CRIMSON ROTH

Chapter 7 - On the Rooftops

"Jake!" Crimson screamed, horrified. Luckily, she had her riffle tucked in her bag- but those Cyborgs would surely stand the pain. It would just be like small bullets attacking the NYX- no harm done.

While Crimson scurried to help, Jake was already managing some things himself. He twisted his arm, and with quite a force, he flipped the Cyborg holding him back down to the ground; unconscious. He then run against a wooden wall and Crimson joined him.

Jake and Crimson back up against the wall, their weapons raised. The cyborgs were coming, the deep heavy clumps of their metal feet echoing in Crimson's ear. Her arms was shaking, the revolver she held giving a rattling sound. "Focus!" Jake snapped, holding his blaster expertly. "You need to be calm to fight. No regrets. Just think of your life."

"Be calm, fight and not regret but think about my life? What do you think I am! A multi-tasker?" Crimson yelled at him, unsure.

"For God's sake- just do it!"

Crimson paused, before giving a curt nod. Her hand stabilized and she was ready when the cyborgs busted in. Their lasers were charged and loaded, the high pitched buzzing cutting off as each blast fires off.

The two rolled away, Jake starting to fire at the incoming waves of cyborgs. Crimson rolled towards the one focused on Jake and tied a rope around it's foot. She then ran, yanking the rope and making the cyborg slam into others.

Sparks flied from broken wires, as the two dodged incoming shots and fired their own. Jake shifted into a Cyborg, loading up the pistols in his arms and firing wildly. Crimson slipped here and there, making sure to hit the human parts off the cyborg. The cyborgs were in a frenzy, not knowing which one if then they should focus on.

"Not so smart even with your tech, huh?" Crimson mocked, her sly grin resting upon her face. When the cyborgs turned towards her, Jake came from the back, knocking a few of them out. Movie style, Crimson lifted her gun and started firing, not caring that her bullets were bouncing around everywhere.

The cyborgs charged up and shot at her, but Jake grabbed a metal arm and refleceted the blast. The two were dodging left and right and shooting, a wild joy in their eyes when the room suddenly got tense.

The cyborgs stopped moving, collecting themselves into an orderly line. Crimson and Jake tensed, walking to each other, feeling like something was amiss. There was a deep clanking from behind the Cyborg, and the spinning of wheels. From the corridor stepped a gigantic Cyborg. He was an equilibri but with Cyborg parts! He was two times as tall as Jake, and much more muscular. His roar rang in Crimson's ears, like the growl of a hungry hyena stalking it's injured prey.

"Okay, any Plan B in your head, brain?" Crimson asked Jake, who was busy fiddling with his blaster. He had ran out of bullets, and surely he had not enough time to reload the gun- not fast enough to even prevent himself from dying.

"Okay, then," said Jake, facing towards a small grey hut with a wobbly ladder attached to its red-tiled roof. "We run to that hut... and climb it. Your leg is fine, right?" Crimson nodded instantly. "Okay, then. We run."

He sprinted towards the ladder and climbed it with ease, as if he were a monkey of long arms and skill, and swiftly landed on the roof. He shouted, "Crimson- now!" Crimson nodded and ran. She was good with ladders, having a lot of experience climbing and falling from her family's stack of Deckhouses. To be honest, they were rather faster and much more agile than the Cyborgs themselves.

But, of course, their only problem was the Equilibri-Cyborg monster. And it was hot on their trail.

The two were chased between the zig-zags of house-tops and between the long-forgotten church bells that don't mind not ringing when it wanted to. The monstrous roar of the beast shook the city, as if it were an earthquake, and the groups of half-robots shuffled in groups for safety, the rhythmic tempo of their toes tapping neatly like a theme for a drum.