Cykopath- Birth

by Luca Braña

  Inside the cockpit of the Paradox Warper, both father and daughter looked up to find the blade of a scythe hovering just a few centimeters above their heads. Before they could move, the weapon let out sparks of dark energy, which filled the fighter, causing several explosions on the consoles and in the surrounding areas.

  She had succeeded.

  Many explosions ricocheted inside and outside the fighter before the spinning eyeball lost its flight path and fell to the ground.

  Rolling across the desert several times, the Paradox Warper came to a slow stop, sparks running across its immobile body. The Warp Gazers seemed to wander around in confusion like lost soldiers without their commander.

  The hurricane of fire was finally brought to a halt, as the wind users calmed it down. Tela, who was still gasping to regain her breath, took the opportunity to move forward. “Everyone! Attack now with everything you have!”

  “No need to say that twice!” Cyko exclaimed with a sinister grin as he and the other enhancers charged towards the fallen fighter while the long-range users bombarded it with all their might. As soon as Cyko appeared next to the fighter with a charged holo blade, Tela coordinated the attack to make sure no close-range rebel would be hurt.

  The fighter’s barriers didn’t recover from the damage it was receiving. Inside the cockpit, Shiro was panicking and made the Warp Gazers attack anyone they could, but it was of little use as they were still being bombarded by a constant wave of attacks, which was rocking everything inside. Static and the sound of explosions drowned out the cat girl’s desperate cries.

  “Warning: Structural integrity approaching 60 percent, redirecting the power from redundant systems to critical core systems.” The message appeared in Dr. Gacha’s visor. He frowned hard, trying to keep the growing panic in his heart from making him do something unthinkable. The Warp Gazer that had been injured was recovered, but… If he didn’t do something drastic, he would lose. The Paradox Warper couldn’t take much more damage like this.

  “Shiro, calm down,” her father said. He gave her a reassuring smile, even as the explosions rocked the craft. “It’s time to turn the tables.” The two Warp Gazers flew towards the fighter, entering the large black eye and instantly getting absorbed.

  “Energy levels restored to 100 percent.”

  Seeing the smoking plane, Tela felt hope that they had taken their opponent down and that they could finally flee this prison, but when she saw the two smaller eyes zooming towards the craft, she knew it wasn’t over yet. Ordering all close quarter combatants to retire to a safe distance, she watched as the fighter glowed red again.

  “It’s back to full power!” Magy signaled with urgency.

  “Everyone brace yourselves! We don’t know what they will do now! All long-range fighters, keep up the pressure!”

  The jet pulsed flashing colors before it dashed towards the fortress once again, a large boom in its wake, but this time, it didn’t stop. Instead, the fighter passed right through the fortress like it was a hologram.

  “Execute command: Singularity.”

  “Tela! Scythe just detected an enormous discharge of energy! Almost as much as there is in that entire eyeball!” Magy yelled in alarm, just before a large, reddish glow overtook the entire fortress, bathing the desert with its light… Then it crumbled into itself, as if it was being sucked in by a dark hole.

  Another pulse of red light.

  Sand and debris flew into the fortress. Tela’s body was being pulled as if gravity was centered on the black hole…

  “E-everyone run as far from the fortress as you can, now!” she cried, catching several children who had been swept off their feet and were being dragged towards the massive building.

  Before anyone could follow through with Tela’s orders, a large section of the ceiling, almost half the desert, pulsed red as the fighter appeared from it, diving straight towards the ground.

  “I-It’s absorbing the energy of the magical wards!” Magy yelled as she forced her body to turn away from the fortress and move in the opposite direction.

  “W-what?!” Tela exclaimed in surprise. Another strong flash of light appeared, this time from the ground, the same size as the one on the ceiling. The fighter appeared from the ground, sending a group of rebels flying right towards the fortress.

  Tela used her powerful telekinesis to catch them mid-flight, throwing them away from the hole. She refused to let any more children die today.

  The giant eyeball stopped and radiated a bright blue.

  “Execute command: Isolation Field at 99 percent.”

  By now, almost all the sand on their half of the desert had been sucked towards the fortress which was almost nonexistent now. The ground and the ceiling began to crack.

  Cyko wandered away from his spot, trying to take as many of the non-combatants and injured out of the area as he could. His clones were running around helping to keep people on their feet, but he had to help them one by one, which was getting more difficult. “Tela! I’m going to take you out of there now, you are the closest to the fortress!” he said.

  “No! I can hold myself with telekinesis, but I also need to stay here to catch anyone who strays! I won’t let anyone else die!” She caught three more children, throwing them back the way they came.

  In front of the fighter was a huge, bluish barrier that resembled a solid wall of glass. From ceiling to ground, from wall to wall, it covered any exit point from their side of the desert, and from what Tela could see, it also isolated the effects of the gravitational pull.

  “NO!” Cyko yelled as both he and the child he had tried to rescue crashed into the barrier. Making a clone and letting it hold the unconscious, injured child, he hacked at the barrier, but none of his attacks had any effect. Not a single scratch appeared on the smooth, glasslike structure.

