The end of the battle

They did everything they could, that couldn't be denied.

They did all they could and more. Resisting with all their might, they had managed to break through the honeycomb shaped barrier that had withstood a shot from the Pistol. But after that, the thing had started spitting fire, so to speak. And then everything had gone to shit.

Jonathan could set his sword blade on fire. But that was very counterproductive when everything else was also on fire, and oxygen was inexorably running out. Besides, it didn't matter if he couldn't even reach his opponent. That was the problem with his weapon. The problem with all their weapons, save the pistol and Jamie's staff.

Regardless, that was how the battle ended. There was no need to ask questions. It had ended decisively, leaving no room for doubt.

It ended, of course, exactly as God had predicted.

Jonathan and the other humans who had dared to oppose him were scattered on the ground, broken. Bent.

There was no one left who could oppose him.

Well, there had been no one from the beginning. As God, he was untouchable. He could exist on the same plane as mortals, but in reality, their hands couldn't even touch him.

He had come to fear that boy and his eyes, hard as it was to admit.

Feared burning in the fire of his eyes.

But in the end, he had fallen like anyone else, as he always should have known would happen. God hadn't even had to employ the Pistol to dispatch them.

Being forced to use his secret weapon, his ace in the hole, to finish them off would have been extremely humiliating.

But it was all over now.

He could relax.

Jonathan and his group weren't dead yet, but they soon would be. He didn't even need to do anything. They would die from their wounds or when they ran out of oxygen, whereas he didn't need to breathe.

As for the government dogs, well. They weren't even human. Mere mutts, as he had just said.

What could that bunch of animals do to him?

It was all over.

All of it.

■

Nothing is over, Jonathan thought.

As long as he was alive, even if he was at death's door and barely able to move, nothing was over. That was what he thought as he clenched his fists.

He gathered strength in his legs, in his arms.

He had given everything and more, as had the rest of his team. But nothing was over, so he couldn't rest yet.

There had to be something he could still do.

There had to be a reason they had come this far. If they were going to die here, what was the point of them coming all this way?

There is no point at all, an inner voice answered him. Like everything else in life.

People live, they die, most of these without changing anything but the shape of the lump of ground in which they are buried.

There is no meaning to anything.

He knew that. He knew it very well.

Jonathan didn't believe in higher purposes, or gods. He believed in what he saw and what could be ascertained. Other fantasies didn't interest him. But...

It couldn't end like this.

He clenched his fists harder. His knuckles turned white. His hands began to tremble.

This cybernetic abomination that had surpassed humanity, and at the same time was less than human, thought it was a god. He called himself that.

Well, Jonathan would gladly accept the help of a real god to stop it, if it existed.

Jonathan didn't care about his own life. That was the least of it.

If he could save all the others by sacrificing himself, then he could die with a smile on his face. But he refused to die miserably, knowing that the others would soon follow! Or that they would receive a fate worse than death.

As slaves. Like zombies of electricity, steel and wires.

Nothing more than automatons with the sole purpose of doing the will of the so-called God. Until someone killed them. If such a thing happened.

And would they be awake at every moment? Would they retain enough humanity to recognize the horror of their circumstances?

Jonathan bit his tongue so hard he drew blood. He pushed his body up, resting his hands on the ground. Come on, let's go. Come on!

He couldn't help but think the answer to those questions was simple but devastating.

Looking back, thinking of the eyes of the 'robots' he had killed, he couldn't help but think that they would indeed have enough humanity left to be trapped in a hell where they wouldn't even own their own bodies. Like a horrible nightmare from which one couldn't wake up.

Finally, Jonathan stood up.

"You still persist?" The voice of the abomination echoed from its throne, throughout the crumbling, flaming room.

Jonathan couldn't see clearly.

Partly because of the flames and smoke. Partly from the tears gathering in his eyes, from the pain, the stress, the emptiness and in reaction to the fire, simply.

He took a step forward. Not a steady step at all. He almost fell head first back to the ground.

"There's nothing you can do. You're finished."

Jonathan took another step forward. What was he doing? Rather, what did he think he could do?

He had no idea. He had no idea, but…

He had to do something, dammit!

At the very least, he wasn't going to sit around waiting for death. This madness had to end. And if he was the only one who could still stand up, the only one who could fight....

Then so be it, as long as it was worth it in the end.

"Jonathan..." A faint, tremulous voice called his name.

Jonathan made the mistake of not only stopping, when he could barely walk, but on top of that turning around to look. It was a miracle he didn't lose his balance.

He had recognized her voice, even though it was tinged with pain and lack of oxygen. Of course. He hadn't needed to turn around to know that.

