Rom sat in his rolling chair, nose bleeding, white coat crumpled and stained with sweat and more blood. His own Thaeon grew restless in the next room no matter how often Room told it to hang tight. There would be no reason for it to come out right now only to be blasted apart by Marv. His weak little Evo1 would stand no chance against him. Most researchers didn’t have strong Thaeons; they were used mostly for help in the lab. His own, a [Heat] aspect, could light small fires and help incubate new eggs. Fighting against a lunatic? That was never in the cards for them.
“Marv, look, I–”
An overwhelming pressure pressed into his body and threw him back against the wall with a crack. He hung his head down with a whimper. Rom’s Bond tightened in his chest. In a moment of lucidity he told his Thaeon to get out of the room as fast as possible. It may get torn apart by Marv, but now so was Rom.
“This is the most important research we’ve ever conducted, Rom. I’m a bit confused, is all.”
Confused and enraged. Marv had theorized fixing that subtle flaw in human DNA for years, discussing it with colleagues, Trainers even a couple TEA agents he had worked beside. The consensus was clear from the start: either they disagreed with it, thought it morally questionable, or, in most cases, didn’t care. Rom had always been different, and was the only one Marv had trusted since the outset. He may have had his own qualms, sure, but never once did he actively stand in his way to prevent furthering the research. It wasn’t just shipping out all of their crystallized aspects. Marc had discovered a text thread between Rom and Raven.
A cry for help.
It began with Raven, in his own sweet way that made Marv’s blood boil and course hot through his throbbing veins along his arms, saying the atmosphere was off when he came to visit. Rom had responded–at the time he was trembling at the battle room’s control panel watching as Marv exploded balls of water at scrambling Thaeons–with a plea to send a message to the other labs to not allow those crystallized aspects out of storage. When asked about the detail, Rom had told him that Marv was dabbling in illegal research and threatening him physically.
“Raven has been sending me messages to stop. He threatened me, you know. Me. He threatened me. If it wasn’t for me he wouldn’t have that cushy job handing out our rare starters to a bunch of snot-nosed brats.” The rage returned as heat in his face. As pressure in his stomach. A ball of water appeared in his hand with a purple tint and Rom, looking up with blood streaming down his nose, raised his arms that took the brunt of the impact. He hit the ground with a cry of pain.
“He’s a fool, like you. Like everyone here. Why do we need starters and the Trainer program anymore? We can give the next generation a chance to become more than they are; to become powerful as Thaeons without needing to spend years forming Bonds and training them. There is no longer a reason for it.”
“No…you’re…wrong.”
“Wrong, am I?” Another rage spike. Stronger this time that flooded his face with heat, making his purple eyes brighten the space in front of him. Rom raised off the ground, sliding up the wall. Increased aggression, higher blood pressure, raised body temperature–all normal attributes in Thaeons. It was only natural he would obtain similar traits along with these new techniques.
“I bet I could challenge that arrogant girl Kylie in Pol City right now and wipe the floor with her Thaeons.”
Beside him, his computer monitor was flashing with an alert. Rom dropped the floor gasping for breath. He walked over to see the message attached with multiple videos showing the same event from different angles: a large bulk in the distance, loud crashing, a tidal wave zooming across the lake’s surface. Kids sent flying along the wall of water. He paused one video and squinted to see one of the kids tumbling over with a jet black Thaeon reaching for him.
The [Void] kid Raven had mentioned. Now that was an aspect he wanted. Why one of their starters had exited the egg as [Void] was still a mystery here. In the past, it would have prompted swift action to start investigating and getting this kid’s data set into the system. Now it didn’t matter. To hell with their training and adventure. What Marv needed was that aspect for himself. He cocked his head at the other footage showing the colossal Thaeon crushing that tiny lake island. Now that was interesting. Something he would have to investigate himself a bit later. For now, as he reviewed the footage of all the young Trainers tumbling from that tidal wave, a new idea surged into his brain.
“Ah, yes, of course. Why hadn’t I thought of that, Rom?”
Rom groaned again.
“I’ve been hesitant to reveal this new research because I knew there would still be those clinging to tradition and unable to comprehend the frontiers we’re forging into. Ah, yes, now I see: if I offer the same to others, they will understand firsthand what it is. I’ve been too selfish with it so far.”
Take of the fruit and have a taste; see what it’s like to be like God. That was the ultimate offer and few would refuse, he knew.
Then there was the issue of what caused that wave in the first place. No, he couldn’t get into that now. It was time to make a move before–
The double doors swung open violently, slamming into the walls. Two police officers, dressed in black suits with bulky body armor in the form of thick vests and helmets, barged into the room with two Thaeons leading the way. They took stock of the situation, seeing Rom collapsed against the wall and Marv grinning with clenched fists.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Marv, what the hell’s going on? We got a call about an active assault going on in here?”
The officers’ Thaeons were both Evo2, Marv knew immediately. He could feel it like an intuition in his gut about how strong they were. It was a natural defense mechanism so that the wild Thaeons knew which enemies to avoid. He had yet to fight anything higher than Evo1. For that matter, all the Evo1 Thaeons he had fought weren’t close to topping out of their pre-evolution strength. This was going to be fun, he knew it. That previous rage turned into jittery excitement to battle. A compulsion of sorts that joined that intuition in wanting to fight, rend, tear, progress.
Kill.
“Help…me,” Rom grunted.
