Chapter 300: The Man Comes Around

The armor beeped as it opened and he stepped out of it. He left it open, even though he knew he should close it back up, as he moved to a large rock at the edge of the cracked and faded asphalt. Daxin sat down on the moss covered rock after making sure it wasn't the kind of moss that secreted enzymes that ate away cloth and flesh.

Fido moved up next to him and he leaned over to scratch between the warboi's ears as he stared at what was in front of him.

A massive warsteel door set into a mountain, surrounded by ferrocrete. No markings, no warnings, at least none that had survived the march of time as it moved forward and rewound over and over.

--dark place Daxin dark place-- Fido said.

"I know, boy," Daxin said, staring at the massive door. He knew it was nearly fifty feet thick, it weighed tons, with internal graviton generators to increase its relative mass, with temporal and phasic interlocks to make it virtually impervious to attack.

Even the mountain itself would survive the sun going supernova.

Daxin could feel the watcher. That niggling nagging feeling that left a prickling between the shoulder blades, that made his knuckles itch, that made him grit his teeth.

Someone watching him with ill intent.

"I know you're there," Daxin said, picking up a pebble. There was a silence and he flicked the pebble away so it bounced off the black door and clattered across the asphalt. He looked up, at the moon, where it was as it always was, staring down as an uncaring all seeing eye.

--bad place Daxin--

"I know, boy," Daxin said, scratching between Fido's ears. He reached down, picked up a pebble, and rolled it between his fingers.

It was the same pebble.

"You might as well come out," Daxin said. He flicked the pebble and watched as it bounced away again, vanishing into the blood sucking flesh eating sap possessing blackberry bushes.

There was the whirring of actuators and the clicking of servos as the massive figure pushed away a branch that was trying to rub deadly pollen against the figure's shoulders. It clunked into the middle of the asphalt and stood there, staring at Daxin.

He noticed they had made sure they moved between Daxin and his armor.

The armor was large, nearly ten feet tall, all black, sleek looking, with a skull helmet covered in spikes. The shoulders had spikes, the elbows and knees were spiked, and the wicked looking rotary autocannon held in its hands was just as glossy black as the armor.

"You look like a fool," Daxin said, shaking his head. "Do you really think I'm intimidated by your armor?"

The figure just stood there, looking as if it was breathing, steam leaking from between the teeth.

"I know it's you, Marty," Daxin said, picking up the pebble and rolling it between his fingers. He could feel it start to tingle, potential energy from the last two flicks building up in it. He flicked it, whipping it by the figure, so it bounced off the black warsteel door, clattered across the asphalt, and vanished into the bushes.

"Don't call me that," the figure growled from inside the armor.

"It's your name, Marty," Daxin said. He bent down and picked up the pebble again.

"I am Armored Matthias," the figure growled.

"You sound like you need a cough drop and a throat scraping," Daxin said, flicking the pebble away again. "You lost the right to call yourself that, Marty."

"You have no right to judge me, Daxin the Unclean," the figure said. It's voice still sounded like rocks in a tumbler.

"Still with the Unclean bit, huh?" Daxin said.

"You were criminal scum in the habs and scum never changes," the figure stated.

"Our Father believed differently, Marty," Daxin said, picking up the pebble again. It was tingling now and when he glanced down he saw it was starting to glimmer slightly.

"He was too forgiving," the figure stated.

"He forgave you, even as you struck him down," Daxin said, flicking the pebble away.

"I had to!" the figure roared out, taking a single step forward. "This world, this sinful filthy world, was corrupting him every moment he spent in it!"

"Still the Judge, I see," Daxin said, reaching down and picking up the pebble again. "Judge Marty, savior of Delta City."

"I saved it from you," the figure snapped. Behind him the blackberry bush was extending out tendrils in the direction the pebble kept coming from, looking for whatever kept disturbing it in the hopes of a bounty of protein.

"Right until the Mantid blew it to a bad memory," Daxin sneered. He flicked the pebble away and it bounced off the door, bounced across the asphalt, and disappeared into the blackberry bush. "You saved it. Nicely done."

"DON'T MOCK ME!" the figure yelled.

"Judge Marty," Daxin sneered. "Hid in the LawSec Command Vehicle while me and my gang chopped up your men for three weeks straight before a lucky shot put me on my back. Six weeks later my hab was overrun by the jungle and four million people died."

"You were a criminal!" the skull faced armored figure yelled.

"I fed everyone in the hab, something you couldn't seem to do. Kept them safe, provided medical supplies," Daxin laughed. "Even cut off from the rest of Delta City by the MLK Greeen Zone, I provided for them, kept the jungle out."

"You sold drugs, ran prostitution rings, committed murders," Marty growled. "You escaped judgement being sent to Aspen. You should have been summarily executed."

