"Wow, that's new. Are you afraid or something?" The Black Beast had gifted me pride, the man's words, and his smirk wounded it. My fists clenched, a cold puff of vapor puffed out from beneath my digits.
My resources had been bled dry by the battle with The Black Beast. If I just ate the meat the bat sinner had offered me, then I would be more than ready to peel that smirk off his face. No, even at full strength my victory was not a guarantee. I must sheath my pride and avoid fighting.
These feelings are at war. My logic, my acumen for warfare is telling me to evade this encounter. Yet, from the heart of the beast, or from a bloodlust built into me by design, a desire for bloodshed surges within me. What I need is hearts. I need to cover up this vortex, these confused feelings. If I complete the puzzle then maybe this churning will cease. Perhaps this is why I didn't act before—the interference is forcing me to act sub-optimally, driven by sentiment.
Yes, I will distract myself from them, these feelings. There is something I wanted. Knowledge—I want that.
"Who are you?" I spoke with my unshakably neutral tone.
He scratched his chin before answering. "I could say something badass like, oh I'm just a mercenary, but… that would have so much edge I could probably slice toast with it."
This human is particularly irritating.
Everything about him causes anger to bubble past my curiosity. The thrumming of heat deep within my muscle is growing ever stronger.
"You're one of those war machines, huh… never seen your model before." He tried to wipe the leader's blood off his jacket, growing frustrated as he failed to remove a particularly coagulated stain. "Tall, dark and handsome, you're a real beauty of engineering… fucking imposing too."
I couldn't let him keep at this. I needed to direct my focus somehow. "If I were a schoolgirl I'd start blushing." The jest came out as if by instinct. Yet, to my surprise, the befuddlement in the man's eyes eased my own anger. He would choke on his own medicine.
Then, my fury returned twice as ardent. A sly grin flashed across his lips. "Sharp tongue for a glorified Roomba." My wings unfurled the second I processed the insult. "Your whole body is a weapon. I guess to some extent so is mine… so then, wanna fight?"
It would be a poor choice, no matter how tempting. I had to decline.
He gave me no choice. He spoke in a tone that was in equal parts condescending and gleeful. "You know what? It's not like I need your permission. I'll come at you now, so you better keep up."
The man planted his foot down, his arms raised into his signature lax stance. I felt a sudden weight crash against me like a fierce wind that wouldn't slow down.
There was no wind and nothing was in contact with me, no actual force was acting upon me. I felt this way before, when the man took that same stance. This is the icy grip of fear.
I am afraid. How bothersome, and how infuriating.
This mere flesh creature is filling me with terror. What a joke.
Is this how far I have fallen? Every single bit of newfound emotion is telling me to run away. Yet, I will not run.
I will silence my fear with his screams.
Victory shall shine upon me as it always has. I will rip that damn grin off his face along with his lower jaw.
Initiating combat mode.
My body hunched and my wings unfurled, casting a faint red glow among the darkening streets around us. The man looked from side to side, humming as if trying to remember as much as he could about my make, no doubt formulating some form of strategy.
He fights up close with martial arts, so I will keep him at a distance. He knows this would be the most logical and ordinarily effective strategy against those like him, so he is sure to come rushing straight at me. I am low on resources, so I won't be able to produce many weapons, and I doubt small arms will work on this foe. He doesn't know I don't actually plan on fighting at a distance. His instincts are sharp—he will surmise that when the big guns are out, I won't be able to move freely. A beast shouldn't trust a hunter.
A predator is most vulnerable as they are about to bite down, and so the second he is about to strike, I shall dive into close quarters and slice his torso wide open.
I dashed backward with my usual haste until the pressure the man emanated faded and I knew I was out of his reach. I raised my arms and bore my wings, my feet planted, my knees bent, ready to spring forward. The beast did not bare its fangs and pounce. He hadn't closed the gap at all.
His stance was different, though—his leg was up and his arm slung back.
Shit.
He brought his leg down, his foot sliced the air, whistling loudly. His shoulder shot down, and a piece of rubble thrown as fast as a cannon shell was centimeters away from my face.
