---
In most circumstances, flesh against metal, it would be evident which would be the victor. It's no contest to begin with. Flesh is limited. Fragile, soft. Unsubstantial, thin. Delicate, flimsy. In other words, a sack of organic meat. Metal, on the other hand, was built to last.
Built to break free from the limits of the Flesh. A testament to a new Age where Metal is skin, wires are veins, engines are organs, and a cluster of micro and nanochips for a brain.
For a thousand consecutive years, this has been the case ever since the prototype came into existence by the flesh of mankind.
But apparently, one teenager debunked that fact.
===
Dante, staggering to the cold metallic floor, bore witness for the first time in a thousand years; a fist of flesh, confounding Metal with relative ease.
The Fist of Flesh, Klara's fist, steamed. Smoke trailed from her knuckles, dispersing eventually as she recoiled her hand from the air. Even she was stunned, her eyes wide, staring at the gaping, crumbling hole she implemented with a strike aimed at a goon's metallic gut.
She wasn't expecting the sudden display of strength from her own self.
The lights of the underground hallway flickered and buzzed as she filled the silence with her voice. "I..."
"..." Even Dante, the wittier one among the two, was silent.
"Uhm...well...that happened," Klara uttered in a rather casual tone, shrugging before taking a step toward Dante and reaching her hand down at him as if she didn't strike a man so hard he penetrated a supposedly indestructible wall several times down east.
Dante took her hand. "W-What the fuck is happening man...? Fuck, fuck--let's get the hell out..."
"Wait. I-I heard screaming...there are people here...civilians!"
"Klara! For fuck's sake--PLEASE--don't be a hero. We can just report this to the cops as soon as we get the fu--"
Red.
The blinking color red suddenly illuminated the entire hallway. Klara, gazing at the upper edge of the hallway's concrete alloy-constructed walls, spotted a blaring red alarm, mostly likely denoting that someone breached the underground.
In an act of instinct, Klara, the bigger teenager, abruptly picked up Dante from the waist, placed him over her shoulder, and ran down the hallway. There was initially no direction in her sudden increase in pace.
She just wanted to find a room where they could take shelter.
Initially, she aimed for a full-on sprint but took a sudden halt at the thought and settled on a softer approach.
She was unsure herself what would've ensued if she suddenly blasted all of her force onto one foot due to her previous experiences.
Especially on that one time when she wanted to fly to the chill spot where she and Dante usually spend their alone time...but ended up jumping into the sky for a solid kilometer before hurling down like a meteor.
"O-Oh my God..." Dante expressed, clinging on to whatever he could hold onto Klara, that being her back as she went for a run.
For the female teenager, this was nothing but a jog.
Whereas the latter felt like he was going at 60 mph.
"F-Fuck I'm gonna puke..." the boy voiced, suddenly clasping his mouth with both hands.
Klara abruptly came to a halt after spotting a doorway amongst the walls. The red blare of the hallway still fluttered in the background, erratic shadows emitting from the pipes and wires below the blinking red light.
Shortly, she placed him down on his feet, opened the door, shoved him in it before she entered the room herself then sealed the door.
"Holy fuck..." She groaned, placing her rear on the door before sliding down into a criss-cross sitting position.
Meanwhile, Dante, after composing himself, slid down the wall and sat beside her, heaving even though he exerted no physical effort.
He sighed. "You good?"
Klara faced him. "Yeah. You?"
"Same."
The latter gave him a small smile before returning her gaze to the ground, contemplating. "We...W-We should help those--"
"We can't, Klara. I'm sorry..." Dante deterred. "This...this isn't for us to do. We have to leave it to the cops we--"
Interrupted by her grumbling, she responded. "Fuck it. I'm going down there."
"Klara, you know damn well what's down there!" Dante raised his voice, grabbing her by the wrist, and pulling her away from the door. "It's the goddamn Syndicate! Those are fucking Cilicans, Klara, Cilicans! Cilicans made by a bunch of fucking lunatics. Do you know how fucking dangerous they are?!"
Klara was silent, staring at Dante with a look that told him her decision was final.
He knew that look.
Dante released her, groaning, and sliding back down the wall.
"If you're going down there...then I'm going with you," the former said, raising his head back up to face her.
The red-blinking light illuminated the current room they were in and served the deafening silence, casting irregular shadows as the two settled down.
"Dante," Klara started. "I'm strong."
The latter remained silent, mildly stunned by her sudden douse of confidence.
"You know that. You saw what I just did to that motherfucker."
"...You don't have to prove anything, Klara."
"Dante, let me finish," Klara asserted. "What I'm saying is...I'm strong. So, if there's some shitty shit down there...and you can't fight them...leave it to me. Got it?"
"And you're saying I'm weak? You're saying I can't take care of myself?"
"You know what I'm trying to say."
He rubbed his temples. "God damn it--Klara, please. Please. PLEASE just leave it to the cops..."
"Dante..."
The boy started to become frantic, his hands clasping on hers. "Klara...Klara...Please, Klara. I'm fucking begging."
"..."
"Klara. Listen to me..."
"You know I can't..You know what kind of person I am."
"And I hate it sometimes." He retorted, tightening the grip of his hands on her bigger ones. "Don't...Don't be a hero, come on..."
"I...I want to do this. I-It's calling me..."
"No, it isn't, Klara."
"I need to."
"Klara. No."
"I have to, Dante. I...I have to go."
"Don't, Klara."
Again, silence. The flickering red alarm illuminated the room, sufficing the silence once more.
