The Sorceress and the Cyborg 1

The Sorceress and The Cyborg




There was little left of the Great city of Greenwall left after the attack. All of the wizards and sorcerers in the city did their best took hold together the protective ward placed over the city but it proved no match for the continuous bombing by the machines. Now all that was left was a smoking pile of ruble.

Tall skeletal machines now marched through the wreckage searching for any signs of life and then exterminating them with a swift laser blast from the eyes. There was a particular portion of the city wall that hadn't crumbled in the attack.

"Life form detected!" Barked the mechanical voice of a machine that had wandered off to that area. It held up one hand and began to scan the wreckage with a beam of red light. It stopped on a large chunk of masonry that leaned against a wall.

"Life form located." It said. It picked up the chunk of masonry and threw it aside with little effort revealing a large man in singed and blackened armor and a fifteen-year-old girl hiding underneath.

"NO" The man roared. "I will not allow you cursed metal monsters to take any more of my family from me!" He brandish a broadsword and lunged towards the machine.

The machine caught the blade with one hand and wrenched it out of the old man's hand and tossed it aside as if it was taking a toy from a child. "Commencing extermination." Its eyes glowed and a hot beam of light shot from them boring a hole through his head and the wall behind it.

The man fell dead with a smoking hole in his head.

"FATHER!!" the girl screamed.

The machine turned its attention to her. "Second life form located. Commencing exter-"

The girl screamed with rage and swiped her arm at the machine. A ball of compressed air erupted from her hand and smashed into the machines chest. It flew backwards and crashed into a pile of ruble with such force that its head flew of.

A loud high pitch siren began to sound from the head. "Alert, Alert, magical energies detected! Alert! Alert! Magical energies detected! Alert, Aler-"

The girl pick up the broadsword and despite is weight swung it like a twig a crushed the head as if it were a peanut. She stopped for a moment surprised at what she just did.

Other machine alerted by the alarm began to surround her. As they closed in on her the child began to burst into bubble of blue flames which surrounded her. Screaming like a wild animal she lunged towards the nearest one, her blade now buzzing with blue electricity. She swung at it; the magically affected blade sliced it in half as if it were butter. She pointed it at the next one who got zapped by electricity. It fell to the ground, shot circuited. They began to fire on her with laser blast and rapid-fire weapon mounted on their wrists. But their attacks seemed to have little effect on her, as the flames surrounding her seemed to protect her from harm.

The machines fell one after the other as she hacked and blasted away as if she were possessed at the crowd. Soon all the machines had fallen. Only one of them remained. This one seemed to have a thicker midsection them the rest. It made no move to attack her.
"Bomb has been armed," It said. "This unit will self destruct in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . "
KABOOOM!!!

The flames surrounding her seemed to grow brighter and stronger as the machine detonated. It somehow protected her from the explosion leaving her somewhat singed but unharmed. Then she promptly fainted from exhaustion.


Nero the Necromancer had watched the bombing of Greenwall from afar. The machines were very thorough with their attacks. But he could still sense the power that was detected in the area coming from inside. The necromancer smiled, if this individual could survive an attack by the machines, then they would prove to be a valuable addition to Riggus Fell forces. He steered his rotting corpse of a horse towards the city. He sighed disappointedly as he rode through the ruins. The machines had done their job of destroying anything that could be of any possible use to Riggus Fell. There wasn't even a decent fully intact corpse that he could recruit into his own personal army.

Suddenly he heard a tremendous explosion in the distance. A large cloud of smoke mushroomed up from an area near the wall. He murmured a spell to protect him from any possible radiation and then rode towards it to investigate. When he rode up upon the scene he saw the girl lying there unconscious surrounded by blacken earth and derbies. She was the one, he could sense it. He had found who he was looking for.

The girl woke up in a small room. She was in a bed that was small but comfortable. She got up and tried the door. It was locked. A breeze then hit her blowing cold night air in through a window on the other side of the room. She went to it and took a look out.

She immediately step back and had to take a deep breath after looking for she was very far from the ground.

"Ah, Splendid you awake. "

A very pale man was standing in the doorway. He had a bald shiny head and was dressed very flashily, with a rich red velvet robe. He wore gold ruby ring on almost each finger and sparkling clean brown leather boots. But he also stunk of rotten flesh.

"Who are you, and where am I?"

The man smiled revealing several missing teeth. "I am called Nero the Necromancer, Lord of the Undead. This is my castle."

She gasped and stepped back. Nero the Necromancer, she heard stories about him, but she always thought that they were just old wives tales and didn't believe he was real.

"Do not be frighten girl, if I wished for you to be dead, you would be so already. A bath has been prepared for you; the maid shall lead you to it. Clean yourself, then join me in the dinning hall, I shall explain everything else over dinner."


