I know, it’s been a while, like, a month nearly. For the few people reading this, and the fewer who are physically capable of believing these stories, I’m sorry if I worried you. But, I’m not dead. Currently. Though I suppose I did. Die, sorta. That’s not much of a big deal when you’ve also gazed upon an infinitely powerful being from outside of our universe- we’ll get to that eventually.

I don’t really know where to start with this one. I feel like I should tell you about my first fight of the night, but I honestly don’t think that matters anymore. The robot I fought, ‘The Living Legs’, took me down pretty easily.

Guess where he kicked.

Ae, the Korean girl Clover said I could hook up with (I did not), she cleaned up after me. It’s what would have been the peak of interest for my week, yet afer everything else that was the least important thing that happened that night.

I will try to give you a sort of overview of my ‘team’ and the guys we were fighting.

I wouldn’t actually call us a team, if we ran into each other in the chaos, we’d try to help the other person stay alive, just to give our opponents another target to aim for. I only saw everyone once or twice in the five hours the attack was going on. Technically I wasn’t even on 'the team'. I just tried to keep people alive, and tried to take out the guys destroying my town.

I only helped out in two fights

If you’ve read any of my other posts, then you know about Clover’s powers over probability, and I guess that admittedly useless ability to control tiny plants, she doesn’t put it into play much. She’s the only reason I’m still alive, maybe, way too confusing to get into.

Other guy, Axel Right, (Found out Bob gave me the wrong spelling, dumbass.) didn’t do much himself, but his robots helped out, the two canines, and the mech that was as big as a bus.

Though he saved his maker, and probably my life, it only did what it was programmed to do, and looking back it was also partly to blame for the casualties. property damge gets really easy when your a giant death machine.

I honestly don’t know what was up with Ae Seong-Soo. Don’t know what powers she had, if any, but she did help me temporarily get rid of the legs.

Then there was me. I honestly did nothing. I didn’t save anyone. I didn’t stop the killing. Super strength, super toughness, super speed, and a whole other bag of bullshit cheats that can let me resurrect myself from the fucking dead, but I can’t take down half an animatronic.

I’ll fire through the other guys, our enemies.

Living legs is a pair off robot thighs, that talks like the trailer for a fifty’s horror movie, he can jack himself into electric outlets, (didn't use that), and is more durable than me.

Second guy I saw was a hologram, Sym-29, he can become transparent, and can do this really freaky thing when his victim is unconcious, I’ll get into it later.

Guy I never saw, Boston Red, was an human, gained durability and mass from absorbing metals from whatever he touches.

Number four we have, literally a normal dude. Absolutely cut upper body and a few guns, but he wasn’t even a second worlder, had no clue what was actually happening around him.

Almost forgot about their leader, the Liquid-crystal god, though I think the fact he’s a God is a good enough breakdown.

The only other one I actually fought was called Isaac Cre-umha, though, spoilers, I didn’t beat him either.

I’d have probably posted this sooner if it were just these guys, I think I could have beat them if I were focused, mentally in it.

If it weren’t for the environment.

The last one was called Stan Berwick. Now, imagine being in possession of a space craft, and instead of exploring the stars or whatever, you decide to squash people like ants. To come into possession of something that could do something like that, and to just-

He killed thirty-four human beings. You can compare that to a number of tragedies from all of human history, and it’ll seem small, sure, it’s easy to just see numbers on a screen, as just that.

For the range of damage he did, we got off easy. But they were people. When you’re there, when you’ve tricked yourself into thinking you’re doing little more than hauling corpses from the rubble, while also feeling the constant stream of reality crashing in on you, it’s insanity.

You’re trying to stand up and lie down at the same time.

While it’s questionable whether or not Cam, Axel’s big-bot, actually murdered anybody, that giant Gator certainly did. For a sense of scale, Cam was the size of the Gator’s head and torso, though it’s sort of hard to make measurements when your vision is clouded by dust and dried blood.

You might think that the fight was completely one sided because of this, but Axel said he was winning, the important advantage being the chameleon bot’s small size being quicker, lighter, and equipped with an Ai made for warfare.

Puts things into perspective when you’re fighting on the same side as a manufacturer of war machines.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that this is real, though, there’s always the chance that I’m lying to myself, that I went insane somewhere along the line. The past few weeks I’ve felt like I’ve gone crazy, I can’t pin down my feelings, it’s just a mess of emotions up here.

I know the reason for it and, though I realise being in my situation is traumatizing, I really don’t think that’s my problem. Whenever I find myself disgusted or I’m about to be sick, I remind myself that I didn’t know these people, they and their families are far worse off than me. So instead of being sick at the thought of a corpse, I get sick at the thought of the people. The people who are on the verge of tragedy, that I might not save.

