Cykopath- Birth

by Luca Braña

  In less than thirty seconds, the 50 heavily-armed guards had been reduced to only a few alive either writhing in pain or unconscious. Cyko and Magy standing over the bodies of the dead guards startled many of the children, the dim lighting only making them appear more sinister, eyes glowing with power.

  The rebellion had begun.

  “Everyone, please calm down,” Tela declared mentally, sending a wave of reassurance through the crowd, comforting most of the scared children.

  “This is it, everyone. The moment we have been waiting for so long has finally arrived. Today, we fight for our freedom!” Tela declared loudly, everyone felt her determination and resolve.

  “I know many of you had given up, that you didn’t feel like fighting anymore, that the events of the last riot had broken our spirits. When they started treating us better, no longer forcibly taking us to be tortured and experimented on like animals, many of us thought this would be the best ‘freedom’ we could get, that we shouldn’t worry anymore because we were no longer treated like trash... But don’t allow yourselves to forget the monsters they truly are and what they’ve done to us! We don’t want to be here, we want to be free! We won’t accept their lies!” the leader declared, outrage and determination mixing to form the resolve she had, since the beginning, to help free everyone.

  The children cheered, roaring with their own growing determination to be free from their prison. It was now or never, to be free or to be confined, those were their only choices.

  “Now… We’ll fight together as one!” Tela’s eyes were glowing with power. As soon as her words entered their heads, they felt something click.

  Suddenly, they could feel one another. They were all attached by Tela’s tendrils.

  “Guards approaching, 70 armed and 10 mages!” Tela informed them, causing everyone to turn towards the south gate almost as one.

  Cyko and Magy quickly cut down the first guards who had positioned themselves nearest the door.

  “We will go first and clear the elevator!” the enhancer shouted before dashing inside the dark corridor alongside his roommate. Tela sent a mental nod towards him, knowing they would find their way thanks to her network and the mental map she had made for them. Soon enough, terrified screams of pain and death echoed through the open door.

  “Everyone, let’s go!” she commanded as they charged the large corridor as one, using Tela’s mental instructions to create a formation where those with defensive abilities would stay in front, paving the way for those behind to attack with impunity.

  This was the first step of her plan. Thanks to the aftermath of the battle with Drago, she had deduced that every area in the facility could isolate itself. It had been an interesting and worrying thought, knowing she could use it against the staff or they could use it against them, but she never really thought it could work until Reddox and Ellyn brought it up.

  They had offered to use their unique abilities to help as much as they could and while Ellyn’s powers over wind weren’t that rare, her unique ability of being able to talk with the wind allowed her to eavesdrop on many conversations between the guards and scientists, some of which talked about the security system they had in place, confirming that every area of the facility could be isolated in case an emergency were to happen. Reddox said he could do anything as long as he had enough time, and that was something they now have plenty of, since the staff had pacified them.

  Reddox was classified as the single, most powerful child amongst them, so he had made use of his divination powers. He mapped out where every panel that activated and deactivated the isolation was by using Tela’s map. Unfortunately, he could only use divination if the map already existed, and he refused to use the darker rituals in his grimoires to make a map of the whole facility.

  That had been enough, however, as the next part involved secretly placing the magical sigils that would activate the isolation the moment Tela gave the order. This had taken much longer, as it had been hard to sneak children across the places for the magic to work. The two floors that Tela had mapped were now fully under her control.

  “Tela, we have arrived,” Reddox claimed as he vaporized the last guard who tried to sneak up on them, causing the redhead to nod and look at the elevator, its large doors opened just like she wanted them to.

  “There were guards panicking inside, but we took care of it,” Cyko, who had been standing inside the elevator, said with a large grin, directed towards the fallen guards.

