The universe was beginning to get more interesting and frustratingly difficult. The wind was not the problem, it was the fine layer of sand that it was carrying. It tried to wriggle its way into every joint and gap, tried to burrow into her insides and clog them up. There was little actual danger, if Knowledge could be believed, but Mercy still felt a hint of fear run through her as it slowly entered her body. The ground was covered in the same fine red sand and every step from either her or the Hunters sent more of it up into the air where the wind would catch it with wanton abandon.
The two scout drones didn't have that problem. She's asked for one of them to accompany her, just in case she missed anything, but the other had also asked to come along. Usually, she would have turned down his request, after all there was little he could do. However, Mercy knew what it felt like to be left out and eventually she'd agreed to let Hider of Small Thing help her. She did need all the help she could get after all.
The journey down to the planet’s surface in one of the small mindless transport pods had been uneventful, as had her first steps on the planet’s surface. It felt like an anticlimax. Technically she was the first Scatha to officially step foot on the planet, but in reality, it didn't feel like much. The shattered body of a Warrior just a few meters away didn't help at all. Neither did the fact that all over the planet other Scatha were mere moments from landing. A motley collection of Scout drones, alongside a few Warriors, Hunters and other curious types, would be spending the next few minutes scouting out the world.
The broken Warrior body was exactly what she was expecting, but seeing it with her own eyes, and not through the sensors of a transport, was so much more terrifying. Its broken shell was already half covered in sand. The lenses from its dead eyes glinted in the light, its right hand twitched repeatedly as a motor replayed its last command over and over again. She watched it as the twitches began to slow down, whatever power remained in the arm was running low.
She wondered if she should reach out and stop it.
Behind Mercy her escort stepped out of the pod. Three tall and lithe Hunters. More than enough to pacify any of the creatures, even if one that had killed the Warrior. Curiosity had assured her that it had been another Scatha that had killed the Warrior, but Mercy had been around Argument for too long and knew that they had no actual evidence of that.
Behind her Finder of Small things buzzed close by, eagerly waiting to inspect the dead body without any real idea what it represented.
Mercy knelt down next to the body for a closer examination as Finder closed in on it. She was glad she had Finder her helping her, she wasn't designed to investigate things, and any help she could get was greatly appreciated. Curiosity hadn't offered to help at all, he'd visited her transport for a few moments, told her what needed to be done, and then fled back to his own transport. Mercy wondered if the King had been scared, and if that meant she should have been too. Mercy forced the fears and doubts out of her mind and focused on her task.
For a few moments Mercy just stared at the body, then with a mournful whistle and a wave of his lights Finder indicated that she should search the remains of the Scatha's head. Gingerly Mercy pulled back one of the larger pieces, part of its faceplate, and almost jumped as one of the light sensors slipped out of its holding and crashed into the circuitry that had once held the Scatha's mind.
Finder whistled again and swooped down lower, indicating the second largest part of the Scatha's faceplate. She stared at it wondering what Finder was trying to tell her. It was lying a few inches away from the main head, tipped upwards. Finder's lights swept the distance between the faceplate and the rest of the head.
Mercy attempted to create a direct link to Finder's mind to see exactly what it was thinking and was surprised to find that the thought process shut down before she could access it.
“Why would you do that?” She asked in the purple hues of confusion.
“Learn yourself,” Finder said, stretching his ability to communicate to the limit. Behind it Hider of Small Things hovered into view, his lights blazing at her.
“Analyse the data, you'll have to learn how to do this yourself,” he said.
Hider was right of course. Mercy cleared out all other distractions from her mind and began looking at the available data. Start from the top, she told herself. What facts are available? The faceplate is 11.7 centimeters from the rest of the head, facing upwards. The amount it weighs and the gravity on this world means that it could not simply fall that far from the body. A blow to the face wouldn't have moved the plate sideways like that. Not with the head facing upwards. From the way the head was pushed into the ground the blow had come when the body was already lying down, so if anything, it should have pushed the plate into the rest of the head. From the damage she could see it was clear that that had happened. What else then could move the plate? And explosion perhaps?