The maid was dead; it wasn't very hard to tell from the blank expression on her face and the way she slowly shuffled along as she led the girl to her bath.

It was a good bath, the water had been warmed and she was provided with a sweet smelling soap and soft fluffy towel. She couldn't relax however, her city and her family were gone and she was now at the mercy of one of the most ruthless sorcerers in the land besides Riggus Fell.

When she finished, the maid brought her a fresh grey tunic. After she dressed, it led her to the dinning hall.

The Dinning hall was just as flashily decorated as Nero himself. Even though he appeared to be the only one eating at the end, Nero sat at a very long table that had six seats on each side. Each spot has been neatly set with a beautiful white china plate and sparkling clean silverware neatly wrapped in a napkin on one side and a crystal clear wine glass on the other. Warm crackling light emanated from a large fireplace set in the wall with logs that though set ablaze, never seemed to burn up, or even blacken.

"Ah! Splendid, our guest arrives. Have a seat."

She hesitated and then choose a seat at the other end of the table as far away from Nero as she could get.

"Would you like something to eat? I'd imagine your pretty hungry."

He was right. It had been two or three days since she last ate. But she wasn't going to trust whatever the necromancer offered.

Before she could respond, Nero picked up a small hand bell and rung it.

The butler, who was also dead, shuffled into the room.

"Some more wine please, and bring some dinner for our guest as well."

The zombie nodded and shuffled off. Nero resume cutting the meat on his plate.

"So girl, tell me, what's your name?"

"Why" she demanded. "Why have you brought me here? What do you want with me?"

Nero spoke in a firmer, more threatening tone. "I ask the questions here not you. Now tell me what is your name?"

The girl was silent for a second, deciding weather or not she should be cooperative.

"Flora" She said finally deciding that considering whom she was dealing with, it would be best for her to behave cooperatively for now.

"Thank you Flora, now that wasn't so hard now was it? Oh look, your meals here"

The zombie had returned bearing a tray with a bottle of wine and a covered dish on it. He unceremoniously dropped the covered dish in front of Flora causing the top to tumble off and clatter noisily of the floor. He then took the bottle filled up Nero's glass, half of the wine missing the glass. Nero seemed to take no notice of this and took his glass and sipped it.

"Go ahead eat." He said.

It did look good. A juicy tender stake served with scallop potatoes slathered in rich smelling gravy. She tried to resist eating it; not trusting any food offered by Nero the Necromancer But she hadn't eaten for days and her hunger overpowered her suspicion. She fell upon it, not even bothering with the silverware, greedily gobbling up everything on the plate.

Nero waited for her to finish and then wipe her face off with the napkin, only speaking to comment on her table manners.

"So Flora, I shall now answer you questions. I have seen what you did with those machines and survive that explosion. You have an exceptionally strong magic aura. But you don't know how to use it. If you can learn to harness it, to control it, You have the potential to become a very powerful sorceress, maybe even as powerful as me. That's why you're here. I am offering to teach you to use this power of yours"

"And I suppose you aren't doing this out of the kindness of your heart?"

"If you are implying that I have my own motives for doing this then yes, of course. I never act upon mere whim alone. I'll be training you because you can prove to be a very valuable asset to Riggus Fell's forces."

Flora felt her blood go cold. Rigus Fell. Little was known of the origin of him. He was said to be the most powerful sorcerer in the whole land. He whished to be recognized as a god. He did this by starting a brutal campaign conquering every city in his path and enslaving the inhabitant and forcing them to worship him and sacrifice their children to him.

"And what makes you think I would serve a Tyrant like him?" She asked defiantly.

"Well number one if you refuse, I'll feed you to the vampires, and trust me, that'll be a very slow death."
"I'd rather die anyway!"

"Number two" Nero said patiently. "If Fell does succeed in his objective of conquering Panemea, It would be the lesser of two evils."

"What do you mean? What could be worse than Fell?"

"You've saw the machines that destroyed your city, your family?"

"Yeah, what of them?"

"Well it's not an isolated incident. Other settlements as well have been massacred by these metal monsters as well. And it will continue on. If they are not stopped, all human life will be extinguished.

"You see five years ago an object crashed down from the stars in the northern mountains. This object turned out to be some type of machine made of advance technology that no one had ever seen before in these lands. The machine appeared to be sentient, calling itself the Master Intelligence. It established a base, of some kind of strange pyramid structure, in the Rippling Plains. From there it built for itself an army of machines and began methodically eliminating every human presence in its path. Word of its conquest had spread to Riggus Fell. He has no desire to rule over a land with everyone dead. So he sets out to destroy this Master Intelligence. The two have been locked in a violent struggle ever since.

