Legion III

This post is, obviously, a successor to this masterpiece! Can't you tell by the title?

Mr. Zhang woke up. He had breakfast. He brushed his teeth. He flossed. He remembered.

"I left Legion out all night!" he realized. "I should go say hello to him!"

Mr. Zhang rushed to the roof. He looked all about.

"He's gone!" Mr. Zhang discovered. "Where did he go? Did he abandon me? I know he was here, there are limbs and stuff strewn all over the roof - "

Mr. Zhang paused.

"If I take a step back, and look at the limbs..."

"Oh!" Mr. Zhang exclaimed. "It's a pattern - the limbs spell out numbers! Coordinates - for where Legion has gone! But - "

Mr. Zhang's speech slowed. "Legion doesn't have hands," he said. "Well, he does, but they don't really work that well. He doesn't have the time or the patience to make this kind of thing. (I don't even think he knows what latitude or longitude are!) There must have been a struggle - Legion overpowered, many of his corpses knocked off - and the remains used to lure me into a trap."

Mr. Zhang nodded.

"OK," he said.

Mr. Zhang walked into the trap!

"Ha ha!" a familiar voice cried from the shadows of the abandoned warehouse. "You came to rescue your beloved ball of floating corpses. But now you are at my mercy - and soon I will kill you! Behold!"

The lights came on. Mr. Zhang found himself staring at Legion - noticably reduced in size (presumably from the struggle before its capture), and trussed to the walls and ceiling with steel cables. A shadowy figure stood on a catwalk in front of Legion.

"Dr. Zhang - or I suppose I should call you Mr. Zhang, yes? - you do not yet know me, so I shall introduce myself," the shadowy figure said smirkingly. "You may call me N. Since the dawn of time, I have been your foe; so shall I remain 'til the last twinkling embers burn out in the amaranthine-hued heavens, and this demon-wrap't globe at last succumbs to the final temptation of our celestial companion's temptation -"

Mr. Zhang, who had calmly climbed up to the catwalk while N was talking, punched N in the face.

"Ow! Ow! Holy shit!" N said, backing away and holding his face in his hand. "You hit me! You really hit me! Ah, I think I can taste blood - "

Mr. Zhang punched 'N' in the gut.

"Oof!" N groaned, doubling over.

Mr. Zhang stopped. He looked at the blood on his right fist. He seemed confused.

"God damn it, I forgot how you always are!" N wheezed, backing away again once he had regained his breath. "Well, if you don't have the damn patience to listen to a little speech, how's this. In a minute, the doors will burst in, and my trained shock troopers will kill you. That sound better? You have the patience for that?"

Mr. Zhang straightened, having released Legion's fastenings while N spoke. Legion floated next to Mr. Zhang, seeming uncertain.

"God damn it, stop doing things while I talk!" N complained.

The doors burst open. Armed soldiers rushed in, each wearing an armband with a gold xi on it.

"There you are!" N said. "Finally! Kill him!"

The soldiers opened fire.

Mr. Zhang dove from the catwalk, landing with a painful noise on the concrete floor. Rolling, he rose to a low crouch, dashing for the door. He turned his head back to look for Legion -

- and to his dismay, saw that Legion had descended to attack the soldiers! Corpses fluttered to the ground like confetti, shredded by automatic weapons fire!

Mr. Zhang looked with tears welling in his eyes; then he turned again and ran.

"I will remember you, Legion!" he vowed as he drove away. "I will justify your sacrifice!"

But it's okay!

Legion was dead anyway, so technically, the soldiers didn't kill him at all!

the end