Jaune and the Real Girl.

Chapter 34

Vasily drew out his scroll, the screen flashed to life and his thumb dancing across the holographic screen. His thumb pressed on a control as her floating blades reached him.

The blades suddenly stopped in midair and fell away, they clattered on the asphalt harmlessly. Penelope stumbled and dropped as if all strength had left her legs had suddenly left her. She fell motionlessness to the street still as a statue. The light in her eyes was gone, it didn't fade away slowly like the glow in Penny's eye had, it just died instantly, in a blink they were dark. Vasily had just shut her down, with a flick of a button he ended her, he just turned her off, like a simple machine.

Jaune had expected him to draw a weapon of some kind, he had been prepared to see a fight. He hadn't expected to see him flip a switch and end her. After all the pain and destruction Penelope had left in her wake watching Vasily defeat her with the push of a button was sobering.

Vasily looked over the lifeless android and sighed, "foolish machine, you think I would use a weapon I couldn't control?" He chuckled and drew his revolver from his holster with an amused chuckle, "I suppose that's another one for the scrap pile, eh Mr. Arc?"

He leveled his revolver where Jaune had been. He wasn't there. Vasily frowned looking at the empty space where Jaune had been.

"Mr Arc?" Vasilly called looking around the ruined street past the two android bodies trying to see where the blonde knight had run off to. "Mr Arc!" He called almost as if he was tying to find a friend, it chilled Jaune as he kept out of sight.

"I apologize for that rude interruption," he called out, his voice echoed through the dark destroyed streets, "I really should have bothered to have some proper manners programed into her," he explained, "certainly more obedience to say the least, this is why I prefer simpler machines that listen to simple commands."

He spotted a set of footprints left behind in the dusty debris that coated the street and filled the air. He traced the trail with the barrel of his revolver trying to follow them despite the low light and haze of debris.

"You cannot hide from me Mr. Arc!" He called out to the quiet street. "You only delay the inevitable, do not debase yourself thinking you can hide and escape from me, not after all this. You deserve a warrior's death Mr. Arc and I will give you one, I won't leave you humiliated and half dead as you left me."

The debris was settling, the smouldering fires still burning from the collapsed building spread thicker smoke and ash into the haze, it stung his eyes and reduced visibility. The dust and ash blanketing the streets were also muffling footfalls making it hard to hear him moving around.

Vasily scanned every inch of the darkness holding his revolver at the ready checking every nook and corner for the blonde knight. His gunbarrel drifted over the side of a brick building, he stopped seeing a narrow hole in the brick.

Crocea Mors was missing, he looked down to see Jaune's footprints in the ash next to it and went down an alley. He was armed now.

Vasily turned the corner and peered down the alley squinting to see through the haze, he followed the footprints watching them turn behind a dumpster. Vasily suppressed a chuckle, was he really trying to hide behind a dumpster again?

Vasily squeezed the trigger firing a round, it punched through the steel like nothing. He squeezed off the other five shots spreading them out around the surface in the hope to hit the knight on the other side.

He had expected to scare Arc out of his cover. To have him come running like last time and charge him. Nothing happened, perhaps he was cowering, or perhaps Vasily had killed him with those random shots.
He stepped forward to check, he popped the cylinder on his revolver and spilled the spent casing onto the ash coated ground. He reached for a moon clip to reload when he heard the sound of creaking hinges right behind him.