Sigma felt a pulse as his hand discharged a massive beam of purple light that cut a swathe across the battlefield, burning through Bahari after Bahari and leaving them standing in halves or with gaping holes in their bodies before they collapsed simultaneously. There was a moment of human shock in Sigma's mind at the power he wielded for someone only slightly larger than a human to be taking down these monstrosities that were as big as buildings. Then the computer mind took over once more and the feelings were gone.
The Jahari forces were quickly receding with Sigma and Syn's presence. The twin androids had cut down most of the approaching army, though Syn had also caused significant damage to the Artisans and Enians. He seemed to toy with them more, enjoying the emotional reactions of the pilots and the psychological damage he caused. When he killed the Jahari it was an efficient slaughtering but the human soldiers he lingered on.
This playfulness had shifted Sigma's original calculations, causing the Jahari to be reduced much faster than anticipated, and with far fewer losses in terms of soldiers. Still, Sigma was disgusted by his cyborg compatriot. How could anyone take joy in so much death? Where was the entertainment in ending lives like this? Sigma felt nothing close to happiness in what he was doing; he felt nothing at all. There was only a coldness that overwhelmed the android's body, that blocked out the fragments of his human components. At this moment, his computer portions dominated the rest of his brain, driving forward his actions.
Another purple beam shredded through flesh and bone, incinerating a wave of Bahari. The battle was over though. It was quite obvious that the Jahari armies were retreating, their numbers rapidly depleted by the twin cyborgs. The massive flying worms were dropping from the sky, diving back down into the Earth and burrowing once again, with Jahari soldiers latching onto the sides and moving with them. Sigma was simply picking off remaining stragglers on the battlefield at this point.
A cheer went through the different communication networks and praises to various gods and saints travelled on invisible waves between the Goliaths, soldiers, and warships. Enian and Artisans alike were embracing one another, giving out hugs, handshakes, high-fives, and a variety of other celebratory gestures. This was a battle against a myth, a former wives' tale, that had just been won. The creatures they had successfully fought off were not like anything that could be found on the surface of the Earth, and the psychological effects of engaging with the Jahari would not be known for many years after the war. But for now, it was only jubilation.
Sigma heard the rush of air as Syn flew up to float next to him, and together the two watched the humans beneath them. Had the androids not intervened, Sigma wondered, would this victory have even been possible? It was fairly probably, his computer mind instantly answered, but the armies would have been decimated by the conflict.
Syn wiped blood off his body, staring at Sigma's eyes with great interest. "Not going to rub in a victory are you? That's sportsmanship isn't it?"
"There was no victory here Syn. People died by your hands and I could not save them. That is no win."
"But in the grand scheme it was a victory no? I mean yes, people died, but you still come out successful in your endeavours. We had a competition and you won it by the rules set in place."
"It was created by you, and was always set up for me to win and lose at the same time."
"You're so smart Sigma, so smart. But I feel like you are just putting too much thought into it." Syn leaned back, placing his hands behind his head as he relaxed in the air. "Isn't it possible that I just wanted to have some fun? Why would I be putting so much effort into this? That's not fun. Fun isn't about planning or thinking or calculating. Fun is about running out into this big playground called the world and doing whatever comes to mind. It's about looking down at these humans running around and doing the first thing you can think of. Don't linger on it or worry about it. You just do it. Just do it Sigma. Act and perform and kill and murder or fly around in circles. I don't care, do whatever makes you happy."
"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.
Sigma let out a sigh and his mind began to hack into the Jabberwocky's control systems. Syn lazily shifted an eye downwards to watch the approaching general. As soon as he recognized her, his demeanour brightened a little. "Look Sigma, the playmates come to me now! They love me!"
"No more playing today Syn. We had our agreement, it's over now." As Irina finished her ascent, the movement systems in her Goliath locked, shut down by Sigma's remote access. Her battlesuit immediately sent out a distress signal to be retrieved, all outside of her control. "Go home Irina," Sigma commanded, attempting to soothe the anger of the general. A little portion of him felt pity for her, connecting with her terrible loss. The rest of Sigma was busy putting priorities first, with the number one being leaving as quickly as possible.
