“…Ahh.”
It stays in her vision; an isolated town, ruined and destroyed beyond repair. A ghost town, never to be known by life once more
The baron wasteland before her reminds me of the past. Memories long forgotten. She could not remember them well; fragments broken into little pieces. Memories merely amounted to the perception one holds towards events; events that have been forgotten by time. The once lawful peace that held together society had been brought to rubble
Like this town before her.
She could see the echoes of the past in this town. The former glory the town had once contained was lost, only to be replaced by an aging epitaph to the once bustling markets and liveliness of the town center, always existing in her head, but never appearing, as if lost within the flow of time.
She would normally attempt to avert her gaze from these sorts of sights and the memories that came with them.
Memory.
She had been haughty, thinking that by her own hands, her inventions could be used to protect those she cared for.
Memory.
Witnessing the life of people she loved wasted though systems she had designed.
Memory.
Thoughts of a time when this city was habitable.
“…Why?”
As if struggling through a deep mist. As if writhing in the midst of a bad dream. Since the world broke, just as the city before her was broken years ago.
The once happy village, reduced to a mere shell of its former self. She had seen it in its glory long ago.
The term 'village' was probably the best way to describe the surrounding area. The buildings that belonged to this area were, although destroyed, quite noticeably obsolete structures that should've been replaced years before the war had even begun. But maybe this place had at once been a countryside where people simply did not care about what was new, or popular.
“How long ago was it?” she wondered to herself. Time seemed inconsequential with the event that had occurred. Time was merely an illusion of man to begin with, but with the deconstruction of culture, one might say that such a luxury was no longer something to bear witness to. Time was not something that most would be able to comprehend without the culture of time behind it.
This was a world without hope; without time of its own. Walking corpses littered what was once “people”. Shells of former “humanity”. The world was no longer something to consider “alive”. Merely a perpetual machine, refusing to stop at the request of others, lost in the flow of the concept known as “time”, however without knowledge of the mechanisms behind such.
She did not understand why she had made her path through this town. After all, she had determined her goal long ago.
“She” was Quinn Bradley, heir to the Bradley Corporation. Or rather, it would be more apt to consider her the “former heir”. The Bradleys were no longer an operational company with the recent events that had taken the lives of many she held dear to herself.
What was the reason for the betrayal of her family?
Was it for money?
Power?
Gains?
Quinn cared not for the reason for the betrayal, but only wished to gain satisfaction by cutting the “time” from those who had caused these emotional and physical lacerations upon herself. There was nothing really holding her forward anymore besides this desire.
Once known for her amazing weapon designs, rivaled only by another corporation, but Quinn always believed her designs to be superior to that man’s. Now, she travels the world as a traveling mechanic, only wishing for her own salvation. Only wishing for her several year-long strife to finally conclude.
The destroyed scenery seemed only to convey a sense of longing, forgotten by age. She knew these streets. Her father had brought her to this location many of years ago, it’s citizens in the middle of some sort of festivity.
She could remember them dancing, but not a single face could be recalled. Their visage passing through Quinn’s eyes; apparitions lost, only to be remembered by few. They were not physical entities, merely existing within the viewpoint of Quinn, but their cultural dance grew in fervor, as if wishing to break their shackles to the mind.
And just as suddenly as it started, the dancing stopped, as if it had never existed before.
Memory.
It was such a fragile thing. Memories are something that best left in their tombs, never to be exposed to the light of day.
One can only move forward.
One cannot allow previous faults to ruin oneself.
All one could do is move on. Forget their former markings and continue on their path to their own desires. Brought only through struggle can one realize their potential. A brighter future was something to look forward to, and Quinn knew that she could innovate a generation through her designs.
She realized the scene before her after but a moment of analyzing her surroundings.
The dead.
Not the pseudo-dead that lived in the city, simply acting on impulse of a dying world, but the true death.
There had been a skirmish of some sort, leaving several dead individuals lying on the ground. They might have had families. The might have been good people. They might have killed families. They might have been demons. It did not matter anymore. After all, death is the end of the road here on this dying rock.
“…Ah.”
Quinn had seen death before. It did not bother her. She did not have attachment to these people, so their lifeless frames were meaningless to her. All she could do is continue forward. All she could do was hope for the brighter future she promised she’d pave the way for.
These dead individuals were not something she could afford to gawk at.
After all…
“Hold it right there, little miss.”
A voice had rung out behind Quinn. For some reason, she did not understand her this man had appeared without her noticing. Maybe she was deep in thought? Either way, it could have been a fatal mistake if this person had decided to start with action in place of speak.
