-1I think it's safe to say NOBODY expected this…
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The first thing she noticed was the sounds. Grunts and growls of effort mixed with the occasion heavy impact and the sound of something being dragged. Reaching the top, she looked down. The Silver Devil of her dreams lay sprawled on the ground before her, having just finished laboriously dragging himself out of the reservoir. His right leg was completely absent from mid-thigh downward, terminating in a charred mess of melted metal. The same was the case with his left arm right below the shoulder joint. The rest of him didn't look much better. He looked as if he'd been caught in a rockslide, then stepped on three or four times. A groan escaped him. She hadn't thought that mechanical beings could feel pain, but now all doubts were gone. It took everything she had to resist the urge to work her special magic. It was then that she heard the voice that haunted her dreams. The Silver Devil seemed to be semiconscious or at least very weak as he muttered to himself about how he had to find his brother and apologize for his deeds because his brush with death had shown him how stupid he had been and now he wanted to reconcile and end the madness he had started by keeping the others he'd led from pursuing the goal he now knew had been foolish… She only then realized that he'd been gathering his strength, for he began to move, reaching out with his remaining arm to drag himself forward.
All of a sudden she found herself darting to the side with a frightened squeal as those spidery claws she'd come to fear in her dreams blindly reached out and almost crushed her like a bug. All movement stopped the instant she cried out. A moment later she found herself staring him in the face. Terror filled her as memories of her nightmares piled in on her, the dreams he had haunted almost nightly… "It's you…" The menacing thunder was gone from his voice, replaced with… astonishment? That realization, coupled with what he had just said, made her feel the same. "You… you know me?" There was no malice in those fiery eyes now, diabolic flames fading into a warm glow. "Before I regained consciousness, I was lost in my memories, reliving my past deeds. No matter the memory, I always saw you in the background somewhere. I would try to reach you, thinking you the key to escaping the confines of my own mind, but you would always retreat, fading away before I could say anything." He relaxed again, no longer able to hold his head up to meet her gaze. She could tell he was in a world of pain and hurt, and not just the physical kind. "You know me… you know what I have done. You feared me… yet you are here. I don't understand…" Neither did she, really. She could have just as easily disregarded the sight of that alien jet in the sky, or turned away at any point during her sprint to this place. "…I don't either," she eventually concluded. He gave what sounded like a sigh. "…It doesn't matter. I managed to make it here, but I don't think I'll be going much farther. At least I was able to fly… one last time…" Her eyes widened. Was he dying?
Trying and failing to raise his head and look at her again, he spoke the only name he knew to give her. "Battle Angel…" She froze, confused yet somehow understanding that he meant her. It was like the labels her mind had given him and his cohorts in her dreams. As she had labeled him in her mind, so he had labeled her. "If you can, find my brother. You'll know him when you see him, and he'll know you. If you were in my memory-dreams, I'll lay good odds on you being in his. Tell him I'm sorry for what I did. All the lives I took… All the destruction I caused…" That broke her out of her confusion. "I'll go you one better on that. Just give me a moment here and we'll see what happens."