I'll be there for you.
She hadn't been prepared for what the power of the demon crown had done to him. Quote had been formidable enough as a robot, but as the gravity lightened about his body and he rose two or three feet into the air, Curly knew that this was to be the hardest battle that she was to ever experience, both physically and emotionally. He had started to fly on purpose, because now he was agile and high enough to be out of the range of Curly's sword. In the midst of his levitation he snapped something open on his wrist and plugged a cable into the back of his gun, then he looked at the girl and smiled, pointing the weapon straight at her.
Reflexively she dropped to her knees and darted out of the way as a red jet of light leapt from his gun and flew straight at her, mightily scorching the spot where she had lain. The crater that was left behind was as clean as a surgical cut and only slightly charred. It was as if the stone itself had been erased from the face of the earth. Curly goggled at its chilling efficiency and rose, trying to keep her mind focussed on Quote. She hefted her sword and rushed at him, swinging it hard and fast. He wouldn't be able to fire his fancy weapon if he had no arms to do it with.
Her wrist tilted at the very height of the crescendo and she wound up smashing the flat of her blade against Quote's arm, heavily denting it but not damaging the machinery within. It had been an unconscious jerking reaction, some part of her simply unable to deal him damage. They had fought once before but that had been under a simple misunderstanding. She didn't want to start hurting him now, but what else could she do? Die? She was not going to let herself die.
Quote shot his arm out and grabbed hold of the blade, trying to rip it out of Curly's grasp. She wasn't about to let go so easily though and found herself rising into the air along with him, the hilt of her sword the only thing keeping her from falling to the ground. She wanted to shake it free because it was the only weapon that she had left, but Quote was unexpectedly the first one to let go, allowing the girl to drop away from him. His hand was lined with gouging scratches from where he had held onto the sharp end of the blade, almost deep enough to slit through the leather gloves that he was wearing.
Curly hit the ground on her back and then struggled to get to her feet as fast as she possibly could, reaching out for her blade that had clattered to the side. It was a good weapon, but it was too close range, she needed something else that would be able to keep a safe distance between the two of them. As she stood a burning lance of fire grazed across her right arm, melting and eating away at the synthetic flesh, revealing one or two inches of metallic cables and circuitry. There was no way that Quote was shooting to miss, with that extremely powerful gun at his fingertips he certainly meant business.
Beside the pillar that Quote had tried to pin her to was Curly's machine gun, the large heavy tool her only other viable weapon. The enemy was coming towards her now, re-aligning his mental crosshairs. Next time his shot would be more accurate and burn her in a vital area, like her internal processing unit. Quote looked like he was becoming more adept at moving about during flight, too. With the smoke rising from her arm and a smell of burning plastic in her nostrils, Curly ran for her machine gun like the hounds of Hell themselves were after her, trying to ignore the thought that Quote was only a second away from shooting her in the back.
That shot didn't come. Curly dropped to the floor, rolled, and grabbed her huge weapon in the midst of her roll, finishing up the acrobatic movement with the barrel of her gun pointed directly at her airborne enemy. He was watching her carefully, but his gun was still raised and trained on her body. He looked unconcerned, but still quite mad. On one knee, she squeezed off a shot herself, hoping that the weapon still worked and that it had not been damaged. There was a click of the trigger, a pause, but then a stream of blue light erupted from the weapon, firing a volley of bristling energy directly at Quote.
There wasn't enough time for her to see what had become of her attack. She was out in the open and vulnerable to his weapon, so Curly whirled around and used the tall stone pillar that had been at her back as protection, as a shield that would deflect Quote's attacks for a short amount of time. She was squatting against it, her back pressed against the stone with her gun clasped firmly in-between her hands. If she had been holding onto it any firmer she would have dented her fingernails into its side.
As for Quote, he saw the shots fired at him and threw an arm up to shield his face, struck by the blue fire as pain ripped screaming through his system. He tilted a little like he would fall from the air, but then his form wavered and shimmered, thinning to a faintly red mist. His body reassembled itself a few feet to the left, only inches from the ground, but he was confused and stunned by the shot, so he disappeared again and reappeared far off to his right, as if the continuing teleportations would heal him of his wounds.
His injuries weren't permanent. All Curly had managed to do was stun him. Quote pulled his arm away from his face and reestablished his bearings, looking around for his enemy that had temporarily disappeared. "Curly?" He called loudly, losing his patience. "Come out. I know you're around here." She couldn't have gotten far, and she wouldn't run away. Her responsibilities were too great for her to flee. The afternoon light glinted on a small sliver of golden hair against one of the stone pillars, she was trying to hide from him.
