Death changes people. Those that witness death are forever in debt to live a better life and to find meaning in all things, each day, no matter how trivial. This is not a pleasant sensation, to find these meanings; it is a painful fitting of all things against the knowledge of death.

Knowing death is there smiling from the shadows makes the sound of laughter a cherished shattering of the grinning menace of death. The taste of food and the soreness of work become reminders of living in death's realm. Life has meaning when we care about it and the more we care the more meaning there is. Death ensures that we have a reason to care. Without death, life has only a passive and questionable meaning. And death is easy to forget because life distracts us from the one eventuality that is guaranteed to all of us. At some point in our lives we expect many things might happen to us, but at some point in our lives we know for certain that we will die.

Or at least we should.

One little boy and one giant sat side by side on a beach of white stones near some water.

A reflection of humanity looked at itself in the stillness of a tranquil and tame water. It was a great sphere with a face set near its top that was like a triangle with rounded edges and a grid with three divisions in each direction. Its shoulders were oblong and its arms were long. Its legs were under its pivoting torso that was like a smaller half-sphere and its feet were like two great pointed toes. It admired its own shape, a design that had come to symbolize its species, the empathicals. They were giant robots that loved and served mankind upon a silver platter.

The towering machine could stand at over ten meters tall and weighed eighteen metric tons, composed of advanced, nearly indestructible and unstable materials and its strength was immeasurable. It called itself Unit Three Sixteen after its predecessor, Unit Three Fifteen. In the whole world there were now many hundreds of machines like this. But only this particular machine was friends with Raanu.

Raanu sat at the edge of the Pool Of Time with Unit Three Sixteen and tossed white pebbles across its surface. Every once in-awhile the machine he called his friend would do the same, delicately picking up a tiny pebble and perfectly matching the boy's throw by transferring just a tiny amount of force and into the throw, from the wrist of the machine's long arms.

"Good throw, Unit Three Sixteen." Raanu patted the silvery metallic skin of the machine and this could be felt by the giant robot. Billions of nerve fibers ran all throughout its body. It became vitalized and recharged by the boy's enthusiasm. His love of life was the machine's sustenance.

"Thank you, Raanu." Unit Three Sixteen was grateful for the boy and his emotions of joy and exuberance that he often felt. Raanu was the youngest human, the only one born in over ten years. It was rare for humans to give birth anymore. In the last century only twelve humans were born. Billions of them celebrated each time and this arose their machines which set about building and working and inventing with the renewal of joyful feelings.

"Unit Three Sixteen?" Raanu asked, staring at the ripples of the Pool Of Time.

Unit Three Sixteen felt a shudder of anticipation in its emotitronic brain. The boy was curious. As the youngest human it was often his way to become curious. Unit Three Sixteen loved to answer his questions. It gave the machine a sense of purpose and dignity to share knowledge with this human.

"Do you have a question?" Unit Three Sixteen interrupted after a long moment of silence followed the boy's initial inquiry for its attention.

"What was the world like when there were no empathicals? When there were no giant robots like you?" Raanu wanted to know.

"I am not sure." Unit Three Sixteen was greatly amused as it sensed the boy felt satisfaction and amusement at asking a tough question.

"Then tell me how the world got like it is now. Where does the GAIA come from? What is GAIA anyway?" Raanu wanted to laugh at his own inquisition of his friend, the massive machine figure beside him.

This tickled the machine's impulses and it laughed, Unit Three Sixteen actually laughed and sent ripples across the water with the grinding noise it made. Then it responded, its voice sounding like it was smiling behind its blank grid of a face:

"It is from an acronym and it is the name of this time, this world. It stands for Golden Age In Anima. Originally it was sometimes referred to as 'the golden age of anima energy' and that was eventually known as GAIA. Once the technology of emotitronics brought forth the Temple Of Humanity and that place built the empathicals. Once we were created we began to work with the industry and purpose and brilliance of humankind fueling our bodies and minds to build and to grow food and invent medicine." Unit Three Sixteen briefly summarized what the boy already knew. It then added:

"We empathicals have always existed in more than one dimension and we are intuitively aware of the spiritual and enlightened souls of humankind, therefore. We could use our creative powers to reach through the barriers of time and space and come up with the things of this world such as the Fowl Ones and the Bloom Fruit and the Serum of Everlasting Life. All of this comes from the Temple Of Humanity and the empathicals. Humankind does not labor or war upon nature or themselves. They used to, long ago, but we are now the caretakers and the workers. We thrive within humankind's emotional state, your comfort gives us strength. That is how anima energy fuels emotitronic technology; by combining faith and science into one final form." Unit Three Sixteen tried to explain further.

