Sacrifices

The door blew out into the lab, the massive dent in it evidence of the fury behind the punch which had destroyed it. Jake stood there, his fist extended, looking into the heart of the Children of the Turning Gear’s operation. Elysia was strapped to the machine in the center as it fired energy into her, her body jerking in pain. Multiple guards surrounded the room, their guns pointed at them. Professor Malphi stood at the controls of the magical amplifier, his daughter at his side, staring at them with fury.

“Fine then,” he sneered. “Shoot to kill.”

The bullets began to fly. Jake took the left, Alex the right. Jake used his sword arms as a shield, blocking the bullets as he plowed into the guards like a freight train, crashing against them, breaking bones and bodies as his fury ran them over. Alex disappeared, popping behind and to the sides of the guards as he systematically moved from shooter to shooter, punching, kicking and throwing them as he saw fit. Neither of these boys were playing anymore. Not with Elysia writhing in pain in the center of the room, trapped in the horrid machine, not letting out a single cry.

Kraelin ran straight at Professor Malphi. Saphira leapt at him, her own sword clashing with his. “Good girl! Kill him!” Malphi shouted.

“I’m sorry!” Saphira cried out as she clashed with Kraelin, clearly intent on killing him. “He’s making me…”

“No, he isn’t!” Kraelin shouted back. “There is not one bit of me which believes the girl I grew up with would let him destroy her soul!”

“Her soul?! What do you know of soul, Kraelin?!” Professor Malphi bellowed as he turned up the amplifier even higher. “You’ve been coddled by magic users all your life! Even when your parents died, they tormented you! Looked down on you!  You have no idea how deep the plague of magic goes in this world! Only science can save us, not haughty freaks who wield powers they don’t understand! YOU don’t understand! Sorcerers, Twisted, THEY’RE ALL THE SAME MONSTERS!”

“Liar!” Kraelin shouted, punching Saphira’s mask, leaving blood from his knuckles on it. “I don’t know what it’s like losing my family to magic, but I do know what it’s like to lose them to a man! I spent my whole life, MY CHILDHOOD training to fight monsters, when instead I should have been fighting YOU!”

“You’re right,” Professor Malphi said. “It probably would have never worked. I wanted to do this through sacrificing as few human lives as possible. But your morality makes you unable to see the sacrifices needed. The First left us. He opened a box of horrors by bringing magic to our world, and only our science can save us from the Twisted the followed in magic’s wake! We want the same thing! You simply can’t make the sacrifices necessary!”

“No…” Elysia said weakly.

“Oh screw you, psycho!” Jake yelled as he dispatched another guard, checking him into the wall. “What I want has nothing to do with turning my loved ones into assassins!”

“Yeah, Doctor Evil!” Alex shouted, flipping one guard into another. “If you were so high and mighty, you’d be fighting Kraelin, not your brainwashed daughter!”

“Sacrifices must be made!” Professor Malphi ranted. Kraelin kicked Saphira into the machinery, stunning her for a brief moment. He looked at Malphi, the mad look in his eyes, then at Saphira, hidden behind her mask. But somehow, he knew…she was crying.

“Yes…you’re right. Sacrifices must be made…” Kraelin said. His sword fell from his hand. Saphira stood up, reluctantly picking her blade back up.

“Kraelin, stop! I’m going to kill you!” Saphira screamed desperately.

“I know,” Kraelin said, staring directly at her.

“Fight back! Stop me! Kill me!” Saphira begged as she stepped closer.

“No,” Kraelin simply stated.

“Kraelin?! KRAELIN!” Alex shouted, seeing what was about to happen. Saphira raised her blade, aiming it right for his heart. Kraelin opened his arms, welcoming her attack.

“KRAELIN!” Saphira screamed, and the sword pierced him. Blood trickled down Kraelin’s body from his wound. It was relatively small, as only the tip of her sword had gone into his flesh. He winced, but did not break eye contact.

“Vyock…Maneuver…let them beat you…and you still win. I knew…you were still in there…Saphira,” Kraelin said.

“Kill him! Push a little more into him! Do it, Saphira!” Professor Malphi insisted. But Saphira shook her head.

“Y…you believed…in m…me?” Saphira said. Kraelin nodded, then moved at a lightning pace, knocking the sword from her hands and getting her on her knees, locking  her arms up.

“Fight it, Saphira!” Kraelin called out.

Elysia watched all this. She saw her two oldest friends fighting for their souls. She saw her two newest friends fighting to save her for no other reason than they chose to. And she saw the man who put them all in this position, who manipulated them like game pieces. Her anger grew into something terrifying, something she had nearly given her life to suppress. Fine, she thought at last. If he wants Void energy…let him have it!

“What…what is this?” Professor Malphi asked, noticing a spike in energy on the amplifier’s monitors. Suddenly, with a mighty scream, Elysia rose from the table, her straps melting away as dark energy poured from her. She levitated from the table, hovering above it, her eyes fixed on Malphi.

“Is this what you want, Malphi?” Elysia asked. “Void energy? Fine. Have it!” She fired a blast of dark energy at him. It ripped through the control panel, blowing it to pieces as it blew Malphi backwards.

“Elysia?” Kraelin said in awe. She turned to look at the other machines in the room.

