Blinding Light

I feel a scorching ache arising from my left thigh. It seems I didn’t manage to dodge all the bullets, but luckily, I was only grazed by one of them.

02189 looks at his aggressor and realizes the obvious, the man in the mechanical suit will not give them time to recover and is already reloading his weapon with a new magazine.

“Kaede, use your rockets to get us outta his range!!”

“But-”

“We don’t have time just do it!”

Seeing 02189’s alarmed tone, Kaede holds the young man between her arms and activates her hammer’s thrusters.

“Hold tight!”

Following the girl’s instruction 02189 grasps the hammer’s hilt before both of them take off. A barrage of bullets is once again directed at the duo, but the speed of the thrusters makes them a challenging target to hit, making the rounds find their rest on the sand floor.

They go about 50ft backward before stopping. 02189 looks alarmed and asks Kaede:

“Why did you stop? We’re still within that weapon’s range!”

Kaede gives a frustrated sigh before answering 02189’s question:

“I’m afraid we’re running out of fuel…”

“Uhh!?” – 02189’s expression changes to a dumbfounded look as his mind tries to grasp the implications of not being able to count on that reliable weapon anymore.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAK!!

Once more, a blast comes in the duo’s encounter. Kaede quickly changes the direction of the thrusters consecutively in a back-and-forth manner making the two flee the bullets while doing a zig-zag motion.

“Do you think we have enough fuel to get to that repair drone?”

Without much time to think and make the proper consideration of the current situation, Kaede returns 02189’s question with a brief response:

“Not the two of us”

It was quite obvious, that the thrusters would consume more fuel to move more mass, however, 02189’s intention with his question was to make Kaede too think about the scenario they were in by herself.

At that moment 02189 and Kaede knew they hadn’t much time. If the repair drones would fix up the mech’s leg, they‘d be done.

The chance Kaede had won was a one-in-a-million shot. Whether the hammer had enough fuel right now or not, it’d be impossible to redo that strike, even more now with the mech’s pilot well aware of them.

They both look at each other in a way that somehow does not require words to understand what one another means. Maybe it was the planning from before, maybe it was the bonding forged with the fight from before, or maybe it was something else entirely, nonetheless, they both knew exactly what they had to do.

Kaede left her sledgehammer in 02189’s hands and ran towards a metal beam while the soldier once again pointed the machine gun towards 02189. The bullets made a path of dust in the sand as 02189 flew towards one of the repair drones on the mech’s leg.

02189 did not have a magnet glove or reinforcement wires as Kaede did, the young man could only count on his own strength to keep the grip on the propelled hammer.

“Argh!!”

It’s like my arms are being torn apart! I can feel every fiber as they seem to be ripped from my very bones! But I absolutely cannot let this go! I only have this chance! I mustn’t let it go by any means!!

02189 grits his teeth as the sledgehammer moves away from the ground more and more carrying the struggling young man with it. The distance is about the same as Kaede covered during her attack, but to 02189, his destination seemed much farther. Every second he had to hold was torturing for the young man.

About halfway through the distance, 02189 remembered the movements Kaede did to shift the direction of the thrusters with some twists on the hilt, so he did the same movement cautiously to make the downwards turn.

During the descent of the arch-shaped trajectory, the soreness on his right arm caused by the bruise from before is beginning to take its toll as 02189’s hands begin to slip through the hilt. 02189 lets out a pained grunt as his palm’s skin began to be ripped out by friction.

The blood makes his hands slip and increasingly lose attrition, but the young man is able to maintain his grip despite the pain and the hardships. His hands are already at the tip of the hilt, and the metal piece on its handle is the only thing between him and 12 feet fall.

I can do this! I’m almost there!! – That was 02189’s mindset as he flew over the fell mech and began to clearly see his target.

Nonetheless, it also meant his foe was much closer. 02189 heard once again the sound of the bullets that left his enemy’s gun’s barrel.

Hitting a high-speed moving target is an almost impossible feat, even more with a low accuracy machinegun like that one, so 02189 naturally wasn’t worried when he heard the blast.

CRACK!

…

At first 02189 hadn’t noticed what had just happened. He only thought it was odd that his right arm wasn’t holding the sledgehammer anymore, he tried to hold the weapon’s hilt again but without success, then he felt drops of a viscous liquid spilling on his face.

“Uhhh!?”

As 02189 had a look at his arm he finally saw it…

His limb had been snapped open with a compound fracture. He had undoubtedly been shot.

Fate? Bad luck? Or a one-in-a-million chance much like the one Kaede had minutes before? The explanation didn’t matter, the only thing that mattered for 02189 at that moment was that, even with one arm, even with only his left hand’s abraded fingers, he only had one option, and it was to endure.

