Mystery Fusion # 24
Disclaimer: Check the author's notes.
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The dust of the seemingly eternal waste drifted across the parched
and thirsty earth, swirling in gusting eddies away from a pair of
figures. The first, a man, large in stature, hair loose and flowing
to just past his shoulders, sunglasses hiding his eyes and lending
him a nearly expressionless gaze. His trench coat ruffled slightly
in the errant breeze, parting the material and revealing the large
cylindrical weapon in his hand, the end still glowing and warm,
stray vapors and mists boiling off of it.
The other, not human by any stretch, though quite large, much like a
humanoid dragon, exaggerated and jagged claws laying limp against
the ground as its death rattle sounded, one good eye slowly rolling
to peer at the man. Beneath the creature, feeding the thirsty soil,
dark ichor seeped out of a messy and circular bore that lanced
through the entire creature's torso.
"You are the last?" it hissed, voice heavy and gurgling with more of
the same ichor flooding its throat.
"Yeah," he said after a moment, lowering his head to gaze at the
creature, then crouching lower to look at it more closely. "I guess so."
"Even... even the... why you? Why me?"
One of the man's hands instinctively, reached towards a pocket of the
coat, but that hand dropped, and he shook his head. "Me? I got
lucky. Screwed up. One experiment gone wrong, gave me what I have now."
"And I?" the creature insisted, coughing weakly.
"I don't know," he admitted after a moment. "Alien, I guess. You just
might have lived this long anyway. I know I got lucky. It was the
nanites. In part. Maybe you, too."
"You finally got me," the draconian beast managed. "You always wanted
to. Why?"
"You killed them," he said simply. "I always said you would, and you
did."
"Not... not on purpose," the creature protested. "Was... accident."
"Yeah, well," the man trailed off, sighing. "Why were you here, anyway?"
"Learn," the creature gasped. "To learn. About humans."
The man grunted, brushing a strand of hair away from his sunglasses,
though the motion might have been to wipe away a stray tear. "I
never thought it would lead to this," he said quietly.
"But it did," the creature hissed, its eye drifting slowly shut.
"Miss... Torg. Others. Lonely."
"I know," he whispered. "I almost wish I could go with you."
"What... you... do... now?"
"Finish what you started, I guess," the man said. "I never learned as
much about people as I should have. Nothing better to do, now."
Heaving a final shudder, the beast managed a final, "Goodbye... Riff..."
"Goodbye, Aylee," he responded, rising to his feet. "But it's Bolt
Crank, now. And I guess I got a lot to do." He smirked, adjusting
his sunglasses. "And a lot of notes to take."
With that, the man turned, striding away purposefully across the
wastes that had lain for hundreds of years, undisturbed, though in
his youth, they were different lands entirely...
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Author's Notes:
Who am I kidding? No one's going to get this one.
Bolt Crank is from Eatman, which is owned by Viz in the US.
Sluggy Freelance belongs to Pete Abrams.