  “All right everyone, the elevator is still working, but we can’t all ride it at the same time. We’ll need to do it in small groups. There are guards right outside the door above, however, so the first people to go need to take care of them and hold position until everyone is here,” Tela explained, inwardly feeling thankful that if everything went well, the planned route she had in mind would see little combat. Sure, it may or may not condemn the mutants she left behind for a life of slavery and maybe even starvation if they were forgotten about here… But the life of innocents far outweighed the costs.

  “Let us go ahead. Me and Cyko can soften them up,” Magy said out loud, her pristine scythe seemed to glint in anticipation, while Cyko’s grin widened.

  Tela would stay behind, opting to go last just in case more soldiers arrived. Reddox’s sigil should have also destroyed the isolation switches, preventing the spell from being lifted, but it never hurt to be careful.

  “We’ll go as well!” Ellyn exclaimed, dragging an exasperated Reddox with her, a large grin on her own face. “You guys got most of them, leave some for the rest of us!”

  Reddox sighed at his friend. “What this airhead means is that all help is good. You two need long-range cover and defense, we can provide that.” He stepped into the elevator alongside his friend.

  “Don’t forget about us, little brother,” his oldest brother, Henry, said as he approached, followed by the rest of his family.

  “You may be psycho now, but you are our psycho!” Anna said with a grin, raising her cannon-arm in emphasis. She was quickly followed by agreements and assurances from the others, even little Starry was pumped up, although she avoided looking at any blood directly.

  A few others also got into the elevator, until it was full, but not uncomfortably so. They were supposed to be the vanguard.

  “Good luck everyone,” Tela thought to them, her eyes following the elevator as it climbed. The fight had just begun.

  As the elevator rose, Reddox took a moment to approach Cyko, who was looking up at the approaching door with anticipation.

  “I can feel the power of magic in you,” the redhead blurted, to which Cyko blinked and looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Ever since you changed, there is this new energy inside you. I think you are just like me, in a way.”

  “What? Why are you being all mysterious? Now, of all times?” Cyko chuckled, before turning back to await their arrival. “So, I’m just like you, huh?”

  Reddox opened his mouth to respond but frowned as he noticed that the door wasn’t open.

  “That might be a problem. Scythe says the walls and doors are all heavily fortified with defensive spells,” Magy offered, her red eyes glowing in the emergency lights as she tried to analyze the door.

  Cyko mentally informed Tela of the situation. Almost immediately, they all received a buzz of confusion over the matter.

  “But... How? I can still feel the guards outside, but… Oh. The airshafts are open, maybe it’s a design mistake? Reddox, do you think you can erase that door?”

  “Hmm… No, it wasn’t the sealing field, it seems the doors were closed manually. They must have heard the commotion below,” Reddox reported, his glowing hands casting a red shine around the children present as he analyzed the reinforced door in front of them. “However, just like all doors of its make, it’s filled to the brim with reinforcement and warding seals.”

  “This is bad,” Tela admitted, her feelings of worry leaking through to those in the elevator, heightening their anxiety. “T
hose doors are just as hard as the walls—protected with hundreds of strengthening wards and spells. It would take a massive amount of power to even dent it,” she explained, knowing that by the time they broke through it, it could be too late.

  “Everyone step back!” Cyko yelled as the holo blade in his right arm glowed brightly. Cyko moved forward with a yell, the blue streak of his weapon casting a now cyan glow around them all. With a sound of crushing metal, a large, deep gash formed in the gate.

  “Huh, so it really is strong,” Cyko commented with a frown.

  Reddox, however, was of a different opinion. His hands glowed red as he approached the gate to analyze it once again. “As I thought.”

  “The spells and wards in this door—and everywhere else, from what I can see—have deteriorated. It’s like they got corroded from old age and lack of repair. It should’ve taken at least a thousand years for spells of this quality to arrive at this level of disrepair. What makes this even stranger is that they look fine at first glance...” Reddox trailed off.

  “But…. But how is that possible?” Tela asked, perplexed.

  “Deteriorated, huh?” Cyko whispered under his breath. The image of his little brother, Myo, in his last moments, glowing with the drive and desire to live and be free, fighting with all his might. He shook his head. Now was not the time, besides… It couldn’t be, could it?