The officers looked at the broken body, then back to Marv who was now facing them,
“Watch closely if you can, Rom. Let me show you why the era of these old Trainers is coming to an end.”
The two Thaeons were nothing special. Most Trainers, he had found, didn’t end up with complex partners or super-advanced techniques. The ones that did were ranking leaders or TEA agents. Police, on the other hand, valued teamwork and utility over brute strength. The first staring him down, bristling with apprehension and what it felt, stood on four hooves, its body covered in spikes from the base of its head all the way back to its thin tail that swished and made pops like a whip. The elongated head, like that of a donkey, had a single horn emerging from between the eyes with large fangs emerging from the mouth. As with the thing’s power level, Marv also got a sense for its aspect. Not just from the glowing pink aura around its body, but he felt that it was [Heat] aspect.
The other stood on tiny legs, but with two tree-trunk arms that formed into fists to hold its muscular body up. It had four red eyes located in equal intervals around its round head that swiveled in their sockets to learn the layout of the room with a flat face and no mouth. [Blood] aspect. That could be a problem. Marv knew he would have to attack hard and fast to get a leg up on these.
He immediately threw out a Mind Push against the donkey that slid back against its Trainer while the other lunged with its fist glowing, dripping in red. Marv shot it in the eyes with a Water Jet, followed up by forming another one of his doppelgangers, wreathed in purple, that punched it in the face. The other had recovered from the Push and was emanating heat from its waving spikes before unleashing a stream of fire from its mouth.
They were holding back. Good. Their faces were horrified at what they were seeing, only attacking as reflexes. This element of surprise would serve him well. Most Trainers were averse to attacking people…even those, Marv thought with a smile, using techniques right in front of them.
The stream of fire hit a purple shield in the air that curved around him. Marv’s purple eyes intensified. His right hand lifted with the [Heat] Thaeon scrambling its feet as it rose off the ground. With a quick gesture, Marv slammed it into the other who was charging in for what he imagined was a [Blood] poison technique. [Blood] was interesting and not so common. He would like the aspect himself if possible. The idea of three aspects in one body was currently impossible. In time, he mused idly, he would try it himself.
“Marv, stop!” one of the officers cried, but was pushed back next, his nose immediately bleeding. No, he would not. With the two Thaeons still finding their balance, Marv grabbed his doppelganger, retracted it into an orb, then punched it into the ground. From that came a Water Blade technique he had just read about prior to their arrival. It whistled and sliced through the air, cutting into all four who were, yet again, thrown back and bleeding now.
“You see, Rom? This is the power we humans can have on our own!”
“You’re crazy. At the end of…this road will…only be…your own destruction.”
Marv scoffed. “Cute. How’s this for destruction?”
Rom slid across the room into Marv’s open hand where he clenched his now bloodied collar to raise him in front of him in the path of a giant fist from the [Blood] Thaeon. Rom’s neck snapped back with a final crack and he crumbled straight down into a heap that humans are not meant to twist into.
“Never hold back in the face of an enemy,” he told the Thaeon whose own face, though only four eyes, showed a semblance of shock. Hesitation. Marv’s fist glowed purple for a moment before it connected in the thing’s muscled torso and sent it straight up into the air; he clenched it from a distance and brought it crashing into his paired Thaeon’s spikes. Both collapsed then, defeated.
“So weak.”
The officers–faceless to him. Nothing more than fodder in his new machine–blanched, reached for their radios. They wouldn’t make it in time before their bodies dragged forward then back against the wall where their heads broke open on the metal wall.
But now klaxons were blaring all through the entire building. It was time to go. But first, a cover. Off to the side of the room was the hallway that led into their Thaeon holding cells. Luckily for him–he preferred to think about it as fate–there was one quite angry Evo2 [Beast] on standby. He had planned on using it to train with, but now it had a higher purpose. Once released from its cell, and after some prodding with Water Jets, it tore through the halls, then the lab, then over the already broken bodies, stampeding around and wrecking everything it could. In that final moment, Marvin grabbed his necessary files and ran screaming from the room with blood smeared on his white coat and face. More officers had arrived, piling in with their Thaeons screaming for everyone to move.
Marvin smiled. He would stick around for questioning, adding a few cuts and rips to his lab coat for good measure. Afterwards he would make his way to Pol City. In all of his master planning, Marv could see everything clearly: the escape, the rise in his personal power, taking on what would soon be his own disciples. What he hadn’t accounted for was Rom’s own Thaeon who had been trapped in one of the holding cells while his Trainer was broken into pieces in the next room. The severing of a Bond, though well documented, cannot be understood academically in any quantifiable sense. Some have compared it to losing a leg or perhaps a child. It’s more akin to having your identity lost; a part of you gone forever, leaving behind a hollow scar that can never truly heal or be filled. Like a fog rolling in to obscure half of who you are that leaves the grieving party wandering aimlessly.
Rom’s Thaeon did just that.
Once the [Beast] Thaeon had been subdued by the authorities, the Evo1 [Heat] Thaeon rolled out to meet them. It was a slime with a light-pink glow with one giant eye floating around inside its body. The police tensed up, ready to fight; their Thaeons on the other hand, feeling the distress and newfound emptiness coming from the slime, surrounded it in a gesture of consolation. It wasn’t until Raven arrived an hour later that the slime began to open up, communicating roughly with Dagger to get a slight grasp on what had happened. With Rom’s Thaeon in tow, he flew off to Pol City.
