||Series Removed|| OTB

21 - Steven

21

The taste of iron poisoned my tongue, rising up from my very core as I vomited blood all over my tasseled western costume. Unable to register what had just occurred, my brain processed the situation in the simplest way it could manage.

My arm... is over there. I need that, you bastard. Give it back.

Weakly crawling across the ablaze town center, I kept unwittingly veering off to the right. It was hard to co-ordinate my movements when one half of my upper body had been cast away; plucked off with the ease of an autumn leaf.

A pair of army boots blocked my path, and I was hesitant to raise my eyes. Thankfully, it was Blessing's voice I heard instead of the heartless man who had disabled me.

"Stand down." It sounded as though all of the remorse and sympathy had left her body at once... I couldn't detect what emotions were coursing through her quaking fists.

"...B...Ble... ss..."

More redness bled from my agape mouth, sticking to my lips and drying instantly due to the encircling heat. She hushed me with a light ruffle of my hair, and spoke with a tone that only someone with nothing to lose could pull off.

"Don't struggle. Every small breath that you humans take, is a miracle in itself. That man and I, we were never meant to be in the first place... I'm going to see to that, right this second."

She turned her back to me, and stood tall to face Sgt. Riles of the TMD. My blood still stained his grinning face, acting as a window to his true monstrous self. The sergeant clicked his tongue, and that dark smile of his dissipated as Blessing warily inched closer.

"You still defend them, those inferior friends of yours? You disobeyed your father to meet that boy, why? For what reason do you resist us, when you know nothing of the world they once lived in?!"

Her hands stopped shaking, and a cool chill passed over the intense air between them. TS-19 stumbled forwards and placed her hands on a charred vendor's stall. After a long couple of seconds, she shrugged with a curiously-coy smile.

"I don't defend these people, dear brother... I don't resist, either. The truth is, I fight alone so that they don't have to. I'm not a shield... As you once said, I'm a weapon."

In a single instant, her body flipped around and she sent a kick through the stall, sending embers shooting out in every direction. The main support connected with her foot, and the flaming hunk of wood fired straight into Riles' chest across the clearing.

Gripping the beam and grunting slightly, he held onto the scorched timber and charged at Blessing with an infuriated roar. Raised over his head, the sergeant tried to smack it against her side, only for her to dodge left and slip around his side.

The girl exhibited strength beyond visible capacity, tackling Riles into the remainder of the ruined stall as they both struggled against the diminishing flames. A stray boot connected with Blessing's face, and her entire body flew upwards and crashed back down against the gravel painfully.

Not even wincing at the skin hanging off her elbows and shin, she dove right back into the action by claiming a nearby lead pipe that had been blasted off of Tower Block C, still burning bright above their heads. 

Protecting herself just in time, she managed to deflect Riles' oversized piece of lumber as he brought it down to clash against her own fragile weapon.

They both exchanged blows and circled each other around the town centre, with Blessing launching herself off the remnant walls of buildings to gain height advantage over the sergeant's towering stature. Riles was built too heavily for such manoeuvres, and instead opted to charge like a bull at his test subject successor with every chance he got.