  “Then I’ll annihilate it completely!” Cyko’s arms moved in a flash and then, with each streak of blue another deep gash appeared in the gate.

  Just as the door was about to fall, Cyko stopped and charged at it, body glowing with the power of his enhancement as he kicked it, finally breaking it down and sending the large piece of reinforced metal flying. He grinned as he heard yells of pain as the gate flew, landing fifteen meters from the entrance.

  The guards that evaded the flying gate instantly open fired upon the group. Several of them cursed when the bullets stopped in midair thanks to a red, glowing magical barrier that appeared in place of the gate. Cyko turned towards Reddox, whose hand was glowing in power.

  “We need to clear them out so the elevator can work,” the mage commented, causing the enhancer to smirk.

  “You don’t have to tell me twice!” Cyko jumped out of the barrier, his enhancement making the bullets seem as if they were moving in slow motion. Before the guards even noticed it, three of their colleagues had fallen, the holo blades cutting through their armor like butter.

  “Ah, so impatient,” Magy scoffed, feeling shivers run down her spine as the guards screamed. “Leave some for me, dear friend!”

  The guards panicked due to their rapid decrease in numbers, and those who remained in the elevator moved down the corridor. As the children gradually spread out, more fights ensued.

  Cyko and Magy however, soon found how fun it was to hunt down the scientists.

  “Dang it, dang it, DANG IT! I didn’t sign up for this!” a scientist who was walking back to his quarters for a well-deserved rest, screamed in terror as he desperately tried to open the lab doors, knowing the isolation protocol would keep him safe, but to his dismay, it was already in place, working against him.

  “Oh my, who said you could run away?”

  Whimpering, the scientist looked down, eyes widening at the sight of two, large, pinkish blades piercing his knees. The pain was very much real, yet the man noticed how it didn’t seem to damage the fabric of his pants or spill blood.

  “Ah... Aaaarrrghhh!”

  “I remember you. You were the one who usually put me through the worst of the ‘experiments,’ as you called them.” The girl made air quotes and sneered. Magy’s form seemed to glow in the emergency lights, the darkness only enhancing the effect that her glowing eyes had on him. “Oh, are you crying? Are you begging for mercy? Scythe tells me I should give you exactly what you gave me, no mercy at all,” she said in a sinister voice, giggling as the man tried to crawl away from her. She might like this much more than pain.

  As the doomed scientist’s wails of anguish echoed down the corridors of the second floor, Cyko was having a much different sort of fun. He had gone down one hall in Tela’s mental map, which had been full of guards, intent on clearing them out and had found, to his surprise, that they were protecting a small group of scientists who were attempting to evacuate.

  “He is tearing us ap-gah!” a nameless guard yelled in desperation, just before Cyko cut him down, effortlessly dancing between their bullets.

  “S-stay away, you monster!” one scientist snapped, his terror and fear leading him to pick up one of the fallen weapons and aim at Cyko, who smirked. The corpses of the fallen guards surrounding him and the dim lights made him even more sinister-looking to the cowering scientists. “S-STAY AWAY!” He shakily pointed the weapon at the enhancer, who continued grinning and didn’t slow his pace.

  The man closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The loud bang echoed around the corridor, the bullet ricocheting around and the weapon flying out of the man’s hands, clattering on the floor. Opening his eyes again, he froze, the child standing right in front of him.

  “Here is a lesson. Learn how to use a gun beforehand, idiot,” Cyko said with a smirk before plunging his holo blade into his stomach. Chuckling, Cyko let the man fall to the ground to bleed out, turning his gaze toward the other scientists.

  “Well then. I’ve been waiting ages for this moment.”

  They had been following Tela’s advice closely; she had told them before about the number of guards present on the second floor, around 300 with only 30 in the labs. She had informed them that the security on this floor was much higher, and since the corridors didn’t isolate themselves like the wards of the first floor, combat was expected, but as long as they had the element of surprise, they could triumph.

