The Everlancer charged. It moved just like it had during their first duel, but Marvin didn't know if that meant Carlos was piloting, or if Saeyung created an AI to mimic him. And why would Carlos help Saeyung? He needed her help with his paralysis, but he couldn't be that morally corrupt, could he?
Marvin threw his questions aside as The Everlancer's giant gauntlet met his arm-shield. Marvin angled his shield, letting the blow glance off and transferring its energy into a counter attack. The Everlancer swatted his sword away and attempted an uppercut. Marvin tilted his head just out of reach, ducked under the larger mech, and ran to the edge of the hangar. He could still catch Saeyung—
The Everlancer tackled him from behind, grabbing his head like a bowling pin and smashing it into the ground. Marvin's helmet held firm, and he jabbed a sword into the enemy's side. Before he could slice it across, The Everlancer leapt away.
Marvin reached the edge of the hangar and scanned the shuttle streams high above. His rockets couldn't take him that far. He needed another shuttle, but he didn't know how to pilot.
He spun around as The Everlancer lunged. He parried the gauntlet with both swords, deflecting it towards the ground, and rammed his shoulder into the opponent's chest. He activated his thrusters and pushed upwards, slamming the mech into the ceiling. The Everlancer punched him in the shoulder and sent both of them falling back down.
Just then, out of the corner of his eye, Marvin saw a black shuttle descend into view, mere feet from the hangar. He briefly relaxed his motors in relief.
"Hurry!" Amir shouted through the shuttle's speaker. "We have sights on Saeyung!"
Marvin interpreted "hurry" as best he could—he jumped on top of the shuttle. It spun and rocketed towards the traffic stream, but not before its hull resounded with a second thud.
As Marvin secured himself to the roof with magnets and filtered the rain battering his metal skin into white noise, The Everlancer climbed over the edge. The two mechs stared each other down, and Marvin couldn't help feel a hint of pride. During their first duel, he'd survived by the skin of his teeth until the very end. Now, he felt the fight could go either way. Maybe the implants had made Carlos worse at piloting, or maybe Marvin had improved that much.
The two mechs met at the roof's center, their strikes sending shockwaves through the rain. Marvin moved nimbly and stayed on the defensive, making sure The Everlancer never damaged the shuttle, weaving between the water droplets while the opponent plowed through them. Many times Carlos nearly grabbed a hold of one of Marvin's limbs, but through a mix of Renee's autonomous program and his own reflexes, he remained untouched.
Soon enough, their shuttle's ascent plateaued a ways below the traffic stream, following its path. Marvin made the mistake of looking up, trying to spot Saeyung's shuttle, and was immediately clocked in the face by the opponent. He boosted backwards, avoiding a second hit, but the moment his feet left the shuttle, he found himself in open air. He was suddenly being left in the dust. Far off, now a mere fraction of its original size, The Everlancer turned and treaded towards the cockpit.
Before Marvin had time to panic, the shuttle stopped dead and caused The Everlancer to topple forwards. Marvin flew back onto the roof, and the moment he landed, the shuttle took off again. He rammed hard into his opponent. Carlos' mech stabilized itself with a gauntlet and used the other one to clutch Marvin's shoulder. It began to squeeze. Marvin jammed a saber through The Everlancer's elbow, then revolved his arm so that it severed the enemy's. Its gauntlet fell from his shoulder and tumbled off the shuttle, disappearing into the haze.
Something eerily human seemed to stir within the Everlancer. It backed away, crouched, and methodically curled each finger of its remaining hand. Marvin rolled his shoulder, letting some gears pop back into place, and charged.
The next minute cleared any doubt in Marvin's mind that Carlos was piloting. It was a near reenactment of their first duel. Despite having one arm, the opponent moved with alarming ferocity, swinging wide arcs and keeping Marvin at a distance. He felt like he had back then; panic, anxiety as he tried to find an opening, and exhilaration. In this moment, nothing mattered except beating Carlos.
At length, Marvin found a way to take advantage of The Everlancer's handicap. He parried a punch, leaving his saber slightly bent, and jabbed a saber into the right side of the opponent. He prepared to cut through all the way, but The Everlancer kneed him in the groin, then grabbed the sword embedded in itself and snapped it in half.
