Both Mael and I were frozen, watching as Marcin Grom, clutching my brother Lucius Varden, dragged him down the cliff. We both wanted to watch the chaotic fight that was about to unfold down there, driven by curiosity, apparently... But if there was another fight brewing, it was going to be the one between us.
Suddenly, Mael aimed his gun at me. He was just about to squeeze the trigger when, in a burst of speed—which I owed to my advanced enhanced features—I covered the few steps between us, grabbed his hand from underneath, and forced the gun up. As Mael fired blindly into the air, I drove a punch into his stomach.
He didn't react. He grabbed me by the throat. I lunged for his weapon and squeezed the trigger. It fired into the air. I stopped grasping the hand that held the gun. I tried to grab his throat too, but it was futile... Although I was a powerful enhanced, the man opposite me was an absolute freak, and his strength was superhuman. He aimed the weapon straight at my head and fired. But there was no reaction. While he moved to squeeze my throat, I had already dropped the magazine, causing him to fire another blank shot into the air. Clearly, no one knew weapons better than me.
He struck my face hard with the butt of the pistol. A normal person's nose would have shattered. Mine was only fractured. Yes... I felt quite pathetic in that moment. Since he was taller than me, my feet were dangling as he squeezed my neck. I couldn't push off the ground. Punching his stomach or face didn't seem to faze him much.
I took another blow to the face from the gun. A ridiculous smile spread across Mael's face. He thought he had beaten me, that he was superior. Perhaps, in raw physical strength, he was. But there was a reason why the Weisshafen enhancements were the most expensive.
One of the computer consoles was not far from me. I slammed my fist hard into the computer. Electricity covered my hand as it plunged into the machine. I transferred that electricity to my other wrist and slammed another hard punch into Mael's abdomen. Mael flew back to the capsule, his skin smoking from the electric shock.
But everything was just beginning. I sniffled, blood dripping to the ground from my bleeding nose. I waited for Mael to stand up. Smoking, Mael looked at me. Now it was my turn to smile. As I unleashed the electric arcs coiling around my wrist upon Mael like whip lashes, he lay twitching and trembling on the ground. It was a beautiful and pleasurable sight, until the electricity connected to the computer suddenly cut out. The charge inside must have run out. I began walking slowly toward the smoking Mael.
"Ah... You're strong, but not strong enough, Mael. Don't you know the Weisshafens have the most advanced enhancements?" I said, gesturing with my hand to my body, which felt perfect at that moment. "Do you have any idea how much this damned thing costs?"
Mael was writhing in pain. Still smoking, he trembled as he tried to stand. "No..." he managed to say.
"Did I hear 'no'?" I asked, turning my ear toward him. "Ah... Sorry, friend, but you never stood a chance."
"I don't know how much it costs. Because..." he said, putting his hand on the ground and trying to straighten up. His knees were shaking uncontrollably. "...because I built my own enhancements."
Seeing his trembling knees, I felt pity for the man opposite me. "Please don't... I don't want to beat you up anymore."
"Ah..." he said, looking at me with a bloodied nose. "...but I want to beat you up."
Then, he vanished. Just like that... It took me a moment to realize it wasn't an illusion, but that the man was invisible. If I had lunged forward and grabbed him the instant he disappeared, I might have had a chance. Still, I threw a punch, but it hit nothing. Damn it! I was too late!
"Invisibility?" The sky was red, but the ground seemed to have darkened considerably. How was I supposed to see him in this damned, already-dark temple? "This is absurd! What, do you have a genetic mutation? Or are you carrying invisibility technology? Both are ridiculous... You couldn't have made this yourself!"
"Is that so?" a voice said. I threw a punch toward the sound, but a strike to my knee unbalanced me, and then a punch hit my chest. I threw another punch. A hand grabbed my fist, and a punch landed on my throat. My breath was knocked out. "I couldn't have made it myself? But you seem to forget... I am a Custodian! If you only knew what kind of inheritances I've discovered, what secrets I've brought to light... I am blessed with the radically different technologies of other alien races across star systems."
I narrowed my eyes. If I focused on the smoke rising from him, maybe I could somehow counter him. I searched for the smoke with my eyes...
I took another hit to the back. I tried to strike back with my elbow, but a kick to my back sent me tumbling to the ground face-first. I flipped and stood, spinning around on the ground with a kicking motion. I was waiting for my foot to hit something when a very hard kick struck my mouth. I could feel my head embedding itself in the soil. Probably a few brain cells died right there.
I felt immense pressure on my stomach. I knew he was standing on me, but my strength wouldn't be enough against him.
"You're expensive... which is why you're durable. But how much longer can you last?" Mael said, pressing down on my stomach. He was pressing so hard that I could feel everything in my abdomen slowly moving toward my mouth.