  Already, both Cyko and Magy had taken care of over a hundred guards, plus over twenty scientists. If they wanted to eliminate more, they would have to keep searching for them, but they needed to secure an elevator to access the next floor. Tela’s plan was to get out to freedom rather than fight to the bitter end. Still, it would take time before everyone moved up from the elevator.

  “Hey, Tela! Me and Magy will head to the elevator closest to us! Do you think you can ask a few guys to watch over the path we cleared?” Cyko asked, directing his thoughts towards his friend, knowing she would have marked the path he and Magy rampaged through. Soon enough he received a confirmation from her.

  “All right but be careful. That corridor is suspiciously deserted,” Tela cautioned, knowing full well that some mages could block her tendrils with personal barriers.

  “Don’t worry, Tela, we got this.” Cyko tried to channel his confidence to her. So far, they hadn’t come across anything that could stop them and if they kept up like this, they had a real possibility of escaping.

  It was a weird but not unwelcome sensation, being connected all together. It felt like they were one, in a way. He knew exactly how many guards were left: 125 and dropping. The brown dots on the mental map marked the scientists, many of which were rounded up in one corner and slowly disappearing, mostly at the hands of the mutants who were on their side.

  The map itself could be seen on the upper left corner of their vision, always in perfect focus. Cyko compared it to a video game interface, which also informed him of the condition of his allies.

  “Hmm, no one’s coming. That is suspicious. Scythe says they might be planning something or have already gone,” Magy reasoned, a frown on her face. She had come to enjoy reaping the life of the sinful.

  “Well, if there is no one ahead, that will make it easier for u-!” Cyko stopped in his tracks as they turned the corner that led to the elevator. At the other end of the hallway, standing in front of the large elevator, was a huge mutant, whose body was like a humanoid octopus with eight tentacle-like arms with heavy infantry weapons in all of them. In front of him was a group of fifteen mages, ten wearing the normal uniform for magical guards and five wearing scientist clothes, ide
ntifying them as magical researchers.

  Alongside the mages was a squad of guards with their weapons, pointing them straight at Cyko and Magy

  “Grrr…” the aquatic roar of the mutant ran through the corridor, before he opened fire. The guards joined in immediately.

  Cyko grabbed Magy and launched back around the corner, barely avoiding the bluish streaks that left mini craters in the wall where they had been.

  “Tela, we found the mages. They teamed up with a mutant, the one that looks like an octopus.” He tried to peek around the wall to observe his enemies, but immediately retreated to avoid more bullets. “They are trying to keep us pinned with heavy fire, bullets that can hurt us somehow. Those are coming from the squid.”

  “This is bad, one mutant must have stayed out of the training labs. They must have worked together with the mages to block my mental scans once the isolation went into effect,” Tela reasoned, figuring that the guards from the upper floors would have more time to set up a proper defense. “That mutant should be Octo, a loyalist. His ability is to enhance weapons he holds and make them deadlier, such as the weapons of the guards he is likely holding onto. Stay there, I’ll send reinforcements.”

  “Of course his name is Octo… Nah, don’t worry, I got this. You should have the others focus on keeping the road safe,” Cyko said out loud, causing Magy to turn towards him with a raised eyebrow.

  “If you believe you can defeat them, I won’t stop you, but I’ll send help if I sense you are in trouble, all right?” the telepath said.

  “I thought we would actually have to go through without a serious fight. At least now I can warm up a little.” The enhancer grinned as his body glowed with his power.

  “Well then, dear friend, don’t let me stop you,” Magy said, stepping out of his way.

  Cyko decided to test the waters first by making a projection of himself and ordering it to charge down the hallway. Almost as soon as it appeared, the bullets fired and despite the clone’s own agility and reaction time it was destroyed in just a few seconds. Smirking, Cyko decided to just charge in by using his own clones as decoys.