When they were ready to go to dreamland, Charlotte said an “oh right” in a little voice and turned her head to Gut.

“Hey, I wanna try something first.”

She put one had inside her pocket and showed its contents to him, the little transparent crystal in her hand. Gut sighed after he closed his eyes.

I wish she could stay put with that for a second.

“Go on then, need my help to watch over you?” He asked with a soft voice.

“Nu-uh, I want to do something to you.” The corners of her lips turned up under the faint light of the car, her face turning darker. “You meditate?”

“Oho? Yeah, I do it sometimes before sleep.” He didn’t delve too deep in there as curiosity took root in him.

“Perfect, then sit cross-legged and do it...” She hesitated before smirking. “And bear with me.”

“Alright.” He assented, without much on his mind.

He opened one eye after feeling a weight on his legs, Charlotte sat on them, her face in the same direction as his.

“Shut it,” she started before he could say anything, “the range is too short so we need to stay close.”

He didn’t say anything and closed his eye again, continued his breathing. He found his consciousness had arrived to a colorless space at some point. He felt at peace, the nothingness dispersing his worries. He felt he was floating in the sea.

“What is this?” He said as he turned his head, the nothingness a mystery to him. He looked down and didn’t see his body. “This is....”

“Oh, you arrived earlier than I thought, hmm~” he heard a voice, coming from somewhere and everywhere, an echo. It was an indistinguishable voice, genderless and ageless.

“You are...?”

“Oh, there you are, really, it’s so difficult without anything in here. And the fact that he arrived earlier worries me... Hey, Prism, can you give him a body here? Just an image of his, and he would control it... yep, just like that.”

As silence returned, his vision felt obscured by something. Lowering his sight once more, he saw his body in a meditating pose, albeit fully white. He tried to move his body, but it answered slowly, a connection missing between it and him. He already knew the feeling, though, his robotic arms and legs were the same at first.

“Are you really…?” He asked again, a little louder this time.

“Me? Oh, the voices don’t match, that’s... I’ll look through it later. Silly, it’s me, Charlotte.”

“I thought so but... I can not see you.”

“Well duh, of course you can’t, I couldn’t either before. Just think of it as a uh your soul? Yeah, the present state we’re in is without a body so yeah, our souls, and your current body is just an image of the real one. Marvelous, isn’t it.”

“Indeed.”

“How so?”

“Hmm?” She ‘looked’ at him. “Oh, just so you know, in here the thoughts are your words, whatever you think will be known to me, and what you think you’re saying is simply your mind tricking you.”

“That is... Cheating.” He opened ‘his’ eyes wide after he realized his new mistake. “It is an unfair thing, do you not think so?”

“Kinda, but it happens to me too, so we’re even. Hey, let’s see what you can do... Hey Prism, let me see the EPT.”

White Prism understood her intentions. Immediately, two figures manifested along with the space surrounding them, not disappointing her and startling Gut.

“This is how I manipulate the space around me, I just have to think about something and it’ll happen outside. Of course, after a while I get tired, mentally tired. There’s also a limit on what I can change, but I’m working on it.”

“So this is how you do your ghostly spectacle.” He said, his mouth not moving.

“Yep! Hmm? Hey!? You were there that time?! I almost died you know?!” She ranted in protest, moving his image and with that, him.

“I was paying close attention, you never were in real danger, moreover, you solved it flawlessly.” He tried to calm her, succeeding only after some minutes of her bickering and flinging him around.

“You only wanted to show me this?” He said after putting his sights on the white projection again.

“Nope, follow me.” She started to zoom in and went to her body.

“Where to? Hey, Charlotte, where are you?”

“Oh, right.” Once again at his side, she wondered what to do, so she also willed an image of her body.

“Hmm, Prism, make him stay with me, no matter if he’s unwilling.”

Zooming in again, she ‘looked’ behind without turning her head and nodded as they shrunk. She was used to being bodiless here and didn’t want the hassle controlling a body meant. She would still move it so he would know where she was, though.

Once they were small enough, she went in her real body.

“Those are…” He asked, already knowing the answer.

