Providence

Nir (II)

The town had burnt so thoroughly that it was difficult to envision what it had once been just a few hours before. Small stone laden streets were now strewn with bodies burnt and eviscerated. Houses crumbled to piles of smoldering ash, with bare metal twisting out from them like grave markers. Among the flames, some of the people still stumbled about, crying and yelling out for people surely engulfed in crisp death.

Striding through the town, paying no attention to the insurmountable suffering either side of them, were the small girl in the filthy shawl and the deer masked man cloaked in all blacks. The girl was running playfully along the main street, while the man hung back, swaying gently with each long stride.

They stopped in the centre of the small, burning town, where a circle of stones revolved about a neatened patch of grass, untouched by the flames that consumed building all around it. The stones where smooth, and chaotically ordered about - some stood a few centimetres tall whilst some others lay flat, embedded into the Earth.

The deer masked man withdrew the small weapon once more, grasping at one of the rectangles hanging from his belt and placing it gently in the cradle of the the weapon's centre. He drew the girl close and pushed her behind him, but she poked her head out from the black coat to witness the destruction of this intricate stone circle.

But his finger slipped from the weapon's trigger, as his arm flung backward and came to rest at his side, mangled and bloodied. A large chunk of flesh was missing up towards his shoulder, and yet he betrayed no sense of pain or anguish. The familiar blustering of air whipped against the deer mask, and he stumbled backwards.

Standing a few metres in front of the deer-masked man and the small girl was a ragged and filthy man, his chest covered in an oily singlet. His hair was messy and covered most of his face, but he was young. A small silver rectangle covered his right eye and shone out a pinpoint blue light - brilliantly bright. Bolted into his right leg was frame-like exo-skeletal leg, which stopped just above his torso.  Attached, a large gun emplacement - a simple rectangle split down the middle, with the top and bottom sprouting soft tendrils that waved about in the centre gap. The gun itself was much to heavy to bear by even three people, thus the leg actuated and held it aloft.

The girl sneered at this intruder - at this man who would try to kill her protector. 

The deer masked fellow simply stood still. He returned his pistol to its holster.

"You're like them, aren't you?"

"We've heard the stories. Even all the way out here. There's one that sits atop that pillar in Diawarch. Another that appears when we sleep and is etched into our minds."

"So which ones are you? War? Chaos?"

The small girl dusted off her shawl. She picked at the dried on mud, and the small patches of blood. The small cracks of light that peered from underneath the dirt revealed themselves to be a ragged tapestry of mysterious glowing cloth - a soft, ambient and suffocating glow.

"Neither"

"I'm Wrath. And the deer masked one is Empathy"

"And now"

"You'll no longer be a problem"

Wrath dashed forward, his shape blurring and stretching with the speed of his assault. The scruffy young man swung around the large cannon, and shot it once. A shrill zip rung out, but whatever he was shooting missed the oncoming Wrath. He drew up his gun, standing it vertically along the exo-skeletal leg, as the bottom section of the barrel split off into a small blade, connected by brightly coloured wiring and supported with small robotic arms.

Wrath withdrew his own blade, whipping it from its sheath with the outstretch of an arm, and using the chain that bound it to him to return it to his grasp. It was a few metres in its length, and much greater than any normal man might wield. He brought it slashing down across in front of him, slicing the air and sending it rippling through his coat.

Wrath's blade crashed in a steely spark against the young man's. His leg dug backward into the cracked earth beneath the sand. All that filled the young man's vision, was a long black blade, and the uncaring, empty gaze of a deer skull. With a hard push, the young man unshackled their blades, pushing Wrath aside.

To his surprise - the assault ended there. Wrath sheathed his sword and put his back to the young man, walking over to place the small girl upon his shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going"

There was no reply. The pair of volatile interlopers turned their attention elsewhere - waltzing through the still burning remains of a the small town of Nir. They headed eastward.

The young man quickly placed back the lower section of the large gun, swinging it about to aim at the pair. The pinpoint light that nested in the small rectangle resting on his brow shone brilliantly red, and then it went dark.

Nothing left. No more chances. 

He rested on the metal leg in silent penitence, where his gaze slowly floated over his burning town. It came to rest on the small stone circle.

It was gone.

The Engine of Nir was gone.