Marvin was ready. He rammed into the enemy shoulder-first, pinning its arm against its body, then remote-activated an incineration protocol in the severed half of his sword—a last minute addition by Caroline. The blade burned up before The Everlancer could pull it out, melting a deep gash down its abdomen. Marvin backed away, strafed around the mech's damaged side, and sliced his other sword through the remainder of its body. The top half tumbled to the ground and rolled off the shuttle.
And then it was over. Marvin had beat one of the greatest mechs of all time. A weakened version of that mech, but an all-time great nonetheless.
He could revel in that later. He looked up at the airstream and noted that they were triangulating on a particular silver shuttle that was going faster than the rest. A shuttle that they were soon directly below. Marvin unsheathed his backup saber on his left arm and braced himself.
We're going to arrest Saeyung. She's going to tell me where my human body is, and I'm going to transfer back. And then… things will finally be on their way back to normal.
Just then, Saeyung's shuttle dipped below the traffic stream, past Amir's shuttle, and plummeted towards the city. Amir angled their own shuttle and gave chase. As they nosedived, something protruded out of the side of Saeyung's hovercraft, then detached from it altogether. It fell upwards, hurtling towards Marvin. He made out lines of dark blue and silver. A flash of a katana. Then the mech crashed into him. He secured his feet to the shuttle roof and pivoted, letting the newcomer fly past. It deftly reversed its rockets and landed on the shuttle.
Marvin couldn't quite believe his cameras. Legionnaire, looking exactly as it had during their first duel, was standing before him, katana burning blue and evaporating the raindrops around it.
Who's piloting?An AI? Another top-twenty Ainsel employed?
"It's a shame you had to run," Saeyung said through the mech's speakers. "This is what I wanted to show you, Steve."
Legionnaire hefted its katana and Marvin instinctively raised his sabers. He considered saying something back, something like, This is pointless, we're still going to arrest you. But a part of him was curious to see just what Saeyung's end goal was.
"Of course, I had to make some compromises after what you did," Saeyung continued. "I understand why you were upset, but you shouldn't have cut off my brother's transfer. You effectively killed him, you know."
Marvin clenched his fists. You're the one who killed him.
Legionnaire held its weapon steady, and Marvin kept his cameras peeled for any sign of movement. The first sign of attack, and he would stop entertaining this conversation.
"You. Killed. Him," Saeyung repeated. "I could've had a complete backup along with the final product. Sunwoo could've been alive and well, uploaded to a robot body just like you."
Marvin faltered for a moment. Would a fully uploaded Sunwoo with no fading memories have jumped? Would he still be alive right now, believing he was human?
It was still against his will, Marvin reminded himself. He would've cracked under that trauma.
But he too had been uploaded against his will. He too had learned that he'd been murdered, yet he had survived this long, even thrived.
"I didn't kill him," Marvin whispered.
"You're right—you didn't just kill him. You completely erased him."
Legionnaire slid one foot back and lowered its visor. Marvin frantically changed defensive positions. The opponent was in his face in a millisecond. His right saber was knocked to the side, his left saber slammed into his own face. He blindly spun, barely dodging a katana thrust. Legionnaire adjusted mid-movement, folded its leg, and kicked him in the stomach. Marvin fell onto his back. Rolled as the enemy stomped a dent into the shuttle roof, then retreated to the opposite end of the platform, but not before Legionnaire cut a gash in his leg.
Marvin tried to calm himself, but his processors were burning with anxiety. This felt too similar to his first duel with Sparrow—it had barely begun, but he couldn't see any way in which he would win.
Fortunately, he didn't have to win. He just had to delay long enough for the Inspectors to catch Saeyung.
The two mechs engaged again. Marvin hung onto his life by a thread, keeping as much distance as possible, only blocking when he absolutely needed to and attacking even less. Legionnaire moved similar to how Sunwoo had piloted it, but Sunwoo was already a better pilot, and now it seemed his reflexes had enhanced a-thousandfold. Before every jab and swing, Marvin was already thinking of how to counter the opponent's counter. Worse yet, Legionnaire's katana had a shell of mist around itself due to the rain, and it distorted Marvin's vision every time it got close.