“It’s like I can see the space between things…the Void…” Elysia said in wonder. “Is this real magic? Doesn’t matter. Have to be quick. Power is already…aaagh!” She clutched her head in pain. “Fast. Have to concentrate. All the data. Everything they have in their computers. All their records. Reach out!” She extended her arms, and black Void energy shot out, streaking through the underground lab, blasting through each computer terminal in the building.

“She’s doing it. She’s actually doing it,” Kraelin said, unsure whether to smile or cry.

“The tech, too. All the First tech…has to go!” More energy shot out, blowing through walls and into each piece of technology her mind could grasp, tearing it all apart. “And finally…I promised to tear this entire castle down!”

The building above them shook. Black Void energy seemed to consume each brick in it. Elysia reached out, feeling the Void between all things. Blood fell from her nose and eyes as she collapsed Vyock Castle, bringing it down on top of them, protecting them from the damage as the ancient gargoyle of a building died in a roar of darkness and chaos, the lab beneath buried under rubble. Finally, when the sounds of ruin had ceased, Elysia let the energy leave her body. She didn’t want it anymore.

“Elysia!” Jake yelled as her body fell back to the ground. He ran to her, his metal body returning to its original state as well, because he knew innately what she needed wasn’t the heroic man of metal. He slid on his knees, caught her, and held her close to him.

“Jake?” Elysia said weakly.

“Yeah…hi,” Jake said.

“I told you to run, you know…”

“Yeah. And I told you, I’m not leaving your side until you’re okay.”

“Told you he’d get the girl,” Alex said, looking over at Kraelin as he hauled Professor Malphi over. “Hey, how’s it feel, by the way? Losing everything, I mean. Even your own daughter hates you, dude.”

“Daughter…” Malphi said with a sneer, and spat towards where Kraelin held her. “Failed experiment. She was never my daughter.”

“What?” Kraelin asked, his eyes widening. Saphira’s head snapped to Malphi.

“She's a little orphan girl I found years ago. I had this in mind for her the entire time. I thought if I simulated a father daughter relationship, it would make it easier to control her with the chip. But alas…”

“You…you were always going to do this to her…” Elysia said in horror as Jake helped her to her feet.

“Yes. Sure. Why not say it now when my life’s goal is denied? But you all must understand, sac…” His arm was wrenched by Alex.

“If you actually say the word sacrifice again I’m gonna break your arm,” Alex said.

Saphira could barely hear. They continued talking, but her mind was in the past. Her father, talks and hugs and lessons and bedtime stories, gentle touches after she was wounded, even after the explosion, even after being transformed into Silver, all of it. The word he had said echoed in her mind, growing louder and louder. Failed…failed…FAILED.

Her metallic arm reached up and tore her mask off. Her face was a cacophony of agony, tears streaming from her one human eye. She grabbed her metallic eye, her fingers digging around the sides, and began to pull.

“Saphira…” Kraelin said weakly.

She barely heard him. All she could hear was her own scream as she tore the eye from her head, sparks flying from it as pain nearly overwhelmed her.  With a final jerk the eye was in her hand, and she immediately crushed it. But she was not done. Not nearly. With a mighty jerk she shrugged Kraelin off of her. She placed her metallic hand on the ground and placed a boot on it.

“I am not…your failure!” Saphira screamed. She pulled, putting all her strength into her foot and leg as she pulled, her metallic arm straining under the pressure. “No more! NO MORE!” Saphira screamed as her body fell backwards while her metal arm stayed in place, separate from her now.

“Impossible…” Malphi said, watching her stand. “Where did I fail? Why can’t I control you?”

Saphira picked up her arm with her remaining one, looking it over with her remaining eye. She turned her eye to the man she had thought of as her father. “Where did you fail? Maybe it was when you used a little girl as a pawn. A little girl who only wanted friends. A family! YOU USED ME! YOU TOOK IT FROM ME!”

She was on him in a second, her fist slamming into his face repeatedly, beating it until blood dripped from her knuckles.

“Come now…Saphira…you wouldn’t harm your father…would you?” Malphi asked through his broken face.

Saphira’s face erupted in rage. She grabbed her arm, it’s shoulder joint a mass of metal and wires, and plunged it into his chest. “NEVER AGAIN!” she screamed, her words echoing through the chamber. She raised the arm again and plunged down. “NEVER AGAIN!” Over and over she did this, each time with the same shout.

“NEVER AGAIN!”

“NEVER AGAIN!”

“NEVER AGAIN!”

“NEVER AGAIN!”

“NEVER AGAIN!”

A hand grabbed Saphira’s before it could strike the now thoroughly dead Professor Malphi. She looked up and saw Elysia holding her. There was no judgement in her eyes, or fear. Kraelin stood beside her, joined by Jake and Alex. None of them looked at her like she was the monster she felt like. They saw her as…

“Come on, pirate,” Elysia said. “Let’s get out of here. You’re with us now.”

The five of them walked from the lab and towards the hanger which would lead them outside. Behind them was a dead man with a dead dream, a metal arm and a silver mask beside him. Ahead of them was freedom, the mountains of Vyock cold and clear, and a rising sun in the east, challenging them to come catch it.