It's said that when a human's flight or fight response kicks in....
"Haa... Haa... no, no, you don't get it! Haa... haa... H-He is right here!! D-d-dea- fuck!"
They start to hyperventilate.
"Ha-ha-ha- what the fuck? How the fuck c-could h-he....?"
Their eyes dilate.
"No way..."
Their hearts start to pound.
"No!"
Almost every bodily parameter is skewed in a certain direction to ensure survival.
"Kyran! Kyr-ran!... S-say something you s-stupid fuck!"
Even if there is no danger.
"Answer me!"
But Fear does that to humans regardless.
Because Fear is indifferent to the circumstances surrounding it.
"This c-can't be happening!"
It eats at your mind.
It plays with your body.
Fear destroys people.
It was a source of fear itself, watching that destruction.
Kyran was barely listening to his friends' plight. He couldn't afford to. If he did, he would have to accept that....
Inaris Ecko, with his atrocious eating habits, putting whatever was on his plate into his mouth, musing that he couldn't get fat anyway...
Inaris Ecko, with a kind twinkle in his eye when he talked to a younger, more hopeful Kyran, who was jumping over railings just to get to his feet and beg to be brought on a patrol run...
Inaris Ecko, with that arrogant smile and somehow intimidating dimple, that only ever showed when a threat to his icy blue ball of gas was within reach to be punished...
Inaris... One of the strongest men in human history.
Was dead. Gone. Deceased. Expired. Νεκρός. Muerto. 死んだ.
And he couldn't do that.
So he told Grayson to shut up so he could think.
He racked his brain and strained his mind.
He ran away from all thoughts of grief and pushed harder. Compiling lists of suspects that could have never possibly done it. Building entire scenarios that could never possibly happen. Imagining evidence in a crime scene that only existed inside of his mind. Solving a puzzle with five pieces out of a thousand.
Anything to stay ahead of that great, malicious, thing clawing its way through his chest.
Gray on the other end of the comm heard the transition between denial and hatred. The fight or flight wasn't there anymore. All that he could hear was the slow, measured breathing of a man on a mission.
His thoughts slowly turned to darker places, the crime scene covered in the blood of the perpetrator. The puzzle pieces became their body parts. Every name on the list was crossed out in blood.
He could do that. He could make those a reality.
Such a productive way to spend his time, honestly.
The defeated, broken expression on his face twisted into a smile. An insane smile that would send children running. He might as well have been screaming.
But why would he? When that feeling in his chest had melted and hardened into steel, no longer trying to rip him apart. The steel he would use to slaughter his way to... whatever.
He would know when he got there.
Now where to start?
He brought himself back and asked into the comm, "Gray? Still there?"
The boy on the other end replied, "Yeah... Yeah I am. What do you need?"
Kyran licked his lips, "Just defend it until I give the signal. And send yours out now. When the time comes to destroy it, I want you too try and detach it."
Gray said, "Why? Do you really swing that way? Is there something I need to tell Raven?" He said it in a weak tone, trying to lift the mood but couldn't even see the laughter in his own joke.
"Evidence. Because the political implications of an Apex dying, and us being the only witnesses, is enough to upend the entire system." He paused for a second, "And our little lives will be collateral in the crossfire."
"I know that. I mean, what would that accomplish? A half-baked illusionist could very realistically face Inaris' corpse. Our bringing it won't change much." Was the response.
"I'll explain after I get to the central node." Kyran said, "Stay safe."
"You too."
He looked up to an ant, the owner of the Aether signature that caused him to abruptly end the call. It was advancing with apparent glee, maybe that of finding fresh prey.
Oh, the irony.
Kyran didn't even bother moving. A sharp pulse of the Asura Path turned it into a crater in the wall.
He stood up and stretched, anticipation prevalent. The ant hadn't died and was trying to dig its way out of its not-so-little hole.
He heard a sound below his feet just as the ant exited the crater.
The ant pounced.
The ground exploded.
Kyran tightened his grip on the space around him, feeling the dimensional fabric bend to his will. The world warped, compressing into something malleable and delicate under his command.
He reappeared on the other side of the tunnel, already running scenarios, trying to lose himself in the thrill.
It was all pretend, since there was no danger.
The ants moved in sync, splitting off to flank him. Kyran twisted his hand, space folding. One of the ants lurched forward, only to find its strike miss entirely as he bent the fabric of space, making the distance between them meaningless. The ant's flaming limb crashed into empty air, causing a shockwave of heat to pulse outward, melting the stone wall, but Kyran had already teleported again, now standing behind it.
Without hesitation, he flung an Asura pulse at the other ant, sending it skidding back across the rocky ground. The sheer force cracked the earth, but the creature remained unfazed, regaining its balance. He sent more, each one flinging rocks and dust into the air. Flames roared around it, burning brighter, as though anger had ignited a deeper core of power within. Kyran could feel the intensity rise—a fevered hunger to consume everything in its path.
The first ant swung again, this time quicker, more precise, its molten claws slashing toward him. Kyran raised his hand, igniting the air into a field of explosions. The mini explosions created enough force to distort the attack's path. He quickly compressed them into one, then blew it up, send it crashing into a wall.
"Holding back isn't as easy as it looks I guess." He pondered.
With a thought, the space around the ant collapsed, pulling it inward as if the world had suddenly caved in on it. The ant screeched as its form bent and folded into a tight singularity, its fiery essence compressed and snuffed out. But the second ant was already upon him, faster than before, its molten fist crashing down like a comet.
Kyran teleported, bending the distance between them, but the heat was suffocating. Flames spiraled around him, licking at his skin. He couldn't feel the burning intensity even though his body was right in the crosshairs. The air shimmered with unbearable heat as the ant charged again. Kyran's hand crackled with energy as he shot a bolt of lightning at the creature, but it absorbed the strike, its flames feeding off the energy.
"It seems you liked that." Kyran whispered, grin widening, "How about a thousand more?"
His smile widened as he shifted focus, dodging and weaving like a dancer as a corona of lightning around him grew brighter and brighter, flashes of blue and gold light giving a beautiful backdrop to the slaughter. Just as Kyran had become unbearable to look at, he clapped his hands together, and let the lightning explode.
The barrage seemed to have no end in sight, the bolts only growing stronger and stronger. At some point they started blowing holes in the ant. It tried to recover, and succeeded until the lightning once again grew stronger and just vaporized whole chunks of the ant, and even the wall behind it.
He decided to let up, and was mildly surprised to see it still alive, albeit alive with barely anything but a head and collar.
Before it could recover, Kyran drowned it in ice Aether, turning it into a sculpture. And with a wave of his hand, the ice shattered, the shards flying.
The battle was over, the heat in the air dissipating. Kyran stood alone amidst the scorched earth, the smell of sulfur and ozone lingering. He let out a slow breath, the space around him settling back into place as though the fight had never happened.
He stretched, his hands high above his head as he walked towards Raven's direction.
"Man, dragging out fights is harder than I thought. Not really my style." He muttered to himself, "It's fun though."
He just kept on walking, leaving a scorched crumbling tunnel, that soon after collapsed.