There she was. He raised his gun and shot a blast at the pillar, high enough so that it wouldn't hit her even if he was lucky. This was a warning shot, made to flush his scared little foe out of her hiding place. The red blast ate a hole out of the solid stone and made it look like Swiss cheese, raising a cloud of marble dust that floated towards the ground. It was such a clean cut, a firearm's answer to a scalpel.
In combat one could never allow their enemies even a moment to stop and think. They would never have the chance to formulate a plan. To become the victor, one had to keep them in a permanent state of fear and confusion. Fear and confusion? Quote felt that he could manage that rather well. He smiled and took a step forward in the air, disappearing again in the midst of his motion.
Curly cried out a bit as the red shot flew over her head, anticipating that the red blast was made to take her life. He had missed, however, and she pulled herself to her feet, staying as flat against the pillar as she possibly could. Looking up, she saw that Quote's weapon had bitten straight through the rock and out the other side, so this defense wasn't nearly as strong as she thought it had been. Heck, it was useless! She couldn't stay on the defensive for long anyway, sooner or later she'd have to attack Quote and bring him down. If only she could think of a way to do it…
Suddenly he was floating right in front of her face. He had teleported! Eyes wide, every process in Curly's mind went still, startled by his sudden appearance. A backup thought process kicked in however and her hand flew to her side, about to draw her sword on him. He was close enough to be struck by it. Her body backed away as well but bumped up against the pillar, unable to go any further. Grinning like a monster, Quote pleasantly ripped the port from the thick metal butt of his gun and drew his arm backwards, preparing to strike.
"I see you." He whispered.
He smashed the butt of his weapon against the side of Curly's face, utilizing a good portion of his strength to bring her down. Her head whipped to the side violently and made a hollow thunking sound, her body twisting along with the rest of it in order to keep up. The attack had been so sudden that she didn't even have enough time to moan. Curly fell to the ground like she was a deactivated toy, her processor traumatized and her system crashing. With one single blow she had been knocked completely unconscious.
Quote floated to the ground and slung the Vertigo back into his belt, haphazardly checking the bottom of the gun for any smears of blood. He had to keep telling himself that she was a robot, and so was he. Sometimes his old mind and habits slipped up a little. Coolly he nudged her prone body with the toe of one shoe, then used it to carefully roll her over onto her back. Her eyes were closed and she wasn't moving anymore. Good.
He knelt and brushed aside her beautiful flaxen hair that had become askew across her face, delicately pushing it behind one of her green audio sensors. Then he touched her cheek. It was warm but it was cooling down now, because her body had deactivated and it didn't have to function as hard as it once did. Quote watched her solemnly for a minute, quietly, perhaps giving her a moment of silence. She looked so beautiful, even if she was an artificial creation. Such a pity.
"Looks like it is the end of the road for you, Curly Brace." He muttered thoughtfully, moving his hand lower to lightly caress her neck. "I'm sorry it had to end this way. Goodnight."
xxx
She felt her body falling to the ground but then found herself strangely disassociated with it, like it was a utility she didn't need anymore. Vaguely she was aware of her own head bouncing roughly on the marble floor, her blonde hair crowning around it, but then that was all, the image disappearing from her mind like a movie film that had come to its end. She was blind and utterly numb.
No, that was a lie. She could see herself standing up, picking herself up from a fall that had possibly knocked her out stone cold. It was imagination, not touch, but an inexpressible sensation of being in two places at once. No matter what the truth was, she could not see or picture her surroundings. Her eyes were closed, she did not see because she was unable to, but because she did not want to. Quote had turned against her, her friend, her brother, and her counterpart. Why would she want to open her yes and look into a world like that? Curly loved him, hated him, wanted him to die and yet wanted him to live forever. She cracked a sardonic smile. Quote must have damaged her processor with that pistol-whip, because she certainly wasn't thinking straight anymore.
Suddenly she realised that she wasn't blinded because her eyes were closed, but because somebody was holding their hands over her eyes, playing the most inopportune game of 'Guess Who' in the world. The hands were cool and gentle, smelling of well-worn leather. They were wearing leather gloves. Curly's shoulders went tense, knowing who it was that was standing only a few centimeters behind her. She couldn't see him, but she could feel and sense that Quote was there, in this deep and dark level of her unconsciousness. A place where she was alone and defenseless.
