Chapter 10
She missed.
"Wha--?"
She…she swung short.
If robots could smirk, the V-Prey would've, as it leapt towards Riu. She saw the glint of the razor-sharp claws screeching out of their sheaths, and she raised her arms to shield herself…
The top half of the V-Prey smacked her in the face. The bottom half clattered against the table, falling in pieces. It warbled in surprise, and lay on the floor, slowly whirring to a stop. It's comrade squawked in confusion, and tried to bite Riu. The head toppled to the floor. The decapitated body stood there, with no commands, and just fell over.
Riu stared in surprise. All around, parts of the mechas lay scattered across the room. She glanced down in front of her.
Right where she swung, there was an almost invisible shimmer; an arc that let a similar hum as the thing she had in her hand…
She glanced down at the weapon.
"AG saber…what could it mean?"
She pressed a second, red button on the handle. The shimmer seemed to zip back into the blade, and the humming returned.
Twirling the AG Saber, she swung a cross hatch in front of her, forming a grid of shimmers, almost imperceptible.
One toss of the lead pipe she had, and it was enough proof that this was a weapon.
She left the room; on the ground lay scattered, a dozen pieces of lead pipe.
Rhiem rolled off to the side. The ground tore itself up again, right where he was a second ago. O'Connell's aim was getting better. He tried to lay suppressive fire, but he disappeared again.
"Shit!" Rhiem drew his Tomahawk, and stared out at his horizons. The environment was almost perfect for his enemy! There was nothing he could do!
Rhiem lay against the scrap pile, resting for a short bit.
He hoped Riu managed to get away.
A hole blew itself into the car he hid behind, reminding him to move.
* * *
Riu hit the walkway handhold hard, and vaulted over the edge. She fell some dozen feet onto a scrap pile that was right below her.
"Ah!" She hit the top of the trash hard, and rolled down the slope.
She just managed to grip the edge right before she landed onto a pile of broken bottles.
Gunshots rang out across the scrap yard.
"Rhiem…" She hurried to the fight.
* * *
Rhiem lay against yet another hiding place…he couldn't hold him off for much longer. But he had to fight, to buy as much time for Riu as possible. If he wasn't going to see her again…
Then, he saw a flash of silver coming towards him…Riu!
He yelled out, swinging his free hand: "Riu! What are you doing here! Run!"
Riu rushed over to Rhiem, and knocked him on the head.
"I'm here to help! Just trust me!"
"He's too fast! There's no way!"
Riu drew her AG Saber.
"One way."
She pressed the button on the weapon, and a large humming burst forth from the blade. She drew a line from on end of the scrap pile to another.
Hurrying over to the next chokepoint, she swung from one end to another.
"What…Riu, what're you doing?"
"Just trust me! Come on!"
O'Connell's raspy voice called out to them
"Heh-Heh-Heh! Oi! Hunter! You enjoying your last moments with your girlfriend?"
"O'Connell! I'll make sure to kill you!"
"Hah! Don't worry; I'll take good care of your friend, good care indeed!"
Riu grit her teeth, and slashed yet another chokepoint.
"Ignore him! Just cover me!"
"Riu…"
Rhiem and Riu came to a dead end.
"Over here." Riu let loose a huge amount of slashes in the middle of what would be a meadow, if the scrap piles were a forest.
Riu cupped her hands to her mouth. "O'Connell! If you want us, than come and get some!"
He answered her calling. "Heh-Heh-Heh! Given up, Missy? Smart move. Saves us all time." O'Connell raised the Anti Tank Rifle.
Rhiem whispered to Riu.
"He's not going to shoot me. He's going to appear right in front of me, again, and kill me with his bare hands."
Rhiem's fingers twitched towards his Tomahawk.
"He's sadistic like that."
Riu shook her head, and pushed Rhiem's hand away from his Tomahawk.
"No need for that. Just wait."
O'Connell's head cocked to the side, like an interested child.
"Good bye…Hunter."
He appeared in front of Rhiem.
Rhiem grabbed his Tomahawk, and almost swung at O'Connell, knowing he would just vanish away from his blade.
Yet O'Connell did not budge.