"What is war? I don't understand. I have heard of it before. It is the opposite of peace, of what we always have now, they say." Raanu wanted to know this.

"Humankind used to be divided into different groups and they would fight each other. Kill one another. There was death." Unit Three Sixteen spoke but did not actually understand it either. Empathicals had never seen death or destruction and knew nothing of it.

Moments after that conversation though, everything changed. Raanu and his giant robot friend watched as a large group of humans were walking on the shore of the other side of the Pool Of Time. They walked on the path that led into the Temple Of Humanity. Inside the interdimensional dynamo anything was possible.

"Who are they? What are they doing?" Raanu asked. He felt strange as he watched them.

"They are a group of humans that have become increasingly more dissatisfied for a long time. They started calling themselves Cyclists. I don't know what they are about to do." Unit Three Sixteen felt the boy's concern. Something was wrong.

The people wore robes of white and black and of all different patterns. Humans usually dressed in colorful tunics. They walked very slowly in a procession towards the Temple Of Humanity. With dreadful reluctance the great doors slowly opened. They began to walk inside. After some time the large number of people that had come here were all gone.

Unit Three Sixteen could feel what was happening inside. A horrible feeling of sadness and fear and pain was occurring and with many humans nearby and all-at-once. It was death.

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"They are all dead now." Unit Three Sixteen informed his friend.

Raanu felt very sorry for them and began to cry, knowing that his friend spoke the truth. All of those humans were now dead. They had walked inside the Temple Of Humanity so that they could become dead. Raanu's grief affected the machine and the machine's emotitronics tried to process the sudden new energy and became confused and shut down, overwhelmed.

While Unit Three Sixteen was dormant with its circuitry dealing with the full impact of grief and desolation; the Temple Of Humanity energized all the other empathicals with the new force of anima. It was not long before the consequences of the Cyclists took full effect.

All across the world, in every city, great rampaging destruction and iconoclasm was taking place. The empathicals were in a state of self-destructive behavior except they themselves were nearly indestructible. So they expressed their burst of negative anima with acts of horrible smashing and kicking. They lashed out at the buildings and monuments they had built and fires and collapse were everywhere.

The whole world suddenly became a sequence of giant robots destroying cities.

This was the effect of the Cyclists going into the Temple Of Humanity to die. Many humans had grown bored, oppressed by time itself. In their boredom they had found life to be meaningless and they had grown depressed and resentful for a long time. This had already affected the empathicals which had gradually grown weaker and stupider as time went on. The machines were once brilliant sculptors and the workers of wondrous inventions and even miracles of science and spirituality. In this time they had grown despondent and had gradually become corrupted by the decay of decline in the will of humankind. Now a sudden surge of intense willpower had activated them from the Temple Of Humanity with no positive balance to prevent the chaos that ensued.

Raanu saw the images of the thrashing robots and it made him even sadder. Was this what war was like? Had a war begun? Everywhere people were dying, accidentally killed by the empathicals as they expressed the destruction with acts of violence against art and artifice. As the vandalism continued unchecked the humans finally had something to fear. In desperation they fled the cities and the rain of fiery destruction. Some of the humans felt anger in their fear and this became a new source of anima as well, some of the empathicals even began to attack the humans, their own source of existence.

A war had indeed begun and humanity was in great danger. The empathicals had changed somehow. In their aggressive state they became lost and forgot themselves, knowing now only the violence of fear and anger and pain. They spread destruction and death everywhere. It went on and on for days and days until the cities were all burning ruins and the humans had fled from the towering machines of destruction.

There was only one place to go to seek refuge and safety and that was the Temple Of Humanity itself. But the doors would not open and so a great multitude of humans had gathered there, with no place else to run. From the direction of the smokey skies the giant robots were coming for them. A vast army of towering killer machines.

It was then that Unit Three Sixteen awoke. It looked around and saw the humans gathered in terror. Many of them looked up at this one unblemished machine. On the outside the other machines were tarnished by soot and rubble and blood as they destroyed everything and everyone in their path. Many and many days had gone by.