She opened her mouth to yell at him and order him to move away, lest he attack her from behind. Was it not enough that he was trying to break her body, did he really have to damage her mind as well? "Shh..." Quote hissed softly, killing any words that she was about to say. There was no evil in his voice, just a great sense of kindness and vague strain. "Don't open your eyes. Don't touch me any more than you have to, and whatever you do, don't turn around. You won't see anything, and I will disappear. Just stay still. Stay perfectly still."
It wasn't the evil Quote. It was the good one, the one she remembered from her past. Curly wanted to smile but then found that she couldn't. It was nice to hear Quote's true voice again, but he sounded too scared and in pain to be very jubilant about. "You're still alive." She said levelly, lowering her hands that she had half-raised to brush Quote's hands away. Curly didn't want him to disappear, not again. "Quote, what's going on?"
"Our audio sensors," he began mysteriously, "they pick up all different kinds of radio signals. I am using a narrowband frequency modulation to talk to you, so I'm not really here. But you really need to believe that I am, or I won't be. The Doctor is too busy trying to kill you than to notice what I'm doing. If you look at me he'll see you through my eyes and I'll disappear. This is the last chance that I have." She could picture the worried, solemn expression he was wearing. He was risking everything he had left just to be able to talk to her.
That gesture, even in the worst of situations, touched her greatly. She didn't really understand everything that he was saying, but the message was clear. They didn't have much time. The Doctor would notice him eventually or Curly would die. It felt like she was in another world now, but it was very likely that she was dying, even as she thought Quote's words through. "What are we gonna do?" She asked lamely, because even though they had managed to get this far, the situation still looked hopeless.
"I'm in hell, Curly." Quote admitted thickly, close to the verge of tears had he been a human. Somebody had been hurting him, a lot. "Every moment is agony. I can't go on anymore, you have to be the hero now and complete our mission. I couldn't do it by myself. I've been watching you fighting him and each time you come close to wounding him you draw away. You can't do that anymore. You have to kill him once and for all. It's the only way."
Only Quote could be so selfless and selfish at exactly the same time. It sickened her. Didn't he remember the Third Law, that a robot had to preserve their own existence no matter what the cost? No, she supposed not. With his broken memories, Quote thought and reasoned just like a human being. Curly found that she envied him for that, and hated the way he didn't consider her feelings when it came to his life. "I don't want to kill you." She confessed weakly, not able to justify the reason properly in words. "Please don't make me kill you…"
He had strongly suggested to her that he was not there at all and was only her imagination, coupled with a pirate radio broadcast, but Curly could not shake the feeling that Quote was gently breathing down her neck. His breathing was labored, like he was hiding some sort of great pain. "If you want to free me, break the red crystal that is in his chest. His essence is in there, and if you can let it out I might start functioning again. But that's not everything you have to do. At the top of the temple is the island's core, you must destroy that as well. Then the mimigas will be free." Quote removed his hands from her face, dropping them like the effort it had taken was nothing short of massive. "Please Curly, you have to kill Date."
"Date?" Even though he had let go of her she still kept her eyes closed. Killing the Doctor and breaking Quote's body was a daunting task, but it seemed easier if there was a chance that Quote might survive. She was fighting for everybody, but she wanted to fight for him most of all. Nobody had suffered as much as he had and been forced to live with it. That was as bad as death. It could be worse than death.
She imagined him smiling bashfully. "Well, Date is the Doctor's first name. When he took me over he immediately learnt everything about me, and I immediately learnt everything about him. The information overload was so great that all I could do was scream for hours. It was terrible, like I imagine being force-fed acid would feel. Date is a very evil man."
That was the understatement of the century! Curly wondered how much time had passed on the outside, after she had fallen unconscious. It seemed like only a few minutes, but that would have been plenty of time for the Doctor to get down to the business of murdering her. What was going on? She didn't really want to know, but felt like she had to know, whether it was terrible news or not. "Quote?" She murmured. "If you're still in the Doctor's head, can you see what is going on outside?"
"Yes. I can't see the you that is talking per se, but I can see the you that is lying comatose on the ground. It's strange to see you unconscious when you're speaking so easily to me." There was a pause, the other robot figuring out what to say. He was afraid that the information would hurt Curly, hurt her in a way that was only a vague suggestion to him, but his encounters with the Doctor had made him a far less innocent individual. "The Doctor tried to rape you, but he's forgotten that his body isn't as human as before. Now he has his hands around your neck. He's strangling you."
So she was running out of time. Curly knew she could only function for so long without a proper air supply. Asphyxiation would be the worst death in the world for her, after she had already drowned once in her life. Quote wouldn't be around to save her this time, indeed, Quote himself was the one doing the murdering. "I have to go back." She said resolutely, not quite sure on how she could do it. Her system usually rebooted itself after some kind of major trauma, but never before had she found herself in a place like this. "I'll break the crystal, destroy the core, then smash that ugly demon crown to bits."
