A Monster (Part I)

Cynthia couldn't stop herself from grinning as she sized up her three 'old friends.'

The memories of the time she spent with them flooding back into her mind as she spoke.

"It's been a while... Tracy... Jordan... Oskar... Although I doubt it, do any of you three recognise me?"

When Cynthia said that, she remembered all of the good times that she shared with them in her past life. Oskar's sarcastic pragmatism, Jordan's comedic quips which often clashed with Tracy's solemn and serious personality, all of them had something interesting to offer to Cynthia.

Out of everyone that made up the 'Chromata Crew,' that served the Family, Cynthia probably disliked these three the least.

It was really quite a shame that Cynthia would have to kill all of them now.

The Chromata Crew was one of the more recent groups to betray Cynthia, probably the second last before the betrayal that actually killed her.

Granted, there was a good chance that they probably have a reasonable excuse which explained away why they stabbed Cynthia in the back but she didn't care.

She knew and killed 'sympathetic' people like them before.

Traitors were traitors.

And all traitors needed to die.

Soon, Cynthia started to feel her brain strain once again as she contemplated her thoughts at a faster speed than her brain can actually process.

In fact, so far only two seconds have actually passed.

Once again she had to thank her latent S-class latent psionic abilities passively enhancing her mental capabilities, thus lessening the mental strain in the process.

Nevertheless, she still couldn't help tilting her head slightly to the side as she thought to herself.

On the other hand, it would seem that the trio were completely unaware of Cynthia's true nature, instead continuing to maintain a cautious expression as they aimed their weapons at and slowly circled around her.

Of course they couldn't recognise 'him' in this new body.

How could they?

To them, the person in front of them was a mere 'upper-class' child of some rich CEO. Not the most powerful human psionic to date.

Granted, although she could not unleash her full power right now, she could still wipe out all three of these weaklings out in an instant if she really wanted to.

Out of the three, only Tracy was a psionic and she was a mere F-class psionic, the lowest class of psionic that made up at around 70% of all total psionics.

Although they were classed as psionics, their actually psionic ability was quite limited. The most they will be able to do is increase their physical capabilities by 10% at most or summon a small flame at their fingertips.

Apart from that, like the higher classed psionics, F-class psionics also possess inherently advanced mental capabilities with a faster thinking and calculating process but even that was outclassed by mere E-class psionics.

Not forgetting to mention that any typical non-psionic can match up to most F-class psionics with any sort of cybernetic or exo-suit enhancement or even just rigorous training.

Tracy belonged to the former 'self-enhancing' category of psionics with the ability to increase her overall physical capabilities by 8.7%.

However, if Cynthia remembered correctly then Tracy was closer to an auxiliary operative rather than a combat operative. Although she was technically a field agent, what Tracy specialised in was in hacking, systems and weapon's maintenance, and other auxiliary duties.

She took advantage of her enhanced mental capabilities rather than her enhanced physical capabilities and thus was quite lacking physically speaking. While she still received the compulsory sort of military training required of someone in her field, it was nothing compared to her comrades.

Her small petite figure when compared to the tall lean bodies of both the old Oskar and the young Jordan was proof of that.

Even though she can enhance her own physical abilities by 8.7%, she was still outmatched by both of her comrades in physical ability due to their larger overall emphasis on enhancing their own combative capabilities, whether it be through training or cybernetic upgrades.

In other words, when looking at the bigger picture, she might as well be a regular human.

In fact, the other real non-psionic operatives of her squad probably posed a larger threat to Cynthia than Tracy.

Although Oskar was old, he spent a decent amount on cybernetic enhancements to 'improve his chances of surviving,' these included but weren't limited to his semi-prosthetic eyes, cybernetic implants and of course, his prosthetic-cybernetic right hand.

Those combined with his intensive training which he upheld despite his old age and his years of experience already made him a larger threat than Tracy.

And Jordan was similarly just as dangerous.

Although he also had cybernetic upgrades, it was not on the same level as Oskar. He also lacked the years of experience that Oskar held but there was one thing that Jordan had that Oskar lost a long time ago.

His youth.

Jordan was not limited by his body. Unlike Oskar who was past his prime, Jordan had the potential to become greater than Oskar is and ever has been. Not forgetting to mention that currently, Jordan is on-par with Oskar but judging that 5 years have past, perhaps Jordan may have already surpassed Oskar.

Either way, Cynthia didn't care.

The three of them were going to die anyway.

Although she didn't really despise them that much and planned to give them a quick death, she would still savour this opportunity to truly unleash at least a decently sized fraction of her powers.

"Hmm... I guess not... Well none of that matters anyway... Ahaha... This is going to be fun."

When Cynthia said this, she spotted the trio take even more distinctively defensive stances when compared to before.

They stopped trying to circle Cynthia and instead held their positions, ready to cover the other person at a moments notice if need be.

Truth be told, Cynthia had to commend their teamwork.

Even without communication chips in their heads, they could still maintain teamwork in situations such as these.

