Sigma/Star

Chapter 77: Tendrils of Agony

"I would be happier if you were dead Syn, and you know that."

"You would be happier if everything was dead. You're no fun at all." Syn hovered around Sigma, observing the cyborg from every angle.

"Isn't that your endgame here Syn?" Sigma brushed the android aside as if he were swatting away a fly, but Syn persisted on his watching.

"What?" Syn burst out into laughter, clutching his gut as if his stomach could hurt. "Kill everything? But then what would I kill after that? No, no, what's the fun of killing everything if you run out of things to kill? That's why you do it slowly and draw it out. That's like eating all the tasty foods in the world as fast as you can. You run out of tasty food and then what do you do? You starve or eat the garbage food. And what's the point of that? There is no point, that's what!" Syn said, answering his own question matter-of-factly. "You, on the other hand, are the kind of person who kills everything because it looked at you wrong. So moody and grumpy all the time, always brooding over something or another."

"A lot of things have happened to me Syn," Sigma spat, trying to look away from his enemy.

"And you think the rest of us have blank slates? Thing happen Sigma, things happen a lot. But there's no point in lingering on it. Take it in, let it pass through you, and rip the flesh from the next person you meet. Do what you think is fun, and don't worry about the last thing that happened to you."

"Is that what happened to the general then?" Sigma nodded downwards to the corpse of McCormack, which was being taken off the battlefield by Enian Goliaths. Most of the other battlesuits were going through a similar retrieval process in order to recover as many components as possible from the expensive warmachines. McCormack's in particular had a certain following on it, as fans surrounded it and gave the general a proper ceremony. An identical homage was being paid to the Artisan general Tourac whose blood had also been spilled by Syn.

"I'm quite proud of those two. Isn't it funny? They thought they could settle a score in the middle of a war? They were just so unique, so alluring. They were having so much fun and I wanted to join too and I did but their fun just isn't the same as mine. They don't understand it like I do. So I solved their problems for them. They wanted to know who the best was. The best was me."

Sigma's hand shot out and his fingers wrapped around Syn's throat. "It isn't fun what you do to people Syn."

"And you think what you did is?" Syn giggled as Sigma tightened his grip and the white cyborg pointed downwards at the remains of the Bahari that littered the ground. "What about those Bahari you killed? They don't get feelings too? They aren't considered humans? Some of them looked kind of human you know. Some of them might have had emotions and you killed them too. How is that different?"

Sigma's eyes narrowed but he lacked an answer and tossed Syn aside, watching the android tumble through the air before straightening out. He knew it would be pointless to engage with Syn at this point, especially because he needed to flee this area and go back into hiding. Any prolonged time spent here in combat with Syn would just give his enemies more time to come find him and attempt to restrain him. Besides, the two androids were far two even from Sigma's computations. A fight between them would go on for hours, for days, possibly for years before a winner could be determined, and the most likely ending was that both would reach a state too battered to continue.

There was a sudden drop in temperature between the two robots. Tiny particles of moisture began to freeze and crystallize, hovering in the air. Beneath them Irina was rising up on a pillar of ice, chunks of frozen water swirling around the Jabberwocky. Within the cockpit, Irina's fury was blazing out of her body, coating the machinery around her in a thin layer of ice. Her Goliath was specially designed to sustain extreme colds, specifically unnaturally produced ones, and retained functionality as it froze over.