"Master Aldoux!" a voice shouted.
I glanced over and noticed a colossal robot at the entrance of the temple's cave. This three-meter-tall robot was scraping the ground as it passed through the cavern. Velsil was inside the robot's glass cockpit. I was about to shout to Velsil, 'Watch out, there's an invisible man!' when Mael covered my mouth. All I could do was writhe and make strange grunting sounds.
"Aren't you happy to see me?" Velsil asked. "I wanted to show you the toy I've been working on for years, you know. Where is Lucius Varden?" She tried to straighten up, but her back hit the cavern ceiling, causing her to fall face-first to the ground. "I left before him, but I hadn't added jets to this robot. I've been running, jumping, and climbing for a long time. I hope I'm not too late." She tried to straighten up once more. "Sir... why aren't you moving at all? Are you... are you paralyzed? I should take you back to the facility immediately."
Velsil was talking so incessantly that she couldn't hear me writhing in pain on the ground. Yet, I was pounding the ground with my hands, trying to scream and make noise as much as possible. "Go back, Velsil!" I had screamed countless times, but with my mouth covered, no sound escaped. I could only feel my throat becoming raw.
"Sir..." Velsil said, after getting closer. "...please do not make any sudden movements." Suddenly, a missile shot out from the mechanical robot Velsil was piloting and fired. The missile came straight toward me and struck Mael.
As Mael was flung away by the missile's explosion, the heat enveloped my entire body. "Sir, are you okay?" Velsil asked, charging toward me with her robot. I stood up, my face and mouth covered in burns. "No problem..." I said. "...that was a bit of a hard blow, but I can endure it, don't worry."
"Sir... your nose and mouth..." I brought my hand to my face. Indeed, my nose was gone. It looked like it had been incinerated. There was a huge hole on my cheek, opened by the burned skin.
"I feel like I can't breathe, Velsil," I said. "It's psychological, but... it's difficult, you know?"
"Don't worry, sir. I'll carry you back to the facility."
"No!" I said and stood up. "Not yet..." I ran my hand over my face, realizing my hair was still burning, and extinguished it. My eyebrows were burned to ash. It was a good thing I had closed my eyes before the missile hit, or I could have been blind. "...how did you realize I was captured?"
"I was talking too much when I saw you, and you didn't tell me to shut up!"
"Damn it..." I said. "From now on, I'll tell you to shut your mouth whenever you talk too much! Why did you fire that cursed missile? I could have died there."
"I pressed the wrong button, sir. I was actually going to spray bullets, not fire a missile."
"You're amazing, Velsil... Amazing!" Then I stomped my feet on the ground in anger. "You're so amazing that I now look like a character somewhere between Voldemort and a Ghoul."
"I apologize, sir!"
"It's alright, Velsil. I'm just having a short-term nervous breakdown from all the beating I took. I hope I can connect to a healing robot soon. Ah... by the way, let's go check on our friend who took a missile."
Mael was now a man buried in a small crater. As we approached him with heavy steps, I expected a completely shredded body, but what we found was a man covered in bruises and burns, yet whole. Yes... all his biological parts were burned, and his mechanical parts were short-circuited, but how was he in one piece? Although astonishing, this worked out for us. This man named Mael dying was not in our interest. I wanted to interrogate him.
"You... How are you not dead, you son of a bitch!" I said. His severed arm was a few meters away. His jaw was detached and had dropped. His burned tongue was visible. Even breathing seemed like a miracle to me.
"This is so disgusting..." Velsil said, retching.
"Don't retch, Velsil. Do you have your first-aid kit with you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then put your hand on our friend and open your cockpit's window for me." Velsil placed both hands of her colossal robot on the man. Then, climbing a ladder made of metal bars dangling from the robot, I entered the open cockpit. Velsil was busy with many screens and levers. I reached for the bag behind her and grabbed a wound-freezing spray. I sprayed it all over my face and many other places.
"Ohhh..." I sighed deeply.
"Sir..." Velsil said.
"Yes, my dear."
"How much longer do I have to stand like this?" Velsil was stressed, as if she were holding the man with her own hands, while the robot's hands were on him. She was sweating profusely.
"This man's death is no use to us. We will make him talk when the time comes," I said, descending from the cockpit. "Don't take your hand off him... Don't worry, he can't lift a giant robot. If this man tries anything that threatens you, don't hesitate to shoot him in the head... He is not more valuable than you."
"Of course, sir..."
My heart ached when I saw the trembling in Velsil's voice and body. I quickly ran and picked up my backpack from the ground. I took out the plush rabbit from my bag, showed it to Velsil, and threw it into the cockpit. Velsil took the rabbit into her lap and said:
"This is Mr. Maji... I made him for you..."
