The Ones Against Us

CHAPTER 12

The sight of his tomb gives me the impression that he is still with me, standing beside me and comforting me. After Zire and I were forced to flee our homes,

The man who thought me to be courageous, to be fierce, to face all of the boundaries on whatever I'm going to experience, while taking my heart and mind with it. The man who had stood by me through my ups and downs.

The man who guarded me during my apprenticeship, who thought me on what is good and evil, liberty and justice, the one who thought me I should never convey my fury onto vengeance, I should always be efface oneself. And I should never give up, no matter how high the challenges are.

A tear rolled down my cheeks as I stood there with my palms tucked into the pockets of my jacket. While resting my forehead against the gravestone, I sincerely hope he is still alive. I mumbled,

"Happy Birthday... father",

Droid Garrison Duvrion, October 9 1862– February 11 2016

On my way back to the station to finish my incomplete tasks.

Eight months had passed since the attack happened. Our beloved superior lies in the cells far away from Andromeda Galaxy, paying for the damage she made in Gaia. I sat quietly on my desk while I did my paperwork, briefly glancing at the holographic screen that appeared before me.

Everything was peaceful as I got carried away from the amount of work I was doing. All of a sudden, a loud noise made my head turn. That’s strange? I stood up to take a closer look at what's going on.

The moment my eyes landed down on the barrier, my eyes widened in both shock and confusion. My soldiers are killing themselves as well as their allies, while the other bots go insane. My eyes turned cold as I stared at them. I didn't know what to do.

Although my first thought was maybe it’s a malfunction or their system shut down somehow, but it couldn’t be. I decided to just give Captain a call using my holographic screen, however he’s not answering. I briskly walked away from the chamber and resolved to go to Tamebervyner City where Greer and Feint are at.

As I walked down a street, I stopped for a moment and leaned towards an empty vast space. I tried to give Captain a call again, but he’s still not answering.

Where is he? I thought to myself.

By the time I got closer to the aircraft, I saw Greer and Feint leaning on their ship with cigarettes in their mouths.

"Furia! What brought you here?" Feint asks as he tightly holds a grip on his firearm.

"Have you seen Zire? I tried to reach him multiple times, but he isn't answering any of my calls" I replied.

"We haven't seen him since this morning and he didn't give us any tasks nor orders" Greer follows.

"Before you guys left the chamber... are the bots going well?...or?" Furia questioned.

"Yeah, why what's wrong?" Feint raised an eyebrow.

"All of them started killing each other, more likely themselves, I don't have any idea what's causing it" I stated.

"May I borrow your ship? I'll go and try looking for him" I requested.

"No problem" Greer responded back.

"Stay here in case he comes back" I ordered while I shifted myself inside the aircraft.

~

I was just casually taking notes on what my science teacher’s writing on the board. At the same time mindlessly gathering all the needed test tubes, cylinders and beakers for our today’s experiment. I then mixed and measured whatever my professor told us to do.

I got my eyes glued on my paper when suddenly I noticed the beaker on my right started slightly shaking. Something’s definitely wrong...

My chair started vigorously shaking as I gazed around the classroom. I immediately stood up and looked outside the window. Everything happened too fast… the sight of an enormous capsule is headed straight to us.

"Everyone duck!" The moment I shouted, the windows crashed and screams erupted everywhere.

I could sense that they were frightened, the teacher gathered all of the students at the back of the classroom. My classmates were covered in dust including me, thankfully no one was injured.

The capsule landed on the roof, the lights started to flicker and wires laid exposed. I was still so caught up with everything that happened that I didn’t notice the blood dripping down from my right ear. I covered it with my right hand as I tried to stand up, but my strength was completely gone.

Someone jumped down from the aircraft, a man wearing a black overcoat, pants and a pair of shoes. My classmates let out an ear piercing scream when they spotted the g*n in his hand.

"Cydney...What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be laying on your grave right now?" Zire taunted as his red mechanical eyes started to glow as he stared at me, he's not the Zire I know.

"That is the question, what are you doing here?" I talked back to him and did my best to stand up.

"I'm here to fulfill my master's orders, which is...you" he said mockingly.

The both of us circled at each other. I'm not sure what his next moves are, I can’t read him at all. My classmates and my teacher are obviously scared, I can't get them involved in this fight. Ironically, I heard students coming out of their classrooms, some even started filming with their phones.