My martial programming kicked in. When it was at the closest possible distance to me that still allowed me to evade, I tilted my head to the side and it shot past me. The concrete chunk hit a lamppost and brought its metal body crashing down.
I needed to dash in now. He couldn't be allowed to—he is right in front of me…
The man's right arm scythed towards me in a long arc, nothing like the clean straight punches my algorithms predicted. No matter. I will slip underneath it and slice him apart.
As it approached the distance in which its impact would be guaranteed, I began tilting my body to the left and drawing my...…..01101111 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000
A white flash and an intense silent rattling was all I felt for a moment. As fast as it faded, the world jarred back into view and I understood I had taken a fierce blow.
I generated a hand grenade and leaped away as I dropped it. The man casually stepped around a corner just as the blast went off, before stepping out and returning to his stance as if he had just gone to grab some milk and a pack of smokes.
"Yup, I knew it. You bots all do what you should, exactly as it should be done." He spoke these words out more so to himself than to me, before he trained his eyes and narrowed his stance.
I processed his statement in a flash, my mind raced to find the best solution. Then the truth behind his words… clicked. When one avoids an attack, it's best to counter or evade it just as it is about to land and to not overcommit to one's motions. Only move just enough to get out of range. That was a key parameter that I set in regards to evasion. I would see an attack, calculate the velocity, and then move accordingly—but this man, with his disgustingly clever move, had intentionally started off his strike at a lower speed before accelerating it just as I would have begun to dodge.
He outsmarted me. Yes, me. I could not allow this. I would not allow this.
I lunged towards the man, and with my own great sharpness and mechanical speed, fired a straight left.
He leaned back just enough so I could feel the tip of his nose against my knuckles. I drew my hand back and caught a glimpse of his smirk before I shot my hand out again, only to have it batted aside by a loose palm.
My right flashed forward like a missile, and I could just about feel his hair before, like a specter, he pivoted around it and pressed himself close to my right hip.
He had trapped himself. I was programmed fully with the ability to respond to each attack a human or machine could throw in the way that was most efficient—and thus, in regards to technical sharpness, I should be unmatched.
I always throw the right strike at the right time.
The raw brick wall to my right would stop him from sidestepping. My right arm, still outstretched, would act as a barrier, preventing his escape.
My right leg shot up into a knee so forceful and explosive I'm sure if it was not limited by my range of motion it would pierce the skies and crush the heavens. The best move at the sharpest timing.
I felt the tip of my knee touch his jaw, but before I could feel the tantalizing crunch that I yearned for, his body went limp and he tucked away free from harm by the breadth of a hair. His behind hit the ground—he had tripped himself on purpose. Before I could bring my leg back down, I felt his foot collide against my supporting shin. My world revolved as the back of my head hit the floor.
How? No, I have no time to waste theorizing, I need to focus.
He would follow up. Yes, that is what he should do.
I dug my left arm into the ground till it was elbow-deep into the cracked stone floor. The second my sensors picked up on his movement, I revved it to full throttle and activated its drill function.
My body spun around, and my legs chopped through the sides of the building. The rubble I kicked out would become a swarm of deadly bullets and the air around me would become a flesh-ripping maelstrom.
But the man again did not do what I thought he would. He did not do what he should have done.
What he should have done…
Is that… why he…
"Bravo, you get a perfect score." The man reached out for his flask before stopping as he remembered it was empty. His slow sigh and apparent lack of interest irked me to no end.
I WILL KILL HIM.
"You're a true martial artist, you know. Unfortunately, that leaves you putting the dick in predictable." His mocking tone was replaced with what seemed to be more genuine analysis. The verbal jab only served to stoke my fury.
He was just out of reach of my sweeping strike. He had probably moved just enough so I would feel it and unleash my surprise attack. He knew. He knew what he shouldn't know.
As I got to my feet, he stepped into my range and I threw out a chopping kick aimed at the side of his leg. It cut through the cement and left a long slash across the ground, but once more the man was just ever so slightly out of reach.
He was toying with me. He got just close enough to make me feel threatened but never close enough that I could actually hit him. This anger… it shortened my triggers and made me imprecise.
