Herol: She’s – she’s a VERY good fighter!
Akino: She’s not supposed to be this brutal…
Herol: What? Don’t tell me…
They looked at her, rampaging at the enemies like a wild animal.
Herol: She’s gone berserk!
Akino: Berserk?! What is this?! A fucking video game?!
Herol didn’t paid attention to what Akino said and quickly throws himself towards Lyka.
Herol: Lyka! Stop this! If you continue this, your bloodlust will grow stronger!
Lyka just gnarls at him and continues to ravage the terrified enemies, tearing their arms, sweeping them with her greatsword like cutting grass, punching their chests into a hole, and burning them alive with her magic. Herol hated humans, but somehow, what Lyka was doing made him go and snap at her.
Herol: I said enough with this!
Herol tried to swing his sword at her and catch her attention, but Lyka manages to grabbed him and thrown him to the wall, injuring him in the process. Akino slowly approaches her while she violently gnaws, like a rabid wolf. Her eyes were glowing bright purple, but her sclera was dark violet.
Akino: LYKA!
Lyka: Grrr!
Akino: Lyka, please, calm down… they’re done, okay? This isn’t like you…
Lyka: GRRR!!!
Lyka holds her head, screaming wildly, in pain and full of aggression. The other demi-wolves were frightened at the sight.
“The Destroyer!” “She’ll kill us all!” “Oh god, please save us!”
Lyka looked at the remaining enemy soldiers, cowering on the corner, pleading for mercy and salvation. She raises her right arm, casting a powerful magic.
BOOM!
The magic shoots out towards the enemies, but Akino quickly used her body to cover them.
Akino: (LYKA! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!)
Lyka stopped. Talking to her telepathically with the help of their quantum neural link somehow worked on making her stop. Lyka looks at Akino calmly, but then she violently screams in pain. Lyka’s chest seems to glow, from the inside.
Akino: (LYKA!)
> [WARNING: UNKNOWN ENERGY SOURCE DETECTED AT HQC-101 CHEST CAVITY.]
>
> [MATERIAL ANALYSIS SUGGESTS A FOREIGN MATERIAL INSIDE HQC-101 CHEST CAVITY TO BE THE SOURCE]
>
> [UNKNOWN ENERGY SOURCE ANOMALOUSLY DISRUPTS THE ZERO-ENTROPIC ENERGY EXPLOITATION]
>
> [UNKNOWN ENERGY SOURCE IS AFFECTING HQC-101 COGNITIVE SYSTEM]
Akino quickly goes to Lyka and holds her. Now that she’s closer, Akino sees a crystal-like thing inside her chest glowing purple. She could see Lyka’s pain, her yelping and her tears. Akino immediately pinned her down to the ground with her ‘extra’ robot arms coming out of her back, then she holds her cheeks, closes her eyes, and waited.
> -ACCESSING THE VIRTUAL MATRIX
>
> -WARNING: AN ANOMALY DETECTED INSIDE HQC-101 COGNITIVE SYSTEM
>
> -WOULD YOU LIKE TO OVERRIDE THE HQC-101 SYSTEM? [Y/N]
>
>
Akino: (I want to solve it myself!)
> -[N]
>
> -ENTERING THE VIRTUAL MATRIX
Akino entered the virtual space inside Lyka’s mind. The place is full of cracks, like the one she and Alexa saw before leaving the core in facility-13, but there’s a purple glow underneath those. She looked around and saw two figures, two identical people, two Lykas. The other one is chained on the ground, and the other was standing in front of her, looking down on the chained one.
Akino: Lyka?
Stolen novel; please report.
The two gazes at Akino. The one standing glares, having a murderous intent. The chained one looks depressed, her eyes dried of tears.
Akino: Lyka… wh – what’s going on?
Chained Lyka: Nothing… nothing… it’s all the same… nothing…
Aggressive Lyka: You shouldn’t have come here. Everything is already fine!
Akino walks slowly towards the two, but the aggressive one summons a sword and points it at her.
Aggressive Lyka: Don’t you dare. DON’T YOU DARE!
Chained Lyka: Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing! It’s all the same, it’s all the same, it’s all the same –
Akino: Please, I’ll hear it out… I’ll help you, just tell me what’s wrong…
Aggressive Lyka: You - ! I TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY!
The glyphs on the skin of the angry Lyka started to appear. Black tattoos, all glowing, and she was like covered in black flames. It tried to swing its sword on the chained Lyka but Akino catches it.
Akino: What the fuck are you doing?!
Aggressive Lyka: GETTING RID OF MY WEAK SELF!!!
The two struggles – Akino keeps the angered Lyka from reaching the other.
Chained Lyka: I… I have no use… every time something happens… I – I can’t do anything useful… and if so, I just ruin it…
Akino: The fuck is this coming from?! You’re doing great! Everything you do is great!
Aggressive Lyka: You’re not helping!
Akino hesitantly stops the violent Lyka. The chained one suddenly stands and tries to stop Akino, now with gritted teeth and in angered manner.
Akino: The fuck’s going on…?
Chained Lyka: Nothing… nothing is happening… you should’ve left me back there… you should’ve let me die!
Aggressive Lyka: That’s right! You should’ve known it better!
Akino: I told you, remember? You even made me remind of it! That we should move on from our pasts! If this is about last time, that time you blame yourself for not saving your people, it’s not your fault!
