After arriving at their ‘home’ and place of solitude; the Grand Galactic Deciding Temple, the Galactic Deciders were each sent to their Private Chambers for they were about to be put through their Processing.
Whenever they completed a mission for the Voltairan Empire, the Galactic Deciders were placed in ‘Processing Chambers’ where they were soon met by their individual handlers known as ‘Keepers’.
Placed in his own dark and empty Processing Chamber was Magnus.
Sitting alone on an impenametal stool, the Commanding-Leader of the Galactic Deciders kept his back straightened and eyes facing forward whilst he waited for his Keeper.
Entering the Processing Chamber a little while later was the blue and white scaled Lero, who hailed from the distant, far away planet of Rannuk.
Wearing his black ‘Keeper’s Uniform’ that had Emperor Voltair’s golden crest emblazoned over the left breast pocket, sixty-cycles-old Lero walked towards Magnus carrying an impenametal briefcase with his right hand.
“Grand greetings, Magnus,” Lero nodded as he proceeded to formally bow to the World-Breaker.
“Grand greetings, Lero,” Magnus returned, giving his Keeper a slight head nod.
“So… Are you prepared for your processing?”
“Yes.”
“Grand,” Lero remarked as he unlocked the briefcase and lifted up its lid to reveal the contents that it held within it.
Placed within the briefcase on black felt padding were two individual silver rings. They resembled halos, but the only thing that set them apart was that there were two circular pieces that were attached to the front. The purpose of the two circular pieces were meant to cover a wearer’s eyes.
“Here,” Lero said after he picked up one of the ‘halos’ and handed it over to Magnus.
Taking the halo with his right hand, Magnus nodded to his Keeper once more and looked over the strange, mysterious device.
Picking up the other halo out of the briefcase and using it for himself, Lero said, “Interesting things, these be.”
While Magnus looked over his own halo Lero let out a sigh. It was a sigh as if he did not want to even be there in the Processing Room, but alas, his job as Magnus’s Keeper permitted him to do so.
Whether he liked it or not.
“You know the drill, Magnus. Place the Holo-Fier around your cranium,” Lero ordered.
Doing as he was commanded, Magnus lifted up the halo, which was now referred to as a ‘Holo-Fier’, and placed it around his head as if it were a crown.
“Is it secure?” Lero asked, to which Magnus nodded.
“Grand,” Lero continued as he gave his Holo-Fier one last good look before placing it on his head as well.
With their Holo-Fiers now placed on their heads, Lero let out another sigh before he instructed, “Close your eyes and clear your mind, Magnus. This shall be over soon enough… As always. Confirm command?”
“Command confirmed,” Magnus replied as he proceeded to close his eyes and empty his thoughts.
Lero did the same.
Once they had fully emptied their heads of all necessary and unnecessary information, the ‘ocular shields’ on the Holo-Fiers folded downward and covered their eye sockets.
As soon as the ocular shields nestled themselves gently over Magnus and Lero’s eyes, a thin light ring illuminated around the Holo-Fier, signaling that their function had just begun to serve their mysterious purpose.
_
Once Magnus had closed his eyes and cleared his thoughts, he was immediately taken back to Crix, just before he had destroyed it.
Standing near the creek where he had originally made landfall, the World-Breaker had a surprisingly unamazed expression on his chiseled, god-like face.
“Thracking incredible,” Lero remarked from Magnus’s left, causing the Leader of the Galactic Deciders to look over at him. “Tis thracking incredible what these Holo-Fiers can simulate. Don’t you agree, Mags?”
With a cold expression on his face, Magnus did not reply. He looked onward ahead at something… Or someone.
“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.
“What the-- Oh. This must be the beginning of the memory.” Lero remarked as he, along with Magnus, watched the events prior to the destruction of Crix play, or 'replay', before their eyes.
As young Jaiya approached the past Magnus, the current Magnus watched with a drained look in his weary eyes.
_
There she is.
Little Jaiya…
A young Crixan girl who was filled with so much life. So much innocence. So much wonder and love…
In one single instant, which shall play out in exactly one minute cycle and thirty-three second cycles from now, I took her life-cycle… Along with the BILLIONS of other life-cycles that inhabited the once small, Kren-aligned world.
Gone, she is now.
They are ALL gone.
Little Jaiya and the rest of the Crixans now only remain in one place: MY MIND.
_
“What is your name?” the holographic memory of Little Jaiya asked the past Magnus whilst Lero and the present Magnus watched from off to the side still.
Twinging his scaly brow, Lero commented, “Quite the curious one, she be… ‘WAS’.”
Magnus remained silent. He merely watched his past-self briefly converse with Jaiya before destroying Crix.
