31. Crucible #2
I stood, though Don remained beside me with blood already pooling next to him. The impact hurt, but I was left with more of a numbing sensation thanks to Zhu’s light barrier.
“Back in here!” Kim–Dokkaebi shouted. His fleeing council members stopped where they were and pivoted with blank stares.
Can you feel them?
“What? No, you bakuh!”
Can you see if they are neurolocked like I was?
“I already told you, I cannot. Your observation seems a sufficient conclusion.”
Do any of them have free will? Did any of them come here on their own accord? Were they lured in like us?
“What do you expect me to say?”
That you do not understand.
“Yes.”
Why aren’t they moving?
“Stand down, PetNab,” Kim–Dokkaebi said.
“Why would I?” I replied.
The council members walked slowly towards me.
He pointed at the prism. “That is not your friend, but the form a virus is taking to manipulate you. If you choose to fight me, we both lose. You a life, me a resource.”
“Then why did you lose your mind and destroy that machine?” I let Zhu’s light envelop me.
The council members stopped a few feet before me and formed a line between me and their controller.
He scoffed. “For this.” Bolts of ghastly light, shot into the prism, draining the excess light in his body.
Ralia cried out. “Kill it, Pet!” Her image arched her back and jolted as it flashed around the prism.
Kim–Dokkaebi smiled. “Don’t listen to it.“ He shot another light line into one of the damaged machines. Light flowed from it into him, then into the prism.
Ralia’s light dulled.
“Petya! Please!”
“Do not obey it,” Kim–Dokkaebi said with pressured intensity.
I glanced at the wall of people before me. I doubted any of them were modded to match my speed.
Ralia’s green ghost was flickering.
I didn’t care if it was her illusion. I would take any virus over the thing that had killed her.
The more malignant the virus, the better it was for me and the world.
I didn’t have any idea as to how I would change the world’s view of their planet, but a systematic catastrophe was as great a start as I could think of.
I jumped, almost touching the ceiling, and felt a new sensation in my mod after my recent ascension.
I tapped into it and soared forward. Like a missile shot in the air and propelled forward, I struck Kim–Dokkaebi at a sharp angle.
I was a bird of prey soaring down with my black light claws that stabbed into Kim–Dokkaebi’s chest. With one claw in him, I felt the other shift into a blade, extending from my arm like a wing to sever the light lines connecting the beast to his machines.
Ralia sighed with relief, but I couldn’t let that small victory distract me.
He roared like a tortured giant as he powered through the pain of my surging black light pouring into him. He reached out and grasped the back of my head, pulling me in to touch forehead to forehead.
I swung my black blade arm into his, causing black and violet sparks to fly, though his arm remained intact and unrelenting.
I glanced at the arm, seeing a ghastly violet over it like a light veil. Despite my best efforts, my black blade did not penetrate. I tried to pull my claw down his chest, though that same light kept it in its place.
We made eye contact. Kim’s synthetic eyes were hidden behind the reptilian pupils of a greater being.
He laughed, violet pointed teeth covered Kim’s. This wasn’t light. Zhu’s black light would have no problem cutting through violet regardless of its place on the standard or anti-spectrum.
This was the fiend itself.
I felt my head burn where his hand grabbed me.
Violet light popped and I flew across the room into another machine. The explosion of violet light from it hurt but was far from debilitating.
I stood and shook my head as my vision cleared.
Kim was sitting, leaning against a machine. His body hadn’t reverted to the small man he had been, but the violet of Dokkabei was gone. I looked around the room for violet. Every council member staring at me had a subtle glow, but it looked like nothing more than accents to their attire.
These weren’t the people who sat at the table before. These weren’t Correction representatives.
I looked at the first one.
“Boyand?” I asked.
“You look like a zegging mess, du.”
To his right, stood Naoma.
She blew a kiss.
No, that wasn’t right.
“Yes it is. She loves you.”
Zhu?
Tevon stood next to her. How long had it been since I had seen him?
He died.
“No, he didn’t. Tevon couldn’t have died. He was always the strongest.”
Matvey stood next to him. He greeted me in our Medislavian dialect.
The words didn’t sound right.
“You’ve been away for too long. You’re forgetting your native tongue.”
Zhu?
“Look who that is.”
I turned to see another person step forward. Arabasian. Sharp features. Slim, yet muscular. Long black hair in a warrior’s braid.
“I heard you’ve been taking care of everyone.”
“I… I’m trying, Keiro,” I said.
He smirked. He looked much happier than he had been during the last months of his… since the last time I had seen him.
