Sigrun risked a glance around her to assess the situation. Tuuri and Reynir had dipped out of sight as soon as the door had opened; Sigrun hoped Mikkel was shielding them with his massive body. Aku, Emil and Lalli had all done what she had: take cover and get ready to fire whatever weapons they had at the trolls. Sigrun was about to shout for the others to fire when Aku yelled, “Augment this!”
The flask of “the Solution” hit one of the trolls right in the middle of its forehead, and what happened when it shattered was horrifying even to a hardened troll hunter like Sigrun. The troll literally melted away as “the Solution” ate through the Rash-riddled flesh, until all that was left were the disparate mechanical bits that had been grafted into the troll by whoever had sent them after Sigrun’s little band. Sigrun desperately hoped that neither Reynir nor Tuuri had been brought to vomiting by the sight; the last thing she wanted was either of the two taking their masks off.
Most of the other flasks had less of an effect on their targets, as they tended to bounce off the decrepit flesh rather than shattering, but some still broke and splashed their targets with “the Solution”; by the time Aku had thrown his last flask, none of the three remaining trolls was left unmarred.
Even as Sigrun and Emil poured suppressive fire at the hideous fusions of flesh and machine, the gaping wounds left by Aku’s well-thrown weapons began to close and heal. “Agent neutralized,” one of the trolls noted (rather redundantly, in Mikkel’s opinion). Aku and Lalli were still trying to get through the cranial armor protecting the trolls’ brains.
The three “Augmented” trolls had come to stand near that weird bunch of electronics Sigrun’s band had been examining before the trolls had made their entrance. The machinery began to glow as the trolls passed it…
*
]Spatio-temporal disturbance indicates trans-continuum displacement has occurred
]More precise data unavailable due to distortions attendant on said displacement
*
The robot was squat and heavily armored, and most people would have called it ugly, but something about it struck a chord of familiarity in Sigrun. Perhaps it was the dozens of dings and nicks that told of the battles the robot had been in; perhaps it was the painting of Sigrun’s own long namesake, Sigrun the Valkyrie, on the topside of the carapace; perhaps it was just some trick of the human mind. At any rate, Sigrun left the new arrival strictly alone, signaling for the others to do the same.
The lead Augment spoke again, ignoring the new arrival. “Surrender. Resistance is futile: you will be like us.” Whether Sigrun (or any of the others, for that matter) would have thought that a good thing was rendered academic when the Augments opened fire.
After a very brief moment where the robot was obviously reorienting itself, it rose up on its treads. A pair of objects swung into view from its undercarriage, but Sigrun didn’t recognize them until the music began. Sigrun didn’t recognize the song, either, but since it was obviously electronic music from the Old Times, she thought it appropriate. All she could tell about the lyrics was that they were in an Old Time language called “English”; otherwise, she couldn’t make head or tail of them.
As he came into the window
With a sound of
A crescendo…
Suddenly, the robot’s carapace erupted with gunfire. The Augments had not retained quite enough of their humanity to look betrayed, but something about them signified that they felt it, insofar as they felt anything anymore. A second later, the Augments had all taken cover, forcing their odd foe to come looking for them.
With an efficiency even Skynet would have admired, the robot methodically dispatched its foes as the music played on.
So Annie are you OK?
Are you OK Annie?
The lead Augment, now the only Augment left standing, seemed to smile when the robot’s guns began to click instead of firing: the robot was out of ammo. The Augment stood and began walking toward the robot, but before it had quite reached the squat form, the robot unfolded a truly impressive array of what were obviously cutting and slicing implements.
You were struck down
It was your doom
The Augment assessed the situation in a heartbeat. Dodging the robot’s first series of slashes, it picked up one of the prostheses from the Augment that had fallen to “the Solution”, using it as a block against the robot’s blades in a high-speed duel of guard, thrust and parry. Fast as the Augment was, however, it wasn’t quite fast enough, and so it fell.
The robot trundled back towards the tangle of machinery from which it had emerged, refolding itself into its original configuration as it did. Once it was back inside the strange cocoon, the machinery began to glow. A final snatch of the lyrics caught Sigrun’s ears as the robot faded back into whatever other realm it had come from, leaving only the wreckage of its foes behind:
You’ve been hit by
You’ve been struck by
A smooth criminal!
After a moment of stunned silence all around, Sigrun put into words what they all felt. “Well, that was just weird.”
Even Aku was disinclined to disagree…
