“Crysa… you are aware of what we must do, yes?”

Crysa was holding her arms as they stared at the entrance to the Hero League Laboratory, a blacksite location where superhumans were tested on.

Most of them were even criminals.

Still, she wasn’t there to worry about those people.

No, her Father gave her a mission, an important one at that.

With the fate of the world in the balance, what they were about to do would indeed be important.

She still didn’t like it.

“Yes Father, but I still wonder why? Could we not explain our reasoning? Must we do it this way?”

Her Father looked back at her with a pained expression, the thousand yard stare of something both distasteful and hard to swallow on his face.

“I tried to speak to them, tried to reason with them. No, this is what must be done, now that they have chosen their line in the sand.”

“Alright…”

Crysa held a syringe in her hand, the mixture of the chemicals something Father had built with the few cells of DNA that he was able to glean from their quarry.

It was a virus, one that her father had built to test on a particular person.

A boy.

A friend…

Crysa felt her eyes sting as she realized what she was about to do.

There’s no going back after this, no turn around… if I don’t speak up now, I’ll regret it.

Crysa placed the syringe inside a container, one with a hole at the bottom to allow her to inject the syringe without damaging the canister.

It wouldnt do to let the thing out before she was ready to use it.

“Father, I want to ask once more, are we sure there’s no other way?”

Her Father turned to consider her, his stare turned profoundly sad.

“Trust me Crysa, I do not wish for this anymore than you do, especially after what will happen to the both of us. But it needs to be done, for humanity.”

“For humanity.”

She said it automatically, the phrase her father first taught her when she was born.

Crysa wasn’t born like most babies, for the simple reason that her father never fell in love with anyone.

He still wished for children though, if for no other reason then to continue his experiments.

Crysa wasn’t born like her siblings though, who were given stimuli to reduce their inhibition towards violence.

She was testube grown, but wholy human.

Superhuman to be more prescise, but still.

Her DNA was made with a combination of the DNA that her Father had discovered.

And it was for this reason that she was here, now, at this lab.

Because Father needed that DNA to save humanity, and the people holding him back were here.

The people they were going to kill today.

Crysa moved forward in front of Father as her gift ignited.

She lanced her arm into the ground in front of the Labs, grabbing hold of a power line that she felt with her power.

She crunched the wires, feeling the energy flow into her body.

Soon, it took no effort at all to bring the line up to her mouth and grab hold of it with her teeth.

The lights in the nearby parking lot flickered, and soon the rest of the power turned off.

Crysa glowed with energy, shoving herself forward like a bullet as she crashed through the entrance of the Hero’s Leage Laboratory.

The guards went after her with guns, but it only took a moment for her arms to pierce through their mouths and decapitate them.

The energy from their dying bodies flew into her, and she could feel the rush of new strength heighten her further.

Yet, she felt no rush of endorphins like her brothers and sisters did, no escape of euphoria.

Instead she felt sick, horrible, and disgusted.

Those were people, they had families… and I killed them… I can’t forget this.

She tried to be more gentle with the other guards, but her gift made her too strong to control her power, and most were either pasted or bisected.

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This is for humanity… you’ll all see it in the hereafter. Please understand… I don’t want this!

Crysa was getting better, and soon most of the people she dealt with were merely unconscious as opposed to dead.

It took over five minutes to defeat the guards… and a little over two to disable the science teams.

After going down so many hallways, they had finally reached Father’s Laboratory.

Margaret and Bryan Bockman were inside, a fevered look on their faces as they held their children.

Crysa felt her heart clench as she saw her friends look at her with terrified stares.

“C-Crysa? Tiberius?! What are you both doing here?! Wait Nevermind, we have to leave! A Villain has attacked the facility. There’s no telling if the guards can hold them off…”

Ms. Bockman was looking at Crysa with confusion… until a moment of realization dawned on her face.

It took all of Crysa’s resolve to not give up on her mission right then.

“Crysa… honey, why are you covered in blood-”

“That’s enough Margaret, give us the formula for Project Eve.”

Mr. Bockman…Bryan looked at Crysa’s Father like he was mad.

“Tiberius, did you do all this?! Are you insane?!”

Her Father leveled a laser pistol at Mr. Bockman.

Crysa gasped as the laser shot through Mr. Bockman, the shock on the man’s face frozen in fear as he fell to the ground.

““Daddy!!””