This was torturous for Magnus, but he did not know why.
The Galactic Deciders were brought up to be mentally conditioned, to be emotionless.
They were meant to feel nothing. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING… and yet, right now, at this very moment in time, Magnus felt something.
What was this ‘something’, you may be asking yourself right now?
That something… That feeling was… REGRET.
_
I do not know what is happening to me.
Why do I care for some thracking childling?
Some little thrackoid who I had no connection with once so ever.
A little thracking Kren-sympathizer, Little Jaiya was… Or was she?
She was only a childling.
A sweet, pure, and innocent young girl who only wanted to know one thing before her life-cycle was ended: MY NAME.
Jaiya only wanted to know my name.
Why?
Why in the thrack did she care to know who I was?
My name; Magnus, means nothing… But my other name; ‘the World-Breaker’, means something much more.
Tis means death and destruction for ALL Kren sympathizers who come in my path.
Hopelessness and damnation.
The Breaker of Worlds is meant to be feared by all… But not little Jaiya.
No, Jaiya did not fear me.
Maybe it was because she did not know who I was, who I TRULY was.
Jaiya simply wanted to know my name.
MY. THRACKING. NAME.
I did not tell her it though, but alas… I now begin to wish that I had.
What if I did tell her my name?
Would the outcome have been the same?
Ugh… I do not know. I…
_
“MAGNUS,” Lero called out, garnering the World-Breaker’s attention immediately.
“Yes, Lero?” Magnus asked whilst looking over at his Handler.
“I asked you a question, Mags.”
“Oh. You did?”
“I did.”
“I see. Well, forgive me for my ignorance, Lero. My mind was… elsewhere.”
“Oh really? And just ‘where’ was ‘it’ exactly?”
Magnus did not want to tell Lero the truth, so, instead, he lied, “Tis not important. You said that you asked me a question… WHAT WAS IT?”
Giving Magnus a suspicious glance, Lero asked, “Why did you hesitate?”
Confused, Magnus asked, “What?”
“WHY DID YOU HESITATE? When the little Crixan girl asked you what your name was during your sacred rite, why did you hesitate?”
“I did not hesitate,” Magnus replied. “I merely…”
“Hesitated,” Lero said again, causing Magnus’s eyes to narrow.
Remaining silent, Magnus just listened as Lero sighed, “Ugh… Listen, Mags, I do not care for your hesitation, but the Grand Galactic Deciding Council will. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Magnus replied in his classic monotone voice.
“Then we must come up with a reason as to why you hesitated.”
“What reason?”
“I don’t know. One better than simply denying that fact that you hesitated when the Holo-Fier CLEARLY shows that you, in fact, did.”
Lowering his brow now, the World-Breaker looked back at Lero and over at his past self and Little Jaiya.
Staring mainly at the young Crixan girl, Magnus watched with a broken look in his eye as his past self soon broke planet Crix with one single thought, bringing an end to the memory.
With the memory sequence having ended, both Magnus and Lero pulled off their Holo-Fiers within the Processing Chamber.
“Why did you hesitate, Magnus,” Lero asked again as he put his Holo-Fier away. “HONESTLY.”
Looking downward at his hands, which were placed on his thighs, Magnus said, “I… I do not know, Lero. I…”
“What, Magnus? What be the disturbance within you?”
“The girl… JAIYA.”
“Jaiya?”
“Tis what the Crixan girl’s name was before I…”
Catching himself, Magnus quickly recalled the past events of breaking Crix right before his very waking eyes.
“Before you what, Mags?” Lero asked curiously.
“Before I broke planet Crix. Her name was ‘Jaiya’. Another young life-cycle that has… Or ‘was’ corrupted by the infernal and WRETCHED Kren.”
Lowering his faded with age scaly brow, Lero looked downward himself whilst he asked, “How did it make you feel?”
“What?”
“When you broke Crix. How did it make you feel?”
With his face as still, and motionless, as a statue, Magnus answered, “Nothing. Tis made me feel
like NOTHING, Lero. ‘Twas just another Kren-aligned world in a long line of countless others that the rest of the other nine Galactic Deciders and I have RIGHTEOUSLY PURGED from our Galactic Sector indefinitely.”
“Indefinitely, eh? Tis rather ‘absolute’ of you to say such a thing, Mags.”
“What I say is the truth, ‘Keeper’.”
“KEEPER??? Hmm… By the thracking Emperor, Magnus, how many times do I have to tell you that when we are alone with one another you can call me by my name? My TRUE name. You remember this, yes?”
“Yes. Grandest apologies, Lero. Tis just that my mind is so… RUPTURED. Ever since I broke Crix my mind has not been its usual self. I find myself… Questioning things.”