To know that it was Jamie who called out to him in desperation.

To know that it was Jamie who was crawling forward, gathering strength to raise an arm in his direction. As if pleading with him not to go.

As if telling him he was going to die.

He looked back at her, trying to say just by that alone that if he didn't do it, they were all going to die at this rate. Jonathan couldn't waste oxygen unnecessarily, that, unfortunately, included talking.

Jonathan had to take advantage of all the oxygen that would be left in his lungs.

And move fast. So, ignoring Jamie's pleas, he turned his back on the girl.

One step forward. Another one.

Even if he made it all the way to the demon, what the fuck was he planning to do? Ha-ha.

Jonathan shook his head, laughing at himself.

It didn't matter that he didn't know. He was used to improvising, and it usually worked out well.

But he had forgotten something crucial. That he wasn't the only piece left on the board, so to speak. And that he wasn't the only one who could improvise.

Cecile threw herself against the abomination's leg as if she could do something with her small body. A desperate resistance that would have brought tears to his eyes, except that he was already crying.

Even in such a situation, even after so many years, his older sister thought of him first.

Yes, she had died the way she died. But it wasn't her fault.

Besides, no one could be strong all the time.

The demon threw his head down, smiled not scornfully, not angrily. Amused. Like a cat owner might do when a cat was nibbling at his fingers.

"What are you going to do?"

But Cecile had no eyes for the self-proclaimed God. He wasn't even sure she heard his voice.

Her older sister's eyes were glued on him.

For the first time in his life, he didn't like what he saw in them.

"I'm sorry for selfishly abandoning you." Her words were even worse than what he saw in her eyes. His body was already so heavy in itself that even taking a step was an effort, but the gravity of her words was what dragged him down the most.

"You don't have to apologize for anything. Sis..."

He couldn't waste oxygen, of course. Not one bit.

But still, he had to say it.

Because Jonathan suddenly had a bad feeling. He had a feeling that if he didn't say anything, something would happen that he would regret for the rest of his life.

Whether it was very long or very short, he didn't want to carry that weight.

So he had to say it. He had to say it even though every word threatened to throw him off balance.

"Sis..." Jonathan called out to her, and it was as if he had gone back to being the child who always hid behind her, who selfishly depended on her strength.

Who clung to her and cried, seeing her as the perfect sister. Thinking she could handle anything.

Jonathan should have been there for her and still could.

There was still so much to do together. Still... Driven by that dark premonition, Jonathan drew more strength, even though he thought there was nothing left in the tank. The result of his inhuman effort was a slight increase in speed. Nothing more. That was all his broken body could give.

"I'm so glad we met again."

That's what he should say.

How many times had Jonathan woken up in the middle of the night with a jolt, his heart in his throat, having dreamed of her dead in the bathtub?

How many times had he stayed up all night, thinking about life in that hellhole, where they had been treated as if they weren't even human?

Thinking about what he could have done. What he should have done.

How many times had he wondered if he hadn't made a mistake, if he had only thought she was dead, and in reality had abandoned her when she needed him most?

How many times had he considered whether it might not have been better to have died with her.

Ah, ah.

Tears fell freely down his cheeks. The taste of tears in her mouth. And blood. The smell of burning filled his nostrils.

He must have looked pathetic, he thought absently.

But there was nothing pathetic about giving everything for family, when they deserved it. When they were a real family...

Right?

There was nothing pathetic... or wrong. Right?

"Glad to see the man you’ve become.”

He wished he could live up to the praise. He wasn't wonderful, he was a vile and lowly man, who led a life of crime. He had hurt many people. He had taken advantage of innocents.

He was a thief. A murderer.

The government wasn't perfect, but he wasn't any kind of hero. And he had never seen himself that way. He wished he could 'look into the mirror' of his sister's eyes. See what she saw. A wonderful man. Someone who deserved to live.

Jonathan was crying his eyes out, in despair. But Cecile was smiling.

The warmest smile he'd ever seen in his life.

"I'm proud of you."

She was so far away still, so far away, no matter how much he moved, the distance didn't seem to get any smaller at all.

And why was she saying all that? Why was she talking as if she were...?

"Sis. Big sis, please."

Begging. For what reason? For her to do what?

So... So she wouldn't leave again?

"Very emotional." At this point, Jonathan had forgotten everything but the two of them, so the creature's voice caught him by surprise. When he understood the mockery in its voice, he gritted his teeth. "Therefore, I won't disembowel him in front of your eyes. I will not make him suffer. I promise I will give him a quick death."

