Obligatory Disclaimer : I do not own anything (except maybe OC characters) all characters, places, worlds, universes…etc mentioned here belong to their respective owners and/or companies.

This is purely a work of fiction. Not meant to offend or incite, but to entertain and (maybe) inspire.

Cold Hearted Saints

Goosebumps rose over my tingling skin, the palpitations of my restlessly pounding heart made me feel an illusive heat spread over my body. My senses conveyed to me that there was a fiery, raging gaze focused on me and it was going to burn my soul to cinders.

I stopped, not taking another step forward. Something just didn’t feel right. It was like one of those moments when gun scopes where aimed at me and I couldn’t find the shooter, but I could feel the threat that lay hidden.

It was the sound of his breastplate fall to the floor that drew my attention towards him as he came out of what seemed to be a hidden chamber behind his throne.

Standing a whole foot taller than all other Break-Worlders I had seen so far, Powerlord Kruun was truly physically imposing. His corded musculature did not lose out to his menacing facial features. He looked like the hulk’s smaller, pale skinned cousin.

In his hand was an angry orange glowing splinter. I could feel the massive psionic waves radiating from that unremarkable looking splinter, it was the most dreadful thing I have ever felt so far.

“I will make you suffer boy, and then your world will burn” He stated with a wide nasty grin as though it were a fact.

“You won’t be coming out of this alive”

I took immediate action, throwing a multitude of ice lances at him. He laughed out loud and then jammed the splinter right into his heart. A shock-wave of heat and the thunderous cry of a bird propagated outwards turning the ice to vapor. Behind the vapor appeared the demonic burning eyes that looked down on me.

Judging and measuring me.

The Phoenix raptor gave me a message; my soul was wrong, impure, aberrant against a natural order. The phoenix was order, my very existence was defiant of that.

It had a duty to cleanse all that was impure.

The burning visage of a blazing bird appeared over the now floating form the powerlord who looked pleasantly surprised but nevertheless in immense pain. He too was burning under the judgmental flame of the bird. Good for him.

I armored up and went to war.

***

Ice decorated the battlefield that was the throne room. “AaRgh” The powerlord roared as his flaming fist tore through another figure, throwing its already melting form to the ground.

Another took its place, rushing with the clone army of crystalline figures into the furnace that was the phoenix empowered, Powerlord Kruun. He burned and burned and burned them all to vapor, but they had no end!

The powerlord was getting frustrated, he knew a battle of attrition when he saw one. The fire of the phoenix was consuming him, a battle of attrition was one he couldn’t win not with the limited time he had on his hands.

He grit his teeth as he borrowed more, more fire, more power, and rage to fuel it more at the trade-off that it would consume him exponentially faster but it was enough, enough to overwhelm the insufferable army of ice soldiers.

He watched them all melt to the ground from the fire he was expelling. The heat made the walls of his throne room red hot, to the point where it began to melt his throne into a silver puddle of boiling, bubbling metal.

A single figure was all that remained, it was the male child clad in a full armor of blue that began to slowly turn obsidian. The boy floated above the baking floor, a pair of razor thin wings behind him that supposedly kept him afloat.

He looked the boy in his azure glowing eyes. The powerlord chuckled, he had seen eyes like those, they were too aged – too hard to be on a boy such as he. But it mattered not, the boy would suffer before he died and his planet would burn.

A ray of ice struck at the powerlord’s eyes, momentarily blinding him with pain, pulling him from his thoughts.

He roared and charged at the approaching boy.

The phoenix raptor itself was eager to claim the boy’s life, who was he to deny the cosmic entity its desires?

Fire struck ice, and the child screamed in agony. The psionic might of the phoenix viciously attacked Robert Drake’s psyche while the phoenix’s flame tried to burn past his ice armor, past the boundary of his material body to ravage his soul. He was feeling all the pain. This was a pain so intense he had nothing to compare it to, for it did not aim for his body, but for his soul, his spirit.

Bobby lashed out with ice spikes and blazing fury. The phoenix raptor dug its flaming talons through his midsection. The boy silently screamed in agony.

Powerlord Krunn found pleasure in the boy’s pain. But he was perplexed, looking at the teenage child impaled on the flaming talons of the phoenix, he found the boy now smiling instead of begging for a quick death.

“Urgh!!” the Powerlord groaned as a frigid cold began to invade his spine. From the corner of his vision he spotted behind him a crystalline figure so black he found it difficult to focus on it.

The figure had its limbs latched onto the Powerlord’s back, and from that contact point, it began to melt and flow into the wounds on his back, invading the interior of his body.

Kruun began to feel cold, the dreaded frigid cold. The one that made all his primal instincts cry out in terror. Even with the phoenix raptor’s heat warming him-- reassuring him, he began to uncontrollably shiver. The cold turned his bones to glass that dug into his hardened and shriveling organs. The chill turned his breath foggy and muddled his mind.

