Men and Machines

"Hail, Shulk, of the Homs Tribe."

"I don't hail those of no-tribe."

"I'm a machine hunter. I'd like to think we have that much in common."

"I don't hunt machines from the shadows like a coward. I face them head on. And if you were of a tribe, you would know that those of mine call them mechon."

Aloy didn't see the logic in that – was not hailing from a tribe a guarantee that she knew less than those who had a tribe to call their own? Actually, stupid question, she told herself. She had no tribe, no family, no nothing, as the shaman of the Entia Tribe had told her. Why should she expect anything different?

"Now leave," Shulk said.

Clearly not from this man. She'd heard tales of the hero Shulk, the one who had wielded the sword known as the Monado. He'd done so as a mere child, even younger than she was now. The one who no machine could slay, the one who had defeated gods and demons themselves. Now, she was facing an old, bearded man, living in the ruins of one of the cities of the Old Ones. As did the rest of the Homs Tribe – fierce warriors who believed in confronting machines head-on with weapons of steel, rather than from range as many others did.

"Is it your authority to order me to go? I believe that Vangarre is the leader of your tribe."

Shulk unfastened something off his back. It looked like a giant red…thing. There was no other way to describe it, any more than the blue light that shone from within the device itself. Like the colour of sky, yet with the sharpness of a spear.

"The Monado," she whispered.

"Yes, the Monado," Shulk answered. The blade I've used to cut down more machines in half my life than you could fell in all of yours." He took a step forward. "Now leave, or you'll find your life is much shorter than you imagined."

Aloy stared. Her hand strayed to her blade. But then…then she began to laugh.

"What?" Shulk asked.

"Nothing," she murmured, her laughter dying. "Nothing at all." She did a quick bow to the man in front of her and headed for her broadhead. A machine, but still her only companion in this ruined world. She mounted the creature and glanced at Shulk. "No worries. I won't bother you any longer."

She kicked the broadhead's side, and it gave a whir. A moment later she was being carried across the grass, away from the ruined Old One city. Back into the wild. In the land she called home, even when everyone denied her right to it.

Stupid, stuck up…

She killed the thought in an instant. She'd dared hope that Shulk, the great hero, could have aided her. Dared to think that he would have been willing to see her, to help her find what she was looking for. The one who had slain gods. Who could slay anything. Who-

A-whoo

It happened suddenly. One moment she was riding on her broadhead. The next, something had knocked her off. On instinct, she rushed to retrieve her bow and blade. On instinct, she felt the sense of fear that only a corruptor could bring. The quadrupedal, scorpion-like monster that even the other machines feared. The creature that had dropped from above, and was plunging its stinger into her hammerhead.

"No!"

She let one of her arrows fly at the monster, but it was too little, too late. It bounced off its metallic hide, landing in the grass beside the broadhead. The same broadhead who was twitching as its soul was overwritten by the corruptor. The monster that destroyed everything it touched. The monster despised by all.

So wherein lies the difference?

She shot another arrow into her broadhead's cranium. Its machine spirit left it a moment later. She was not a corruptor, she told herself. She was alone and despised, but she didn't destroy. Not like this. The machines owned the world, but they were still living beings of a sort. The foes of humanity, rarely friends if one could tame a broadhead, but all were the enemies of corruptors. All lived in fear of the ones who fed.

And fear was what Aloy was feeling as the corruptor slowly made its way towards her. Fear in the knowledge that she was very likely to be dead very soon, and while being dead was preferable to being corrupted, that wasn't saying much. She drew her bow, hoping that the corruptor would reveal its underbelly before it struck. It was its only weakness. And-

"Damn!"

She rolled aside as its stinger struck out at her. She rolled again as the motion was repeated. Drawing her bow, she opened fire, aiming for its eye. Its stinger swatted the projectile aside. The stinger swept sideways, hitting her, sending her sprawling. Her breathing laboured, her eyes wide, she watched as the stinger came down towards her…

…and was cloven in two.

The creature screeched in pain, but she barely noticed. No pity would be a given for a corruptor. And even if it were a different machine, it would have paled in the knowledge that Shulk was there before her. The man who wielded the Monado. The man she had heard as a hero. She tried rising to her feet-

"Stay down."

She obeyed, as much as she hated herself for it. But still she watched, as the corruptor charged her saviour. Watched as he met the charge head-on. As the Monado was thrust through its eye, and into its core. The entire corruptor divided into two. Dead. Deactivated. Removed from the world. She looked up at Shulk. He turned around to look at her.

"This is why I don't need a bow," he said.

She glanced around – there was no sign of another broadhead anywhere.

"How…" she asked, getting to her feet. "How did you get here so quickly?"

"The Monado bestows many gifts. Speed is one of them." The blade's light faded. "Glimpses of the future are another. Or curse, I suppose."

"I don't understand."

"Suppose you could see the future," Shulk murmured. "Suppose you knew what was going to happen, and when. That you could change the course of fate, saving yourself and numerous others."

"That sounds like a gift."

"A gift?" he asked. "Of course. A gift. Until you reach the moment when fate can't be changed. When you know a friend, or someone even closer will die, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it."

Aloy remained silent. Even she, without a family, could understand. She'd seen so much death in the world. But to see it coming, and to be powerless in its wake…

"So what's my fate?" she asked.

"I don't know." He began heading back to the Homs village. "I have no love for those of no tribe. My charity ends at not wanting to see you die."

"Why?" she asked.

"Why?" he asked. "Because I don't want that vision repeating itself in my conscience until-"

"No," she said, taking a step towards the man. "I mean, why? Why am I hated?" She gripped her blade. "Why…why was I an outcast? Why was I made to leave? Why-"

"I can't say."

"You can! Anyone can!" She shoved him in the chest, as the questions came bubbling out. Questions she'd asked herself and others her entire life, and always without answers. "Why does everyone fear me?! Why did…" She trailed off.

Why did my mother leave me?

Shulk sighed, but whether it be in pity or contempt, she couldn't say. But she could see the look in Shulk's eyes. It was the same look that any shaman had when they talked of the past. When the Old Ones were not old at all, but a living, breathing people.

"I knew a man who stood alone," Shulk murmured. "A man who called himself a god. A man who would have turned this world inside out, and had the power to do so." He looked at the Monado. "I only stopped him because of the people at my side."

Aloy remained silent. Shulk and the dark god. The one whose name was whispered as Zanza. The machines were a living breathing threat. The one called Zanza, he was the evil that children were told before the night came. The one who they were taught to fear, lest the night take them for their disobedience.

"That's why I distrust you," Shulk said. "Anyone who stands apart from their tribe is enough to make me wonder if they do so because they desire power for themselves, and not the world around them."

Aloy laughed bitterly. "Look around you Shulk. Do you think there's any power left bar what we wield?"

"I know that I'm alive, and many are not. Gods, men, machines…it's the outliers that are the ones to watch out for. The ones who shoot you in the back."

He turned away and began walking. And Aloy knew the conversation was ended.

Even if her journey continued.

A/N

So, let's see...

In a world that exists long after Earth as we knew it ended, a child is brought to a group of people who exists at least in part through artificial means, and eventually leaves said group in an open-world game where they use antiquated weapons to take out machines, which are the predominant enemies in the game. Am I talking about Horizon or Xenoblade?

Actually, there's way more difference between the two than I'm giving Horizon credit for, but at the least, got me to drabble this up.