Bastard. You bastard.

Get away from my sister, right now!

That thing sounded angry at being ignored. The self-proclaimed God was acting more like a petulant child who wanted it all.

Cecile looked at it for the first time since this conversation had begun.

The creature's eyes went wide. There was something peculiar in its gaze. As if it had recognized something in her... something it had never expected to see.

"You're not going to hurt my brother anymore!" Her voice came out trembling, shrill. Undoubtedly, the voice of a child.

But at the same time her voice contained incomparable power and determination.

Cecile paid no attention to that abomination for long, after all it was beneath her. Instead, she gave him one last look.

One last look?

No. No. No.

Jonathan had to go faster. Better.

"I'm sorry, brother. Goodbye."

She said it. She had said it. Jonathan whimpered like the malnourished, abused little boy he had been. Maybe he was still that little boy, deep down.

Maybe he was still a trembling child watching the world through a crack in the closet door.

The demon moved its huge hand, resting it on his big sister's head. It was going to crush her head. Kill her, take her away from him again.

But too late. Something told him it had moved too late.

There was a beeping sound, wasn't there?

It wasn't just the ringing in his ears, from disorientation and weakness. Jonathan was hearing an actual beeping, wasn't he? And what that meant...

He'd known all along, deep down.

"Son of a bit-"

The impotent protest of that creature was interrupted. And in what way?

An explosion.

Jonathan had not gotten close enough to intervene, to change anything. But he had gotten close enough to be within the radius of the explosion.

Fortunately, it wasn't a direct hit, or he would have ended up in pieces.

What the aftershock of the explosion did was send him flying backwards, as a cloud of dust and smoke billowed out like a curtain, as if to cover the mess.

But he saw enough.

Jonathan saw the blood flying. And he knew he would never see his sister again.

His big sister had been reduced to a robot. And all robots had a self-destruct function.

It was that cruelly simple.

Speaking of cruel, Jonathan hadn't been close enough to the explosion to be seriously injured and lose consciousness. Or to disappear from this world along with his sister. In fact, he wasn't even hurt. The impact robbed air from his lungs, making him feel dizzier.

Weaker and sicker. But that was all.

Jonathan gritted his teeth, raised his head toward the cloud that obscured everything. His heart pounded in his chest like the blows of a hammer. That explosion couldn't have been from anything other than the self-destruct function.

Which meant he couldn't save his sister.

As cruel as the truth was, he was quick to grasp it. He wasn't able to fool himself no matter how much he wanted to.

But what about that terrible inhuman creature?

With his heart in a fist, he waited for the smoke to dissipate to check the result of his sister's sacrifice.

Nothing would ever be right again. And it didn't justify anything.

But if it had worked, then at least.... He couldn't put it into words. Worth it didn't fit. But at least...

Let it be dead.

It has to be dead. I can barely keep my eyes open.

The smoke cleared... and it wasn't. Its body was broken, twisted. On the ground, it looked like a giant spider crushed by the boot of an even more gigantic human, writhing in agony.

A good part of its body was gone. But it was still alive, somehow.

He had survived the explosion.

Jonathan tried to tell himself not for long. That it would die there, suffer as it deserved to. That his sister had done it.

But then the so-called God began to crawl across the floor.

Not in his direction. To take revenge in its last moments.

It still believed it could live.

But it wasn't like it was trying to escape either. It was going for its weapon.

For the pistol on the ground.

Jonathan let out a choked scream. He vomited on the ground in front of him, and it wasn't just bile, it was blood.

Incredibly, he began to crawl as well.

He was weak, and he was going slower. But he had the advantage of being closer to the Pistol. In other words, he could still make it. Even if it had only been luck.

Luck that the blast had hit the Pistol just enough to send it flying, and not break it.

And that it had fallen in his favor. Just that. Pure luck.

But that luck was going to go to waste if he wasn't able to take advantage of the opportunity. The bastard was gaining ground fast. If he got careless...

He'd be lost. Along with all the others.

The tears wouldn't stop falling.

Jonathan hadn't been able to protect his older sister for a change, but at least them, he had to protect at least them.

It didn't take him long to realize something terrible.

Despite all his determination, despite his sister's sacrifice and the advantage he had by sheer luck, he wasn't going to make it in time. The demon would get there before him.

Because his body simply wasn't strong enough.

He was going to waste it... all of it!

It would be like spitting on the memory of his sister.

Was still struggling, of course. Jonathan wouldn't give up; he wouldn't throw in the towel until he died. But he couldn't change the predetermined outcome that a body that was more machine than human was more capable than his frail, tired, oxygen-starved human body.

