Blinding, unbridled rage surrounded him like fire. He ran screaming toward the metal giant, eyes burning with tears of pain and anger. Unlike the last time, the machine was ready for his assault, side-stepping quickly to avoid him, swinging its good arm across the back of his head with a sick “thud”. Aryu was unconscious before he hit the ground, blood oozing from the back of his head.
“So predictable.”
The thing approached him, looking him over top to bottom. “No permanent injuries detected. We were right. An angry Aryu with nothing to lose was easier to apprehend. All's well that ends well.”
It bent down, grasping Aryu between the wings. With one almost graceful motion, Aryu was tossed over the thing’s broad shoulder as it turned to leave.
“Wait! Is the attack called off?” Sia was helping Esgona to his feet as she called after it. “You said we'd be safe as long as we delivered you Aryu.”
“And so you have. A deal is a deal. You were safe, he is delivered, and the deal is concluded. Thus, the attack will go ahead as planned.”
“WHAT!” She ran at it, throwing herself in its path. “Aryu is yours now! Call off your attack! Thousands will die!” Sia suddenly realized how foolish she sounded. It was right. The deal was done.
“Ms. Sia, I never had the ability to call off the attack. Your naiveté is as delightful as it is pathetic. I believe you have less than two minutes left. Make the most of it.”
A rumble started at its feet as a controlled burn began to erupt from its lower legs. In an instant, it had begun hovering, readying to leave. Sia jumped at it, throwing it off and causing it to spiral away, nearly losing its grip on Aryu as he dangled lifelessly with his wings flapping about.
“Now, Ms. Sia, this will not do.” A quick rotation of its lower torso spun one of its legs around, the other pointing down to maintain its balance as it hovered there. The extended leg came across Sia’s face, shearing off skin and muscle before the burn of the rocket ripped through whatever was left exposed. Sia was dead long before her body hit the ground.
Esgona, still woozy from Aryu’s hit, could only whimper before falling himself, the situation catching up to him as he passed out from shock and terror.
“Now then boy, away we go.” The feet came together again and began lifting it skyward once more.
It was still not to be. No sooner had it began its acceleration, it detected the movement from behind. Its head swiveled about just in time to see the blade of a very large, oddly colored man begin to rip through it, the blade moving through its hardened body just as easily as Aryu’s had.
“N…N…Nix…Ix…Ixon…” was all it could get out before falling back to earth in two equal pieces.
-----------------------
Nixon was content to just let the scenario play out as he saw it. Clearly, the sword-bearer was at the mercy of the robot before him and would be defeated shortly. Problem solved.
Nix had exquisite hearing, learning all he could from a great distance while still concealed in the shadows. The dispersed crowd made it that much easier to see and hear everything that was going on.
It was a simple decision to make. Hearing the plans unfold, he knew another of those freakishly strong bombs was on its way here, and as a maintainer of the natural balance, so many lives wasted was heartbreaking even for one such as him.
Time makes all men (and non-men) realists, though. He knew the time he had left (thanks to the machine’s convenient updates), and he knew there was nothing within his considerable power that he could do to help them. A sad truth, but the truth, nonetheless. The bomb was too powerful.
He could save one, or ten, or maybe twenty before it was too late, but one stupid glitch stopped him from doing even that. Should any one of those one, ten, or twenty be a difficulty he'd not anticipated, a foot dragger if you will, he could very well be at the mercy of that bomb blast again, in a place he knew hostiles to be. A risk he simply could not take.
He would weep for these people, but he could not save them.
The upside to this destruction was that his target would be destroyed as well. He clearly could not make it out before the blast hit, and should he leave with the mechanical man, he would be an easy target to track.
Ah, but the best-laid plans and all that.
It would have gone off perfectly, Nixon ready to leave, until he heard the conversation turn to the target's parents and their subsequent abandonment.
He had seen these sob stories many times before. The tragic upbringings that led to the heartless killer who wielded the Power and the blade-like toys. It seemed almost all of them he had faced would wax nostalgic about the terrible series of events that brought them to that point and how it made them justified in their choices and right to do what they had.
Nixon never cared. His purpose was absolute, his methods unwavering. No man was above God’s law, no matter how hard the road they had traveled.
What caused him to pause was that this was clearly the moment the target, an apparently winged man (he’d seen winged people before, but never so far from their home) found out this information. That alone was more than he had expected to be a part of.
Nixon had always shown up late to these parties and had never been privy to such a heartbreaking scene. He had no parents, only parental figures, and even then he could not fathom the pain this young man
