The Cure - II [Exemplary]

[Proto Man]

Before Scylla could recover from that first stunning impact, Proto Man had spanned the distance between them and driven a knee up into her sternum.

Extending his handless arm, Proto Man watched as the idle appendage jiggled on the ground a few times before skittering across the surface and hopping back into place. After a quick test flex of his wrist and fingers, he drilled Scylla with a savage punch that caused her right cheekbone to shatter beneath her skin.

The Archdemon fell back, but the Prototype Robot Master gave her no time to breath. He pressed his assault, burying a quick succession of blows along her face and thorax. Halfhearted bursts of electricity sputtered from her hands, and while a few hit the surface of the robot, he shrugged them off between strikes. After half a minute of bludgeoning his adversary, Proto Man broke away and watched as Scylla dropped to her knees.

“Still won’t… won’t win,” he gasped as she pitched forward and spit out a mixture of blood and saliva. She looked up at the preteen machine with weary eyes and, despite everything that had happened, she grinned. “My family will dest--” Scylla stopped mid-sentence when she saw the banged up group of people walking toward them, their identities obscured by the layer of dust and smoke that covered what had once been a settlement before being turned into a killing field. As they drew closer, the Archdemon realized that they were the robot’s allies… all of them. The elven woman with the weird accent held a severed limb in her hand, which she threw at the ground in front of Scylla.

“From the Tangled Green… with love,” she hissed, her eyes burning with more fury than a dozen suns.

The trounced Archdemon shook her head as she struggled and failed to rise to her feet. When she dropped back to her knees, she let out a frustrated grunt and looked at her attackers. “I… apologize.” She whispered.

“It’s a little too late for that,” Mireya rasped, clenching her hands tightly around her spear.

Scylla shook her head. “You are mistaken… I apologize that I couldn’t save all of you from yourselves.” At that, the half-night elf rushed forward and had to be restrained in the banged up and scuffed arms of Guts Man, who held the woman as she thrashed against him. “Don’t worry, Mireya… I’ll be back for you.”

Proto Man scowled as he stepped forward, lifting his rune-encrusted buster cannon. “I don’t think you’ll be back for a long time,” the Prototype Robot Master muttered as a pure white light started to build up inside the barrel of the weapon. The various runes started to shimmer as the ground beneath Scylla likewise began to glow white.

As if she now realized what was happening, the mangled Archdemon grit her teeth and glared at the preteen machine. “You better hope I never escape, because if I do, you will be the first person I hunt down.”

“I’ll be waiting.” Proto Man scowled as he braced the Proto Buster with his other hand. “...Banishment Buster!”

Like a bolt of divine justice, a beam of pure white energy erupted from the prime’s weapon. Scylla continued to glare at her adversary through the light up until her body collapsed into ash and was swallowed up into the ground.

Proto Man let his item swing down to the ground. The runes that once ringed it had faded away, leaving behind only a few incoherent scraps along its surface.

While he knew that machines didn’t have souls, the preteen machine hoped that Wood Man and Snake Man were now at peace.