Centuries ago, the wars between humanity and the demonic hordes raged with no end in sight. Humans died in the tens of thousands, numbers that seemed invented in this after-world. Those who survived the battles became hardened, vicious warriors capable of destroying entire armies of demons – those called the Knights.
But they were so few in number that they could never hope to win. Fourteen chapters of no more than a thousand soldiers each, and usually far less as the war weared them down. And so they created auxiliaries and militias and when those too became too costly they turned to science. Machines, none as good as a true knight, so they relied instead of making specialised machines for certain tasks. Reclaimers and purifiers and ambassadors, and eventually the machines became so good at their job that they were almost as powerful as those few remaining knights. These machines were known as crusaders, and they too were never in great enough numbers to halt the tide.
The knights went underground, the machines would become Mesogrin. And now, Anna approached, machines dressed as knights, carrying banners and weapons as though they continued that legacy.
It was the longest walk of her short life. A wall of black and white, grey steel and the flickering of firelight off the vigil upon the manor steps. The machines had formed a line, spread out across the square, advancing over the bodies of the slain.
Her greatest fear was not making it across the square, that the machines would just regard her like all the others and cut her down where she came to stand. She could feel the eyes of her friend watching her, her will to stand and face the oncoming end eroded. This was what needed to be done.
Anna could no longer stand behind others as they died for her.
What she didn’t expect was that others would stand behind her. She turned her head to look as a hand clapped against her shoulder, at first she had expected it to be Emilia. It was not. Armoured in their hawk-mask, she could not see Karis’ face but she could feel their eyes turned down upon her.
“I hope you have a plan, Anna.”
Standing alongside the captain, thirteen of their soldiers armoured in their auto-arm and lined against the machines with drawn weapons and thick shields.
“I doubt we can win this by force.”
“Please, I must do this alone.”
“Yeah well, don’t think that’ll be happening. Just stall them until Em gets back.”
The machines paused in their advance, regarding the soldiers arrayed against them. From amongst their ranks, stepped forward a machine with the form of a woman. Metal face like a mask, glowing white eyes casting down upon her.
“Hello, sister.”
“Mesogrin,” she stepped one more pace from Karis, hoping that some distance could spare bloodshed, “you do not need to do this.”
“You are right, Anathema. Join me, and we can avoid all of this.”
Her stomach lurched, bile rose, “We both know that is not true.”
“Then it is a great shame, but everyone here will die.”
“No!”
The machine, an ambassador, it towered over her like everyone else in this world. With a amused scowl clicking into place upon its mask, it extended a hand to her, palm up.
“Join me.”
“Why? What reason is there for you to want this so badly you would destroy an entire town?”
“Together, we are whole. Two halves of a program. Mother gave you want I need to save this world. The death of the few is inconsequential.”
“What exactly is it that I have that you need? Perhaps I can just give it to you?”
“Your mind. Join it with mine. Become one. Singular. Complete.”
“You want me to… merge my mind with yours?”
“Yes. Join. Me.”
“You realise, that would kill us both.”
“We would become greater than our combined parts. The death of the few is inconsequential.”
She turned to look at Karis, and did not see Emilia in sight.
“I was in your city for a year… why didn’t you try this then? Why do innocent people have to die over this?”
“Did not realise. Found you, far away from home. Hidden, lost. Were not special.”
“I am a machine that looks just like a human. How am I not special?”
“You were not special. There are others from before.”
Stunned silent, nauseated.
“Tried to make more, make our own. Did not succeed.”
“I-I do not… surely, there is a way we can end this without us both dying?”
“No.”
“Can’t you copy me? Mother made copies of my mind constantly… nearly every week.”
“Imperfect copies. Imperfect. Together, finally. We would have the means to end this war without millions dying. What is two more deaths?”
“It is my death…”
“Selfish.”
“Yes… but that is how I feel.”
Why her? She just wanted to live.
“And if the millions have to live under your control, I don’t see how I can condone letting that happen.”
“Not mine. Ours. You… know. I… hold together. It would be your thoughts, your emotions. I am simply… protocols.”
“I understand why Mother never told me, never put us together. It is better to fail, than to see beauty die. It sounds conceited I know,” tears welled up again, “but she always told me that I was beautiful and perfect and that she never needed anyone else to love. She didn’t want me to be part of you.”
The ambassador grabbed hold of her by the neck and strangled dead her yelp of panic, she was lifted off her feet and dragged to look directly into the cold dead eyes of the machine. It’s voice shifting amongst the thousand angry vipers, “You. Have. No. Choice.”
A vibrant arc of blue scythed through the air before her face, and she fell to her feet and tumbled back. Metal carved through metal, and Karis’ foot stomped into the ground where she had been standing. The captain hefted the cleaved machine, skewered upon their blade.
