The teenager was born beneath the towering legacy of a proud and formidable bloodline. The Crymos name carried the weight of generations in the city of Avril, whispered with reverence by allies and with suspicion by rivals. It was a name forged in discipline, in prestige, in the iron-cold certainty of Helixia's aristocracy.
And yet Aevin Crymos was a contradiction. Unlike his kin, he lacked the calculating composure and glacial grace that defined the Crymos heritage. His hair stood in untamed spikes, his manner was often clumsy, his timing always late. But within him burned something rarer than perfection: a dream, incandescent and stubborn, to unite Helixia with the fractured world beyond. He longed to protect everyone, to stand as a bridge of light in a land that had known too much shadow.
Aevin's path was marked from the beginning by solitude. His parents were lost to him...orphans were uncommon in Helixia, and the absence left a void that weighed heavily on his childhood. Yet the boy was not entirely alone. He found fragments of family in his stern yet caring grandmother, in kind-hearted folks who admired his restless spirit, and in Lyra Frosthelm, the girl who became the center of his young heart. Lyra was gentle as spring wind, her smile a warmth he yearned to preserve.
Beside them was Kenneth Sato... brilliant, disciplined, the genius son of a disgraced Helixian. Kenneth stood as the First Seat of the Seven Shadows, an emblem of what Aevin was not: punctual where Aevin was late, disciplined where Aevin stumbled, calculating where Aevin dreamed. Yet though rivals, their bond deepened into a fragile brotherhood. Watching from a distance was Merith, the Fourth Seat, a woman of quiet wisdom who sought to shape their fiery youth into tempered steel.
Aevin's life, at first glance, seemed ordinary in its struggles: the tale of an underdog striving to catch up to a prodigy. He tripped during drills, faltered on missions, lagged behind in the march of greatness. Yet his heart was unyielding. He would pause mid-training to help a child, abandon rank to defend the weak, and shout his dreams of unity to anyone who would lend an ear. Lyra believed in him fully, Kenneth though guarded slowly came to respect him, and Merith alone saw through the fumbling boy to the latent ember of greatness hidden beneath.
But destiny is a merciless sculptor, reshaping lives with chisel and hammer of tragedy.
The moment came during the war against the outsiders. Aevin, Lyra, Kenneth, and Merith were dispatched to destroy an enemy supply vessel, its annihilation critical to Helixia's survival. At first, the mission seemed manageable under Kenneth's meticulous command. But when Merith was recalled to another battlefield, leadership fell squarely on Kenneth's shoulders. He bore it with cold precision, yet the storm that followed was beyond calculation.
When Lyra was seized by the invaders, Kenneth clung to duty. He insisted they complete the objective, strike down the enemy vessel, and fulfill their orders. Duty above all. Yet Aevin's heart rebelled. To him, no mission mattered more than a comrade's life. He chose not logic but loyalty.
He went after Lyra alone.
Kenneth, torn between principle and friendship, abandoned strategy to follow. Together, they fought, steel flashing, shadows clashing, hearts pounding. They reached Lyra, but fate mocked them cruelly. In the chaos, the cavern roof collapsed, boulders crashing like judgment from above. In that final heartbeat, Aevin shoved Kenneth to safety. The stones crushed him instead, shattering his left side, extinguishing the dream he had carried so recklessly.
As blood pooled and life waned, Aevin smiled through the agony. From his neck he tore free his bloodline's silver chain... an heirloom of the Crymos. He pressed it into Kenneth's palm, entrusting not merely jewelry but faith, belief, and the remnants of his vision. Then the darkness claimed him.
Or so he thought.
Aevin awoke not in death's embrace but in a tomb of shadows. His body was half-destroyed, mutilated by stone. Beside him lingered a figure whose name was whispered only in dread, Dr. Xypher Omicron. The ghost of a bygone age. Defeated once by children, sustained only by bitterness and ambition.
The doctor had preserved Aevin, but not without cost. The ruined half of his body was replaced with PSI matter shimmering, machine, but something uncanny. It bound Aevin to Xypher's cavern, making him both patient and prisoner.
Xypher became the whisper in his ear. He painted the world in venomous hues: peace was a fragile illusion, love a prelude to pain, unity a childish dream. He spoke of a vision: an eternal dominion, a reality drowned in blissful illusion, an empire where suffering could be erased by his hand.
At first Aevin resisted. He clung to the image of Lyra, to Kenneth's friendship, to Avril City's promise of light. But Xypher broke him with a single revelation.
Through PSI's twisted visions, Aevin saw Lyra's end. Kenneth's canon flared, and the girl he loved was impaled... his best friend's hand had pierced her heart. The truth, cruel and hidden, was that Lyra had been unwillingly made a vessel for a parasitic virus. Her death was her choice, her sacrifice, to protect Helixia. But Aevin never knew. He saw only betrayal. He saw Kenneth standing over her broken body.
Something inside him snapped.
The warmth that had driven his dream turned to cold ash. The fire of unity guttered out, and in its place rose the philosophy of Dr. Xypher. When the doctor finally passed, consumed by his own ambition, Aevin inherited not only his designs but his curse. PSI fused completely with his body. He was no longer merely Aevin Crymos he was something else, something forged from ruin.
For years he moved unseen, cloaked in masks and shadows. He bore Xypher's identity like armor, manipulating wars in the outside world, bending nations to his will, gathering legions of machines and disciples. It was Aevin who unleashed the mecha titans upon Helixia, those towering engines that decimated the Seven Shadows and scarred the nation forever. It was Aevin who brought Merith and Kushna to their graves, leaving behind only Kaylin, a child orphaned by his hand. It was Aevin who lured Shiwunki into allegiance, binding him with promises and chains alike.
He became the architect of calamity. Cities burned. Nations fractured. Helixia bled.
And yet, buried beneath the mask, the boy still lingered. The one who once wanted only to protect. The one who once dreamed of light.
When he revealed himself at last to Epsilon, golden-eyed warrior of the Seven Shadows, he cast away all pretenses. He declared himself enemy to Helixia, heir to Xypher's dream. He sought power not for conquest alone, but to reshape existence itself. With his army of robots, his disciples from the outside world, and the forbidden fusion of PSI within his very flesh, Aevin Crymos strode forth as both prophet and destroyer.
Once, he had wanted to unite the world. Now, he would drown it in illusions, remaking reality in his own broken image.
The boy was gone.
The man remained.
And with him, the ashes of a dream turned weapon.