Ethan:
I must admit it: I feared for Xyra when her head was lopped off.
Virgil said that I shouldn’t have feared for her, for I knew that she was safe in the collective.
Or her construct was safe, whatever that is. I am human, did Virgil forget? Worrying is second nature!
Especially if it’s somebody I have to care about. Especially if it’s my responsibility. I could imagine this very scenario.
That’s why. Yeah right, I did. I allowed it. Even not considering I am human, I am a commanding officer.
It is my duty to worry for somebody I take responsibility for.
Xyra is shaken and rightly so; in a sense, she witnessed what would’ve been her death.
I tried to warn her, but she had to experience it to believe me. She wanted this. Now there’s no way back for her.
There’s no way back for Lemela too. And it’s my fault. I have to make some good out of this.
Well, not that I can delve into this right now; another issue of being engaged in multiple operations is called Murphy’s Law.
While my forces are engaged in the depths of the city, above all hell is breaking loose.
I already saw a glimpse of this guy in Lemela’s memories, but seeing him up close is another thing entirely.
What the actual fuck is he about?! This Arther guy is wearing an approximate version of a Halloween costume with a guy with a cartoonishly smiling face. A bit more amplified and it would be the Joker’s grin.
-Virgil, do we have any way to communicate!?-
“Avoiding a confrontation seems unlikely. His scan has identified us.”
-Then get Vexx out of there and attempt to communicate in any possible way!-
Arther Lero
The glorious symphony of life in all its vibrant and, at times, discordant tunes could only be enriched by the constant and predictable tune of the machine.
That was what Arther believed, what his people believed. He fully knew that the opinion on machines was as variant and changing as the tunes of freedom allowed.
Some feared them, some adored them, and there was the full scale of tunes in between.
If it were not for the machine, Arther wouldn’t be there in his sacred duty, so he understood the use of it.
The old empire that enslaved his people had machines; they did not need to bend sentients to their will, yet they still did it.
The humans had dreamed about having machines as healers and companions, and they achieved just that, but the Quixalar didn’t seem to recognize those creations as that.
His scans revealed something more disturbing: the amount of machines was staggering, way above anything that could serve to heal.
There were wholly artificial parts in the sentients that surrounded him, not in those things that took the shape of sentients.
Still, he couldn’t simply allow for one of those to bring away the main culprit of this whole mess, so he lifted his right arm, calibrated an electric jolt, and aimed at the fleeing creature.
One of the beings intercepted his blow with its body, revealing it to be way more sturdy than a normal sentient.
His shot was meant to deliver enough power to paralyze any living being, yet this one stood as if unfazed by the very shot that blackened the place it hit.
One of them gave a knock on the floor, two scrapes, and a knock. The other gave a series of knocks and a scrape barely in between. A third gave a lot of scrapes with a couple of knocks.
-Morse code!?- the Quixalar shouted surprised, the old code used mainly between humans of old was almost forgotten by the galaxy as a whole, still humans in the military were taught to communicate in that code.
They were attempting to speak? They had sentience in them as machines? Arther set his translator for the old human code, fast enough to catch the last part of the communication.
"... desire to talk. We repeat. We are not hostile. We desire to talk."
Arther made a gesture to stop and set his translator back to the tone and mode of speaking of his desire.
-Hear ye now, varlets! Thou takest a villain by foul means, and I remain in doubt of thine intent. Art thou a knave forcing a creature of reason, or art thou a thrall to such a one's will? Return Vexx to mine sight with haste, and perchance a parley might yet be struck.-
-Oh for the stars’ sake! Stop! Set your friggin translator to galactic standard Arther! We have no time for poetry! What if they misunderstand you!?-
Arther glanced at the Quixalar, could he not comprehend that Arther was performing his sacred duty here? He just had to be that formal! Besides to him, this sounded better than galactic standard! This time anyway he was ready for the answer performed by the creatures that surrounded him as a dance of knocks and scrapes.
“We must keep Vexx safe…”
-By the heavens, a reckoning for his deeds is nigh! Though fear not, death shall not be his doom, for I take no pleasure in the snuffing of a sentient soul. Nay, his fate lies not in peril, but in the balance of cosmic justice. Bring him back henceforth! -
"You are not communicating." The Quixalar in clear desperation hit the wall with his horns as the message was completed. “We will not abide by one-sided orders. We will keep Vexx safe.”
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Blades of red light appeared from the beings and a couple of them even projected a net against his suit attempting to hinder its movements.
Arther sighed internally, activating the offensive capabilities of his suit, a plasma blade extended from his right forearm.
Zĩýĩr'räk
Zĩýĩr'räk perceived that the doctrines that guided sentient beings were as numerous as the stars themselves.
Why had the stars chosen to place him in the path of such a fanatic?
He wanted an answer but knew he wouldn't receive it.
Myar knights were zealots even by human standards, and knowing humans so well allowed him to fully realize how messed up his current predicament was.
His people were highly literate in terms of technology, but because he had chosen the path of a soldier, he wasn't especially acquainted with the inner workings of technology such as Arther's suit or the nanites that operated within his flesh.
He comprehended enough to recognize Myar as one of the few races still capable of using, maintaining, and building technology following the ancient empire's norms.
They were one of the civilizations that competed for the highest levels of technological advancement in the galaxy, if not the entire explored cosmos. He knew enough to be aware of the fact that harboring a lot of nanites wasn’t a smart idea.
It was dangerous since nanites tended to consume everything and proliferate as long as there was matter around, resulting in a gray-goo scenario.
How his nanites, or the ones in those corpses that he saw walking silently within Vexx's shop for that matter, weren't running rampant and killing everything was beyond his grasp.
