Machine
I stepped forward, fully committing. My stance shifted from a low crouch to a bladed, upright pose.
My left arm blurred as I flicked out a feint. His rage had demolished his focus. Yet a machine wasn't to burn in the heat of battle. I can assume only perfection equal to my own from this one.
My sensors spotted the first signs of motion in his shoulder, and I knew that he had done the same with mine.
I ducked down, body folding into all fours. The malicious head of his mace flew overhead and smashed into the altar, instantly reducing it to an aerosolized mist of sawdust.
I pounced, my right elbow thrust forward and crashed into his jaw. His head snapped sideways, but his plating was hardly dented. His armor was thicker than mine, far thicker.
"Insolent scrap. You aren't worthy of laying your profane hands on me." He roared, his left foot planted, and my eyes caught his intent. I leaned back as he swapped his grip and threw an overhead strike.
I knew that he had probably predicted my intent. I was still in reach. As the mace plummeted, I swept my right wing upwards.
I couldn't match the raw force, but I could redirect it. The metal head flew off its chosen path and shattered the stone by my feet.
My fist flew again. This time he leaned his head to the side, narrowly avoiding it. But he didn't know about my blade.
The scything edge popped out and drew synthetic blood. He leaned away, but I had scored a deep horizontal gash along his face.
He leapt backwards, a low snarl ripping through his jaw. "You… You can't do this. It's unholy."
I produced a handful of nails and dropped them on the floor. "Is it not unholy to allow your flock to feast on the flesh of angels?"
He tossed his mace aside and clamped all four upper limbs together. The metal fused before reforming into an array of rotary cannons. "I renounced violence. I reprimanded them verbally; their sin is their own."
"Yet you threatened me the moment I entered and were the first to draw a weapon," I barked out another chuckle.
"Shut up, quiet." His guns blazed. Yellow tracers thundered through the air. I leapt diagonally and dug my claws into the wall. The stream of bullets left massive steaming holes in the brick; they punched through the wooden pews and chopped upwards towards me as he swung the weapons. "I'll make you silent."
I dove to the other wall. It was a bad call. I underestimated the speed of his limbs. Bullets shredded the plating of my chest and sent me crashing to the floor.
I shot upwards and produced a revolver. He speared the barrels downwards, exactly where my head had been. His eagerness to finish the kill caused him to overextend.
I shot the powerful handgun straight into his forehead. He stumbled, the puncture wound in his head glaring at me almost hatefully.
His guns pulled apart and his arms reformed. I raised my guard to defend against the machine-gun-like wave of fists he unleashed.
They seemed to come from every angle; the metal of my arms was unable to resist for long. Cracks had begun forming.
However, we were standing exactly where I thought we would be. I dropped my guard, gave him an opening.
I threw myself sideways; the iron of his knuckles cleaved away a massive chunk of armor from my shoulder. Blood poured, wires sparked. But I could move.
I shot once. The bullet struck the nails I had dropped before and ricocheted off. It bounced off the wall, then the ceiling, then finally it tapped G-2's side with almost zero force.
His lenses caught it. For the briefest moment, he pulled his gaze away from me. My body shifted, my stance adjusted, and I unleashed a dreadful left uppercut.
He bucked sideways as the force pierced into him. A fresh wave of blood dribbled through his teeth, and I knew then my blow had been effective.
My right fist fell into a massive haymaker. It crushed his face; his body stumbled back, but he kept his balance. His shattered teeth crumbled before new ones began to reform. The glass of his lenses fragmented, and he bored into me with empty sockets.
I didn't waste my chance. My nanomachines reformed the revolver into a submachine gun. I sprayed him as I ran; the tiny bullets bounced harmlessly off his frame, but they weren't meant to cause harm, only confuse his other senses as I got closer.
I sprinted up the wall and sprung down. I tossed the submachine gun at his face, and he parried it away, dropping his hand as he swept it.
My right leg swung at his skull like a rocket-powered baseball bat and cracked into his cheek. His jaw dislocated under the titanic impact.
He zeroed in on my position. But without his sight, he failed to see the impact grenade I threw at him.
He tried to parry it away, unable to discern its design. It exploded on contact and demolished his upper right hand, scraping away his paint and removing several fingers.
I moved in then, my left fist careening towards his jaw, aiming to break it both ways. However, I failed to see that one of his lenses had regained function.
He rolled my blow off his shoulder and grabbed my right arm.
He wrenched it off.
Wait… Fuck.
My own limb smashed into the side of my head. My vision jarred; my vision flickered with static on the struck side.
I attempted to divert repairs to my limb, but his lower left arm sunk its claws into the flexible rubber of my side and split open the ducts leading to my shoulder.
I bled profusely, tried to analyze and adjust. But he had too many limbs. I parried as many as I could with my left arm. But he eventually caught it too.
He tried to pull. But the joint there wasn't damaged. I had barely enough time to act before he ripped it off. I activated the motors, and the arm revolved on its axis. The remaining fingers on his right upper limb snapped off completely, and I broke free.
I raised my arm, ready to strike. The heel of his upper right palm thrust into my throat like a lance.
The joint sparked, my head lolled. His lower limbs grabbed my waist and stopped me from retreating. Then he hammered me with his left. His fist struck once, then twice, then I lost count as the blows blurred into each other.
My vision flared and flickered red. My teeth… gone. I lost all sense of direction. I was left, then right, then up and down.
