Nanomachines Story 4

(A/N from ZK123 5/29/13: Hey guys, sorta thought this was over due. OK, important thing first, I would to thank Hero Forever for helping me out with this...for the trillionth time...I really owe her for pestering her with my stuff so much :P. Anyway, the first two chapter are happening at the same time, so you can start with 1 or 2. Thanks, hope you enjoy, ZombieKiller123)

Earth
Philip's form was sparking, a powerful EMP blast shattering everything in his systems. He looked up at Rune's face, his vision fading. Vandorf was not too far behind, struggling to get up the mountian they were on. His voice begun to sound like a damaged microphone, "Ru-Rune?"

Rune, bent over Philip, held his head in her hands, tears streaming from her eyes. "Philip! No!"

Philip lifted up his left arm, watching it dissolve into goo on the rocks. "I can't seem to maintain my physical form..."

"No, no, this can't be happening," Rune choked out. Rune glared angrily at Vandorf, shooting a wave of fire in his direction.

The scientist leaped to a lower rock, dodging the wave of fire. Philip began to internally panic, everything was slipping from his mind. "Have to stay...online."

Rune looked back to Philip, her face expressing panic and deep sadness. "Philip, don't die......please....don't leave me....all alone..."

Philip constantly "watched" as everything in his mind vanished, his opinions, his personality, his very memories, everything that made him everything he was. Completely despite himself, he jerked up and said, "I can feel my mind slipping away..." He fell over, his body splashing and being nothing more that a lifeless puddle on the stones.

Rune's heart nearly stopped as she gazed at the puddle of nanomachines that was once Philip. "PHIIILIIIIIP!!!" She collapsed over the puddle, sobbing.

Vandorf finally made it up. "My weapon did exactly as it was to do. Now to perform a reboot of its systems...", reaching for the puddle with a magnetic gloves to form the puddle into a ball.

Rune, enraged, reached up and grabbed Vandorf's wrist very tightly. Her orange eyes flashed as she glared up at him. "Don't you touch him."

"When will you understand child! It is my property! It wasn't even suppose to be alive! And even if you can reboot him as he was...he'd just be some back up data..."

He reached out again.

Rune tightened her grip on Vandorf's wrist. "I SAID....don't touch him." Rune got to her feet, her hand around Vandorf's wrist becoming engulfed in flames, Rune glaring viciously into Vandorf's eyes.

Vandorf jumped backwards, tearing off his glove and calling for back up, "You little bitch! I can arrest you for theft of government property!"

Rune orange eyes glowed with fury. "You can't arrest me for anything. You made him illegally, remember?" Rune held out both hands, and shot a powerful wave of fire at Vandorf.

Vandorf ducked, and pulled out a pistol. "Stop it! I'll just be taking it now, and I'll be on my way." Helicopter blades can be heard spinning, close-by, coming from the bottom of the mountian they were on...making Rune wonder why the hell he wasted his time climbing instead of flying up the damn mountian.

"What, are you gonna' shoot me?!" Rune growled, her voice becoming filled with rage. "I DARE you!"

The helicopter made it up there, filled with armed men. With his good hand Vandorf said, "I don't have to...men! Fire at will!" The men leveled their weapons at the girl.

Rune raised a fire barrier, protecting herself and Philip's puddle. "You...heartless....BASTARD!!" She pressed her hands against the fire barrier and shot a wave of fire from the barrier itself at the helicopter and Vandorf.

After then men went running to the remains of the helicopter for cover, it suddenly was sent flying through the air. An all too familiar person said in a fake Austian accent said, "I'm bahck!"

Rune blinked in surprise. "Todd?"

The World Walker cracked his knuckles, smiling, "The one and only! So, where's Philip! He has to be here to kick these guys' ass!"

Rune felt a lump in her throat, and her eyes began to well up in tears again. "Todd..." she choked out. "Philip's...." She stepped aside, allowing Todd to see the puddle. Todd's heart skipped a beat when he saw the puddle. He walked up to it, and gently put his hand on it. "Ph-Philip?"

Todd glared at Vandorf and his men. He stood up, his newly formed rage boiling with every fiber of his being, his usually energy blasts now blood red with rage. "Who do I have to make their life a Hell on Earth!?"

Rune's rage and sorrow caused her power to surge, and she soon became engulfed in red-hot fire.

Vandorf and his men backed up towards the edge of the cliff. Todd quoted a movie Johanna dragged him to (though he'd never admit to her that he liked it), "There is nowhere you can turn/there is no way to go on!"

Vandorf studdered slightly, "Now, let's not be hasty. What does it matter to you. Its thoughts, it mind, all of it, just an accident, a random glitch in the program."