"I have faith in you." Quote said softly, then placed both his hands onto her shoulders. Curly definitely felt it, he wasn't just her overactive imagination taking hold. This would probably be the last time he'd ever do this. "I'm not going to let him kill you. I am going to try something. I don't know if it'll work, but I'd rather do something rather than nothing. You can turn around and look at me now. Go ahead. I invite it."
She turned around, opening her eyes. Nobody was there, just blackness, empty space. The hollows of her mind. There was nobody else in this world but her and it collapsed, waking her up. Her reboot program kicked in, then she was nothing but processed data.
xxx
He was on the floor along with her, leaning over her, straddling her hips with his hands clamped firmly down on her neck. Both his thumbs were pressing her synthetic windpipe closed, so not a microbe of air could drift in or out. She was unconscious, sleeping like an untouchable angel, and it filled Quote with a maddening rage that he could not have her, not in the way that he saw fit. It was like being Tantalus, dying of thirst and hunger while both food and water were just an arm's reach away. If he couldn't have this girl then the only thing left was to kill her, to make her pay for everything that she was and everything that he was. Quote's arms were shaking hard as he squeezed, not because they were tired, but because of the totally different kind of pleasure he was deriving from the act, the power that came from cold-blooded murder.
It was as if he had gone completely mad. His face had contorted into a mask that would have been completely alien to the original Quote, a hideous amalgam of murderous rage and euphoric delight. Curly had a hidden air supply that would kick in after her windpipe had closed, but she could only carry enough air to last a brief few minutes before her body went into emergency hibernation, and then a terminal crash. She had given her air tank to him a long time ago, and the moment she had done that she had signed her death warrant. All Quote had to do was press down hard and wait.
All of a sudden her eyes flashed open, they were clear blue and staring blindly at the ceiling. He felt her body jerk slightly beneath him, a slight twinge that was her internal defibrillator immediately bringing all of her limbs and systems back to life through a brief shock of electricity. It was useless for her to wake up now, she was already dead. Still, she tilted her head up slightly and looked into Quote's eyes, the artificial eyes of one staring into the artificial eyes of another. Curly seemed to look straight through him, ignoring the person who was taking her life. It was like she was looking for somebody else, present yet invisible. He got the greatest surprise of them all. In the midst of her murder, she smiled.
Her arms that had been lying carelessly by her sides shot up, reaching for Quote's own neck. Curly's fingers wrapped around his jugular cables but focussed mainly on the back of his neck, rather than his vulnerable windpipe. The male robot choked as his supply of air was drastically cut short by a strength he didn't know the girl had possessed, but he was still devoted to his work and didn't fight her, continuing to hold her down. He had a lot more air than she did, and despite wherever she got her second wind from, she would definitely be the first one to pass away.
The two robots were lying on the temple's marble floor, busily strangling one another. Quote had strength and madness on his side. Curly had her desperation, her faith and her hope. Her vision was beginning to dim, her five senses fading away as her body started to lock down into temporary hibernation. The robotic girl's pretty lips curled back into a snarl, working as hard as she could on Quote's steel vertebrae. If ever she needed a miracle, she needed it now. In the back of her mind she prayed for it while she searched in Quote's eyes for the lesser other, the person that she trusted.
Quote knew what she was doing. She wasn't simply trying to cut off his air supply and strangle him to death, as he was doing to her. Curly was squeezing down hard on his vertebrae, attempting to break his neck and his spinal column. If she did that he would be paralyzed, never be able to move again. She would immediately win. Luckily it would never happen. The foundation of Quote's chassis was solid steel, something not even a singular robot could warp or bend. He smiled piteously at her, knowing that the last few moments of her life would be spent in futility. Stupid bitch.
Date…
Date… You won't hurt Curly anymore…
A familiar voice. Quote paused, his grip on Curly's throat loosening just a little, but not enough to allow her to breathe. The little robot was talking to him calmly, even though he was watching the murder of his counterpart through his own eyes. He blinked once, confused for just a moment. The robot was ordering him around like he was the master and Quote was the slave with absolutely no hesitation, none at all. He sounded completely sure of himself, unafraid. Was he stupid, or merely seeking some extra punishment? Soon enough Quote would give it to him, hard and strong until he wished that he was dead.
You can't threaten me. I'm no longer afraid of pain. You won't hurt Curly.