"So then Flora the question is which do you think is worse, a land ruled by Riggus Fell or A wasteland with nothing alive at all? You saw what it did to your city, the whole land will become like this if it is not stopped."

Flora thought about it. It was painful to admit it but Nero was right. She head about the machines before but didn't think they were much of a threat until they destroyed her city. In some kind of warped twist of fate Riggus Fell might actually turn out to be the lands last hope of survival.

"I'll join you then"

Nero smiled broadly "Splendid! I thought you looked like a smart girl, I'll-"

"But under one condition"

Nero's smile faded. "And that is?"

"I'm only joining to rid the land of these machines, not to help Fell achieve his own sick goals. I will only fight against the machines. I will not take an innocent life and once I destroy every last seen I will no longer serve him."

"Girl once I train you, you won't be able to just simply leave us. You'll be to powerful to ignore."

"Those are my conditions, now you can either accept them or . . . o-or you can kill me!" She said trying to sound braver than she actually was.

Nero scowled at her he raised his hand. Dark black energy began to emanate from it. Then it died down. "Very, I'll accept terms. But remember this, if you leave Riggus Fell you'll become his number one priority. If you stay with us you will reach very high places. You will get your own castle to lord over. Like me!"

Flora glanced at the butler drooling as he stood silently at Nero's side awaiting his next orders. "No thanks." She said.

"Suite yourself then. I don't believe in wasting time so your training will begin first thing tomorrow evening. The Maid will show you back to your chambers so that you may get your rest."





The Pyramid
<Wake up B23. >
B23 woke up in a cold sweat breathing hard. He recognized the dimly lit features of his small cell and realized he was having a dream.

<You were having a nightmare. > Said the voice in his head, which had been speaking to him ever since he had the surgery.

B23 didn't answer. He climbed out of his bed and hit a button turning on the light. The room became more brightly lit making the white featureless walls of his cell seem almost blinding. He made his way over to the other side were the sink and toilet was he took the cup from his last meal and poured himself a glass of water from the sink.

<Is there something you would like to talk about?>

"Yes how about you tell my what my real name is!"

<I have already told I don't have that data.> The voice answered patiently.

"Well a lot of help you are! All I can remember about my past is that horrible night, when that sorcerer came to my village, with the vampires and the werewolves and my mother . . . I want to remember something else besides this! This is all I can remember ever since that blasted surgery!"

<As I told you before you lost some memories of your when your brain was altered. >

He studied the machine parts of him. A metal helmet, which had taken the place of his skin, was welded onto his head. A visor stretched across the part of his face were his eye's used to be, emitting a soft blue glow. With it he had night vision, heat vision and X-ray vision. His arms had also been replaced by larger, and stronger mechanical counterparts. His left forearm was made of interchangeable parts, which he could transform from a hand to an energy cannon at will.

"I don't remember having much of a say in this."

<The creatures that attacked your village had nearly torn your body apart; if the Master Intelligence didn't act as it did you would have died. >

"Maybe I would have rather died, ever think of that?"

<If you so desire, your life force can be terminated at any time. The Master Intelligence thought you would be useful to our cause. Riggus Fell will not stop his conquest until he has all of Panemea under his control. We thought you might want to help. You would be very useful to us in doing so.>
"Why me? There were other people it could have done this to, why did it choose me?"

<Yes I suppose you have the right to know. You caught the master intelligence attention because you displayed magical abilities. >
This caught him by surprise, he never display the faintest hint of magical powers. "I can do magic?"

<Well not exactly, let me explain it to you, we might as well get your lesson for today out the way anyways. You see many human on this planet see magic as a powerful force beyond comprehension. But the true explanation for this is all quite simple. Magic is simply the telepathic ability to alter reality. Whether it's moving objects without touching them, summoning lightening, or opening portal, it all is done from the mind. The different kinds of feats can be done depends on how strong the sorcerers mind is. >

"I've never did any of those things how could I posses magical abilities?"

<Well, certain sorcerers can only do a certain kind of magic. Brain scans have indicated you are gift with the power of magic repulsion. >

"What does that means?"

<Your power makes it impossible for you to be affected by magic attack directly on your body. >

"So I have an advantage!"

<Yes that is why we chose you for our program. If we can use you and maybe research how to train more to be like you than that would give us a definite advantage over Riggus Fell.>

B23 Sighed and sat down. "I guess I was being selfish, I didn't know I was that useful. I guess have a job to do. If Rigus Fell Intends to do to the rest of the land as he my village then he must be stopped. If I can be a great deal of help to this master intelligence in stopping him then I will."

<Yes, now get some sleep. You have more tests scheduled for tomorrow and your mind must be in peak physical condition. >.