Cykopath- Birth

by Luca Braña

  Reddox had also stepped forward, followed by Cyko, Magy, Ellyn, and several other shapeshifters, enhancers, and spiritual and elemental users.

  Reddox said he could make an illusion spell to make it seem as if the ice was still in place when it had already been taken care of. It would make them invisible, but chances are the staff would find them out before long. Therefore, their aim would be to spread out to confuse the turrets. After they took the main cannons, the rest would follow them into the desert, and they would make their way past the fortress, once and for all.

  After taking a minute to pray for the souls of their dead friends, they climbed aboard an artificial elevator made by several earth-aligned children, who would remain behind to maintain it until everyone had left. Tela wanted to lead the group this time, she refused to stay safe while her friends and allies would risk their lives.

  Sara, who had volunteered to undo the ice, looked at Reddox, nodding at him to signal she was ready to start working through it. Silently, the mage raised his hands and touched the ice above him, muttering. After a minute, he dropped his arms and looked at Sara.

  “The illusion is in place; it will only affect those outside the room.”

  Sara touched the ice above them. After only a few seconds, the ice turned into a fine mist and disappeared, turning into moisture in the air.

  “Everyone prepare to move. Please, please, don’t do anything rash. This will be a very dangerous fight,” the telepath spoke as the elevator finished climbing the last few meters, giving them a perfect view of the large desert and the fortress. It was a scary sight. She turned back towards Sara and the three who had been controlling the elevator. “The moment we jump out, drop the elevator and don’t come back until I’ve given the signal.”

  “Cyko!” Sara blurted out, causing her brother to turn towards her with a raised eyebrow. She sighed shakily, before looking at her little brother in the eye. “No matter what happens, survive, please.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t let them stop me, I’ll show them the monster they created!” her brother said with a confident smile.

  “GO!” their leader commanded, and as one, the children jumped out of the elevator as it dropped away to safety.

  As everyone spread themselves over the large desert, Agatha remained in front, knowing what her goal was. As the turrets turned away from the center to focus on one group of children, she breathed out. It was time to avenge her friends and all those that had died.

  As she willed her power to work, she wondered about the irony of this very moment—using the powers they gave her, against them.

  Metallic armor spread over her body, granting her protective boots, clawed hands, and a horned helmet. Over her cannons, manifesting from a shield plate on her back, another set of turrets appeared, five total with four barrels each, accompanied by three large missile platforms. This was her first time fully revealing the ultimate power of a battleship.

  A little girl with the abilities of a destructive vessel versus a kilometer-long fortress of war, who would win? When she finished charging up, she focused her sights on the center most enemy turret which was glowing with magical power and ready to fire a devastating electrical beam across the desert.

  She ignored all other targets, the automatic machine guns that popped from the earth, the robots that appeared from the sides… She needed to get all her weapons ready and at maximum potential to take that magical turret down.

  If she didn’t fire fast enough, she would be wounded. Expecting the giant turrets to fire at any moment, she put her metallic gauntlets in front of her body to defend herself… But nothing came. Blinking, she looked back at the fortress to find that the normal turrets were still locked on her, but the magical one had stopped glowing. A technical failure?

  She fired immediately and her form was soon covered in smoke as all of her weapons discharged at once. Main turrets, secondary turrets, tertiary turrets, machine guns, and missile platforms. Her entire barrage fired off all at once, the noise deafening all other combat on the floor, and when the earth shook, she smiled, knowing she had struck true.

  Not wasting time, she willed all of her weapons to reload as she turned them towards the next turret. As the smoke cleared, Agatha noticed with satisfaction that the elemental turret was wrecked and while not fully destroyed, all of its barrels and some of its external armor had been irreversibly damaged.

  5

  Somewhere on the first level of the facility, a figure stood in the empty administrative room, darkness surrounding it. A tablet glowed, showing the blueprints for the first three floors of the facility.

  When the alarm echoed, all workers panicked. During their training, they had been informed that if the red alarm, which meant catastrophe, was ever to sound, they were to evacuate the facility immediately. Their boss, Mr. Whale, was the first to evacuate, ordering everyone to abandon what they were doing and escape.

  His secretary had also been ordered to retreat, just like the others, but she made an excuse about being busy with critical work. Supported by a healthy dose of suggestion magic, she convinced her boss she already evacuated with the others. The wonders of high-level hypnosis.

  Still, thanks to this crisis, Ms. Allure finally discovered what, exactly, this company was planning with all their secrecy. Even if they tried to cover it up, it was easy to notice that they invested several billion into something that they refused to reveal. Just as shady was the sudden disappearance of a very large part of the Neon Lunatics, both in manpower and in technology. Conspiracy theorists on the internet were going crazy assuming the GACHA Conglomerate had finally conquered the world with the power it had in its hands, wondering whether the Creator would stop them if they tried.

  The truth needed to be discovered, which was why she was here. She needed to investigate whether the rumors of an anti-Creator super weapon being developed were true or not. Frustratingly, the security was heavy. She couldn’t just infiltrate the building like she normally would, but thanks to this crisis, she now had the perfect opportunity to investigate the facility.

