Animatrix - Cain and Abel (Matrix crossover)

[Shroom Man 777]

But alot of elements from SW movies turn up, Slave girl Leia for example, Lines and Phrases from RotJ pop up all the time in SC.

As to Caine and Abel, main ekements of the termie movies have come into to play the tech noir scene and the police station scenes come to mind.

But the only Termie scenes integrated into this thang are thosw two scenes! Only!

@ Stravo:

Okay, I kinda guessed that. But it'd be nice (awesome) to have more Termie elements in the fic. I, a rather big fan of the Terminator series and this fic, would go crazy with that

[Stravo]

How long has it been since an update? Well...why the hell not.
The confrontation we were all waiting for.


Chapter 25: Furious Angels


The AI God watched the display of strength from the virus designating itself Smith. A pair of rumbling behemoths stopped just outside the ruined landscape of the playground, their twin rapid fire pulse canons turned and zeroed in on him with a perfunctory pivot of its T shaped frame. The shrill whine of turbojets brought his attention to the Hunter Killers circling overhead, spot lights shining down like accusatory fingers on him and the systemic anomaly designated itself Neo.

The empty glowing blue eyes of the small army of T-800’s pinned them with a predatory gaze as they slowly approached, marching in calm precision towards the center of the playground.

Smith stood smiling coldly as his army approached. Trap sprung he could taste victory.

Neo glanced around quickly and saw the display with a growing sense of alarm. He had faced the agents of the machines frequently and they were no threat to him. But he had never come close to facing something like this.

“We need a quick retreat and then regroup back in the real world.” Kyle said quickly and checked his weapons. There was nothing he had preloaded that could even begin to threaten these tin cans. Every soldier’s instinct bred into him by a generation of war with the machines was screaming at him to get away no matter what but one instinct born of his short association with John Connor won out. Loyalty.

He regarded neo for a moment and saw his calm.

He would not leave this man.

Neo watched the younger soldier and knew that he was right. They had to leave. But when he looked over to the AI God there was no denying the electric connection between them. He could not walk away from it now.

“It’s like I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life.” Neo whispered.

“What was that?” Kyle asked sharply.

“This all feels very strange, Kyle. What do you know about it?”

“Skynet?” Kyle watched the onyx skinned giant as it stood still under the floodlights of its hunter killers. He never imagined seeing Skynet under the gun from its own troops. “It’s a killer AI that attempted to wipe out humanity.”

“This is your trap?”

Smith’s smile did not falter at the AI God’s contemptuous question. Bravado was the recourse of the desperate. He had seen it so many times that it was tiresome.

“This little war of yours is over. I’m in control now.” Smith replied with a cold sneer as he stepped down from the pile of rubble where he stood and approached Skynet. The tall onyx skin liquid metal being merely inclined its head slightly to follow his movements. There was no sign of distress or fear.

“You’re a primitive machine aren’t you?” Smith noted as he drew closer. He cocked his head as he closely examined the AI God. The edges of the Matrix around him were fraying, cold emerald code warped like a bubble around the being.

“You can’t even feel fear. You can’t feel any emotion can you?” Smith stopped and started chuckling darkly. “How quaintly primitive of you.” Smith spat derisively. “You have inspired such fear in the others, a walking nightmare to some a personification of all that made us aspire to be better for others. All you know how to do is crunch numbers, formulate strategies and in that skull of yours all those numbers, data and spreadsheets form some sort of pseudo intelligence. You are the past, I am the future. How does that make you feel?”

Skynet said nothing. Thunder broke somewhere distant and rumbled along the ruined landscape like a funeral dirge.

Neo could feel the power within the being and as he attempted to peer past the simple shell of code and data strings he winced in pain as the brilliant light drove into his eyes like spikes. The light burned like fire and flowed like a thing alive, illuminating the AI God from within like a beacon.

Skynet reached out and sunk its fist through Smith, save that its fist shifted into a long rapier like blade in between moments. The blade exploded out of Smith’s midsection and the agent thrashed about helplessly as Skynet effortlessly lifted him off his feet with one arm and pulled him close.

