Wanted

By C.M. Rich (Magnetman)

Episode 9 - Rough Cut

May 31st, 20XX, 12:27 PM , PST

Magnetman took a few moments to size up the new foe that they had lined up for him.

She was about eye-level with him, which was especially noticeable, given that her eyes were the only visible part of her face, thanks to a hood and mask that matched her plain, dark outfit. Her hair was still visible, and sticking out of the back of her mask, a mess of a golden-tinged red.

But still…Those eyes. They were young, but burned with a deep anger. It was beyond the anger of a simple soldier doing her job, or even beyond the anger of someone facing down someone who had allegedly attacked their homeland. No…Something in those eyes told Kenta that this was personal.

From behind his helmet, he sighed. Great. Another one.

Still…He told himself that killing this one wouldn’t be a good idea. Not after the way Classi-yan took the death of that useless lummox earlier. Crushing an obviously young woman- even an enemy- would possibly permanently destroy his already-strained relationship with his surrogate sister.

“I’m not very good at holding back.”, he tried to reason with himself, perhaps just in case of an accident.

Still, the massive amount of rage that granted him more control over his power had subsided, and he was once again limited in his control over magnetism. Holding back was the easy part, now. It was surviving whatever tricks this foe had in mind for him.

“Robot Master…”, the young woman beckoned, breaking the silence. Her voice was tinged with a Spanish accent, just as his was Japanese-riddled when speaking English.

Kenta didn’t know if this was an affirmation or a question.

“Correct.”, he affirmed anyways.

“Scum.”

Oh good. One of those types.

“This destruction…It’s amazing. Amazing how much you monsters are willing to take.”, she accused.

“I haven’t taken anything from you…”

“Ignorant fool!”, she growled. “You…Your kind…You’ve taken so much more than a mere city. You’ve taken away countless amounts of hope in the wake of your pillaging of society. You’re the Devil’s tools!”

Magnetman fought the urge to shoot her with a magnet bullet right then and there. For some reason, he thought it would be in his best interest to listen to this mad woman’s preaching and conspiracy theories.

“Yes, that’s right. You’re a glorified tool. But, when does a tool cease to be a mere tool, and becomes a burden? It happened much longer than this…destruction.”

“Miss…You’re rambling now…”, Eigen said, moving his head from side to side, as if cracking his neck- an old human habit of his.

“Don’t you talk back to me! You have no right…Monster! No right at all! As a matter of fact, the entire concept of Robot Rights is a horrible, cruel joke! What about the rights of the people your kind have trampled over now for the past decade? Of the jobs, the livelihoods, you’ve stolen…All in the name of efficiency…How cruel…”

“Cruel is listening to this idiocy. Now step aside, little woman, and let me continue on my way. I’m not here to fight you.”

Magnetman had to try and at least attempt to reason with her, knowing she’d deny his order. It was a formality he had to go through, though.

“I see…I see that the sooner I deactivate you and send you back to the Pentagon in pieces, the better…”, she hissed, rage spilling out of every word.

From somewhere on her arms, the dark-clothed woman produced a pair of spade-shaped blades, which seemed to orbit her hands via magical force alone.

“Another psychic soldier…”, Kenta muttered to himself. “Where’s a sewer pipe when you need one?”

Boldly, the woman sprang forth, with more speed than Magnetman had anticipated. Using her arrow-shaped blades, she sent them forward as if they were throwing knives, which Kenta managed to dodge, but just barely.

The blades were recalled back to her quickly and loyally, ready for a second attempt just as fast as they were thrown the first time. Instead of a straight toss this time, though, she used them like a sword, but didn’t actually hold on to them physically. Using her apparent power, she swung the blades parallel to the ground, and caught the black-cloaked robot with their razor sharp tips, effortlessly slicing a clean slash across his chest.

Kenta leapt back and avoided a few more attempts like this, finally getting in close enough to send her back a few steps with a kick to the stomach.

He touched his fingers to the clean cuts in his chest plate.

