Charlotte was rooted while holding his metallic skeleton arm, hugging it to herself. She shivered and tears came out of her eyes, not thinking about anything. Her face a mess and mind even worse.

After an unknown amount of time, she heard a sound close to her back. She turned her head slowly and saw the war-robot approaching her, the blade on its arm menacing her. Its movement slowed to the limit, it was already no more than ten meters away.

“The theocracy…” She whispered as she saw the mark on its chest.

Her face contorted in anger, in her hands still the metal.

Closing her eyes, she arrived to the colorless space. Her mind instantly felt calm, her body stopped shivering and she could think once again.

Right… He wanted me to survive, no?

Asking for the External Projection, she saw herself and the mess she was in. She willed for the projection to extend to the machine in a fine line from the crystal. At the other end of the line, she increased its volume considerably so she could see the machine in better light.

She looked for the joints of the armed one but they were too big for her to do anything significant. She then looked at the internal cables and searched for the energy cable. She found dozens of cables inside the arm, she couldn’t differentiate between them, so she started to cut one by one until the hand stopped moving.

Going back to reality, she saw the machine already in front of her, five meters from her crouching self. She stood up and closed her eyes again, cutting the same cable on its other three appendages. Its only remaining working part was the leg, she didn’t give it a glance.

She took one step closer to the machine when she realized there were other two approaching her, already fifty meters away. She let go the arm she was still holding and walked towards the closer one.

After the machines pose no threat to her, she went back to Gut’s body. She crouched behind him once again and closed his dead eyes.

“… I’m sorry… Because of me, you died…” She said to the morning wind.

Her mind was calmer now but she still felt anger towards the ones who commanded the war-robots.

“Hey… If I can replicate a memory disk if the state was completely stored inside Prism’s memory, wouldn’t I be able to replicate you, too?”

She closed her eyes to talk to her daughter. After some questions, she received a satisfactory answer, albeit complicated in its execution. She sighed in relief and her eyes had a new found conviction.

She approached his face and kissed his forehead.

“I’m sorry. Until next time we see.”

She stood up and walked to the car. All its painting was gone and its exterior was a mess. The inside was fine, however.

She opened the back door with her right hand and went in for his laptop. She took it outside along with some cables and walked towards the closest robot. After some difficulty, she stood on its platform, one hand holding her laptop and the other connecting it to the robot’s terminal. Inside it, she searched its files to look for the ones responsible for this attack. There was nothing regarding it, the only foreign information was some instructions and data regarding herself, their vehicle and possible routes she could take.

The other kind of data were videos the robot kept as a form of report. She kept everything inside her device and deleted it all.

She did the same to the other two and found nothing of their masters.

“At least this route should be safe for now.”

She brought his dead body to the car after some difficulty, she didn’t want leave it in the wilderness. She sat on the driver’s seat and connected the laptop to its internal computer, looking through the car’s information. She saw it was functional but with some defects, the tires burst in the explosion and leaks appeared all over its structure, it was still working even with them. She also found there was a jamming device activated, not allowing any communication in a kilometer radius, and a functioning internal bomb.

She didn’t know how to drive this kind of car, so she used the computer to command.

She drove the car slowly for half an hour until it stopped as the gas ran out. 

She didn’t have the strength to carry all the stuff along with his body. After wondering for one minute, she decided to activate the bomb, burying him in a wonderful bang.

Before parting, she moved the middle seats away and disconnected the jamming device, it looked like a black and big donut, around thirty cm in diameter. She also took all his papers and documents, just to see what kind of information he had kept in there, and the disguising kit he always had with him. 

As her bag got cramped with, she left her woman clothes behind. Finally, she in put some food for the road.

“Ten minutes should be enough.” She said as she activated the timer of the bomb and started walking north.

She was more than five hundred meters from the car when she finally heard the explosion, she turned around and saw fire bursting out of the car, everything destroyed in a thirty or so meters from it. After a short while, a gust went past her, her hair swayed with it and her clothes became dustier.

She put a foot to her front and took out a can of food, she kept on her march, she was already close to the city.

Clouds loomed over her head, behind them the obscured sun stood without looking at her.

Her skin hurt by the ragging wind, her feet not better by the uneven terrain.

*****

Lucuaria and Bralan were high in the sky, illuminating the dark soil with their tenue light. 

Her clothes were soaked and torn, her shoes not much better. Her breath rough, she couldn’t properly feel her legs, she kept on walking even when it rained. She would be able to rest once in a safe place, she was certain. After she climbed one of the hills in the wilderness, finally seeing lights in the distance.

“Heh, so that’s Paversia.” Her lips kept on moving after speaking.

As the flies are attracted to light in the night, she kept on walking to the city. She could see how the lights became more and more distinct, in the middle were three distinct blocks of buildings, of skyscrapers. She saw another sky reaching structure behind them, maybe two,. As she walked, she noticed how big the city was, she needed more time to arrive to it but it was already big enough to completely occupy her vision.

“Was it James or the Theocracy that attacked us…” She said with a somber expression. Gut told her not to go to James, it must mean something, she was certain.

“Well, it doesn’t matter that much, I’m a criminal to all of them… So what if I’m a criminal to the world… What’s a criminal anyway, someone who doesn’t do things as they want or someone who breaks the law to survive. I’ll sow them all what a real criminal is all about, I’ll make the world realize what a true criminal is.”

She continued to walk, falling from time to time. She entered the premises of the biggest city of the world. The most dangerous city of the world.