Wind rustled the tops of the willow eaves as XJ-V continued his pursuit of his spirit-guides. Or, at least, what he believed to be his spirit guardians.
That particular belief was dimming with every meter they took him, winding round the trees and edging further from the path of marble. He doubted them, and his own judgement in following him. But they had helped him once already. They had given him his first ingredient. Possibly it could have been simply a way to gain his trust before they drowned his metal body in the same water they were guiding him to.
They came to a bridge over a pond adorned with serene lily flowers. Two crimson lanterns of ornate Oriental design floated above the structure, suspended by something which XJ-V couldn’t discern. He stopped on the solid foundations of the thing to watch three distinct splashes on the pond beneath it and muttered a huff of approval to himself as he descended to collect a pouch of water.
“Nae nae, metal-man you!” came the cries of the spirits. “Old Master wants good strong brew! Come deeper through this brilliant path, to where we spirits take a bath!”
XJ-V grunted. “Why must we go further? Is the water of this place not all touched by the spirits of – hey!”
He had already seen the ripples of their passing, and they scurried away deeper into the willows.
“WAIT!” the Cog called out as he started running again, beginning to tire of this whole charade.
He did not see the lilies of the pond lose their color as he left them. Nor did he see the crimson light of the floating lanterns flicker and die before they fell into the murky depths of the slowly darkening waters.
…
He didn’t know how long he’d been running for.
An hour? Two? Thirty? Maybe days had gone by where he chased nothing but shadows through this place – this pocket of a world that had long ago died.
“Come, come!” his guides would shout whenever his desire to simply turn away rose within him. “If your will begins to spoil, just feed yourself a little oil!”
“That is not how my kind work!” he shouted back, remembering that trickster Yaoguai like these generally cared not a jot for mortal complaints.
The skies had now begun to darken, he noticed. And the leaves of the trees in this part of the forest seemed more like black eyes watching his every move than the pure, dry plants he’d seen thus far. Every vein on every branch seemed corrupted, somehow. Every willow became more twisted with every step he took until, finally, he stopped.
And the spirits did not call out to him.
Instead, he focused on the roots and branches of the willows as they swayed in the wind that had started to blow through the grove. The wind stopped as he stood upright and turned around to see the low-hanging branches of the willows he had past through knit themselves together as though the trees had suddenly taken on a life of their own.
No…he thought. They have always been alive, haven’t they? Watching me.
His eyes registered movement to his left and he threw himself to the ground, rolling and keeping crouched. He quickly assumed the tight stance of the Prancing Crane, positioning both his hands above his head and keeping his right foot in the air, readying a powerful kick as soon as any sign of danger approached. And, of course, approach it did.
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He watched in disbelief as the willow branches that had sought to pierce his body now sharpened themselves against the ever-darkening sky above. Then, like a flurry of knives, they raced down towards him.
His crane kick met the first rank and split them apart, allowing him to spin to administer a savage Flying Monkey strike at the branches that crept up from his behind. He turned, sensing more movement, and struck forth with a Dragon Claw punch that cut clean through the bark of one willow and sent its twisting branches flailing back. Like talons that had been slapped away they recoiled and then flew for him again, each sharp, thorny end a glittering nail aiming at the exposed copper tubing beneath his chin.
He kept up his defensive assaults with tenacity, striking at all angles as more attacks came his way, slowly moving through the forest of thorns towards – something. Anything that wasn’t here. His sensors strained to try and pick up sounds – the voices of his guardians who had long ago left him behind, perhaps. He thought this could be just another one of their practical jokes.
But as the roots beneath the earth now broke free from their graves and struck at his ankles, XJ-V was forced to admit that this was more than just a petty prank. As he cut through the twisting, creeping roots with the sharp edge of his palm and then turned to deliver another roundhouse kick at the branches descending on the back of his throat, he knew one thing for certain: this forest was trying to kill him.
So he took his chances and barreled through the barricade of vines that was blocking his path back the way he came. He felt the sting of pain run up his side and saw, with revulsion, that one seeking talon of the willows had found its mark – electrified wiring buzzed with energy outside a hole just above his left knee and he grimaced in pain and irritation. He’d just finished his round of repairs from yesterday’s Kais.
Is this what you want, Master? he thought. Do you want to see me suffer more than I already have?
The anger of not receiving a reply to his question carried him through the forest’s relentless assaults. He chopped through entire tree trunks, snapping their every twig and branch asunder as they split apart and re-attached themselves together, seeking his throat. Seeking weaknesses in the metal body that was now their prisoner. He grit his teeth with every strike he felt pierce his grey skin, and redirected each one back with force. Eventually, the trees began to crumble before they even started attacking him.
“Come on!” he cried out suddenly as he burst through another one into an open glade where not a single light glimmered. “Come on! I will beat you!”
He panted with fury and weariness, feeling his body long to shut down. But he did not listen to his body. His metal frame was not where his true strength lay. He had a soul beneath his heart. He should show it to the world.
“Come on!” he shouted at the darkness that surrounded him, seeing only the trees creep away and blend into the shadowed fog that had slowly come to envelop him and the glade, walling the space off like a corrupted arena.
“Whatever you may throw at me,” XJ-V told the forest. “I will defeat it. I have not come this far to lose to trees and shadows!”
For a moment there was no answer at all. The trees had all but vanished from the world. A fog that reeked of death permeated the perimeter of the glade, and from its depths, XJ-V could swear that he saw pairs of dark, crimson eyes staring back at him.
He re-assumed his Prancing Crane.
“Whatever you are, I am not afraid.”
Then a voice - deep, omnipotent, and familiar – reached out to him from the abyss:
“Those are words mortal men often throw in the face of the Dark.”
XJ-V’s eyes blurred. His sensors recognized the tone. The pitch. They told him who it was who said those words before he emerged like a corrupted angel from the fog, the ends of his bone-white robe flowing behind him like a pair of unfurled wings.
“Such words are always lies.”
Every rational piece of XJ-V’s artificial brain told him that the human stepping out from the evil fog could not be real. He could not be here. Yet his eyes betrayed him with the sight that shot terror into his skeletal form. The robed man stepped forward, letting his long threads of golden hair fly back in the wind like a Gorgon watching as its prey turn to stone before it. The Cog knew that the desire to flee that ran up his arms and forced his legs back was not born of a rational mind. It was born of fear, and when one sees the root of their fear appear before them, one will see nothing more.
The golden man stepped forward, and XJ-V resisted the urge to retreat as best he could. There was no forest, now. There was no question at the core of his being. There was no Longhua, no Feng-Lung, no Ramor-Tai or Wasteland at all. Everything in his world was distilled down and filtered into those two gleaming amber eyes that stared at him unblinkingly, displaying a hunger that could swallow the entire world whole.
The eyes of the High Eagle.