of malfunction! Or an overdrive!"

  Nova gasped as she knelt down next to Blaze and held her hands over Blaze's to help her cover up some of the noise that was affecting her. But as she did so, she looked ahead and watched as the Synths stood up straight again. Their eyes changed into a red color as they were able to withstand the pain of the noise. They marched forward toward the two girls, so Nova was forced to stand up and fight against the Synths. She slashed each of them as fast as she could so she could go back to helping Blaze but they would keep trying to get up and attack, no matter the damage Nova would inflict on them they would always withstand it. Even when Nova charged forward at one of the Synths and stabbed one of her blades into its face, it would stand up and fire with its face being extremely damaged.

  "How are these Synths functioning while being this badly damaged!?" Nova asked as she stabbed another Synth in the chest, "Just die already!"

  Nova quickly became tired, she fell down to her knees as the Synths approached her. They all were badly injured, and they looked like they had been butchered- even some of them looked like they had body parts dismembered, but they all still fought like they were being controlled. One of the Synths held its arm up with a sword in its hand and prepared to attack, but all of them finally stopped just as Nova quickly dove into Blaze and held her ears shut, noticing the Synths had stopped.

  Someone had snapped their fingers to make the noise disappear. It had gone silent all of a sudden which quickly made Nova cautious as she heard the sounds of footsteps behind her. She turned back and saw a familiar woman, a woman that looked like Lilith. She had all the same body features, except her hair had been changed into a golden blonde color and her eyes changed into a bright blue color. She approached them slowly as she held her hands together behind her. The sounds of her footsteps echoed loudly in the room, even Kryptonite watched through the bars of the golden gates that separated them.

  "L-Lilith? What are you doing here?" Nova asked as she was still sitting down behind Blaze, holding onto her softly.

  She shook her head, "My name is Ciphereverie. I am the Goddess that protects this world. But you may still refer me to as Lilith if you please" Ciphereverie answered as she stopped before them.

  Blaze was still shaking from the pain, but she slowly looked up at the Goddess who stood before them, "L-Lilith... You always told me you would end up being a God..."

  Lilith laughed, "I am surprised that you two have made it thus far, however."

  Lilith turned back away from them and looked down.

  "Lilith, aren't you dead though?" Blaze asked as she tried to stand up.

  She shook her head, "That Lilith was a fake this whole time. The true me was a Goddess this whole time. I just had another created to satisfy the beings within your world. I am the Goddess of desire after all."

  Nova tilted her head, "So you're not a Synth?"

  "Nope. But because I created my Synth clone, I was able to control the machines and Synths and make them think of me as their Goddess. However, my Synth clone fell into the world's corruption and developed emotions. I had done this in a personal manner as well."

  "Personal manner?" Blaze asked.

  "Yes. I wanted to study the Humans as well. I've learned a great lot, but I saw that Humans were only mere fools. Fools who were driven by the desire to hope for a more fulfilling life. I underestimated them. And they've somehow taken a toll on me." Lilith giggled as she turned back to them, "It is funny, a Goddess who has been influenced by Humanity. Even though I don't know you personally, Blaze and Nova, seeing you two interacting with my clone in the past has driven me. I've begun asking questions, questions Gods like myself should not be asking- Why do Humans live? Why do Humans have emotion? And I somehow came up with the conclusion that Humans can possibly be as powerful as Gods, perhaps even more powerful. They may not look it physically, but their biggest flaw is their best quality. If you have the hope to change your life, then go for it."

  Blaze looked down and wiped a tear from her eye, "That's amazing..."

  "I know why you are here. You are here to destroy the light within the people's hearts. And for you to do that, you must kill me." Lilith confesses with a straight face, but her face was somehow showing an overwhelming amount of emotion behind that straight face of her's. "But I must tell you that there are two different parts of this light you must destroy."

