Ithaca itself was a producer of guns for the Corporation, and anyone caught illegally selling these was breaking the law. Black marketing of firearms was not allowed in the country. In fact, guns themselves were now branded illegal.
Those apprehended for selling weapons, well, today they would have a trial by combat. The gathering crowds were excited because the games were back and blood would run.
It had been a few years since the last crazy arena-based fight. The gathering crowds were more than a little pumped up, not only to bet but to also see such a deadly show. A ring announcer appeared on the edge of the lake, and all those sitting amongst the rocky gorge steps rose in excitement.
“Hear thee, hear thee. Today marks the return of the coveted trial by combat, here in Ithaca.” The speaker was a rather tall fellow, wearing a large purple top hat that he tipped to the crowd as he spoke. “The bets are all in, our esteemed guests are present, and I shall now proclaim…let the fights begin!”
He was correct; the Y-Wood guests were here. Robotic soldiers now appeared along the perimeters, all holding laser-like rifles. Drones in the sky also shot by, warning those thinking of interfering to lay low and stay out of the fighting arena.
The grounds were mostly roped off, leaving only small sections open over by a series of huge tents. This was where the fighters and handlers waited for the festivities to begin and rested in between fights.
The first criminal was now seen walking out and the crowd booed loudly.
Sitting in the stands, the nerdy errand man of President Purcell, Aaron Steele, was joined by the local rich guy. He asked the Y-Wood associate what the big deal was today and why so many members of his company were about.
Mr. Steele answered him. “Well, I have a special surprise for you today, my friend. You will witness the birth of Aliah. She is the company’s next champion-to-be!”
The scruffy town leader, who was no more than five-foot-five, scratched his thick beard and spat to the ground. “Oh, really. So, what is it this time? Another robot?”
Steele looked at him with a smirk. “I’ll let you see for yourself. She’s due to walk out any time now.”
The fighter already in the playing area was a burly fellow with more belly than muscle. He looked like a caveman, and though overweight, he was still solid-looking and had a mean scowl on his face that kept the audience booing at him with great enthusiasm.
Then, Aliah stepped out before the rope opening. The entire audience immediately stopped yelling and looked her way. An unusual silence descended over the lake shoreline. She was beautiful, with long, thick black hair. The woman had the body of a goddess and wore little to hide her assets. A breast plate and some black leather pants made up the entirety of her clothing. As she scanned the crowd, everyone noticed her bright, almost glowing green eyes.
Aliah strode into the arena, and the crowd slowly began clapping. Could this gorgeous woman actually fight? She spun her long sword about and grinned at the burly man before her. She wanted to kill something, anything, for all that she had been through. This guy would do just fine.
The waiting gorilla of a man, known locally as a crook, was called “The Boulder,” which was appropriate for his physique. He waited no longer than a second before charging at the slim, muscular woman.
No one could tell she was not fully human; her skin was perfectly flawless, and all witnessed her rippling abdominal section without thought of much else.
The company had designed her skin so as to not tear, which obviously meant she also would not bleed, so her construction was a secret that would only be kept for so long.
The Boulder approached her, brandishing a two-headed axe, with plans to stick it right at her before immediately trying to chop her head off.
Aliah leaned back so that the chopping axe blade just missed her pretty face.
But the cyborg woman was no longer human, and as the gorilla continued to swing his axe at her, she dodged and angled and suddenly back flipped out of the giant axe’s path. The audience was amazed at her dexterity and ooooed and ahhhhed at her sleek movements.
This little woman was toying with this brute of a man. He now bellowed out in rage, “I’m going to split you in two.” Again, he came slicing down at her head.
This time, she leaned to the left and brought a right uppercut to his jaw bone, causing the axe to miss completely. Stunned, he staggered backwards from the blow.
But he was not done. He charged back and swiped low in an attempt to remove the small woman’s legs.
Aliah’s mind could only vaguely remember her past, but there was something about her legs that sent a chill through her mind. She jumped over the swing and, as she landed, she immediately screamed out, “Thattttttttttt’s it,” as she cartwheeled over the man’s back. She landed behind him and launched at him with the heel of her foot, kicking him directly in his temple.
He staggered back again, but this time he dropped to one knee while trying to hold his balance. The Boulder was tough!
Aliah ran at him and sliced right across his chest.
The crowd screamed and roared as blood was spilled all about the rocks in Ithaca, New York. The gorilla man groaned out in pain at the sight of his serious injury. Seeming tired and frustrated, he slowly turned around with his axe raised in the air, still with hopes of cutting this young woman into several pieces.
But Aliah never gave him the chance. Spinning her sword in a figure-eight pattern, she knocked his axe aside and sliced directly across both sides of his neck in a frenzied attack.
The blade was Corporation steel, the finest in all the country, and his head flopped off to the rocks before the delighted crowd.
Aliah took no pleasure in entertaining these crowds for the Corporation. She simply left the playing surface and returned to the fighters’ tents.