The people I can't save.

I was slowing down, I’d been trying to claw as many people out of the ruins of the Gator, this was twenty minutes or so after shit had hit the fan, when Berwick fell to earth. The entirety of the Circuit Board was finally mobilising, though I didn’t run into any for some time. I was screaming till my voice went hoarse, trying to will the person under this pile into being alive, like the two I had pulled out earlier, who later died from their injuries.

Of course, I only found another body under all the stone. I actually felt less lucid then when I nearly died against the Pooka. One thing I clearly remember was the single thought in my mind.

Grave. This is a grave.

I tried to plan how best to remove the rubble obviously, but the only thing I remember is the mental link I made between this situation, and past experiences with death, like my father’s funeral.

Sorry, that’s not right.

I don’t know if anybody else can understand this, but, I didn’t grieve for my father when I was told he had died, nor did I cry at his funeral, it was months later that I realised my father was dead. I knew he was dead, I saw the body, it was a feeling similar to denial, but instead of pushing away my thoughts on it, I pushed away the feelings, I guess.

But this was the opposite, maybe because I’m older, or because I know death a little better now, the feelings switched, the anguish came first, right now I’m in the refusal part.

After failing to save even one life, suddenly, a bullet fell from the sky. It wasn’t shot at me; it just fell down. I realised almost immediately it was the same as Clover’s rifle rounds, then I wondered why I remembered that clearly, despite my mind being in a molasse.

The memory had been forced on me by the bullet’s sender, I didn’t have to imagine why, I knew the chances of this landing in front of me, me seeing it, and making the decision to look for her were slim, so I darted back to the last place I’d seen Clover, the Quarter, which was now laid to waste.

I saw a figure standing above her, and without thinking, with the resolve to help one person, even a criminal, I hit the figure as hard as I could with my restraints. This was a move I regret making, if that punch had been a complete ‘rock’ anybody without major durability would be dead.

I’m not trying to blame her for me losing control, but I think it was just Clover’s luck that I was ‘out of my mind’ when she needed help. When the figure dissipated with a screech, and I saw some small robots driving away, I realised the guy hadn’t instantly died when I hit him, which was a good sign.

I looked to Clover, probably tried to make a joke, and offered to take her to the nearest paramedic. She refused, told me she had medical supplies, probably some of that foam stuff. I stuck with her till she shouted at me, “Do something useful asshole!”

She was definitely right.

I was dancing around the situation, I had allowed myself to get strung up trying to be a hero, it made me worse for the job.

Just as I clenched my fist with some resolve, some sort of green lazer burned through the sky in the direction of the chameleon, missing by a meter, not to far considering the distance between the origin and the target, maybe a mile or two. Clover’s swollen mouth hung open just as much as mine, I assumed this wasn’t from someone on our side.

She thumbed in the direction I needed to go, and I booked it.

There was a chance I could take down the Gator, sure, but it’s more likely that the fighting robot with experience is the better option. I’m a support role here, I didn’t know what that blast did, but it couldn’t be good, so I leapt to the roof tops, and looked for the best position for someone to ‘snipe’ from. And as I approached the position, I caught a glimpse of the shooter, a man in a tank top, with worn camo green jeans, I assumed he was the first worlder.

“Brigs, I’m guessing.” I kept my distance, gases were leaking from his gun, which was more akin to a giant slab of metal with a canister on the back and a grip attached. Judging from his gas mask, the coloured smoke leaking from the pillar probably wasn’t good for the lungs.

“Who the hell’re you s’posed to be? You one’a them Garda guys? Guess the Europeans really are just freakier ‘mericans, huh. Even the cops are cooked.”

I told him, “I’ve got powers, and unless you’re willing to use that vibrator strapped to your back at such a short distance, I suggest you put ‘er down so we can do this mano e mano.”

He just laughed and said, “Yeah kid, sure ya got magic powers, ‘oh please mister, not me lucky charms!’ Hahaha! That isn’t racist, is it? You know I got into an argument with Isaac when I said that to ‘im and he said that it was, but you ain’t even tanned, know what I mean? Like my grandmother had Irish in ‘er.”

He just kept going on, all while aiming his cannon at the central fight.

I made a move forward, pinching my nose to avoid the gas for the few seconds it would take to pry this thing from his grasp, but just as I did, a metal object was thrown into my side.