I vaguely felt him throw me against the wall and shatter my wings as I was splayed. But I felt something else—a strange heat within my chassis. My blood boiled, my soul screamed. This was what I was built to do.
It was euphoric, utterly satisfying, even when his fists smashed into my chest and the armor crumbled to reveal my pulsing heart. The fear of death I had learned to feel wasn't with me now.
I didn't want to die because then I couldn't do this again.
I fully understood that fear now. I understood it completely.
I don't want to die.
I straightened up. My left foot hurtled upwards and sank into his chin. I retracted my side kick as his head jarred and his grip fell.
I scrambled away. My body struggled to keep upright, but I made it work. I needed it to work. I felt the stone shatter behind me as he formed an oversized halberd and struck my last position.
I noticed a pattern. He was so eager to kill that he was unable to patiently wait for the right time to strike. I had lost the last few exchanges because I expected him to behave and fight like other machines, in the most optimal manner. But he had been unable to contain himself. He was starving for gore. He was enjoying this more than me.
I reached the center of the church. His thrusters fired, and he drifted in an arc, stopping right before me, halberd raised.
I threw myself backwards and onto my back. His blade cut into the stone between my legs. "What's wrong, brother? I thought you were above this brutality."
My body fixed some of the internal damage. I managed to stand up properly now. He swung, just as I expected. But I was ready, and so I stepped just out of reach.
The blade sang its whistling dune and ghosted over my forehead. I flashed forward, my remaining arm melting down into a new weapon. Had he been sharp, had he been wise, had he been truly machine, he would have stepped back.
He should have taken his time, weaved through my straightforward attack, and punished me. But the fool switched his grip and brought his weapon bearing down. He howled like a beast. His stance shifted as his thrusters bellowed and spat.
The hard edge of his weapon consumed my field of vision. I had the sudden urge to pull away, to retreat. But I knew that wasn't the urge of a machine. I wouldn't let myself think like prey.
The urge to flee seeks to preserve my life. But if I follow it, my life is over. If I don't want to die, I must bring all my will to bear.
I felt the axe head burrowing into my shoulder. He felt the heat of my plasma cannon as the coils filled with a dreadful blue.
Had I made the right call?
No.
But that's how losers think.
"Checkmate." The axe stopped as if on cue with my words. The massive blade didn't fully connect. It was only cleaved a couple of inches into my shoulder. He knew I would step back; I planted that thought in him by evading the last strike. So when I suddenly stood still, his weapon hit me mostly with the handle.
"You worthless fuck." He tried to yank the blade backwards. But I had pulled the trigger.
A wave of soft, nearly gentle sound leapt through the weapon's coils. There was no blast of light, no blue laser or violent explosion. It was a simple flash, then half his body vanished.
Molten slag splattered against the walls. Heat filled the air so profusely that I could feel the drops of moisture covering me start to sizzle.
He had lost both arms on his right side. The dense purple flesh beneath melted armor began to bubble; the water within it boiled and burst out in a secondary spray of blood. His head lolled limply as he fell to his knees.
His guts began to drape, long and ropey. He attempted to scoop them back in with his free arm, to no avail.
"You… You may have struck me down. But the will of God won't be extinguished. I'll see them again someday. You won't rip me away from them. You won't do what you did before. Not again." He raised one claw; he saw it shaking.
I stumbled forward, then fell to match him. The coils of my weapon had begun to shatter from the flux in temperature. I used the soda-can width of the barrel to support myself. "If you want blood, I'll bring a monsoon of it, brother."
"You wish to make it rain. But mine has already begun to flood. My cup runneth over." He looked up at me.
"So, the chosen son is overthrown," I sputtered out.
He nodded. "It seems so—"
The door of the chapel opened. A nephilim, clutching a wounded arm, ran towards us and prostrated himself.
"Father, a horrid beast outside—it wishes to speak—with you."
G-2 turned towards him, scanned him over. Then his neck sparked, and his lenses snapped back to me. A horrid grin stretched across his razor teeth.
I freed my arm from the broken cannon. The metal shattered as I reached out with outstretched fingers. "Brother. No."
G-2 pounced. He smashed the side of the nephilim's skull with a grasping claw. He didn't even have time to scream before G-2 ripped his head clean off.
The machine bit down. The body crunched in his jaws; his throat bulged as he swallowed. Soon he had feasted. His body repaired just enough so he could stand.
He pulled his organs back in. This time, they stuck. "I should slay you now, brother. But my faith binds me. You will live on knowing that it was God's mercy that allowed it."
"Are you sure? I think you just want a rematch." I did a facsimile of a smirk. I tried to copy Shen's insufferable way of talking.
G-2 booted me in the face. My vision flashed a bleary red. My body was launched backwards, metal scraping against the floor. "This. Is. Not. Over." He declared.
I saw him turn to flee. I decided to say the most pointless comeback, the goal solely to infuriate him. "May you get no cash and no ass, bitch."
But he was gone. He had leapt through the image of Mary on the stained glass and escaped into the sunlit streets.
My body began to repair. First my interiors. Then my armor. Lastly, as I stood up, my arm began to reforge itself. I was down to about half power. I shall go pick off one of the nephilim, then rendezvous with the others.
I bumped into something dark as I turned around. I stumbled and shook off the daze, only to see twin eyes full of hunger stare back at me.
William purred. "Machine, it seems you are the first fool on my chopping block."