Cyno [Atomic]

 

The personification of  “if you can’t beat em’, join em’”, Cyno [Atomic] was not always so… intense. Although she has burned all the history books that weren’t carefully edited by her political committee, I was able to glean her stories through my advanced reconstruction software by completing the data from all the Cynoverses and predicting the text from my database of Cynos. All I needed was a page from any book present at that time period, and conveniently, Cyno [Atomic] kept one page of her diary hidden in her own private room. In it was a picture of several humans, laughing and pointing at the camera. One of them has his hands hooked around a younger Cyno [Atomic], with her expression showing embarrassment, yet smiling. It must have been from before her Starcore awakened, before the Last War. 

 

Upon taking the metadata and inserting it into my system, I recovered most of the information. Some of it from her recounts, and some from the history books themselves. Her version of Earth was constantly in battle. Not in a necessarily “bad” way, filled with angry people and pointless conflicts. No, they were built and bred to fight, a warrior’s world. They lived by one simple rule: “survival of the fittest”. It was through battle that the humans found themselves the happiest. Nobody forced them to do it, there was no higher being, no corruption, no misunderstanding. They simply loved to fight. 

 

The world was split into two factions: the Western Hemisphere and the Eastern Hemisphere, named Zephyrus [West] and Euros [East] respectively. It’s not as if they were in constant war. Instead, they would spend most days of the year training their youth in strength, dexterity, tactical knowledge, and marksmanship. Then, there would be several brutal months of siege during the winter and summer months, respectively. During those brutal times, millions of fighters would die. 

 

It’s not as if they were fighting for anything. There was no winning, only surviving. They didn’t dread those months either. If anything, they were all excited for a chance to shine, to bring their faction glory. 

 

Outside of battle, the Zephyrus and Euros hardly ever interacted. Not because there was any particular animosity between the groups. If anything, they were so similar that they could bump into each other in the street and not know friend from foe. It was more of a geographic reason: they were born in their respective hemispheres, grew up there, lived there, and that’s where their loyalties lied. If there was cross-relationships, as long as the parties involved were not too well known, nobody would ever find out. 

 

Regardless, that was the backdrop of the Earth that Cyno [Atomic] was supposed to be guiding with her twinkling light, but the humans were so busy fighting that they didn’t have time to look up. So, like many Cynos, Cyno [Atomic] decided to descend. At this point, I don’t think it would’ve been fair to call her [Atomic] just yet, but it wouldn’t take long for her to earn the title.

 

She descended first to the people who belonged in Zephyrus, expecting some sort of warm welcome, or at the very least, a bow or two. Instead, they threw her a gun, dictated her a number (as the humans had no name, they lived and died too quickly to warrant one), and sent her to the training camps. As another war had just concluded, the number she got was 4.

 

Cyno [Atomic] spent much of her initial time as a human with a deep distaste for their lifestyles. She refused to wield a weapon, grew easily attached to her squad’s members, and spent most nights trying to devise a plan to bring peace to both the societies. As for those she was training with, they had never encountered anyone so peculiar with such aversion to combat. They found themselves swayed by her kindheartedness, and they became quite close friends with Cyno [Atomic]. I believe that’s when the picture was first taken.

 

Because of her steadfast belief in peace, when the first battle arrived, she was woefully underprepared. She stumbled under the weight of her bulletproof vest and dropped bullets on the ground when she bent over to tie her shoe. 

 

When she was finally pushed into the front lines of the fight, she realized with amazement that the fighters on the other side were exactly like her friends. Excited, she grabbed a soldier and tried to talk to him, resulting in the barrel of a gun aimed at her forehead. In a selfless act that was rarely seen in their world, one of her platoon members grabbed her to safety, sacrificing himself in the process. 

 

As he lay dying in her arms, she sobbed uncontrollably at her own naivety and vowed she would get revenge. Instead of responding, he simply placed his bloody hand on her face, and smiled. He looked bizarrely serene amidst the exploding scenery around them. Before she could ask, his hand went slack and fell on the floor. Cyno [Atomic] felt the world go quiet and a wave of understanding wash over her. No matter how hard she tried, nobody would listen. 

 

She grabbed the loaded gun from his pocket, left her friend laying there in the dirt and shot the first enemy soldier that she saw. She then carefully dragged them behind a rock and changed clothes, blending seamlessly in with the Euros. 

 

When the war ended, she followed the Euros back to their base, and nobody asked about her. The total confirmed kill count was 22. 

 

The truth is, Cyno [Atomic] didn’t want revenge. She wasn’t going to the enemy to spy on them or help the Zephyrus or anything petty like that. She wanted confirmation. She wanted to know that they were fighting for no reason, that they loved this lifestyle, that it was their choice. She needed to know that it was their game before she began playing it. 

 

Her months leading up to the second war all but confirmed that belief. 

 

This time, when the war was over, Cyno [Atomic] shed no tears. Instead, she gathered a small group of people that were insane enough to be seduced by the thought of eternal glory, and she established a little army with her as the head. This small group was called Boreas. 