"You're really effective and you always do the things that are the most likely to succeed." The man stretched his shoulders out. "Your timing and distancing are all perfect and the strikes you select are always the best ones for the job at hand." The man was done stretching and he retook his stance, his hands shifted slightly, perhaps to distract me.
"And to top it all off, you can adapt to new strategies on the fly after you analyse them. You do it real quick too." He spoke almost solemnly before he returned to that mocking sly tone.
"Of course, you are still vulnerable to surprise, even if you get used to things fast. And of course, if you always do what's best... anyone else who knows what's best will know exactly what you're thinking." His grin returned, and my rage came back a hundredfold.
Did this human believe he could so easily outsmart me?
Disgusting. I'll tear him apart. Without my control, I spoke. "You bag of meat." Each syllable was drenched with malice. The feeling was new to me, yet it was natural. "Will you still gibber like an ape when my fist has pierced you like a lance?"
He ignored my malevolent declaration. I felt a flicker of shame, the same sort of exposure I felt without the white cloth that's around me. He continued, as if monologuing. "Because of all that fancy software I can't just outpredict you till you're scrap. That's proper martial arts—one fighter strikes and the other counters, then the counter is countered and it's repeated till someone's dead… I can't win like that against you. Analysis is your whole thing."
My voice grew more powerful, more scalding.
"Why tell me this?"
He looked at me with that same sordid grin before he replied with a tone intentionally infantilized. "Well, I wouldn't want to make this too hard on you… so I'm giving you a little warning. You can keep fighting doing what you should do. I will fight doing what I could do."
His words were insulting, but I wouldn't let it sway me. I still have to win and there is still much I haven't shown him. I didn't care about what this primate was insinuating. It wouldn't matter when that oh-so-clever brain was smeared all over my plating.
As he stepped in range, I held back for a moment this time and staggered my timing before I exploded out with a piston-powered left jab. He pulled his body away just as it was about to land and my head snapped skyward as a left vertical fist struck me.
I wasted no time, despite the blow. I retaliated with a right straight. The man parried it out with his own right hand and threw a harsh uppercut at my now exposed flank. My plating dented and my calibrations showed me he was now fighting the same way as me. He was choosing the most conventional and efficient strikes. He had fooled me. I was the one who understood that a beast shouldn't trust a hunter. Yet, he played me like a fiddle. Blabbering on about doing what he shouldn't... why couldn't his madness at least remain consistent?
I swung my right leg like a halberd into a roundhouse kick aimed at the body. Based on his current pattern, he should catch or check the kick, opening him up for a right cross.
But his pattern had already shifted, and he leaned till his spine was near parallel to the ground.
My algorithms raced to analyse and to predict, and I prepared countermeasures for as many options as I could. My chest tightened with frustration as he chose the least likely and most unwieldy choice. This despondent disciple, this sloshed samurai, this MOTHER FUCKER flew forward into an almost cartoonish headbutt.
The least sound choice possible was the one that smashed the armor plating over my head and nearly sent me flying backward into the wall. Fragments of brick and my own fragmented face guard.
Alright, he should follow up, but since he is doing what he shouldn't he wo-...
He followed up with a combo as sharp as a razor. I mostly managed to block, parry, and evade. Yet, an offbeat barrage of narrow hooks and elbow strikes chopped into my carapace and scored me like a fish.
I finished analysing the sequence and now began completely nullifying each and every attack with mechanical precision. I slapped away a powerful overhand before deftly evading a high kick. I feinted a tackle and he dropped his arms. In response, I unfurled my oscillating blade and swung high.
He stepped back, avoiding damage, but I wasn't done. I dashed across the street and boosted myself off a building. I bounced off the floor and leapt towards him like a missile-powered tiger. For an instant, a worried look flashed over his features as I went for his throat.
"Wow," he said as my arm blade just barely missed his jugular before he dove right back into another flurry. My clawed hands were still scraping against the pavement. He too wasn't one to waste time.
No matter. I will defend till he is open, and then I will kill him. A fist cracked my jaw and rattled my vision as I parried a millisecond too late.
