Triple X System

”I was gone for six months?”

Kyle’s voice echoed in the huge lab. It bounced off the glass tanks and the metal tables, and came back to him sounding broken.

No one answered immediately. Reze let the silence do the work. She had learned that sometimes, people needed to hear their own words twice before they understood what it meant.

Troy was the one who finally spoke. His voice was calm, as always, too calm for the situation.

”Six months, twelve days, and four hours. To be precise. Since the day you went to scout the with my generals and didn’t return. We sent search parties for three weeks. After that, i declared you fallen in service to the kingdom. Your parents were given a medal. Lumia didn’t leave her room for a month.”

Kyle’s fists clenched so hard his knuckles turned white. The glass cylinder behind him vibrated slightly from the pressure his back was putting on it.

”That’s not possible.” He muttered, more to himself than to anyone. ”I was in kraken. The place where the Mimic dragged me. Time there is twisted. I fought for what felt like... three days. Maybe four. I killed things I can’t even name. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep. I just kept killing until I found the exit. How could that be six months here?”

’His mind is disoriented.’ It was clear as day Kyle’s mind had been interfered with. But how and why were the questions that lingered in her mind.

”Planet Kraken.” Reze repeated, her eyes lighting up with scientific curiosity despite the heavy atmosphere.

She quickly tapped on her console and a new holographic screen appeared, showing a swirling black vortex. ”We theorized about that. A sub-dimensional prison that feeds on space-time. The mimic didn’t just want to replace you, Kyle. It wanted to trap you where no one would ever find you. And it some how succeeded.”

”Then how do you explain this and..” Kyle stuttered, looking down at his own hands. They looked the same, but he could feel it. The power inside him was different. Wilder. Heavier. Like he was carrying something that didn’t belong to him.

”You tell us.” Reze said. ”You are the first person to ever escape a mimic’s pocket dimension. Our records say it’s impossible. The mind breaks before the body does.”

Kyle closed his eyes. For a second, he was back there. In the endless dark where the ground was made of dried blood and the sky was made of scorched sands. Where every step he took, the voices in his head laughed at him using his mother’s voice, his father’s voice, Lumia’s voice.

”I saw many things i couldn’t explain.” He whispered. ”I heard a lot and I just... I got angry. I got so angry that I stopped trying to find a way back and go with the flow from my instincts.”

He opened his eyes. They were glowing faintly with a dark purple light that had never been there before.

”I did what I had to do in order to survive. That’s all that matters.”

The lab was silent again. Even Troy looked slightly surprised.

Lumia, who had been leaning against a far table with her arms crossed, finally pushed herself off. Her heels clicked loudly on the metal floor as she walked toward him. Everyone thought she was going to slap him. Or yell at him again.

Instead, she stopped right in front of him. So close he could smell the faint scent of lavender she always wore. So close he could see the faint dark circles under her eyes that her makeup couldn’t hide.

”You punched your way out of a dimension, a planet designed to kill even your kind because you heard had to survive?” She asked, her voice quiet, but not cold anymore. Just tired.

Kyle nodded slowly.

”Idiot.” Lumia muttered. And then, for the first time since he returned, her cold mask cracked. Her lower lip trembled. ”You absolute idiot. Do you know what we went through? Do you know what I...”

She didn’t finish. She turned her head away sharply, as if she was disgusted with herself for showing emotion.

Kyle reached out, hesitantly, his hand hovering near her shoulder, not quite touching.

”Lumia... I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know it had been that long. If I had known you were all -”

”Don’t.” She cut him off, stepping back. The wall came back up, but this time Kyle could see it was a wall she built to protect herself, not to keep him out.

”Don’t you dare apologize now. You don’t get to disappear for six months, let us bury an empty box, let me... and then come back and say sorry like it fixes everything.”

”I know it doesn’t fix anything.” Kyle said, his voice rising. ”But I’m here now! I’m back! And you are telling me the kingdom is about to be swallowed by a horde of mutated beasts? Then let me help! Let me do what I was supposed to do six months ago!”

”Help?” Lumia laughed, but there was no humor in it. ”You want to help? Where were you when everything and everyone was falling apart? Twenty good soldiers died there. Where were you when the kids in the lower district started having nightmares about wolves, with two spines standing outside their windows? Where were you when your mother cried every single night for three months straight until she couldn’t cry anymore?”

Each question hit harder than the last. Kyle flinched with each one.

”Lumia, that’s enough.” Troy said, his tone still calm but with a clear warning in it. ”He didn’t choose to be trapped.”

”Didn’t he?” Lumia shot back, turning her glare to Troy. ”He chose to go scouting alone. He chose to not take backup. Just like he always does. Mr. ’I can handle it myself’. And look where it got us.”

”Stop it!”

The voice was not Reze’s. It was not Troy’s. It was Seraphina’s, who had come down the elevator with Kyle’s parents. Kyle’s mother, Xia, with her dark bulb cut hair now streaked with more grey than Kyle remembered. And his father, Ron, tall and silent, with his arm around his wife.