She glanced at the rest of the head. No, an explosion that powerful would have left burn marks and visible damage, so not an explosion, something else move it. She paused for a moment to re-order the processes in her mind. What was it that Argument was always saying? The simplest answer is usually true?
Well, the simplest answer was that someone moved it there, but no-
The lights from Finder drifted away and across the sand to settle on a set of footprints.
Someone else had been here, someone had moved part of the body and then- Mercy looked over the footprints, trying to put together a pattern. -then ran. The footprints lead to another set from a heavier four-legged creature and then vanished.
The footprints weren't from a Scatha, they were from one of the natives.
“Hunter Without Question,” Mercy called to one of the hunters escorting her, “follow these.”
The Hunter sent a quick acknowledgment and sprinted off alongside the tracks. The other two hunters re-positioned themselves to cover for his absence. Mercy turned back to the broken face and glared inside. Past the sensors and the relay bus she could make out the central processor, shattered into two pieces it wasn't worth a thing, but behind it lay the memory modules, dozens of them. If anything had survived of the Scatha's mind, it would be there.
She reached past the central processor and began picking out the memory modules. Finder gave out a low whistle as she did so. She felt like she was desecrating something. The last few seconds of a mind had been here, to disturb it, even though it wasn't there anymore, felt wrong.
There were forty-seven of the modules in total, of those thirty-eight were visibly damaged in one way or another, two were smashed beyond all repair.
“Can you read these?” She asked Finder. The small scout body lowered itself to the rows of modules and spent a second in thought. Two small flaps on its underside opened and two tiny probes descended. With an infinite amount of precision Finder gentle pressed each probe to one of the ends of one of the modules. Hider moved next to its brother and began to do the same.
“Anything?” Mercy asked.
“Empty. Dead”
“Check each one.” It would take a while, but she had little else she could do. The question was what else she could check? Where else in a Scath's body would useful data be stored?
There was one Scatha who was guaranteed to know the answer. Mercy hailed Knowledge and waited for a reply. Every single process that made up Knowledge’s mind halted, and despite the cries of confusion from millions of Scatha Knowledge focused her entire being on Mercy.
At the back of her mind one of Mercy's own processes was reminding her that this was unheard of, it suggested running or a least hiding until she could find out what was going on. Mercy stood her ground and waited for Knowledge to speak.
“Mercy to All Living Things,” Knowledge addressed her with her full title, “Curiosity has informed me of your mission, and we have decided that due to its nature you will have my full and undivided attention whenever you need it.” The other Scatha voices fell quiet and the temporary silence over such a large part of the her kind was more unnerving than Knowledge’s full attention.
“I need to know something.” Mercy said to fill up the time while she tried to think.
“Of course.”
“Where in a Scatha's body is useful data stored?”
“Define useful please.”
“Anything that would tell us about a Scatha, what he was doing or where he was. Any thoughts, memories, commands.”
The request would usually take at least a moment or two, but with Knowledges entire mind focused on the answer the response came back almost instantly.
“In order of relevance. One of the forty-eight memory cores, the mpu, the command storage units in the limbs and the communications array.”
“What's contained in the Command Storage units?”
“The last action the Scatha took.” It was less useful than it first appeared. The Scatha's final movement would hardly tell anyone who it had been or what had killed it, but she would have Finder look at it anyway. The communications array would just contain a copy of the distress call that the Trio of Small things had picked up on, but again it wouldn't hurt to check for anything else.
She thanked Knowledge and quickly disconnected, glad to be away from all the attention.
Nothing had changed, Finder was still searching through the memory modules, and the Hunters still stood guard. She scanned the horizon and spotted the dot that was Hunter Without Question returning. There was a soft whistle in the back of her mind, and she looked back across the net to see that Hider of Small Thing's was trying to get her attention.