"No..." Rune stated, her voice emanating with power. "Philip was more than that. He was a consciousness. A consciousness that YOU DESTROYED!" She shot a large wave of fire at Vandorf and his men.

Todd also added, making a huge gust of wind feeding the fire the men somehow managed not to get burned from, "They said the same thing about human life when evolution was developed, are you just a glitch then?!"

Vandorf was on the very edge, struggling to balance.

Looking at Vandorf, Rune was stricken by pity. "Damn my empathy..." she thought. She lowered her hands, tears streaming from her eyes. "Get out of here. Now!" she commanded. As the men tried to climb down they were suddenly sent flying off the edge by Todd's telekinesis.

Rune looked back down at the puddle, and could feel her limbs trembling. She dropped to her knees, tears streaming down her face.

Vandorf and his men floated back up after their terrifying plummet. Vandorf floated towards Todd, staring at him in the eye. Todd was understandable angry. "Listen here you peice of shit!" Todd snapped, "If you come near any of my friends again, come anywhere near my family, anyone I might remotely care about, if you so much as even think about them for a split-second, I will toss you into the most hostile dimension I can find!"

Todd waved his hand and the men were gone. They were in this universe but Todd didn't care where they were. He walked over to Rune to comfort her.

"Todd..." Rune looked up at him, though her view was blurred by tears. "Is there....anything we can do?"

The World Walker sighed, placing a hand on her shoulder, "I don't think so Rune, I'm no scientist. I'm smart, but not that way." Todd wiped a tear from his eyes.

Vandorf chuckled, Todd's mercy hasn't stopped him. Todd, not having a destination in mind, was mere sent a good ten feet away from the mountain. As he got up, pistol in hand, he heard a rustling in the trees. "The hell?"

"Precisley." A large being loomed over him, looking like a human skinned, large powerful muscles, with boney skeleton hands. The demon's head raised up, releasing a huge plume of hellfire, bound to be seen for miles around.

Rune looked up at the demon. "What the....?"

Todd recognized the demonic figure, "Relax, Edgar's cool." The demon looked upon the two, "World Walker."

"Edgar, good to see you again."

Todd and Edgar stopped talking to answer all possible question their friend Rune might have.

"Todd...who...?" Rune inquired, her voice trailing off.

Edagar swiftly explained, "Long story short, I fell from grace, clawed my way out of Hell, and now since I can't return to either, I do what I want. But of course some humans...frown upon me. I was chased by some religious lunatics, and Todd saved my ass. Now...tell me what's the matter?"

Returning her gaze to the flood of nanomachines on the ground before her, she choked out, "Philip....he....he's...." Her words were cut off by her sobs of grief.

Edgar nodded, understanding her plight. "I assume this puddle was alive at one point?" he asked Todd. The World Walker nodded.

Edgar dipped a talon in the puddle. A red glow surrounded the puddle, up the demon's arms and into the demon's eyesockets. "Ah!" the demon's whispery voice uttered.

Rune's eyes widened. "What? What is it?"

The demon gave a skeletal grin, "I know where he is."

"Is...is he alive?!" Rune inquired.

Edgar answered, "Not quite."

"Wait, so you mean he's...?" Todd began, only for Edgar to cut him off.

"He's in an afterlife."

Her eyes returning to the puddle, Rune looked right through the sea of nanomachines, trying to picture Philip in the great beyond. "Is he happy there?" she asked quietly.

Edgar shook his head, "He's incredibly sad, not tortured, but sad none the less."

"S-sad? But....why? Where did he go?"

"He is in an underworld, not Hell, but he is still secluded from...His Presence."

"But why?! Why would he go there?! He was a great man, a GOOD man! I...." Rune stopped, realizing that Edgar may not know the reason either. "S-sorry....I just...." She sighed.

Edgar answered, "Where he went to, good and evil lie until Judgement Day. He is nothing new there."

Rune placed her hand in the puddle. "Why is he sad? Do you know?"

Edgar answered her, "Seperation from...God."

"But...aren't we separated from God here on Earth?" Rune looked to the ground, feeling ignorant. She didn't have a formal religion, and it wasn't something she'd thought about for a long time.

"Omnipresence," the demon replied, "He is everywhere in the multiverse at once. In order for punishments to take their toll He...cuts off in certain afterlives...never said this afterlife business makes any sense."

Rune smiled. "But...he did go to an afterlife....meaning his consciousness did live on...he wasn't just some machine. I told him....I always told him he was more than that..." She laughed a little, staring at the puddle with a relieved expression.