His eyes stared past Rhiem, showing a hint of surprise. Rhiem could see O'Connell's face, which was quite young, but covered with scars and spots.
"What…" O'Connell sunk to the ground. His face contoured in pain and rage "What…WHAT DID YOU DO?!?"
Red slashes appeared all over O'Connell. Blood spurt forth, all around him, in a perfect hemisphere of gore.
"RAGGGHHH!"
O'Connell turned into a blur, and Rhiem could see now…O'Connell wasn't vanishing-- he was just moving at incredible speeds!
O'Connell charged off in retreat, blood flowed in a splatter of dots where his footsteps were.
"GAH!" O'Connell ran through another shimmer.
Riu smilied grimly.
"One."
"Aggh!"
"Two."
O'Connell charged from the top of a scrap pile, and leapt towards Riu. He swung his Anti Tank Rifle, intending to club Riu as hard as he could.
Riu just raised the AG saber, and squeezed the recall button.
All the traps she set, every invisible blade, shot back into the AG saber, through O'Connell.
"Ughh!…" O'Connell tumbled to the ground in a bloody heap. There was a horrid hole in the center of his stomach.
His cloak fell to the ground in pieces. Riu gasped slightly in horror; Rhiem just stared, gun ready.
Both legs were replaced with the Venondite's legs. Blood seeped from the unholy fusion, and trickled down the pure white raptor legs like gore upon snow. Upon O'Connell's Chest, was the Soul Gear of Venondite, affixed above his heart, replacing it. It pulsated with his heartbeat.
"You…you maggots…I'll kill you, and eat you, and crush your skulls into dust and feed it to the crows!"
Riu raised her blade. The shimmering of air shone brightly on the blade of the AG saber.
She cleanly shoved the saber into the center Soul Gear.
She pulled the blade out with a sickening splat.
O'Connell swayed for a bit, and then hit the ground, hard. He lay on the ground, watching his life seep out of his wounds, waiting for death.
Riu shook her head slowly, and turned.
"Rhiem…let's go."
Rhiem nodded, and then went with her.
O'Connell shot up one last time, and was behind Rhiem in an instant. He drew a large blade and brought it crashing down.
Rhiem saw the desperate, final look in O'Connell's eyes.
Yet it never came.
O'Connell's head exploded in a cloud of gore. Rhiem barely registered the ringing gunshot that had come from behind of O'Connell, as bits of brain and bone splattered both Rhiem and Riu. The headless body just fell forwards, finally still.
A hunched man in a hood, wearing a face mask, started laughing. A smoking magnum was in his right hand. His left hand was a rusty hook.
"Watch your back, stranger. Ya won't be able to enjoy my services with a knife in yer neck."
The Wandering Merchant had arrived.
* * *
The Merchant hobbled over to the headless body of O'Connell.
"Hey…Ya gonna take keep this piece? I'll pay ya good for it."
Rhiem just stood there, covered in brain, blood and bone. Riu shook her blood speckled head. The Merchant smiled, and than clonked over the body. He stripped the body of the Soul Gear, and Venondite's Legs in less than a second. He pressed a couple thousand-zeni bills into Rhiem's stunned hands.
The paper felt incredibly heavy in Rhiem's hands. He's never seen that much money in his life.
"Wha?"
"That's right! Haven't introduced meself; forgive my atrocious manners." The Merchant took off an imaginary hat, and bowed to the two. "I'm the Wandering Merchant. Nice ta meetcha."
Rhiem spotted a blood-crusted peg leg as the cloak lifted a bit up.
"Why…why are you here…?"
"I'm here 'cuz I heard someone might've killed O'Connell. Old Vulture was holding valuable, I knew it!"
"…You just killed him."
"Oh ya, ya I did." The Merchant finished packing Venondite's legs into his enormous, bottomless pack. "So, ya need a ride to the Apals?" Riu spoke with growing amazement.
"How'd you know we were going there?"
"…I know everything, missy, count on it…heheh."
* * *
The Land Ship, Shiloc
The two were on what seemed to be a gargantuan, moving ship-shaped half-track that caved the landscape like a pirate ship. Everyone was in the second floor of the Shiloc, where a waiting room was installed off the side. The Merchant was pouring tea in a delicate, dainty set that was chipped but expensive.
