The impact did not take long to make itself known.
Like glass, the great railway shattered segment by segment. Doors, windows—the entire cabin burst into fragments, and despite being conscious of the blow, both Porfirio and I were sent flying.
Zapata, unfortunately, left my sight long before I could do anything. Trying to get up only widened my field of vision.
[Search V], still active, marked the route to the panel: a couple of meters, less than ten. Past a set of stairs stood a stupidly enormous button, with a diameter similar to that of a person—almost as if the automaton itself had to press it to put an end to this absurd game.
Luckily for me, Porfirio was still in play.
Unluckily for me, Zapata was too.
The sound of combat did not take long to follow. Sabers clashed without mercy. The young woman, with a delicate appearance, parried and dodged the savage attacks of a desperate adult who had no intention of yielding to her.
That is not my battle.
Zapata's horse had disappeared. The railway too. At this point, both were just two old rivals trading sword strikes, a fight best left alone… and even if I wanted to, I couldn't interfere.
My left leg was completely bent the wrong way. The pain was indescribable, comparable to that of my already tortured left arm. Apparently, I had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed today.
When I fell, I was thrown aside and a good chunk of the railway crashed onto my leg. Even so, I should be grateful that the flesh of the hundreds of Zapata clones had already ceased moving, leaving behind only the stench of putrefaction.
How curious… so this was why I wanted my senses back—to suffer with all of them.
A long breath, after a fragile [Null I], gave me time to try to relax. From the base of the automaton, one could see how the arachnid, two-headed figure, without any evident pattern, endlessly repeated its sole task. The mirrors of several of them were already overflowing with copies, now deformed.
For some reason, they were not chasing us, almost as if they had to recognize someone.
No… rather, they were no one.
Just fleshy bodies.
As I imagined, they were never possibilities. Simply mannequins of meat that chose a visitor to torture and pursue—almost like a doppelgänger seeking to take their place in the world.
What a twisted way to interpret the meaning of Gemini…
—I… just… for a moment…
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Zapata was happy.
Happy to finally have the chance at the duel he had so long desired in life.
He had sworn to fight his regime, the dictator who expropriated his lands, his brothers, his friends, his family. And he fought. He fought and kept fighting in countless battles, fields, and valleys.
But in the end, he was betrayed.
Stupidly. Not foolishly.
He trusted a vile serpent.
Through tricks and feigned promises, he ended up trusting the idiot Guajardo, who promised weapons and men for the fight.
The only men were the ones waiting for him at the hacienda.
The only weapons were those fired at him.
Cursed.
Cursed.
Cursed.
They robbed him of the chance at his sworn duel.
That was why he had remained in the Nexus. He always believed someone like Porfirio would be arrogant enough to accept the challenge of becoming a shitty constellation. Who the hell would want to be a constellation that no one noticed?
Zapata only wanted to vent all that burning fury he could not release in life.
And what did he find?
Nothing.
For a long time, he played the system's little game, hunting his rival. He expected to find that characteristic mustache, a bearing worthy of the man who defeated the French army.
And all he got was a girl.
A filthy girl, no taller than a teenager. Pretty, the damned thing—one of a kind. But his lifelong rival had become a woman.
For what purpose?
For what desire?
To Zapata, it was an insult to Mexican manhood. His sworn duel… stained by the skirt of that girl who sullied the army uniform.
Zapata's strikes were no longer driven by a burning desire for a fair battle.
They were pure rage.
And Porfirio felt it.
He truly admired Zapata. He never got to see him in combat—not even once. By the time Zapata began his revolt, Porfirio no longer took part in disputes. He was an older man, with a family. All he wanted was development for his country, for his people.
He was aware that many suffered, but to him, the greater good was what mattered.
The Industrial Revolution brought a revolution of the State.
A civil war that ended his plan.
And now, from the Nexus… it had all been for nothing.
Mexico was chaos.
And he was remembered as the worst president in the country.
