The Last Stand/Worldsoul

So, this is my first story. just want feedback.

I stood overlooking the amassed TALON army and shuddered. Thato Mandela drew in a sharp breath beside me. A sharp ding from the vicinity of my lower left arm indicated that he had grabbed my hand. I twisted my fingers until they entwined with his. Thirty years had passed to the day since I started living in this hell, this mockery of life, this “Superior” body. The last thing I remember feeling is the sharp stab of a knife, the last smell that of acid, and my last taste that of my own blood. They had seen to that.

Banishing the demons of my past, I heard Julius say from my right “They’ve seen us!”

I instinctively duck as bursts of rifle fire flash towards us. Thato tackles me as a dozen bullets zip through the air above my head. I swivel my head to face Thato and say “Why did you do that! I was in no danger!”

“My apologies, Yui, I thought that you were”Thato replies. He rolls both of us beyond the crest of the hill, so that we are no longer threatened by the forces beyond the cliff.

Thato pulls me and Julius into a tight circle, then starts talking hurriedly.

“If we all run,  they’ll pick us off one by one. If one of us stays, they can delay enough for the other two to escape. You guys head for reinforcements. I’ll stay and delay their advance.” He folds his hands, clearly anticipating both mine and Julius’s replies.

“But you’ll die!” I exclaim

“I won’t let you go.” Julius admonishes.

Thato Spreads his hands, supplicating. His rich voice with its distinct south african accent is toned with desperation. “It’s the only way. If I stay, there’s a chance I can scare them off, or at least survive.” He turns towards me.

“Yui, daughter of the ocean, child of light, please know that you have lived a far better life than I ever could. We both suffered by the terrors of the Omnic Crisis, but you transcended your sufferings, even though yours were greater.” His eyes bored holes into me as he continued speaking. “I lost my friends and family, you lost your humanity. But only I succumbed to rage and hatred. You are a far greater person than I ever could be, Yui. You deserve to live and carry on living. There is nothing left for me.”

As I stare at him, my mind flashes back to the day we first met. I was poking around the ruins of a town abandoned in the Omnic crisis twenty years ago when all of a sudden, an inexplicable fear gripped me and visions flashed before my eyes. I saw my body broken, my head lopped off, circuits trailing from a large wound in my stomach. As I saw these, I smiled, for it meant that I would leave the hell that had become my life. But the visions stopped, and I started to sob. No tears ran down my cheeks, for I had no tear ducts, but I nevertheless sobbed. Behind me a voice said. “I have seen many monsters such as you destroyed by the fear, but you are the first to weep. Tell me, why do you?”

Without looking, I responded. “I saw not my fears, but my deepest desires. I weep because they are insubstantial as dreams.”

There was a pause. Then, the voice said. “You are not like the others, to welcome destruction.”

“I would welcome destruction as the end to my torment. The peace of oblivion after twenty years of hell.”

Another pause. “You were once different.”

Not a question, but a statement. “I was once human like you, but that was...taken from me.”

The longest pause yet. “How?”

I told the voice my story. I poured out the story of my childhood in kyoto, with my mother, my father, and my sister Sakura. I told him of the day the Horrors came, and took me to the Omnium. In hushed tones, my voice faltering, I told him of how I was systematically disemboweled and killed, and of waking up to find myself without feeling, smell, or taste. The voice was silent for a long time before I heard a body moving towards me.

A sharp ding echoed from my right shoulder, and I turned to see that a human hand, covered in rags, had come down on it.

“You lost much more than me. If I was in your place, oblivion would be a blessing as well.” The hand slowly crawled across to my chest. “To have survived this long, you are strong in spirit.”

I place my hand across his and say “Thank you.”

The hand turns my body around. I do not resist, and behold a young man of african descent. His body is covered in rags like his hand, and his brown eyes have a peculiar softness about them. A crow perches on his right shoulder, its black eyes staring at me with keen intelligence.

“I am Thato Mandela, and I would have your name so that I may travel with you.”

I stared at him, and asked a single question. “Why?”

His brown eyes bored into mine, and he said. “To see this world. It has been twenty years since I lost everything, and now is the time to rebuild, instead of chasing ghosts. For both you and me.”

In spite of everything, I chuckle at his words. I could not smile, as My faceplate was a mask. “Yes, it is time to stop chasing ghosts.”

I flash back to the present. Thato is looking at me with those piercing brown eyes. “I love you, Yui. I just want to say this before i go, but it would be the highest honor to keep you from dying. He paused. Of the three here, I am the only liability. You, Julius, are an inspiration to all, and you, Yui, my love, are a greater inspiration to those who have lost something. I am a creature driven by a ghost of a revenge, chasing shadows. If I die, it will scarcely cause a blip in the media.” He paused. “My only regret is that I could not give you more, My love, for you have given everything.” With that he turned, and ran up the hill towards the TALON soldiers who were starting to appear over the crest of the hill.

As Thato Mandela ran towards TALON he whispered a few instructions to his crow, Ugaidi. He then shrugged Hofu of his back and drew it, showering the soldiers in front of him with visions of death. They crashed to the ground, a mass of gibbering people. He paid them no heed, vaulting over them as he drove deep into enemy lines. Countless soldiers died from sheer terror. And those who didn’t were met with a swift stroke from Hofu to end them. He fought deep into the TALON base, eventually killing the enemy leader with a stroke of Hofu. As soon as the leader’s head rolled, a machine gun sprayed into Thato’s side, wounding him severely. As he lay bleeding out, Ugandi flew down and landed beside him. Ugaidi croaked questioningly at Thato, his beak half open.

“Do it.” Thato said, his face serene.

Ugaidi croaked sadly, then slashed Thato across the throat before splitting his head open. Thato never felt his skull crack.

Watching from the top of the cliff, Yui Kinsoe saw Thato fall. She screamed curses at the sky before turning to the south and fleeing, to where reinforcements were located. There was still work to be done, and she could not weep./ but as she ran, she sobbed. A brave man had died that day. Yui had harboured feelings for Him the past five years, and now the ghosts of her past loomed unbidden to her. She ran until she saw a column of men. They were the Reinforcements. After the fighting was over at the TALON base, Yui picked up the body of Thato Mandela, the man who had loved her for what was inside, and placed it in a marble tomb she crafted. She then etched a set of words into the tomb, which are shown here.

Here Lies Thato Mandela

Agent of New Overwatch,

Wielder of the Sword Hofu,

And Lover of Yui Kinsoe.

May his name forever be remembered.

May the Past be ignored, but never forgotten.

This is the tale of the Fall of Thato Mandela, the Scarecrow, who was feared by friend and foe, only to give his all to protect those who feared him.