by Marc Watson
It all added up to more confusion inside Nixon. He was utterly lost, devoid of direction.
Then, clarity. Purpose was purpose, even if that purpose was to be determined later.
The flame-infused broadsword was unsheathed, and Nixon moved as fast as lightning to the machine and its prize that was about to escape.
One swipe was all it took. The metal man slid apart effortlessly, crashing back to the ground with a horrible racket as it did so.
The notion of success was short-lived when Nixon swore beyond God’s glory in Heaven that it said his name before it permanently shut down, cold and frenzied eyes blinking out like old light bulbs.
Nixon wasted no time in his retrieval of the limp body of the target, now his burden to bear on his heavily-armored shoulder. He turned to leave, knowing that time was quickly running out, when his mind held him back.
He remembered the other.
He had seen the boy pass out after being helped by the woman, who he now could only reasonably assume was his mother. He turned to find him a few steps away, breathing very shallowly, blood still dripping from his mouth from the punch.
He hesitated again. What was the point? Why save just that one more? The answer came to him as he stood there. This one was already out cold as well. No fuss. No feet dragging. He was there; his life could be saved, and that was enough. Nixon knew anger and remorse would come with him. The inevitable 'Why save me? Why not leave me to die with all the others?' moments were practically guaranteed. Nixon was a man of goodness, though, despite the ends he'd gone to at times. He could think of no logical reason NOT to save this boy. That was enough for him.
Logic. Huh. He almost sounded like Ryu.
He walked over, deftly swung the other up onto his free shoulder, braced both bodies, and summoned the fierce power within him.
It lit like dry wood to a spark, his mighty wings taking shape instantly. With a single, only slightly labored push, he and his two new charges were off like a shot while the park below emptied.
“Even in death, God has a plan,” he said in part to break the silence, in part as a prayer.
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Had it lived (as it were) to see the moment of impact, the mechanical man who had been sent before Aryu’s arrival for the expressed purpose of obtaining and securing the winged man for a return to his superiors, he would have had no joy in knowing that the bomb would have arrived precisely .000237 seconds after it had predicted. It would have been enough for him to request a full upgrade upon return.
Instead, its non-functioning body was simply obliterated like all the other people, places, and things of Tan Torna Qu-ay.
To any one human who may have been paying attention, the impact arrived with pinpoint precision.
Impact is a poor choice of words. From launch to target, the ordinance never had any intention of hitting the ground. Indeed, should it have, it likely would be considered a dud or failure.
A weapon such as this one can do multiple times more damage if it detonates above the blast target. The resulting explosion and concussion wave then instantly fires downward, hitting the ground like a spring, firing back up and using its cumulative force to feed the explosion that is heading outwards from the epicenter, creating a far more powerful explosion than one that had just hit the ground. It was far more efficient and destructive to have it done this way.
No one in the village had any idea what was about to happen. There was no whistle or hum as it approached. Most of the citizens had become aware of Aryu’s return and feared a moment like this was about to happen anyway, so the majority of the population was seeking some form of futile refuge. They’d never seen the distant explosions, had no idea the destruction they had caused, had no way of knowing that their village was far too small for anything to escape complete incineration.
It was much better that way.
Nixon had made it well past Tortria Den and its high cliff walls by then, counting on the solid rock barrier to act as a buffer against the coming blast. Although it caused an amazing amount of turbulence and unsteadiness for a moment, his considerable power and strength were able to compensate. His flight returned to normal and he continued on his way, determined to make it much farther away before any robotic scouts or reinforcements were able to survey the damage.
The village was quiet when it hit, most inhabitants either cowering or somehow oblivious. A blast of this power and magnitude would create a shockwave so strong that force and fire would hit you long before you even knew there was a problem.
Yet again, it was better this way.
The village center, starting in Longhold Park, was heaved up into a ball of dust and fire in an ever-expanding circle, disintegrating each thing it met along the way. Things in the way did not burn. They never had the time. They were quickly and effortlessly wiped away, no trace of them ever being known. All that was left was a hole in the ground that was left shiny from the instantaneous transformation of rock to glass.
Homes were blown off their foundations milliseconds before the flames devoured them and anything inside them.
Five seconds after the blast began, a man and his young son, who had come with one of the caravans from the deep south when the ships first arrived on the horizon and were seeking the rumored solace of Tan Torna Qu-ay, were out hunting between the rise that was Tortria Den and the village outskirts. They were the only citizens of the village to recognize what they were seeing before it hit them.
The father instantly grabbed his son, hugged him close, and turned as much as he could in that time away from the blast, desperately trying to shield his child from the coming horror.
His was not the only desperate act of heroism to come from this place, but it was to be the last.
In the end, it was equally as useless a gesture as the others. They were still consumed and vaporized by the storm of Hellfire that had approached them. Neither felt pain. Death was swift and merciful.