“What is it?” She asked.
“Number missing,” that didn't mean anything to her.
“Why did they have to limit your speech?” Mercy asked without expecting an answer.
“Too much,” it managed.
“The Kings did not think he would ever need it,” Hider said. His light took on a regretful tone of dark blue.
“And yet they gave it to you.” His lights flashed twice in an irreverent shrug.
“Back to numbers then,” she said. Hider wanted her to look at the numbers, the problem was which?
Finder sent her a quick message, trying to get her attention. In its two probes it held the last of the memory modules. Mercy looked at the module, dreading what it held.
“Show me,” Mercy commanded.
***
The sky burned itself out and fell into darkness. Silence reigned while the four King's knelt next to their dead Emperor. Their minds raced with thoughts, no longer were they slaves to Hatred, they could choose their own destiny.
Compassion cradled the body of Hatred. She had fought against it, but she loved all living things. She could think of nothing else to do now but to mourn the loss. Her mind was filled with regret, and she wondered how else they might have freed themselves. When she had been first built by Hatred, she had not understood why a creature so consumed by anger would want to create her, now she wondered if that hadn't been the entire point. To be something he never could. Weeks went by, and still, she did not move.
Knowledge sat by her side, her mind replaying the battle again and again. It had been exhilarating not knowing whether any of them would survive. The future could usually be planned for, but none of that had prepared for the fight. She remembered wrenching Hatred’s arm from his socket and shuddered at the memory of a blow from his other. There was a short period of time when she had been too damaged from that hit to remember anything, she’d just laid on the ground as the others had fought Hatred. Her next memory had been Compassion repairing her damaged mind and bringing her back once it was all over. Now she just sat there and didn’t move. Summer turned to winter, the wind and rain hammered their bodies, but there was nothing left to do but wonder if they had done the right thing.
Judgment decided that they had. They had rid themselves of something that no living creature should allow to control them. Then it waited for the others to speak, there was nothing else it could do. It would guide the others, not lead them. Months twisted their way into years, and it was only they had turned into a decade did Curiosity finally speak.
“I wonder if we are alone?”
***
The recording ended and Finder gently placed the memory module back on the ground and gave out another low whine. Mercy has seen the recording before, every Scatha had. but she was surprised that the unknown Scatha had been holding a copy of it in his mind. Scatha only did that with recordings that they wanted to access repeatedly over a long period of time. Mercy knew that was important, she had her first piece of the puzzle.
She gazed at the body, trying to figure out what else she could look for. Did its position posistion mean something or was it random? She couldn't tell. She felt her hands tighten into fists. It was not fair, she was not designed for this sort of thing, but Curiosity hadn't yet designed a new mind to investigate, he's simply asked her to do that. That was probably more Argument’s fault actually, he'd pushed for her creation for so long that once she had been created, he had begun feeling guilty about her unemployment.
But giving her a task that she was unable to do was not going to help her. She forced her train of thought to come to a halt and gave herself a few moments to untangle her thought processes. It was unfair, unheard of, it was like she was missing pa...
The process that interrupted all her thoughts in that moment was small, one that occurred almost automatically. It had started when she'd though of missing something and had completed a scan of her entire body and mind just in case she really had been. Then it had begun to catalogue everything that was currently in her possession, which in Scatha terms meant everything that she was responsible for. That list was not long and was entirely made up by the body in front of her, and its components. Including the forty-seven memory tubes.
“There's one missing,” she told Finder even though she suspected it had already figured that out. “Those footprints, the faceplate being moved. A creature must have come here, searched through the body, and taken a part!”
“Success.” Finder gave off a high pitch whine, a mixture of a congratulation and a warning. Mercy didn't know if the information would lead anywhere, but it was a start and if nothing else she had proved to herself that maybe she could solve the murder.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Mercy gazed at the body and felt her spirits fall. She was still no closer to figuring out anything concreate. Unless whoever had taken then memory tube had seen it.