The access codes to his positronic brain were secretive, never to be spoken aloud. In a robot's entire life only two would know of the codes, the robot itself and the robot's creator. With the correct access code a person could crack open the robot's neural matrix and look at everything inside as if they were words in a book. In Quote's case three people knew and had known his access code, his password. Jin Sakamoto, the Doctor that had taken over his mind, and little Quote himself. It was one of the few things that he could recall from a lifetime erased. In Quote's head the robot located his inner access panel and entered the code against the Doctor's wishes, going deeper inside.
I won't let you.
At this point in his mind their powers were equal, neither one dominating the other. The robot found his system configuration and defaulted its values, setting every option to maximum output.
Static filled his head like the thunder of a thunderstorm. It was wild, unimaginable, blocking out every individual thought and impulse with its calamity. Both souls in his body screamed, feeling the incomprehensible pain. His entire being was becoming distorted. Quote ripped his hands away from Curly's neck and grabbed at his head, throwing his body backwards and letting out an inhuman wail. He was screaming for the both of them. The crystal in his chest was a bright vibrant red, reacting to the pain with just as much vehemence.
Curly acted fast. As sweet nourishing air flowed back into her system she wriggled out from under Quote's heavy body, bracing one foot against his front and then roughly shoving him away. She was gasping hard but still in the action, one hand clutching at her starved throat while the other fumbled blindly for her machine gun, lying close by. She felt pity for the other machine as he lay on the ground and convulsed in the midst of his seizure, knowing that Quote was suffering just as much as the Doctor was, but he had made this sacrifice for a reason. He was buying her some time.
She had a couple of minutes at the most. Eventually the Doctor would come to enough coherence to reset his configuration, then he would probably change the access code without telling Quote about it. As soon as that was done he'd be upon her again and nobody would be able to help. Curly quickly grabbed her machine gun and strapped it to her back, roughly brushing back her tangled hair and running towards the sky staircase on the other side of the temple. The building was relatively small, but on that particular afternoon it felt like it was a million miles long. Quote's screams were the background music to her exodus.
It was like Cthulhu's Crevasse all over again. She attacked the staircase with all her power and went from block to levitating block, pulling her heavy body up against gravity as fast as she was able. Her processor was spinning from her sudden reactivation and the sharp blow that had knocked her unconscious in the first place, but she had to think and move hard, fast and strong. The joints in her arms groaned against the strain but the floor was steadily dropping away from her, she risked a brief glance over her shoulder and saw Quote curled up on the floor, the shakes of his epileptic fit already beginning to calm down.
The second level was not what she had been hoping for. It was smaller than the first and strangled with red flower vines, the cursed blooms growing as freely and as carelessly as wildflowers. Cages and cages of mimigas were lined up all over the temple, some set down on the floor while others hung precariously from chains welded onto the ceiling. These ones were not frenzied and vicious, they were little, weak and scared, half-starved by the Doctor's tyranny so that they could either eat the red flowers of their own free will, or die. These were the ones that had chosen to die.
There, in the middle of the floor, cold and stinking was the body of the Doctor, face down in a puddle of his own blood. It was the shell that had contained all of the Doctor's evil, but like a moth leaving a discarded chrysalis he had flown onwards to greener pastures. Flies had already taken over his body and fed upon it, and somewhere deeper inside him maggots had already begun to grow. The stench was sickening. Curly could stomach it because she was a robot, but she felt a strong sense of sympathy for the mimigas caged and forced to witness this festering rotting corpse decompose.
Time was too precious for her to waste. She felt bad for leaving these innocent creatures locked up in their cages to continue their torture, but she reasoned that they would not be able to escape anyway if she was killed and Quote became the new king of the Earth. She had to think of the bigger picture, as much as she hated to do so.
Curly believed this, and yet found herself changing her mind as she laid eyes upon a familiar face, one that she thought was dead to her. The robotic girl leapt from the staircase and ran towards the cages, jumping over the dead body of the Doctor without a second thought. The cage was at the other side of the platform, but she couldn't just walk on by like she didn't have a heart. Curly wanted to cry and she sunk to her knees, placing both her hands on either sides of the small cage. "Koron…" She whispered, hardly daring to believe.
The mimiga child was slumped in the corner of the cage, her little head drooping and pressed against the wall. She was malnourished and incredibly weak, but as she heard Curly's voice one ear perked up slightly and she opened her eyes. She sat up like she had been immersed in an unnatural, draining sleep. "Momma?" Koron said feebly. "Is that you?"