"I didn't know he had a name. You never told me. Anyway... Mr. Maji will help you, alright?"
"Thank you, sir," she said, hugging the plush rabbit. "But... but I made Mr. Maji to bring you luck..."
"I don't need luck," I said and showed my face. "I must have used up all my bad luck."
"What will you do now?"
"I'm going to help my brother. Wait here until I return or until the others come for help, okay? You're amazing, sweetheart... I'm leaving."
When I reached the edge of the cave, I scanned the distance with my binoculars. They had to be somewhere far away. So I slowly looked around. Finally, I could see two maniacs flying and punching each other. They were not very far, but we were very high up compared to them. If I wanted to quickly go and help my brother, I had to descend fast. The best way to do this was with my grappling gun.
I opened my bag and began modifying my weapon. I had a hook that I had taken from mountaineers who roamed Terranova's mountains. This hook could carry any weight. It could also adjust itself to many different points depending on the pressure applied to the trigger. It could easily lift me up as well as lower me down.
I found a solid rock. I tied the hook's tip to the rock. It was extremely important that the gun didn't slip from my hand, or everything would be in vain, and I would bid farewell to this world with a sudden death. So, to better grip the weapon, I replaced the handle with a leather one, and I tied the gun to both my arm and my waist with a rope I found in one of Mael's crates.
As I slowly lowered myself, there was an endless abyss beneath my feet. At some point, I would have to swing and grab one of the rocks on the opposite side.
"Please... God, please help," Velsil said, trembling with fear. "I wish... I wish Sister Ilya had piloted this damned robot. She..." She swallowed. "...she knows how to act braver in these situations."
Mael started to writhe. But it was impossible for him to get up from beneath the two massive metal hands he was lying under.
Velsil still felt stressed. To be safe, she started pressing the metal hands down onto the man. As the man's painful screams came one after another, Velsil became more and more flustered. But next to her panic about the man escaping, she didn't seem to care much about his pain. It didn't take long for the man to silence himself despite the pain.
Then, despite his jaw being gone, something very clearly audible came from the man's mouth. "VFA-210! Wake up!"
Velsil didn't know what this meant, but the man's shout terrified her. "Please shut your mouth!" Velsil shouted into the microphone. "Or I'll hurt you even more!"
"210! Wake up! 210! 210! 210!" As he maniacally repeated the numbers, Velsil was crushing the man even harder when one of Mael's crates tipped over. The fallen crate bounced a few times in place. The body of the metal crate shattered, and a yellow box emerged from inside.
This yellow box had a black dot on it. That must have been its eye. As this yellow box soared into the air with the jets underneath it, Velsil finally understood what this box was. It was a... a drone assistant. "210!" Mael shouted. "Destroy that woman!"
"Sir, you might die too..."
"Just do it!"
Velsil's weapons turned toward the drone. The drone, in turn, aimed the hand it pulled out from underneath itself toward Velsil. "No!" Velsil shouted, and as she fired missiles at the drone, the drone fired the laser from its finger. With a huge explosion, the only thing that spread across the area was pain.
The force of the explosion nearly ripped the hook of my gun from the rock it was attached to. As the hook swung me, I lifted my head and looked at the sky. From the black smoke spreading into the sky, I could tell how massive the explosion had been.
"Damn it!" I said. My heart had leaped into my mouth with the sound of the explosion, but as soon as I started to calm down, Velsil came to mind. "Velsil!" I shouted. I pressed the trigger of my gun and pulled myself up instantly. I detached the grappling hook head of my gun and mounted a shotgun head. I slung the gun over my shoulder and started running toward the smoke.
Black smoke was rising from a small crater. The dense plumes of black smoke made visibility zero. "Damn it! No!" I shouted into the smoke, but the only response was the black smoke constricting my throat. I shielded my face with my hand and started walking through the smoke. "No! No! Velsil! Velsil! Are you okay?"
The smoke finally began to clear due to the wind, and I started to see several figures amidst the black smoke: "You were always like this, Aldoux!" said my brother Lucius. "You were lucky..." he said, shrugging his shoulders. "...you always get yourself into trouble, and whenever you're in the worst moment of your life, you constantly find someone to step out and save you."
I ignored the mind games the smoke was playing and dropped to my knees toward the site of the explosion. Velsil's robot was shattered. The pieces were so hot that I could feel my enhanced skin burning with every piece of metal I touched. As I lifted a metal piece with my hand and tossed it aside, the image of my sister Inze flashed before my eyes. I was trying to pull her out of the fiery heaps, trying to save her from the ashes too. My mind... my mind, which had been with me for hundreds of years, was finally showing me the pain. It must have finally grown tired of me and what I had lived through, and now it was playing its last card. It was trying to drive me mad. Was the madness I had wished for years ago, before Belladona rescued me, finally arriving?