Such was the case for all who lived and loved in the village of Tan Torna Qu-ay.
May we all be so lucky.
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As promised, Nixon wept many tears for those who had died so needlessly just moments before. It was likely he was the most singularly powerful being in the world since the destruction of the false god, and even he stood no chance against this new power.
He'd seen the weapons of the old days. Their power and their weaknesses. They could perhaps put a cramp in his day, but not outright defeat him the way these could.
Now he was winging away as fast as he possibly could, carrying a man he was sworn to destroy and another whom he had no invested interest in.
Each new day brought more questions than answers. All he could do was hope he could find someone to help put it all together. That was why he knew his next step was to find Crystal, the true love of the false god, former bearer of the sword now in the possession of the unconscious person slung about his shoulder, and the one person alive who knew as much about the history of it and its holders as he did.
He had no way to know if she was still alive. So much time had passed. However, there weren't a lot of options open to him right now. He would take the sword-bearer to her, leave the other to his own devices somewhere down the line, and try to find out all he could.
It was terrible to be so alone, worse to know he was trapped there. There would be no sleep until his mission was fulfilled. Judging by his current whereabouts and predicament, it was clear that was not going to be as smooth as it had been in the past.
Nixon shed his tears and carried on.
Chapter 7
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The Benevolent Rotations
He wasn’t stupid.
He wasn’t naïve or foolish.
He wasn’t optimistic.
He was a man now, and men know better. Perhaps not in all things, but certainly more than when last he was at this place. This road both to and from his home that no longer
existed. A home he saw destroyed before he could say 'Goodbye’.
He was not about to run in a desperate search for survivors, knowing full-well that a blast like that would leave none.
One more day. He only needed one more day. Loved or hated, his family was waiting with open arms and the honor he deserved. Welcoming and proud. He’d have died with them.
Johan found a quiet space among a small thatch of trees and sat, broken-hearted and alone. No man or woman of any age could ever be expected to hold it together in such circumstances. It's simply too much weight to put on someone’s shoulders.
The strength he had built was easily defeated. The things he'd learned, forgotten.
Where once a man stood, there was now a helpless child.
See him now. See him in this moment of abandonment and unspeakable fear. Imagine your feelings upon witnessing what he witnessed. Think deeply. Feel the heat. See the flames. Recognize his moment as if it were your own.
Every loved one’s face. Every park and tree. Every summer meal or winter rain. Gone. Taken away without reason or mercy.
Know now that this is not a moment documented often. The factors that lead us all to this moment are never so terrifying and blatant. They are almost always organic and prolonged. The experiences of the youth make the strengths of the adult. Rarely is it so obvious at the time. Memory makes the moment brighter and more significant.
For Johan, it will be so unlike any other.
He didn’t need years to know the truth of the moment. He didn’t need time to recognize the obvious.
This is his moment. Not the last day. Not the last year (although both did help greatly).
He is a child now, a boy regressed into the past, just as the last year had pulled him into the future. For every tear shed by Nixon as he carried off on a far northern breeze, Johan cried ten and then ten more. It was his home. They were his family. It is his right.
When the screams became whispers, the eyes ran dry and the unrelenting sadness became something more akin to unbridled rage; the afternoon had long passed, the moon was up again, and the evening was quiet.
There would be no scouts this night, although they were around. No clicking orbs or mechanical sentries.
Not tonight.
Something in his pain and loss transcended the space he lived in. It caused the world to recognize his situation and tilt its axis just enough to spin whatever trouble there was nearby away and avoid him.
There was no fire. There was no need. All feelings of hot and cold were lost to him. There would be no sleep, as sleep was apt to bring about that moment of wakefulness that recalls something that has happened without focusing on what it was. Such a momentary lapse and eventual realization was too much to endure again. He wanted to remember it all. To even forget for a second was an act beyond disrespect.
He would not sleep. He would not eat. Yet the world, in its infinite mercy, would continue to tilt and bend in such ways as to spare him the exhaustion and hunger he would have felt. The new day would see him strong and ready as if he’d slept for thousands of years and ate until the world ran empty.
The morning would see him for who he would be forevermore.
Two men. Brothers in arms against all the evils Hell saw fit to release on them. Now, one was likely dead.
He would carry only what he needed. Remember only what he must. Go to where he could do the most good and inflict the most damage. But now, the night must simply carry on. He could not slow time. He wouldn't even if he could. The farther from that moment, no matter how significant it was to the great and powerful man he would be, the better.
The Army of the Old were close now. The destruction they wrought was in the palm of his hand. There would be no mercy. There would be no draw. There will be no quarter given and none received.
But first, the night must come to allow the day ahead to follow.