The cage wasn't even locked. Curly pulled back the small bolt that would have been impossible for a mimiga to reach while on the inside, but quite accessible on the outside, a cruel taunt. The cage door swung open with a creaking rusty squeak and Koron stumbled out of it tiredly, trying to crawl into Curly's arms. She had believed that all the children from the Sand Zone had been killed ages ago when the Doctor and Misery had banished her to the Labyrinth, her hope had dwindled to nothing over the days, but she had been wrong. Koron was still alive, but barely. Curly wanted to hug the little mimiga that believed her to be her mother, but held her carefully an arm's length away. "No baby, not now." She crooned gently. "The Doctor's chasing me. You can't stay with me yet. Where are the others?"
Koron stared at her with sad eyes. She would have cried if she could have, but she had already used up those tears ages ago. The Doctor scared her more than death itself, but she hoped that Curly would protect her. She was her mother, it was what mothers did. "Momma…" She squeaked, raising her little hands to her face even though she knew it was impossible for her to cry. "He took them away. They gave in and he killed the ones that didn't. I didn't want to give in either, but he said he'd let us starve to death in here or eat red flowers and be his soldiers. I'm the only one left."
No punishment was as bad as that. Curly felt her old hatred for the Doctor erupt anew, like a healing wound that had burst open again against its stitches. Along with Quote, her adopted children had meant the world to her. When her shadow of a life was blanketed with doubt regarding the empty purpose of her existence, she had managed to find meaning again by raising those children herself when nobody else could. It had given her a sense of value that had filled the empty spaces of her being. It was the closest thing to love that she ever could achieve.
Now she had to be brave and do what needed to be done. Curly let go of the little mimiga girl's small shoulders. She wobbled a little, but managed to stand by herself. Good girl. Even though she was weak, she had to be strong. "I have to run." Curly declared softly, standing up again. "If he finds you with me he'll kill you too. Are you strong enough to open up all the other cages and get everybody out of there? Only open up a few if you're too tired, then the others will help you." She smiled, trying to let Koron know that everything would be okay. "Can you do that?"
The mimiga girl blinked, then looked at her hands. She was tired and sore from not moving around much for such a long amount of time, but she had the power to free everyone now, the ability lay within her grasp. Also, she wanted Curly to be proud of her. "I think so…" She breathed, wondering how she would get to the cages suspended from the ceiling. There was bound to be a way. "I can do it. Run away Momma, before he puts you in a cage too!"
That was unlikely. Quote would break her into a hundred pieces if he caught up with her again. Curly patted the mimiga lovingly on the head then turned and ran back towards the staircase again, purposefully stepping on the Doctor's dead body just to spite him. She wanted Koron to be safe. If everything else in the world was fated to turn to evil and dust underneath the hands of the Doctor, she wished for Quote and her adopted daughter to be freed from that, because they were the only family that she had left.
Black Space. From the title she had expected something a little more ominous, but it was just a large storage room tucked away at the very top of the temple. Curly climbed into it numbly, her mind still trailing several paces behind her, back where Koron and the others were. She prayed that Quote wouldn't find them, she hoped to death that he'd be too deeply into his madness to pay attention to anybody else but her. The robotic girl stood upon this new level ground and moved away from the staircase, surveying the local terrain.
The core was here, arranged carefully at the back of the room with its smaller doppelgangers placed all around it. It seemed to be either hollow or dead, deeply into its own hibernation. Back in the geothermal base she and Quote had wounded it quite severely. If Misery hadn't shown up to spirit the entire creature away in time the island would have already fallen long ago. Everybody would have died. On that day it felt like the bad guys had acted for the greater good of the island, even if it was in their own interests.
Nevertheless, the core had to be destroyed today, here and now. As Curly Brace thought of Misery she found the witch woman lying dead upon the ground, her vacated corpse segmented into two separate pieces. Her once lovely face was pale and waxy now, entombment would eventually turn it towards the texture of papyrus. The wound upon her body was, of course, the handiwork of Quote's Polar Spur. She could have computed that from yards away.
Another pile of refuse on the ground was the body of a little girl mimiga, violently ripped apart. Curly felt her mechanical heart leap into her throat when she immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was the body of one of her dead children, but when she got a closer look she saw that it could not be so. She did not recognise that frail, yet brave little face, scarred from a battle that Curly would never know of. It was discarded in a patch of dark blood, dried into the shape of a red flower. Had that been intentional? No, she guessed not, but things had a habit of happening in coincidences. Poor little soul, but Curly needed to press on.