As they fought, the shuttles inched closer together. Saeyung seemed to be heading for the outskirts of Sector 8, those grasslands where the morgue was located. To their left, another black shuttle was approaching parallel. More Inspectors, Marvin prayed.
It didn't take long for him to start slipping up. One graze on the arm. One jam of his elbow motor. One off-balance stumble. The shuttles were still about a hundred feet apart, and Marvin doubted he would survive for more than a minute.
He tried to recall his first duel with Legionnaire, tried to see patterns that he was already familiar with. And he saw them, sure, but they happened so fast and were chained together in so many unfamiliar ways that he might as well have been fighting a new opponent.
Soon, he found his left saber caught under Legionnaire's shoulder. Legionnaire contracted its leg again, kicked, and snapped Marvin's left knee backwards. He collapsed, and Legionnaire brought its katana down on his head. Marvin caught it between his arm-shields and held it a few inches above his forehead. For a second, both mechs seemed frozen in time as the shuttle sped through the city and the world wept.
Then Marvin's arm-shields began to burn, and the katana started to slip through. Two inches from his head. One and a half. One inch. One half. One quarter.
This can't be how I die, Marvin thought. He leaned his head back as far as possible, pushed with all his might with his arms, but the katana kept getting closer.
He recalled what Ella had done in the duel against Centium Prime. He could afford to get stabbed, just not in the Core. He angled his rockets to the left, let go of the katana, and launched himself the opposite way. Slightly above where his ear would be, he heard the hum of plasma slice through metal. His vision flickered for a moment. He crashed to the ground and was immediately greeted by another katana thrust. He parried this one, jumped up on his good leg, and swung hard at Legionnaire. Legionnaire dodged, but barely. Seemingly shaken, it retreated a few feet.
Marvin snapped his knee back in place and shed the burnt layer of his arm-shields. He examined a schematic of his injuries, and went cold upon seeing the one on his head. A deep gash ran down his scalp, exposing broken wires and a shiny silver sphere—his Core. He immediately covered the opening with his hand. If rainwater sparked one of those wires, he might very well be dead.
Legionnaire, for whatever reason, did not attack. It observed Marvin covering his wound, curious almost. Did some part of it understand why Marvin was so scared? Could it sense that they were cut from the same cloth?
"Sunwoo?" Marvin said. Are you in there?
Legionnaire stood a little straighter. Its katana arm twitched but didn't strike.
What did Saeyung do to you? Marvin wanted to ask. Do you know? Can you fight back?
The other mech slid its feet to the right. Marvin did the same. The two mechs began to circle each other, Legionnaire with its katana comfortably resting by its side, Marvin with one saber reared backwards and one stuck above his head, covering the gash.
"Do you recognize my voice?" Marvin asked slowly. "Do you remember who I am?"
Legionnaire paused. Almost seemed to tilt its head.
Then it spun around as a dark shadow suddenly slammed into it. Bright orange rocket boosters burned in the rain, underscoring streaks of dark red paint. Several flashes of silver followed, spraying sparks onto the shuttle roof.
Legionnaire quickly untangled itself from the newcomer, who backed up next to Marvin. He wasn't sure whether to feel relief or frustration. Had he been close to reaching Sunwoo or whatever was left of him in that machine? It didn't seem likely, yet a part of him wanted to believe it could've been that easy, that no matter what Saeyung did, she couldn't remove her brother's humanity.
But now Sienna Lee was here, piloting Sparrow. Now, the playing ground was a lot more even.
Legionnaire pulled its katana apart into two blades and melded the handles into each wrist so the blades could pivot freely. Sienna handed Marvin a thin piece of filament that he stuck over his head wound.
"Stay behind me," she said, tapping her twinblade twice on the roof. Marvin nodded.