Sitting in the wake of his suffering, Johan had only the faintest idea that it was all true. That small, powerful idea drove him forward and forced him to endure the pain.
He would endure. He must. For Tan Torna Qu-ay.
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Nixon could have very well carried on forever, winging his way to wherever it was he was able to go, but the larger one stirred. The one he was created and sworn to kill. He opted to touch down and let the inevitable flurry of useless questions and monumental arguments begin. The moment had to come eventually; it may as well be now, in the dark and stillness of the aftermath.
He went to the foothills of the Great Range before turning east and following the line the majestic rock towers created. If Crystal was still alive, it was a safe assumption that she would be in the same place as always, so that’s the direction Nixon turned.
He touched down in an open patch. The ground was a mix of grass, jutting rocks, and mossy surfaces. Not the most welcoming place to talk, but the sword-bearer wasn’t worthy of nice places in Nix’s mind.
He placed the lucky one down first, sure to make him as comfortable as possible. Judging by his breathing, it may be a while until he came around. It appeared his brain would require a little more time to reboot itself after all that had happened.
The other was a different story. He walked across the open space and set him down against a rock, back to a closed-in space to limit his chances to escape.
Nixon hadn’t understood much of what had happened to him since he’d awoken, but what he did know was that this was the sword-bearer, and young and inexperienced or not, he would not give him an inch until he had more information. Just because it appeared one way rarely made it so. Centuries of this hunt had made him far more suspicious of every situation as far as the target was concerned.
Once down, wings pinned beneath him, Nixon went the final step and removed the sword from his back. Nixon had no desire to keep it, his being just as powerful. He wanted it to give himself that much more of an advantage should things go south. He then walked back to the first boy, sat down on a small rock ledge, and waited as the other awoke.
The start of the groaning and twitching meant he would not have to wait long.
He removed his sword from the sheath softly, careful not to make any sudden movements. Held at the ready before him, Nixon took a deep breath and prepared himself for yet another situation he was completely unfamiliar with.
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Before there was anything else, there was pain. Deep pain unlike any he'd ever felt before. His ears rang, his eyes blurred, and his teeth ached. Also, he seemed to have fallen in a very uncomfortable position; twisted against a rock, pinning his wings beneath him.
Aryu felt like shit.
It was his head that hurt the most, like it was caught between the hammer and the anvil. Each heartbeat was agony, and they were plentiful.
It all rushed back to him in flashes: the arrival at Tan Torna Qu-ay, the angry crowd, Esgona, the machine-man and Sia, the abandonment of…of…
… Of his parents…
He remembered it all now, right up to the blinding rage that consumed him as he attacked the mechanical thing.
Dear God, were they really gone? Sia seemed too defeated to lie. Even now in the murky aftermath in his head, he remembered its annoying smugness and pleasant demeanor. Just the thought made him sick.
Had he been out long? Where was he? Had the beast taken him? Was he dead? How did he make the pain go away?
He propped himself up, trying to adjust his eyes before he realized that it was dark out. He made out what he could. He was on a rocky landing. Why? Where was the village? Had the thing destroyed it as promised?
He placed a foot underneath himself and started to rise very slowly, each strain making his throbbing head that much worse. At last, he gingerly made it to his feet. It was then he saw the crumpled body of someone across from him. He couldn't be sure, but it looked like Esgona as his eyes adjusted to the light.
Then he saw it.
It could have been a man, but it w
as like no man he'd ever seen. Even sitting he was huge. His eyes glowed like fire and his long hair shimmered red in the dark. It looked like black emptiness filled where clothes should be, causing his head and extremities to almost float in the poor light.
In his hands held before him was the largest sword Aryu had ever seen. He quickly became aware of his treasure being missing and the defenseless position he was suddenly in.
“Easy, lad,” the man-thing said softly. “I'd take a seat and relax a moment if I were you.”
The stranger spoke with an accent completely foreign to him. He caught the meaning of it, though. He fumbled back and found the outcrop he'd been propped up against, coming down on it with a force that seemed like tons.
“There's a good, lad. I can only wager how much tha’ noggin's hurtin' right now.”
Noggin? Aryu assumed that was his head and nodded slightly.
“What happened to the village?” he croaked out. “And my parents?” He became aware of the sensation of what he could only assume was blood trickling down the back of his neck. He then remembered the blow that felled him.
“Well, I’m sorry t’ say tha’ yer mechanical friend was speakin' the truth about his threat.”
Aryu thought it over, trying to remember the conversation. “So it's gone? They’re gone?”
He saw the nod as the glowing hair moved up and down, the burning eyes never losing their grip on him.
“I over'eard about yer missin’ parents as well. I'm sorry for yer family.”
Who was this thing, and why did he seem to care at all?
“So it’s true? About my parents?” No answer right away, as if the thing was studying him.