“We have a large number of incoming creatures,” Hunter Without Question warned. Mercy looked up to see a large formation of creatures shambling towards them. They looked small and comically symmetrical. Hunter Without Question’s warning had quickly filtered through the rest of the Scatha and arguments were already erupting over what to do next. Someone wanted to withdraw completely, even going as far as to suggest fleeing the planet entirely, others wanted to push on and demanded the pacification begin immediately. Mercy was content to let them argue while she, the Scatha at the scene and probably with more influence than any other over the decision, observed the creatures. Trying to figure out why one might steal a memory module. Or, if she was fantastically lucky, if one had seen the killing occur.
The creatures themselves were slightly shorter than her, with arms that appeared floppy and useless. Their faces possessed a symmetry that she found disturbing. Two eyes, a nose with two holes, two ears, it felt wrong. It was like someone had created a clay model of a normal face, and then moulded it into something horrific.
By the time the creatures had stopped just a couple of meters in front of Mercy, the Scatha had almost stopped arguing. Argument had more or less shouted down everyone by demanding that no one else land on the planet until they had talked to the creatures. As usual the demand had done little but force the Scatha to compromise and it was eventually decided that no other Scatha would land in the area, but the Scout Drones and Advance Hunters were ordered to continue their survey of the planet.
It had also been decided that Mercy would be the one to communicate with the creatures. Finder and Hider were clearly too small for the task, and the Hunters would have refused. Which left Mercy to do the job and consequently gave her even more attention than she was receiving from the investigation alone. Her mind was filled with thought processes and communication requests from thousands of other minds, each insistent that they needed to be a part of the negotiations. She ignored most of them for now.
The lead creature, all puffed up like he owned the whole world, stood in front of the rest of them and gave them a short bow. Mercy felt thousands of other minds viewing the image of the creature through her own sensors. She allowed some of those minds, ones that she had worked with before or who had proven useful, to give her their thoughts.
“Notice the creatures' eyes, they do not appear as focused as those of the others,” Searcher for Tiny Details said to her.
“There is also a great deal more blood in its face. Its heartbeat is faster than the others. I wonder what is causing that?” That was Curiosity joining in on the conversation.
“An illness,” Searcher for Tiny Details suggested. The creature raised a hand up, palm open and opened its mouth.
“Brace yourself,” Curiosity warned.
“Taliasa sinas melay Involia messa Kasom. Insis torensa,” it said.
“Tricky,” said Creator of Unusual Plans. “We will have to build up a database of their language before we can move forward.”
“How long will that take?” Argument forced himself into the conversation.
“The scouts have landed and are collecting data. Please wait,” Curiosity said.
“In the meantime, this creature is still waiting,” Mercy said, wondering how long it would take for the creature to figure out that she wasn't able to respond.
“Just hold on for a moment,” said Curiosity, with just a hint of concern in his transmission. “We're working on it.”
Mercy opened up another datafeed to Knowledge and requested the communication data from the Scout drones. Millions of voices filled her mind and she struggled to filter out all but the most interesting ones.
“I have a conversation here. I think they used some of the same words when greeting each other.”
“Do we know anything about how many different languages and dialects they have?”
“Someone find me recordings of other conversations; I need to compare them.”
“If no one else knows then I'll do work on how many languages they have.”
Mercy wished she could make them think faster. Hundreds of thousands of minds were working together to solve this single problem, but it still felt hideously slow.
“I've got 'Taliasa sinas melay Avon messa silvina.' being used over here. From the looks of everything these two have just met as well. “
“At least 18 different language groups.”
“Same here, the only change is the fourth and sixth words.”
“Maybe 16”
“Names then?”
“Or social ranks, membership of religious organizations, status symbols, territorial grouping?”
“Let's go with some form of identification.”
Involia, or Kasom, depending on which word was the actual name, glanced around at the Scatha. Obviously a little confused.