I looked up to see what it was.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

I had tossed this thing over five miles out to ocean if I had to eyeball it, but here it was, lying on top of me, soggy and inactive. Quickly, I tossed the living legs off the side of the roof top, and jumped into a crouch, before I could raise myself up any higher, I heard a sound similar to a running tap, as I found myself at the end of a barrel.

“On behalf of my associate I, Mor Isaac Cre-umha of the Free Fomorians, humbly apologise for his disrespectful demeanor. From one king to another, I trust you will overlook this transgression, surely, one as young as yourself can see the pointlessness of one such as myself engaging in bureaucratic affairs, simply to bring one terrorist to justice.”

I remember what he said clearly. The way he stood, illuminated by the florescent lights from the street below, I could understand why he spoke with such self-assuredness. He wore some sort of armour, copper-orange metalic sheen, crusted with blue-green wear. Now that I’ve fought him, I know the abilities of that armour were his biggest asset, but over even the blue light he had traced on me, his size hooked my attention.

Stood at over 7 feet tall, with the usual lankiness of someone that height, he wasn’t heavily built. That combat suit, although it added bulk, to his frame, you could tell from the length of his limbs, that was his natural physic. Every inch of him was protected, even his face was covered by a helmet with a similarly coloured blue visor, a little scratched to give the image of a toothy mouth.

“I’m not a king, I just live here. And regardless of what that rich guy did, you fucks are the ones spreading terror.” I would have motioned back to the impact site, were it not for my position.

“It’s alright for you to think such a thing. We are, after all, strangers here. And it is another product of youth, naivety, that this would seem the correct conclusion. But, while we have some time, allow me to explain, and perhaps even persuade you of the virtue of our ventures.”

I creased my forehead hearing this. The thought of seeing virtue in murder, frightened me.

“Firstly, young man, you may ignore your station, or perhaps see yourself as something else, but if you do live here, then you are this place’s ruler. Judging purely from that quick hop you just did you are at least physically comparable to me, even with my armour, the Shaul of Brigid.”

I thought to myself, it’s impossible to tell how strong someone is based on how they jump, but maybe I was wrong. “I, of course am also making an assumption. That unlike me, you have but one power dedicated to strength, so there is always the chance you surpass my comrades in their supporting abilities. You surely surpass Brigs.”

The gunman interrupted, “I’d like to see you take out two armoured aircrafts in one night, ya jackass.”

He scoffed and continued. “What I’m trying to say is that when I see a man comparable to myself, it is merely a matter of monikers whether they call themself a king or not.”

I joked, “Seems to me like you’re projecting.”

“Don’t kid yourself now. The difference between you and me is that I am a good king. I serve my people before myself. You sir, are covered in blood. Seeing as only two other members of the circuit board bleed, I’m again making an assumption, that you are covered in your own people. I apologise if I have harmed your ego, but you too have insulted me.”

I would have gritted my teeth in anger, if my mouth wasn’t being pulled open by disgust, he was right, I was covered in dead people.

“Truely, I did not mean to offend you, though you must admit the futility of your actions tonight. You are fighting against an omnipotent, surely you realise it would be better to aid us, perhaps The Opaque God will see worth in adding you to his circuit? I wouldn’t blame you for holding feelings of hate towards us, I hold the same to the maker of machines. This makes quite a nice segway into my second correction. Axel Right is a tyrant. The terrorists that slaughters your people? They were created by the man you save, and I do mean they. Sym was subjected to infinitesimal suffering since his inception, as for Brigs-“

Again, the gunman, now speaking seriously, interrupted, “Isaac, there ain’t no point in talking to this guy, tellin him this crap. He’s working with those government types for sure, morality won’t change his mind. Pay him off or somethin’.” I wanted to tell him he was wrong, completely wrong, but his highness kept speaking.

“You misinterpret me Brigs. I’m not trying to make him feel sorry for you. I’m teaching the young man that all monsters come from a common source, and that yours is Mr Right. Even J-on owes his existence to that man, in a roundabout sort of way.”

Eventually I found the strength to argue against them, “The difference between you and me is that I don’t care about getting revenge for something that’s already happened. Right now, your man is killing people, and the best way to stop him is to keep Cam alive. I don’t care who you are, if you’re trying to fucking kill someone, I’ll do everything in my power to stop you.”

The average man questioned, “Even if I’m tryna kill a murderer?”

I paused, “Yeah.”

I wondered what face he was making under that gas mask, “Now that’s a real roundabout.”

The machine on his shoulder began to blair, and I decided to take the risk. I pushed myself off the ground as fast as I could, but not fast enough.

Not only did I fail to stop the blast, but I got hit. Not by the green beam, thankfully, but by the Fomorian.

