Healing is growing stronger from pain. When the human suffers she learns from the terror and agony by offering it up to her Creator. Healing renews life and stands between the damage and the resilience of a living thing.
So we have learned and yet all things die; from death there is still healing to be done. This is the work of our Creator. We know this because nature does not heal the dead. Were death to prevail over all life, sine healing, then Nature would be our god. A nature of entropy that mocks healing. Healing comes from God.
Anger washed over Adinett as a strong, hot feeling. She stared at where the Finalists had gone. A long and desolate road to the Caves of Scane that they drove ground vehicles on. The road that her new brothers were taking was leaving Kelsov's path behind.
"Avenge." She growled. One of the empathicals felt her rage and wanted to help her with the surge of energy she was giving it. The one known as Telamon was not enamored by the good in humanity and was easier to persuade towards violence. It had stopped its heavy march and with its warrior gaze downcast, seemed to be looking at her over its shoulder with a glare. Her tiny form behind the giant cast a shadow alongside it.
"Umbraeon is our enemy." Silver Swordsman reminded its one-armed comrade.
"I know." Telamon took a step and then resumed its march behind Silver Swordsman. As the two giant robots walked on ahead, Aidan stopped and waited for Adinett to catch up to him. He hugged her and asked:
"Can you do this?"
"I will." She replied. She took one more look to the caves in the distant hills. She knew that when the sun set they would stop. Both the humans and the machines were tired. Food, sleep and anima fueled them and they had none of those things in sufficient amounts.
It seemed like hours before she could quietly sip some water and watch the dying flames of their camp. Telamon sat hunched over and dormant while Silver Swordsman fed on her restlessness and remained active. The giant robot sat sharpening its weapon and watching over her and the sleeping Aidan.
"You feel sorrow and anger at once." Silver Swordsman had realized the unpleasant energy she gave it came from the destruction she had survived. "And I see that you remain very brave and honorable."
"We are all one. We go to that thing, Umbraeon, defeat it. Or else we all die and everything is lost." Adinett looked at the round and silver skin as it reflected firelight.
"We are all Silver Swordsman." Silver Swordsman stated, bemused.
"I am, an' yet I am very tired." She yawned. Recent horrors made her tremble, but as seen, she was very strong and did not succumb to witnessing the destruction of all she knew and loved. Instead she closed her eyes and faced it. A wall of sleep made of screaming, dripping, skinless victims of the carnage.
Adinett stood as a ghost among the living. Her memories of life and love juxtaposed with death and hate. Then she entered the caves. The Finalists had placed their humanity beneath the savagery needed to survive. They lived on, but unrecognizable to even themselves. This was the atrocity that she could not tolerate. She could not rest until they too were dead. Was it only a dream?
She called upon the one she could feel. It felt her and she it. She said to the Finalists:
"You changed into something not worth preserving in the act of preserving yourselves."
They were very alarmed at her ghostly presence and even more alarmed at the dirty, battered, soot-covered Apostate that loomed behind her. There was no retreating into their caves as she blocked that retreat. There was no outrunning the giant robot with its chipped and partially-broken blade.
"We are the Finalists! Inheritors of this world! We are still the human lords of this!" Kelsov announced in defiance.
"Kill them." Adinett told the flickering grid-face of the Mad Swordsman. The true form of Silver Swordsman lifted its weapon and advanced on the Finalists with murderous intentions. Adinett's ghostly form pointed and yelled: "Kill them! Kill all these!"
And so it obeyed.
As dawn broke and the blue skies began to light up, all except that part of the cloudy-sea that was Umbraeon, a shadow fell. The camp stood and faced this newcomer. It looked like Silver Swordsman and yet it was battered, cracked and darkened in every way. Silver Swordsman recognized this version of itself and called it:
"Mad Swordsman."
"Perhaps you mean by anger or perhaps by insanity." Mad Swordsman spoke back in the same voice, but somehow ravening in its tone-of-voice. A different being with the same voice.
"Perhaps." Telamon agreed.
"How is this possible?" Aidan was bewildered.
"Last night I dreamed. It was not a dream." Adinett surmised. She pointed to the chipped and partially broken sword it carried. It was splattered in fresh blood.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
"More suffering feeds Umbraeon." Aidan protested.
"More suffering has brought us an ally and eliminated our nearest enemy." Adinett had defiance in her own voice, but doubt as well.
Aidan just turned and looked at Umbraeon where it was still devouring part of the sky. There was no more point in discussing it. As she had slept the woman had somehow willed the presence of the dead machine. Then she had commanded it to attack the Finalists. This he deduced, but did not understand.
"This could mean that the composition of this reality, this universe, is no longer predictable." Aidan said quietly, mostly to hear his own thoughts.
"If its real its here, if it isn't here, it isn't real." Mad Swordsman offered some of its 'wisdom' to help Aidan process its presence.
"Yeah? That's what this is?" Aidan turned around and for the second time he felt like his mind was breaking apart, like he was already dead in some way. He felt frustrated and scared. This came out as anger as he pointed and shouted with an accusatory stare:
"That's it? Which one of you is the 'real' Silver Swordsman, huh?" He flung his finger back and forth between the two as he looked from one to the other. "You think this paradox is harmless? That stretching the fabric of reality is a good idea when we face that?"
