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Sacrificial lamb

It begins as it should - a cacophony of gunfire and the screams of the mortal.
A righteous descent into chaos.

Desperation. Beads of sweat.
Only the strong survive.

Swarms of lead painting the sand crimson. Deathrattles and rattlesnakes. Boots striking the sand. Imprint. The creature involuntarily screams as it runs, trying to catch its breath. His friends, not so lucky.
Dust clouds around him as the slugs are buried. Gun's empty. All shots fired. All shots missed.
Chain from his collar dragging a trail of its own behind him.

The useless device tucked away in his waistband. .357 loaded with .38 special. The first time he's ever fired a gun.

A structure both organic and inorganic. Skin and fur fused into blackened titanium. The project both a success and a failure. Reconstructed mobian. Powerful, skilled, efficient, intelligent, without remorse: successful.
Obedient slave: unsuccessful.

Right arm resembles a charred skeleton - bones of impossibly strong metal encasing wires and circuits. One eye organic, the other a glowing red lens with many filters and zoom functions.
Last defense effort that went awry.

Armor resembling a primitive design. Black leather texture riddled with nanomachines that flex and bend to the shape of a bullet rather than allowing it to tear through.
When organic tissue is damaged, the titanium alloy reinforcing it immediately responds with first aid, rebuilding what little organic structure is left with special plastics and synthetics and testosterone.

Three.

Unload my sawed off double-barrel shotgun. Stuff the unfired shells into my leather pocket. Fish around until I feel the metal from the cold slug cylinders.
Stuff them into the barrel as if they were ammunition and stuff the slugs inside them, for the sake of range.

Lead, calculate the masked mobian's next step. Fire.
Half a somersault later and the corpse lays on its back, cooking in the desert sun. Recalibrate. Fire.
Another unfortunate creature takes its last step. Straight through its temples, the straps of its gas mask breaking apart. The device slides from her face, a kitsune with gorgeous white fur. She falls, confused, straight through the sand at her feet and into oblivion.

The leader, a walrus on a segway with sand tires. Pop the weapon open - discharge the casings from the cylinders.
Only reload one. One is all I need.

Eye tracks his next move. Weapon fires. His ankle explodes.
His screams echo the desert as his puny vehicle finds a rock to crash into.

Casing ejects. Remove cylinders. Shells replace them.
Snap.

The walrus cries and writhes around in the sand, a red pool building up around its lower half. He sees me coming, draws a gun from his belt and begins firing.
Couldn't be stuffed figuring out what hit me and what didn't.

Approach. Stare.
Its name is Rotor. A creature sacked from the recesses of my mind. A sentiment at best.

"Y-you!" it cries. "We killed you!"

Not quite. I don't bother confirming his eyes with a response.

"What have you got?"

"The segway," he stammers. "Th-the weapon. It's all yours. Take it."

"It's mine anyway," I say, thumbing back the right hammer on the weapon. "What else ye got?"

He waves his hands in front of his face, defensively.
Defiance incurs the maximum penalty - a slow and painful death.

"Please!" the pathetic creature begs. "We were once allies, my goblin!"

Reaching up to me. Leaning forward. His lower back against the hot, unforgiving land. I kick him over onto his stomach, and it's comical how easily he folds. How quickly he complies.
Boot caresses his shoulder as he rolls over, sobbing, scared for his pathetic life. Fitting.

Knee raised, weighted boot connects with his spine towards the top of his back, rendering his soft body useless. Air escapes his lungs in a bloody screech that splashes the earth in front of his face.

Eyes follow the footsteps.

Tracks lead me right to him.
Bald fleshy pink creature cried, scoots away. He knows me, doesn't bother to make friends.

His cries are the same.

"Please," it says, dragging a trail in the sand behind him. "Please. What do you want."

Doesn't expect me to answer. "What ye got?"
Shudders at the sound of my voice. Small satisfaction.

"A-anything, sir!" he crawls from his prone position and into a prayer. "A-anything you want I- ... I just need help getting back, sir."

Bury the end of my weapon into his temple and his wide dilated eyes snap shut.
Whimpering. Pathetic.