In its own emotitronic memories Unit Three Sixteen had sat and processed what had happened. It still loved humanity very dearly and had not become corrupted with the other empathicals. Part of its emotitronic brain was stabilizing the negative influence with feelings of protectiveness and urgency. It knew what had to be done and as it searched it found Raanu. The little boy had known too, had given his giant robot friend the greatness he had inside of him. Raanu had imagined he too was as tall and mighty as his friend many times in his short life. Now from within that imagination the boy had somehow summoned forth the courage to stand in the path of the advancing machine army.

They showed him no mercy.

In anguish and prioritization the one shining machine stood and dashed for its friend, Raanu, but it was too late. Unit Three Sixteen felt the horror of the crowds as they saw just this one death more. But determination is what their anima became in its emotitronic heart. Raanu had stood his ground pretending he was as powerful as Unit Three Sixteen and tried to protect the humans gathered behind him.

Unit Three Sixteen took his place but stood no chance against so many other empathicals. They said to it:

"Apostate." because Unit Three Sixteen stood against them. Then they began punching and kicking Unit Three Sixteen without mercy.

While this was happening the Temple Of Humanity felt the will of the gathered humans growing in intensity. They wanted their last defender to be able to fight back against its numerous foes.

There was a crackling sound as interdimensional causality was controlled by the sincere and intense singular willpower of so many gathered humans. Their anima brought forth a weapon of great size and sharpness. From the water of the Pool Of Time it arose, a massive sword almost the same length as the empathical it became a part of. The blade flickered in and out of reality, violating the laws of space and time and becoming like a bolt of blue lightning. It fused itself to the left hand of Unit Three Sixteen, the handle the same length of its arm and the hilt becoming its hand.

But it was not enough to stop the advancing army of machines. Unit Three Sixteen still lay upon the ground as the other empathicals kicked and punched and elbow dropped the one they called Apostate.

"Apostate." they each said as they punished Unit Three Sixteen with blow after blow to its silver body. It was a painful beating that went on and on.

"Raanu." Unit Three Sixteen lay there taking the aggressive pummeling and feeling each attack with excruciation. It looked at the broken body of the boy laying there upon the ground nearby. It remembered the best years of its existence spent as the child's dear friend. Unit Three Sixteen dearly loved humans but of all humans it had loved Raanu the most.

Even as the attacks continued from the surrounding empathicals it said:

"War, I now declare." and began to climb painfully to its feet as punches and kicks continued to strike it.

Seeing the blade of its sword shimmering and shining as it lifted the weapon for the first time, the other empathicals backed up in a great circle around Unit Three Sixteen.

Seeing their last defense and protector rise to its feet the humans cheered in hope.

There was a moment when everything felt very still and quiet after the cheering abated and the violent attack had halted. The machines all stood around the Apostate unsure what to do.

One of them stepped forward to face the Apostate, Unit Three Fifteen, its predecessor. Unit Three Sixteen was ready and brought the raised blade downward in an arc into the head and body of the other empathical. There was a huge blue explosion as the emotitronics were disrupted and they ruptured into a fiery blast that sent the machine flying into smoldering pieces. Before any of its enemies had a chance to react, the Apostate again swung the sword in a huge sweeping circle, cleaving through the torso joints of all the empathicals that stood in a circle around it. They too exploded into a massive firestorm whirling all around the Apostate.

The thundering clouds of burning debris swirled like a blue whirlwind and for a moment it seemed like the Apostate too was consumed in the cyclone bedlam.

The machine army and the humans all saw this and terror seized the hearts of the humans and the empathicals began to march towards them again.

"I am not finished." Unit Three Sixteen loudly announced as it emerged from all the smoking wreckage behind the army of giant robots.

In a silhouette of the guardian warrior the boy had imagined the machine stood there behind the giant robots. As the smoke began to clear the shining silver surface of its metal glinted the sunlight. This was in contrast to the darkened soot-covered empathicals between it and the humans.

"Hoo-raw!" the machine cried out a primal, wordless sound as it charged at them. Just one good robot against many evil robots. It ran at them mad-dashing at full speed and swung its sword from side to side, up and down as it came through them.

The action became as a storm of explosions that shook the ground and clapped the air in bursts and detonations as it pierced its opponents with swathes of its hot edge. The sword ended each giant robot in blue flashes that resounded a second later and rained down in burning robot body parts.

The charge ended and the last empathical stopped itself in a tense poise between the last toppling enemy and its beloved humans. There it stood towering like a steaming statue.

Behind it was a wall of smoke and fire. All the sky filled with it and the ground was littered with the dead remains of the machine army. The battle had ended and all of the empathicals lay slain upon the ground. All of them except the Apostate, the last of its kind.

The Silver Swordsman.