He could easily determine that the presence of the knight and the presence of those mysterious beings together was particularly bad news.
He only had an antimatter rifle at his disposal, even if that weapon alone would be the woe of basically anyone who knew its specs.
Of course that dolt had to provoke those walking piles of nanites that were a subject of study by the daughter of the admiral. He just had to buzz HQ for help, since he didn’t know how to proceed.
“Zĩýĩr'räk do you copy? What’s the issue?”
His hidden earpiece buzzed back, it was a hidden and last-ditch way to communicate, they usually kept it as a last-ditch tech resource since it was likely that Dexton could intercept the comms.
-HQ, this is Type O, I have a knight situation right here.-
“How bad?”
Well… how bad indeed? The things had surrounded them and appeared only trying to communicate so far, yet the mad knight had just to provoke them further. And now both parties had drawn weapons. Arther had pulled out a plasma blade, and the drones were using hard light tech.
-Heated discussion confirmed. Uncle Sam knows Morse code. Strong disagreement with visual aids involved. Visual aids situation is not unilateral. What we thought to be a silent party had a hard-light based voice. Disagreement volume is too high for de-escalation.-
In the eerie glow of the bioluminescent meat, and the shops’ lighting Arther's enhanced suit shimmered with a spectrum of colors, as he moved with fluidity and precision.
Hardly slowed by the attempt made to hold him, he began a dance of destruction on the floor of the shopping area.
With each swing of his plasma sword, a mechanical being was sliced through, their hard light blade unable to dent his suit, didn’t flicker out as it was unceremoniously sent to the greasy floor.
Arther’s suit was powered by the most advanced technology after all, it made him faster, stronger, and nearly invincible against all but the most prepared adversaries.
The former slaves came at him in waves, their blades of hard light humming with deadly intent, but they might as well have been welding sticks for all the good it did them.
Realizing that those things could still move after being sliced, Arther switched to ranged weapons, his arm discharged bolts of plasma with pinpoint accuracy, each shot disintegrating its mark to the atomic level.
The fight was one-sided. Arther was an unstoppable force.
As the last of them was destroyed, the knight stood alone amongst the damaged shopping area, the flickering lights casting long shadows over his victorious form.
But at least the things had managed to buy time, enough for the Mark I suit to come, along with his partner Sĩýĩx’xälà.
-Hinder me not, servants of Claye! My sacred oaths compel me to deliver the villainous slaver, Vexx, to the swift hand of justice!-
Zĩýĩr'räk felt a wave of relief as the voice of Chief Petty Officer Garrett Thorne resounded from the speakers of the suit.
-Arther Lero, we had a deal. You were not to engage on the ground floor of City 29. There are too many civilians. If Dexton’s goons were to engage you fully here the amount of casualties unrelated to the fight itself would be too high.-
-Many riddles cloud my mind yet, for I cannot discern the truth of his tools. And thy presence here only deepens my concerns.-
Answered the apparently unperturbed Myar, not that he could tell since Arther was bound in a full-body suit.
-Are they machines of cunning craft?
The over-abundance of those tiny, wriggling demons, the 'nanites' as they are called, betokens a menace most foul to sentience.
Need I tell you that they can consume all of creation just to fulfill their need?
Are they of human make?
These contraptions be far more perilous than I, even were I was driven to break the sacred oath sworn to defend all creatures of wit!
Did Claye, in old age becoming a wayward fool, unleash such dark wonders upon this world?
They did converse in the eldritch tongue of clicks and whirs, a speech known to be used amongst the heralds of freedom, the sons and daughters of Man.
Surely he knows the folly of such actions! The thirst for dominion knows no bounds in the wicked. The old empire fashioned machines to serve, and still enslaved sentients!
Though it be true that one thinks it is fashioned to serve, one should also remember the truth: a machine's cold heart holds no empathy.
These iron servants may aspire to a darker purpose, to snuff out the spark of life itself!
Heed my words, for a similar tale echoes through the ages, the chilling chronicle of the Silver Tide…-
-Arther- said Garrett -We don’t know ourselves. We seized Vexx and one of those things. You can have some of the answers, just quit the chase right now and follow me to HQ, so we can talk.-
The crazy Knight appeared to think for a moment since his suit fell silent and then proceeded to take a slab of meat from one of the hooks in the ceiling, before proceeding to pay it at the deserted counter like it was the most normal thing to do.
-Hark! Justice prevails!
Thou it was deemed the honor of questioning the villain and his mechanical companion to fall upon thine own shoulders now.
Though those servants bore a partial resemblance to the fell legions of the Silver Tide, their actions speak otherwise.
For had they been of that same wicked design, they would not have targeted me alone. He can attest to that.-
Arther pointed at him making him cringe a bit, but he was speaking the truth after all. But the Knight, of course, didn’t stop there. By the stars, did he love talking nonsense?
-The sheer abundance of those wriggling demons, the nanites, speaks of a power teetering on the precipice of chaos.
Should their control falter, this very city could be consumed in an instant!
By the sacred code that binds my actions, I acknowledge the terrible cost of my ignorance, should it persist - the countless lives that could be lost.
Therefore, I shall seek counsel from those who guide the blades of warriors. Claye, though his path be clouded, still holds the mantle of such. Hence for a full revolution of this artificial soil, I shall stay my hand.
Mark my words: if the answers I receive bring no solace, or if Claye attempts to hinder me further, I shall carve my own path to the truth. May the grand orchestration of the heavens grant me forgiveness for the discord my actions bring to its rhythm.-
Great, there were gonna be sparks at the base. Zĩýĩr'räk sighed and went to the side of Sĩýĩx’xälà, the familiar scent of her fur at least could calm him down.