Your hand lingered by your belt as you furrowed your brow, wondering what had possessed you to believe that with everything taken care of with the enlightened that it was wise to leave the guild house unarmed as you had. You were far from helpless unarled, yet it was with guns that you were able to truly shine, that you were able to take down almost any foe before they could blink, let alone retaliate.
You knew that the things that went bump in the night didn't actually come out this early, that they more or less remained within the city where they were able to find the most prey. There was next to nothing in the way of recorded attacks on the people in rural area's outside the city, and of those attacks, nearly all of them were vultures who had strayed too far away from their usual grounds.
You were not entirely certain how you knew this to be true, given how you had barely gotten any information on this subject from the city folk who you had talked to. Maybe this was another memory seeping through the cracks, another thing that let you knew that you had experienced some of this before. You must have, as you could feel yourself growing increasingly comfortable with, increasingly familiar with the city in a manner that could only be attributed to years of familiarity.
How had you ended up imprisoned, though?
You cast this thought aside as your fingers clasped the rusted handle to the shed a little tighter, as you slowly pressed your thumb against the latch that held the door closed. You figured that if you did this slowly and silently you would be able to peer inside, that you would be able to confirm that this was all baseless paranoia and get back to Anne and Oak.
As the latch slid upwards you found yourself wondering just how you would handle it, if it turned out that inside this shed something horrible lurked. It could be one of the things that went bump in the night, it could be lost, hungry and afraid. It could be waiting for night to fall so it could get back to the city, biding its time.
You figured that if it was a vulture then you'd be able to strangle it in its sleep, a thought that made you cringe at the very concept of it. You didn't like the thought of taking the life of such a creature while it slept, even if it was for the good of the people in the city that such things were dealt with, exterminated. If it was bigger than a vulture though, you were uncertain how you would handle this issue. You knew that the vultures, while the weakest and most numerous of the things that went bump in the night, you knew that anything other than one of those was likely to be extremely dangerous even in the day.
Especially in the day.
You peered through the crack of the door as you opened it less than an inch, looking for any sign of something within it that could threaten you. The sight that greeted you took you by suprise, confusion setting in as you wondered just how one of those could have gotten out here, when they never left the city. It didn't seem to be moving though, making you wonder if it had gotten stuck, if it had been here for long enough that it simply ran out of power.
You opened the door cautiously as sunlight caught the dusty bronze surface of the mechanical man that stood dormant and doubled over in the toolshed, while behind it you could see at a glance that the blood stains from that one night remained, though the bones were long gone. It must have been quite the shock to the owner of the shed you figured, to find the remains of whatever those bones had once belonged to sitting there with the scarecrow outside dripping with blood.
The mechanical man shuddered as you started to step forward, prompting you to hop backwards as the sound of faintly whirring cogs came from within it, as its eyes started to glow with that intense green that was so characteristic of them.
"Pow-powering Up. Up. Up."
The mechanical man shuddered once more as it lifted one arm, then the other, elevating its body from that doubled over position awkwardly. As it stood upright you could see battle damage, torn bronze betraying the mechanics beneath its armoured exterior. Its arms, legs and chest bore extensive scratches and tears from what you could only assume was large claws, its head was dented but otherwise intact.
"Identifying Tar-up. Up. Target. Tar-target. Target Con-confirmed. Up."
You stepped back as it stepped towards you, keeping your distance from it as it favoured weight on one foot more than the other, limping towards you as it towered above you. You could hear the clicking of whatever it used to speak as strangled noises escaped it. You just hoped that this thing had identified you as a civilian and not a threate.
"Confir-firmed. Up. Firmed. Con. Con. Human Male. Civilian."
You breathed a sigh of relief.
"Initiating Engagement. Tar-targeting. Error. Weapons Jammed. Up. Up."
Even unarmed and damaged this thing was a monolithic figure of bronze capable of killing most people in a single blow. With its weapons out of comission however, you had your chance now to prove that these things were not as almighty as the Clockworkers had believed. You had your chance to show them that a single man could take down one of these things with a few improvised tools and a little knowledge on their side.
You ducked away from the mechanical man as you ran back towards the toolshed, ducking around the outside of it as you looked for a tool, a weapon, anything. All you could find however, was a heavily rusted sickle. It was better than nothing, but it was barely anything. You had prayed for something more viable, a hoe, a rake, something with reach that you could jab into those exposed inner workings.
You could do this though, you could circle the mechanical man and drive this weapon into the exposed cogs and gears that you could see from the side, from behind. From anywhere but the front of this thing. As it stomped around the shed towards you, you backed away a short distance into the wheat, keeping an eye on it as you did a few testing ducks to the sides, quickly figuring that you could circle it clockwise faster than it could turn thanks to how it was hampered by a damaged leg.
You had to sprint around it at first to pick up speed enough to get behind it before it could turn to catch up with you, though you kept a good few feet between it and yourself as you rapidly hopped left and right as it tried to turn to catch you. You watched as it swung its arms backward in an awkward attempt to catch you off guard, identifying the pattern it was using quickly as you gripped the sickle in hand. You could see that it was helpless from behind, that it wasn't able to reach you, that the most promising point to strike was its underarm.