Indeed.

Jonathan couldn't change it...

But he wasn't fighting alone.

There was a second explosion. The demon sensed it somehow, since he recoiled. Thanks to that it only lost its right forearm.

But it didn't matter, because it had lost something much more important by escaping the blast's range.

It had lost the advantage.

Jonathan couldn't help but scream, wild and triumphant, as his hands fell on the Pistol.

He picked it up.

His pulse wasn't steady. His eyesight was covered with black spots. He probably wouldn't last much longer.

But at least he could pull the trigger.

"No one will remember your name," Jonathan said, and pulled the trigger.

The wave of white energy hit that wreck, erasing it from this world along with its pathetic, useless cry of rage, of defiance, which did no good.

Because it was already too late.

Yes, too late... too late.

The Pistol fell from between his fingers. He no longer had the strength to hold even a pencil. Jonathan's head hit the ground.

The flames around him went out.

As if they had been sustained by the demon's life force and not by whatever they devoured in the room, they went out on their own, leaving no trace.

Jonathan laughed, on the verge of hysteria.

They had won. After all, they had won.

But he shouldn't have allowed himself to feel so much relief.

In the end, the relief of having won was, ironically, what got the better of him. For adrenaline had been the only thing that had kept him going so far.

He didn't close his eyes. It didn't matter.

His body closed them for him.

■

He seldom dreamed. And when he did, it was always the same thing. There was no need to specify what. It was either that or dreams in which he flew, free of any ties.

Physical or emotional.

Free from fear. Free from pain, from hate, from anger.

Just flying, soaring through the big blue sky. As if he had been reborn as a bird.

This time, however, it was different. And how?

For starters, he found himself in a white void. It was a real void, not like the desert. There was absolutely nothing but himself, his own body. And even that didn't feel definitive.

Like he was a ghost, who could appear and disappear at any moment.

And that was it. There was nothing else, no one else.

Nothing was happening.

He was in that white void like a prison, and that was it.

Until it wasn't anymore.

Someone appeared in front of him, or rather something. The one who called himself God, and really wasn't human, in short, it couldn't be considered as such anymore. But neither was it a higher life form. It was more like a robot. And not one hundred percent.

Jonathan's head wasn't quite clear, but he thought it was normal for him to be dreaming about him.

After all, he had been fighting him until recently.

No, he had defeated him.

He had put an end to his dark ambitions. He didn't know what his ultimate goal was, or his concrete plan, but he knew enough. He knew that he had been assembling an army of pseudo robots, killing and transforming people to do so, and that it had been planning to rise up against the government after obtaining the trump card called the Pistol.

Yes, Jonathan knew more than enough. That's why he had no regrets about what he had done.

He wasn't the biggest fan of the government either, but he doubted the new world this thing had talked about would be any better than the old one.

It would be a nightmare on earth, where only the self-proclaimed God would get what he wanted.

And even if he had been a saint, even if his accomplishing his goals would have been better for the world, Jonathan wouldn't have regretted his actions either.

After all, it had his sister. It had turned her into something inhuman. And it had her naked, bound. At its feet.

Jonathan would rather not think about it, but the implications were all too clear.

So, one way or another, as far as he was concerned that thing deserved to die anyway. As for the world? It could fuck itself or make do without the creature. Jonathan wouldn't have cared either way.

Maybe that's why that thing was still silent.

Because it couldn't give voice to any regrets and torment him when it didn't regret it in the least.

But he had been wrong. That thing spoke.

"We haven't much time. I'd like to curse you for what you've done. And I will."

"With what?" Jonathan asked absently, just for the hell of it. After all, he didn't care. Why should he?

It was just a strange dream.

He wished he could wake up as soon as possible. Back to reality. That was all.

"With knowledge."

The self-proclaimed God extended a hand toward him. Intact, in this dream, as well as the rest of its body. Jonathan didn't pull away, didn't feel any danger.

It was a dream. Just a dream.

Jonathan let himself be touched, and why not? But he soon regretted his decision.

Because then he felt a painfully real shock. Shock, yes... A stream of information downloading into his head. Information he couldn't process so fast, that it left him unsteady on his feet, breathing shallowly. And worst of all was not the information he still couldn't process, filling his head to the brim. As if it was going to explode. Worst of all was that this was, without a doubt, real. Not a mere dream.

Maybe Jonathan should have assumed it from the beginning. That it should be like what had happened in the fight with Max, inside that strange mental space. Or the experience after being trapped by those wires, and connected to a place not of this world, that had reflected his hidden desires to keep him docile and trapped.