How?
He began landing strikes again. I weathered the ever-increasing storm of blows as my analysis ran at full blast to crack the code behind it… my armor began to fracture and metal plating fell to the ground as strike after strike landed and my algorithms kept missing their mark.
He managed to alter his tempo subtly mid-sequence, and this threw off my calculations. And to make it worse, as soon as I adapted to the new tempo, it had shifted again. He had used the opening combo to analyse how long it took me to adapt, and whenever I defended a strike he sharpened, he swapped his rhythm.
A roundhouse kick struck my abdomen. I nearly folded over from the immense force. If I had not grasped the ground with the hooked talons of my feet, I would have been sent flying.
Yet, something was shifting within me. Despite the destruction of my body, I felt light—free, almost. The visceral exchange stirred something within my hemolymph. I felt… free, light as a flower petal. Each strike he threw was the summation of a lifetime of practice. Each technique I unleashed was an ode to war. We were a magnum opus. I felt… beautiful.
He did good, but he failed to realize even what he was doing had its own rhythm, and that rhythm was one I could learn—and I could adapt to.
I grabbed the rusted frame of a car and launched it towards him like a pitcher with a baseball. The hefty object crashed through the wall behind him with a near-deafening thud. His eye twitched ever so slightly from the noise. The time it took him to evade the car was all I needed to complete my prediction.
I analysed his analysis.
He threw three jabs with his left hand. Sound was just a fragile barrier for him, and each strike would leave trails of dust along their line of fire and circular rings of scattered dust along the ground from his feet. His hips rotated and his legs drove the thrust of his shoulders and arms.
But they only hit empty air, as much like he did. I moved ever so slightly outside the line of fire.
When he threw the rock at the start, he understood I would always dodge at the last second and used that knowledge to land that wild swing. This man could deduce things on the fly, and he would actively probe his foe to produce these deductions. His knowledge of martial arts went beyond mere style and technique. Not only could he fight with efficiency that rivaled mine, but he also dynamically chose less effective and more unorthodox options in order to bypass my raw computations.
His manipulation of rhythm and timing to bypass my prediction showed that his approach against me was multifaceted and highly informed. In theory, I could adapt to it all. However, I might just shatter before then.
I should try to run, grab a corpse, devour it, regenerate, then fill the streets with more bullets than there are stars in the sky. But, that's how losers think. I will clash my steel with his flesh and I will slough that same flesh from his pale bones.
My lip twitched, it curled. His death would come.
After I defend I won't strike at his opening as he assumes I will. Instead, I'll aim for a less critical target.
I absorbed his following kick with my elbow and fired off a precise right uppercut. I felt feedback as the blow made contact with his arm. He blocked it, but this only reduced the damage. His essence glistened under the setting sun. It formed a glistening red crescent moon.
His skin was torn, he grunted before throwing the blood over my cameras. I had already predicted each upcoming move and so I evaded his following left hook with ease despite being blinded.
His previous words suggested he had some understanding of war machines, however, his knowledge of my fighting style wasn't something he could know through just reading or through preliminary observation—he was analysing, much like I was. I don't know if I can use this analysis against him like he is. I will have to play to my own strengths rather than trying to replicate his.
The pattern my analysis revealed in his shifting tempo was discontinuous and not random.
Eureka, this wasn't procedural, it was prepared—for war machines—for me?
Such subtle manipulation wouldn't help against humans, and other war machines are not fitted with anywhere near my level of hand-to-hand responsiveness and predictive power.
It must have been for me.
I avoided a spinning kick by thrusting my head backwards. The man's heel was as deadly as a house flung by a tornado. The attack turned the air into an invisible slashing sword that ricocheted off my armour and peeled some of my paint away. I quickly stepped away as he brought his elbow down. His stance had become wide; he pulled power from deep within the earth. The elbow strike sent lightning-shaped cracks along the pavement.
"I am flattered, those moves were prepared for me, were they not?" The man's face twisted into surprise as I spoke. His calm demeanor broke for a moment. He was not confused or scared, however, and instead, he laughed, mockingly rubbing a tear from his eye.