“My cells! Now come with me, I want you to be truthful with me and describe what you exactly see. Is there something strange?” She asked when she found a cell she could clearly tell had that darkish glow.

“Strange? No, apart from everything being white, I do not see anything weird. What do you want me to see?”

“...Prism?” She asked after a while.

BODY COMPLETELY BLOCKED – NEED TO BE LIMITED

“Blocked... I see, then, why was I not blocked?”

“It looks like a game window...” Gut murmured. “… Damn.”

“Hmm?” Turning around to look at him, she moved her hand for the first time. “Oh this? I taught her, so we could talk, it’s easier that way, no?”

“She? The crystal? Can it not normally speak?”

“Nope, and don’t refer to her as an object! If something, she’s kind of my daughter!”

“Ha-ha-ha your daughter... Fine, sorry, so?”

“Hmph! No, she cannot speak, she’s still learning, so don’t be so hard on her, alright?”

“... Alright.”

TO BREAK BLOCKADGE – NEEDS TO MOVE THINGS - HERE

Prism answered after they stopped talking of her, she had been doing her job while her mother played around.

“Oh? Then why could I see from the beginning?”

I BELIEVE - TO MAKE ME – YOU BROKE IT

Charlotte kept on asking things,

Q: Is it dangerous for Gut to break it?

A: No, but it would require more energy to maintain it, or else it would be blocked again.

Q: What happens once it’s blocked again?

A: Nothing, he would need to start again.

Q: Do I need to maintain it?

A: No, you have a place to store the energy already, there was no leakage.

...

After the last of the answers was given, Charlotte moved ‘her’ head, “Hey, wanna break it? It’s free and without worries.”

He shook his head in denial. “Not now, it is risky if we do not get to a safe location.”

His concerns were on how her body had become before. He wanted to finish this without any mishaps.

“Hmm that is all, I guess...” she said while making her face pout.

“Really...” without knowing what else to say, he asked. “How do we get out?”

“Just will it, everything in here is about will.”

“I can not?” He said after some seconds.

“Huh? Hmm oh, well, I think it’s because you didn’t want to break your limits!”

Gut raised a brow. “Really?”

“Heheh, no, but, I think it has something to do with it... Okay, let’s get out.”

Just as she her words faded, Gut found himself on his body, sitting, with the little girl on his lap.

“That was a wonderful experience.” He said, his eyes half closed in the nostalgia that place gave him.

“I know!” She answered, not looking back and staying in the place.

“… You can get up now.”

“Don’t wanna!” She said in a spoiled brat’s voice, putting all her weight on his chest. “I’ll sleep here tonight!”

“... Whatever you want, kiddo, rest well.”

Nodding her head, she fell asleep promptly.

Charlotte opened her eyes in the same position she had fallen asleep with an additional blanket over her body.

After he felt some movement below, he said with an exhausted voice “Are you up yet? Let us continue then.”

“Yeah,” she answered, stretching her joints, “let’s.”

Getting up, they started to prepare something to eat and then continued their ride.

The sun over the horizon illuminated their road, on the plains stood a thin fog and the few plants present had water over them, making Charlotte shivered at the morning wind. She closed her eyes once she was seated in the front seat and continued to eat away the remaining darkish glow.

Coming out of it, she saw they were still on the wilderness and jumping on the road.

*Sigh

“When are we arriving?”

“In an hour, I believe, it should be plenty to get to the outskirts, but until his place, it will not be before night falls.”

“Night, huh… Oh! From now on I’ll sleep like last night! It was a wonderful experience, hehehe.”

“…Do not. I could not move at all. There were some things I had to take care and could not.”

“Heh, do them before, I don’t care.”

“Really, yo-!” he twisted the driving wheel, changing the car’s direction.

*BOOM!

Charlotte kept her mouth shut after hearing an explosion on the back, the car trembling over the impact. She tried to look back but her body was propelled to the front, hitting the safety bag that was activated by the impact, her vision went black.

The car stood in front of a big rock in the middle of the wilderness, though it could still be used, there was a need to propel it back. Its painting completely scratched and some bumps here and there.