  Everyone who could, bombarded the glass, hoping to break it so they could escape the growing singularity, which was getting much, much stronger. The ground and the ceiling were now breaking apart.

  “I can break that barrier, but I’ll need time to fully erase it,” the cool voice of Reddox called out to Tela, causing her to turn her attention to him. “But as it stands, the singularity will engulf us before I can charge enough power. Tela, we might not survive this.”

  “No, Reddox… We won’t give up, no matter what! Take as much time as you need, then do it!” Tela ordered, her own burning determination to live fueling their own.

  Tela watched as everyone attacked the gigantic barrier of glass with everything they had.

  Cyko used charged slashes as several of his clones hacked and slashed at it.

  Magy’s scythes scratched the surface of the barrier.

  Ellyn bombarded the barrier with cutting winds while firing her wind bow.

  Reddox was charging energy for the attack needed to destroy the barrier, focusing to get the necessary amount as fast as possible.

  Starry was being held by one of Cyko’s clones, but she was firing several large stars towards the glass.

  Torch punched it repeatedly with all the strength he had.

  Matthew was letting out his metal melting flames against the barrier.

  Anna fired charged shot after charged shot.

  Sara had both ice and high-pressure water spewing at it.

  Geon made the barrier shake, hoping the vibrations would cause it to break.

  Henry had an entire garden of Blast Flowers around him, each one firing at the glass barrier.

  Agatha, who was outside the barrier, was working through her pain to fire at the glass, grimacing with each shot.

  Even the non-combatants, children who had been too afraid or weak to fight, helped as much as they could.

  Everyone knew this was a crucial moment, the one, single instance that would decide whether they would be free, if they would become slaves or if they would be allowed to choose their own destinies. It was a moment of life or death.

  The black hole was getting stronger by the second. The la
rge plates of metal underneath the sand shifted towards the spherical mess of metal and dirt. More children lost their footing, but Tela grabbed them before they got too close.

  Her body and eyes were glowing red with the sheer amount of power she was exerting, both to keep herself from being sucked in and to save her friends from suffering the same fate as the fortress.

  The ceiling collapsed, and the ground split apart. She raised one of her arms to shield the debris from hitting her friends.

  “Singularity approaching critical mass.”

  Everyone kept attacking, their single-minded determination for freedom fueling their attacks. Little by little, hairline cracks in the glass proved that they were indeed damaging the barrier… But not fast enough.

  The singularity was getting too strong. The ceiling fell in bigger chunks. Many children couldn’t stay on their feet anymore, even if she launched them all the way to the glass barrier, they would still be sucked in. She used her power to keep them there, as far away as possible.

  The girl coughed, grimacing at the metallic taste in her mouth. She was getting light-headed. She couldn’t hear the thoughts of her friends anymore; she had cut her tendrils to focus solely on her telekinesis… Yet, even in her hazy mind, she felt proud that despite not being connected anymore, they all still fought with a shared purpose. A purpose she wanted to preserve.

  It would still take some time for Reddox to finish his spell.

  It was decided.

  Turning around, Tela launched herself towards the large descending sphere, touching it with one hand before spreading her other towards her friends, preventing them from being sucked into the sphere. This much gravity…

  With a large mental push, Tela coughed into her shoulder, squinting to see the red spatters on her shirt. She shook the thought out of her mind and pushed the sphere towards the ground.

  The gravity was much stronger. She felt wetness on her checks, and the telepath knew those tears weren’t normal. She could barely understand what was going on anymore, just that it was imperative that she bury this sphere and keep the little people from coming too close.

  Oh… One of them arrived close, he had blue hair… He was shouting… She used her tele… tele… her telepathic hold to keep him from approaching. Curious who it was, she extended a single tendril towards him…

  Cyko...

  5

  The world around Cyko vanished and in its place, a large plane of whiteness appeared. There was only him and the one person he admired the most: Tela.

  “What… what are you thinking?! WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!” the boy yelled in anguish, tearful eyes looking into Tela’s kind ones. “You are supposed to be leading us! YOU AREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE SACRIFICING YOURSELF!” He fell to his knees.

  “Cyko…” the celestial voice of his leader and friend spoke next to him, causing the boy to look up at her, tears streaming down his cheeks. She was smiling at him, a smile filled with kindness and affection. “I’m sorry, it seems I must break my promise. I won’t be able to be your psychologist after all.” The girl kneeled, pulling the boy into her arms.

  “I-it’s not fair…” he whispered, clinging to her. He wasn’t sure how Tela made this place, but in here, he could feel her warmth, smell her scent, hear her beating heart. In here, she was real, she was alive… He didn’t want to go back to a world without her.

  “You flatter me, Cyko… Do you want to spend eternity with me?” she whispered in his ear through soft, flushed cheeks.

  He sobbed harder, knowing that even if he wanted, his wish would never come true.

  “You never failed me. You’ll always make me proud.” She used what power she could spare to fill his heart with her feelings towards him.

  “You are… You are the savior we wanted, the only one who helped us… The only one who wanted to save us…” Cyko said through sobs, clenching the girl in his arms as tightly as he could, unwilling to let death have her.

  Tela pulled away, looking the tear-stained Cyko in the eye.