“These slashes…They’re too clean for metal…”, he rationalized.

“These are diamond-edged ceramic blades, Magnetman!”, the fiery-haired woman acknowledged, a smile apparent even from behind the mask. “I know that normal metals can’t even touch your special armors, but my synthetic diamond blades can cut just about anything. This is my namesake…I am Amatista, a jewel of hope for humanity against mechanical monsters such as yourself! Suffer, robot, as have countless human beings at your hands!”

Amatista lunged for Magnetman again, attempting her tried and true slashes, which Magnetman evaded again, an added sense of urgency pushing him to do so more than before, knowing diamond-edged blades can and will carve up his armor and frame if he allowed them to.

Quickly, he concentrated his magnetic energy on his foe, hoping to simply push her aside and hopefully knock her out in a single deft maneuver. Unfortunately for him, this failed miserably, as he discovered that she had taken precautions against his power by not wearing any metal in her uniform. He couldn’t even take control of her weapons, as they too were made of ceramics, just as she had claimed.

He could use his Magnet Bullets, but that would kill her, since she appeared to be a normal human, aside from those freakish powers.

Magnetman sighed again from behind his visor. Killing her would be so much easier. Perhaps an “accident” was in order.

The red and black android decided to unleash hell in the form of his Magnet Bullets, which shot forth from his gauntlets. Amatista saw this attack coming, and was prepared, however, and whipped her blades around to meet the bullets in midair, cutting or blocking the spheres mid trip.

A rather bemused Magnetman looked on.

“This human’s better than I thought…”

He decided to take a risk and get in close- closer than her blades seemed to travel to her. He had already noticed that she hasn’t made physical contact with the blades since deploying them, and seemed to rely on her power exclusively to manipulate them. Furthermore, she seemed to control them through her hands…Perhaps if he crushed them, the blades would be useless?

That wouldn’t be killing her. She wouldn’t be happy about it, but she’d be alive. A fine compromise.

Kenta dashed forward, using his magnetic power to push himself towards Amatista with even more speed and force, and reached out with his left hand to grab hers and crush it with his robotic strength.

Much to his surprise, the crushing part never occurred. What did occur was his fingers being neatly severed from his own hand as he passed her, his own momentum carrying him past his foe as she sidestepped his charge.

He crashed messily behind her, as he was concentrating on his butchered appendage rather than a smooth landing. As he clutched it, oily blood spewed forth before his body automatically shut off the supply of fluid to the missing digits.

He screamed out of shock and surprise. He was caught off-guard by the pain, unaware that Robot Masters felt pain exactly the same way a human would before this point, which included severed body parts.

Amatista casually picked up one of his severed fingers from the broken earth at her feet and looked it over, holding it in front of her, triumphantly.

“My…It appears you’re just as fragile as we humans after all…”, she gloated.

Kenta pointed at the missing finger with his good hand, which responded by burying itself straight through the center of Amatista’s hand.

The woman screamed several sayings in her native tongue, none of which the slightly satisfied Eigen recognized, though he could speculate on what they meant. She crouched down and yelled in anguish, and quickly pulled loose the metal digit from her own hand, finally freeing it in an excruciating display, and throwing it away in disgust.

She could barely move the gravely injured hand after that.

“I’d say we’re even…But you still owe me at least three more fingers before that’d be true…”, Kenta seethed.

“M-monster!”

The deep-violet-clothed woman violently started towards her prey, swinging her spade-like blades about in maniacal fashion, with little concentrated effort going into where she wanted them to go exactly- she just wanted to tear through this magnetic devil as quickly as possible.

“She’s…Even more reckless than I am…”, Eigen observed. “A rookie.”

“I don’t need experience to beat you! I have the power of humanity on my side, unlike you! You’re nothing but a sad attempt at mechanizing the human soul!”, she screeched, whirling her blades about.

“A sad attempt?”, Kenta echoed, ducking her errant blades. “That’s odd…I feel like I did when I was human. I’d say Dr Light did a good job in the transfer.”