She saw the horror on the two young children’s faces as their father fell towards them.

“Bryan!”

“You have time to save him, Margaret, but only if you give me the formula for Project Eve. If you do not, I will shoot them next.”

Crysa’s heart lurched as the pistol leveled on Sarah, the glowing light beginning to flare.

“Alright! Damn you Tiberius… just leave them alone!”

The pistol shifted to Ms Bockman.

“Good, now lead us there. Crysa, you know what to do.”

“Yes F-Father.”

Crysa turned to Aden, her hand clenching the syringe in her hand.

Forgive me… even if you won’t remember what we were… forgive me!

She shoved the syringe into his arm, eliciting a yelp from the young boy.

Then she shoved another into Sarah.

“Oww…”

They both looked at Crysa with confusion, until they fell over on the ground.

Her Father had pushed Ms. Bockman into a sealed laboratory with a cooling system built in, and the chill in Crysa’s arms didn’t equal with the frigid feelings she was dealing with right now.

It's for humanity… I have to believe that we did this for good reasons. We’re not evil, Dad is not evil… this will help us all.

Crysa saw as her friend’s mother opened the lab with a retinal scan, and watched as a section opened up to reveal two vials of swirling red liquid.

What was strange about it was that it seemed to be moving inside the thing, creating a swirl.

“At long last, the key to our future as a species.”

Ms Bockman was staring at Crysa, “what did you do Crysa, to my children?”

Crysa felt her stomach clench, “I gave them something…”

“What did you give them?”

“Crysa, do not answer-,”

“I gave them a cure.”

“Crysa!”

Crysa couldn’t take it anymore as she saw the horror in Ms. Bockman’s eyes.

“Father said it will make them remember the wrong things! They’ll think you're dead, and that we killed you! Without you, Father can’t complete the formula!”

“Damn you Margaret, you dare use that power on my child?!”

Crysa felt like she had to tell Ms. Bockman everything, or she would never feel okay with herself ever again.

“A-Aden is going to get cancer, one that he can’t cure on his own… S-Sarah had an experimental drug placed inside her… it willl… make… her stay… here!”

“Stay where, Crysa, please tell me!”

“IN NEW TERRA! IT”ll make it so she won’t want to leave. She’ll keep coming up with reasons to stay, to help Aden, or to look for Dad!”

“She has to stay here so that Dad can find her!”

Ms. Bockman turned to stare at Father… and Crysa felt like a new understanding came to her friend’s mother.

“Tiberius… you wouldn’t…”

“We both know that she has the key, Margaret, even you said so yourself that she-”

“She’s my daughter you madman! I won’t let you do it! I won’t let you sacrifice Sarah for your foolish quest!”

“It’s already too late to stop me Margaret, now you can come with me willingly, and we can see if your daughter will survive, or, you can come forcefully. You’ll find my daughter Monica is very persuasive, so, it’s your choice.”

Ms Bockman turned to Crysa again.

“Crysa, Sarah’s your friend… what reason could compel you to do this?”

“Stop it Margaret!”

Crysa felt the clenching return, “I don’t want to… but Father said it had to be done… I can’t disobey him.”

Crysa felt the clenching intensify, “now, you can!”

Suddenly, a weight in Crysa’s mind lifted, and she felt her heart return to her.

“W-What?! What was that?!”

“Crysa! Take Sarah and Aden and go!”

“No!”

Crysa didn’t obey her Father this time, and instead ran to the primary lab as fast as her body would carry her.

She grabbed Sarah and threw her over her shoulder while she princess carried Aden.

She felt her energy soar as she ignited her gift, pushing her limits further than she ever had.

I’ve got to get them away from Father… no! That bastard Dr. Poxus!

Crysa screamed as she smashed through door after door, breaking as much distance from her and her Father as she could.

…

Crysa was at the Hero’s League Headquarters in New Terra.

She had been running for over hours, only stopping to make sure both Sarah and Aden were okay.

Inside her head her mind was screaming.

He used me, he used all of us! That thing that she, Ms. Bockman… did, it freed me from his conditioning. I get it now, why I was always so melancholic! He forced that on me!

Her Father was a manipulative bastard, and unless Crysa did something, both Sarah and Aden were going to be manipulated too.

So she went to the one place she could think of, the one area of New Terra that might protect the two children.

She raced inside, her heart and mind for once in sync with one purpose.

To protect her friends.