Epiphany Of The Weak 22 I Love You, Papa!

My tears could not stop. I returned her hug with my arms clutched tightly to her white blouse. Mommy and Daddy were at the base all along.

"Mommy. . ." I cried at her side.

I'd feared that scene was a dream that was slowly taking over me, but the feeling of tugging at Mommy's blouse and her fragrant smell brought me back to reality.

Hope and Beatrice watched me silently.

"B-Both of you! Why are you here?!" exclaimed the general. He was talking about Mommy and Daddy.

"We were in this town all these years general," said Mommy.

"Did they send you here?! Could it have been His Supremacy?! I thought you were at the HQ a few years back, and you just disappeared!"

"Hmm, that's a part of it. We just wanted to conduct our own experiments in an isolated place," replied Mommy.

"Experiments?" I repeated. "What do you mean, Mommy?"

She let go of me as if she realized something that I myself could not grasp its meaning. "Ah, you didn't know about it, Ava dear."

I glanced at Daddy standing behind Mommy. He wore a lab coat, which was strange. Daddy did not own a lab coat. He raised his right hand and in a split second, an emerald, long spike came out of it and pa.s.sed over my head.

I looked behind me. The emerald spike penetrated the general's chest.

"You're leaking too much information, general. Since you're dying, I might as well end your life right now," said Daddy nonchalantly.

I was shocked. The emerald spike was certainly made of Aegis crystal. "D-Daddy?!"

The general collapsed onto the floor and the emerald spike dissolved into thin air.

"Sorry, Ava. You have to see me do that again," said Daddy. "You look confused? Oh, I forgot." He rubbed his messy dark hair. "You never knew about this."

Hope took a few steps back. "You're not an ordinary civilian. You're from the C.U." He was in high alert towards Mommy and Daddy.

"Hmm, yeah, I suppose so," said Mommy. She stood up and slashed the air with her right hand. Nothing happened.

About five seconds later, blood came gus.h.i.+ng out from Hope's chest in a horizontal line.

"Ugh... W-Wha?!" Hope dropped to his knees.

"That's too slow. I guess my Aegis is dormant after a few years not using it." Mommy looked at her right hand closely and shrugged. It was weird in a sense that she said that she was using Aegis yet I didn't see anything.

'What's happening?!' I thought. My focus snapped back to Hope.

"HOPE!" I darted to his side and forced him to lie down. "Mommy, w-what is happening? You're from the army?" My mind was trying to grasp what happened but I couldn't connect the dots at all. It was too surreal.

Beatrice crawled to a metal chair a few feet from her initial position and rested her back against it.

It took a while, but Mommy and Daddy looked at each other and laughed. They laughed nonstop. After that, they looked at me with eyes I didn't recognize my whole life and evil grins that didn't fit the parents I once knew.

It was as if they were different persons altogether.

The elevator let out a 'ding' sound and grandpa showed up. He was with a few members of Freya, and they were aiming their rifles at Mommy and Daddy.

"No! Grandpa, don't shoot! It's Mommy and Daddy! I found them!" Those words came out of me rather smooth. After what just happened a few moments ago, my mind still couldn't connect the dots.

"I knew it. Alicia, Bart, you're the dogs of the C.U after all. It was odd for you to come back here with a child after all this time," said grandpa, his voice was sharp.

"Father! It has been a long time. Well, technically, it's just a few months." Daddy stepped between grandpa and me. "But I don't even need you. We just wanted a place to experiment Ava here." He formed an emerald blade from his right hand and it elongated.

Grandpa and his friends shot at him, but he had an emerald round s.h.i.+eld from his left hand. The blade then swung at grandpa and the others, tearing their bodies apart.

"G-Grandpa!" I didn't know what was happening anymore.

My mouth refused to scream as my throat tightening up at that horrendous sight. I heard the poundings against my chest getting louder and louder.

'Mommy and Daddy were from the army all along? Have they been experimenting on me? But that was not true, I have no memories of such a thing.' Thoughts after thoughts filled my mind.

Mommy sighed and looked at me with slanted eyes. "Now, what you've done to yourself, you stupid kid. You let the Aegis lose control, didn't you? Now, you're just a failed specimen. You look ugly."

"M-Mommy?"

"No, stop calling me that. I'm not your mother. And my husband was never your father," she said. She wore an annoyed expression in place of her usual happy one that I was accustomed to.

"I-I don't understand."

"Of course you don't. For the past years, we have been experimenting on you EVERY night. After we were done, we manipulated your memories so you didn't remember anything," explained Mommy.

Daddy walked to me. He smirked. "You should listen to yourself every night. Your screams as we cut your body in various ways. We tried using multiple chemicals to put inside you to test how your Aegis would react. You should look at your face back then, crying for help. HA!"

I glanced between my parents and settled on Mommy.

She grinned. "Your Aegis that we had planted, it turned out to manifest into something very unique inside you. It has its own personality, its own emotions. Your Aegis that has your DNA is not just a mere A.I. The moment I put it in you, it lost control and made a fit. It even started to take control of you and talked to us. We wiped your memories out, and the Aegis became mild. It was dormant."

Mommy patted her loose skirt. "I see that it has returned to your side. An Aegis User with his or her Aegis taking over physically is not stable whatsoever. It means that the person will not be able to conduct social interactions normally despite the User's improved combat prowess. Such a shame that we could no longer use you. I don't need you anymore."

My vision became blurry as tears started to pour out.

