"How could you think that a guy like you, kicked out of your guild, could ever impose as me?" The man before who had cockily smiled at Lucy, was face first into the sand of the beach, his neck being stepped on to pin him down.

"Don't have anything to say now, do you?" Kritanta pressed harder onto the man's neck, a sadistic grin stretching across his face. "Of course you don't, you wouldn't dare to badmouth me with my reputation." the man groveling underneath his feet whimpered in fear, his entire being quivering.

"Stop it!" Kritanta looked up from his victim, staring down the blonde in her red dress, a blue cat following behind her.

"What?"

"Just hand him over to the knights, they'll take care of them." Lucy gave him a pleading look, even going as far as to get on her knees. "You've done enough, Kritanta." buildings burned around her, the flames making her shadow dance in front of her.

Kritanra's eyes narrowed, "he was planning on kidnapping you and other young woman to sell them off as sex slaves. I don't think I've done enough yet." his foot pressed down harder as he reached for his crossbow, resting against his hip.

"Please! Look around you, you've already done enough! You've injured, and maybe even killed, hundreds of innocents!" to emphasise her point, Lucy waved at her surroundings, the raging fires and crumbling buildings and the sounds of crying children and adults echoing in the town.

Kritanta's eyes narrowed further, a flame of irritation flitting in his eyes. "Why would I care about them?"

A surprised look flickered across Lucy's face for a moment, then quickly returned to her desperate and pleading expression, a hint of disgust in her eyes. "That's what you do, right? You're part of a guild to protect the people you love, the innocents, and to become part of a family."

The flame in Kritanta's eyes seemed to dim, making him seem more... mechanical than human. "I... I joined Fairy Tail for my master, my creator... my father. So I could discover the meaning of being 'human'." A peaceful expression crossed his face, the relaxed expression foreign in his surroundings.

And just as fast as the expression came, it went. "However, I've been playing as this human for... about eighteen years or so, but I haven't found the meaning of being 'human'. And my master told me, 'if you can't find the meaning of being human in fourty years, then eradicate the human.'"

Lucy couldn't believe that, Kritanta, a calm killer and a pretty boy, with such human eyes, could be just a heartless machin, obeying his master's word.

"Eradicating us would mean never discovering what it means to be... well, us." Lucy gave an awkward shrug, beginning to sweat profusely from the fires raging around her.

Kritanra seemed to consider this, "Yes, that is true. But, I must obey my master. Every single syllable must be followed."

"Is that all you are?" Kritanta tilted his head, giving Lucy a wonder filled look. "All you are is a machine that takes orders? You even have a free will of your own, but you choose to listen and follow? To be used like a pawn?"

His eyes widened in shock, then immediately narrowed, his poisonous green eyes practically glowing in anger. "My master does not consider me a pawn! He told me himself that I am like a son to him!"

Lucy returned the glare, "Then would he tell you to eradicate humans if you never discovered the meaning of being us? He knows that machines almost never understand humans, so why would he?"

"I... he would... he would never..." Kritanta's eye twitched, most likely malfunctioning due to the stress of realising that... his master, his creator, his father, was just using him.

He was below him, not equal. He was a pawn.

Kritanra stomped on the man, who was trying to squirm his way out under the boot in his neck, and the sickening crack of his neck breaking confirmed that he had died. Though, not the way Kritanta had wanted to kill the man in the first place.

He looked up at Lucy, his eyes telling nothing of what he was feeling. "You said that you wanted to be part of Fairy Tail, yeah? Come on, I'll take you there." Kritanta casually walked away from the body, brushing past Lucy, signaling her to follow him.

Lucy looked up at Kritanta. Hesitating for a moment, she trailed behind him. The blue, flying cat floating next to him, a cheerful look on his fluffy face.

Yes, definitely peculiar—for a machine.