“Magnus, cease.”
Confused, Magnus looked towards Lero and asked, “Wha--”
“I SAID CEASE,” Lero ushered in a commanding voice, causing Magnus to heed to his word.
With a very ‘tense’ look on his scaly face, Lero stated, “Magnus, whatever you are thinking.
Whatever you are… ‘feeling’, you need to cease it… AT ONCE. If you go to the Council and present to them these… ‘vexations’ that you are having then you know what shall happen to you, yes?”
“Yes,” Magnus nodded with a hardened look on his god-like face.
“They will kill you. Remove you from the Galactic Deciders due to distributing ‘emotional conflict’ and have your life-cycle ENDED by the Voltairan Knights. Do you want that to happen, Mags? Do you???”
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“No.”
“Then get your thracking emotional level stabilized at baseline before I send you off to meet with the Council. They are grand at their duties… TOO THRACKIN’ GRAND. If they so much as see you BLINK wrong, or move your shoulder a single thracking centimeter off-kilter, then they shall…”
“KILL ME. Yes, Lero. I know the consequences for an emotional conflict within a Galactic Decider and I can MORE than assure you, my dear old friend, that my emotional level is most certainly ‘stabilized’ at baseline. Tis always.”
“Grand… Because if you are sentenced to death then I, being your ‘Keeper’, am ALSO ‘disposed of’. So, Mags, if you could be so grand as to NOT totally thrack up your meeting with the Council then it would be grandly appreciated.”
Sensing Lero’s obvious jests, Magnus, whilst keeping his emotions ‘turned off’, nodded, “Everything shall be fine, Lero.”
Thinking of Jaiya once more and how he destroyed her, along with her brother, family, race, and world all together in one single instantaneous motion, Magnus treaded, “Everything shall be fine…”
_
Everything is most certainly NOT fine.
Not fine at all.
Something is occurring within me.
Something strange.
Something unheard of.
Something that is NEVER supposed to happen to a Galactic Decider of the Voltairan Empire.
Something… TREASONOUS.
I believe, not strongly, but FIRMLY, for the first time in all of my thirty cycles that I am beginning to feel what the civilians call ‘regret’.
Ugh… I snarl in disgust upon hearing that dreadful word.
REGRET.
Oh, how I would thoroughly enjoy breaking the one being who came up with that cursed thracking word.
Why should I feel thracking regret breaking Crix?
Why would I feel thracking regret for ridding the Known Universe of yet another planet that aligns itself, and aids, the Kren??
Regret? Hmph!
Tis no regret felt for the enemy OR any of its sympathizers.
None at thracking all… Except for Jaiya.
Yes… Little Jaiya.
Little precious, sweet, and pure Jaiya.
She was innocent.
I felt it.
I felt the innocence that literally fumed from her life-force in the few brief minute-cycles of first meeting her.
She was no enemy.
She was no sympathizer.
She was a girl.
A childling.
An innocent childling who I wiped away from existence all because I was told that her race and world aided the Kren.
Told by whom, you may be wondering?
The ONLY life-form who I and my siblings answer to.
ALIXANDR CORVINUX VOLTAIR
Before the rest of the Galactic Deciders and myself left Voltaira to break Crix we were called to the Emperor’s Royal Palace; the Royal House of Voltair, to go over all the intel that we had gained on the Crixans from other Kren-Aligned worlds who chose not to be broken.
‘Twas said that planet Crix was a literal ‘hotbed’ for Kren sympathizers and several hideouts, weapons caches, and even, in some well-hidden areas, BREEDING GROUNDS.
In our people’s seemingly endless war against the Kren, Crix was a massive foothold of theirs.
‘The destruction of Crix would most certainly turn the tide of the war,’ the Emperor said.
In service to Emperor Voltair and the Voltairan people… OUR people… MY people, myself and the rest of the Galactic Deciders carried on with our duty.
Hmph… Our ‘duty’.
Tis a load of raxx.
Many on Voltaira claim that our ‘duty’ is to preserve our species and any other race of grand, and innocent, life from the foul, and unholy, hands of the Kren.
Tis not the case though.
Not in my opinion, anyways.
Our duty, from the way I have slowly started to understand, is to destroy.
Plain and thracking simple.
Nothing more… Nothing less.
Destroy any single race and world who does not align themselves with Emperor Voltair and HIS Empire… HIS race… HIS WORLD.
We are tools… Instruments.
HIS tools… HIS instruments.
Was Little Jaiya our enemy though?
Possibly… But was she mine???