  However, as she arrived at the third level, her hopes were dashed. It was sealed, and while not a single soldier was in sight, the gate was too thick and too heavily fortified with magic. She tried to blast at it several times with her dark energy, but only bent it slightly. If she used everything she had, she may break through it, but it would make them aware of yet another thing gone wrong. Thankfully, she had disabled all the cameras before attempting to break the door down.

  Sighing in frustration, she explored more of this side of the third level, following a set of stairs that went downwards. Walking as fast as she could, the woman paused as her eyes came across what had been hidden deep down in her side of the facility. A large power plant.

  “Well now, this is interesting,” the disguised secretary said. Usually a power plant meant nothing, but the way this one was made, it meant that some heavy use of energy was being used. Chances are, this power plant was the source of the energy for the entire facility. Maybe if she… turned it off, things would be easier for her.

  “Well, time to get to work,” the spy said to herself, pointing a hand towards the power plant, where a large sphere of darkness formed. Sabotage was always a great method of gaining information after all.

  6

  “UGH!” the commander of the mercenaries shouted as the bridge shook, all the windows breaking. Near him, Dr. Gacha had taken hold of a support to stay upright, his hissing daughter more preoccupied in keeping him stable than doing the same.

  “DAMAGE REPORT!” the mercenary leader bellowed in a rage.

  “Structural integrity at 90 percent! Magical turret is damaged beyond operation, attempting repairs! Reports show a sudden blackout from the power plant caused a loss of energy to the main guns! Backup power is now online!” an operator responded urgently, just as several more explosions shook the building. “The subjects are now redirecting attacks towards the fortress! Structural damage at 0.
1 percent with each attack!”

  “Curse it all! Concentrate fire on that blasted ship! Attack now! Make use of those anti-aircraft guns and fire at anyone approaching! Order the snipers and heavy weapons to be prepared! Deploy the tanks, the helicopters! I want everything we have in motion!”

  Watching as the battle progressed increasingly in favor of the rebels, Dr. Gacha’s face shifted ever so slightly as he clenched Shiro closer to him. They could still win, it would be costly, but there was hope.

  7

  As they made their way apart from each other, the fifty children, led by Tela, soon saw that Reddox’s cloaking was only useful for the first few seconds. Several turrets appeared from the sand and fired a slew of bullets in their direction.

  Tela deflected most with her telekinesis and soon enough, she destroyed over a dozen turrets alone, but had to brace herself as the smaller cannons present in the fortress rained fire down on them. One shell hit her telekinetic barrier, nearly sending her to her knees with its power.

  Then one of the main turrets fired.

  She had to use all of her willpower to not cry as she felt two more children pass away, hit by the giant turret’s powerful guns. She pressed on, using her anger to fuel her.

  Then the other giant turret fired.

  She grimaced as the ground shook from the impact, but thankfully, it had only hit a group of Cyko clones. That had been one of his plans for this fight, to use his cloning ability to cause confusion. Unfortunately, his max range was only one kilometer as he discovered, and if he used several bursts to approach the fortress, it would leave him vulnerable to the smaller cannons.

  Five children injured, but all were still persisting.

  The walls on the far sides of the desert opened, revealing an army of robots rushing at them with surprising speed. She cursed. Those were the same drones they fought for training, and while they were weak and could be crushed easily, an infinite swarm of them was approaching. It would flank them.

  A group of children diverged their attention and rushed the drones, trying to keep them away from the main battle for as long as possible.

  Agatha fired off, crippling the center turret before it could fire away. For a moment, the telepath allowed hope to blossom in her heart. One turret down! They could still win!

  Then she noticed that all turrets turned towards the position Agatha was in.

  Soon, anyone capable of long-range attacks bombarded the fortress to protect Agatha. Powerful magical lasers, barrages of wind, explosive rocks.

  It didn’t work. All the weapons of the giant fortress fired off at once.

  They hit hard, the explosions from the projectiles covering Agatha completely in a fiery ball. For a moment, Tela and everyone else feared the worst. But then, several blasts echoed from the cloud of smoke, followed by missiles and artillery, hitting the leftmost turret and wrecking it completely.

  “I-I’m fine! My armor has been torn to shreds, but I can still survive a couple more shots!” the battleship girl responded shakily, seemingly unable to believe she survived a direct hit from two giant turrets. Her answer flooded Tela with relief.

  Agatha rolled her eyes as the smaller cannons fired again.

  “The smaller ones will be the death of me!” Agatha cried out loud, this time a pained grimace on her face as she felt several shells impact her form.

  From the ground, huge blocks suddenly rose up, causing confusion amongst the rebels. What did they have planned now?!

  “Tanks!” someone yelled in incredulity, causing Tela’s eyes to widen. As she looked at the dozens of platforms that suddenly appeared from below, she watched as tanks were coming out of them, large, black vehicles with neon lights running through their forms. Spread throughout the desert, the fifty tanks opened fire.

  “Ahh! I can’t take much more of this! I lost another turret!” Agatha yelled through her mind in pain.

  “Everyone, try to distract those tanks if you can!” Tela ordered, before she paused as she noticed something else, the sound of rapidly rotating motor blades.