He regained his composure before smiling with ill-fitting warmth, answering almost softly. "A close friend of mine told me how you fight." His hands almost dropped out of his stance. "She told me you were really strong and that I needed to prepare… you were as good as she promised."
Something about this made me feel bizarrely content. He recognized my power and looked forward to meeting me. It's a warm, fuzzy feeling, and I knew at once that some part of me had just now awoken to appreciation.
Still, this was all just a game for him. It was his attitude that bothered me, not his view on combat. I think I now understood the joy some feel when they fight, as half of my emotional lens was indeed based on one who had been reborn solely for combat.
Not to mention, I am also very thoroughly designed for battle.
But now, to me it no longer seems like he was looking down on his foes, but instead, it was more so a genuine joy at the situation he found himself in. I asked, "Who is this person you mentioned and how do they kno—
Much like with the man on the receiver, I was interrupted.
"She told me to keep it under wraps for now. She said something about not letting them hear. Sorry Bruce Wii, but let's just get back to it. She is weird and all, but she just… knows things."
"Them? Do you speak of the howling sounds in the sky when one is alone, or do you speak of the foul gods man has taken as patrons?"
"Yeah man, beats me. She is weird like that. She told me to tell ya that she speaks in italics and that's all. She also told me that they will know when it's time." He scratched his head a little, confused. His sly smile hadn't changed, but now it didn't seem like it was born of mockery but more so the anticipation of whatever cunning move he will pull off next.
"Human, you aren't making sense." I told him with a tone flat as ever.
"I know. She doesn't make much sense either, but she always gives me fun stuff to do. Listen man, I think she is convinced that she is an actor or something—denial about the end of the world or some bullcrap. Either way, there are a hundred ways she could speak to a fucking audience that are less cliché than this."
He locked his stance down. I spoke. "Let's end it then." As I said this, he moved into my range and stepped to my flank with a deft pivot.
His left fist flew past my head and scraped the paint off my cheek.
I turned to face him and I launched a sequence of my own. This time I also lashed out with my oscillating blade, unfurling it to extend the range of my hooks.
He focused on my bladed hand far more than my other limbs, and this helped me land some glancing blows. However, that is all the benefit it granted me, as he adapted and became aware of his new openings, which he quickly laid out as traps. The next time I targeted the perceived lapse in attention, I was rattled by a whipping palm strike.
I stumbled, my servos braced under newfound tension. Damage was building. Each blow was shaving away armor and breaking down my synthetic muscle. My nanomachines rebuilt my insides, but they were running out of material to work with. My legs wobbled. My body was showing its first signs of failure.
I quickly deflected his following combo. However, again the man began landing strikes. When I fully analysed his shifting rhythm, I had neglected to consider that he may have not presented all the patterns he had prepared—and so I had stopped with that particular resource-intensive computation, and now I pay the price.
He stomped a single piece of rebar straight out of the ground and it thrust itself into my chin. I lost sight of him for a moment as my jaw fractured straight down the middle. He struck within my temporary blind spot with the rebar beam.
The metal bent to a smooth C-shape as the armor of my flank was fully blown open and the artificial muscle underneath revealed itself to us both. I bled across the ashen tarmac, yet I did not falter. I could not falter. He attempted to hook the rebar around my neck, but he underestimated the cleaving power of my blade. It slashed through the material and nearly cut through his chest before he cartwheeled back and landed on both feet. He pawed the air like a cat before mouthing a brief "meow."
Asshole.
I wou—
"Too slow," he whispered. An elbow strike destroyed one of my central cameras. I expected him to move into my new blind spot and so I threw a preemptive punch there. He had yet again chosen a more unorthodox approach and moved entirely behind me.
I had focused too much on the new blind spot instead of the one I always had—my back, where I, and everyone else, lack eyes.
My predictions had partially caught up. I turned around and managed to shell up against some of his blows before his pattern shifted to a novel one and my arm was grabbed.
No, not just a new pattern—this was a new combat style. I underestimated the sheer depth of his bag of tricks.