_
THE GRAND GALACTIC DECIDING HALL
THE GRAND DECIDING TEMPLE
“RISE, DECIDER MAGNUS,” ushered the Grand Galactic Deciding Council, known also as ‘the Council of Ten’, all in unison due to them operating as one single entity (a Hive Mind).
Rising up from one knee was Magnus, the World-Breaker.
Looking up towards the ten (five male/five female) members of the Council with his soulless eyes, Magnus said, “Grand greetings, Councilmembers.”
“GRAND GREETINGS, GALACTIC DECIDER MAGNUS,” the Council returned, all in unison still.
While Magnus stood before them, still clad in his Galactic Decider’s Uniform, the Council took the time to telepathically ‘probe’ his mind.
After a total of ten milli-cycles, the probing had ended, allowing the Councilmembers to all open their eyes simultaneously, revealing that they were now glowing bright, stark white.
“CONFLICTION!!!” the Council ushered in an overpowering, god-like voice, which echoed throughout the whole temple.
In an effort to keep his emotional level stable, as he previously had promised Lero back in his Processing Chamber, Magnus remained unmoved by their clattering.
“Due to a delay in your ‘deciding’ of the planet Crix, Magnus, you have developed a conflict in your emotional level,” the Council explained.
“My emotional level is fine, Councilmembers,” Magnus affirmed.
_
Tis not ‘fine’.
Tis changing.
_
“Whatever is it that you saw within my mind during your probing I assure you all that it was no ‘confliction’,” Magnus said aloud.
“EXPLAIN,” the Councilmembers ordered.
Keeping his face stern and jaw tightened, Magnus answered, “A tremor.”
_
A tremor, you say?
Hmph…
Magnus, you thracking kroone.
_
“EXPLAIN,” the Councilmembers echoed.
“A TREMOR,” Magnus restated in a louder tone of voice. “‘Twas a ‘tremor of thought’. A mental spike. A flare, of which, you ‘justly’ Councilmembers so wrongly refer to as an ‘emotional confliction’.”
The Councilmembers all now narrowed their eyes at the World-Breaker who stood before them, emotionless as ever.
_
They know that I am lying.
The Grand Galactic Deciding Council of the Voltairan Empire knows ALL.
So now, all that I can do is wait… FOR JUDGMENT.
_
As the Councilmembers held their tongues whilst glaring at the World-Breaker, Magnus ushered out, “Councilmembers, I ask thee all the permission to speak my thoughts.”
“PERMISSION DENIED,” the Councilmembers dismissed, causing Magnus’s brow to slightly lower.
Trying his best to keep his emotions leveled, Magnus asked, “Councilmembers, did I not do what I was sent to do? What I was ORDERED to do?”
The Councilmembers narrowed their eyes once again as Magnus continued, “‘Twas Emperor Voltair who sent myself, and my other nine fellow Galactic Deciders, to the planet Crix THREE STAR SYSTEMS away from our own to ‘decide’ its fate along with the fate of its indigenous population: the Crixans.
“Upon reaching Crix, I alone made landfall upon its accursed soil while the rest of my team stayed on ‘standby’ on one of its four moons. Once I had landed, I was immediately approached by a young Crixan girl and boy. When I met them both I told them that their race and planet’s fate had been decided. After giving them my rite, I was then set to break their world until…”
_
Little Jaiya ‘broke’ my world instead…
_
“UNTIL YOU HESITATED!” the Councilmembers all scolded.
“NO,” Magnus sternly returned. “I did no such thing as ‘hesitate’, Councilmembers. I simply lost…”
_
My Mind.
_
“My ‘thoughts’ to something else,” Magnus lied as the Councilmembers stared him down. “To ‘what’, you ten are most likely wondering at this very point in time? Well, I honestly cannot seem to recall what it was. Not exactly. All that I can say is that it was a ‘tremor of thought’ and it shall NEVER happen again. This, I promise you all.”
_
A ‘hollow’ promise.
A hollow promise is what you have just made, Magnus.
Tis shall be your ‘undoing’… In time.
_
“PROMISE???” the Councilmembers thundered.
“Aye. Yes, Councilmembers,” Magnus nodded. “A promise.”
As the Councilmembers grew scarcely silent, narrowing their eyes down at the World-Breaker, Magnus waited patiently, and emotionlessly, for them to cast judgment upon him.
Galactic Deciders of the Voltairan Empire are never allowed to exhibit any type of emotion at all. NEVER.
There is only one punishment for this ‘heinous’ act: DEATH.
_
This is how it happens.
The end of everything that I know.
The Councilmembers shall cast my judgment, my punishment.
For showing signs of emotions, which the Galactic Deciding Council deem as a ‘CONFLICTION’, I shall be sentenced to death.
