dddddddDd-e-de-DEStr0000000100oyer(PT3))s <<Destruction>>

UNIT PSYCHE RATING: 21.15%. FAIL.

Electric cadmium sprayed from smoothed barrels with the rage of ten thousand storms. Just as Miu expected, the Arcans began defensively. Their portals appeared before them, ready to send the beams back at their origins. But Miu was ready.

Just as the Arcan portals opened, Miu raised her staff, and new portals opened before the G.A.K.I. units.

“Multiply your rage!” Miu commanded as the beams hurled overhead back towards the guns.

The new portals consumed the beams, then multiplied and spread, until dozens of new portals appeared for every one that had begun. When the beams returned, there were now millions. Unprepared and overwhelmed, Arcans were instantly ripped to pieces.

Without the interception of the portals, the beams were free to lay waste to the fortress once and for all. Hums of light tore through silent stone, sending ruins cascading down from the tallest peaks of the fortress and onto the ledge, where a handful of Arcans were shielding Ripley.

As the severed stones fell to the ground, Miu raised her staff and slammed it into the crystal floor, sending a wave of Aetherblack energy towards the chunks. Instead of reforming, every stone was consumed by the Aether’s unending pause.

Before Miu could complete the destruction, I’ah was before her, slamming stone into her chest and flinging her into the fortress interior. Both of them tumbled across the shining floor with a screech as stone cut against stone.

“We could have helped you!” I’ah shouted.

“You only wanted to help yourself! You aided monsters just so you could go home! So many died because of you. NOW FACE THE CONSEQUENCES!!” Miu raged as her flame spread from her hands and onto I’ah.

There was no mercy in her mind as she looked at her former mentor and the place she once called home. This had only ever been a trick. Like so many other aspects of her life, she had hoped for peace and purpose, but it was a lie. Even when she had hoped that she would be given tools to seek revenge on those who had hurt her, the Arcans were merely training her enough to prove to Ripley and the military that humans could harness true Arcan magic.

This place, and these beings, had only ever harmed and used her. They had aided the creation of the G.A.K.I. program that led to Yuki’s suffering. Even if they turned on Ripley, it would not be enough to redeem them.

I’ah rose and ignited in its own fire, which immediately filled the room. Scorching heat turned the air into a burning dagger that slit its way into Miu’s throat as she gasped from broken ribs.

canyoufeeltheinfernodestroyingeverything?

But fire was Miu’s language. Throughout her whole life, the thing she had always craved was warmth. Not snow. Not stillness. Fire. This Arcan flame would not be her end. She just needed air to breathe.

So she raised her stone fist and slammed it into the ground with a scream, shattering the floor and walls around them. As the fissures snapped and spread, Miu’s arm began to glow black.

“Fire burn and rise! Nothing but hate in my eyes. In my flames time dies!”

The walls fell away, and the outside air rushed in, filling Miu’s lungs with cooled relief. I’ah turned just in time to see the massive spires of fire rising from the ground and diving into the room like attack wraiths set to devour.

Outside, the Arcans were caving under the onslaught of the G.A.K.I. beams. Miu’s spell was holding, allowing the beams to continue their loop of destruction. Yuki was trying to focus but his mind was losing clarity.

UNIT PSYCHE RATING: 20.77%. FAIL.

These beings. He didn’t know them like Miu. But he knew the harm they had done. And he knew the harm Ripley had caused. It was because of them that everything fell apart apart apart ripthemapart. RIPTHEMINTONOTHING!!

UNIT PSYCHE RATING: 19.88%. CATOSTROPHIC FAIL.

Exhaustion was undoing the Arcans as more and more barriers broke.

“Stop them!! Fight back!!!” Ripley shouted from within his protective bubble.

Hundreds of G.A.K.I. stopped their firing and rushed across the ledge on all fours before leaping onto the desperate beings. Wave after wave of metal bodies landed on the stone creatures. They were simply in the way. Yuki wanted Ripley RIPley RIPHIMAPART ((untilnothingremains))//.