Before I could break free by revving my arm like a drill, I found myself launched downwards as the earth itself became a weapon and the armor that coated my back now decorated the ground as it finally crumbled. My now exposed vertebra scraped against the cold, harsh floor.
I forced my head away from his stomping foot… the blood from his torn skin dripped onto my chassis.
When the bat leader screeched, he had covered his ears.
When the car landed behind him, I saw his eye twitch.
When I hit him, his skin ripped.
Humans can train bone and muscle, but their skin, eyes, and ears are just as fragile no matter what hellish work they may put in.
My metal jaw twisted into a grin as I felt… excitement that I had never felt before.
Yes, I will kill him.
AND
LET
BLOOD
SPILL
I kicked up a cloud of dust with my free arm, and just as planned, he reflexively covered his face just enough so I could land a harsh kick to his abdomen.
He let himself go lax like a falling leaf, and thus he prevented himself from absorbing the full force of the blow. He flew backwards before landing on his feet with near feline grace.
He returned to his stance and tensed his muscles, waiting…
I felt that dreadful aura once more and came to the conclusion that the second I try what I am currently planning, he will strike me and will destroy me.
I had lost too much armor and I couldn't repair any damages with the frugal supply of material I had. No, I will try it anyway. I will not just play to my strengths; I will imitate him in one way and target his weaknesses.
If he hits me once more, he will win.
If I hit him, then I might win.
Silence.
Heat.
Pressure.
Relaxation.
We are on the razor's edge.
The fear thrills us.
I dashed.
He lunged.
The second he enters my range, I will fire off a straight left.
That's what he thinks.
I will choose the least effective option.
He dodged to the left.
He dodged a blow that was never thrown.
I threw the wrong strike.
It was like an elephant in a china shop, out of place and incorrect.
It was beautiful.
The straight and sharp left I should have blasted was replaced by a wide, backhanded swing of the arm.
The air filled with blood as the back of my forearm cut through the man's flesh and ripped his skin wide open. He took the full brunt of the blow against his forearms. They may have felt nigh impregnable, but they were human, and they were fallible.
The muscle did not give, and neither did the bone, but he was just a man, and his blood that had stained his jacket and stained my arm was proof of that.
"You trained well and fought beautifully. I won't forget you," I whispered under my breath as he fell away and forced his composure. He exhaled with a deep, booming pulse, his feet dug into the earth as he assumed a horse stance, legs spread wide.
He lifted his fist, but the moment of distraction was more than enough for me to produce a singular flashbang with the last of my resources.
A white flash and burst of sound went off half a foot from his face. His playful expression shattered, then recoiled in pain. His arms shot up around his head as a result of pure, unconscious spinal reflex.
As he turned away from me and fell out of his stance, I could feel the pressure he exuded fizzle away completely. His impossible bodily control and muscular stability faltered, and his balance failed him ever so slightly.
He went in that moment from a demigod to a man.
No, he was always a man.
Before those perspectives could hold me down and cry out in desperation to grant him mercy, I had already started to move.
I could feel how emotion dug its claws into my spine; however, I wouldn't let it grip me.
My blade flashed in the crimson sunlight.
The ground blew apart with my burst of speed, and a faint ring of dust flew out from around me.
This was joy born of the Black Beast's bloodlust.
NO
It was my own bloodlust that drove my blade down its vertical arc. I could feel, for the second time, my metal jaw bearing its metal fangs in a vicious grin.
My blade tasted blood, but my smile fell.
I managed to cut his chin with the tip of my blade. However, that same blade was now broken off and embedded in the wall beside me.
Before I could do anything else, his palm grasped mine in an almost gentle embrace. My metal frame fell lax as silk for a moment, as, with but a subtle twist of his wrist, my balance broke and my weight shifted.
His eyes were still closed from the flash, but his mouth had widened into a smile far wider than the one he had shown before.
He let out an almost crazed laugh. I saw his muscles tense and prepare for a strike. When I see something, I can prepare for it, and I can deduce what I haven't seen. However, deduction will never make me omniscient.