However, Cynthia has already seen this sort of teamwork from groups that consisted of more competent people and more people in general.

These three were nothing too special.

Whether they were actually aware of that, Cynthia didn't really care.

The already tense atmosphere only multiplied as the situation continued to escalate.

But in the end, no one could do anything to Cynthia as they instead essentially 'let her have the first shot.'

Of course they couldn't do anything to her.

They couldn't afford to do Cynthia harm.

They had to take her alive.

That was their biggest and last mistake.

Sine they needed her alive, none of them pulled the trigger of their rifle as Cynthia raised both of the palms of hands in front of her.

Soon, two red balls of flame started emanating out of both of her hands.

Fire was the weakest sort of attack that a 'heat psionic' like Cynthia could conjure.

Fire could not compete in terms of precision with lightning nor could it compete to the raw overall destructive output of condensed light.

It was simply considered 'obsolete' when one takes into consideration how 'fire' is outmatched by condensed light and lighting.

Even though the trio were taken slightly by surprise when they saw that Cynthia was able to effortlessly call upon balls of flame in her hand, they still managed to keep their composure.

They probably thought Cynthia was still something that they could handle.

After all, small balls of flame aren't really that much of a big deal when compared to what the upper echelons of psionics could accomplish.

However, in the literal hands of someone like Cynthia, even the weakest form of attack would quickly become a terror to behold.

Even though she knew that she would strain her body in the process, this was too good of an opportunity to not do it.

Soon, the pair of flaming balls turned into Cynthia's signature colour.

Green.

As soon as the flames turned from red to green, an entirely different expression took over the trio's faces.

Oskar remained completely silent, his wide open eyes completely dead set upon the two balls of green flames while his jaw hung open.

Jordan similarly also eyed the green flames but unlike Oskar, he was muttering to himself.

"Green flame?.. But that's... impossible... imp... impossible"

Tracy no longer gazed at the two balls of flame as she instead diverted her attention to the small holographic screen that she placed in front of her eyes.

"Her psionic level! It's rising! Rising fast! One thousand! Wait no! It's over two thou-no five thous-"

Her eyes continued to widen the longer she read out loud the readings given to her by her suit.

"It's over nine thousa-"

Before she could even finish her sentence, her right gauntlet exploded entirely, almost causing her to drop her rifle.

For a brief period, lasting less than a second, the two parties simply silently stared at each other.

Before all three of them simultaneously opened fire at Cynthia, their survival instincts probably taking over their bodies as soon as they saw the feared colour of green.

The weapons they held in their hands were 'Gauss Rifles,' weapons which utilised gauss technology to fire ferromagnetic projectiles at hypersonic speed. They appeared to be more recent variants that were developed sometime in the past 5 years.

However, there actions were all for naught.

Even with such a weapon, they ultimately posed no threat to Cynthia.

Cynthia felt a stinging pain spread across both of her arms as she manipulated the flames to protect herself, forming a sort of green 'fire shield' around her.

The rounds fired from the gauss rifles were immediately turned to ash the moment they touched the green flames while the flames themselves reverted back into the shape of two floating green balls once Cynthia confirmed that they exhausted all of their ammo.

Soon, an expression of dread and terror took formed on their faces as they realised the true nature of the situation.

Cynthia smirked as she let them wallow in their sorrow for a few short moments before she let a single, solitary, cold word out of her mouth.

"Goodbye."

...

Somewhere, in a galaxy far, far away from Cynthia, there was a single woman.

A woman who hovered in the middle of a large room.

The room itself had a rather 'foreign' aesthetic, although it took a cylindrical shape, the architecture of the room was largely triangular and angular in shape, yet there were no actual sharp 'points,' instead curving smoothly.

At first glance, it would seem that these patterns were simply random splayed out with no rhyme or reason, but a second, more thorough glance would make it clear that some inexplicable 'pattern' did exist.

There was something entrancing about it.

Something mystical.

On the other hand, the woman who was hovering in the middle of the room sat in a cross-legged position. Her eyes were softly closed together while the palms of both of her hands pressed against each other, as if she was praying or meditating.

She wore what appeared to be a light blue robe which did well to hide her figure excluding her hands and face, and matched her long silky pale-blue hair that fell freely down her back until it reached the bottom half of her waist.

Like the architecture of the room, the woman's face was largely angular yet at the same time it wasn't too sharp, instead mellowing out to give her a sort of 'angelic appearance.' The only part of her that was actually pointed were the tips of both of her ears, which pointed upwards at a 45˚ angle like a pair of daggers.

However, soon the woman jerked her head upwards for seemingly no reason.

After a short moment, she slowly opened her eyes to reveal a pair of two blue coloured pupils before a smile grew on her face as she spoke to herself.

"Finally.

After a mere five years, it has appeared again."

Her voice was calming and soothing, as if she was literally an angel from heaven.

"The guiding green light.

Our saviour.

Our messiah."