Wail.

Gnash.

Claw.

Rip.

Scream.

Ineverwantedthis

Wail.

01010111 01100001 01101001 01101100 00101110 00001010

Gnash.

01000111 01101110 01100001 01110011 01101000 00101110 00001010

Claw.

01000011 01101100 01100001 01110111 00101110 00001010

Rip.

01010010 01101001 01110000 00101110 00001010

Scream.

01010011 01100011 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101101 00101110

Manu-Crystal implants ignited.

Destruction poured from the artificial stones, adding to the glowing death that ripped across every facet of the tower. Digital voices roared. Crystal shattered. Ripley was screaming.

Then the floor beneath them cracked. Everything cracked as Miu’s voice rose over the storm. Yuki looked up long enough to see Miu rising into the sky with I’ah entangled in her hexes.

“FEEL YOUR WORLD COME CRASHING DOWN!!!” she screamed as she turned and plummeted full force back down towards the ledge.

The two of them struck the floor like a missile and ripped straight through the stone.

Reality tilted on its axis as the tower snapped into pieces.

UNIT PSYCHE RATING: 18.75%. CATASTROPHIC FAIL.

All they knew was falling.

Falling within the debris and fire.

Fire

canyoufeelthefireINFERNOconsumingEVERYTHING?!!!

Let the flames wash us anew.

Aether’s black light convulsed and spread across the blaze until every inch of the inferno turned black. Still they fell. Then the ground rose up to embrace the destruction. Every body struck the ground in a sickening thud.

Ravenous fire dove onto the Arcans like starved wolves. None screamed, but Yuki could feel their suffering as the fire corrupted them and bound them in nothingness. Ripley tried to crawl away within his bubble, but lines of codehexes rose from the earth and halted his movement. All he could do was watch as the Arcans were corrupted and defeated.

It was then that Miu rose from the flames, shrouded in infinite black, holding I’ah by its massive head.

“I told you… I-I-I-I To00001ld youuuu that I wo000000000uld finally be in control of losiiiiiing controllllll. Now, it is TOOO LATE FOR YOU!!!!

Every G.A.K.I. rose, faceplate implants glowing red, shaking as functions abandoned them.

“KILL THEM ALL!!!” Miu shouted as a single beam ripped from the heavens and disintegrated I’ah from her grasp.

“NO!!” Ripley screamed.

Existence inhaled then released its declaration of nothingness. Red consumed the colors of the world as hundreds of hate-filled lights fired into the refracting stones of the Arcans until they were gone from all realities.

Up above, the glyphs shattered and sent their fragments down in a cataclysm of jagged light. Miu hovered within the chaos, arms lifted up in release. The Arcan were gone.

Then a voice called out.

“MIU!!! STOP THIS!!!” Yuki screamed.

It was human. Not synthetic. Not unstable. Nearly pure to the human ear. Its sound jolted Miu from her revelry as her eyes ripped open.

Ripley was beneath her, still in his bubble of ArcanTech shielding. His fingers were holding a small remote device, and his glowing eyes were desperate yet confident.

G.A.K.I. Yuki glitched as he tried to understand where his human voice had come from.

“Yuki?” Miu softly asked as she lowered herself to be by the G.A.K.I. she knew.

Yuki shook his head in confusion. That voice. It was his. But it didn’t feel like him.

UNIT PSYCHE RATING: 17.12%. CATASTROPHIC FAIL.

Then they saw their answer.

Limping through the flames, untouched, was Yuki. Human Yuki. Never paralyzed. Never destroyed. As though the last several years had never happened.

Something unknown shot through Miu’s chest as she looked down at the figure that was so abjectly close to what she should have known, had none of this happened. Yuki’s G.A.K.I. all stopped to look at their doppleganger, and even he was unsure what he felt.

The being limped through the flames with his metal arm braces clicking softly against the crumbled crystal.

“Y...Yuki?...” Miu gasped in terror and longing.