They used me, all those times.

My heart felt like it was squeezed so hard I was wheezing and gasping for air. "Mommy. . . Daddy. . ."

She scowled. "I said, STOP calling me THAT. You were never our daughter, foolish kid. We kidnapped you from an orphanage somewhere back then. We were never your parents even though you see us like that. Your existence was cla.s.sified top secret by the Great Corporate United even among other Aegis Users. You are Project Ava. You never have a name of your own, child."

"Mommy. . . " I was sobbing.

My chest felt tight. The pain was excruciating. My fingers kept pulling at my pink dress desperately in search for comfort.

Hope coughed blood as he held his eyes at Mommy and Daddy.

"We never knew the army was gonna attack the town. They could tell us first. What is His Supremacy thinking?" complained Daddy.

"All those times that w-we have spent together. . ." I paused. The memories came flooding in.

Mommy smirked. "We were just acting you silly! Every single night, we experimented on you, and during the day, you forgot what happened, so we forged fake personalities that you could trust. It's a countermeasure against your Aegis in case it went berserk. The cycle is repeated over and over. The way you behaved and acted as if nothing happened was laughable. We were the fake mother and father figures that we had engraved inside your dumb head!"

Hope took a few deep breaths. "S-So, when you tried to take her away when the army attacked, you were just gonna kill her, right? You wanted to dispose of Ava's e-entire existence." Blood kept pouring from Hope's mouth.

I couldn't look at him.

Hope sincerely helped me these past few days, helping me find my parents, and it turned into the worst way imaginable.

I stood up from my position and glared at Mommy and Daddy.

"Hmm, you're clever. Yup, you're right," said Daddy. "Well, we're gonna blow this base up anyway. Got to get rid of the doc.u.ments from the C.U right?" He walked to the elevator with Mommy behind him.

"Oops, almost forgot." Mommy slashed vertically in the air and then continued to walk to the elevator. My right arm splattered blood all over Hope that was beside me. I looked at it and realized there was no arm, to begin with. It was severed from my body with blood gus.h.i.+ng violently out of it.

"Yes, that felt good," said Mommy.

"AAARGH!" The intense pain forced me to fall on my knees. I watched Hope from my tearing eyes.

"Goodbye, Project Ava. May we never see you again," said Mommy and Daddy simultaneously.

The elevator's door closed and after a few minutes, the base shook violently.

My right arm st.i.tched itself back and healed.

"Ava. . . you have to get out," said Hope with a weak voice. He lied down on the floor drenched in blood.

"I can't leave you here, Hope." My tears fell onto his cheek. "All this time, you've been kind to me. I just. . . want you to be my parent. I guess that was too much to ask." I tried to make a small laugh and salty tears touched my lips.

"Well, if you w-want, I can be your parent." Hope gave me a smile.

'Ah, what is this?' I thought.

It was warm. My chest was warm.

The pain that struck me before had gone. I didn't care about the ceiling that was collapsing around me. My eyes were only focused on him.

A part of the ceiling crashed on top of me and my body collapsed. I couldn't see anything.

I couldn't feel my body.

No, my lower body was crushed under the rubble.

"H-Hope, where are you?" I couldn't see him. My hands desperately trying to reach Hope but there's only rubble.

Hope was not there.

I saw darkness, ever-lasting darkness. 'Have my eyes given up on me?' I thought.

"Why did this have to happen?" I said softly. "Hope was very kind to me. My parents hurt him. They betrayed me and my memories. What is real, anymore?" I found myself shouting and yelling after that.

"Hope. . . Hope. . ." I kept calling my parent's name.

"Don't leave me. . ."

A memory of when Hope was beside me in the convenience store waiting for me to sleep crossed my mind.

He cared for me in a way that any stranger wouldn't.

He promised me and didn't give up in trying to fulfill them. He understood my pain. Hope was there for me when I needed him. In the end, we spent so little time together that I wished the few days I was with him were filled with activities that a father and his daughter would do.

I wanted to be with him more than ever.

I wanted to be with him forever.

"Hope is. . . my parent. Hope is. . . my father. Hope is. . . my Daddy. Hope is. . . my Papa." My throat was tight. "I-I only love you, Papa! You're the only one. You're my only Hope in this cruel world."

My consciousness was fading.

I remembered that time when Hope patted my head with a huge smile on his face. The memory was so warm, it put me at ease. His face was the only thing on my mind.

"Papa. . ."

Then, it struck me.

I hated Alicia and Bart. They were evil, and they manipulated me.

The soldiers were evil. They killed innocent people.

The Great Corporate United was evil. They were selfish.

Grandpa was evil. He used me and hurt Hope.

Beatrice was evil. She hurt me and Hope.

Inghild was evil. He hurt me.

I hated my Aegis. It killed people. It made me suffer.

I hated everyone. I hated everyone with my very being. I hated all of them.

I HATED EVERYTHING.

I wished that they died in the worst possible ways. My heart was filled with so much hatred, and I let it consumed me.

Rage took over my body, as abhorrence filled its flesh.

Loathing threaded into the fibers of my being, as utter resentment seeped into my skin.

Enmity crept into my mind, as revulsion blinded me.

The scent of repugnance clogged my senses, as animosity tainted my heart.

Fury encompa.s.sed my being. With it, I felt a red haze began to envelop my already irrational mind. A carnal urge to savor the heat of warm, red blood filled me with a foreign ecstasy.

Those sensations, I took it in greedily.