She had to climb over one of the smaller core pods in order to have access to the huge main one. It towered above her, dark and empty, like an exhumed coffin. Whatever lived in there was mortally wounded and cowering inside its shell, waiting to die. It was a living being, but Curly had to kill it. She felt sympathy for it and wished that things didn't have to work out this way, but countless lives were weighing against the core's one simple existence. If it was already dying, she would put it out of its misery. The robot stood a good distance away from it and raised her machine gun, ready to fire. She would pummel it with blue energy until it caved in once and for all.
"Hold it."
Curly froze. Quote stood as he climbed the final stair into the black space. His right arm was held by his side and contained the Vertigo, cocked and trained at her back. He should have guessed that this was her ultimate destination, just as it had been the other robot's destination, and he had indeed paid for it dearly. His head was still ringing painfully with the echoes of static and discord, he wouldn't fall for that trick again. He watched Curly turn around slowly to face him, taking care not to make any sudden movements lest he shoot her. Her eyes were sad and regretful, but below that was a sense of anger. He knew she wanted him to die.
Her eyes widened as she got a better look at Quote, who was striding away from the end of the sky staircase, stepping over the body of Sue. He had lost his cap and his shirt was in tatters, his synthetic body below it flecked with streaks of red. The crystal was giving him power, but it also looked like it was poisoning him, bit by bit, just as aspirin dissolves in water. Red sparks of electricity were coming off his body in leaps and bounds, in brief bursts of light or as miniature arcs of lightning. His shoulders and arms were partially blackened from the power. Small smears of it were wiped across his face, like war paint. Finally his eyes were nothing but narrow slits in his face, where deep fury and hate were stoking the furnaces within him. In her unconsciousness Quote had told her that he had been sent to Hell, now it was beginning to show up on his body, and Curly found herself believing him.
This wasn't Quote, and it probably wasn't the Doctor either. Together they had birthed a third entity. It was the crown.
He had become a demon.
"You thought you would do what I could not and destroy the core? I can't let you do that, Curly Brace, I need this floating continent as my base of operations. The first time I attacked the core this happened to me," with a sweep of his arm he indicated the crystal in his chest, "do you really want it to happen to you too? You are lucky. I like this body, and becoming a woman, albeit a robotic woman really does not appeal to me. You've come to the end of all things, Curly. Drop your weapon and I might just let you leave alive."
That lie was so blatant that she almost cracked a smile from it. Quote was walking towards her as he talked, moving around the mini core rather than just climbing over it. He didn't want to take the barrel of his gun off Curly for even a nanosecond, because that would be enough time for her to shoot him. She noticed that he had his finger already depressing the trigger, and that red energy was gathering in his chest, his weapon and his arm, all three objects beginning to glow a dull red. It was as if he was on fire from the inside. Curly could feel her sense of hope dropping like a stone. He was right. This was the end.
"I'm never going to submit to you, Date!" Curly cried, her voice heavy with furious passion. She raised her machine gun at him defiantly, cornered yet willing to do battle. "I've got too much to fight for! Too many people need to live! I won't let you step all over them!"
He quirked an eyebrow at her, intrigued that she had called him by his old first name. He had never spoken it out loud before, at least on this stinking old island. The heat in his gun arm was reaching its maximum potential, hot and burning and simply intoxicating. Every time he felt the power he became more and more elevated to the stature of a god. He tilted his head back a little and laughed at her, stopping in his tracks. They were both within firing range of one another. "Actually I'm glad that you haven't submitted!" He raved madly. "What better way to test out this new power than with an unwilling sacrifice! You will become charred soot upon the ground, Curly Brace!"
Upon hearing those words a great coldness seemed to come down upon Curly's body, the cold hard ice-blanket of truth. He was probably right. She had a dinky little machine gun and he had a weapon that could melt the very heart of ancient stone. It would cut through her like she wasn't even there at all, ripping a second exit in the temple floor. She was utterly cornered, the body of the core at her back.
The body of the core. At her… back…
She heard a voice in her head. She didn't know if it was her own voice, or Quote's voice, or anybody else's. Frankly she didn't care, as long as it spoke the truth.
Fly, Curly. Fly up high. Fly just like he did.
She had nothing left to lose. Her processor calculated subconsciously that there was a sixty percent chance that she would be killed from this, but that was information she didn't want to hear. Curly closed her eyes tight and screamed out her challenge, feeling her tears falling within her, if not without. "Then shoot me, Quote! Just get it all over with! I'm sick of waiting for this to be over! Do it!"
