55 Chapter 55

"I've killed thousands of demons before! What's so different about this one?!" the archbishop's son protested.

"This could be the great redeemer here to send us to the awesome embrace of death. Have you no belief anymore boy!? Your mother was the one who wanted that crusade so we didn't out populate our food production, not me!" The archbishop argued.

"I know better than that, you old heathen! If you truly believed that abomination was the great redeemer you would've welcomed it with open arms, not multiple assault units!" his son spat. "I will kill that demon with or without your order! If I defeat it you will step down from your position and be executed for your crimes! Guards, for now, throw him into the prison. I'll deal with him when this is over."

Two guards burst into the room. They grabbed onto and completely ignored the archbishop as he spat curses at them for their betrayal. "We were never loyal to you bastard! When you sent your wife off to die you lost any shreds of loyalty we still had! And then sending our children to their deaths under-equipped and without adequate training tipped us over the edge!"

"If you wish to, give me to the people and kill my sniper. Tell the people that our faith was a lie. Tell them that we only have enough food for another three months without another mass purge or turning to eat our dead!" the old man cackled. "What makes you think I haven't made it so that my death would mark the end for this city?! Why do you think I sent out the barges?"

"Because you're a madman who didn't even check on the project I'd started in the southern quarter. I've created enough automated farmland to feed twice the number of citizens we currently have within our walls. If you'd looked past the insane costs of such a project and just produced the farmland as I have then we wouldn't be having this conversation!" his son replied, turning to the guards. "Go ahead and do as he suggested. Give him to the crowd to do with as they will. Kill the demon he employs to kill nonbelievers! And tell them of the reasons behind his atrocities! If they still haven't torn him apart, then he can be thrown into the cold outside the city naked to see how long he lasts." The young man walked past the guards and turned at the end of the hall. "Now if you'll excuse me, my blood is boiling and the only thing that can calm me down is killing the demon that has killed so many of our fighters."

xX a few minutes later in the hangar Xx

"Hey, Loyd now that we're completely human, do you have to reinfect us, or are you going to use us like sleeper agents?" Sara asked, tightening the bandage holding her arm splint together.

Loyd sat down on a piece of wreckage. He was exhausted from overexerting himself in the last fight and knew that another enemy was on the way. "I'll have one of the abominations come to reinfect you all and from there we'll head into the city to find as much biomass as possible."

"So, we aren't on a time limit here?" Jim asked.

"Not a big one, no, but the sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can deal with the nukes," Loyd explained.

"You think we haven't already dealt with those puny weapons?" A voice from the hall called out. "We destroyed those a few hours before you invaded our city."

"And you are?" Loyd asked, relaxing his entire body.

"The person who will claim your life, demon. If you must know, my name is Bucephalus; whose name I acquired after I replaced the great inventor who held it before me."

Loyd sighed. "Why do you all keep calling me a demon? I'm really not a demon; more of a horrid amalgam of flesh, bone, and metal. So, I'd be a monster. Don't promote me to the ranks of some undead creature so quickly, when none of your men could do more than bruise me."

Bucephalus chuckled. "So, you admit to being a monster but draw the line at demon over a few technicalities? What sort of person are you truly?"

Loyd, shocked, asked. "Promoting me to person now? What kind of scanner suite does that hunk of junk you're hiding in have?"

"Only visual. I merely noticed the outline of your machine's cockpit. Assuming what your piloting is indeed a machine."

Loyd smiled through Beast's teeth. "It isn't. But at this point in time, that's a defect. Machines wear down much slower than bodies but require physical maintenance to continue working. Biomass heals over time, albeit slowly, and is good for short chemical-induced sprints," Loyd laughed. "From the smell of your machine, you're trying to use both and acquire the advantage while keeping the faults to a minimum."

