I sit in the middle of a planet.
No.
A FORMER planet.
A planet that was once filled with millions...
No.
BILLIONS of life-forms.
Billions of life-forms that have, all together, seemingly at once, ceased to exist.
I do not know why I do this…
_
“JAIYA! Jaiya, come back here!” cried out a ten-cycles-old Crixan boy named ‘Jael’ to his younger, five-cycles-old sister as he chased her down to a small creek just outside of their humble fishing village on planet Crix.
With the sun beginning to set, signaling that it was time to return home for dinner with her mother and father within the confines of their small hut, Jaiya had chosen to stay out just a little bit longer to skip stones at the creek. It was a little ‘ritual’ that she did with her older brother, but due to tending to several chores back at the hut earlier in the day-cycle cycle, Jaiya found that sunset was her only time to do so.
Having made it to the creek, little Jaiya picked up a few pebbles hastily at the creek’s shoreline and started to skip them across its cool, clear waters.
As Jael continued to cry out for her in the distance, little Jaiya giggled happily whilst she skipped the stones as far as she could across the water’s top one after the other.
Everything seemed to be perfect to the Jaiya.
So perfect until…
CLUMP!
__
A former planet.
No.
A graveyard.
That is what it has become.
ONE. MASSIVE. GRAVEYARD.
Thousands of rocky clusters surround me now.
Flowing through the stars.
I sit here… ALONE.
Waiting.
No.
Wondering.
I sit here, alone.
Wondering why... Why do I do this?
_
“AGH!!!” little Jaiya shrieked after she heard the sound of what seemed to be a massive boulder landing on the ground not too far behind her.
Keeping a tight grip on a few pebbles in her right hand and a small, stuffed doll that she clutched tightly against her side under her left arm, Jaiya slowly turned around to face what… WHO had just landed behind her.
Standing before the young Crixan girl was Magnus… Commanding-Leader of the Galactic Deciders of the ‘eternal’ Voltairan Empire, but he was mostly referred to by ‘another’ name.
A fearsome name.
A name that made anyone's voice break upon uttering a single syllable.
What the humanoid-looking, fair skinned, long golden haired, bright blue eyed, and bearded Magnus was known to the masses all across the local and surrounding galactic sectors was…
_
WORLD-BREAKER.
That is what they call me.
That is what I do.
What I was not ‘chosen’, but ‘DECIDED’ to do.
My name is Magnus… AND I AM THE BREAKER OF WORLDS.
_
“Jaiya! Ugh… Oh, Jaiya. There you a--” Jael was saying after he had finally made it to the creek until he saw the notorious World-Breaker in the very real flesh.
Standing before the Crixan brother and sister like a Greek god of Aeshlaran myth, Magnus, whilst adorned in a skintight, all-black bodysuit that left his feet and hands both uncovered and had the golden ‘V’ sigil of the Voltairan Empire stitched into the chest piece’s center, looked them over both with his strangely calming eyes.
Not a single word was spoken for about a whole minute-cycle until Jael finally uttered, “Juh-Jaiya… Cuh-Come here. Come here now.”
Jaiya did not listen to her older brother.
Due to her being so afraid of the World-Breaker, Jaiya just stood before Magnus, shivering in sheer fright as she dropped her last few remaining skipping pebbles out of her left hand.
Magnus watched them as they crashed down to the ground beside little Jaiya’s mud caked feet.
One by one, they fell…
_
I broke it.
That is my purpose.
What ‘they’ tell me my purpose is.
They call me a ‘Decider’... A GALACTIC DECIDER.
One who decides whether to eradicate a world once its indigenous populace REFUSES the NON-REFUSABLE WORD of my ruler, Emperor Alixander Corvinux Voltair… THE SOLE-REIGNING-HEAD of the forever and eternally grand Voltairan Empire.
Due to the suspicion of being aligned with the Kren, an evil and maniacal race of extraterrestrial beings who are the SWORN ENEMIES of my race, myself and the rest of my fellow Galactic Deciders give the suspected world a choice.
A choice to either give themselves, along with ALL of their world’s resources, to us as fealty while we destroy their planet… Or we destroy THEM along with THEIR PLANET.
