Part 6:

The steel of my sword finally gives in, shattering in half after a strong downward slash. The force behind that breakage sends me back and down onto one knee with my arms no longer strong enough to support me back up. The V-Unit, seeing that I have nothing left to give, menacingly walks up to me with the only sound I hear being the sizzling of its blade and the squelching of the melted snow puddles beneath it. 

My eyes divert to the feet of the V-Unit now standing over me. 

I chuckle to myself.

“Hehe… Well? You won… I yield, simple as that. Do you really want me dead that bad?” I say with a smirk visible on my face.

The V-Unit raises its weaponized arm in response.

“Heh… Son of a bit-”

The V-Unit flinches suddenly. A few seconds later it staggers more forward, almost tripping onto me. 

“What? Having second thoughts, Tin Can?” I quip.

The Unit shifts its body to turn around, revealing to me why it was stalling ever so suddenly. Two long and razor-sharp daggers are stabbed into the back of the Unit, piercing its cape with both blades lining up with its spinal cord. They are deep in there too, I’m surprised that the blades of said daggers aren’t sticking out from the other side despite the Unit’s slim build. 

There is no one to be seen from the other side, meaning that these daggers were thrown from a decently far distance. Someone is helping me? What are the odds? And here I thought these alleys were complete mazes. This still can’t be a mere coincidence however. I have a lot of questions.

The V-Unit turns around, tossing me aside and making sure I don’t make a run for it. 

“Reveal yourself!” The Unit orders.

“Heh, were you programmed to say that too?” I quip again, leaning against the wall after its toss.

The V-Unit ignores me now that its attention has been taken by the new unsuspecting attacker. It stares into the darkness where it formerly came from, probably with sight of the attacker despite the obscurity. The V-Unit’s eyes flicker orange, indicating its suspicion. Its automated voice demands.

“Identify yourself!” 

The Unit confirms its sights, sheathing its dorsal blade to fire it up once more for another fight. From the darkness, the suspecting attacker reveals themself. The figure dons a brown cloak with a hood that conceals their identity. The cloak is long enough that it covers down to their forearms. Their pants look ragged and teared, a bit baggy too. The cloaked person slowly begins to approach the armed robot, from the looks of it, they look to be limping… Was that the figure I thought I was hallucinating when I looked up at the stars? They look to be injured. Why are they looking to engage into combat with this thing if they’re in a worse condition than I was from the beginning? Do they know what they’re doing?

“Identify yourself!” 

The Unit’s voicebox increases in volume and intimidation, yet, the figure continues to limp closer towards it. From within that cloak, I can feel their eyes gaze upon me, the turning of their neck shakes the hood from the outside, confirming my assumption. I shake my head frantically, trying to discourage them from getting any closer, but the figure turns their attention back to the Unit, downright refusing my idea. This guy’s insane!

“Freeze! Take a step closer and I will engage!”

The Unit with extreme force, thrusts its left arm downwards, exposing and activating an energised hand cannon that was originally hidden under its bicep. The energy being emitted from the cannon is so immense, the sparks and electrical aura it's giving off is very much visible. Again, what the hell is powering these guys?!

However, because of that the cloaked figure breaks their small stride by the sight of it. Are they giving up?

“Good. Now, identify yourself!”

The cloaked figure casually lets out a sigh… Of relief? Of stress? Of fear? Are there such things? It doesn’t matter. I’m about to witness someone’s death with my own two eyes.

“I… don’t listen to the likes of you…” The cloaked figure speaks softly, subtly displaying a man’s voice.

The remorseless robot of war flickers its eyes back to its bright red, takes aim at the poor cloaked man and with no hesitation, fires rapidly upon him. This guy’s about to get demolished!

“NO-!” I scream.

Defying my expectations, the man visibly smirks under his hood, clearly with a different plan in mind. With a reflex evidently faster and preciser than mine, he ducks under the first energy blast and initiates a low dash from there. The Unit switches up its aim to hit its now moving target, simultaneously shifting its feet just in case the cloak gets too close. With its shots being more accurate, the cloaked man switches to more extreme measures, he moves slightly to the left towards the narrow wall and sets foot on it, still maintaining his speed in the process. 

He’s- wallrunning? What kind of sorcery is this?! 

The man now with the high ground, rebounds off the wall and not even a millisecond away from it, he initiates flawless acrobatics to evade all incoming blasts coming his way. As he descends, the Unit reverts back to melee combat, unsheathing its hot blade once more. The man reaching closer to the ground, contorts his body just enough to dodge an upward slash from the Unit. He breaks his fall by performing a backwards handspring, creating the distance between them. The Unit still going on the offensive, charges right at him. The man, still smirking, dodges the initial two side-to-side slashes before sliding and almost tripping the Unit. Now behind the Unit, he retrieves both his daggers and flips the script of the fight with him now on the offense. The Unit turns its head 180 degrees once more and unleashes another flurry, one almost identical to the one it gave me. The man continues to show nothing but pure skill and somehow sorcery as he knocks away every attack the Unit throws at him. Now with the Unit having nothing left to give, the man strings together his own flurry combo. He executes what looks to be a thousand stabs all aimed at different locations, following with another thousand tricky slashes, spinning his daggers and basically taunting the V-Unit. 

After all the flurries executed, he finishes it off with a swift sweep of the leg and an even more swift decapitation, finally shutting down its lights for good.

I lean on the wall stunned and amazed… 

Who the hell is this guy?