A clawed hand closed its grip around the edge of the doorway as its body came around the corner. Its breath let out wisps of water vapor that condensed in the air. Its cockpit was easily visible as the anathema finished rounding the corner on its four mechanical tentacles. Each one was topped with the upper torso and arms of a hominid swarmling. Their head had been replaced by mechanical parts that glowed as the machine moved.

"You have a good nose, demon. But I doubt you'll be alive long enough to heal from your injuries," Bucephalus taunted.

Loyd had stopped smiling and stared at the anathema before him with hatred. "What you've done is not science. If your religion allows such a thing to exist than your beliefs are wrong. An anathema like that combines four swarm bodies together and teaches the enemy more than should be allowed."

The Anathema reared backward as Bucephalus roared. "How dare you call my life's work such a foul thing! Demon's like yourself are meant to be used as weapons to kill more of you only to create even more weapons until you are wiped out!"

"But you didn't disagree my name wasn't accurate," Loyd challenged.

Bucephalus calmed down, lowering his Anathema back down into a fighting position. "You are indeed accurate with what you called it. I guess what I was doing never really occurred to me. That won't change m-!"

Loyd had charged the Anathema only to leap into the air as its tentacles swiped at him wildly. His mid-air summersault gave him just enough spin to plant his heel firmly against some form of energy barrier created by the glowing pieces in the swarmlings. The Anathema's many torsos reached out to grab Loyd as he jumped back from it.

"Did you truly think this weapon wasn't capable of dealing with such a trivial attack?!"

The Anathema threw itself at Loyd; its glowing heads still generating the energy barrier as it tried to grab him with its tentacles. Its sudden burst of speed, coupled with Loyd's unsteadiness, allowed one of its tentacles to wrap around his arm as he tried to get out of its way.

Loyd was yanked from the air and thrown against the ground in front of the Anathema where he bounced back up to its eye level, several of his organs shattered, before he was grabbed once again. The Anathema started tearing each of Loyd's limbs from the rest of his body until he was dangling from his dislocated arm. Two of the tentacles wrapped around his torso while the fourth one wrapped around his neck. With one final crack of Beast's neck, his head came clean off.

Bucephalus roared with laughter at the sight of this demon torn apart so easily. In his fit, he didn't hear the intruder land atop his cockpit until the hatch was already wide open. To his horror, a young boy no older than him stood there. The hatred in his eyes was enough to kill any man. His hands contorted into claws that looked as though they could rip through flesh and bone alike. His twisted smile revealed teeth from one's nightmares. Worst of all, he still looked human as he descended upon his prey, proving that each of his many mutations was deadlier than they looked.

A few minutes passed before Loyd climbed out of the hull of the Anathema; covered in blood. He stood there atop the monstrosity that even he deemed evil for evil's sake. Each of the swarmlings' torsos could still feel their bodies contorting without their permission, the hunger in their stomachs, the pain of the energy field generators as it used them as heatsinks. He wouldn't stand to leave such a thing in anybody's hands much less a bastard of a human who got off on tearing his adversary apart as slowly as he had done with Beast. His body ached for more killing but he had to be smart with his newfound cards.

He would either have to use the microreactors aboard each of the mechs that had attacked him earlier to make a dirty bomb or send the very thing, whose existence he loathed, on a killing spree. The first option gave him a bargaining chip to use against the rest of the bunker city but that still left the problem of setting off a dirty bomb inside a reinforced steel dome with himself still inside. The second option gave him a distraction to allow a group to get inside the food stores of the dome and grow a new hybrid-type CTAS like Beast, assuming the Anathema didn't have an external kill switch.

"Hey!" someone yelled from behind him.

As Loyd turned, his bloodlust nearly overtook him as he saw a young boy wrapped in little more than rags. "WHAT!"

"We surrender!" the boy called back. "If you let us live you can take all the food in warehouses thirteen through seventeen! We'll also give you a new ice barge!"

Loyd stared down at the boy, his bloodlust dissipating as he weighed this proposal. "If you're lying, I'll kill every last person here!"

The boy smiled and replied calmly, "Oh, we know."