"I'm glad Windchime isn't here to see this," she said softly as the group of townsfolk pushed closer and the mood seemed to escalate toward a peak that definitely suggested violence.
"Why do you say that?" Tinker asked.
"You remember how he struggled with his guilt over what we'd done in Auburn," she said. "It might not have been a problem on its own, but to him, it caused the town to be destroyed and the people killed.”
“It was a shared guilt, lassie. We all had a part to play in it, and you know I believe that as the leader of the group, I had more responsibility—”
“I know,” she interrupted impatiently. “But maybe because you’re older or have more experience, you were…okay, a little more practical about it. We both know Windchime took it much worse and it still bothers him. It was all Hammerhand could do to convince him to take that guilt and use it to fuel his actions to protect others from a similar fate. If he were here and forced to do nothing while the locals accused him of the same thing he accuses himself of…well, I can't imagine what that would do to the man. I'm glad he's off doing something that's actually useful."
"Do you think what we're doing here isn't useful?" he countered. "Sure, in our current position, we can't take any action at this point without risking losing everything, so the best thing to do in this moment is nothing. Well, aside from protecting ourselves and making sure they don’t damage our mechs. Aside from that, nothing at all."
"Could I use the air gun on my grappler?" Jessica13 asked. "It's not lethal, at least not the strike itself. I used it when I broke away from Sanctuary. There might have been some injuries I didn't know about, but he wasn't killed."
"Maybe keep it on hand in case we need it, but only use it as a last resort," Tinker said. "Once again, we don't want to push them into committing further violence."
She nodded. In all honesty, she’d half-believed he would forbid the use of it, but at least he’d agreed it was something to keep in mind. She grasped the controls a little tighter as the people milled toward her. Barrios still pointed at her while he ranted about how she had betrayed their trust. She wondered if she could possibly have misremembered what had happened. While she had entered the town under false pretenses, she had done so with their best interests at heart and not only that, she had put considerable time and effort into repairing and rebuilding their town.
The Knights had also worked hard to do what they could to restore everything while they were content to wait for them to decide if they wanted to offer any kind of reward for their work.
"Maybe that's why," Jessica13 said to Mini. "Maybe they don't want to give us any reward for our work for them."
"It is unlikely, given that Hammerhand told them to decide what kind of reward they wanted to give, if any at all," he replied. "Although I suppose the reward element could have played a part. They don't have much to give and that could make them feel guilty. If they convince themselves we are not entitled to a reward, they no longer have to feel guilty if they don’t give us anything."
That made no sense to her, but maybe people in general didn’t always make sense. She wasn't sure why anyone would feel guilty about not rewarding someone for helping them. If they couldn't spare anything, the Knights would have understood. They were fighting to end that kind of shortage of supplies in the area, after all, since Athena bled the towns dry of resources to support her regime.
In that case, why would they want to remove them as the only chance that they had to get rid of Athena and her ilk?
She fiddled with her controls and took a deep breath. Understanding the kind of thought processes these people operated on—that made them make so many odd, illogical choices—was more difficult than understanding Mini’s AI. She wasn't sure how much it would help to tell them the error of their ways, but like Tinker said, maybe saying anything at this point would only make them angrier.
Machines were so much easier to understand.
Reluctantly, she decided it was best to simply wait for them to get it all out and hope it passed.
"Mini, what do you think we can do to keep them away without hurting them?" Jessica13 asked because she did see sense in being prepared.
He had no time to answer as the group appeared to reach the peak of their anger and surged forward at the group of mechs. They held weapons in their hands and tried to attack in a rage. The instinct to fight back rose in her stomach and pushed her to take some kind of action that would prevent them from inflicting injury on her or her mech.
Tinker's words rang in her brain and helped to calm her as the crowd battered the outside of the mechs or tried to pry the armor plates loose to find something they could strike at and disable them. Most had targeted the combat mechs, perhaps because they were the greater threat, but a small group with pitchforks turned their attention to her.
"You're not welcome here," one shouted, stepped closer, and brandished his weapon. It seemed ludicrous that he could act like he wasn't trying to intimidate a young girl in a mech that was taller, larger, and heavier than he was.
"Maybe they know we won't attack them and that
