Extinction

Chapter 2

"Maximus, are you going to stay in there for the rest of your life?"

"Yes!"

She sighed and caught herself doing so. Apparently frustration was still present, psychic powers and all. It was not what the traces of alien DNA in her heritage were supposed to create but her DNA wasn't exactly stable anymore. Her human side should be able to keep her alive though. "You'll come out, when curiosity defeats fear." Or anger...

"I'm not afraid!" He exited the ship with a determined pace and ventured into the abandoned, city ruins.

Betty know that would work, psychic or not, Maximus was very predictable to her. "Let's say hello to our new friends." She peeked inside a ruined building, calling out to him with her mind, willing them to come out.

"Ew! What is that?!" Why couldn't life just be extinct, why did those between life and extinction had to be left behind? Mutants, ugly ones.

"Living creatures, lives to protect..." Betty's tone seemed more distant now as if she was not satisfied with what little she had left even if she was supposed to have let go of the past.

"That has been really drilled into your head hasn't it?" e backed away from the creatures, shapeless, he couldn't tell what they originally were, if they, or their ancestors, were ever normal at all.

"It's all I have left..." She was talking in monotone, like Soti, and he didn't like it.

"I'm going back inside." He needed to understand what was going on...

xoxox xox xoxox

By the time the next day came, and the journey continued along the near empty galaxy, he had discovered something. "All that they did with your DNA affected your will..."

"I was given psychic powers; I know what you're thinking..." She stood next to him looking at the large, flickering monitor where the report was displayed. "You're right, there's no much left of me except a sense of survival, to protect life. A side effect, it was what I came to this world for, I failed..."

He shook his head. "Don't do that..."

"Don't do what?" She knew, she already knew the answer.

"You know."

"Don't act all hopeless because then you might catch my hopelessness? I'm not, I'm still going to try, I'll keep them safe." She knew what he was going yo say next but made no efforts to stop him.

"I am the only true survivor? You're just running around automatically trying to protect whatever sad excuse for a life is left, take them into the space ship, move on the to next place, eventually reach a populated galaxy. As if those mutants will be welcome there. I see many flaws in your plans."

"Yet you're following me, because life seeks life."

"What does that mean?"

"Survivors, seek other survivors, to help each other, to keep living."

"But I... forget it... how boring..." how boring indeed. He wanted to get to the next galaxy already and cause some chaos, it would be fun.

xoxox xox xoxox

Unfortunately they weren't having any luck. Technical difficulties, empty after nearly empty planet, everything. Drifting from one place to another, just living...

xoxox xox xoxox

Later, elsewhere...

Tick, tick, tick... tick... ... "It stopped..." The child poked at the no longer ticking clock. Well of course it stopped, after spilling milk all over it. It was an antique clock that his mother brought from who knows what place.

"Uh, oh..." He scurried outside under gray skies, though it was not due to coming rain, the world was hibernating, something or other. He didn't mind, it was the only sky he ever knew. By far, the boy was the cutest creature in the entire planet, the entire galaxy. He walked along familiar places, away from the scene of the crime, no use crying over spilled milk.

The world was just drifting, lost, slowly coming back to life, ever so slowly. Extinction was more than an invasion, a war, the will of the universe they say. But he was there, he was alive, and everyone ran at the sight of ultimate cuteness that a mutant could never achieve the way a relatively normal child could easily obtain it. He curiously peeked inside buildings, behind half dead trees, anywhere, curious to see those signs of life, to play to move forward, to continue, to live...

Because life seeks life, it struggles to go on and when the struggles ends, it either moves or drifts but it goes on. It moves, it prospers or it simply exists, empty, drifting, but with hopes for tomorrow.

End...

Disclaimer, I do not own Atomic Betty. This is a very strange story... you have to read between the lines... interpret as you wish.