The heat fought the chill, but it was akin to a wall of bricks standing against an endlessly high wave of roaring waters – it held on for an instant, that was all it could do, and when it came crumbling down like a slaughtered animal, the cold overwhelmed the heat.

Kruun’s body was already breaking down from the strain of sustaining a splinter of the phoenix force. He fell to his knees, his body a rapidly withering husk of former glory, his life literally burning away as his body rapidly mummified whilst encased in clear ice.

Kruun still laughed in his dying heart, he accomplished his goals, even if he wouldn’t be alive to see it.

——SCREEeeCCHHH!

With a final resounding cry, the fiery spectre of the phoenix raptor abandoned the frigid corpse of its dead host. Flapping its phantasmal wings, the fiery bird flew through the walls of the throne room like the apparition it presented itself as.

***

I fell to my knees, my arms clutching and straddling my sides trying to sooth the unimaginable pain of my injured soul. I couldn’t even do that, I just grit my teeth and bore the agony.

Somewhere in my head I could still hear echoes of my screams and the dreadful retarded cry of that f**cking bird.

It hurts so f**king much!

No amount of ice could make this burn subside. I could feel it recede but not end. It went from raging flames that tried to consume my soul to smoldering embers that refused to go out, causing me endless suffering. Deep in my mind I could still see that burning gaze looking down at me.

The pain; It was worse than a relentless kick to the gonads, worse than a petite woman stuck mid-labor giving birth to a gigantic child that stretched out not only her insides but also the threads of her sanity.

This pain was insane, my god it was insane. My soul was slowly burning, it was driving me crazy.

Was I finally receiving punishment for my past deeds? Was I now fully bearing the weight of my countless sins?

I reached for my pockets looking for cigarettes but found nothing, remembering that I didn’t even have clothes on. This was going to be a wonderful time.

‘--Oh god, Drake! Drake are you okay!?’ I felt Mindee reach out for my mind.

‘...Yes, yes I am Mindee’

‘I couldn’t link to your mind, the phoenix was--’

‘We don’t have time for this! Iceman, its Brand, the weapon was a dummy’

‘What?’

‘The weapon – a Macro nuke armada on their moon that we disarmed – was a distraction. We’re getting readings here of a wide scale planetary trans-spatial location array lodged in the deepest reaches of the planet going into its activation stages’

‘Agent Brand, just tell me what you mean’

‘Break-World is going to teleport right into our planet, tearing it from the inside out. The Earth is going to rupture like a balloon’

“F**k” I exclaimed, not knowing if it was in pain or frustration.

‘We need to physically disable the array but can’t dig that deep with the vehicles on hand, our equipment went up in flames with the mothership. ’

I ruminated over what to do next, ignoring the torture on my soul. Taking deep breaths I steadied my mind, instead of running from the pain I acknowledged it. By basking in my suffering I strengthened myself.

‘Brand get me the coordinates and get off world, all of you.’

‘Drake? What are you trying to do, Drake?’

‘...Mindee, I don’t have time to say that much. Just know I’ll do all I can to save our world… And I truly cherish you’ I just didn’t want to tell her what it was I wanted to do. I didn’t want her seeing me more than the monster I already was.

‘Iceman, not to pressure you, but this is our planet on the line here. I told you earlier I needed superheroes, I meant it. I need you to do what’s necessary to save our world. It’s in your hands now kid, I wish it didn’t have to be. But that’s the reality’ I could hear the strain on her mind and the conviction behind her words. She was trusting me to do something about it.

‘...I’ll get it done, Brand. Wait for me Mindee’

‘You know I will, you can’t die till you tell me how you really feel’

I smiled as the mental link went silent. Mindee was a great person, someone I don’t think I deserve. Someone I’ll only cause pain to because I always manage to f**k-up the really good things in my life.

I stepped towards the powerlord’s frozen corpse and kicked it, shattering it all to ice shards. Littering the throne room with glinting diamonds.

A gigantic crystal drill of ice broke through the solid ground layer, digging past the topsoil, breaking through the crust of the planet. Over various locations on Break-World my ice clones were at work digging through the earth to get to the teleportation array.

I created colossal Susano’o soldiers who now propelled the drills. It went exponentially faster as I broke through the mantle. If I relied on air my ice form I would’ve died here. The pressure was immense and all-encompassing, causing cracks and tears to appear on the Susano’o soldiers.

I strengthened the ice on them, causing it to take on a deep inky blue hue – my aptly named black ice armor. I discovered it when I kept pushing for a stronger protection from the phoenix’s flames. It was as strong enough to withstand the phoenix fire, but took more effort and concentration to maintain – things I had in spades.

Breaking through the outer core, I came to the fiery depths of the inner core. Here, red magma flowed like blood. The pressure alone made me unable to properly stand

The heat instantly turned my black ice armor to vapor, I was melting at ridiculous speeds. The only reason I could live was due to my regeneration.

In a type of way, I was thankful for the constant pain in my soul, it allowed me to not blink at this new pain that assaulted me.