"I'm doing it." Klara said, sternly, gently sliding her hands off Dante's grip before grabbing his shoulders. "And I'm doing it because I want to..not because--"
"God...Klara you're such a fucking--... you're just sometimes such a selfish asshole, ya know that?"
She giggled.
However, the moment was rudely interrupted when the sudden whistle of ammunition echoed from outside of the room.
"Shit!" Dante uttered, standing up. "Fuck! Shit!" he curled into a fetal position. "I-I don't wanna die here...fuck...dad--shit dad..! Oh God, dad...!"
"Stay here," Klara said, grabbing the doorknob before twisting it.
"No! Wait--Klara!"
Too late. She opened the door and sprinted in the direction of the shooting. In an instant, a crater followed at her initial position.
"Holy shit...!" Dante uttered, taking cover by the door frame, watching her dash.
Her speed, even from his view, was astonishing. It was like her speed is on par with one of her cars!
A few seconds later, the shooting stopped, and Klara stood amidst the hallway, looking back at Dante, who was at the entrance of the room.
She waved at him. "Heeeeyyyy," her voice echoed down the hallway from a distance. "I got em' fuckers...!"
"You're crazy, you know that, Klara?" Dante remarked.
"Hell yeah I am," she confirmed with a wide grin, holding a grown man's head by his hair, his face riddled with Chrome. His eyes were replaced with lenses while sharp black arcs connected from his lenses down his cheeks and neck.
Below her were seven other goons packed in Chrome, laying limp on the ground, their limbs either bent, missing entirely, or emitting bright sparks.
"Holy fuck..."
"C'mon, Dante," Klara beckoned. "Let's keep moving. I have a bad feeling. Like that Spidey sense in that one movie."
"B-But..."
"C'mon, hubby. Honestly, I kinda need a bit of your logical reasoning so help me out here."
Dante groaned, nodding. "F-Fine. I guess."
He stood up and jogged toward her, his feet making contact with the metal floor, creating a hollow sound.
In time, he reached her. Taking a closer look at the now mangled bodies below Klara's feet, he can't help but shiver. Since when did she possess this kind of strength? It all just happened in literally a few minutes ago...
"Thankssss~" she grinned, smug patting his head and ruffling his hair like a dog. "Knew I could count on ya."
The moment was interrupted once more when a bullet shot passed Klara's cranium by mere inches.
In a delay of reflex, she ducked; Dante followed.
"Holy fuck! W-We're dead!" Dante said, his hands covering his ears. "Dead!"
"Nope," Klara replied. "We're gonna live. Stay behind me."
A grunt echoed from the darkness of the underground passage. The red flickering light momentarily revealed seven more men forming a line. Each goon was heavily stacked with Chrome.
A flicker of red, Klara noticed that two of them weren't human at all. They're part of the Celican Life race. Sentient A.I. It was apparent since they had metal for skin and either a chainsaw or a sniper rifle's extended barrel for a limb.
"Shit." Dante immediately went to action, stuffing his hand into his right pocket before bringing out a small metallic ball the size of a marble.
Though the seven goons wasted no time. They went into a zig-zag formation, four of them knelt on one knee, aimed at the duo, and emptied their mags.
A hail of orange trails soared toward the teenagers.
The second the goons pulled the trigger, without direction, Dante threw the marble against the tide of orange trails, instantly exploding mid-air causing the bullets to stray away from their initial direction and ricocheting.
However, that did not stop the several men from showering the teenagers with lead.
It gave just enough seconds for Klara to grab Dante once more by his mid-section and penetrate through the alloy-constructed wall, managing another gaping cavity into the oh-so "indestructible" underground enclosures.
The seven men ceased their shooting.
One of them growled.
"They're just a couple of fucking Organics, how the hell did we miss?!" A goon grumbled, his voice baritone, nearly robotic as it echoed within the enclosure. It was evident he too was coated in Chrome.
The Cil answered, the one wielding a sniper's barrel for a limb. It's voice mechanical, static. "One of them flung a 9-Gigarez 75, basically, it's the bite-sized version of a flashbang. Though I assume the Organic wasn't expecting the force of the release to deter our lead."
"Well, where are they now?!" Another goon exclaimed.
"They're a hundred and forty-six meters west-northwest, approximately fifty-four meters below us. They're headed towards the chamber. They're unrealistically fast."
"Fuckin' hell," The first goon muttered. "Call in backup. We have two Organics headed towards God knows where. I'm still bummed out by how fuckin' huge this place is."
"Understood." The Cil replied, its voice still static and robotic.
Another Goon groaned, lifting the LMG over his shoulder. "They're justa bunch o' kids too."
Then another one spoke up, crouching as he inspected his weapon. "That kid, the boy's wimpy as hell. Could tell. That kid's gonna die if he lingers more in this shit hole. The girl though..."
"She's rather, well-developed." The second Cil spoke up, unloading a mag the size of its forearm, hissing in the process before said mag landed on the concrete floor with a crack. "Don't see a lotta natural women with those assets in this age."
"Once this shit's done, leave her alive."
"You're a dubious mother fucker, you know that?"
"Dude, she looks 18."
"You're literally 75. You're sick man. Fuckin' sick in the head."
The latter shrugged before he started waltzing to the gaping hole. "If ya wanna, I'll let ya tap in. I tell you, that girl's just a sack o' fuckable meat."
The Cil with the chainsaw for a limb intervened. "She's not normal. The girl. Do not underestimate her. I believe there's more than meets the eye." Its automated voice echoed. "Apart from her body, at least."
"What about the boy?"
The Cil let out a small buzzing before building up a response. "The boy? What boy?" It finally said. A tinge of sarcasm present.