My palm was burning from the heat and starting to bleed as I lifted another piece of metal and tossed it aside. I probably broke a few ribs while throwing that massive metal piece, but it didn't matter... "Velsil! Please don't, Velsil..." I wanted to cry again, but once again, the cursed scorching heat prevented my tears from welling up. With the pain stuck in my throat, I lifted another piece of metal and threw it away. "Please don't, Velsil!"
Isolde passed before my eyes. She was living a perfectly happy life until I entered it. All the suffering she went through was because of me. I... I ruined her life, just as I ruined Velsil's. I... I was nothing more than a cursed plague.
Finally, I came face-to-face with a shattered body. Velsil was looking at me, severed from the torso down. Her pupils were flickering; perhaps there was still life somewhere inside her, but she was definitely not living. She was definitely dead... It was only muscle memory that made her move. I reached my hands toward the woman's burned body and tried to cradle her. "Velsil! I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have left you alone! It's not your fault. It's... my—my stupidity!"
I hugged Velsil's body tightly. I didn't care that her burned skin was sticking to mine. I didn't care that her bones were digging into my body. I wanted to hug her as tightly as possible. If she still had consciousness, I wanted the feeling she felt not to be the pain of burning or her severed limbs, but the crushing grip of my embrace. Before she died, I wanted to hold her as tightly as I could, if necessary, to contain her within myself.
"Aldo..." Velsil's voice said. I noticed something dropped into my lap. It was the leg of her plush animal. Even the plush animal must have been torn to pieces by the edge of the explosion. As I held the coal-black, blood-covered leg in my hand, I realized Velsil had closed her eyes. I was crying, stained with tears, mournful, and in agonizing pain. I was crying, looking at a body torn apart by my helplessness against the cruelty of this cursed life.
I... I never wanted to let go of Velsil. I wouldn't accept her death. I would hug her there forever. If... if I hugged her forever, I wouldn't be leaving her, would I? Her last breath as she died would stay with me forever, wouldn't it? I didn't have to leave her, like I left Isolde or Inze.
I picked Velsil up in my arms. I was... I was going to take her back to the facility. "Don't worry... I'll take you home," I said. As I moved away from the flames, my tears finally managed to leave their sockets. The tears flowing down my heat-scorched face carried the comfort and coolness of heaven with them. But Velsil was dead. No matter how much immortality existed, death was not something that could be reversed. Humans had learned to escape death, not defeat it.
Then I heard a sound. As I lowered Velsil to the ground, I suddenly threw my hand to the left and grabbed something.
"How?" Mael shouted. He had been moving around invisibly, but when I suddenly grabbed his throat, he was taken aback and his invisibility broke. His left arm was gone, his body was shattered and covered in burns. But the claws on his right hand were ready to pierce me. Half of his face was torn away, and one eye was out of its socket. Mael's tone of voice was no different from a monster's.
"Wickedness..." I said in a certain tone. My teeth were nearly breaking from clenching them. "...is predictable!" I added. "I was born with wickedness... I lived with wickedness, and I worked with wickedness. I was at the table when demons made deals, I was in their mansions when devils made treaties. I am a member of the worst family in the galaxy, and I worked for one of the worst women on that planet."
Mael, unable to breathe, struck my arm with his clawed hands. I couldn't hold his throat, and he turned invisible and fell to the ground. But since I could estimate where he fell, I immediately grabbed my rifle and fired. I hit him right in the leg joint. Even though he was invisible, I felt like I could now predict where and how he would escape.
"The wicked always try to do the cleverest thing." Mael was invisible, but I felt like I knew where he would run. He would probably lunge toward one of the crates and look for a weapon. I pointed my weapon there, then changed my mind. He would want to stab me from behind. He thought of himself as quite clever and cunning. I immediately turned around and fired. The bullet exploded in his mouth. I enjoyed seeing his jaw rip off, even if it was just for a second. As I reloaded my weapon: "The wicked are selfish; they don't want harm to come to them. The wicked are egoists; they always want to be the best," I shouted.
It was pretty obvious where he would go this time. My predicting him being behind me had scared him. He wouldn't fight bravely. He would try to escape. I turned toward the cave leading to the temple exit and fired. I hit him in the back. He fell to the ground face-first and was no longer invisible.
"I... I'm not just wicked!" he shouted. "I have a cause!"
"The others said the same thing," I said, waiting over his head with my rifle. "The others always had an excuse." And I pulled the trigger. What spread out before me were electrical cables scattered among pieces of flesh.