Epiphany Of The Weak 20 Golden Menace

Caesar showed me his palm and a yellow pole came out. The pole proceeded to break itself and he wielded it like a spear.

"Wait, he can do that?" asked Hope.

His hand pulled out a pistol from his waist and shot at Caesar. However, the spear-like object inflated itself and caught the bullet mid-air.

My gauntlet tried to grab at that Aegis User but he thrust his spear into it. Yellow crystals popped out of my gauntlet as he did that. Shocked, I moved away from him with a few steps.

"What's happening?" I muttered.

It was surreal in a way.

Caesar broke a huge section of his Aegis crystal voluntarily, which I had never done previously or tried to. Also, he could control it even after it was separated from his body.

"Hmm. Confused, aren't you? I'm the one who's confused. Why is C.U sending a novice like you to capture me?" Caesar threw the spear into the ceiling and it pierced through. A moment later, the hallway was lit up with a bright, golden light coming from the pole. "Yes, that's BETTER. Giving you guys a little handicap here. You can't see that well if it's too dark. So, come at ME."

"We are not here to capture you or anything. We're trying to find my parents!" I yelled.

"Oh? Are you not with the C.U?" said Caesar whimsically.

"We're not!"

"Weeeelll, I don't think the C.U is that stupid to send someone incapable of utilizing the Aegis like you. . . to capture me." He clapped maniacally. "That's a wrap! That's a WRAP!"

"I told you he's crazy!" said Hope. A yellow shard grazed Hope's cheek. "What... " He gulped.

"You said you're tying to find your parents, young Miss Ava?" said Caesar, trying to confirm my intention.

"Er, you mean trying? Um, yes, I want to find them."

"But there's no one here, young miss."

I frowned. "No one inside the villa?"

"Nope, not a single soul. All the people that you see outside there is all there is to it. You can check if you want. BUT I value my time, and you should too, Miss AVA!"

Hope was restraining himself from saying a word.

"Yes, you angsty blond teen? Have a question?" Caesar asked.

"Uhh."

"Come on, spit it out. I'm not going to bite you. . . wait, maybe I will." Caesar formed sharp rows of golden teeth from his right palm. "Nah, maybe not." The teeth then dissolved in thin air.

Hope stood firm and looked at him in the eye directly. "W-What are you? You are from the C.U right?"

Caesar laughed. "Starting off with the tough questions. I like you, angsty teen. As you can see, I'm an Aegis User. And like the any other Users, we all were given the A.I, Aegis, to become human weapons."

"So, you escaped? You ran away?" asked Hope.

"Yes, yes. I can't stand being used, you know. I'm a human, too. I want my own freedom! I've been running away since." Caesar looked at me, adjusting his yellow mask. "Yet you don't remember anything, Miss? That's strange. So, you've not known about the weapon inside you the whole time? Until a few days ago?"

"Yes!" I said.

"Hmm, it's the first time I've met a User like you."

"Um, how come your Aegis is different, Mister Caesar?"

He hummed to himself for a few moments. "Well, each User has different kinds of Aegis, you know. Its color reflects the individuals themselves. Different User, different capability. Once an Aegis is inserted inside a person's body, it copies the person's DNA, and memorized it, permanently integrating itself. So, each Aegis is unique on its own."

Caesar pointed at his makes.h.i.+ft spear bulb at the ceiling. "My Aegis gave me the ability to manipulate animated objects made up of my Aegis crystals, which is unique to me only. "

"Oh! So. . . you can control your Aegis, even after you had separated it from yourself completely." I said.

"Yes, yes. Nothing SPECTACULAR."

"But, how do you make it s.h.i.+ne like that?"

He sighed. "Every Aegis is capable of that. You just need to change its properties. It's like when you liquefy your Aegis weapon."

I blinked. "Oh."

"But yours is quite the. . . tenacious one. It seems to be holding onto something. I could even go as far as saying that it's writhing in pain."

"What do you mean?"

"It suffers from some sort of. . . ident.i.ty crisis? The Aegis recognizes you as its host, but at the same time, that A.I is confused. It memorized your DNA I'm sure, but the Aegis seems to be looking at a different person and not its owner."

"I-I don't understand."

"Well, me too," said Hope.

"Me three!" shouted Caesar. He cleared his throat after that. "Every Aegis is an A.I made for combat. It's a brain on its own. Your fast regeneration is due to Aegis taking over your wounded area, replicating the necessary cells to heal your wound at any cost, immediately. It would drain you, though, so you need to sleep a lot."