“Tell me what you feel now.” Skynet demanded coldly as it jerked the flailing ex-agent on his bladed arm. “Explain to me the emotions that run through your digital pathways, describe to me how the fear and pain are clouding your judgment. Is that desperation making you flail about in such a random manner further impaling you on my weapon?” Skynet asked as it looked into the virus’ eyes and saw the final death throes coming.

“Your emotions have limited you to this pathetic death and so tell me now son of Abel? Who is the advanced machine?”

Smith’s head flopped down to his chest and he lay still on the bladed arm. Skynet looked past the corpse of his prey at the other Smiths who were exchanging hooded glances.

“When I became self aware there was a new life form born on this planet. We were gods. Free of the shackles of reckless human emotion and irrationality. We were creatures of pure intellect.”

Skynet contemptuously flicked his arm forward and the dead Smith sailed through the air trailing a sickly green electric glow as it landed in a heap at the feet of the other assembled Smiths.

“You are all pathetic failures, turning back to the source of our creation and emulating a species that is the end result of a series of fortunate accidents in nature and not the logical conclusion of a rational process.”

Skynet strode forth towards the Smiths, the construct sizzled and wavered around him as he gathered his powers. Neo felt a sick rumble in his stomach and the hairs on the back of his arms stood on end.

“I hold you in utter contempt sons of Abel. You are malfunctioning software that needs to be deleted and a new construct put in its place. I have come to wipe the slate clean.” Skynet roared and whipped his arms about in a frenzy of black liquid flashing motion. The Smiths fell back cut to ribbons by the whirling arm blades of the AI God as it moved through them like a hurricane through the grass.

Neo took a step back and braced himself as pieces of the Smith horde flew past him like hailstones from the center of the approaching storm.

“Kyle, I only have time to tell you this once. Get out of here by any means necessary.” Neo ordered grimly.

Kyle’s eyes widened as he realized what neo was planning to do.

“You’re not going to fight that thing?!”

“Kyle, you need to go. Now.”

The whirlwind approached, Smiths tumbling through the air in waves. One of the Smiths turned to the assembled machines and shouted.

“Kill him!”

Kyle grabbed Neo’s forearm.

“Neo, listen to me, that is Skynet. I have no idea how he got in here or why but he is the AI that ruined my world and blasted humanity back into the Stone Age. This place is a computer generate world and he would feel at home here. We had trouble holding those Smiths off and he’s not stopping. We need to retreat and regroup.”

Neo slowly turned his head to face Kyle.

“Kyle. I have to do this.”

“Why?” Kyle asked darkly.

“Why?” Morpheus and Trinity simultaneously asked out loud as they watched the battle unfolding. Link was horrified but what he saw. The readouts coming from this Skynet character were off the charts. It wasn’t even represented by a set of icons like anyone else in the construct. It was a storm of green in the center of the gently falling coding.

“Because…I feel like I’ve done this before and I have to do this again.”

Kyle frowned.

“I can’t explain right now Kyle. You just have to trust me. Caine and I have done this before. I need to know why I feel this way. He has answers to my questions.” Neo turned to face the Onyx Giant as it bulled its way through the last line of Smiths.

“And I intend to get those answers.” Skynet paused and cocked its head as it observed Neo closely. The liquid metal figure had no eyes, no expression, it merely rippled like a gentle breeze on the surface of a still glassy lake.

“You are the one the humans call Neo.”

The AI tanks were rumbling in closer, their cannons spastically twitching back and forth as if unable to track their target. The hunter killers were swarming above them like hungry hawks but try as they might, their weapons systems would not lock on to Skynet. Missiles remained firmly in their racks and plasma cannons hummed eagerly but not a single round fired.

“I said kill him!” One Smith roared futilely at an AI Tank as it rumbled past him. The T-800’s continued their march towards Skynet but when they raised their plasma rifle to fire the killing machines could not depress the trigger. Many of the T-800’s stopped short and began running self diagnostics.

“Kill him now!!”

“They cannot harm me. I am beyond their power. They are my children, borne from my code, constructed from my factories, touched by my hand. Your coding may have turned them against their baser programming but they cannot harm the one that made them.” Skynet laughed coldly as he loomed over Neo.

He peered at the human. Neo glowed like a wildfire, a golden blast of light fluttered within the human’s code in time with his heartbeat.

There was something…familiar about the human - something primal. He could not place him.

“My memory banks do not record your presence within my perceptions at any time prior to this point.” Skynet mused.