  “I’m glad you are the last person I talk to, Cyko. I always liked you. You were always genuine and kind with me, even by playing around and not telling me your name until we met. I wish we had more time together, maybe even as something more than friends…” Tela confessed.

  “We are only children, we should have met in high school… Teenage drama and all that, instead of this horrid place…” He realized he would never know what might have happened between the two. She would just be a vision to him.

  “Please allow me to be a good memory for you, Cyko.” She smiled as she cupped his cheeks with her hands. Bringing his face close, Tela lightly touched his lips with her own, sending a jolt through both of them.

  “I hope you don’t mind… I don’t want to go without experiencing a kiss. All girls dream of that, you know,” she whispered in his ear as she embraced him again.

  “Don’t apologize,” he sobbed as he tried to keep Tela from vanishing with his willpower alone.

  “Please… Stay with me until the end…” She willed her mind to extend this small share of sadness and happiness for as long as she could. Her time was coming, but she would stay as long as possible to experience the fleeting happiness she felt in this moment.

  As she shared her last moments with Cyko, she made a wish that regardless of who he would become, that he could still find happiness. At least he would still have his siblings and Magy to take care of him.

  Until her consciousness vanished completely, they stood in that place, the white field that only those two friends shared.

  And then, darkness engulfed them.

  Cyko woke abruptly, with no warning that the dream they shared was about to end. His eyes registered the last scene he had seen before… A large mountain of rubble and metal, being sucked into a large hole in the ground. A thunderous noise and a flash of white came from deep below the chasm, causing the earth around to him to shake like a violent earthquake.

  Yet, even as the quake brought him to his knees, he couldn’t stop thinking and feeling Tela’s last moments. All she wanted… The one thing she wanted… was to be free, to help all the children who had been imprisoned against their will to find a better life.

  The boy noticed through blurry eyes how everyone else stopped attacking to run away from the crumbling ground. They noticed when Tela had cut their network, the map and the empowering determination of their leader vanishing from their minds. Most of them only had time to look behind and watch helplessly as Tela was engulfed by debris, vanishing into the hole.

  “No…” Magy whispered as she put her left hand on her chest, whimpering as she, and many others registered what happened, what their leader did for them… The ultimate sacrifice. Those that had been fighting on the other side of the barrier all stopped attacking, also noticing the silence of their friends and their tear-stricken faces.

  Someone who gave them meaning had been taken away from them, just like that.

  Before the grieving children could mourn her death, a powerful aura washed over them, turning their attention towards Reddox, who had been chanting and accumulating power all this time. Besides him, Ellyn was wracking with sobs.

  A large magical symbol appeared, and the mage lifted his head, looking straight through the barrier in front of him. For the first time in a while, Reddox felt something on his own, aside from guilt… anger. Anger and sadness. One person that had given him motivation, that awoke in him the desire to fight, was dead. That infuriated him.

  Watching him, Cyko understood. They all understood. It was time to end this, once and for all. For Tela, for Myo… For everyone who had died up to this point.

  One second the barrier was intact, the next, it shattered into a million pieces. Dr. Gacha saw a warning before he tried to dodge the large magical explosion, but he was too late, and the left wing of the fighter was engulfed in the energy wave.

  Cyko looked back towards Reddox as he fell to his knees, Ellyn catching him before he hit the rough ground
. The mage looked up towards them, his message clear: He had used all the energy he had left. The rest was up to them.

  Letting his anger take control, the boy’s aura exploded from his body before he vanished away again, appearing on top of the sparking black eye. For a single moment, Cyko didn’t move, letting the tears fall from his eyes and onto the fighter before he screamed and slashed at the Paradox Warper with all his might.

  This masochist was responsible for too many deaths! Countless children! Myo! Tela! They all died thanks to this failure of a human! Even as the fighter tried to shake him off, he held on, even as the now uncoordinated attacks of the rebels hit him, he refused to stop. He ignored all wounds, making clones to throw him back towards the fighter. He continued to thrash, and thrash, and thrash.

  Smoke and sparks erupted with each of his angered attacks, the armor of the eye was beginning to chip away. He made more clones and had them attack at every single point on the fighter.

  Then, the eye exploded, sending him flying backwards and towards the ground once more. Grunting, the bloodthirsty enhancer leapt to his feet, ready to continue. Before he could get in position, his instincts kicked in and he brought up his holo blades just in time to block an incoming strike from a thunderbolt.

  It was Snow. She was glaring at him through tearful eyes of her own, the large claws on her hand sparking with the power of thunder.

  “LEAVE MY FATHER ALONE!” she screamed before swatting his blades aside and spin-kicking him away, the electricity inflicting pain as he rolled away from her.

  6

  A few minutes earlier, the scientist had been watching the subjects struggle against the barrier and the singularity he had transformed much of the fortress into. Their leader, Tela, had been putting up a respectable struggle, but she sacrificed herself.

  With being crushed underneath tons of rubble and from suffering the explosion of the singularity when it reached critical mass, there was no way she could have survived. He had accomplished his main objective; eliminating the leader of the rebels. Almost immediately, they all stopped their efforts, losing their spirit to continue on. He let out a relieved sigh.