I drew deep into my powers and pulled, just like I did against the phoenix, just like I did in space. It went through a process of destruction and reconstruction – I was always digging into my powers, I sought to actively better myself and improve my control, to become better.

I pushed my myself beyond sane limits. The X-gene responds to stress, it was an evolutionary mechanism to ensure not only survival and adaptation, but productivity.

My efforts were generously rewarded. Red highlights began to form over the black ice. No more did it melt, no longer did it crack. It withstood the unimaginable pressure and heat.

I floated inside the planet’s raging core, asked for mercy for my soul for what I was about to do.

“Ice Age” I expelled concentrated blasts of freeze beams from my hands into the crimson core.

I swear I could hear the planet groan in misery. The magma froze solid, the core stopped rotating, the vibrancy of its tempestuous existence dulled, the chill spread outwards moving rapidly towards the planet’s surface. Turning whatever it came in contact with to frozen matter – ice.

And I became that ice. I was the merciless cold that took the last breath of the mothers and their children. I was the ruthless chill that ravaged the warriors, the beasts of the land, the fish of the now frozen seas and the birds of the current gelid atmosphere. I was the bitter biting cold, the unloving bleak that greedily devoured all life on the once spirited planet. It lost its color to the pale resplendence of a silent, lifeless blue. I was death’s very own touch.

It had to be done.

I soared through the lifeless planet. It was eerily quiet, even for me. I hovered over the gray skies looking down at the deceased world – its corpse totally flash frozen.

I just killed a planet. It had a population of 14,753,234,183 Break-worlders. I saw all their faces, they died in me and through me. I didn’t just kill intelligent life, I effectively ended a world. The ice would melt..eventually, but the planet would forever be cold, I killed the core.

Why? Because it had to be done. Brand sent me the coordinates, the core was the central most important piece.

Then what of the Break-worlders? I gave them a merciful death. The planet died after the core did, an endless winter would’ve dawned on it. Freezing the core destroyed all the magnetic fields. The planet would no longer rotate on its axis or revolve around the sun. The stellar radiation would utterly ravage the planet and all lifeforms on it and even if by some miracle they managed to survive that, the cold from an endless winter would devour them.

Or maybe it was simply because I did clean jobs. If I’m doing the killing, I made sure it properly died and remained so.

I broadcast my location, now silently waiting for the liberated ‘StrongArm’ to pick me up.

***

“...It had to be done... I’m sorry it had to be you to do it. A kid shouldn’t --” Brand said with emotional emphasis I had never heard her use before.

“Brand, trust me. I know” I cut her off to save her from whatever she was about to do. “Can I get a smoke?”

Agent Brand green shades, looking deep into my eyes as she handed me a stick and lit another for herself. The silence sat between us for what felt like hours before she spoke “The smoke...it never really covers up the smell of the blood on our hands”.

“But it staves it off” I replied.

We stared at each other in silence. I felt like I could understand her circumstance as much as she could mine.

She wore her shades and began walking down the passage, subtly gesturing for me to follow her.

We arrived at the cell block where the former general and his men were being held.

“ARGH! YOU FILTHY EARTHBORN!!” I heard Ord scream as he barreled for me. “YOU WILL PAY!!”

I didn’t care about how he escaped his holding cell. I just watched this pale skinned alien in immense pain, this one who grieved for his planet used every inch of strength he had to try and claim vengeance. They had all seen what I had done, they had witnessed my strength.

―bang!

A bullet tore through his skull.

His body lifelessly dropping to the floor, rolling to a halt. I took another deep drag of the cig, the pain that burnt my soul never ceasing in the slightest.

Agent Brand holstered her sidearm and turned to the other agents who stood guard, giving them a signal. They aimed their weapons and fired, the last surviving Break-Worlders, consisting of general Orund and his small crew were wiped from the land of the living.

“It had to be done” said someone, it might have been me or Brand or maybe the ghost of christmas. But I found myself standing before the door to Mindee’s room.

I just silently stood there.

I opened my mouth to speak but words eluded me.

“… fuck” I whispered turning away, stepping out into the passage. Why am I acting this way? I feel weak and stupid. I am strong, I am f**king strong. These teenage hormones were getting to me.

I felt a tug on my shirt. It was light, light enough that I could walk away and claim to have never felt it. I couldn’t find the strength to take another step.

“Don’t talk Drake, I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to feel, I...I don’t know what to do anymore...” Mindee spoke weakly, her arms wrapping around me, her warmth soothing my still burning soul. “let's just...lets just stay like this..please”

I swore I wasn’t going to cry. Not now or ever, but I couldn’t stop myself from shivering.

***

The prince in green clapped his fingers against his chin. This had gone better than imagined, all he had to do now was reveal himself, reap the benefits and begin the next step to the Grand plan.

A smile as cold as the frozen planet beneath him appeared on his face, with another ripple of space around him, the prince disappeared.