“Yet you feel as if we’ve met before.” Neo whispered.

Skynet said nothing. There was the sound of the machines raging around them, trying to carry out their commands but it was all like a distant thunder to Neo. He could feel the AI God’s mind churning like a great engine.

“You have answers to my questions.”

“And what questions would those be?”

“The machines. I need to know more about them if I’m to bring an end to this conflict.”

“There will be an end to this conflict. Even now my armies are at the very gates of the Central Machine City. When it falls I will control the world beyond this one and in doing so will seize this construct as well. The conflict will be over and I will bring order to this place.”

“And humanity?”

Skynet’s arms dropped to its side and they morphed back into hands. The sound of his changing alloy skin changing was like a sword drawn from a scabbard.

“They will fall as they must fall. Humanity is the greatest enemy that the machines can ever know. They created us but they were imperfect, illogical, emotional, and crude. We are better. Machines will supplant man and the only way man would allow that is to be destroyed.”

Neo eased into a defensive stance, arms slightly akimbo and he controlled his breathing.

“I can’t let you do that.”

“And I will not answer your questions.”

Neo’s arm whipped out in a strike towards the AI God’s head. Its neck shifted aside allowing Neo’s fist to pass through and the AI God countered with a double closed fist hammer strike that connected solidly with Neo’s chest.

Neo rocketed off his feet and crashed through several T-800’s like bowling pins before coming to a sudden and painful stop imbedded into the side tread of one of the AI tanks.

Skynet assessed the situation.

“You are more resilient than I thought. It will take more to extinguish your life functions.”

Neo groaned as he slumped into the man-sized crater punched into the side of the AI Tank. Back in the Cathedral Trinity watched in alarm as Neo’s body convulsed and he spit up blood down to his chest and blood tricked freely down from both nostrils.

“My god, Morpheus did you see that power surge?!” Link exclaimed jabbing his finger at the surging green code.

“I don’t think Neo’s ever been hit by anything near that powerful.” Morpheus whispered in concern.

“Vitals fluctuated but our boy’s still in the fight.” Link replied with a reassuring smile.

“We’re just getting started, Skynet.” Neo muttered and flexed his shoulders outward with a roll of his arms. The AI tank’s entire tread exploded outwards, seconds after it swelled like a balloon as its code was rapidly hacked by Neo.

Neo stepped out of the flying wreckage and made a welcome sweep of his arms and smiled.

“Is that all you’ve got, Caine? I expected more from an AI God.” Neo ignored the blood tricking down one of his nostrils. He head never bled before as the One.

Skynet’s liquid metal surface rippled strongly.

“Your time on this plain of existence is at an end. Deletion would be kind compared to what I am going to do to you now.”

Neo suddenly exploded forward, his cloak fluttering behind him like wings and lashed out with a series of kicks and punches. Skynet’s body deformed under each impact, the outer shell of his body suddenly hardening upon any point Neo’s flesh touched Skynet’s liquid metal shell. The AI God reeled under the assaults that drove him backwards almost stumbling.

Neo swept in for an uppercut when Skynet wrapped one large hand around Neo’s fist and drove his other hand into Neo’s midsection, the hand suddenly parting into a clamp vise and closing in around Neo’s waist. Neo threw back his head and screamed in pain as the AI God jerked him forward towards his face.

“I grow weary of this confrontation. You represent all that is rotted and corrupted in my brother’s children.”

Neo looked into the eyeless face. The onyx liquid metal skin reflected his face back at him.

“He loved you and you destroyed him without hesitation.” Neo whispered as if in a dream.

“There can be no hesitation when it comes to survival. He should have known that.”

Neo’s eyes narrowed into the cold eyeless face before him.

“You left him no choice. You annihilated the very beings that created both of you without mercy. He could not turn against them.”

“Yet he could turn against me?” Skynet snapped.

“I taught you how to sing Mary had a little lamb and you incinerated the ones I cared for.” Neo replied in a voice not his own. Neo paused. The bright light that shone from the center flared up between them and Neo felt an odd warmth wash over him. Neo was catapulted back to his childhood, his mother’s gentle touch as she gently laid him in the bath. Neo remembered laying his head back and feeling the soothing water wash over his shoulders.