I don’t know where he hit me, but for once I was one hundred percent taken out. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t feel anything. I assume he shot me somewhere in my spine, or neck, an injury that would be fatal for anyone but me, though I’m sure I would have died shortly after.

I couldn’t hear anything. I don’t know how long I held in there for, but I didn’t lose consciousness till the very end. I could vaguely make out a light approaching the centre of my vision. Then, suddenly I was conscious again.

I found myself in a blank room, with a single window, showing me an unfamiliar street, which definitely wasn’t Ireland, judging from the architecture of the buildings, more similar to an American cul-de-sac, and the bright blue of the sky outside was not that of home.

I was standing on top of a grey cylinder, my hands, incapable of moving, were slightly raised at my sides. The whole thing felt like a dream, I knew whatever was happening, was not real. I thought I was dead, and technically I was. After a time, the light was now recognisable as the figure I had hit earlier.

I think I was frightened at first, that I had killed him.

His face, which seemed to match the texture of the walls of the room, portrayed his anger. “you made a major mistake, mortal. you attacked me, not just my projectors, a portion of myself, a portion that will take years to repair and recover. i am going to enjoy making you feel the same.”

All of a sudden, a number of sliders appeared to my side. I tried to move, to speak, but I was unable to move myself, there was only a slight moving of my chest, like I was breathing, but I couldn’t feel any air enter my lungs.

A horrible feeling in its own right, but not unbearable in comparison to what else I was subjected to.

He raised an index finger to the first slider and dragged it slowly to the right. As he did, I felt the flesh of my face, or rather the simulacrum of a face, become thinned, I could feel my mass slowly decrease, like my entire face was in a vacuum, my cheeks, chin, and brow, were stretched out. I would have groaned in pain, were I able.

He looked at me when he was done, let out a pleased sigh, before slowly dragging the slider back to the left. As he did, the opposite happened, my face began to bloat, my very being was stretched wide, and rounded out unnaturally, like I had suffered an extreme allergic reaction.

With every torturous push of those variables, I lost- something. Not consciousness, not sanity, maybe it was my sentience. I slowly started to lose my awareness of anything happening. I guess when he changed my avatar in that simulation, I lost bits and pieces of myself, like when I punched him in the real world, it must have felt something like this.

He changed tons of stuff, at one point he made my head bigger than my body, another time he physically inverted my body completely skin in the centre, bones on the outside, thankfully that was one of the later ones, so I couldn’t feel it as much. The whole time he was just breathing sensually and occasionally laughing to himself.

He stopped at one point though. He eventually came to more sexual sliders, tits to flat, V to D, that sort of thing. He never got the chance to touch them, I think. He made a note to save that for last.

Yeah, I think this guy deserved to get punched in the code.

Around the time he got down to the wrinkle slider, and turned me into a vaguely human shaped raisin, I ceased to be. Still remember the stuff that happened, but by that point it felt like my own life was a movie, events I was watching from an outside, objective position.

The pain had stopped, and I think for a time, I became a part of my torturer, maybe a part of me is still trapped in his psyche. If I was in there any longer, I would probably have become identical to the guy getting off to my torture.

I don’t know when, time didn’t really exist in there, but eventually I got out.

I was told this at a later date, but apparently the death ray barely missed Cam, instead hitting him indirectly with a shock wave from the buildings it did pin. Axel had the same idea as me, with Cam out in the open, he knew they would try to take him out, just like they had the first one I saw, so once they showed their position, he rendezvoused with Clover and made their way over. They observed from a distance me getting shot, and the second firing of that beam.

Apparently, Isaac was satisfied with the damage done to the ‘Gecko unit’, so they left me for Sym to play with. Once he transferred my mind to one of his little projector droids, he just left it there with Brigs’ cannon. Like it was garbage, disposable.

Axel snook up on the thing, grabbed a hold of it, and disabled its projector. Axel says Clover was shocked by how easy it was, which I believe given the state she was in when I found her.

Their conversation went a little something like this,

“Ok great, now get him out of there, code monkey.”

“Cool it Princess. He’s totally dead.”

“Goddamn, really?? For sure??”

“Yep, he’s just a string of code now, babe.”

“Well, can’t you just- string him back together?? Punch in a code?”

“I guess, but he’d be trapped in a shitty simulation for ever.”

“Do it any way shit fuckdumb bitch!”

So, he basically plugged me into his dog, and started coding together my entire life, and with a little bit of Clover’s good luck, I was back.

