It was a bright summer afternoon. A few ducks were floating atop the lake, periodically quacking loudly. As if rejecting the abject naturality of this landscape, a dark blue humanoid machine, roughly 14 metres tall, set down a ways away from the water. Out jumped a man, pale and thin, carrying a box in one hand and a rod in the other. Even walking this far was a trial for the man, though he cared too much for the lake to attempt to land any closer to it. With how thin he was, one could almost imagine him a child, as he took his heavy boots and socks off and sat down at the waters edge, dipping his feet in.
Producing a tackle from the box, he prepared his fishing rod and cast the line. The wind was blowing across the lake, hitting his weathered face. To be frank, the breeze wasn’t unpleasant. If anything, it reminded him of his childhood, of him and his grandfather catching bass in this very lake.
This peace wasn’t long lived, as another machine could be heard flying in at top speed and landing next to his. He didn’t look back. There was no need to.
The quacking of the ducks helped muffle the already faint sounds of someone running across the grass towards him. Although he already had a good idea who it was, her identity was made crystal clear the second she called out to him. “General!”, her voice rang out. That remarkably normal voice.
He didn’t answer. She didn’t care, and continued her approach until she was sitting next to him. “Hello, lieutenant”, he finally responded, reeling in the tackle and readying another cast. “13 hours of nonstop flying, huh. You got here faster than i expected.”, he continued. “Someone taught me well”, she responded.
They sat in awkward silence for a bit. “Is it true, what they say?”, she asked, finally breaking the silence.
“I don’t exactly know what you heard, lieutenant…”. He cast the rod once more.
“...But yes, i figure it’s about correct. It was pretty unmissable, even for the buffoons at intelligence.”
The lieutenant spoke up: “It can’t be! The general grant of the congressional guard that i know would never do anything like that!”
“Do you claim to know my own actions better than i do, lieutenant?”, the general practically roared, sending him into a coughing fit. As if responding, the ducks quacked.
After calming down, he gestured towards the mound on the horizon. “Thats all that’s left”. The lieutenant looked shocked. “You… Truly unleashed a nuclear atomizer upon the city? You killed all of the congressional guard? You… Killed Rumi?”. Rumi was the lieutenants sister, Grant noted internally.
“I wanted it all. I thought, if i couldn’t have the capital, no one else could.”. He sighed and recast the rod. Didn’t seem like any of the fish in the lake had made it either.
“What happened to my mentor, my hero? What happened to the general Grant that worked his way up from nothing to being the leader of the congressional guard, purely by his own merits?”. She was crying by now, the words coming out unevenly, like the clumps in her throat.
“I was always like this. I can’t let go of things. I feel possessive about anything within my range of vision. Remember the fight when Brightschild left?”.
The sun started setting as the lieutenants crying grew heavier. Stuck in the void between the man she had revered, and the genocider that had revealed himself, while still unable to truly accept the passing of her family.
She opened her mouth to ask him for clarification, but the words didn’t get to leave her mouth before she heard a splash. As the fishing rod hit the water, the generals thin body slumped down.
He was dead. As dead as the people he had killed. As dead as the land he had forever ruined.
The lieutenant stood up, and spoke: “Then, what will i do now?”
But there was no answer except for the quacking of the ducks, and howling of the wind, and the shivering of her lips. For the first time in well over a decade, she realized, the only one that could answer that question was herself.