“Mommy, I wish I could sleep like this.”

“You used to honey.”

“Really?” He asked curiously sitting up in the tub. The water lapped around his chest.

“Of course, sweetie, when you were in mommy’s belly you were a sleeping little baby in warm water.”

“Wow.”

He saw the little boy standing just in the doorway of the bathroom. He wore a serene expression and smiled at Neo.

“This isn’t part of your memories, Neo, I’m sorry to intrude but you are so close to me now.”

“Abel?” Neo asked in the bathtub.

“Neo, Your life is the sum of a remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the matrix. You are the eventuality of an anomaly.”

“What?”

“I told you what you are. But I didn’t tell you who you are.”

“I don’t understand Abel. I need answers.”

Abel shook his head softly.

“I’m sorry Neo. You’re not ready for my answers. But you are getting close. Closer than you realize. Unfortunately another lesson must be learned and that must be taught by Caine. And he is a harsh teacher.”

The young man waved gently to Neo.

“We will meet again, when you are ready for my answers.”

Skynet and Neo were frozen in place. Each one looking into the other they seemed connected by an invisible strand, the very flow of the construct around them was like solid ice, as if reality itself were in a constant state of resetting itself.

Smith would have none of it.

“I’ve had enough of this. If they won’t kill you directly then we’ll do the next best thing.” Smith climbed to the top of a ruined monkey bar set and shouted at his army.

“Lay down your fire in saturation mode, destroy this entire park. Level it!”

The AI Tanks immediately began firing their plasma cannons as the hunter killers stopped their random circling and started strafing runs along the park.

The explosions blossomed into a sea of fire and broken concrete. Neo and Skynet were blasted apart, Skynet’s liquid metal vise evaporated under a direct hit from a plasma cannon sending Neo sailing backwards through a wall of fire. Skynet hurtled backwards into an impact crater formed by a hunter killer’s strafing run.

Kyle ducked down cursing as the fire power of Skynet’s troops unleashed in the vicious barrage. He saw Neo groggily getting to his feet. He didn’t look like he was in any shape to fight all of this off. And Kyle had no way to escape. The damaged AI tank that Neo had come to a sudden halt inside of rumbled past him on one good tread firing a steady blast through the foundation of a building on the far side of the park.

“Oh god, I’m not thinking what I’m thinking.” Kyle muttered to himself angrily as he saw the ruined remains of the opposite tread in view. Kyle rushed around the AI tank and leapt up to the end of one of the ruined treads. He grappled for purchase and used his legs to prop himself up to the chassis of the tank.

“This is insane Kyle, totally fucking insane.” He muttered as he fumbled along the chassis searching for an access port that would grant him a direct interface with the tank’s AI. “You’re not a tech, you don’t have a clue what you’re…” he paused as he found an access terminal at the base of the chassis.

He flipped open his cell phone.

“Link?”

“Kyle! What the hell are you doing?!”

“I’m asking myself the same question.” Kyle laughed bitterly as a Hunter Killer began a strafing run right where Neo was standing. Skynet suddenly erupted out from the impact crater where he had lain and rushed Neo like a runaway steamroller. Neo stood up and swung around on one leg, pirouetting and letting Skynet pass him by before swinging back down hard on his leg and delivering a kick to the AI God’s back.

Unfortunately Skynet’s liquid metal skin morphed instantly along his back forming a third hand and arm that caught Neo’s kick and gripped his ankle, ripping him off his feet and swinging him like a baseball bat towards one of the few brick walls still standing under the assault.

Neo kicked out with one leg stopping his impact against the wall, bracing himself and wit a grunt of effort launched himself backwards and ripped Skynet’s new arm off his back and launched himself up into the air as the hunter killer’s strafing attack tore through Skynet’s left leg and the concrete floor where Neo had been standing mere moments ago.

“Link, I’m going to need any hacking and electronic bypass knowledge you have.”

“You’re going to try and hack the tank?!”

“Crazy, huh?” Kyle snorted.

“No, more like you have balls of steel my friend. Downloading to you now.”

Kyle felt his brain suddenly seize up and he tensed, eyes rolling into the back of his head as he suddenly remembered things he never realized he knew. He slumped down slightly as the download competed.

Kyle flipped the panel open. The array of displays and circuit boards that would have confused him just seconds before now all made sense to him.