  Helicopters! Attack helicopters had left the fortress and were rapidly approaching. She paled for a moment before she willed her mind into overdrive, the world coming to a halt around her.

  Out of the fifty children who had volunteered for the first wave, three were dead and five were severely injured but still fighting, and counting Agatha, that was six. Their enemies had spread turrets across the desert, dozens upon dozens which were still firing at them. The drones had been steadily making their way inwards. The large black tanks had made a line of twenty, their cannons more than enough to cover the distance between them and their targets, while the remaining spread themselves in formations of three all around the desert, cannons and machine guns firing away. The helicopters were quickly advancing, and she could feel that several children already were being targeted.

  They needed reinforcements.

  “Everyone, we need HELP! Those who are here with me, put in maximum efforts!” their leader ordered.

  The imminent helicopters launched their salvo of rockets, just at the same time Agatha fired her own barrage at the last turret, striking it directly. Like the other two before it, the turret was crippled beyond use.

  Tela breathed as she focused her abilities on a helicopter, causing it to tilt towards another one and fall on top of a formation of tanks, destroying them all. They could win this.

  Cyko gritted his teeth as another bullet ricocheted off his armor.

  Two dots from their shared mental map, which signaled their allies, vanished from his mind’s eye, signaling the death of more children, causing the boy to let out a yell of rage before he created dozens of clones who rushed towards the tanks.

  Another child died, their signal disappearing from the map which caused the enhancer to double his efforts into destroying another tank, his punches leaving deep marks in its reinforced plating. It wasn’t long before he got to the crew inside and finished them off.

  Several more dots appeared, signaling reinforcements. He panted as he took a moment to breathe, hoping that he wouldn’t be targeted. He had been fighting at full power ever since the battle started, destroying turrets, robots and trying to divert the attention of the cannons. When the tanks had arrived, he had thought he could destroy them like the turrets, but their armor was durable, so it took a strong slash to defeat them. He had already destroyed six counting this one, and he was growing tired. He would not give up.

  Magy, Ellyn, and Reddox had grouped together with Cyko, fighting in sync with him as much as they could.

  When several hundred enemy dots disappeared, they knew that victory was approaching, but… at what cost?

  The three watched as a child got pierced in the head by a bullet, one of many deaths they had witnessed.

  “Snipers! Pay attention to the windows! Take them out!” Tela’s grim voice called out to their minds as three more children fell, another dead and two clutching at deep wounds. “Healers! Focus on the wounded, stick closer to those with defensive barriers!”

  It was a grim prospect, knowing that victory was close, but it would cost many lives. Ellyn tilted her head to the right to avoid a sniper bullet which would have killed her, and raised her bow, launching her powerful arrow, knowing it would strike true, guided by the wind.

  Reddox created a barrier to defend himself from an attack of tank shells, making sure the shock wave was contained and didn’t hurt his allies close by, before using all of his grimoires to blast at a tank, destroying it instantly.

  Magy dashed towards a group of tanks, nimbly evading their shots before jumping on top of one, looking right into the visor of the machine and plunging her scythe deep into it, allowing her dark powers to channel through her weapon, frying the crew inside. Their screams of pain were music to her ears as she jumped away before two tanks fired at her, destroying the tank she had been on. Rinse and repeat.

  Five more children disappeared from their map, victims of a concentrated
tank attack.

  Magy retreated towards her squad, Cyko appearing beside her in time to witness Ellyn and several other wind elementals and spirituals channel a devastating tornado across the desert, taking hold of the remaining helicopters and destroying them.

  Many large shadows appeared above their forms, the shapeshifters flying fast towards the fortress itself, accompanied by more children with varying powers. Their reinforcements had arrived.

  Enhancers ganged up on the tank squads, elementals and spirituals bombarded the fortress, shapeshifters contributed by attacking the fortress up close, or joining up with the others to attack the turrets or robots. Friendly mutants joined in the brawl against the robots and tanks, mentally powered children did their best to support and confuse their enemy while those with telekinetic powers like Tela exerted pressure and power to crush opposition.

  Soon, even the smaller turrets of the once proud, now battered fortress had been destroyed, and with the anti-aircraft guns occupied with trying to deal with the flying shapeshifters, the construct only had its machine guns, snipers, and guards to protect itself.

  “Everyone… Let’s invade that place and take out everybody inside… To avenge Myo, to avenge all the children they killed! We will be free!” Cyko declared.

  “I’m right behind you. It’s time to end this!” Magy encouraged, trying to ignore the pain from the death of the innocents.

  Ellyn and Reddox walked forward, determined expressions as they displayed their support. “We will fight together! You can count on us!” she declared for them both. It was time.

  8

  Dr. Gacha watched the whole battle unfold. By this point, he had already ordered the retreat, so there was nothing left to do but get out of there.

  “THIS MISSION IS A FAILURE! SOUND THE RETREAT OF ALL PERSONNEL! NOW!” the commander yelled in urgency, face set into a pale, grim expression as he watched the subjects slowly mow through their defenses. Even the seemingly endless horde of drones was ineffective in keeping them at bay. They had been made for training, after all.