But he hadn't and now here he was.

Struggling to breathe. Struggling to understand.

Struggling to make a decision.

"What have you done to me?" Jonathan sputtered.

"I was what you are, you will be what I am," that demon replied, grinning from ear to ear. That smile of its disappeared. Along with everything else.

Jonathan realized he was waking up.

■

When he opened his eyes, he found himself dangling between Mary and Roxy. The shattered throne room wasn't what surrounded him. In fact, they were already outside. And what surrounded him was....

Well, in a nutshell, he now knew what had happened to that creature's army while they had been having their fierce fight.

All over the city, robots and government agents were killing each other.

Thanks to the wide perspective he had from the palace steps, Jonathan judged that the battle wasn't leaning in the government's favor. And no wonder.

After all, they hadn't known what they were getting into.

They thought they would be facing "only" a small group of mercenaries, and that capturing or killing them and then retrieving the Pistol would be like taking candy from a baby.

Instead, they had been drawn into a living nightmare. He almost felt sorry for them, to tell the truth.

But only almost.

In his heart right now, there was only room to feel sorry for himself.

"I'm glad you're awake," Jamie said. Mary and Roxy both gasped, clearly surprised. So Jamie was the first to realize he was awake. For some reason, that didn't surprise him. "How are you?"

Jonathan raised his head to look her in the eye. He opened his mouth, closed it again, licked his lips.

What a question. Yes, what a question.

Better not even answer. He ached all over, especially his head. Even after waking up, it was clear to him that what had happened between him and that thing had not been a fever dream.

Why was that? Because of the 'information' that had been forced into his head. Now he felt as if that information was splitting his head in two.

"My sister... There was nothing left?"

"She died," Jamie replied, frowning. But that wasn't what he'd asked her.

He looked away.

It wasn't what he'd asked her. The two things were very different, though it might have seemed the same to Jamie. Seemed like he had used a euphemism.

That wasn't the case.

All three were about as well off as he was. But at least they could walk on their own two feet, which was enough.

And they had survived.

They had survived, even if it hadn't been all of them in the end. Right?

"Let's run... while we can."

Mary nodded.

"Yeah," Roxy said. "Whoever wins, we're screwed. So we can't just stand by and wait."

Jonathan noticed the gun was in her hand. They hadn't lost it out there. Good. Good.

They still needed it...

Didn't they?

They tried to escape from this place, to leave the flaming ruins and the massacre behind. Unfortunately, they didn't get very far, as expected. There were enemies everywhere. And naturally they didn't overlook who they were.

In a nutshell.

As they rounded a corner, they found themselves on the ground and guns pointed at their heads in the blink of an eye. Jonathan was getting sick of hitting the floor.

Getting sick, most of all, of feeling weak. Being in someone's hands.

There was no worse feeling in the whole world. He knew that all too well.

"Really? "Mary exclaimed, incredulously. "Don't you have bigger problems?"

"Slow down. Don't do anything or we'll run your friends' heads through," said an agent, approaching Roxy. To take the Pistol from her."

They were going from bad to worse.

They hadn't even gotten out of one problem and they were already in the middle of another. They had overcome that inhuman beast only to end up like this? How ridiculous. How fucking ridiculous.

Jonathan didn't feel like laughing at all.

Some of the information downloaded into his brain settled in the right places, perhaps with the help of both frustration and anger. Jonathan let out a wordless scream, throwing his head back, his eyes wide and wild.

For a moment, he felt as if his retinas were on fire. But it was only for a moment.

For a moment, he felt like he was floating out of his body, and he saw something he couldn't have seen from the ground. Robots on the roof, staring with their dead eyes at the scene.

But it was only a moment.

Then the robots jumped. On the government agents, not at them. They threw them to the ground and tore them apart like wild animals that had starved for months.

I've done that, he thought, stunned. I've done that.

Mary picked him up again. She lifted him with relative ease, dangling him on her back. She was the strongest of them all, naturally, having to carry such a big, heavy hammer all the time.

She wasn't very well, but well enough. At least for the moment.

Roxy and Jamie helped each other to their feet.

Followed by the echoes of those agents' hellish screams as they were torn to pieces, they resumed their journey out of this hellhole. I wish I could think of this as a bad dream sometime. I wish I could put it all behind me.

He had learned enough about such things to know it wasn't possible.

To be honest, he didn't wish for it.

Right now, he had other things on his mind.

I was what you are, you will be what I am.

Jonathan laughed. There was some bitterness in his laugh, but also hope. And hope was the most important thing. It could be the only thing keeping you going.