“Die” he sneered at me, not thinking twice to fire the g*n right at my face. I barely dodged the bullet as it got stuck upon the wall behind us. I kicked the g*n off his bare hands and rolled over outside the room. I was about to punch him when he grabbed my right hand and punched me instead. I fell down on the floor with my nose bleeding. I ignored the sudden pain and swiftly stood up, on reflex kicking him right at his abdomen.

However he was faster as he had no trouble snatching my hair and pulling me down with him. I tried to escape but his grip got too tight. I jabbed my foot on his, swung my body around and punched his petty face with all the strength I could muster. I walked out of the room and grabbed the g*n on the floor. Students stared at me in amazement, probably by my moves. “Everyone back in their classrooms now!” I yelled.

I looked around and Zire’s nowhere to be found. Not until I heard a loud scream coming from the hallway. I rushed there and froze for a moment when I saw one of my teachers being held captive by my older brother. He pointed his g*n on her head.

"Put the g*n down, and I'll let her go"

I can feel all their eyes staring at me, waiting for my next move. I slowly kneeled down and slid the g*n over to him. I raised both of my hands in defeat.I glared at him furiously.

"I surrender, now let her go" I demanded. Zire’s not going to stop until he gets his hand on me and kills me. I let out a sigh of relief when he pushed her back together with the others. I slowly stood up from my knees. Stupid move. I was supposed to attack when he kicked me back so hard that I fell hard on the floor. I couldn’t move a single muscle as I lay there lifelessly, blood slowly seeping out of my mouth.

I tried to defend myself by trying to reach for something but he’s stronger, he was on top of me and was squeezing my throat vigorously. I thought I was going to die when I abruptly remembered something that Furia once told me.

“If you ever need my help, always look at your reflection”

My eyes frantically searched around to find a reflection, when I spotted a woman standing near the white board holding a g*n.

“Any last words?” He boomed and smiled at me. I tried my best to speak although I was running out of breath.

“Yeah...b-behind you” I hissed. His head spun around at my words but he saw nothing. His face formed a slight smirk for a second but then he got electrified and collapsed. His body suddenly dropped and laid limply beside me.

Furia came to me and lifted me by one hand.

"You alright?" She asked.

"Kinda," I replied.

"Do you know what happened to him? It was all of a sudden" I gave her a questioning look.

"No, I don't have any clue why he's here, I was actually looking for him, then I spotted his ship out of nowhere. I followed him, and ended up here" Furia explained.

"What happened to the both of you anyways?" Furia asked again

"He said he wanted to kill me, to fulfill his master's orders I think, then I fought back" I avowed.

"Where's Cydee?" Furia questioned.

"Well he's not here, he's at his football tournament, why?" I replied

"We need to get him right now," Furia instructed.

"The game is about to start! Number ten! We got visitors for ya! Hurry up!" the coach yelled and the boy took himself off the field and walked towards his sisters.

"Cydney..What are you doing here?...and you are?" Cydee asked while he took a sip from his water bottle.

"You don't know who I am?" Furia ranted.

The boy tried to scan the lady's face until he finally recognized who she was.

"Furia?! Is that you?!" the little man exclaimed in shock, a wide smile forming on his face.

"Well I did a little upgrade on my system. I can transform into a human whenever I need to now" she stated, almost as if bragging.

"So...What brings all of you here? Where's Zire?" the boy asks excitedly.

The two elder siblings looked at each other with their concerned faces.

The three excused themselves and went inside Furia’s ship at the back of the studio. Zire was sitting in the corner, his hands cuffed behind him securely. Cydee was excited to finally see his older brother again until Furia interrupted him.

"Don't go near him yet, he might take your life as well" Furia warned.

"What?" he asks, the boy’s smile suddenly vanishes.

"He tried to murder your sister, didn't you see her bruises?" Furia jeered.

"Why...why would he do such a thing?" Cydee stammered.

“At the moment we still can’t figure out why he would do such things we don’t like. We must examine his body first so we can get the information we need” Furia explained.

"Will you guys come with us?" Furia asked his siblings.

"Ofcourse, besides the situation is urgent, we'll try our best to help" Cydney responded,

"No!" Cydee follows "I-I can't leave now! I mean I have a football tournament today, I have to stay!" The boy stuttered in panic.

"I understand, but is the trophy more important than your own brother? This expedition will just take days, then after that, I'll take the both of you home, is that fine with you?" Furia questioned.

The boy had no choice but to nod his head, the player then suddenly vanishes throughout the game. Leaving his teammates behind.

Cydee glanced one more time at his team playing before the three of them went inside the ship. They left their habitat home. It only took them a few hours to arrive at their planet.