His practical strikes and throws, which came from modern martial arts, had been blended together into his particular style.
Against the bat, he showed moves that seemingly fell out of that pattern. If he had started with them right away, then I could have adapted. He made me adapt to only part of his bag of tricks so I would forget the parts he had shown before.
No, it wasn't just that this was new.
This should have been impossible.
He whipped his arm through mine. A white flash ripped from the large craters he created in my armor. His hand left the top of my shoulder, and my display flashed with the red glow of critical damage.
My arm clattered to the floor as if sliced by a blade.
The man still could not see me.
But he did not need to. Not with his hand around my own.
Due to inertia, different structures within the human body accelerate at different rates.
A human being can't accelerate at such speeds in an instant without being flayed. Only the last part of the man's strikes had breached the sound barrier before, but with this strike, it had been broken within an inch of motion and far surpassed it as it landed.
I thought this was due to him not being able to breach that boundary with his initial acceleration—not that he actively had to slow down his own strikes to protect his body. The hand he used was now bright pink. Shaved skin hung around it like a torn glove.
He let go of my hand, his own raised.
Then,
his clenched fist disappeared from my view. The air blew apart. I could hear the sound of metal being crushed. A baleful, agonized red flickered from my wings.
He stood beside me.
His hand had pierced my abdomen and tore out my back, and as he drew it out, a mass of hard, dry plating crumbled over. Then, a stringy mass slapped the pavement like a cyberpunk spaghetti Bolognese. My nanomachines tried pathetically to draw it all back in, but it was impossible with the resources I was left with.
He will strike me again and he will kill me.
As that thought crossed my mind, I felt… Why is it so cold?
This fear… it was greater than the dread the man's presence brought me. It was even greater than the thrilling sensation the fight brought me.
Fear keeps organisms alive. So I guess…
I don't want to die.
The man's hand bled profoundly, and he winced as he witnessed the total destruction his skin was exposed to. He stepped away from me and rubbed his eyes. His hearing and vision slowly returned. He placed his flayed hand in his pocket to cover it from the wind before he gently declared, "You adapted your hand-to-hand as you fought, you learned to not always go for the most straightforward and effective option… But, you dropped all that when it came to finishing me off."
I folded over slowly. My pistons whistled as the pressure within them dropped.
I lay on the ground, facing the scarlet sky.
He leaned over me, smug grin still over his face. "Yup, I scared you so bad that you rushed in for the kill. You needed to end me fast, you rushed in for the kill to end this battle… I leaned my head forward a little so it would be the closest point to you, and then it was just a matter of timing really."
If I was going to die, the last thing I wanted sure as hell wasn't his gloating.
"Yah fell for it, yah junk of scrap." He chuckled for a moment before lightly kicking the side of my head. This wasn't an attack but just mockery. Anger swallowed my fear, but just as it boiled over, he spoke. "You were low on resources though. So hey, let's fight again when you are fully stocked up. I'm sure you would rather blast me away than swing your arms around."
My rage dissolved.
Yes, I wanted to fight him once more. I wanted to face him with all I had…
My words were weaker than usual, but I'd make them bite. "It's hunk of scrap, you imbecile." He turned around, not offended, but pensive. He wrapped his hands in some old bandages he found on the corpse of a medical officer.
He lifted his half-wrapped hand and waved at me before he told me with no sign of mockery,
"Alright then, let's do this again sometime… Name's Shen if you want to find me."
He stopped and turned around before he asked,
"By the way, do you have a name?"
And so I spoke.
Not in the bellow of a gun.
Not in the slash of a blade.
And not of the wisdom to attack or to defend.
Writ upon my plating is G-3. That is my designation as a utilitarian tool of war. It was pointless as a title; it had no punch. I never even acknowledged it.
I have grown past this… Some have called me an angel.
I am no angel, but something about the term resonates with me. The thought of the name I now will pick closes the crater within my soul just a tiny bit. I felt more complete than ever, despite the disrepair.
G-3.
The third.
The Book of Enoch speaks of the angels, and the third angel is the one whose name I shall take.
"Ramiel, that is my name.
End of Part 1