02189 was shocked, but even so, he persuaded his own mind, his own body, to be only focused on what he was supposed to do. As he sharpened, even more, his resolve, he finally reached his destination.

CRASH!!!!

The impact of the hammer on the maintenance drone made a huge dent in it. Thankfully for 02189, the impact wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be, the cause: the thrusters’ fuel was almost empty.

The young man slumbered as he walked towards the back of the drone.

What the hell? Why am I feeling so sleepy…?

No this is not time for it…

I’ve to… do my…

02189 fell flat with his face on the drone’s back. He then heard gunshots.

The cover 02189 had from the drone only meant a visual cover, as the bullets used by Violet are AP rounds, they easily went through the drone’s frame.

It’s so cold… I wish I could go back home asap and take a long hot bath… and then… I’ll go to sleep…

Hmm… maybe I should go to sleep now… it’s so hard to keep breathing… if I stop just a little, then…

…

..

“No!!!!”

02189 gives an exasperated shout as he clings to the drone to keep his balance. He rapidly checks his body to see if any more bullets had hit him (and indeed none had), however, the young man was still losing a lot of blood and fast.

Still fighting his own heavy eyelids, 02189 grabbed and once again activated his rumbling sword. It made a noisy and shrieking sound as it cut the drone’s outer layer. 02189 had found what he looked for as he saw a familiar-looking tube.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAK!!

A few rounds were drilled through the drone’s body as the sound of bullets got even nearer.

I did not get shot again, did I? Argh! Doesn’t matter!

02189 looks over his shoulder, seeing his assailant’s shadow closing distance. He took a deep breath, glanced at his blow-up right arm, and to the drone’s duct.

Even if I inject the nano-bots, they won’t be able to fix up my arm in this position… Well, it’s not like it is even aching right now.

02189 holds his own right arm tightly and gives a deep breath.

CRACK-

An excruciating pain roamed through 02189’s arm as he pulled it back to its correct position.

GAHHHHHH!!!!!!

A pained cry was let out from 02189’s lips as his torso immediately bend frontwards as if following the agonizing maneuver from before.

The hell? It’s all goin’ black…

My breathing… it hurts…

“Huff… huff… huff…”

A ringing tinnitus is heard in 02189s ears as another blast comes through. It was enough to wake up the young man. He immediately caught the tube from the drone and put its end directly on his wound.

The pain was unimaginable. 02189 grits his teeth so strongly they began to crack, and his legs involuntarily swayed up and down in a frenzied but pointless attempt to soothe the pain.

The young man ignored all of that and ripped the tube of out the drone’s frame with his left hand, while he rested his vibrating sword handle in between his teeth.

02189 then immediately saw the mechanical suit. It had already caught up to him. 02189 rolled his body once again fleeing the rounds shot by the relentless pursuer.

The young man grabbed the hammer’s hilt once again with his wounded arm and quickly wrapped it up with the ripped-out tube, tying together the hammer’s hilt to the damaged arm.

“What the hell is he tryin’ to do?”

That was the thought of the man on the violet mechanical suit, as he saw that figure once again ascending towards the sky.

A last-ditch desperate attempt to flee his assailant. It was what it seemed to anyone that could theoretically witness the current scenario.

The man in the mechanical suit positioned himself under the shadow of his wounded prey and looked up, before pulling the trigger he was dazzled by the light of the blazing sun above them.

For a second another thought went through the man’s mind… Was it possible that the desperate attempt he was seeing was not so desperate?

The man closed his eyes as he sprayed shots toward the target atop.

He then shouted, shouted out of frustration that an annoying traitor was giving him this much trouble. This shout resonated with another one, this other, however, was one of pain, anguish, and even confusion as 02189 descended with his vibrating sword pointed downwards.

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

One more bullet grazed 02189’s left cheek, but the young man continued his descent. He didn’t know what motivated him, he didn’t know how he was still conscious, he didn’t know why he was still alive, the only thing he knew was that he didn’t want to die.

It was a blinding light, a sword slash with a sound that roared through the entire battleground despite not being that loud.

The sword cut through mechanical suit, flesh, and bones alike.

It was a deep gash that pierced from the shoulder until the man’s waist. Blood gushed out as the inert body fell on the mech’s frame.

02189 immediately felt a staggering pain as soon as his feet touched the mech. He couldn’t keep up with the pain and shock anymore, he simply collapsed.

The felled and badly wounded young man heard a female voice while his vision began to distort and darken as his senses started to fade…

He wanted to keep his eyes open, but even something that simple was a strenuous job for him at that point.

The darkness enveloped 02189’s mind as his consciousness slowly drifted away.