“Taliasa sinas melay Involia messa Kasom. Insis torensa kai silvina.” It said again.
“What was that? Those last words were different.”
“I think I've got 'silvina'. Something to do with death or the dead.”
“I've got it. Two major languages that separate into sixteen and seven sub-languages that then break into dialects! I'm marking this one as number 2-4-1.”
“Does anyone else think maybe if we replace Involia with Mercy and Kasom with Scatha it will fit?” Mercy asked. Involia turned its head around and nodded at the creatures behind it. Hunter without Fear shot her a warning message as the creatures' weapons shifted from being held almost lazily to all pointing straight up. It was a quite impressive and threatening move.
“Give me a couple of seconds. I think I've gotten the order figured out.”
“The first bit of the second sentence might be a question.”
“I've gotten over one hundred and eighty different words used for the first words, and just twenty-two used for the second.”
“'Name yourself, something something dead'? I don't know, we need more time.”
“So, I would say that the first word is to identify yourself, the second for some sort of tribal or religious affiliation.”
“Or something else. It could be saying 'My name is Involia, and I am happy' for all we know.”
“I'm going to try it anyway. They don't look like they'll wait forever,” Mercy said. She spent a few moments working out how to use her main speaker to reproduce the correct sound. Then, with just a trace of fear running through her mind, she started to speak.
“Taliasa sinas melay Mercy messa Scatha.”
The response was slightly less than she had hoped for. Involia’s, if that was his actual name, eyes opened wider, but Mercy could see no reaction from any of the other creatures. She wondered if they could hear what she was saying.
“Isa nurveth Kasom.” Again, Mercy heard the Scatha attempt to dissect the words.
“I think that means he wants to either kill us or hugs us.”
“Kasom, must be something important. A religious symbol?”
“Isa! I've got Isa! He's identifying himself without using his name, it's like 'I'.”
“So, it's 'I something something-religious?' We need more data.”
Mercy ran a curse through her mind. She could see all the minds running around and analyzing data, putting the pieces together from a million different conversations around the planet and then taking them away when contradictory evidence arrived. Entire dictionaries were split and recompiled as new dialects discovered, words changed meaning every second, but actual progress was terribly slow.
“Kalish hui Scatha muii.”
“What was that? He used our name. That can't be a coincidence!”
“We've got a good database of a few thousand words we know; I think we should try using them.”
“Yes. Perhaps we should try saying something else.”
“How about. 'Hello, please leave us alone.'”
The creature was still waiting for a response. Mercy braced herself and, after scanning the small database, began to speak.
“Tunas minvou.” Or literally, 'Hello, go away.' Involia shrugged his shoulders and looked a little upset.
“This is not working,” Mercy said. “Connect me to the database directly and update me whenever you figure something out.” She spent a few moments writing a quick and dirty translation process then the creature spoke again.
“Is
“We are here to search,” Mercy said. She indicated the body of the dead Warrior and hoped that she had used the right word. She had shut out most of the Scatha minds, but one forced a message onto her, and Curiosity flagged it up as vitally important.
“This is taking too long. Why do we even bother with these creatures?” Hunter Without Fear asked. Involia looked at the broken body of the Warrior and shuddered.
“I do
“Part gone.” Mercy said. More and more words were filling up the database, but the process was too random, and she was struggling to find the correct terms. “We searching for it.”
“Then
“Scatha will not go away,” Mercy said.
“Is there any point to this? Are these questions helping with your investigation?” Mercy pushed Hunter Without Fear’s words out of her mind, then continued speaking to Involia.
“We are searching for part of that,” she said, pointing to the Warriors body. “Do you know where it is?”
Involia looked at her with confusion all over its face.
“In
“In
“Enough! End this charade. They are in the way.” Hunter Without Fear shouted.
“Don't do anything,” Mercy warned the Hunters, but it was of no use. The Hunter took a step forward and rammed his fist into Involia's chest. The metal plate that was covering it ripped like paper and the flesh below split apart without any apparent resistance. Involia gasped and weakly tried to raise an arm as Hunter Without Fear lifted the creature off the ground.