That stain on his ego and his legacy drove him to participate in the Nexus. He did not want glory. He only wanted to clear his name.
Even if he had to sully his ego with this body, he was willing to accept any means to face that fate.
That was why this fight… this exchange… was more than a simple clash between rivals who never faced each other in life.
Both wanted to scrape away until their very last breath in this game.
To Zapata's misfortune, the shot to his leg was indeed crippling. His steps grew slower, and his boot, soaked in his own blood, slipped across the crystalline floor of the base, leaving a red stain upon the fine, radiant white.
By contrast, Porfirio remained in form. Unwounded. Even physical exhaustion was of little concern. His thrusts were clean, flawless.
While Zapata fought like a vulgar peasant swinging a machete, Porfirio had technique.
Thus, he accumulated advantages.
A direct kick to Zapata's wounded leg made him groan in pain and fall to his knees before the girl, who extended her saber to his neck.
—It's over, Zapata.
—This isn't over, bastard! —he replied viscerally, trying to stand, only for the wound to spill even more blood.
—Don't make me kill you —the girl said in a thread of a voice—. I respected you, peasant. A lot. And I still do. I don't want to stain my hands with your blood.
—What the hell are you talking about?! You respect no one. You sullied our lands, impoverished my people, and starved my brothers. And now you tell me I pity you just because you don't want to pull the trigger?
—Don't be stubborn! —the girl replied—. I can see it in your eyes. You spent everything, didn't you?
Zapata's face went pale.
That was more than enough for Porfirio to understand.
If he died today, he could not return.
—Do you… want to die?
Zapata lowered his head.
Porfirio withdrew his saber. This fight no longer made sense. It was already over. Killing each other would not change reality.
Porfirio lost and was exiled from the land he loved.
Zapata died at the hands of a wretched coward.
It was time to accept that.
—No…
Porfirio slowly turned away.
Zapata still had his revolver. It was special… or at least, the bullets it carried were. The unnatural glow said it all.
It was a star.
The star born from the symbolic bullet cylinder he always carried with him. Though in life they were not, now they were. And Zapata named them:
—Second star: For the lands.
The shot came swiftly.
The revolver transformed into a Mauser 1902 rifle that, with absolute precision, fired its single bullet at the girl—stunned, frightened. She could revive, of that she was sure, but climbing back up was a task that, after a dozen attempts, had soured her gaze.
But the bullet stopped.
In midair.
A few centimeters from her.
In fact, everything stopped.
Zapata wore a furious expression.
She could not utter a single word.
—I've got it covered.
Mr. Nobody.
The boy she had to work with—without talent or any military knowledge—had once again been full of surprises.
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Dragging myself along, I had climbed up to the automaton's massive button.
With pains that gradually numbed my body, I advanced while they fought fiercely. I couldn't say anything about the fight—I only heard saber clash against machete again and again, without pause.
Until the sound of a gunshot reached my ears.
I don't know what drove me, but almost instinctively I said:
—[Pause I]
The triumphant weapon that could stop time for ten seconds seized the stage. The great automaton froze instantly, and the shot fired by Zapata was about to finish Porfirio.
—I've got it covered, shut down the automaton —I ordered Porfirio mentally—. You'll have two seconds to dodge and end this. If not, we'll both die.
He understood instantly.
There was no hesitation.
The eight seconds of cooldown passed, and the moment the counter shifted from red to green, we both moved.
In a jump more painful than words could describe, I threw my body forward, landing on a button so huge it could have passed for a bed.
Porfirio, in a display of unmatched agility, evaded the shot and drew his own revolver. With a precise shot, he killed the man who fought to the end for his lands.
The sign that had filled me with both fear and joy since arriving at the Nexus did not take long to appear.
[Gemini has been SHUT DOWN | +40k CN | BLACK Team][MAJOR VICTORY / BLACK Team: Reward 40k CN]
The war in the Gemini factory had ended.