Marked for Death

It was warm, the scent of summer still lingering, the memory of someone he once was. In shrill voices, he heard the cicadas crying, calling out to one another in loneliness, and he lifted his head, staring at his reflection in the broken mirror.

How long had it been, a hundred years, maybe more? How long had it been since von Shockä's lackeys had torn him apart, reconstructed him in the likeness of this thing, this monstrous locust that could not die? How long since his fateful journey to Castle Damurung, the hideous truth behind Baron von Shockä's obscene experimentation?

Blue eyes met his gaze. The face had not changed in all that time, and yet inside, he was anything but human, a monster cursed to live alone in this place, this desolate arena, this place of spilt blood and cursed memories.

Hastily, he turned away, tired of remembering. How many times could he relive the past, how many years could he waste away re-treading those fateful events. If he had once had a name, then he could no longer remember it. When the Sicherunggruppe had reconstructed him with their dark magic and sharpened scalpels, they had called him Herr Heuschrecke, and for the last one-hundred years, maybe more, that is who he had been, unwilling to remember what had occurred before that, unwilling to think on the life before that, his gold-red scarf about his neck in the chill of winter, her hand in his—

No more thoughts. Not now. Not ever. His life was the arena of this dead world now. Anything before… was gone.

Running a hand through the locks of his soft, blond hair, he reached down and picked up his tattered greatcoat from where he had tossed it upon the floor the night before, throwing it over his shoulders, not bothering to slip his arms into the sleeves. Here, in the shadow of the world that he had once belonged to, there was seldom chance for rest, for though sporadically populated, when opponents were chosen, they often came in waves.

He was the oldest survivor of the arena at this point, his days within that place stretching back to the fall of Castle Damurung in his own personal past. For the first few years, he had imagined himself in Hell, had believed this place to be some distant outpost of the final resting place of the damned, and whilst there were often as many dead as there were living in this place, the man that the Sicherunggruppe named Heuschrecke was the oldest, his good fortune having held out even during the many beatings he had received. Nothing had happened here, in this dark netherworld, that he had not been able to crawl away from; every battle he had fought in this place, he had survived, he had learnt from, he had grown stronger from.

As for the nature of the world, that was something he did not understand. Despite the vast length in which he had resided in that realm, he could not confess knowledge of it. In many ways, it was much like the Earth he remembered, whilst in others, it was radically different. As with the world he dimly recalled, there were non-combatants here, those not involved in the conflict, and, whenever encountered, he tried to avoid drawing them into the violence. Not that such was always a possibility.

Bunching the collar of his coat up with his fist, he bowed his head and passed through the emptiness of the old industrial district. There had been occasions when it had not been possible to prevent harm to those who knew nothing of the arena's true nature. He did not relish such memories, nor did he take responsibility for what had occurred. In this place, the same as any other, people perished, it was impossible to pretend otherwise.

Unlike the world he remembered, the arena was a place of dreadful noise the rival of any canon on the battlefield. Now and then, when he could stomach it, he thought back on what he could recall of the world he had known before the Great War; on the vast rolling fields, on the omnibuses that had carried crowds from the city to the shore. He thought once more of the past and then, again, dismissed it, trying not to dwell on what could never be again.

Even if it was possible to return from the arena, the Great War had changed everything, torn apart the world he had once known. There was no England for him to go home to, not the England he once knew, and although, in his darkest moments, he might still recall the shape of her, tears spilling from her large, blue eyes and running in warm trails down her pale cheeks as she reached out for him, the woman she might have grown to be after the Sicherunggruppe had had their way with him was not someone he had ever known.

I won't forget you, he had said to her, his hand falling away as she reached out, their fingertips brushing against one another; I'll be back soon, he had said to her.

It was for the best. Better that she had never known him, better that she had never witnessed the hideous armour that came forth at the bidding of the jumble of curses that spilt from his lips.

Head bowed, he became conscious of the fact that someone was watching him, standing a short distance behind him, their eyes moving in accordance with his weary steps.

"I've been waiting for you," a voice called out, full of authority, full of command.

He sighed, and, regretfully, he turned.

Standing rigid and to attention, his arms folded across his chest, was a tall man in a black uniform, his hair swept back from his high forehead and roman nose, his eyes dark and critical; a military man, he realised, a soldier, much like him.

He exhaled air slowly.

"You have found me," he said with cautious patience.

The other man uncrossed his arms.

"As it would seem."

There was silence between them for a moment.

"We don't need to do this," he called to the other, "there are other ways. You can survive in the arena without fighting."

The soldier looked at him, his expression unreadable yet his silence indicating that perhaps he was considering this.

He nodded.

"Noted. Unfortunately, I have comrades I must return to."

He who had once been Heuschrecke answered with an inclination of his own head.

"That must be nice," he said softly, sadly.

The other soldier offered no response, instead reaching to his belt and detaching a small device no bigger than the palm of his hand. Flipping it open, he dialled in the three-digit access code with his thumb.