Sienna charged. Legionnaire dodged and went straight for Marvin. Marvin blocked a cut of the left katana, but the right one was coming too fast towards his head. Sienna's twinblade appeared under it at the last second and batted it away. Marvin thrust a saber forward, which was parried, and Sienna twisted her weapon and nearly cleaved off the opponent's face. Legionnaire shifted its entire neck backwards, rotated its right arm around and stabbed Sienna in the side. A shallow cut. Marvin jabbed twice more, but with a quick spin of the left katana, both of his swords were knocked to the side. But he'd distracted Legionnaire, and he hooked his left foot upwards, delivering a quick kick to the mech's shin and causing it to stumble. In turn, Sienna slammed the side of her blade against its shoulder. Before it could fall off the shuttle, it used its boosters to back up to the edge.
Legionnaire bent its left katana 135 degrees backwards and began to rapidly spin it, creating a makeshift shield. The raindrops around it seemed to fall backwards as they were kicked up.
Marvin and Sienna wasted no time attacking again. They weren't the ideal team—they weren't even a great team—but they knew how to be relentless, and they had decent enough situational awareness. They didn't predict when the other would strike, but when it happened, they made sure not to be in the way.
Still, Legionnaire defended near perfectly. Marvin and Sienna would land an occasional hit, but nothing to break the enemy's stride.
The shuttles were reaching the edge of Sector 8's city. Up ahead, the grasslands' probe lights flickered around hazy silhouettes of warehouses and factories. They were no more than a hundred feet from the ground now, and Marvin could only guess where Saeyung was trying to go.
As they crossed into the grasslands, both shuttles angled downward, putting Sienna and Marvin uphill of Legionnaire. They used the gravity advantage to push Legionnaire back above the cockpit, and, with fewer options to defend itself, the opponent finally began taking damage. Sienna chipped off a piece of its armor. Marvin stabbed a minor motor in its hip. They whittled it down, sending pieces flying through the air.
Soon the shuttles evened out again parallel to the ground. There was a sudden jolt as Amir's shuttle rear-ended Saeyung's. The shuttle Sienna had come from was nowhere in sight, probably gone to cut off Saeyung up ahead. Legionnaire used the disturbance to leap over Marvin and Sienna and run to the engines.
Marvin and Sienna caught up before it could get there. Legionnaire spun to deflect Marvin's attack, but Sienna kicked it off balance and hooked her twinblade under its left arm, clamping it at the bicep. Marvin brought his saber down, and katana, hand, and forearm were severed.
But the cut was too close to Sienna's hold. Legionnaire slipped free and retreated. This time, it managed to get far enough away. Sienna and Marvin's weapons missed it by millimeters, and Legionnaire plunged its remaining katana into the shuttle's right engine.
Their battleground tipped sideways. Marvin lost his footing and Sienna caught him by the arm. Up ahead, Saeyung's shuttle appeared to be going for a landing, as Amir had also damaged her engines.
There's nowhere for her to go, Marvin thought. The grasslands were completely barren in these parts, save for a lone two-story house on their right.
"Go after Saeyung!" Sienna shouted as their shuttle spiraled away from its target. "I'll take care of Legionnaire!"
Marvin nodded. Even with its superior programming, a one-armed Legionnaire wouldn't stand a chance against Sparrow.
Diverting the rest of his energy into his rockets, Marvin separated from the shuttle and flew towards the grasslands. Saeyung touched down right outside of that house. She stepped out of the shuttle and looked up at Marvin, and he wasn't sure if it was fear or excitement that passed through her face. Then she turned and went into the house. A few seconds later, Marvin was where she'd been standing. He looked into the shuttle first and saw no one else. She'd been alone that whole time.
Then he looked into the doorway. Everything beyond the frame was shrouded in darkness. It was a generic house—slanted roof, painted white and blue, two windows beside the door and a third window above, all boarded up. The type of building people used to own before everything became skyscrapers.
A thin string tugged at the back of his mind, telling him that something was off. That everything leading up to this seemed suspiciously deliberate—the chase, the fight, Legionnaire cutting off the engine—as if Saeyung had wanted to bring him here.
But it was a string that he easily severed. This was his best and last chance to find answers. To find his body. To find out about Caroline's past. To bring Saeyung to justice.
He didn't think twice before going into the house.