Aggressive Lyka: It is her fault! OUR fault! We hesitated – no, it’s because we can’t! And where did that lead you? HUH?!
Chained Lyka: No… no!
The chained one stops and brashly hits her own head, confused and crying. Akino stops her by holding her hands and directly looking at her eyes.
Akino: It wasn’t! It was… I should’ve talked this… I’ve been selfish that I forgot you had your people… I’m sorry… It must be building inside you… I’m sorry I hadn’t noticed it… I should’ve talked about it to make you at ease…
The chained Lyka looks at her and weeps hard. The one standing sighs in disgust at the sight of the two.
Aggressive Lyka: Heh, don’t worry though. Once you become like your father, a god of destruction, you’ll leave nothing but dust and ashes on your wake! You’ll take your powers and use it against them! You’ll kill every human who did this!
Akino: Hey! Stop it! That’s not how the Lyka I knew thinks!
Chained Lyka: Not – how I think?
Aggressive Lyka: Then you must change! You should change! We should change!
Akino: Don’t force it!
Aggressive Lyka: Oh really? How about the times that you said to use your own power to the extent of hurting and killing others? Being not hesitant because it’s a cruel world?! Saying killing won’t do good?! You’re a hypocrite!
Akino: I know… and I don’t deny that. There are times we had to take extreme measures and create decisions we might regret.
Akino stands and faces at the unchained Lyka.
Akino: And I haven’t told her anything about ‘killing won’t do good’.
Aggressive Lyka: WHAT?
Akino then takes over the place, making the two ‘personas’ of Lyka stop moving, static like a statue.
* > VIRTUAL MATRIX SYSTEM OVERRIDED.
* > RECOVERY STASIS FOR HQC-101 INITIATED.
* > HQC-101 IS NOW IN RECOVERY STASIS.
* > NEURAL ANOMALY DETECTED.
* > RECOMMENDATION: REMOVE THE NEURAL ANOMALY.
Akino looks around, inspecting the two Lyka’s. The chained one fell unconscious and remains still, but the other one seems to be struggling. Akino didn’t notice it, instead she focused herself on the chained Lyka, tinkering something on her cheeks and hair.
Agressive Lyka: Don’t… don’t touch her!
Akino: Why not?
Aggressive Lyka: Because I’m the real one!
Akino: Then you want me to check on you instead?
Aggressive Lyka: People are dying out there! Don’t play fool right now!
Akino: You forgot how time works in here, did you?
Aggressive Lyka: What?
Akino stands. The chained Lyka was released from her chains and softly lies on the ground.
* > NEURAL ANOMALY DISCONNECTED FROM THE HQC-101 CEREBRAL MATRIX.
* > UPDATING HQC-101 CEREBRAL INTEGRITY.
* > HQC-101 NEURAL INTEGRITY UPDATED. IMMUNITY TO UNKNOWN FACTORS FOR POSSIBLE MENTAL TAKEOVER ESTABLISHED.
* > HQC-101 NOW EXITING THE VIRTUAL MATRIX.
The unconscious Lyka dissipates in air. The whole virtual place returns to its normal state: a white plain of emptiness and cracks with purple glow began to disappear. Akino turns around to the other Lyka who’s confused at what’s happening.
Aggressive Lyka: Wh – what did you do?!
Akino: I get it now. Another persona of hers manifested in here, creating a split personality, and I just manually removed it.
Aggressive Lyka: Wh – what?
Akino: Try to act better next time? You kinda give it away when you’re talking to me about ‘killing’.
Lyka reopens her eyes, back in the castle main chamber. Akino was on top of her, with several wires coming out of her head connected to a single point on her glowing chest and unconscious. Lyka tried to move but she can’t, and she hears voices in her head.
YOU WILL NEED ME!
UNLEASH ME!!!
THIS HUMANS NEED TO DIE!
Lyka: (Aki? AKI?! Wake up!!!)
Akino suddenly jolts and wakes up. The glowing ‘crystal’ inside Lyka’s chest seems to glow much brighter.
Akino: Whatever this crystal thing is, I need to pull it out, and it will be painful…
Lyka: Wha – the gemstone? Inside me?
Akino: It’s controlling your emotions! I need to remove it!
Lyka: O – okay! I’m ready!
The wires on Akino’s hair slowly pulls out of Lyka’s chest. Lyka grits her teeth but then proceeds to shriek due to the pain. One, two, three. Akino pulled out the crystal in an instant, with blood surging out of her Lyka’s chest, like fountain. She throws the crystal away and tries to cover Lyka’s chest wound which has already healed the instant she looks back at her.
Akino: You alright?
Lyka: Y – yeah… thank you…
Akino: What the hell is that?!
Lyka looks at the discarded crystal, glowing ‘violently’.
Lyka: It’s – it’s… a corrupted manastone… I think it was formed when – when I was getting emotional…
Akino: Wh – what?
Lyka: It intensified when I saw Herol’s people… I wasn’t able to control it… my emotions… I wasn’t…
The crystal shakes and cracks open, a smog of pure mana bursts out of it and swirls to a single point. The smog turns into a figure in front of them, another Lyka but its body was filled with weird glowing tattoos has a real left arm instead of the bionic one. The figure roars and immediately targets Lyka.