Again, somewhere in the back of her mind—a brain with perhaps only one percent of its past life memories—she could only think of one thing: revenge. She wanted, needed retribution against all those who had wronged her. Straining to think, she tried desperately to manipulate her thoughts as to whom it was, the whys and the hows. But nothing came to her, not yet.
After a few more boring fights, she made her way back to the arena for one final match.
Her opponent was first to come in, and as the man stepped out from his own tent, the crowd gave out a great cheer. He was a rugged sort of guy, with tattoos all about his neck and cheeks and a noticeably long braided beard that split oddly down the middle at its end.
Some of the audience begin chanting, “Drucker, Drucker, Drucker."
The man she was supposed to be fighting, a man known to be a criminal, had reportedly killed himself in his tent when he realized he was due to fight the woman next. So a brave guy had come forth from the audience as a replacement, and it was he whom Aliah would fight. The people were glad he took up the mantle.
The volunteer’s crew was already looking to make money from the upcoming fight, but neither they nor he had any idea that the woman coming out to challenge him was Aliah herself—if she could even be called that anymore.
As she entered the battlefield, Aliah looked closely to the man who would be her next opponent. The jacked crowd were now anticipating a really kick-ass, exciting fight.
At first, she didn’t recognize who he was. That was until Drucker got closer and looked at her with a weird expression. “I don't believe it…it's you! What sort of a freak have you turned out to be?”
Those words echoed in Aliah’s mind, and suddenly, she knew who this man was: the savage that took her from her clan as a young girl, tortured her, and abused her.
There was no doubt what she was going to do to him, even when Drucker’s fighting partner emerged from the tents and marched to his buddy’s side.
It was a young man with dark hair, decent looks, and now a very puzzled face.
He, too, knew this woman. He swallowed harshly and cried out, “Aliah?”
It was her old friend, Bernar
do.
This fight suddenly became much more complicated. She remembered his face; maybe her brain was functioning far better than the doctors thought it could. Aliah had memories, they just needed to come out.
She didn't want to kill him. She remembered he was kind to her in the past. But she was programmed to destroy!
She had become what she was, and even now as she was flooded with odd thoughts about this situation, she was okay with it. Mainly because there was no other choice. She was a war machine now, and killing was just fine. After all, she hated life.
Her brain jumped about as her thoughts recalculated and evaluated. Kill. Wait. Leave. Each option entered her semi-artificial thought process one by one. She was a cyborg, but she still couldn’t quite comprehend her life’s mission and all that she was.
Drucker gave her no more time to think. He held in his hand a solid wooden club with gleaming spikes protruding out at all angles around the end. He waved it about with a wicked smile directed at Aliah. “I don’t know how you’re still alive or what you are, but today I’m going to take your life. I’m going to bash your brains in, and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.”
For his first move, he grabbed Bernardo and pushed the young man in front of his female opponent. It was a distraction, and Drucker used it to run right and then cut back at Aliah. He swung his spiked mace at Aliah’s face, but she managed to swerve at the last second.
Bernardo, almost frozen to the spot, held a sword like the woman in front of him. He gulped and cried out, “What have they done to you? Where is the kind young girl I once knew? Aliah, I’m so sorry.”
Aliah would deal with this blubbering man after the one attacking her now.
Drucker was back at her, smashing and whirling his mace in an effort to win at all costs. Aliah knocked the mace aside and ducked under another swing of his fist. Screaming out in anger, he wildly reared his mace back behind his head to gain more power.
This maneuver was a huge mistake, one that Aliah would make the most of as she drove her sword straight through his ribcage and into his heart.
Bernardo was left alone to fight. With a feeble effort, he raised his own sword in front of him, clearly frightened of the woman he was now faced with.
Aliah’s implanted brain chip instructed her to kill, to destroy, to finish the male before her.
The guy she had once known then stated, “I won’t let you do it. This is not you. Whatever these people have done to you…taken your soul…I dunno,” he muttered. “I won’t let them do it! It’s not you!” He then ran for the exit of the fighting arena.
The rules did not allow surrender in such a fashion.
As the young man neared the perimeter fence, a drone shot him down from above. His life was over.
Aliah stood in the center of the empty fighting pit. The stunned crowd didn’t know what to think. They had wanted more blood! For now, she would give them the blood they so badly desired. She’d deliver the death and crimson-stained fighting pit that all of fallen America wanted.
Oh yeah, Aliah would do the bidding of the Corporation. But one day in the future, she would have the ultimate revenge.
ROCKET’S
RED GLARE
We must pass through the darkness to reach the light.
– A Mystical Slayers Proverb
PRELUDE
The news over the airways was not something any of the women of the sisterhood wanted to hear. Governor Jerry Bends had now died. Cancer sucks!
The young computer wiz Jackson J had helped in setting up a special ceremony for the well-known political activist and freedom fighter, but the whole commencement had been interrupted by Godbot ships and the bombs that were dropped had killed him as well.
It was true more than ever now. The country was close to collapsing.