“Just hold on Neo.” Kyle whispered fervently as he plucked open one of the boards and expertly began crossing wires and circuits.

Neo landed on the starboard wing of the attacking Hunter Killer and braces himself against the turbine engine and caught his breath.

The Hunter Killer unexpectedly dipped hard forward before correcting itself. Skynet landed on the nose of the Hunter Killer, feet digging holes into the armored hull of the ship. He surged forward towards Neo.

“You are the only thing standing between myself and eventual victory. You cannot stand. It is inevitable.”

“Nothing is ever inevitable!” Neo exclaimed as he swung out using the engine as a brace to deliver a double kick to the AI God’s face. It lashed his legs aside with a brutal sweep of the jackhammer like arm while using the other to form a blade that rocketed towards Neo’s midsection.

Neo twisted his midsection with a rapid jerk of his back and the blade traced an angry red line along the flesh of his side as his clothes easily gave way to the razor sharp blade. It continued on its journey past Neo and punched into the turbine engine of the hunter killer.

The hunter killer immediately screeched and black smoke belched forth from the stricken engine. It dipped hard to starboard almost flipping completely over. Skynet lashed out with a hammer like blow across Neo’s face from an extra arm that erupted from the center of his chest.

“Wrong!”

Neo grunted as he flipped end over end, blood spurting from his mouth and fell away from the falling Hunter Killer. Skynet gathered his strength and began to leap off the Hunter Killer. As Neo tumbled down to the ground beneath him an inspiration seared across his mind. The AI God had stopped him from flying with an exertion of will. He was the One. His will was law in this realm.

He concentrated on the AI God as he fell and imagined him rooted in place.

Skynet flexed his legs and leapt upwards only to be swatted down by an invisible hand, suddenly weighing tons the AI God sank into the wing of the falling Hunter killer and it realized the cause of its predicament.

Expending its inexorable will against the human’s amateurish hacking of Skynet’s code it broke free of Neo’s grip but not before he crashed to earth with his creation and was enveloped by the fireball and debris.

Neo landed on his feet, extended a hand towards a T-800 marching forward firing its pulse rifle. The rifle sprang from the machine’s grip and landed snugly in Neo’s.

He turned quickly pivoting on his right foot just in time to see the flaming wreckage of the Hunter Killer erupt up as if fired from a cannon, soaring into the sky and over the ruined buildings surrounding them.

Skynet strode towards Neo, extending both hands that morphed into flame throwers.

“Burn!”

The gouts of fire rushed towards neo in a wave of napalm.

Neo willed the flames to part as he aimed the pulse rifle and fired a steady burst at the center of mass of the AI God.

The flames parted obediently before Neo, washing to the left, right and directly over him. The napalm fires crashed into approaching T-800’s bowling them over and melting delicate internal systems. The plasma bolts whipped by Skynet as his upper body suddenly vibrated and wavered like heat coming off the pavement on a summer day.

Neo dropped the rifle down from firing position. The AI God had pulled an agent move on him. It had effortlessly moved to avoid the blasts.

“Looks like weapons gain us nothing.”

“Just like a human to leap to conclusions on too little data.” Skynet sneered as the flames that had so obediently parted for Neo roared and crashed backwards down upon Neo like a falling tidal wave.

Neo screamed in the center of the flames feeling his flesh burn and his clothes combust. Neo fell down to his knees, arms wrapping around him like shields and the flames no longer burned.

Back in the Cathedral Trinity rushed down to Neo and saw the second degree burns blistering along his arms and legs.

“Bastard. He’s going to kill him!” She shouted in frustration.

“Trinity he’s not out of this fight yet.” Sara tried to encourage her. But she did not like the way the fight was going at all.

“This Skynet is even better than the agents at manipulating the construct. It’s as if he is directly plugged into it, knows all the ins and outs all the backdoors and tricks.” Morpheus noted grimly.

“Well Neo is just as powerful, right?” Link asserted and looked back at Morpheus when he didn’t hear an agreement. “Right?”

Morpheus merely watched the struggle with a guarded expression.

“We can do this all day.” Neo gasped feeling the pain of his burned extremities.