He pointed with both flailing limbs at Umbraeon as he raged against the two machines. The full implication of what had happened suddenly dawned on him. Falcone's equation had stated the instability of such an entanglement. This could destroy both copies and accelerate the disruption of time-space caused by Umbraeon. Worse was the possibility that such an event was only possible because of how strong Umbraeon already was.
The revulsion he felt at the possibilities did break his will. Aidan fell again and much like before: he was seized by the horror and hopelessness. This time though Svetlana was not there to forgive him. Only the memory of her stood over him to comfort him. But the memory of her was holding a club raised to kill him and with murder in her eyes. Aidan just screamed inarticulately and thrashed on the ground.
When he was done he was a whimpering mess on the dry earth. Hours passed before he was cognizant of his companions and their compassion.
"You are more broken than I could see." Adinett was holding him now and her words were spoken with gentleness and understanding.
"Perhaps." Aidan tried to joke, to put her at ease after his melodramatic display. She did have enough humor to smile weakly for him, but her eyes were remorseful.
"I should not have done this." She apologized.
"Yes. But now it is here and we must utilize it or the balance of this war will be in favor of our defeat." Aidan considered.
"Wasn't it already?" Adinett told her own joke.
Aidan just nodded, smiling strangely. Again he used the crazed machine's word: "Perhaps."
"Friends are coming to dinner, my dancing devils." Mad Swordsman stood on one leg and gestured to three directions, one after another.
"Those are enemies." Telamon looked to distance and recognized the towering plant monsters.
"Bloom-Things." Adinett stood up. She could not yet see them with her naked eyes. Soon though, the galloping horrors were in view. Each crackled with electric currents in a field around it and had three heads atop a thick stalk atop many rapidly springing elators.
"We are outnumbered if my shiny self does not speak." Mad Swordsman cackled.
"I have nothing more to say than that there are three of them and three of us. Unless you cannot be counted upon." Silver Swordsman responded while somehow sounding annoyed at the jab.
"Gentlemen, focus." Adinett held her hands up for their attention. The machines responded and set about clumsily forming a battleline.
Moments later the bloom-things were coming for them. These were the smallest ones that Silver Swordsman had seen. Never-the-less they had evolved to be pack hunters for they quickly overtook Mad Swordsman and then Telamon.
Silver Swordsman had to make the choice: to try and best the three deadly machine-destroying plants, or else to retreat and protect Aidan and Adinett. Unable to decide: it too was overwhelmed by the fast and dazzling electric plants. But then, once they had incapacitated the machines they simply stopped, as if taking root.
Adinett watched all of this and at nightfall she dared approach the wrecked machines. Machinekind could survive devastating wounds sometimes, if proper repairs could be made before they completely lost all power. She knew relatively little about such giant robots as these, but she did know enough, having throughout her life about ten years' study in them. It was her belief that all three were merely powered down somehow. The evil plants had powered them down and now seemed to be feeding off of them somehow.
She wondered if this was how the bloom-things matured so they could reproduce. She went up to the Mad Swordsman and said out loud:
"Is this your end, Mad Swordsman?"
It sprung to life by twitching and then kneeling as its cracked face lit up. It looked at her and replied in a sleepy voice:
"What took you so long, little sister?" Mad Swordsman said and then got to its feet.
One of the plants loomed out of the darkness and it threw a bolt directly at Adinett. It struck her neck and she fell over. Mad Swordsman noted she had negative vitals from its scan. With one slash from the ground up it struck the plant and sent a hail of its acidic juices onto Telamon's face panel and also onto Adinett's foot. It went everywhere else also, including onto its nearby bloom-thing friends.
In a crazed gesture, Mad Swordsman grabbed the acid-dripping rendered plant and flung it against the other two. They quickly retreated from this as Mad Swordsman charged after. Then they struck again and took it down, broken sword clattering freely and with steam from its use in the urns of the bloom-thing it had slain.
Death in one world was an awakening in the next. While Mad Swordsman had noted her negative vitals, Adinett was still alive. Where she had died, Umbraeon had already won. Yet another outcome remained:
Adinett woke up, partially in shock from getting struck by lightning and also from burns on her foot. She crawled on her hands and knees to Silver Swordsman and woke it up even easier.
With sword attached to its left arm this giant robot was also a match for the bloom-things. Instead though, this time, Silver Swordsman scooped her up and went to get Aidan as well. They could not find him though.
"I must get us to safety." Silver Swordsman decided. This it did and took them nearer to Umbraeon in the ruins of Casark.
They made camp for one night and Adinett's injuries were treated by Silver Swordsman. Along the way they saw several packs of the bloom-things. At sunset they saw a carpet in the distance just outside the city limits.
"I think it is Aidan." Silver Swordsman confirmed. "And there are two large objects under tarps. It is a large, industrial-sized carpet."
"Your comrades. Telamon and Mad Swordsman." Adinett told the machine.
As it looked on at its fallen comrades there was something mournful in the gaze of reflected by the Silver Swordsman.
"We must recover and continue. We still have some kind of chance to win this war. The reality of this world is not yet undone."