She licked her dusty lips and slowly opened her eyes. Clouds drifted across the aquamarine sky overhead, twisting in and out of each other in fantastical shapes. She didn't try to get up, choosing instead to simply lay there, watching the clouds slide by above her and feeling the cool breeze across her face. She considered, as she watched, what an utter ruin her life had been, the people she had tortured, the people she had killed. She shuddered and turned her face away from the wind. A solitary tear slide down her cheekbones, making a winding path through the grime that covered her.
It wouldn't be long until they came and took her away, but she couldn't, wouldn't think of that. What they would do…was unimaginable. Even she, who had sunk so low, treated people so inhumanely, would not ever think of doing what they were going to do to her. But her opinion didn't matter. It never had to him. He treated her like a child, but still obsessed about ruling the world with a girl half his age.
'The stupid fool' She thought angrily, thinking of all the times he had mistreated her. He had laughed at her, screamed at her, beat her till she bled. And through it all she had remained faithful. Kept looking for his hearts desire. Because she loved him.
The tears that had been so hard in coming burst forth and great, heaving sobs wracked her mutilated body.
'Let them come' she thought bitterly 'for I truly wish to die'
In his patrol ship far above, he smiled as he paced back and forth. Ugly plans and obscene, dark thoughts flitted around his mind.
He laughed quietly to himself. He had been such a great man once, a great thinker, but that was before it happened. Or rather, she happened. His blood boiled to think of her betrayal, her escape and how, after so many years she and her family were still uncaptured. He laughed loudly, insanely, ignoring the terrified looks his underlings gave him.
She wouldn't be free much longer
She saw the ship circling slowly towards her from the west, a dark silhouette against the setting sun. She looked back up at the sky, now streaked with orange and burnished gold. If her plan went wrong, then this was probably the last time she would ever see daylight again, so she took everything in, every last detail. She wanted her last thoughts to be of this day, not the cold, steel surfaces of the laboratory they had come to take her to. Birds flew overhead, returning from the warmer blocks as the migration season ended and summer returned to skyland. How she wished that she could go with them, soar amongst the clouds and blocks. She fingered the object in her pocket resentfully. No. She couldn't go.
He exited the patroller down a short metal ramp that made a dull thumping noise as his boots padded along it. The beauty outside the ship held nothing for him. He had stopped seeing the beauty in things years ago.
She laid only a few metres from where he had landed, spread eagled in a large, untidy bundle of cloth and bones. Her uniform was saturated in blood from the enormous cavity in her chest. Her left leg stuck out at an odd angle and her spine was clearly broken, her ribcage collapsed on itself, leaving nothing but a mess of blood and guts. Her eyes were misty and upturned to look at the sky. He cleared his throat and she turned her head. Her right eye was sightless and mud lay in a thin film over her face, tear tracks running through the earth under her eyes. The only way of recognising her was the detailed, blood red tattoo on her head.
" Hello Diwan" he said smiling.
She looked up at him for a while, saying nothing. He didn't seem bothered by how she looked in the slightest. He simply stood there, smiling satanically at her, knowing what he was going to do, but wanting to play with her.
" Now what are we going to do with you then" He put on a fake sympathetic smile " You can't be healed Diwan, you're of no use to the sphere as a guardian, but " His eyes lit up and he grinned
" Of course how stupid of me, you CAN help us Diwan, with our Cyber experiments "
Diwan said nothing. Speech was near impossible to her; most of her teeth were gone.
" You do know what our Cyber experiment are Diwan?" he put on a fake expression of concern " Because I wouldn't want you to be pushed into anything you don't know about."
" The sphere has been researching for about a year into cybernetics. We've managed to perfect a revolutionary new process, but we've been unable to test it, as no guardians have been injured so far." He paused and leered at Diwan, all pretences forgotten.
"You are the perfect candidate for the tests Diwan. Your brain will be removed from that..Ruined shell…and placed in a cybernetic body that will obey the commands of the brain perfectly, even generate Seijin powers." He grinned broadly.
"So what do you say Diwan? Of course there are drawbacks…your emotions, for example, will be removed, unfortunate, but necessary. Besides, who needs emotions, hmm? Emotions get in the way of doing the sphere's work, Diwan, our work is important, without us the world would be-"
"Safer?" gasped Diwan, blood spurting from her lips.
"So you can still speak!" he leant forwards, barely a few inches from her " So, what's your answer? Will you continue to do the sphere's good work?"
Now was the time, she thought, pulling the object out of her pocket. She looked him full in the eye and said with all the bravado she could manage;
"Go to hell Oslo" Her finger slid back on the trigger and Oslo flew backwards from her, a red rose of blood blossoming on his chest. Diwan gasped with shock. She had done it.
The medic from the ship ran out, past her to the sphere's fallen commander. She dragged herself slowly, painfully over to him. Oslo was barely clinging on to life.
"Don't worry Ma'am he'll be alright, with the right care. What happened anyway?"
" Leave us" Diwan ordered the medic
"But.."
"I am still your superior, now leave" She snarled through gritted teeth
The medic scuttled away, glancing over his shoulder at the strange couple lying side by side.
"Diwan…you...betrayed me" Oslo gasped
"Yes" she answered casually
"Why" he gurgled pathetically
She lifted herself so that she was over him, leaning down so that her lips just brushed his cheek.
" I never took rejection well," she whispered maliciously, stabbing him in the chest with a concealed knife. Oslo's eyes rolled upwards, but his breathing remained constant.
"Take Commander Oslo to the Laboratory" She called to the medic, who had stayed outside the ship. "He wishes to become the test subject for the cybernetics experiment.
"As you wish Ma'am," said the Medic, calling out to a pair of brigadiers to carry the commander into the ship.
Diwan looked up at the sky again, smiling as the ship left the block and the sky slowly darkened as her eyes slid shut. She had her vengeance.