The spirit gage on the device's display blinked ceaselessly, indicating the full charge stored within the technology. Carefully, lifting it to his ear, he spoke three simple words:

"Lorica laminata… engage!"

Particles of energy cauterised in the air about him, rushing to one another to form sheets of divine metal, armour burning its way into existence from the gaps between unseen realities. He spread his arms wide and the sheets of metal converged upon him, twisting about his limbs and locking into place until his entire body was clad in a featureless suit of perfect, matte red armour.

Heuschrecke stood silent, unmoving for a moment, regarding the formless majesty of this other's armour, the beauty with which it was summoned, and then, with resignation, nodded sadly, lowering his arms, crossing them at his waist.

"Henshin," he said quietly.

Beneath the rags of his clothes, pale flesh began to bubble and erupt in sores.

x

She stood at the window, hands folded behind her back, the long sleeves of the charcoal jacket she wore, several sizes too large for her, hiding the soft skin of her hands completely. In the glass of the window, superimposed over the spires of the sprawling city below, her reflection gazed back at her, cold, grey eyes betraying nothing.

She sensed the presence of the door opening before it occurred, sensed the presence of the tall man, her servant, as he stood hesitantly at the threshold, uncertain if he should disturb her. Unseen, she smiled imperceptibly. In this world, she sensed everything, ordained everything, defined the parameters of its function, established the rules by which it operated—at least until recently, she had.

At the door, her servant coughed softly, gently, a polite attempt to attract her attention.

"Speak, Kurogane," she commanded but did not turn, "I welcome your news."

The man on the threshold hesitated still, and she turned with impatience to regard him, lifting a sleeve and brushing the fringe of ash white hair from her cold eyes.

Kurogane, tall, handsome even, dressed archaically in both a weighty travelling cloak and the uniform of the Intergalactic Criminal Police Organisation of the 31st century, black polyvinyl, sheer membrane and aged borametz leaf, dropped hastily to one knee.

"Your majesty," he said, his gaze lowered from hers, "we have sighted three individuals not in accordance of your wishes in the domain."

She raised an eyebrow, smiling playfully.

"Have you knowledge of my accordance before I do now, Kurogane?" she asked, stepping forward, her baseball boots screeching on the wooden tiles of the floor.

She was no taller than a child, no older in looks than a girl, 13 or 14 at best, and yet the aura that emanated from her presence was impossible, a presence like no other living thing.

"N-No, great Authoress," Kurogane cried with sudden fear. "Please forgive me my presumption."

A warmness filled her express as she approached.

She had found the abandoned officer drifting in the æther between worlds, written out of his native timeline by a shift in reality, a king upon a throne of golden light disposing of all those who had challenged him. From the void, she had breathed life into him once more, bequeathed him impossible powers with which to police her domain.

"Continue," she said as she approached, "I am not interested in apologies."

His head remained bowed.

"Three interlopers have been recorded within the arena. My men were not informed of their arrival. Please, your majesty, could you verify your wishes in this matter."

She did not let her smile slip. This situation was becoming an issue however, the number of uninvited guests reaching her realm from across the dimensions worrying her. It would not matter if they were suited to the story she weaved, she thought, but this strange new pattern of erratic and anarchic individuals complicated things for her in ways that she did not savour.

It was impossible for her to admit in front of one such as Kurogane that she had not planned for this, and yet, at the same time, if she pretended their presence was intended, what hope would he have in the craft of storytelling; what kind of creator would he consider her, one who might suddenly introduce such random characters at whim.

She reached out and placed her hands on his shoulders, the sunlight of the early morning illuminating the countless tattoos that covered her hands, running all the way up to her shoulders.

"Lift your head," she commanded, and hastily he did so yet shied away still from looking her in the eye. "These characters are a dead end, a subplot I was planning on developing and have since abandoned. Please see to it that they are deleted as soon as possible."

She withdrew her touch and stepped backwards, gesturing at him to rise.

Cautiously, Kurogane Weiss rose up to his full height, towering above the child-like stature of his mistress.

"Transform," she ordered him, and he nodded unquestioningly, drawing from within the folds of his outer cloak two simple cartridges of clear plastic and wrought iron, one white, one black.

Without hesitation, he threw back his cloak and drove the cartridges down into the belt at his waist, exciting the mechanism at his core and stirring it into life, a rasping voice resounding from its built-in computer:

'Lilith! Samael! Death Match!'

A wave of darkness washed over his form, the stench of brimstone, of sulphur radiating from him as his gentle face was consumed by a fresh uniform of obsidian black and bleached bone, swollen eyes protruding from the helm like some ancient, unknowable creature from the depths of some sickly ocean.

'Armoured Hero Crass-Reaper Reborn.'

She looked at him for a moment, looked at the blackened armour, the decorative corpse-paint beneath the eyes of the mask, and then, contentedly, she nodded and turned away.

"Do not disturb me again until your business is conducted," she commanded, and, with the squeak of her shoes again upon the wooden tiles, she returned to her morning vigil at the window, her eyes gazing out over the lonely city below.