?, 3513
Co. Tipperary, Ireland, Earth
My Guardian is broken.
I shouldn't say that. He's not broken; he's alive, he's sane, he's still in Light. But he's broken. Has been from the very beginning. And resurrection hasn't fixed that. Only ever made it worse. He walks around, meets people, talks with them, but it doesn't work. He drifts right through. Nothing's making an impact.
He is broken at the core.
Last week we found a village. Or what remained of one. Devils had come through. Whole bunch of them. We'd been tracking them since. Not for revenge. We didn't know those people. Not for justice, 'cause there's none to be found Just for gain - nothing more, nothing less. My Guardian wants a Maruader stealth-kit. I don't know why. I don't want to know why. He just does.
He takes things - words, phrases, entire languages, and then datachips full of virus-ridden coding - and he eats them, only to spit them back out at the wrong time. Always the wrong time. No one goes up to the local dictator and spout a line of Fallen. That's... just not right.
Warlord beat him into sparking scraps. Finished him off with a crushed skull. Then she kicked his body off a cliff. I spent three days putting him back together, working against all the little gadgets he'd outfitted himself with just to spite me. Three days. Then he sits up, shakes the death off, and walks on to new pastures.
My Guardian is broken. And it's not death that broke him. It's number twelve. He's afraid of forgetting. Of moving on. Of unlucky thirteen. He's afraid of the reset. Says he can feel it in his bones. Exominds don't have bones, but I guess that's the human in him crying out, crying for mercy.
There's no mercy to be found. Not in this howling arena of a star system.
My Guardian is Pyrrhic-12. And he is no Guardian.
Found the Fallen. Ambitious young Captain thought there'd be some advantage in killing a village. Maybe he'd hoped to show off the bones to his peers. Maybe he was looking for tech. Don't know. All he got in the end was a bullet between the eyes.
He got lucky.
My Guardian has a stealth generator. He left its owner broken on the side of the road, whimpering. Still alive. In pain. Burned to hell and back. I feel for her. Sympathy. I feel sympathy for a killer. A murderer. I want to go back and help her. I want to heal her. Because this is my mistake. This is my Guardian's handiwork - it's my handiwork. My fault.
I don't feel sympathy for my Guardian. No pity. Nothing. Not anymore. I feel more strongly for a Devil than I do him. He is broken. He doesn't understand mercy. It isn't that he's cruel, he doesn't hurt for the sake of it. No. He's just cold. Well and truly empty. No warmth. No passion. Everything's a means to an end. Tools to stem back the tides of thirteen.
I should leave him. I tried to, last night, to go back for the Marauder. I could help her. Save her. Maybe even choose her. Redeem her. But I can't. There's this string between me and Pyrrhic, and it's pulling taut. I can't leave. I can't. I can't do it. I'm supposed to bring him back to life, again and again. This is my purpose - I feel it in my core!
Why?
Why him?
I give him life, but he's not living. Just surviving.
What's the point?
...
...
...
I don't know.
...
...
I'll try again tonight.
...
Even a Devil's better than this.