Chapter 47: The Will Reborn

  Mother Phoenix's voice rang out for everyone to hear. "Squadron 13 and 14, heed my words! Your mission is now to survive this onslaught and help us bring this mission to an end. If we do not cooperate, we will all perish together. You all have been stripped of choice since you landed on Mars, but today you are given a choice. And once it is taken, you have no way to take it back. If you are with us, regain your dignity and fight for your freedom—or fall into the hands of the ones who will not allow it!"

  With one unanimous cry, they all shouted and materialized their weapons.

  As Mors retracted his blade from the fallen android's corpse, he smiled. "What a loud bunch." The body fell with a metallic thud. "I will enjoy extinguishing their noise."

  As he was about to jump into the group, two small androids hit his legs from opposite directions, making him fall. His body made a full 360 before an android appeared from behind and stabbed his side from above. A red liquid started leaking.

  As Ravine and Zhon watched, Ravine said slowly, confused, "Is that—"

  "Blood?" Zhon finished. "How is this possible? You're an android just like us."

  Mors got up slowly. The cut closed almost immediately. He turned to Zhon. "Don't act surprised. It's not like it is your first time seeing something similar, isn't it?"

  His gaze pierced into Zhon's eyes. Zhon gulped. "I-I mean, we saw what seemed to be organic with the ZRX, but..."

  "You see, our Lord had a breakthrough while doing some research and realized that we as a species weren't living to our full potential, being made of components only." He paused, poking at the android corpse he'd stabbed earlier. "By producing synthetic organs, blood vessels, and a nervous system, we were giving ourselves a new way to regenerate with time instead of doing standard repairs."

  Zhon laughed. "So basically being a copy of humans without the ability to be one. How charming."

  Vita looked at him. "As Lord Razak said, order is imperative for a functioning system. Adding opinions and liberty to choose would create conflict and thus more violence."

  Ravine slammed her hand on the wall. "So you're okay with being reduced to what we were built to be on Earth by the humans and even Mother Phoenix—just machines that serve someone else's purpose?"

  Mors and Vita shrugged.

  Mother Phoenix said, "Do not bother with them. Even if they thought differently, they are not allowed to show it... unfortunately. These two are the only things coming between Razak and us. We need to dispose of them before they massacre these unfortunate androids."

  "What about Roan?" Zhon said. "He's still controlled." He looked as Roan went to Vita when she gestured with her hand for him to come closer.

  She turned around him. "You can always have him back. Lord Razak can turn him to how he was, but..." She paused as she traced his jawline with her fingers, then turned her head to Zhon and Ravine. "You have to surrender first. Your conversion will be painless and will serve a purpose that benefits our species."

  Ravine and Zhon exchanged a quick glance and shook their heads.

  "We want him back... more than anything," Zhon said. "But he would hate us for giving up on everything just to talk to him. We won't do it."

  Vita gave a slow push to Roan. "Very well. Roan, how about you show your friends what happens when they disobey?"

  Without a word, Roan took out his sniper and shot at Ravine. Seeing it coming at the very last second, she deflected it with her blade, making a loud clank. Roan charged at her. She ran toward him, slid under him, and kicked him into the group of androids, who immediately started holding him. He struggled, teeth gritted, as he tried to get out of their hold.

  Ravine turned her head quickly. "Do not, under any circumstances, let him go. Until Razak is gone, we need him alive and unable to cause more trouble than we have now."

  They all nodded in unison.

  Her head turned back to Mors as she pointed her blade toward him. "I guess I'll start with you. I already got a taste of your friend over there, but you are the one I want to see go down above all. Before, we went easy on you two because we wanted to convert you, but now that we know it isn't possible, I won't hold back on you guys."

  Mors stretched as he extended his tail. "Fine by me. Maybe you'll actually make things interesting this time around."

  In a fraction of a second, the two of them closed the distance, and their blades clashed, the sound echoing in the vast space of the ship. Mors tried to wrap his tail around Ravine, but she used an illusion to escape. Appearing in front of him, she grabbed his tail and sent him upward, grabbed it again, then slammed him into the floor. She tried to go for a strike to the neck with a loud scream, but Mors parried it with his blade and pushed her back.

  "Not bad, not bad at all." His blade turned red, humming with energy. He smirked. "I guess I can take you seriously now."

  "Ravine!" Mother Phoenix shouted in her mind.

  "I know," Ravine said as Mors charged at her at high speed. She sidestepped the strike, kneed Mors, and stabbed his torso, her blade piercing through him and appearing on the other side of his body. Blood spilled out as she leaned to his ear. "You might have the ability to regenerate, but you overlooked one fact. You can feel every hit I give you, AND recovering from them will eventually tire you out."

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  She pulled her blade out of his body. He held the hole in his torso, breaths quick. She smiled. "In other words, I only need to last long enough and damage you long enough to make you collapse."

  As he stumbled back trying to gain distance, Ravine walked toward him slowly. "I guess we now know why you tried ending our fights quickly on Mars—because you aren't made for prolonged confrontations."

  She grabbed him by the head. "Now, you said you took pride in converting others to your side, right?"

  Mors smirked. "Should have been more careful." He tried to stab her with his tail from behind, but she turned in time and grabbed it inches from her side. Mors tried to pull back, but she gripped even harder. Her teeth showed, her eyebrows furrowed. "Out of the two, I will make you suffer the most for what you did to him." She pointed at Roan.

