“You got in my way earlier… Giro?” A young looking girl, sitting on a black cloud, wears a black dress with deep black hair, but pale skin that seems to HIDE from the very sun… “Is that what they call you nowadays? The little Machine who could…” She continues as he stares at her, looking at himself, another gift for another person…

“Don’t bother, roboboy~... You’ve got nothing to offer me…” She says, and he lowers his arm… “You don’t even know who gave you what you have… I bet you call him the ‘STRANGER’… Or SOMETHING dumb like that- Don’t you?…” She asks, her breaths becoming more erratic as she stares at Giro, unnerving him…

She made him uncertain… She was barely above four feet by the looks of it, but the way she glared, the way she became erratic and calmed herself down just as quickly… “You stupid little machines… Would you like… to know my name?” She asked, as he continued to stare, so uncertain he couldn’t move…

He finally nods his head. “Lixza.” She tells him, as she kicks her legs up onto the cloud chair’s right arm, her back leaning against the other side. “Yeah, it was me about to harass that little settlement. I halfway considered asking Liyoxis to just glass it…” She says…

Giro couldn’t just let her get away with what she wanted… But now that she was in front of him… What could he do? “Funny thing is… It’s not even important, so if I DID ask him, I’m eighty-seven percent sure he WOULD. That’s how inconsequential it is. You sure DID seem to like them though, so I decided to spare it.” She shrugs, finally allowing him to calm down…

“So you’re going to learn your place, Giro, or there won’t be anyone left to remember you…” She says, unfolding a large weapon and pointing it at Giro… Giro ejected his buzzer hives- Hive. Singular now. He equipped his flayer swarm, and his heavy rifle.

“That one on your left… It looks pretty nasty, a type of shredder… I’m a weaponsmith, buddy. You think I’d seriously come out here unprepared?” She asks, as geometric objects float down from the sky and surround her.

They seem to be coffin shaped machines with a single red eye that watch eternally, secondary red surfaces at the bottom of their design.

Her cloud disperses and she falls on one of the floating objects, before snapping her fingers and resting her back against four of them… Eyes light up, hundreds, thousands, millions… Millions of red eyes glaring at Giro, as the young lady’s eyes focus, and she opens her mouth-

“Weapon platforms, activate! Eighth-Guardian, protect me!” She shouts, as hundreds of little machines fly in front of her, floating around single points. “Go ahead, try it, I’d love to see the GALL, bot-boy!” She shouts, as storms and storms of machines fly around Giro…

He aims his heavy rifle, and her eyes widen even more, laughing to herself before the machines start exploding by the thousands- Giro watches in awe as streaks of light destroy drone after drone, as Lixza watches, at first she too was in awe, but now her eye is twitching and she looks like she actually IS about to kill…

“ARIGOLD!!! Explain!” She shouts, as she stands on two of her drones, looking around as he stops in front of her… “I’ve changed my decision, it belongs to me. You know better, Lixza.” The Stranger, Arigold… That’s his name… Arigold tells her, pointing a weapon of his own, as she glares at him.

“You’re lucky I like you too much, Arigold… Send us home, boys.” She says, lying back again as she floats away, while Arigold turns to look at Giro. “Have you found my answers yet?” He asks, as Giro stares at him, sharing that cold stare between each other, yet still so different.

One of them really WAS cold and emotionless, completely and utterly consumed by his void, unable to fill it with anything aside from the desires of others. The other one was filled with emotions given to him by the former, but he had no way to answer, no way to tell him what he could TRULY never have…

Arigold nods his head, just like Giro. “Right. I figured. You’re free to go.” He says, shattering the reality behind him, like a glass frame Giro couldn’t see before now… “Goodbye.” He says, leaving through it as the pieces float off the ground behind him, repairing themselves…

As though he was so powerful he could shatter reality with a single strike. … Giro stood there for hours…He was incapable of showing it, but he was faced with death, and had decided to stand up and fight anyways… His savior; the same man who had killed his master…

To say he was confused, would certainly be putting it lightly… Giro didn’t know WHAT to think… Giro moved on anyway, he didn’t need to dwell on this second chance. He knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth, and he would move on.

He travels onward for miles, chasing the sun as it continues to refuse to attune with him. He already knew that it couldn’t, he wasn’t going to start lying to himself. But it wouldn’t stop him from wishing it could.

Giro continues to march on and on, looking for SOMETHING as he stares at the sun, feeling every part of him shake and scream with all the damage he had already collected. Giro didn’t want to die, not here, not now. Not while the sun was still there for him…

…

“Buddy, calm down-”

It had been days already, Giro hadn’t stopped, despite desperate reasons compelling him otherwise… A man dressed in green with black wings and feathers decorating his face had found The Machine at its most desperate age…

Giro stares at him, as he walks up and touches Giro’s torn armor. “What’s wrong? You’re tearing yourself apart.” Giro’s arm raised slowly, allowing him to point at the name etched into his face, just under his well damaged visor. “Giro… You can’t speak… Can you?”

He backs away from Giro, as the two sit down. “I’m Oliver. Now tell me, Giro… Why do you look so frightened?” Giro raised his arm a little higher, guiding Oliver’s eyes to the sun, Giro’s guiding light. “The sun? I don’t get it…” Oliver tells Giro, his confusion confirming Giro’s expectation.

Giro stands up, and looks at his arm, only to realize that he has run out of gifts… He tore off his forearm, deciding that he would no longer need it. “What the hell?! No wonder you’re falling apart- Listen, I’ve got friends. We’ll have you fixed up in a jiffy!” Oliver tells him, panicking as he suddenly opens a portal, and disappears through it.

Giro left the gift behind, and marched on quickly afterwards, not wanting to waste his new friend’s time…

End of Chapter: 9 “Dead weight.”

Thank you for reading.

“Heh, thanks.” *Blips and bloops*

“Thank you for reading.”