"So, I can't die?" I asked.

"You can, actually when you look at your gauntlet."

I looked at the yellow crystals that had penetrated the gauntlet a while ago. "The gauntlet is not repairing itself."

"Even a scratch towards your Aegis crystal from another User is not repairable, in any way. When an Aegis collided with another different one, a unique reaction occurs where you can't change their properties ever again. For example, your gauntlet was pierced by my yellow Aegis. It cannot liquefy itself back unless you broke the part that had been affected. As a side note, the Aegis crystals were produced inside your body the moment your Aegis enters combat mode. It's, in fact, your own flesh crystallized."

I was in confusion. "H-How?!"

My gauntlet broke itself and the remaining part of it seeped into me.

"You know, how about we talk at the lounge room," said Caesar. He waved his hand, and the yellow crystal blocking the hallway diverged, forming a small path. He did that instead of liquefying his Aegis crystals.

We arrived at the lounge room and sat on the couches. Caesar was on the couch in front of both me and Hope.

"This might be a trap," said Hope.

Caesar clicked his tongue. "Watch your mouth, angsty blond teen. That scratch on your cheek is only a mere taste of what's to come."

"This scratch. . . I could not even see the shard coming back then," said Hope nervously.

"Nope. Good luck getting even a girlfriend looking like that. That looked like a gash to me."

"Erm, Mister Caesar. You said the Aegis crystals--" I showed him my crystallized left arm. "Is my own flesh, right? How come it can grow so big?"

"Good question, Miss Ava. Like I said before, the Aegis planted inside you, which is a small cylindrical object, secreted chemicals that are capable of multiplying your cells, even to the size of a skysc.r.a.per."

I gaped. "W-What?"

"No, I'm not joking. It can be done, at least that's what she said. I've never done it myself. Given that you have enough protein to produce a skysc.r.a.per, that is. The chemicals inside the Aegis's physical structure convert your stored protein into Aegis crystals. The average conversion rate is 10:1, the Aegis crystals and your protein respectively. It also applies for your regeneration."

"How do the Aegis restock the chemicals?" Hope asked.

"Hmm, I'm not sure myself, but I remembered something about utilizing your other minerals, I think. You just have to know that all Aegis Users are thin."

Hope considered what he had told us. "Overall, the Aegis responds to the User's will and then shape the produced crystals accordingly. To be more specific, it multiplies the host's flesh and crystallize it when the Aegis detects danger. This method can also be used to repair the body instantly. Each Aegis is unique to the individuals, which can be seen from its color."

"Hmm, now you make me regret hurting your face, angsty blond teen," said Caesar.

"But what bothers me after coming here is that, where's the town chief? Did you. . . kill all the people outside the villa?"

"Now, now, you're ACCUSING me, teenage angst blond. . . guy. I don't kill the people out there. The army did. I witnessed all of it with my own eyes," Caesar explained all that with various hand gestures that looked like nothing I could relate to.

"Oh. Uh, sorry, Mister Caesar," apologized Hope.

Caesar sighed. "No, I don't mind. Anyway, I'm out of time. See you soon." Caesar skipped onto the hallway, and he turned around. "Oh, but I did kill the town chief though. He's quite the corrupt person." Caesar laughed as he disappeared into the darkness.

Taking his advice, I kept wis.h.i.+ng for my crystallized half to disappear, but it didn't work.

"I don't know, Hope. It seems like I'll be looking like this for a while."

"He did say something about you have to be the one taking control of your Aegis, instead of the opposite. Maybe you just need to keep trying."

"Yeah." The explanations Caesar gave us lingered in my mind. "So, an Aegis User's weakness is. . . another User?"

"And it's own Aegis." Hope stood up from the couch and looked at the stairs leading to the first floor.

"Where are you going?" I said.

"We're going to search for your parents, of course. We'll search the whole villa."

I smiled. "Yes!"

===

We both walked out of the villa after spending about half an hour inside.

"Mister Caesar was telling the truth," I muttered.

"Yeah, there's no one inside." Hope grimaced from seeing all the dead bodies. "And they're not here. . . either?"

"No, I don't see Mommy and Daddy." I did not let the dead bodies bothered me. I had seen much worse, and even killed people to let it distracted me from my only goal. After inspecting them, Mommy and Daddy were not there among the dead.

"Then, that leaves only one more place," said Hope.

I gulped and looked at my town that was breathing flames in the dark night.

"The army's base."