One of us goes to the world and gives them their TWO options.
For three day-cycles after our first arrival, their race’s elders, chieftains, or rulers are to discuss whether or not to accept salvation or destruction.
It does not matter whatever choice they make.
Not to myself… Or does it?
Ugh… I do not know anymore.
No. Not since…
Urgh… Thrack it!
As I was saying, after being given their two options the chosen world’s race is given three day-cycles to go over their choices.
If they do not accept, or in ‘planet Crix’s’ case, DO NOT RESPOND then they will have given myself and my fellow Galactic Deciders the choice to decide their fate… Which I already have.
_
Eyes widened still, Jael snapped, “Jaiya… I said come--”
“SILENCE, BOY,” Magnus shuttered in a stern tone, causing Jael to hold his tongue in fear.
Looking away from Jael and back over towards the quivering Jaiya, Magnus stated, “Your race was given TWO OPTIONS. Either surrender yourselves… And all of your world’s most vital resources to the glorious empire of the grand and gracious Emperor Voltair… OR REFUSE AND--”
“What is your name?” Jaiya surprisingly asked, cutting Magnus off at midsentence.
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“Wuh-What?” Magnus stammered in confusion.
“Your name, Sir. What is it?”
“My… My ‘name’?”
“Yes, Sir. What is it??? Mine is ‘Jaiya’... And this right here is my best friend in ALL of Crix! His name is ‘Janx’!”
Holding out her stuffed toy towards Magnus with both of her hands now, Jaiya started to giggle, which caught the very powerful life-form off-guard grandly.
Whilst the World-Breaker was distracted Jael desperately tried to come up with a way to get ahold of his younger sister and take her away to safer lands… As well as warn all of his people back in their village.
“So, what is your name, Sir?” Jaiya asked once more in an ‘innocent’ and ‘kindly’ tone.
Scrunching his brow, Magnus awkwardly continued, “Either surrender or refuse and…”
“Ha-ha! That’s not a name, silly!” Jaiya laughed. “Come on! What is it?! Tell me, Sir! Pleeeeease tell me! Janx and I wish to know it! Ha-Ha!”
Not knowing how to react to such a ‘strange’ emotion as Jaiya’s, Magnus stood aloof.
“JAIYA, RUN!!!” Jael cried out as he sprinted towards his younger sister to save her from the World-Breaker, but Magnus used his telekinetic abilities to knock the boy backwards onto his bottom.
“URGH… NO! NOOOO!!!!” Jael blared as Magnus used his mind to keep his arms and legs pinned down to the ground.
Confused, Jaiya looked over at her brother and asked, “Jael? What are you doing???”
Having had enough of the two little Crixans, Magnus, in all of his emotionless glory, took in a deep breath before he accessed a mere morsel of his true power…
_
I do not know why I do this.
I am thirty-cycles-old now.
A man.
A destroyer.
No.
No, no, no.
- NO.
This is not what I am.
It… It cannot be.
This simply CANNOT be.
I am a hero… To my people.
A savior to millions… BILLIONS of life-forms.
I am a… A… A DESTROYER.
_
The blue skies of Crix darkened.
The late afternoon-cycle’s warm wind suddenly died.
The creek’s cool, clear waters settled.
It was time.
“Juh-Jael,” Jaiya muttered. “What are you--”
“It has been decided,” Magnus said in a stern tone whilst looking directly down at the confused Crixan girl.
With the ground beneath her feet beginning to crackle… And with the wind beginning to pick up rather frequently, a now very scared Jaiya looked up at the World-Breaker and asked, “Wuh-Wuh-What, Sir? What… What has been ‘decided’?”
As the ground continued to crackle whilst the wind ripped and roared past them, knocking a now screaming and crying Jaiya down to her bottom whilst her older brother remained clung to the fracturing ground, Magnus said in an emotionless voice, “YOUR FATE.”
KA-BOOM!!!!!!!!
_
They have a name for me.
The widespread masses who fear me across the whole galaxy, and quite possibly, the infinite number of galaxies that lie beyond it.
A name that is tossed around the galactic star ways and cosmos like a frightening tale.