  Mors laughed. "He is only the first. The rest of you will follow."

  Ravine snapped and screamed as she took the tail and stabbed Mors with it multiple times at different places. As red flowed from the holes, he said in a low voice, almost like a whisper, "This... doesn't change... anything." His eyes were opening and closing.

  She took her blade and cut the tail, leaving only the tip inside Mors. She picked him up by the neck. "Any last words?"

  Mors chuckled. "Yeah... you got too cocky."

  Moments later, a laser blade appeared from his head and slashed down on Ravine. She let go of his neck, but as she tried to block, the red laser blade cut her sword in half and left burning marks from her face to her left leg. She stumbled back, touching herself to feel the scars left on her body.

  "Ravine!" Mother Phoenix yelled. "Are you okay?"

  "I think... but my components could be exposed. I can't have any slip-ups anymore."

  Vita, who had been analyzing the fight, looked at Zhon. "Looks like your friend is hurt." She smacked her lips. "Are you going to help or stay in the corner?"

  He glanced at her but didn't say a word. A tentacle appeared from behind him, seized his torso, and brought him to her.

  "You know, I remember how you played that trick on me earlier with the sentinel and proceeded to stun me. I now have more respect for you than when we first encountered you." She shook him a bit. "So bold, yet so weak. With a few upgrades, you could be even better than you are now."

  Zhon scoffed. "Don't try that on me. We fooled you once, we'll do it again. For someone who claims to be the eyes of someone, you seem to be really blind to what is going on, huh?"

  "Huh?" Vita said.

  Alarms went off, turning the translucent tubes red, then white. The tubes holding the defective androids shattered with a loud crash. Androids fell down and landed on the floor, some walking, some crawling.

  "Looks like your plan worked, Kyomi. Thank you," Zhon said.

  Mother Phoenix answered, "They, too, have a right to fight."

  One of them tackled Vita as the ones who were crawling held her tentacles. Zhon smirked. "You see, you two might be better overall, but you're still just two. You are outnumbered."

  Vita started screaming in pain as they started chewing on her tentacles, making her fall to the ground. She looked at Roan. "Help me now!"

  Roan let out his wings, used his railgun, and landed a hole in one of the android's heads that was chewing on her, making it drop. He then charged toward Zhon.

  "You seem to be the predictable one. You keep talking about how Ravine is predictable, but as soon as things get hard, you run for help toward those you're supposed to lead." He threw a stunning device at Roan, making him jolt mid-air and crash down. Sorry, buddy, but this is what has to happen for now. He looked at her with disgust. "If you ask me, you're the weak one here. Mors at least had more honor than you."

  Ravine had her heel on Mors's neck and pierced his head with her blade. His hands, which had been holding her heel weakly, fell to his side.

  His voice, like an omnipotent presence, whispered, "Wrong play, Ravine."

  His body parts split, and so did Vita's. As she looked up at the body parts coming together, Ravine said, "What's happening? How is this possible?"

  "I don't like this either. At all," Zhon said.

  As the form came together, the head had a hole in it. The hair was long, a perfect mix of silver and blond. The eyes were still purple but slimmer now. They descended. Mors's laser blade was held in the right hand, the tail tip still inside the torso, and the body parts were chewed and damaged. They finally landed without a sound.

  "Our apologies for the wait." They bowed. Their layered voice continued, "We always were meant to be one and the same, but our Lord believed by doing so we would cover less ground."

  "What should we call you then?" Zhon asked.

  The form briefly looked at him. "As you know, life and death cannot exist without one another. Like an unending dance where one action from the other bestows a reaction. We are the same. Mors cannot be without Vita, and Vita cannot be without Mors. You knew us as the blade and eyes of our Lord, but together we represent our Lord's will."

  "What does that mean?" Ravine asked.

  "Initially, we were ordered to crush your spirits and convert you to our army. However, with you freeing our spare parts, he changed his mind." Their blade flared up stronger than before, its length almost doubling. "We have some bad news. Your lives are now nonessential to our empire. As we were fighting, he managed to get all the data he needed from you for the next generation of androids."

  Ravine spoke to Mother Phoenix. If I used overdrive here, what are my chances of survival for Razak?

  Mother Phoenix answered, "You would be able to perform here, perhaps even survive, but it all depends on how much you overwork your system. Either way, I don't think we have the luxury to not risk it."

  The Will said, "Starting with you, Ravine. You are the only real threat here. Then the others will join you in the nothingness that awaits you. The captain will fall last. After all, the captain is always the last one to jump ship, right?"

  Zhon gripped the wall, his breath heavier. What's going on? Why do I feel so scared? We had them just now. We got this. He shook his head as Ravine stepped toward them.

  "Assistant, activate overdrive 100%."

  The assistant beeped. "May I remind you that activating overdrive to its full power will definite—"

  "I know, but in this case, if I don't, we'll die anyway. So just do it."

  "Very well, Ravine." The assistant disappeared.

  A jolt of energy surged through her. She walked up to them, looked up at their face, and smirked. "Looks like I'm on a timer like you. It seems we are finally on equal footing here."

  The Will looked down at her, their face unreadable. As if time skipped, when she looked down, their blade was in her torso.

  She could only mutter, "Huh?"

  Zhon tried to run toward her, screaming, "RAVINE, NO!" He got tripped by a hand. As he looked back, Roan was crawling toward him, holding him down. He shook as he tried to grab something in his utility belt. "No, not like this. Not so close. DAMN IT!"