He graciously obliged her. Quote braced his feet hard against the ground and prepared for the fiery recoil, releasing the trigger of his Red Rose Vertigo. He felt the heat energy rushing from his chest and through his arm in a river of dizzying electrical power, a sensation that both taxed him and heightened his senses to an indescribable level. He cried out himself as the energy left his body and lit up the gun in his hands, illuminating the empty energy chambers, then speared from the barrel to his adversary, a wall of maddening crimson.
She only had a sliver of time to act. Curly's reflexes went into overdrive and she tilted the barrel of her machine gun towards the ground at her feet, letting loose with a volley of rapid fire. Her gun spewed out blue flames and she was suddenly airborne, lifted towards the ceiling by the momentum of her weapon. Her mind reeled with the acceleration and she held onto her gun tightly, rocketing increasingly upwards. She had missed being burnt by the laser of the Vertigo by only half a foot, maybe even less. She flew.
Curly had a bird's eye view of the scene below her, framed by thin strands of her own golden hair. She watched the laser slam into the front of the core and ripped it apart like tissue paper, boring a hole through it like a tiny bead of jewelry. The core burst into flames and collapsed into itself, emitting one last painful death cry. Suddenly the room was filled with an odd smell, like burning meat and the scent of low tide on the beach. Whatever the core had really been, it was dead. Quote had destroyed it himself.
"Ooh you BITCH!" He roared and lunged for her, leaping into the air himself and glowing with the angry energy of the crystal. She wasn't safe up there, not anymore. Curly let go of her gun and pushed away from it with her legs, trying to use it as a source for opposite momentum. She fell on her shoulder and rolled instinctively, only seconds away from Quote putting his fist in the patch of floor where her head had been. The cobbles cracked and shattered under his hands, spreading outwards like a spider's web.
Standing, Curly found herself close to the exit, her hands on her knees and breathing hard, trying to process everything that was going on. The world was moving too fast for her. She had scratched her chin when she had landed and her hand went to it briefly, looking up at Quote with her beautiful, disobedient eyes. The male robot pulled his fist out of the floor and stood, looking away from her, at neither his enemy nor the flaming core at either side of him. He was looking at his hand, then he shook it, clearing away a fistful of debris. "You stupid robot. You have ruined everything." He deadpanned, vacant of the rage that had poured out of him only moments ago. "I will show you fear in a handful of dust."
She smirked at him. "T.S. Elliot. I've heard of that saying too. You've blown up your own core, Date. The island's going to fall and everything here will be gone. You've turned this beautiful island into a wasteland. Just give up now while you still can. Or…" Curly hesitated, but then drew the sword that was still hanging on her hip. "I'll kill you."
A deep rumble came from the floor beneath them. It had only been seconds since the core had been destroyed, but the breakdown had already begun. Quote was framed by the wall of fire behind him, the smoldering remains of the island's heart. He was still looking at his hand, then he glanced at her with a spark of sadistic humor in his eyes. "You will kill me? Ha. You make me laugh, Curly Brace. You cannot kill a human being. It is part of your three sacred laws. Your little friend whispered those secrets to me long ago. I know all about your weaknesses. If you even try to kill a human, you will die yourself. Such is the power of the three laws."
Curly recoiled as if she'd been slapped. How did he know? Quote couldn't have told him that, he just couldn't have. But then again, he might have. "It's not true!" She replied through gritted teeth, holding her sword firmly out in front of her. "I'll kill you!"
"It's a shame, really." Quote replied demurely. "Everything about your friend I've taken for myself, his name, his body, every little iota of information. I know a lot about you, Curly Brace. I know that you've failed as a soldier, as a government agent, even as a mother. You're nothing but one big failure, and you'll have deaths on your conscience forever, just. Because. Of. That."
Curly screamed. Quote wasn't afraid at all. He was protected from her, the same technology that had created her was going to ultimately destroy her. He realised that it wasn't a scream of pain, but a war cry. She charged him, holding the sword like a trained warrior. He wasn't in danger, she'd shut down before the sword even touched his body, but Quote still didn't want to take any chances. The male robot raised his gun and pulled the trigger, wanting to blast her into a thousand different fragments.
She moved in a blur and evaded the small, useless little shot. Tears were streaming down her face, tears that she wasn't even aware that she could shed. She had never cried before, not once in her artificial life, even though she had wanted to on a thousand different occasions. Quote had won and she knew it, because of the three laws. Because she could not kill a human being. The girl could feel her processor rapidly overheating, knowing what it was going to do. It would burn out on command and kill her instantly. The dilemma was unbearable.
It was impossible, and yet Curly didn't want to die on her knees before her enemy. She wanted to die with a weapon in her hands. Her sword arm came up, ready to strike…
And then…
It all became apparent to her.