Xia walked straight past everyone, straight to Lumia, and gently took her hands.

”My dear, I know you are hurting. We all are. But my son just came back from the dead. Please. Not now.”

Lumia looked at Xia, and her shoulders sagged. The fight left her all at once. ”I’m sorry, Aunt Xia. I just... I can’t...”

”I know.” Xiao whispered, hugging her. ”I know.”

Ron walked up to Kyle. He didn’t hug him. He just placed a heavy hand on his son’s shoulder and squeezed. Hard. It was the kind of squeeze that said everything a father who wasn’t good with words wanted to say. ’You’re alive. You’re an idiot. I’m glad you’re alive, you idiot.’

Kyle finally broke. A tear slipped down his cheek, something he hadn’t done even in planet kraken when he was being on the run surving just to get stronger.

”I’m sorry, Dad.” He whispered.

Ron just nodded, his own eyes a little red. ”You stink. When was the last time you bathed?”

Despite everything, Kyle let out a wet laugh. ”About six months ago, I think.”

That made Reze clap her hands again, forcing the mood back to business.

”Alright, family reunion part two is over. We have a horde to discuss. Kyle, look here.”

She pulled up the map again. The red dots had moved even closer while they were talking. The northern pass was almost completely covered.

”After you disappeared, the beast activity didn’t just increase, it evolved. The Chimera was the first one to show signs of intelligence. It set a trap for us. Remember? It led us into the canyon. Now, all of them are doing it. The packs are coordinated. The dungeon breaks are happening in patterns. Three days ago, we captured a live mutated direwolf. When we scanned its brain...”

She tapped a button and an image of a brain scan appeared. In the center of the brain, there was a small, black, pulsing crystal.

”There was this. A shard. It’s not organic. It’s not mana. We don’t know what it is. But every single mutated beast we have autopsied has one. And they all pulse at the same frequency. Like they are listening to the same signal.”

Troy stepped forward, his eyes narrowed at the crystal. ”We think someone is controlling them. Or something.”

”The Mimic King?” Kyle asked immediately.

”Maybe. Or maybe something worse that the Mimic King was serving.” Reze said. ”The mimic that replaced you... it wasn’t acting alone. When we finally killed it after it tried to assassinate His Majesty, its body dissolved into the same black crystal dust.”

Kyle felt the dark energy inside him stir at the mention of the dust. The purple glow in his eyes intensified for a second.

”I think... I think I saw something like that in planet Kraken.” He said slowly, trying to recall. ”At the very bottom. Maybe in the cave or something. There was a huge... thing. Like a heart. Made of black crystal. It was beating. And it had chains around it. I thought it was just another monster, so I...”

”You what?” Reze leaned forward, her scientific excitement completely overtaking her professionalism.

”I don’t remember.” Kyle muttered genuinely confused.

Reze stared at him. Troy stared at him. Even Lumia turned to stare at him.

”It’s all right if you don’t remember, I didn’t expect much from you anyways. We all knew the risks associated with kraken and you decided to help out. On behalf of the kingdom and everyone, we extend our thanks.?” Reze said slowly.

”I-it’s nothing.” Kyle replied.

Troy, for the first time in six months, actually laughed. A short, genuine laugh.

”Of course you did. Perceptive as always, and as subtle as a falling mountain.”

Reze was already typing furiously on her console. ”If you cracked something like a heart, you might have disrupted the signal. That could explain why the horde’s movement has been erratic for the last two days. We thought they were regrouping, but maybe they lost connection!”

She looked up at Kyle, her eyes shining.

”Kyle, you might not have just escaped. You might have wounded whatever is controlling the horde. Which means we have a window. A small window to strike before it heals or finds a new heart.”

Lumia stepped forward, her cold demeanor replaced by the royal princess who had commanded armies at sixteen.

”Then we strike. Now. Before the next wave hits the wall.”

Kyle looked at her, at Troy, at Reze, at his parents. He had been gone for six months. The world had moved on without him, and it had gotten worse. But they were still here. Still fighting.

He wiped the tear from his face, and the purple glow in his eyes finally stabilized. Turning into a steady, powerful light.

”Tell me where the horde is gathering.” He said, his voice no longer that of a confused boy but of the Kyle who had fought alongside them in the short while. ”And I will finish what I started when I punched that heart.”

Outside, far beyond the kingdom’s walls. In the dark forests where the mutated beasts gathered, the black crystals in their brains pulsed. And for the first time in six months, the pulse stuttered, as if it felt fear.

The war for the kingdom was about to begin again. And this time, the original Kyle was back.

”So he’s finally back.” A low voice reverberated with intense power. Forcing the surrounding beast to shudder and coward in fear.

Way behind the beast horde encircled by a deeper shade of red skinned Chimera, a figure stood tall. It wasn’t like the exact replica of Chimera, possessing a more humanoid frame than beast.

Standing upright on it’s two hooved legs, with the sun catching it’s silver white skin. And a clear finger sized red crystal hovered inch inches from it’s forehead, in between it’s antenna.