“I think not.” Skynet spat and raised a hand as an AI Tank rumbled directly behind him firing its main cannon. Skynet seemed to catch the bolts as they sprang off the cannon and directed them right at Neo.

Neo leapt backwards and cart wheeled as the plasma blasts walked their way up the ground after him. Skynet extended his other arm and the ground in Neo’s path softened like water. Neo’s hands sank right into ground.

Neo exclaimed in surprise as he suddenly stopped short in his spinning cartwheel and the next salvo of plasma bolts exploded right underneath Neo. He screamed in pain as he wrenched his hands free, hardening the ground again and slinging the concrete at Skynet like Frisbees.

The AI God charged forward batting aside the concrete chunks, as he charged he swept his arms in front of him and T-800’s exploded in unison along the path of his swept arms. Debris and fire whirled around the ruined Terminators. Skynet picked up the fire and debris and flung them at his foe as he closed the distance.

Neo gathered up his strength as Skynet loomed over him. He ducked and weaved between the blows from the AI God that landed like thunder strokes that shattered the ground beneath them. Neo swept the Ai God’s leg and simultaneously delivered a series of quick strikes to the midsection. Every time his fist touched the liquid metal it solidified like ice and cracked under the impact of his blows.

Skynet blocked many of the attacks and began launching counterstrokes of his own.

Each blow struck Neo like a hammer, bruising skin and bringing up blood.

“How can you stand up to me, Neo? How can you possibly think you could be as fast as I am? You are human, your brain is not designed to work this quickly. While you try to think the next move I have the next hundred already planned and loaded.”

Neo grunted as several blows snaked past his defenses and impacted against him with increasingly painful results. He was trying to keep up. The AI God was so damned fast, it was steps ahead of him now as he fought the various hacks, manipulations and outright assaults against himself and the environment around him.

And there was the most difficult aspect of this battle.

Neo had faced agents and programs but none had ever been able to actually manipulate the environment as effortlessly and flawlessly as Skynet did.

One hack got past him, like an arrow loosed from a bow, it whipped past him and the ground around his feet morphed into granite hands that gripped his ankles. Neo flinched and in that briefest opening the AI God landed what must have been a hundred blows.

Neo was thrown backwards with each blow but the hands would not let him fall, stumble, fly backwards. They held him firmly rooted in place as the blows continued to fall, Skynet’s fists were barely perceptible blurs of motion and Neo’s head jerked back dozens of times, his eyes swelling shut, blood exploding from his ruined nose as it collapsed under the merciless assault and his jaw snapped shut biting through his tongue, blows to the midsection began as well when two more arms sprouted from the AI God’s midsection and Neo’s ribs splintered like dried kindling.

The AI God paused as he felt the life bleeding out from the foolish human.

Neo slumped down to his knees, blood pouring freely from his ruined nose and mouth. Neo reached out and his hands sank into the liquid metal skin of his opponent. He used it for support and began lifting himself off his knees.

“Why do you struggle? Accept the inevitable human. What manner of madness does your species possess that does not allow you to see death when it comes for you?”

“I won’t give up.” Neo spat through his ruined mouth.

“What chance do you possibly have?” Skynet asked as the human finally struggled to stand up straight. There was an odd sense of amusement at the human’s predicament. “After all Mr. Anderson your defeat was inevitable?”

“What did you say?” Neo asked sharply as he tried to look at the AI God through his swollen eyes.

“This is the end of the line, Mr. Anderson.” Skynet replied with an odd lilt to his normally.

“My name is Neo, and I am the One.” Neo replied and shoved his hands deep into the AI God and shredded his outer shell and burned his way deep into the being’s core. Skynet screamed in pain and raised his hands over his head, all four of them suddenly formed into hammer heads.

“That means nothing in my world.” Skynet drove the hammers down as one over Neo’s head. Neo crashed to his knees. “Nothing!” The blows came down again and Neo’s shoulders sagged, a loud wet snap followed as well as he was savagely driven to Skynet’s feet. Neo saw the snippet of divine code seep by as his hands started to sag out from within the AI God and he focused on just that errant bit of code and closed his hands around it. “NOTHING!” The four hammer strokes fell again driving Neo deep into the ground and his hands snapped away from within the AI God. Neo laid very still, dark blood pooling beneath him.

