Unreality

26. Wounded Animals

Considering the circumstances of their last meeting, Umbra would have never guessed she would be relieved to see Mephisto again, but that was exactly the case now. After all, neither Umbra nor Virgil could hope to handle Victor's vicious rampage, and the regular Anima combat droids had also proven to be ineffective before, but the female cyborg had more than been a match for him the last time they clashed.

However, with the red light provided by the combat droids shining on Mephisto, it became clear to all that her obsidian black mechanical body was not in the greatest of shapes, as its usually smooth surface was now covered in scrapes and chips, especially her left arm, from which various severed ligaments now hanged.

Quick to notice this himself, Victor sniggered in spite of his earlier annoyance at her arrival.

'You look like you enjoyed the present I left behind,' jeered the blonde cyborg. 'Poor Brandon, he was so sure his superiors would rescue—'

'Brandon is fine,' interjected the masked cyborg, 'your little trap failed miserably.'

'...Is that right? Funny, lookin' at your miserable body, I'd say it was pretty damn successful.'

'You think I need two arms to squash a bug like you?' said Mephisto, before releasing the hidden blade in her right arm and clutching it, and detaching the laser device on her right shoulder — it seemed the one on the left had also been damaged and was in no shape to be used — and allowing it to hover ominously above her, ready to fly and fire away according to her will. 'And in case you're delusional enough to believe you can still crawl your way out of this one somehow, allow me to inform you that this entire underground facility is already surrounded on all sides by Ethos personnel, who will terminate you on the spot if they see you running off by yourself. In other words, if you wanna live through the day yet, you better surrender to me while you still can.'

'Oh? That option's still on the table? Even after all I've done? I find that rather insulting, actually... I mean, haven't I done enough to reach "terminate on sight" status yet?' Victor squinted his eyes ever so slightly. 'Or maybe... you'd like to terminate me on sight, but ya can't... 'cause your little organization wants to try n' squeeze the secrets of "unreality" outta me...' He laughed to himself. 'Isn't that rich — an entire organization dedicated to it, but you still need a wanted criminal to teach you how to use it.'

'...I'll take that as a refusal to submit,' declared Mephisto, 'which is fine by me.'

As soon as she finished her sentence, a bright red laser beam was fired from the floating device Mephisto had detached from her shoulder, cutting through the darkness of the room and forcing Victor to quickly roll out of the way in order to dodge it. However, the blonde cyborg did more than that. He rolled towards Umbra, who hadn't yet had a chance to join Virgil, what with the blonde cyborg standing between them, and quickly seized and restrained her with his powerful prosthetic arms. But the worst was yet to come, as the silver-haired girl soon felt a sting on her pale neck, as one of Victor's claws now threatened to pierce her skin with the slightest of movements.

Immediately overcome with terror, Umbra quickly succumbed to shivering as her now bulging eyes glanced downwards at the razor-sharp claws threatening to tear away at her neck.

'VICTOR, NO!' screamed out Virgil, a few yards away from his brother, but still closer to him than Mephisto was.

'Shush, brother,' said Victor. 'You warned her not to stick her nose in our affairs, but she decided to stick around instead; she's got no one to blame but herself.' The blonde cyborg smiled wryly as he softly caressed Umbra's left cheek with the tip of the claw on his index finger. 'Easy with the trembling there, dear, you might just end up cutting yourself up without me having to do anything.'