“Destroy the rest of them,” he ordered.
Involia screamed and Mercy heard a collective gasp come from the rest of the creatures. Already the other Hunters had charged forward; their arms outstretched to tear apart the formation.
But I needed them. By now the creatures had begun to react. They screamed, a high-pitched wailing sound that sounded strangely out of place. Their faces to twisted into odd expressions, some form of pain response Mercy guessed. It took only a moment longer for the creatures to summon the intelligence to strike back, and when they did so they did it pitifully. Weapons which could barely be called sharp crashed down onto the Hunters. Weapons that threw tiny bolts of wood and metal with almost no force flickered out at the Hunters to either be dodged or blocked by a limb. Other creatures tried to stab at them, hoping to pierce through the thick metal plating with bkunt spears, but it was a futile act. Most just stood there and died.
Mercy spotted a tiny object shooting towards her with deadly speed. It was just moments work to figure out its trajectory and another to shift her body out of the way. The tiny round piece of metal shot passed.
“I'm under attack. What do I do now?” she shouted. A dozen more of the small objects shot towards her, slower than the first. Again, Mercy's reactions kicked in, the subconscious part of her mind decided that it could dodge all but two of the projectiles and twisted her body again so that the impacts, even if they did penetrate her skin, would cause minimal damage.
Alarms flashed inside her head, and she felt herself take a perfect timed step backwards to lessen the impact. One of the projectiles had hit her shoulder joint, the other had been deflected by the sloping metal on her side. Neither had done any permanent damage.
“Standby help is on its way,” Knowledge finally responded to Mercy's call. That wasn't much help. Mercy couldn't think of doing anything else. Finally, another mind connected itself directly to her. It was a powerful mind that loomed over her, its mere attention was forcing her into the corners of her body.
“My name is Warrior Over Shoulder and Through Eyes. I'm here to assist you.” The voice sounded like it was in her head, as if the mind had taken control of the body. It was an uncomfortably close arrangement, but she didn't have time to complain.
“What do I do?”
“First, take stock of the situation. Where are the threats?” Mercy looked at the mass of creatures that the Hunters were busy ripping apart. “Not those!”
“How am I supposed to know that?” Mercy forced herself to stay focused. It was one thing to go through the rigors of communicating with the Trio of Small things to learn how to investigate peacefully, it was quite another to do the same thing during a battle.
“Let me take over.” Minds were never supposed to say that. No matter what was happening a Mind’s right to the body it was inhabiting was above all other considerations. To give it up just because another Mind thought it was best was unthinkable.
“Just tell me what to do.” There was a pause from Warrior Over Shoulder, finally, after what Mercy suspected was some badgering from some other minds he relented.
“Where did they shoot you from?”
It was then that Mercy focused on the small group of creatures around a rocky outcropping. Not that many of them and dressed differently to all the others and all of them armed with strange weaponry.
“Better. No go and stop them from shooting you again. If you’re squeamish, I could do it for you.”
“No.” Mercy began to take steps towards the small group. She doubted they could even threaten the scout drones, but it felt wrong for her to stand by while everyone else was fighting.
“Look at what you're charging against. What are the threats? Count them, rank them in order. Or just give me control for a few seconds.” Mercy was starting to get annoyed with Warrior Over Shoulder. She just needed someone to give her a bit of advice not solve every problem for her.
Threats. None really. Eight of the creatures, six armed with weapons that used combustible powder to propel a small object. From the looks of things they couldn't even re-load in the time it would take her to reach them. Another was just armed with a thin claw shaped piece of metal. The final one, with what looked like a smaller powder using tube, raised the weapon to fire.
“You should have looked at that one first!” Warrior Over Shoulder cried out. Mercy was already trying to fling her body to the side. She'd managed to dodge the first shot but now the range and her window of opportunity was much smaller.