Riu whispered to Rhiem
"Where'd he get the machinery to build this battleship? A lot of these structures need at least Cranes to hold in place before they're secured."
The Merchant came with several bottles on a silver platter.
"Oh! Sorry. Ya take yer tea with sugar, or booze?"
The Merchant then sat down, and ignoring the tea, he consumed a small flask of alcohol on his hip.
"So! Ya want ta buy anything? I go for the best price around!"
Rhiem shook his head.
"I don't need anything. I'm fine with what I have." The Merchant smirked.
"Oh yeah? I saw your battle. Ya didn't hit anything larger than a V-Prey with that over-sized stick of yours."
Rhiem had no retort. His Combat Rifle did seem heavy during his fight with both the insanely fast Verdugo and O'Connell.
"Fine. I'll see your wares. Then we'll see."
* * *
The Armory
Rhiem had on gun muffs, and goggles.
"Next!" He tossed away a stupid heavy .50 pistol.
The Merchant sat with Riu, watching Rhiem's pile of rejected weapons grow larger and larger from behind a bullet-proof window.
They sat there, sipping tea from the same dainty set in the waiting room. In front of a wall of weapons. Riu sat, nervously eyeing the RDX placed haphazardly next to a set of old TNT. She resolved not to approach that certain with a lit match. Ever.
Her eyes traveled up to magnums, submachine guns, shotguns, pistols, rifles, several varieties of RPGs, and a number of stun batons and crossbows all placed in a large gallery up on the wall.
"So, you two are hunters, eh?"
"Um…yes!"
The Merchant chuckled at her frankness.
"So young…I see that that's your weapon on your hip?"
Riu took her AG saber our in response. The edge seemed to hum…
"Heheh! A melee weapon! Haven't seen one of those in a while!"
"Are…melee weapons that rare?"
"Tsh!" The Merchant snorted. "Of course. They died out with the fall of the CNM."
"CNM?"
"Oh. Yeah. You kids wouldn't have known about that, huh?" The Merchant closed his eyes, and folded his hand and hook "The CNM…it stood for the Confederate Nations of Minegarde. Old nation. Thousands of years old. But not anymore."
"Not anymore? What do you mean?"
"It's gone."
"Gone."
"Destroyed. By two new rising powers." The Merchant smirked a bit. "Rubina and Archeria."
Riu recoiled in surprise.
"What happened was that at that time, CNM had been reduced to a tiny, tiny nation. A small collection of ethnicities herded into a corner by its massive neighbors. Then, genocide struck the CNM. Rubina sent in a huge force, armed with the new weapon: the Gun."
"Was the Gun really that powerful back then?"
"Absolutely! The Gun could fire at thousands of times the rates of even the fastest bowguns, and each bullet, invisible with speed, could kill a ten-year veteran hunter, armed with the finest armor."
The Merchant looked to the ceiling. "Those poor beasts. It was a massacre. An utter massacre. Why Rubina sent in such overkill, or why they wanted to crush the CNM in the first place is unknown to most. Most people don't even know who or what the CNM was."
"Hey! I think I found the right one!" The Merchant stopped his story and then clonked over to the armory.
Riu sat alone, thinking.
She…she was an Archeries…was she any different from Rhiem?
Rhiem held clutched in his hand, an extremely odd gun. It seemed to be a pistol, a small jet-black pistol that had a huge stock thrice its size, and a fat short barrel. The stock was embroidered with elegant carvings and inlays. A small revolving chamber was set nicely under the fat barrel, looking like a work of art rather than a weapon. It shone like ink in the fluorescent light.
"Ah! An awesome choice, Stranger! That's a creation of my own! It's called the Fallen Tigress. Try it out."
Rhiem raised the Tigress to sight. He squeezed the trigger with deliberation at a concrete block.
A small round, looking more like a dart than anything, soared out of the barrel, and then buried itself in the hard concrete. It made a small funnel of carved concrete, and spun in the spot. The round then exploded, and cracked the block in half.
"Its class is a Launcher Magnum. Like it?"
"Yeah…"
"Well good. You can trade that junk you have on your back for this beauty. Deal?" Rhiem took a long time looking at his Combat Rifle.
"Done."