I looked at the others. Mama. Oche. My parents hadn’t aged a day.
“Come.” Naoma reached her hand out pulling my forward with the wave of her finger. “It’s been a long fight, but it’s over now. You did it, Pet.”
I took the first step.
“No!”
“Yes!”
“Wake up, bakuh!”
“You’ve won! Take what you deserve!
Two voices fought within me. The first was rough yet comforting in an odd manner. The second was sharp, yet intelligent. Enticing.
I walked forward and took Naoma’s hand. I felt light headed but knew it was my nerves acting out for being with her.
Keiro clapped his hand on my shoulder, then left it there. His touch was cold. “I’m proud of you Pet-kun.”
It was him. He treated me like a younger brother. “Keiro…” I said, not knowing what to say next.
“You err in your logic, bakuh.”
“He never left your side.”
I smiled up at him.
Boyband stepped forward and placed his foot on mine. “Gotta say, you had me worried, but I knew you could pull it off.”
His foot was cold. Keiro’s touch was frigid. Naoma’s hand was freezing.
“Petya!”
“Refreshing, isn’t it?”
The second voice was louder now.
Tevon cocked his head. That was enough to pierce me with a chill.
“You ascended in the pool of wine. Utilize that newfound strength! Grasp the anti-green and let it fuel you!”
The first voice was almost a shouting whisper. “You’ve made it, Petya! The work is done! Time for a well-earned rest, don’t you think?”
“It’s time for a rest,” Naoma said.
“Don’t you think?” Keiro added.
Something stabbed into my chest. A vibrant green light line extended directly from the prism. I couldn’t see what was inside.
“It’s not important,” the second voice said. I heard the distant cries of the first but could make no sense of them.
The light line flashed. Something appeared on my neurospace.
“Don’t look at that,” Naoma said. “We’re here with you. You’re trying to get off the socials, right?”
“Come on, du,” Boyband said.
“Ralia virus!” the first voice said as something extinguished any further words.
Ralia.
Ralia.
Zeg me.
A cloud still covered my memories and vision, but I knew I had to open the message.
I opened the neurospace.
“Come on out of there already!” Naoma begged as she pulled me in, kissing my cheek and neck.
One message.
Ralia: Keiro was never proud of you. He died with that doggedness.
I exited the neurospace and saw the glorified version of the flawed man who had made me what I was today. Tevon might be alive. Keiro might have been, but he had never been proud of me.
His words echoed in my mind. “Pride births stagnancy and eventual digression.” No one was harder on me than he had been, save Deleon. Despite Keiro’s merciless approach, I knew he wanted me to become a better person, unlike Deleon who only wanted a refined tool.
I looked up at him. Memories of relief and anger over his death resurfaced.
“Come on, Pet,” Naoma said, running her finger down the edge of my chin. This was the Neon Idol not the Naoma I loved.
“What’s the problem?” Tevon asked. An urgent notification flushed in my periphery. I glanced at it. It was an article entitled, Former Fix-mogul Assassinates Republic President Delighty Liu.
“Petya, what is wrong with you?” Naoma shook me out of my neurospace. Her face might have been an illusion, but it didn’t soften the blow of her injured glare.
I had to end it, despite knowing the pain it would bring.
I speared Tevon in the throat. Blood sprayed over my face and the side of Naoma’s.
“You sick shack!” She slapped me. The look of hatred in her face burned itself into my mind. “He was–”
I pushed her out of the way. I couldn’t take care of her just yet. Knowing that she was an illusion didn’t help soften the impact.
I accelerated the drop of my foot and smashed Tevon’s head into pulp with a single stomp. A violet ghost of light flew out from him, back towards Kim’s body.
Keiro backhanded me. “You were always a failure.”
He removed a light pistol from his hip. His words were true to his character, but the part of me that knew this was all a lie recalled that he would never touch a firearm. Keiro would have wielded a blade.
I reached inside my body as I dropped to dodge a bullet. My agility mod had saved me, but I knew who powered it.
Zhu.
“No!” a voice replied. It was not his.
I burned the illusion out, feeling my Bite drain as a repressed voice came to the surface of my mind.
“I almost lost hope, bakuh.”
Let this be your lesson then. Black light covered me with a thin veil, deflecting Keiro’s shot into the person disguised as my mother. She dropped and my father roared like he had over my past failures.
I crouched, pointing my hands out like a swimmer ready to dive. Black light covered my hands as I dove through Keiro’s abdomen and into my mourning father’s legs.
The black light destroyed them. I decapitated my parents, trying my best to acknowledge the illusion, but I still shed tears.