 

Under her tutelage, the small group became expert warriors, especially when their weapons were imbued with the power of the stars. Soon, members of Zephyrus and Euros heard about a new possibility and defected from their sectors to follow the warcry of the North Star. Cyno [Atomic] would put the thoughts of peace aside, and instead gain followers a new way: through force.

 

Zephyrus and Euros, both communities which had never faced an actual threat in their entire history, were at a loss for what to do. Eventually, both their respective leaders (chosen by highest kill count) agreed to a truce in order to destroy the faction of Boreas and restore their former tradition. To aid in this fight, Zephyrus revealed an explosive device that they had accidentally created years ago. They had refuse to use it for fear that there would be nobody left to fight after the explosion had settled. In other words, they had created the atom bomb.

 

Euros was hesitant, but agreed that Boreas could not be left unchecked any longer, so on one clear spring day, when it was least expected, a small plane flew over the reddened grass of Boreas’ land and dropped a nuclear warhead into the base. 

 

As expected, the destruction was irreversible. The entire capital was eviscerated instantly. The soldiers who had wished to die in glory in the name of the North Star had not even a second to register their fate before their bones were blown off the face of the Earth. As for Cyno [Atomic], she survived.

 

Her Starcore adapted to the environment and gave her the one thing she was wishing for: power. The nuclear waste absorbed through her skin, causing her to radiate with toxic energy, dying her eyes a glowing unnatural green and turning her blood into sludge. She had lost her army, but what Zephyrus and Euros had created was much, much worse.

 

Her first thought wasn’t sadness for her comrades like she had once felt an eternity ago. It was awe at the sheer power she possessed, coursing through her veins. Every atom in her body was searing with heat, raring to explode. Still, she held herself back. What good was it to rule over an empty world? 

 

While Zephyrus and Euros were rejoicing, they did not see the nightmare that had begun clouding the skies, a storm on their celebration. Cyno [Atomic] did not strike immediately. Instead, she allowed the other two factions to believe that they had won. She marinated in the barren wasteland, testing the limits of her power. After a while, the green in her eyes faded into a dull teal, and she felt she had sufficient control of her power. 

 

In the next war, the one retroactively named the Last War, she obliterated the battlefield. A one woman army, she held the torn flag of the Boreas as she tore through the ranks of unknowing soldiers, leaving nothing but a trail of blood in her wake. An aura of radioactivity followed her movements, leaving those she didn’t cut down instantly with a slow and painful death. When the leaders of Zephyrus and Euros heard of her return, they knew they had lost. 

 

Cyno [Atomic] herself showed up at their doorstep, radiating with energy. It didn’t take long for them to realize that she was destruction incarnate, and they both bent the knee to her swearing loyalty. It didn’t matter. They saw her too close to survive the encounter.

After Cyno [Atomic] was named Empress of her world, she kept true to her original goal. There was no more fighting, no more bloodshed, and no more pointless deaths. Threatened with obliteration, the human race could do nothing but oblige to her wishes. But absolute power corrupts absolutely, and Cyno [Atomic] found herself wanting more. She burned the history books showing the bloodied past of the humans, rewrote her own story, and indoctrinated the new generations. Eventually, all of humanity learned to bow and pray to Cyno [Atomic], the omnipotent deity of destruction and peace. 

 

Prior to Aino’s visit, she spent her time overseeing the country with an iron fist, making sure nobody could escape her watchful eye. The hopeful Cyno of the past has been all but obliterated, burnt to a crisp by the atomic bomb that they had unleashed on her faction.

 

It may have stayed that way for eternity, had a small insurgency named Notus not appeared. Hailing from the Southern hemisphere, they wish to overthrow the power-drunk Cyno [Atomic], although their dream comes with a price. And Cyno [Atomic] is so blinded by the fear of losing her power that she does not realise she is becoming the very thing she was fighting against. Zephyrus and Euros. Boreas and Notus. Wars with no winners, blood with no tears.

 

She has yet to unleash her full atomic power, but I’m sure when that time comes, there will be nothing left to monitor in this universe. 

 

Honestly, it scares me to see that Cynos can become so warped, like this one. Usually, I’m used to Cynos that either persevere or sacrifice themselves in order to save humanity. I suppose in the infinite multiverse, there ought to be some bad apples here and there. I guess even though her power could save us, the drawback is that her personality would destroy us. I will keep a careful eye on this Cyno [Atomic] to make sure that she never discovers that there is even the slightest possibility of more worlds to conquer. 

 

Fun Fact: Upon further research, it is confirmed that the leader of Notus was the boy who saved Cyno [Atomic]’s life during the war. It seems that he had not yet died, and was saved by an enemy soldier who nursed him back to health. When he didn’t receive news of Cyno [Atomic], he presumed she was dead, but he decided to follow in her footsteps and pursue her dream. This led him to deserting both Zephyrus and Euros and creating Notus. When he saw what Cyno [Atomic] had become, he wanted to bridge the gap between their factions and create the peaceful world that she had once dreamed of, a dream inherited by him. After Cyno [Atomic] killed his ambassador and declared war on his people, however, he may find himself faced with only two options: to fight or to die. I wonder what will happen when Cyno [Atomic] realises the boy who sacrificed his life for her is alive?