"R-Robotropolis, your likeness," he squeaks. "I am the master's favorite! K-kidnapped by vagabonds! They had no idea! Buh-but you!"

Eyes narrow. "But me."
Screams from the walrus echo the desert.

"Y-you know a deal when you see it! Yes! You return me to Robo-truh-tropolis and back to the doctor master! You guh-get your riches, indefinitely!"

Fingers on left hand meet inside the loop of a cuff. Forefinger and middle finger toss the set of handcuffs towards the puny human. Make eye contact.
Nod towards them. He knows what to do.

"This is your contract. You put those on, you take me to a set of wheels, weapons, and ammunition at the very least. You disappoint me, you die. Understand?"

He nods frantically, snapping his own wrists into the irons.
"Tuh-take me to master! He will repay you!"

The slack of the chains rattles loosely between his neck and the unfeeling grip of my right hand.
Left hand designated on the butt of the sawed off shotgun. Ready to draw.

Creature bitches and moans about his legs hurting. About how it's too hot. His name is Colin. I know, because he told me several times, asking for my name as a followup. I just stare, gesture him forward with the shotgun.

Sun crawls across the horizon. Summer. Few, if any, appreciate this season beyond the mountains.

Keep pressing him south. He sweats, he pleads, he tries to make conversation.
It's dark and I march him off path. We find a nook for him to curl up in. I keep my back to the canyon and my finger on the trigger guard.

"Your mind is decaying."

"And taunts from you are wearing thin."

"A broken mind collapsing onto another catastrophe. You could easily escape from this."
"Kill."
"Destroy."
"Rape."

"A high price to be payed at reasonable demand."

"Foolishness." Echoes of a voice desperate to break me.
"Weakness." The cold tendrils of its grasp caress the side of my cheek.
"Pathetic."

"I'll pry the flesh from the tendrils of the weak, the strong, the ethereal. Not even god can protect you."

"Welcome the god~"
"~into your heart~"
"~you foul beast..."

"I'll tear its skin off too."

Brain matter dripping from my titanium fingers. Colin cries against a rock, his chain limp across the ground leading up to him.
His eyes wide and full of fear.

The death of several invaders occurs long before I truly awake. All I'm left with is the splattered bodies, the gore on my hands and the smoking shotgun I've already holstered.
Another creature, trying to escape in the distance. Kicking up a cloud of dust behind him in the darkness.

You've gotten away, have you? Feet carry me towards him before he even realizes he's supposed to react.
Check my weapon - not loaded. Just slug cylinders and empty casings. Fine. Remove them from my weapon, pocket them. Grunt as I step on the frightened creature's midsection.

"May a god disparage the gods," it says.

Shotgun snaps open. Bury the red shells into place. A frightened whimper. He tries to crawl away. "May a god disparage the gods."

Weapon snaps shut. His last words have already been spoken. Thumb the hammer back on both barrels and pull the trigger.
Brain and bits of skull matter splash against my face. Cleanliness hasn't concerned me for quite some time.

Fortunate it was indeed, to face the infinite so painlessly. The barrels smoke as the shells are ejected.

Leaning his head to the left, too far to the left, he both feels and hears it crack. Satisfying.
Eyes close before he's turned around entirely and they reopen. Everything on the horizon scanned, all the details considered.
Potential bread and butter still where he left him. Cold and crying under the stars, cowering against a rock.

My weighted boots approach his useless, quivering frame.

"Do you see how it is?"

"Y-yes."

"Do you see how this will end?"

"Y... Y-yes."

"Your master is waiting for the both of us. Do this or don't. There are no alternatives."

The horizon bleeds sunlight into the creature's eyes and it stirs. I tug lightly on the chain, a joke as it should see it.
Cuffed hands run up and down its face and I draw my weapon. He knows I won't use it, it's just a reminder of his position. And mine.

One foot in front of the other. South we go, towards a city I only recall from a database, but feel from something else entirely.

Robotropolis. Used to be known as Mobotropolis before Dr. Ivo Robotnik took control.
A significance felt but not understood.
The words on my lips, as my dry circuited tongue traces them - Man Town.

Here we come.

ÆdS - 2016