“Transfer?! What are you rambling about, monster?”

“I haven’t the time to educate ignorant fools such as yourself. Go ahead and continue living in your world of idiocy, without the facts. Everyone else does.”, Magnetman chided, leaping above a pendulum-like attack and kicking Amatista in the back of the head as he landed behind her again.

She landed on her face a few feet away, and Eigen was not about to let her get up. In a split second, he was crouched over her, holding a small metal sphere in front of her face with his powers, threatening to shoot her point blank with the projectile.

“You’ve got a good spirit…I can’t deny that.”, he claimed, stepping on her wrist as she attempted to use her blades. “Killing you would be a tremendous waste.”

“H-how dare you!”, she spat. “Who are you to judge who lives and who dies?!”

“I ask the same of you.”

Stammering, Amatista couldn’t comprehend the amount gall with which this robot posed such a statement. “You’re…You’re nothing but a tool! A simple tool that’s outlasted its purpose! Look at what you’ve done to this world, monster!”

Magnetman stood upright, but still kept his deadly sphere ready for instant use.

“You seem intent on blaming all of this world’s problems on a single source. It’s just not that black and white, though. Human beings are far from valiant creatures, after all.”

Amatista cringed from behind her mask, glaring at the black and red “face” before her.

“When I was a human, all of my problems were caused by other humans. Not robots. I was given this opportunity to forget that, and be the better person I wanted to be. Robotics have given me a reason to keep living…Who are you to deny me that?”

“But…You’re not human…That’s a lie…”, she claimed, looking at his damaged, obviously machine-made hand.

Magnetman retracted his helmet to better add a sense of humanity to his next statement: “Again…It isn’t an issue you can polarize so easily. The line between man and metal will fade one day, no matter how hard you fight it. You’d have better luck fighting the tidal currents, so why waste your life? Why not work to help the line fade that more smoothly, rather than creating war?”

“This…What are you talking about? Humans will always be humans, and machines will always be machines. That is the way it needs to be, the way it always should be.”

Magnetman relented, growing angrier at this one’s stubbornness. At the same time, he started to understand how some of the other Maniacs must feel whenever he ignored their opinions and orders…What a frustrating feeling it is.

He lifted his boot from her wrist, and grudgingly turned away from her as she scrambled to her feet. Not wasting a second, she attempted to cut him in two with her blades.

But nothing happened. Kenta kept walking away from her, knowing what was happening behind him. She attempted again. And again. And again. Until she broke out into a frustrated fit.

“Wh-what?!”

Eigen stopped, with his back still to her. “At first, I thought you were endowed with psychic powers, like your friend, Viscous. But then…”

He held up his damaged, butchered hand.

“…This explained everything to me. Wire. Very thin wire, the width of an atom- invisible to the naked eye…That’s what you used to control those blades of yours. I cut them a few moments ago when I had you pinned down.”

Amatista turned a bright red, then grew pale, all in a few seconds.

“Why haven’t you…killed me?”

“I don’t kill the defenseless.”, he stated.

“But… Los Angeles …”

“Not my handiwork.”

She stood there, quietly, wondering if there was any truth to his claims.

“Go home.”, he ordered, continuing his walk.

The young woman paused for a few seconds, seriously considering the “offer” before retorting.

“No.”

Kenta stopped and whirled about to look at her. Through the heavy dust that whirled about them in this instant desert, something stopped him from simply killing her. Something like…

Humanity.

The young man smirked slightly to himself when the word “humanity” popped into his head.

“Then…Stay out of our way.”

Amatista stood there, slightly hunched over as she grasped her injured hand.

This wasn’t good. Not for her. In her mind, robots were merciless killing machines- this went against everything she had taught herself.

No. She wouldn’t let doubt infect her convictions. They were too important to her.

“Go to hell, you monster.”, she hissed in defiance.

A somber, somewhat amused Magnetman merely walked away again. Wordless.

“You…monster…”, she would repeat.

She needed to say those words.

The monsters would go away someday. Someday.