Tis rash, I know, but we, the Galactic Deciders, are far too volatile to be left alive without our emotional levels stabilized at baseline.
Tis only logical.
Hmph… Logical.
The word that decides my very own fate.
I watch them now, the Grand Deciding Council.
As they telepathically converse with one another over if they should extinguish my life-force now or later, I watch the movements in their faces.
The muscle twitches.
The sharp curves.
They are going to sentence me to death by way of DERESOLUTION.
Disintegration, essentially.
It is a horrible way to go… But it is quick.
Painless as well, the Executors say, but how would they know unless they have been through it themselves?
Ugh… Oh, Magnus. You kroone.
You THRACKING kroone.
Why did you have to break away from protocol and hesitate when Jaiya asked you your name?
Jaiya…
Little precious, innocent, and sweet Jaiya.
She did not have to die.
She did not DESERVE to die.
We, the Galactic Deciders, are meant to instill peace and order throughout the galaxy.
PEACE AND ORDER.
We are meant to ‘protect life’, but all we ever seem to do is destroy.
We?
No… No, no.
Not ‘we’, Magnus… YOU.
I am the one who always does the destroying.
The decimating.
THE BREAKING.
Tis why I am known across the galaxy, and possibly several others that lie beyond it, as the World-Breaker.
A title that I have never been quite fond of, but they are right.
They ALL are right.
I am not a Galactic Decider of the Voltairan Empire.
I am not even Magnus. Not anymore…
I am now only the World-Breaker.
Tis what I have allowed myself… NO.
What I have allowed OTHERS to make myself become.
And it is what I shall now perish for being.
A breaker of worlds…
_
“MAGNUS!!!” the Councilmembers all thundered in unison as the World-Breaker lifted his eyes upward to meet them all.
“Yes, Councilmembers?” Magnus asked with his hands still interlocked behind his lower back.
“After careful discussion we, the GRAND GALACTIC DECIDING COUNCIL OF THE VOLTAIRAN EMPIRE, have sentenced you, MAGNUS, COMMANDING-LEADER OF THE GALACTIC DECIDERS OF THE VOLTAIRAN EMPIRE, to…”
_
Die.
_
“RESTABILIZATION!!!” the Councilmembers echoed, causing Magnus’s eyes to widen in surprise.
“What?” Magnus said as the Councilmembers kept their eyes purged on him.
With their hairless brows all lowered, the Councilmembers explained, “Due to your ‘confliction’ on the planet of Crix only being deemed as a ‘slight’ break away from emotional stabilization, we have all decided for you to be placed… And MONITORED in your Private Chamber until your emotional level becomes stabilized.”
Magnus scrunched his brow in confusion as the Councilmembers continued, “TWENTY-FOUR HOUR CYCLES. We are allowing you to have ONLY twenty-four hour-cycles to restabilize your emotional level at its baseline within the walls of your personal dwelling. If you cannot do as such, we will then have no choice but to sentence you to DERESOLUTION.”
Within the Mind of Magnus
Restabilization?
What a ‘surprising’ outcome.
Emperor, be praised.
_
“CONSIDER THIS AS ‘REPAYMENT’ FOR YOUR GRAND EFFORTS OF KEEPING ALL LIFE ON PLANET VOLTAIRA, AND ALL LIFE IN THE GALAXY, SAFE FROM THE VILE AND TREACHEROUS KREN,” the Councilmembers blared.
Still surprised, but accepting of his judgment, Magnus lowered his head and bowed to the Council.
“Grand thanks, Councilmembers. Grand respect for your decision,” Magnus replied as the Councilmembers all nodded to him.
“Grand thanks for all of your grand services, Magnus,” the Councilmembers commended. “You may now rise and leave, Galactic Decider.”
Standing back up, Magnus nodded.
Turning away from the Council, Magnus started walking towards the exit out of the hall.
“MAGNUS,” the Councilmembers suddenly called out, causing the World-Breaker to stop and turn back around.
Facing the Deciding Council once more, Magnus remained silent as they said with their eyes beaming at him like spotlights, “TWENTY-FOUR HOUR-CYCLES. We shall send for you in twenty-four hour-cycles to see if your emotional level has been restabilized. If it has not, then you WILL be sentenced for deresolution. Regardless of all that you have done in your cycles of protecting the Voltairan Race… THE EMPEROR’S ‘GRAND LAW’ MUST BE UPHELD.”
Understanding this, Magnus nodded to the Council before turning away and continuing on with his exit.
Something was 'off' with him.
Though he gave the Council a blank and emotionless expression during the whole meeting, Magnus shockingly twisted his face into… ANGER.