The armour on its underarm had a small gap in it, one that you had seen your improvement had removed. You sprang forward as its arms jerked backward, ducking under them as you watched them move forward, ready to strike again. The rusted blade of the sickle darted up as you thrust it up into that chink in the mechanical man's armour. You could feel gears grind against it, you could hear the sound of that metal tool snapping within it as it was jammed between the heavy cogs.
The mechanical mans right arm locked up as you staggered backwards, off balance from the tool snapping so readily. It barely slowed down from this as it continued to turn about, while you tried to regain your footing as you went to duck under its reach. A heavy bronze hand impacted against your lower back, slamming you into the ground, winding you and giving it all the time it needed to haul you from the ground, holding you up by the neck as you kicked ineffectually against it.
You could feel it gradually tightening its grip as it started to restrict your breathing, as it stared at you with those impassive, glowing green eyes.
You could feel the burning in your lungs increase as every passing moment of denial went by.
The corners of your vision started to blur, to dim as your struggling burned up what little oxygen remained in your body, as your arms felt like they were weighed down by lead. One of them moving to grasp at the hand about your neck, while the other swung the broken tool ineffectually at the bronze man that held you.
The sound of metal scraping over metal faded away as your vision continued to go dark, while despite your immortality you began to panic, thrashing weakly as everything finally went black.
The beating of your heart filled your ears.
That steady thump slowing, ceasing.
An eternity seemed to pass shrouded in darkness as you felt yourself adrift in this midnight ocean. You felt weightless and insubstantial, free of the confines of your body, empowered and yet powerless at the same time as your mind was set free of its biological confines, as you awakened to the moment of your death frozen in time. You found yourself viewing your body from outside as you saw it hanging limply in the hand of that bronze figure, the world about you discoloured and drab, and yet...
And yet the mechanical mans eyes burned in that same brilliant green.
The eyes, you needed to go for the eyes.
The dull thud of your heart filled your ears again as life once more returned to your body, as body and mind were rejoined by their soul, knowing that you couldn't give in, as you let a ferocious cry out as the hand still clasping that tool thrust forward. The tool pierced the eye of the mechanical man with the sound of breaking glass, cracks running the length of what seemed to be an unseen visor as they webbed over the other eye.
The rusted broken blade plunged easily into the head of the mechanical man as it pierced the eye, your hand jerking back as you prepared to thrust it through the other eye as its grasp on your neck weakened, as ichor spewed from the gaping hole where that glowing glass had once been.
Ichor...
Only two things bled ichor, the things that went bump in the night and the Enlightened.
You staggered back away from the mechanical man as it dropped you, as it brought its one working arm up, hand clasped over its eye as it tripped backwards, falling against the earth with a dull thud. You could see it writhing, in a manner that you realised was in pain, a mechanical screech escaping it in place of a cry of agony, while that heavy bronze hand slammed against the side of its head repeatedly in an effort to do something, anything.
The broken sickle slipped from your grasp as you stepped back again, horror washing over you as your stomach turned. The Clockworkers had taken the Enlightened that they had captured and they had used them as the thought center of these things and you were horrified as you knew that there was only one way that they could have ever learned to do such.
You had taught them.
You had done something that was unforgivable in your own eyes in teaching them how to link the minds they used with the bodies of these things, undying brains housed in cold metal, minds that had been tortured and their prior identity supressed. Minds that even when damaged, could regenerate while their bodies were repaired, be transplanted into new shells when required or simply placed in storage.
You had taught them how to do this, you had taught them how to make these abominations in a desperate act to help them quell the growing incursions by the things that went bump in the night. You couldn't forgive yourself at the time when you realised just what kind of existance you had condemned these people to, people who while misguided would have been better served with re-education and to break Pride's hold on them.
People who you had failed.
It was no wonder that the Clockworkers had pushed so hard for the Enlightened to be classified as enemies of state, no wonder that they sought to imprison and capture them all, no wonde that they had been so willing to send such an assault force to your supposed rescue. They didn't care for your rescue, few of them even knew who you were anylonger. This was just a ploy to capture more of the enlightened, obtain more resources.
The rescue mission and crushing of the Enlightened themselves had just been a convenient cover story for it. The memory of this burned its way to the forefront of your mind as you crawled over to the side of the shed, as you huddled against it shivering. You felt sick to your stomach as you watched the mechanical man thrashing unevenly as it tried to recover from the injury you had dealt it, as it tried to regain motor functions.
It had pained you at the time so greatly that you had called in a favour from those with high influence, asking them to imprison you in one of the underground prisons, the sole inmate in an empty prison wing. A prison in what you had been the nameless prisoner, many of the staff who ran the place meeting you over time, none of them getting a word from you.
Tears ran down your cheeks as you wished once more than you had brought a gun with you.
This time it wasn't for the purpose of defending yourself from the incapacitated mechanical man that lay there twitching, thrashing as it tried to recover. This time it was so you could defend the world from yourself. A bullet had been your tool before in inducing your amnesia, a bullet would do it again.
You couldn't give in, could you?
No, you couldn't give in, you couldn't run away from this again.
You had shown once before with Anne, that you could take responsibility for your actions, that you could do what it took to make things right. This was on a much larger scale though. You felt uncertain, afraid. What were you going to do?
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Topic: They told me I could be anything... (Read 79084 times)