blind star // txt taegyu

maze in the mirror

"Beomgyu!"

Mrs Choi ran over to her son, tears streaming down her cheeks. The glowing cyan weapon beside his body dissolved, fading into black before shattering and disappearing. She sobbed, her hands covered in his blood as she rested her head on his chest. Mr Choi knelt beside him, holding Beomgyu's hand as tears raced down his cheeks as well.

"My boy is gone…" Mrs Choi sobbed, placing a hand to Beomgyu's cheek. He lied lifeless, his blood pooled in the ground. "Oh, my son…!"

Minseon stumbled, quickly picking herself up and walking over to them. "He's not gone just yet. We can bring him back, but… it's going to cost something."

"Y-you can bring him back? B-but he's just been killed," his father stuttered, wiping his eyes quickly. "How would you even bring him back?"

Minseon was quiet. "The Herrscher of Mortality is contained within the current Herrscher soul core. With it, we could… revive him, and bring him back to life—"

"What?" Mrs Choi looked up, her gaze perplexed. "Y-you… want to make my son a Scher?"

"If you really want him back, it's what we can do at the lab," Minseon said. "It's been done before — the fourth Herrscher was created with a deceased scientist working at Aenix. Beomgyu helped prevent the loss of souls at his school, so I'd gladly bring him back."

His mother seemed horrified, but Minseon seemed rather serious. She looked down at Beomgyu's slowly paling skin, glancing at the blood on her hands. She looked at her husband before nodding frantically. "P-please, just bring him back. Give my baby back to me — please."

Minseon nodded, pressing the device on her wrist. "Captain Lee Minseon calling for backup. The area has been neutralised and the Herrscher has been contained by the Seventh. We have one casualty seen thus far. The area needs to be checked for any other casualties."

"Right away, Captain."

"Also… we have a case of another Pseudo-Scher — Code H-02."

"I'll contact Aenix Labs right away, Captain. Four teams have been sent out to observe the area."

"Very good. Please send my vehicle."

"Yes, ma'am."

Minseon pressed the button again, looking at the elderly couple. "Your son will return to you. Well have to take him away for a few days. Once he comes back, he'll feel a little different. He may even act a little different. As long as he has Taehyun by his side, I doubt he'll be any different from the eloquent boy you have right now."

Mr Choi stepped away, looking around unsurely. When they had been teleproted, they had moved about 100 metres away from where Taehyun had caused the neighbourhood to be dismantled and transported somewhere else. Their house was no longer there, as it had been moved by the power of the Void.

"It won't hurt him, correct?" Mr Choi suddenly asked. "I've learned nothing but bad things about Schers. If anything, you're the only exception."

"The Herrscher of the Star, or Kang Taehyun as you would know him, is also the biggest exception," Minseon answered. "He protected everyone here. He cares about humanity, and touched a part of himself he hated to protect everyone. Sure, half the neighbourhood is gone, but at least no one is dead."

"No one? My son is dead!" Mrs Choi yelled. "My son was killed by a damn Herrscher! Why are these monsters even being created?! They cause nothing but death and destruction! My son would have been alive if the Herrscher didn't exist altogether!"

"The Herrscher were created as an experiment," Minseon muttered. "Aenix themselves were unaware of what they were creating. The first Herrscher was on humanity's side, so creating more seemed plausible. As time passed, the cores become disrupted with hatred due to the image humans had of Schers."

The couple fell silent, staring at her as they became more unsure. Mr Choi was the first to speak up. "Then why is making our son a Herrscher the most reasonable thing to do at this moment?"

"With the power of a Herrscher, he'll come back to life, and you'll have him as your son again. As long as you believe so, he won't change. All that will happen is that he'll have some superhuman powers. He'll still be your son."

Black vehicles drove into the neighborhood, stopping just by the edge of the crater formed by Taehyun's portal. Minseon held her hand up, and two men came rushing with a stretcher to carey Beomgyu's corpse. Minseon patted her pencil skirt down and straightened her jacket, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

"We'll take him back to Scher Containment Headquarters," she said as the men loaded up Beomgyu. "Soobin will tend to him, and he'll most likely be home in the next week. However, he'll be a Herrscher hereafter, so he'll have to come in regularly with Taehyun for observation and testing."

"This is what I feared," Mrs Choi muttered, choking out a sob. "My boy has become a test subject for the government."

"While it's true that the Scher Containment Protocol is government-funded, Aenix Labs is functioning without funding and does everything on its own," Minseon answered. "It's merely a subsidiary of the SCPU, so we have to fund it ourselves. He won't be under the government, unless he agrees to be under the SCPU as before."

Another buff man wielding a rifle walked up to them. "Captain, we're clesring the area, please return to your vehicle. I'll escort these civilians out the area to the shelter."

"They were affected by the style, so take them to the social service office first thing in the morning," Minseon said, turning to him. "They're the parents of the next Pseudo Herrscher — treat them with care." She looked at her messy fringe and sighed, stepping away from the couple after she bowed to say good-bye. "I really need a haircut…"