Quinn turned around to see the person who had requested her attention, calling her such an outdated term as “little miss”. The man seemed to take the appearance of something one would expect from a mook in a children’s action show. He seemed to play the part to himself well. There was nothing really wrong with the other. He merely knew a means to live through the exploitation of others. Evil owns its very existence to the vestigial remnants of “mankind's” bestial nature. It matters not the race one was. Everyone had an inherent “evil” within them. No one was exempt from this clause. It merely manifested differently from “person” to “person”. And this person had manifested itself in the form of a “raider” or a “bandit” or something akin to that.
Quinn did not know if the fight before her had destroyed the city, or if the bandits that now existed within such looted the place to such a degree, or if the bombs had caused enough destruction to this village, but one thing was sure; Quinn needed to be on her guard.
“It might be dangerous for a little girl to be wandering alone like this. Something might happen and I am sure you’d regret it,” The man said, seemingly acting in a strange manner. Perchance his intellect was robbed from him when the bombs dropped? Either way, he did not seem to have the greatest of intentions towards Quinn.
There were more of them. Three in total to be exact.
Maybe they had killed the people dead on the ground? It did not seem that way. Both the people now surrounding Quinn and the people dead had a similar “uniform” on. It would be best to assume they were part of the same group, so to speak.
“I come here to find a lot of my comrades dead, but a little girl shifting throughout our former outpost. Perhaps you had something to do with this?”
“She looks really scrawny boss. I doubt that she could have done anything at all,” one of the mooks called from behind Quinn. She was surrounded at this point. But she would not make a move until they had. After all, she was not a murderer. She merely wished to continue forwards, and if others wished to stand in her way, she would not hesitate to defeat them. She had to continue forward, if her honor as a Bradley meant anything.
“They happened to have died long before I had arrived. If you would excuse me now, I need to get going.”
Quinn stated. She did not care about their morality. If they would not confront Quinn, she would have no reason to fight them. She did not like pointless fights such as.
“Unfortunately kiddo, you ain’t goin’ nowhere,” one of the goon snickered at Quinn’s statement.
It appeared as if this would have to take a turn for the worst. Quinn did not want to have such trouble. She merely wished to follow a “scent” that she wanted for a long, long time.
“I will ask you one last time. I don’t want you to end up like your comrades right there.”
“You little bitch, I’ll kill yo-“
He could no continue his statement. The battle had already begun.
Quinn’s Armor had been equipped, as if appearing from nowhere. A battle armor that would not let her lose this engagement. The pride of the Bradleys. There was no way that these raiders would be any match for this armor.
In the eyes of the raiders, prior to this transformation, Quinn was the ant to their magnifying glass. They believed that Quinn did not have the capacity to fight back. But looks can be deceiving. After all, the invention of this power armor was to increase the capacity for those trained in the arts of war.
Hammer in hand, the mooks were nothing before her.
She had been the designer of this particular hammer, as well as the armor itself. The “Darius” and the “Mjolnir Hammer” were both designs of her own. As such with the rather primitive weapons utilized her opponent’s, they should be child's play.
“What the hell is that?” questioned one of the raiders.
“I don’t know. Shoot at it!” Suggested another.
A hail of bullets were shot towards the Darius and its operator- Quinn.
A normal human would be turned into cheese in a similar instance. But Quinn and the Darius were different than a normal human.
“Initiate mode: Unseen Threat.”
As if blending with the background, the Darius had become unseen from any others. As if vanishing off of the radar. The bullets merely passed through the space where the Darius once existed, as if the mechanism and its utilizer were never there to begin with.
“The hell!?” Questioned one of the raiders, looking in all directions for the area in which the Darius could have went.
That was when it had appeared to the side of him, and with one strike from the hammer, the raider had been killed. The strength and power of the user was increased many fold from utilizing the Darius, and with enough force of swinging the hammer, it would be no wonder that someone’s skull would be an easy target to cave in.
The next person was a bit far away. One would imagine if the main weapon was a hammer, they would be easily defeated by ranged weapons. But the “Mjolnir Hammer” was not any sort of normal hammer.
“Take this you bitch!” Shouted the man, about to raise his weapon at Quinn.
But that is when “it” happened.
The hammer was raised as if a rifle, and suddenly an “orb” or sorts was shot out from the “bore” of the hammer, exploding as it hit the target.
Another easy kill.
The last bandit, seeing his comrades killed off, one at a time, decided it would be best to flee.
A huge mistake.
“Deploy Acceleration field.”
An electromagnetic “gate” was formed before Quinn. Something that would improve the accuracy and damage from her main cannon.
Shooting another shock blast, this time though the field she had conjured, the last raider lay a smoldering pile of ash.
They were easily defeated, killed without hesitation. There was “no rest for the wicked”, after all.
All they needed was to allow Quinn to move forward. Because of their actions, they were punished for what they had done. Quinn was not a heartless individual, but when others are to intend harm to her or others, she is not the sort to simply relax and let go. She was a person of principle.
Either way, she should simply continue forward. That was all she could do now. Forward, now and forever…