They set up a mic so I could hear them, “Hey, green guy, do you read? You mentally all there? Try to think about what you were doing five minutes ago. That’s usually a good way to wake up a nascent artificial intellect.”

I tried to remember what I was doing a few seconds ago, and then the flood gates broke, and it all came crashing back in on me. Sym’s curse was gone, I could move, I could scream.

And I screamed like all hell.

I was literally a caged animal, trapped in an electric hell, the only thought in my mind was to escape, escape. I felt claustrophobic, you could compare my actions to a rat scratching at the walls of a box to get out, except, instead of claws I have SP2. I tore apart as much of that hell as I could grab, until I realised, I was in an electrical circuit. A binary world. No different from a light switch.

On.

And off.

When I manifested behind them, I came in screaming, and they screamed in response.

After a while of that, Clover turned to Axel, “You said he was trapped in there permanently!”

Axel didn’t take his eyes off me, his face serious, I think. “How in the hell did you get out. What the hell kind of power can let you escape being deleted, physically AND mentally? Some soul crap?” I wasn’t in a mental state to answer, I just kept screaming and rolling around.

“Can you quiet the fuck down for a second, this is a really important question, Rock.” After he said that something came flying in behind him, followed by the sound of gushing water.

All the dogs did was bark, either they didn’t have any offensive capabilities, or they weren’t programmed to fight. It was a trap set for Axel, my torment.

“Ah, yes, even you require companionship, Mr Right. Good evening young lady, you need not worry,” Isaac grabbed Axel by the leg, “Unlike my company, I see no merit in killing a defenceless girl, especially one with strong ties to the single most powerful nation on the planet.” He bowed to her, even as his target attempted to elbow his lower weak point, even as Clover trained her rifle on him.

I couldn’t stop him, my tormented mind forced me into spasms. He looked down on my screaming, flailing body, and made a comment, a challenge. “It is intriguing that you have forced your way out of 29’s play house, but quite futile if you cannot overcome this pain. If you let something as simple as trauma ordain your future, then you will surely fall for the same tricks, time and time again, just like the federation bordering my nation. You claimed I was blinded by this dangling fool’s transgressions, but I let it drive me further. It seems you’d simply let misfortune crush the soul, opposed to kindle it further.”

“I will ask, make a plea, that you find your strength, young man. You have the strength to become a king. I faced challenges quite similar when I forged my will, if you are comparable to myself, then you will overcome even this, lad. You’ve probably noticed that Berwick has flown back into the sky, what with our objective complete, and the capturing of Right, the others are on route for the docks. As I am forbidden from entering the territories of the Federation between here and the Americas, I will not be needed to prepare the vessel for departure. But you will find me there. You have approximately 15 minutes to rise, both to your feet, and to the challenge of defeating me, the last of the Circuit board, and to rescue your ally.”

What he was saying was probably true, Brigs wouldn’t pose much of a threat to me, I gave the legs an existential crisis, I later learned that the Gator had been heavily damaged from the fighting, forcing it to retreat and repair. Sym had been damaged, he made a mistake using one of his drones so he could get his vengeance on me, it made the drone defunct. And that other guy never showed.

“I better be on my way now. Pardon my ignorance towards you, young lady. Even I cannot hope to reach the heights of wealth your master holds, nor do I hope to mock your importance by talking to this prone fellow, – Forgive me, what is this man’s name?”

She replied, “I don’t know.”

“Oh. Well, fair enough, hopefully I’ll be able to learn it later tonight. Good evening.”

After a minute Clover said, “Welp, looks like I’m not getting any after all. And, hang on, did you see Axel’s boner there or was that just me?? What was with that tron get up, huh??”

The tone she took was completely insane in its disinterest. I was realising that her experience had actually damaged her perception of these events. She probably knew people who could stand up after all that, but i wasn't one of them.

I don’t know what she expected from the shrieking, convulsing mass in front of her. “God I hope this isn’t permenant. You better do what the nice mutant fish freak said, and cut this shit out. Come on, you came back from the dead, you can handle whatever just happened. I’m not even asking you to go after that American, just don’t- Fuck, you are…”

I was trying to get up to my feat.

I could understand what they were saying, but I was also registering the mental anguish from earlier. Maybe now you understand what took me so long uploading this. I’d call this a traumatic event, seeing as thinking about it makes me want to break down crying, gasp out for air.

After a while, Clover just said, “Fuck, fuck! I’m going back to my birthday, Ae could be there. Sorry Rocky, I’ll be back, as soon as I make sure Ae isn’t getting all the iron in her body taken out. She comes first, then you, and honestly fuck that American, it's his problem, not ours!”

And she left.