Chartreuse || ONC 2022

▪︎ Digi Log 17 ▪︎

The Red Palace
Neo-York
23:27

West ran.

She slammed shut the double doors to her throne room and bared them. She would take no chances.

"Fools," she muttered under her breath. "Thinking they can just come to my city and destroy me. I'll find the one who hired them and lynch him in the square!"

She plopped down on her throne with a huff. It was made of red marble. Red: her favorite color.

"Will you?" asked a female voice from somewhere in the room. It seemed to be coming from all around her, everywhere at once. "I don't think you'll live that long."

West's head swiveled around, frantic, but she saw no one. "Of all the insufferable—!" she cried. "I told Dorian I didn't want Alniscient installed in my palace!"

"In a moment, you will wish I was Alniscient," the voice told her.

West looked straight up at the ceiling above her.

Like a great and terrible bat, Mina swooped down from the high dome of the throne room, landing on the arm rests of West's throne. She grabbed West mercilessly by the collar of her wine colored gown and flung her upward with enough force for West to hit the ceiling and fall back to the floor.

"You won't live past this hour," Mina said to her in a chillingly soft voice as she approached the witch.

The temperature in the throne room dropped by ten degrees. Twelve. Fifteen.

"I'm going to enjoy this," Mina mused, kneeling next to West. "My only regret is that it's not all that painful to those who receive it."

Her fangs elongated, and she gently took West's neck in her icy hands.

¤ ¤ ¤

Ava-1 let two successive sets of poisonous darts project from the fingers of her left hand. Dorian's rhinoceros skin deflected them with no effort on his part.

"Puny robot...cannot...hurt me," Dorian growled.

"Oh, yes, I can," Ava-1 informed him. "I just have to find the chink in your armor. There's no such thing as invincibility."

Turning her heel boosters on high, she exploded off the floor and shot toward Dorian, drawing up a huge electrical charge in her left palm as she flew. The charge struck him and managed to burn his forearm due to the close range, but as she landed mere feet from him, he swatted her like a doll, and she crashed into the wall with her right side. Her organic side.

"Ohh..." she groaned. "Son of a hacker!"

Dorian looked at his singed arm. He laughed loudly, the sound more reminiscent of an animal than a human.

"Stupid...female," he boomed.

He snatched at her with his gigantic fist, but Ava-1 was too fast, and she ducked and rolled out of his way.

Releasing four large machetes from their compartment in her left leg, she let them fly at Dorian, each headed for a different body part. He swatted three of them away, but the forth sunk into his right shoulder.

He let out a grunt and pulled the blade from his bulging flesh, tossing it to the ground like so much rubbish.

"You have...more?" he asked, grinning. Blood more brown than red ran down his bare chest.

"Plenty more," Ava-1 replied. "Don't worry."

She whirled around in a graceful yet powerful sphere and released one of the two compact missiles she had imbedded in her left forearm. It streamed for Dorian's midsection like a meteor.

Dorian caught it and flung it upward.

The missile exploded upon contact with the high ceiling, causing huge chunks of marble to fall into the room. Ava-1 leapt out of the way with nanoseconds to spare.

When the dust settled, they were back to where they'd began: Dorian on one side of the room and Ava-1 on the other. The only difference was the scattering of debris covering the floor between them.

"What...will you do...now?" came Dorian's rumbling voice. "Launch a rocket...at...me?"

He's anticipating an extravagant attack, Ava-1 realized. He's expecting missiles, and rapid fire, and electricity.

Ava-1 wracked her brain. What was it Dorian had said? 'My body, no harm can be done.' ...My body.

Ah-ha.

"No, no rockets," Ava-1 said. "I think I'll give up the fight and listen to the advice of the philosopher Confucius."

Dorian thundered another laugh. "Confucius said...don't fight? Weakling!" He laughed again.

"No," Ava-1 differed. "Confucius said, 'Don't use a cannon to kill a mosquito'."

Hulk Dorian stared at her in dumb silence.

In one swift motion, Ava-1 grabbed the long-barreled silver handgun she kept in a compartment in her left hip, squeezed the trigger, and let a single bullet fly.

The bullet hit Dorian squarely between the eyes.

Brown blood flowed freely down his face, and he dropped to his knees with a thud that shook the room.

"No one...can defeat me..." he grunted.

"No one ever will again," Ava-1 agreed. "Now, I'd love to stay and give you a proper prayer and burial, and all that, but I have to help my comrades see to your boss. Hashtag: I win. Hashtag: sorry 'bout your luck, bro. Hashtag: peace out, pretty boy."

With a theatrical salute, Ava-1 turned and ran from the room.

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