Gut looked at Charlotte and saw her breathing wasn’t harsh. He cut the safety bag his body had fallen into with a blade he produced from his right arm.

After pressing a button on the car’s main panel, he touched her head, “sleep tight, little one. It’s going to be alright in a short while.” He opened his door and saw four craters on the route the car had just went through.

“Three war-robots, huh… From the Theocracy.” He said after seeing the emblem on their front, frowning. His left hand going in the pocket of his pants.

“Hand over the girl or you shall be terminated.”

A robotic sound said at the other side of the rock. “Two more…” His frown deepened.

How did they know a ‘girl’ was here… It is obvious to them who that girl is.

The machines approached while standing on four legs, each had pointy end, allowing for versality in difficult terrain. Each of them had on one of its four arms a weapon: a cannon, a riffle, a shot gun and a long blade. He believed the two on his back were the same.

Gut was standing beside the car, being not more than two meters apart. His right hand turned back to normal as he took out his gun from his back.

“I will not, this is not a mission I can give up on.” He said before as he pushed the button of a device he had in his pocket, signaling the start of the skirmish.

They have a reaction speed of a tenth of a second, it can be surpassed, but not for long. I will need a full repair after this. There were only four cannon impacts, so I should be careful about the last one.

He started running in the direction of the three machines he had seen first. Before a second’s time, he traveled more than two hundred meters, a sonic boom following him. His clothes ragged by the speed. His left forearm transformed into two barrels during the short sprint, the hand stayed without change.

Jumping to the right side of the robot, he felt the bullets following his every step, delayed by a small margin. At the same moment, his left hand was shot towards the murderous machine, a cable connected between it and his arm, after it got a grip of one of the machine’s extremities, he altered the curse of his flight, making a circle in the air and getting close enough to it. Pointing at its central mechanism, a shell shot from one of the barrels of his left hand. The robot stopped moving.

On the floor, he propelled his body to the side, avoiding the barrage coming his way. He ran to the second, soon to fall robot. His left hand following behind while being reeled in. Once in front of it and with his right arm with the blade suspended vertically from his forearm, he cut one of its legs easily and gave his body to the force generated, he spun below it, cutting two of the remaining three in the process.

The robot started to fall to the side and he fired the small gun in his right hand twice without looking at it.

He ran to the other two robots, he could see they approached the car and fired their riffles at him at the same time. The remaining one of the initial three was on his left, he pointed his left arm to it and fired his hand. It grabbed one of its legs.

The robots fire the guns at the trajectory made by the hand, missing by a great margin as he ran without reeling it in. The grabbed robot swung his blade at the cord connecting them, only to be let down as a small scrape appeared on it.

When he was close to the one on the right, his right leg and shoulder spout out fire to his right, changing his direction in the process, he went to the one on the left, the speed of his body reaching a new peak, trice the previous one.

*WOSH

The soil he was to arrive had a bladed scar, the blade of the robot breaking at that moment.

The machine in front of him had no time to correct the path of its guns, so it fired the one that had kept on target since the beginning.

Gut smirked without looking back. He had confidence in the armored car. The car had his specifications, after all. At the same time it had fired the cannon, Gut cut two of its legs without problem, on the third leg his blade chipped.

*BOOM

The explosion of the projectile sounded out, he didn’t give it a glance, opting to keep on his destroying act, Charlotte was in the safest place right now. As long as it wasn’t a tactical missile or something bigger, she would be safe. He was sure of it.

Turning to see the one his hand wasn’t on, he ran towards it while firing the gun on his right hand towards the falling one. His right leg stopped responding properly at that moment, smoke coming out of it and an alert appeared on the corner of his eyes,

Too sudden of a turn, huh.

He used the remaining leg in the same fashion he had changed directions before.

The robot somehow expected it and pointed its shotgun at the location he was to arrive, firing it before Gut was even there.

He frowned at the little pain he felt for the first time in a while.

So what!

He spun once below it, cutting all four legs in the process, his blade already with sings of breaking. He started the bobbin of his left arm again before he could touch the earth, firing the small gun on his hand trice, towards the two guns the robot still had.