"Sold drugs to skyraker wageslaves, ran joyboys and coingirls to street corp cube wagies, killed anyone who got in my way," Daxin admitted, shrugging as he flicked the pebble away again. "Hijacked food shipments, drug and medical shipments, robbed power stations, kidnapped corpies for ransom."

Daxin looked up and grinned a savage tooth baring grin.

"I did it all. You're right. I did," Daxin admitted.

"You're scum who thinks he escaped the law," the figure snapped.

"You gonna lay down the law, Marty? You gonna bring me to justice in the name of a system that the Mantid blew to hell eight thousand years ago?" Daxin asked, picking up the pebble again. "Maybe Friend Computer will finally love you, Marty."

The big armored suit stepped forward a single step, the asphalt cracking beneath his feet. Behind him the damaged tarmac from the other footprints slowly reformed to cracked and faded asphalt.

"You've had this coming a long time, Daxin," the armored figure said, reaching down to its waist and wrapping one armored hand around a large heavy pistol. "For your crimes I sentence you to death."

Daxin snapped the pebble directly at the figure. It streaked forward, hitting the armored hand and exploding in a bright flash as the built up potential energy was liberated. The figure roared, pulling its hand back, the fingers twisted and one missing.

"FIDO, STAY!" Daxin roared out as he lunged to his feet.

Fido sat back down, retracting the heavy minigun back into his armored core.

Daxin ducked underneath the wild swing of one massive fist, stepping one step past the figure as it started to turn. Before the armored figure could react Daxin slammed his heel into the back of the knee, which was already engaged in bending slightly to allow the figure to turn smoothly.

With a loud crack the actuator gave out and the electroactive polymer muscles snapped off of the anchors.

The figure went down on one knee, barely managing to catch itself.

"All those years at LawSec and you were never a street judge beyond your rookie years," Daxin growled, reaching between the back of the helmet and the upraised collar. Marty tried to reach back and grab, but Daxin stepped forward and yanked him, dropping him on his face.

"You know why I lured you here, you gibbering lobotomy patient?" Daxin asked, kneeling down and reaching under the lip of the collar to push his fingers into the seal attaching the neck to the base of the helmet.

"GET OFF OF ME, UNCLEAN ONE!" the figure yelled.

"Do you remember my name, Marty?" Daxin asked.

Lightning began flowing down his arm, crackling across his shoulders, down his spine.

"I didn't use a gun to fight. Remember, Marty?" Daxin asked. He pushed his fingers further into the seal as the lightning down his arm thickened. "Of course you don't, you were busy getting medals from OCP and that weakling mayor of Delta City who left my people to rot."

The armor's legs kicked twice as the psychic electricity hit the armor's computer systems and fried them out.

"Say my name, Marty," Daxin snarled, clenching his fingers, beginning to pull the helmet away.

"GET OFF OF ME!" the armored figure roared out, the voice crackling and full of static.

"Say my name, Matthias," Daxin snarled. The seal on the sides of the helmet puffed up smoke and the helmet's rear section was pulled away by Daxin's hand.

The armor went limp.

"That's six hundred pounds of Third Republic Combined Military Forces Heavy Assault Armor," Daxin said, shifting position so he could get his hands underneath the side. He heaved and the armored rolled over, the mask coming off.

Matthias's face was pale, his eyes chrome, his head bald, his lips thin and bloodless, his teeth black and rotted.

"Say my name, Matthias," Daxin snarled, slowly standing up. Lightning moved up and down his arms, across his shoulders, up and down his spine. "Say it, traitor."

"Enraged Phillip," Matthias said. "Please don't kill me, Phillip. Please."

Daxin stood over the fallen man, staring down at him with eyes that were cold. "Do you know why I lured you here?"

"Why?" the fallen man asked, licking his dry lips with a raspy dry tongue.

"Because this spot is special, this spot right here," Daxin said, staring down. "Before the gate of Crying Anne, the Mouth of the Underworld. You really don't recognize this place?"

Marty shook his head. "No, Daxin, I don't."

"It's where they took us to make us Immortals after you betrayed us," Daxin snarled. "You wouldn't recognize it."

The lightning roared down Daxin's arms, leaped from his fists, and wreathed the fallen man's head. Marty screamed, once, briefly, before he went silent.

The lightning stopped and Daxin stared down at the smoking burnt skull that was the only human part outside of the black armor. After a moment he moved over to his armor, climbing back in and activating the systems.

Fido trotted up, sitting down and waiting.

He reached down and picked up the dead man, holding him in his arms. He moved up to the great black door.

"One for entry. Bringing Subject Thirteen for initial processing," Daxin said.

The door shuddered as the maglocks released. The air shivered as the door slowly began to open.