"You will not be leaving here alive you monster," Irina growled, her barbaric side taking over her mind. "I will kill you and eat your metal heart."
Syn did a little backflip at hearing this, a beaming smile plastered across his face. "I like this one Sigma, I like this one a lot. Turn her back on and let me toy with her for a little before we have to go."
The android shook his head for a response, folding his arms like a strict parent. He wasn't sure how it had come to this but he seemed to have some sort of minimal sway over Syn's actions at this moment. "Turn her back on?" Irina echoed. She tried to manipulate the controls on her machine, realizing only then that she had been shut down. "No..." she mumbled, her anger beginning to burn out and turn into sadness. The two mixed together into a crying rage in her cockpit. "No, no, no, no, no! No, turn it on! I must get my hands on his throat! I have to feel his body crushed between my fingers! No!"
"I'm leaving Syn, and so are you." Sigma turned his back on Irina, already detecting the approaching vessels meant to pick up both her and the rogue cyborgs. "Our time is running out here now that the Jahari are gone. I'm back to public enemy number one."
"You see what I'm talking about?" Syn began babbling again, floating alongside Sigma as the two drifted away from the enraged Irina. "You think and think and throw fun out the window. I could have my fingers in her cheeks right now, drawing little red lines on her body and feeling the warmth on my skin." Sigma paused for a bit as he heard the last part of the sentence, wondering if Syn actually felt anything or if it was all in the psycho's mind. "You could be there two, slicing her apart with that little laser of yours. It would be much neater and cleaner but the artistry, oh the artistry! It would be so wonderful the pain you could inflict with your weapons."
Sigma stopped and held his hand up to Syn's face, the palm glowing gently with a pulsing purple light. "Enough out of you, I have to get the hell out of here and you're done here too. For now you can run free but you can't go back there." Syn nodded, hanging his head as he sulked about the situation. With things finally silent, Sigma could hear the remains of the battlefield far beneath him, and the stirrings of the earth as the Jahari retreated underground. There was one noise in the middle though that did not belong, something beneath the dirt that was going the wrong way, approaching quickly, bursting up through the earth.
* * * * *
Ur'wrath smelled them. He could taste their metal bodies in the air that filtered down through the cracks above his head. The initiation force had been successful, drawing out the two android weapons like insects to light. Yes there had been horrific casualties but the victory that could be insured if Ur'wrath killed the two cyborgs was worth every fallen Jahari soldier. A million more lives could be tossed away if it meant winning was guaranteed. And they had far more than a million more lives at their disposal.
The Bahari passed through the earth as though it were water, his massive body hardly noticing the dirt he pushed aside. The sun hit his eyes, temporarily blinding him as he adjusted his vision from the dark light. His momentum carried him up into the air for a moment before he felt his feet touching the ground once again. His sight reset, letting him survey the mass destruction from the recent conflict. Ur'wrath held a moment of silent respect for his fallen comrades but the hive urged him forward, absorbing his emotions and spreading them to each other Jahari mind. They would all mourn together, taking out the burden of emotional weight and distributing it among the masses so that each carried a tiny piece of feeling with them.
Above in the air were the two androids. The hive recognized them, identified them for Ur'wrath, and advised him. While his consciousness may have been independent, he still listened to the whispers in his ears and followed them diligently. While he may have collected his own knowledge, the hive still knew much more than he ever would and so he always bowed in respect to it. In this case, he was being shown the enemies were indeed within his grasp. How he chose to deal with them, however, was entirely up to him, and for this he was eternally grateful to the hive's choosing of him.
Ur'wrath raised his hands up into the air and holes opened in the centres of his palms, revealing rows of teeth travelling down the interior of the arm. From the middle of the holes came a multitude of tendrils with tiny barbs at the ends. They writhed in the air, sprouting outwards and upwards until Ur'wrath directed them towards his targets. As if they had their own minds, the tentacles shot up towards the cyborgs, each one trying to move just slightly faster than the others, wrapping around one another and weaving in between themselves. They were hungry to taste the metallic flesh of Sigma and Syn.
A/N: Ur'wrath has finally found the Sigma to begin a unique conflict between monster and machine. Can Sigma escape in time from the Jahari and the Enian forces, or will he be brought back into submission?