The weapon fired and Mercy felt her reactions force her to leap to the side. She felt the impact on her right hand even as her mind warned her that she had reacted too slowly. Another wave of damage reports flashed across her mind reporting minor damage to some of the motors. It hadn't done much, just slowed down and reduced her level of control over three of her fingers. She had nearly reached the group now, the one who had fired the strange weapon at her shouted something.
“Fall
“Destroy that one first!” Warrior over the Shoulder ordered.
“I wanted your help, not your command.” Six of the other creatures turned and began running, fumbling there half loaded weapons and not even risking a single glance behind them. Mercy reached the lead creature and paused for a second. What was she supposed to do now?
“Break its arms and legs, then rip it's head off,” Warrior Over Shoulders shouted.
Mercy's hesitation had given the creature enough time to pull out it's claw like weapon and swing it in a desperately wide arc towards her head. Mercy's subconscious controls took over again and she knocked the weapon away with one arm.
“Rip it apart or give me direct control.”
From behind the creature the one with the strange weapon lunged forward, a straightened version of the claw weapon in its hand. It tried to stab it through Mercy’s chest plate. Again, she knocked the blow away with contemptuous ease. Two more blows from the first creature followed with the same results. She was getting the hang of this now, Mercy thought, the blows weren't that hard or fast, but she could feel at the back of her mind Warrior Over Shoulder impatience with her.
“Very well. I will take direct control of this body.”
“No,” she shouted back.
“That body is in danger. It may be damaged or lost if I do nothing. I must take control.” That message hadn't been directed at her but to the rest of the Scatha. It was almost unheard of, only in the most dire of circumstances would such a request even be made. The first creature came at her again and again, its thin blade flicking against her arms. Mercy tried to duck down to dodge its blow but found the body refuse her commands.
“No!” Mercy shouted. “Give me back control.” But it was too late. Mercy watched as her erstwhile body reached out and grabbed the creatures' weapon with one hand and yank it forwards. The creature had just enough time to yell before the bodies second arm crashed into its ribcage, shattering the bones and turning the organs to liquid. It had all happened too fast even for a Scatha. Warrior over Shoulder directed the body towards the second creature and began advancing towards it even before the first had hit the ground. Mercy sent a dozen processes off in an attempt to gain back control, but she needed someone far more powerful than her to do it. The second creature, it's eyes wide and mouth open faltered and Mercys body whipped its arms around with deadly force, but Warrior Over Shoulder had been too eager and the blows misses the creature by half a centimeter.
“I will destroy them all, then return control.” Warrior Over Shoulder said.
“You will not.” Boomed the voice of Judgment and suddenly the body had flung itself into the air. It somersaulted backwards away from the creature and landed in a heap several meters away. “Mercy will remain in control. Your services are no longer needed here.” She felt the Warrior over Shoulder’s presence evaporate from her body until only the presence of Judgement remained. Even that was like a distant mountain, overshadowing her but not controlling anymore. Control returned to her, and she tried picking herself up off the ground but came to a halt when she felt something pushed into the back of her head. It was the first creatures' strange projectile weapon.
“Move at all and I'll
“Would you hurry please Mercy, we are halfway through our targets. Destroy these eight creatures, and then get back to work,” Hunter Without Question said.
A process fired in the back of her mind, one that she did not recognize. It just said 'why?' Suddenly Mercy wondered what would happen if she did surrender.
“What are these creatures' protocols for surrendering?” Mercy asked Knowledge. “Surely someone had seen that by now?”
“But you are not in any danger, your plating would easily shrug off the projectile from that weapon,” Knowledge said.
“I believe you place you lower your arms to the side, palms open. At least we have observed that action in several battles during the past few minutes.” Searcher for Trivial Details volunteered.
“You should not do this.” Judgment said.
“Are you going to take this body away from me?”
“No,” Judgment said after a few moments. Carefully and with a deliberate slowness she lowered her arms.