  Lilith reaches her hand out toward the golden gates and opens them with an unseen magic force. She looks back at Nova and Blaze as if she was wanting them to follow them. Blaze quickly began following them as Nova thought for a moment, about the two different parts of the light. She was wondering what she was directing them toward. She took in a deep breath and exhaled as she began following them. She stopped and looked down at Kryptonite who had held his paws up at her, wanting her to pick him up. She did, and she placed him on her shoulder.

  "I have a bad feeling about this, Nova," Kryptonite whispered.

  Nova looked up ahead and spoke before beginning to follow them, "Me too."

  Lilith led them inside the building where it only had one huge room inside. It was dark, but there was some kind of device in the room that gave light to the room. It was a vault, like the ones that were inside Drenawx's laboratory. It looked like there was somebody inside, but the smoke that hid the imagine blocked the picture. Lilith stepped to the side of the vault and stared at Blaze as she would look up at the vault.

  "Who is inside?" Blaze asked as she looked up inside and placed her hand on the glass door.

  Lilith smiled softly, "Who is the being that has enlightened your heart?"

  Blaze gasped as she stared up and narrowed her eyes to get a clearer picture, but the smoke inside the vault was too thick for her to see through it.

  "I-It can't be..." She whispered in hesitation as her heart began to beat heavily and with great speed.

  Verse XX

  Memoirs of a Loved One

  Blaze blinked, and as she opened her eyes again she had been taken to another world. It was a beautiful world that had her surrounded by large and prosperous trees. The leaves looked so elegant as if they were never touched as they bloomed from the tree's branch. The sky lit brightly above her, so brightly she was unable to see completely. Though in front of her, she noticed she had been standing in a pond with a waterfall overshadowing. The pond was so mellow, but she found it strange that she wasn't being killed by the water since she was made of machinery. She laid her hand into the water and felt the soft nothingness of the water as it poured from all sides of her palm. But the water instantly shot forward into the falling water within the waterfall. She crept up to the waterfall, looking deeply inside as an image came forth.

  The image was herself, her reflection. She looked at her reflection and saw how damaged she had become physically. Her black dress had become ripped at some spots, some of her skin had been torn off to reveal the silver machine shell underneath and she had dirt marks from her time of sleeping outdoors. She remembered the time when she wa
s alone before she had Kryptonite, Amaya, Jet, and Nova. The time when she had helped all the machines escape from Drenawx's laboratory.

  Many machines died as they tried to adjust to the outside world, and they would often complain to Blaze about how Drenawx was right about him protecting them and knowing best. He probably did, Blaze thought, she later admitted that she escaped from the laboratory because of the assumed death of Augur. She was never the same after that day, and often she would feel these odd feelings. Whenever she would try to explain what those feelings were to Amaya and Jet, they told her that she might have become traumatized by that event. They were probably right because Blaze always found herself crying or trying to get herself into predicaments that would leave her dead, rotting in the world they lived in.

  She reached toward the waterfall and touched it. She felt nothing like the waterfall was only of an illusion. But her reflection soon faded from her vision and she then saw herself dead on the ground. She gasped as she saw herself covered in blood, and her machine parts thrown about everywhere around her. She was literally dismantled, torn to bits by something. But as the picture began to zoom out she saw a horde of machines. The machines that she had helped escape from the laboratory. The ones she had to leave for dead in the outside world.

  She looked down at the palm of her hands as she saw them begin to shake. She began to wonder if what she had seen- or believed in was actually reality. Had she become corrupted and seen the visions of lies that were used to twist her life and the reality of the others that had revolved around her? Her emotions were known for being somewhat unique by Drenawx and Augur, unique enough for her to undergo a series of tests that would experiment why she had these sorts of emotions and the other machines and Synths did not. She remembered what Lilith had said recently, how emotions could be the Human flaw. Maybe this whole time Blaze was corrupted while the other machines were not. Maybe that could explain why she had an overbearing amount of emotion compared to everyone else.