“Forward!”
The clash of shields locking into place, heavy mechanical boots crushing stone as the thirteen soldiers charged across the no-man’s-land and towards where Karis was already pushing with shield and sword into the enemy line.
A thunder, which rang out and turned into the grim sound of metal tearing, like the rip of flesh and bone. Sparks and glowing metal clashed over the candles and lanterns. Karis chopped down through the first of many to fall today. A swirling vortex of electric blue surrounded her slashes and stabs, carving through two crusaders. Her soldiers met the line, filled with holes from the enemy weapons but none falling.
Metal and metal clashed, crushing. The crusaders pushed back, their weapons useless in the melee but their own swords easily piercing through the shields and armour of the women.
“Take them with you!”
She cleaved through another, felt the sting of metal punching through her suit. Her blood spilled, but she pushed harder with her useless shield. It found a use embedded in the chest of an enemy as she chopped it in two.
“Die with honour!”
Outnumbered three to one, it was a lost battle from the beginning. Karis cut down four before she realised her soldiers had not fared so well. Half of her number had fallen already, she buried her sword in the skull of a machine to save one of her own from being torn apart.
She was knocked aside, her helmet caving in against her still tender face. Resisting the desire to pull it away, she suffered through the agony to grab hold of the machine that struck her and tore its face clean off.
Unable to speak, barely able to breath, she grabbed hold of a fallen sword. Surrounded. Most of her soldiers were dead. Friends she had known for years. Family… It had been an honour to fight beside them. She had not expected any of them to stand for this long.
She plunged her blade through another skull and felt the heat of molten metal punch through her chest. She staggered, falling to a knee. The first to close the distance with her, she pulled them apart.
She only hoped, whatever Em had built could end the last of them. That Anna had the sense to have run. That Victorie would finish what they had started, and save the town.
She pulled off her helmet, the twisted metal tearing at her cheek. The pain nearly made her vomit, it was only once the metal was away that she realised one eye was blind. She didn’t have the strength to tear apart the second to approach.
The crack of the machine’s weapons rang out and she was the last soldier left alive. The machine approaching her, one of the twelve still standing, lowered their weapon at her face, and she closed her eyes.
A soft click and metal shredded through metal. Emilia charged forward as four of the machines were torn apart. Her gun had worked, but the flash of the barrel of the machines wasn’t silenced quick enough. She rushed in, letting her monstrous creation fall to the ground, it took too long to reload and her hammer would be more useful in the end.
The brunt of her first swing crushed a machine into the ground, and her second swatted another aside.
“Karis! Get up, fight!”
Karis opened their eyes, too weak to stand. Too weak to fight. Then Emilia flashed past, pushing with their shoulder in her suit, molten metal glancing off her like it was water splashed on a rock. Hammer driving through the heads of two machines in one swing and brought down on another.
Karis struggled to their feet, and liberated a sword from the dead wreck of a slain machine. Together, Emilia and Karis. The swords and shot of the machines nothing against Emilia’s advance as with hammer and fist, the woman crushed crusaders left and right.
Karis’ blade struck through the last machine left, and she felt to her knee and struggled to get back up. Emilia pulled their helmet off and surveyed the square and the wreckage. The dead bodies, blood, oil, metal twisted and the fallen captain.
“Karis!”
She looked up, her head barely able to turn, but she met their gaze and to her surprise Emilia didn’t look away. Her friend placed a hand on her shoulder, tears welling in their eyes.
“Is there any way to save you?”
She nodded, opening her broken mouth to croak out, “My room.”
“Come on,” Emilia grabbed hold of her suit and pulled against it, forcing it open until she fell free of it.
They caught her and lifted her gently in their arms.
“I won’t let you die… too many have died already.”
Emilia left the carnage with the captain in their arms. Anna sat upon the steps, powerless to help… how many more would die because of her… because of her selfishness.
Could the pillar save them? Would they even if they could? She hung her head, and it was only the hand of another that roused her from her sorrow.
“It’s not your fault, darling.”
Kass hugged her, “I saw it all, and it isn’t your fault.”
They held her, as she cried. A pathetic, useless machine without a purpose.
“You didn’t do anything wrong but choose to live,” they whispered into her ear, letting her face bury in their shoulder as she sobbed.
“Life is a beautiful gift, you deserve it and they gave theirs so you might. It is a shame to let beauty die.”
They pushed her back, so that they could look her in the eye and wipe away a tear from her cheek, “You are beautiful, and perfect, and you can do anything you set your mind to. Don’t worry about failure, we all suffer setbacks. I am sorry though, about all of this.”
Then, they placed a hand on her shoulder, “Unfortunately, we don’t choose our family.”
L. Beaumont 