The land of opportunity had become a nation that had overused its resources through greed and authoritarian leadership. At first, wars decimated the North American region, but through it all, a tech company prospered. The Y-Wood Corporation produced many things, including robot workers that could be in places were humans could not, and, among many other things, kept the lines of communication open online. They soon became the new government.
But even the most powerful, the most prestigious, the most epic civilization, no matter who rules, eventually reaches its limits.
It was becoming well known that the robots of the one-time United States, who had been developed through centuries of research, had now begun to challenge their own kind their creators.
Those created just for war and battle were working out fine. Those created for knowledge and data, however, were adapting to become even more like humans than anyone would expect.
President Berlin Purcell, the current head of Y-Wood, had for some time now taken advantage of his most powerful bots to try and form a new leadership in a world that was constantly on the brink of failing.
But the people had already begun to hate Y-Wood, long before he took charge. Today there appeared to be a light at the end of the tunnel.
Suddenly the corporation was not the bad guy, the rogue Godbot had taken the mantle.
Purcell was more of a soldier than anything else. He had worked prior with past presidents as their field commander, a person who led battles and had military experience in such endeavors. But he was already using this situation to his advantage.
Everything the Godbot went about doing he had not acted to prevent it. Omagus was once part of Y-Wood, but he now was acting out beyond what anyone imagined. He wanted to run the world.
The super robot did his thing, forcing humans to be labeled gold, silver, or bronze. He gave each a position in old America, based on a lifestyle rating. For those who did not resist, this was easily accomplished. They were branded and put into the system. However, humans were not so easily corralled.
Most of the populace resisted.
So Omagus and his squadrons of red and black Martian bots went about forcing them into compliance.
Chemical attacks, gas chambers, forced labor, and assassination had come about all over the country.
Lowering the population was in full effect, and if you were against the Godbot, you could be next.
But humans fought back, and after weeks of this, even with deprecations being put into play, Omagus had become angry.
And that's when he decided to burn it all.
It is here we begin our fourth chapter in the Mystical Slayers Bravery series. For amongst the chaos of the two battling fractions, the women make their move.
And it will undoubtedly be a move of a lifetime.
CHAPTER ONE
Mahira had finally reached her turn in the grand scope of things. She was frothing at the mouth for the opportunity to strike out at the corporation and this vile Godbot.
She gathered her magical robotic-infused axe Free today while preparing to meet Victory to go over just what they were about to try and accomplish. The young Mystical Slayer had been through the proverbial ringer as of late, losing Governor Bends and her boyfriend as well had all but torn her heart into pieces.
She was back with the sisterhood and would not take no for an answer about joining the fiery red-headed gladiator on a most important mission.
Mahira unpacked Free, and immediately the axe’s eyes, blue in color, came to life.
“Well it's about time,” he announced. “I thought for a moment that I was going to have to sleep for centuries.”
The axe, an advanced, computerized creation, was a sentiment being. It could act on its own accord, and it was super intelligent. It’s database a bot with great intellect, but then again, it was a weapon of a fine nature as well.
Free waited for his owner to reply and that's when she told him, “Hey, don't blame me. I've been raring to go. Then again, they can only keep me in check so long. It’s time to rock and roll.”
“And what is it that will we be doing?” The axe asked, flashing its blue eyes with a pulsating effect.
Mahira was happy to talk with the sarcastic force that was Free. It meant they were ready for action, and it felt good.
“Well, you and I know if I tell you that, you're going to have all kinds of thoughts, and try to stick your face in everything that we're going to do. So, I think I'm just going to keep that secret.”
The axe was quiet for a few moments. Then he simply said, “So you're going to defeat the God of all robots without my input?”
Mahira smiled, picking the axe up and looking directly into its interface eyes.
“No, actually, I'm going to defeat the God of all robots along with the most horrid of evil black killing robots as well. And, in addition those two, I have my eyes on a supreme Corporation-created cyborg killing machine as well. How’s that sound?”
Free started laughing in what would be a most awkward laugh. It was a snicker of sorts, that was choppy and loud.
He then pointed something out. “I've done a quick calculation on the odds of you succeeding and I have to admit my darling; they're pretty low.”
“Oh, really?” the gladiator called-out. “What if I was to tell you that we're going to try to use each one of them against each other. Would that increase our odds? The sisterhood is smart, ya know!”
Free took very little time in calculating such. “I would have to say that that would increase the chances considerably. That is if you could pull such a heavy feat off! But, then again, there's the aspect of how you're going to go about doing that.”
Mahira nodded. “Yes, that's definitely going to be the issue. But you know what, Free? We have little time to waste, and we’re just going to have to wing it if need be.”
Free ran the words “wing it” through his data base. Tyne Gem and Staycee, the sisterhood’s main computer system, had given the axe a worthy system indeed.
“Victory will be here soon and when she arrives, we'll be off,” Mahira then added.
Free still was running data and soon he concluded that “winging it” was not particularly a good thing.
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