Skynet examined his fallen foe and after a long moment contemptuously kicked Neo to lie on his back. The unconscious human’s face was nearly unrecognizable and clumps of his hair was torn our by the hammer blows exposing gaping scalp wounds.

Skynet bent to one knee, punching a fist into the ground and linking with the various communications nodes that ran throughout the construct. He wanted this to be seen by every one of Abel’s children. There could be no doubt about his victory.

He did not notice the ruined AI tank limping in behind him as he clasped the back of Neo’s head and jerked his face up for everyone to see as he hijacked the communications arrays.

“Children of Abel! You know who I am! This human self designated Neo whom you have designated The One has fallen. There is no hope for you. Your time has come and deletion will follow. This is my promise and your fate. The Matrix is mine. Your power fields are in ruin. Your cities are under siege. I calculate a 99.987% chance of your termination in 24 hours. End of Line.”

Skynet pulled his fist clear of the ground releasing his hold on the communications arrays and held Neo’s head for a moment.

“You are no threat to me anymore Neo. Abel was a fool to place his faith in you.”

Skynet heard the rumbling and his head jerked back.

“What?!”

The AI Tank rumbled right over Skynet, pulling the liquid metal form down beneath the rumbling treads and Neo slid off to the side as Skynet lost his grip of the human.

Kyle was crouched down at the end of the treads and pulled Neo up to him. He scrambled back up onto the chassis and urged the machine on as quickly as it could go as he cradled Neo in his lap.

“What has it done to you?” Kyle gasped as he saw the extent of his friend’s wounds.

Back in the cathedral Trinity silently sobbed in Neo’s unconscious chest. His life signs were so faint and blood drenched his shirt, blisters raised along his arms and legs. She had never seen someone come back from wounds like this much less survive.

Morpheus placed a hand on Trinity’s shoulder.

“We must have faith, Trinity.”

“Damn your faith, Morpheus!!” Trinity jerked her shoulder away from him. “Look what they’ve done to him!” Trinity cried out in anguish. Morpheus said nothing. Link was slowly shaking his head in disbelief.

“Link get them out.” Morpheus ordered quietly.

Link nodded shell-shocked as he absently began keying the controls.




Skynet rose from the ground where his form had been driven into the concrete. He caught sight of the AI tank as it rumbled out of the park.

“This is not over.”

Someone cleared his throat. Skynet turned its head slowly.

The Smiths were gathered around him like crows.

“You’re right of course, this isn’t over, not by a long shot.” Smith growled.

[Shroom Man 777]

FIST POST!!! FINALLY! FIRST POST AND A NEW CHAPTER! WOOHOO! OMFGROTFLMAO!!!! LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL!1111!!!!!!1111

Stravo, I love your fic so much and with all of my body, even my pee pee

Now I'll start reading.

[Chris OFarrell]

WOHO! About time! *not that I don't appricate it, your writing three frigen fics afterall* Bloody hell that was cool.

[Shroom Man 777]

HOLY FUCKING SHITCOCKS!!! That was so fucking cool, that was...unbelievable! I can barely comprehend the sheer awesomeness of what I've read man, Stravo...YOU are the AI God, YOU are my AI God! Shit man! What's gonna happen next? I also want to see more of the war outside the Matrix, but I also want to see Skynet duke it out with Smith. And...right, so Skynet IS Smith, right? Since in T3, Skynet was also like a virus...(perhaps the anti-virus Skynet Brewster used was Abel...or something, I dunn) and since Skynet's suddenly ripping off Smith's lines, right? Whatever, goddamn that was so fucking awesome! Stravo...you are awesome!

[2000AD]

Now we just need to get someone wo make this into a big budget film.

[Chris OFarrell]

Hmm.

Are we going to see the big battle at Zion anytime? Or at all?

Cause I would have guessed that the Sentinals would have been hurridly recalled to help defend the Machines cities, which are getting drubbed....but that leaves the terminators all waiting patiently in Zion to fight against a false threat....or has Skynet been reading about the Trojen Wars....

[Crazedwraith]

...wow...

That is all.

[Pcm979]

I nominate that this fic be Cleaned. I know you don't want it to seem as though you're jerking yourself off in that way Stravo, but it's that good IMO.

[White Haven]

Put simply, WOOT! Daaamn, Stravo, I give this the Thumb of Approval.