A curse.
A warning.
They call me the World-Breaker.
Tis what I do.
Tis my purpose.
My SOLE purpose.
I am a breaker of worlds...
URGH… NO!
I am a hero! A savior! A literal GOD to my people!
When I return to my home world of Voltaira, alongside my brothers and sisters, the people shall chant our names because we have saved them from yet another possibility of extinction at the cursed hands of the VILE Kren.
The people of Crix deserved to be broken!
The planet of Crix deserved to be broken!
THE GIRL…
And alas… The girl.
Jaiya.
Little, sweet, and precious Jaiya.
Did she deserve to be broken as well?
Did she have to die for the failures of her world’s rulers?
Ugh… This, I do not know.
I do not know much of anything, not anymore…
Her death now haunts me.
Her death, along with the countless other life-cycles that I have ended during my ten-cycles-long term as a Galactic Decider, haunt me.
They haunt me when my eyes are open, and they haunt me when they are closed.
I have not had a grand sleep in month-cycles.
Long ago, at one time, I could break a decided world with effortless ease and grace.
Feeling nothing… ABSOLUTELY NOTHING whilst before and after doing so.
Now, anymore, I find it all to be so taxing. So… pointless.
Pointless?
Thrack, Magnus! What in the name of the emperor is wrong with you???
On Voltaira, you are a hero… A GRAND HERO.
What you do serves a higher, GRANDER purpose.
A purpose that neither you or any of your brothers and sisters could even BEGIN to understand.
For this purpose, along with the fate of my race, we, the Galactic Deciders, MUST continue on with our conquering or ‘breakings’ of Kren-aligned worlds.
If we do not… THEN WE ARE DOOMED.
We are ALL doomed.
Doomed just like…
_
“JAIYA,” Magnus said aloud within the ‘telekinetic bubble’ that he had formed around himself in the rocky ruins of what was once known as Crix.
With the whole entire world, along with its race, all being ‘broken’ due to his IMMENSE gravitational-based powers, Magnus sat with his legs crossed in the center of the rocky aftermath as a familiar item came to him seemingly out of nowhere.
Hovering towards Magnus was Little Jaiya’s stuffed toy…
“JANX,” Magnus uttered in surprise as the stuffed toy hovered towards him.
Latching onto it with his telekinesis, Magnus pulled Janx into his clutches.
Holding onto the stuffed toy with both of his hands now, as Jaiya had done before the breaking of Crix, Magnus looked down at Janx with a conflicted look in his eyes.
“Jaiya,” Magnus uttered once more whilst he stared down at Janx, trying to figure out why he did what he just did.
_
Jaiya.
Little Jaiya.
So sweet.
So innocent.
So thracking innocent, she seemed.
No.
She was.
SHE. WAS.
Once alive, Little Jaiya was.
Once breathing… So full of life and now… SHE IS NO MORE.
Because of me?
No.
Because of the Kren… THE THRACKING KREN!!!
Jaiya, along with that boy, Jael, and whomever else existed upon Crix all had to perish because of the thracking Kren and their DASTARDLY influence.
Not because of…
_
Snapping back into reality, Magnus telepathically replied,
< FINALLY, YOU REPLY! have been trying to gain your attention for the past TWENTY thracking minute-cycles!”
After Braako had ended his telepathic communication with Magnus, the World-Breaker looked over the already splitting and scattering remains of planet Crix.
Still not sure if what he did was totally right, Magnus soon whisked those ‘negative’ thoughts away as he un-crossed his legs and got in a straight hovering position.
Turning around in his ‘hover’, Magnus set his sights in the direction of where the rest of the Deciders were located in their own joint-‘telekinetic bubble’.
Tensing his muscles, Magnus was about to take off until he realized that he still had Janx clutched in his left hand.
Looking down at the stuffed toy, Magnus inspected it for a little while longer until Braako yelled at him to ‘come on’ again via telepathy.
Sighing, Magnus just shook head, retightened the grip that he had on Janx, and bolted off towards the rest of the Galactic Deciders via flight… Leaving behind the decimated ruins of planet Crix in his destructive wake.