Four of the five war machines were already useless, three of them had their guns shot in the same fashion and its legs were cut, stopping their movements. The fourth had its central computer destroyed.

Propelled to the last one of the machines, he clicked his tongue as he saw the new notifications on his eyes. He then put his sight on the last one. He used the blade one the verge of being destroyed to change directions constantly, so the rifle it still had wouldn’t be able to hit him. When he was close enough, he impaled the ground with the blade’s end, making his body do a somersault. The blade broke apart after the suffering it had gone through, only half its length still with him.

Enough!

He went into the air for a moment as he continued his trajectory. The cable was chipped a lot, but not close to be cut. The blade the robot was using broke at some point, making his way easier.

He shot the last bullet of his gun towards the shotgun it held, so he wouldn’t be hurt in the same fashion again. He went below the robot shortly after, cutting three of its legs in a swift motion, he let go of its fourth and threw away his small gun.

*Gah!

He bounced off the soil one time before firing the right hand to the robot. The damned thing could still shoot him, its rifle still functional. His hand grabbed the base of the rifle’s arm and immediately started to reel Gut in.

He changed directions on the same way as before but with handless arm, somersaulting again with its help, he went for its controlling device. He shot from the barrel he didn’t use much in the battle, doing the same thing he did to the first one.

*Thud!

Charlotte was jolted awake by the impact of the cannon’s explosion.

*Tatatatatata

She heard the rifles going off constantly, making her anxious. She wanted to know what was happening but was scared of the battlefield. She was just a normal girl not too long ago! All she had done in her life was being a silly girl, following her investigations, sharing time with her friends and having normal looking boyfriends. She didn’t know of the fear of war, only learning about it from a safe place. She didn’t know of the dark nature some individuals had, they were alien to her.

All this journey a new experience to her. All the happenings, now and during it had left her without knowing what to do or how to react. She hadn’t read detective novels nor had she played any gore game, she didn’t have the time for that. So she was unprepared for any of the dark side of the world. The world she now belonged to, looked for her like a golden goose or lost treasure.

When she didn’t hear any noise the rifles made, she started to move, doing what she thought she had to do.

Gut! What happened to him!

It took her no more than a minute to get out of the car, she searched the battlefield. She saw the devasting field, the soil barred with gunshots. Gut nowhere to be seen. She saw two completely still machines, with little damage on their upper parts. The third one was moving slowly, its only weapon a blade, its remaining arms trying to move its broken body along with its remaining leg.

*Crash

The machine on the right fell down, making Charlotte look that way.

There is he!

She felt certain. She ran, not caring if the robot still had the capacity to move. Once she was close enough, she saw Gut on the floor, just before the broken robot.

“!!!!”

She halted her steps in horror.

His lower body was gone, below his navel everything was gone, some holes on the edge missing part. He didn’t bleed, in its stead a reddish yellow liquid came out of his remaining abdomen. His left and right arms were still there, albeit barely. His right hand gone, with a small cable connected to where it should have been, the rest of that arm was only what she could call a metallic bone with a connected, broken blade. His left hand was also gone in the same fashion, connected to it were two barrels of the shotgun he had used, still intact. His eyes were open, he was looking at the sky.

“You *Cough! Finally came out…”

“! You’re alive! W-what happened to you? No, how, what, can I do, how do I treat you?!?”

She didn’t want to lose him, she liked him, he had protected her and given her a home to go back. He had given her the hope of tomorrow. Even if he didn’t love her back, it was okay, he would still treat her like his daughter, that was also a show of affection, a display of love. She firmly believed.

“You *Cough cough* can not do anything, I am happy *cough.” he spouted out that same yellow with a little bit of red liquid every time he coughed. “I got to hear you one *coughs last time*”

“Please, be quiet!” She crouched beside him, the corners of her eyes full with tears. Unsure of what to do or touch, she took his bladed arm.

His voice grew thinner, smaller, weaker.

“You have to survive *cough… do me that favor... and, dont, go, to James.” She took the remaining of his right hand at this point, tears going down her cheeks.

He stopped speaking, he was still looking at the sky, he had said his farewell. He was dead.