[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXHuC84WniI[/youtube]

The sands were quiet, calm, save for the two machine men currently present and the smouldering husk of the ship one of them had recently emerged from. A gentle breeze blew ripples in the dunes. The sky: cloudless. The sun? Bearing down with unnatural heat upon the desert. Such was the place that these two machine men had been called to.

And such was the place that the shadows had been called to as well. From under the feet of one of the machine men, a mass of darkness slithered forth across the sand and stopped a few feet away. Then emerged, from the shadow, a man, or more accurately, a spirit in the form of a man. What emerged first was the long barrel of a rifle unlike normality; its barrel was thorned and etched, carved of obsidian and bone. Next was its scope, fashioned of a dark metal, and then the man's head; haloed in black smoke that seeped from his eyes, or what used to be eyes. The man's orbits were full of the smoke, and it seemed to pour liberally, albeit slowly, from them, slithering around his form as if it were alive. The rest of him soon followed; ballistic armour plating similar in form to those worn by modern soldiers, military fatigues and combat boots, the rest of the unearthly rifle that was slung on his back and the other armaments this soldier carried; a very triangular looking submachine gun, a pistol in its holster, and a knife in its sheath.

Cho stepped forth from the dissipating shadows, idly staring at the phone attached to his wrist rigging. A stark white pair of earbuds was attached to it, the other ends plugged in his ears. Upon noticing that he had emerged somewhere with...life, he pulled the buds from his ears and stuffed the whole shebang into his pocket.

Ever since...that fight, he'd become a wanderer, neither here nor there, a traveller between dimensions and realms. He'd seen much and fought little, but what little conflict he was in ended in his triumph. So far.

He could tell the two beings ahead of him were not normal at all, neither were they alive in the typical sense. He could see their souls, but they were...weird, angular, very distinct as compared to the formless souls typical to organic beings. They were also immensely powerful, and he didn't need special vision to see that.

Something had called him to this lifeless desert. He didn't know what, but perhaps these two beings knew.

Without fear he took a few steps forward and gestured plainly to the desert around them.

"Hey, uh, guys? You all here for something?"