Edgar offered, "I can get him out of Sheol...won't be easy, but it can be done."

Rune locked eyes with Edgar. "You can?! Is there any way I can help?! If there's anything I can do, anything at all, just let me know!"

Todd asked, "The catch Edgar?"

The demon answered, "You can help as an anchor, you come with me and you will act as a portal back to Earth. Mostly Harmless"

Wiping her tears away with her arm, Rune got to her feet, looked Edgar in the eyes, and said, "I'll do it."

"Wait, almost harmless?" Todd cut in, hating himself for ruining this bit of hope.

Edgar growled slightly, "Yes, well. There is a possibility that...you won't get out of it alive... or even existent."

Rune raised an eyebrow. "I may cease to exist?"

Edgar shrugged, "Well going between the veil of life and death, especially if you're mortal, is dangerous. I've even seen demons fall in and never return. That is the risk."

Rune shook her head, and gave Edgar a stern look. "If it's for Philip, I'll do anything."

Edgar...somehow, managed to smirk, "I guess love really does make you stupid." He extended his talons. "Ready to go?"

Grimacing at his remark, Rune took his hand. "Yes."

Elsewhere
To his surprise Philip opened his eyes. Holding his head he sat up. He jumped, 'Where am I? Where's Rune?' Philip looked under his left hand. Sand, grey sand off a silvery ocean. The only thing that popped in his head was a fragment of Poe. "A Plutonian Shore..." He got up and decided to investigate where he was.

He watched that, even though he walked, there were not traces of foorprints in the sand. Not paying attention, Philip's foot got stuck on something and he tripped. "Ow!" he exclaimed, not understanding why he can feel pain. "What did I trip on?" He saw a bent structure sticking out of the sand. He noticed another little bludge out of the sand. He gingerly wiped some away and was shocked with what he saw.

It was a face, the face of Marilyn Monroe. "The h- is this?" Philip covered his mouth, completely surprised at the fact that the he couldn't seem to say the word "hell". He looked about half a foot away and there was another person, a person all to familiar. "The Senator's daughter?" Philip kneeled near her and wiped the sand from her mouth.

"Why do you disturb my sleep?"

Philip jumped again, "The h...Heck do you mean. You're dead! You should be anyway!"

Philip couldn't help but feel something, a surge of pure, undeniable sadness, and now that he thought of it, he saw it in her face, and saw it in Marilyn Monroe's. "Where am I?"

The Senator's daughter merely fell right back to sleep. Philip couldn't help but recite a lyric from a musical...then realizing that he needed to get out more, "I am reaching but I fall...as I stare into the Void..."

"Not the Void," said a man. "You're elsewhere." Philip turned around and saw an unexpected man.

"You can't be... the Prophet Samuel?"

The gentleman nodded. "But what are you doing...in this...where ever we are?" Philip question gesturing to the beach like world around them.

Samuel nodded, "You'd assume I'd be up There?" The dead prophet pointed upwards. Philip nodded.

Samuel replied, "I chose this place over Heaven, as an...unoffcial guardian of sorts. I watch over everyone, good and evil here."

"Good and Evil lies here?"

Samuel nodded, "Many malignant religious people live here, the ultimate punishment. Those men there, apart of a so-called church that hate...everybody, and now here they lie, eternally seperated from God."

"So that's where I am." Philip said, honestly feeling tears running down his face, the sadness being that strong, "I'm in Sheol."

Samuel nodded. "But I am...a machine."

Samuel raised an eyebrow, "And?"

Philip continued, "Doesn't that mean I don't have a soul?"

The old prophet laughed, "From what I have come to understand, you are pretty smart on science and religion, which you seem to find ironic." Philip shrugged, "Most people think they undermine each other."

Samuel laughed again, "You humor me child! The Christ has spoken, granted long after my age has ended, before he acended..."

Philip interrupted him, "And know that I will be with you always, even unto the end of time."

Samuel nodded in away one thinks a sage would. "But doesn't that only apply to the Christians, and Jews obviously but at a future date."

Samuel shook his head, "I can't share much, but the universe, if not the whole multiverse is complicated, more that you can imagine."

The prophet raised his head, "Hmm, stange company."

"Huh?"

Conclude
Philip looked up and saw something in the sky (or the closest thing Sheol has to a sky) "What is that?"

Edgar questioned Rune, bird-like wings beating, "Do you see him?"

Rune squinted, looking below her, trying to spot Philip. But they were a bit too high up for her to recognize much. "Can you get a little closer to the ground?"

Edgar nodded and lowered them through Sheol's "sky".

On the ground Philip squinted, trying to make out the bird-like shape in the sky.