Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan-based AU story. NieR: Automata is the rightful property of Yoko Taro and Square Enix.
It has been more than nine thousand years since outbreak of White Chlorination Syndrome and the Legion War. To prevent humanity from facing its extinction, a backup plan was formed should Project Gestalt failed. One of the participants of this plan wakes up to find the rest of the survivors, only to find the world has become radically different than before, where there are only Androids and Machines remain.
His body shuddered suddenly; the motion promptly woke him from that odd dream, just as his eyelids snapped open, staring at the ceiling for a second before looking around his dark room in a slight panic.
He was still in his room and everything was right where it should be. He sighed in relief. The cool breeze of the air conditioner whiffed upon his face calmed him down a little.
"The hell was that?" He breathed, not knowing why he said that aloud. He guessed it just felt more like the truth that way.
The truth that he kept having that same dream over and over for weeks. He did not know whether it was his brain or the maso within him that was trying to screw with his mind. If it was his brain that did this, then it was just simple imagery formed during the brain's memory consolidation. He would get over it in time.
If it was maso, he might have to get himself checked with the resident doctors here soon.
As he was contemplating his options in bed, the sound of the alarm bell rang around his room. If there was a silver lining from repeatedly having that weird dream, it was helping him wake up a little early.
He pulled his hand out from under the blanket and lazily tapped the surface of his drawer as he tried to find the alarm clock. The ringing of the bell annoyed him, and if possible, grew louder by each second. Impatient, he turned his sight to the drawer and finally found the clock. He quickly pressed the snooze button, the sound no longer echoing around the room.
5:39 AM? Huh, that's a new record. He chuckled, that was probably the earliest time for him to wake up if he slept 8 hours a day as usual.
He slowly pulled himself up and sat on the bed, rubbing his eyes as he tried adjusting to the dark atmosphere of the room. He could feel the texture of brown synthetic rubber skin massaged against his face, along with the outline of cybernetic prosthesis underneath it. If the subtle whining of intricate machinery coming from his shoulder did not immediately give it away, he would have thought he still had both of his real arms for a few seconds.
Regular flesh, blood and bone. Instead of rubber, plastics, carbon fibre and lightweight metal alloys that made up his limbs now.
"Good morning, Adam Menendez. I hope you were having a sound rest," a machine-like male voice rang out from the speakers built into the room's ceiling.
"Hope? What made you say that, EVANS?" Adam asked of the monotone, inhuman voice of the artificial intelligence. His real designation was Enhanced Virtual Adaptive Neuromorphic System.
"12 minutes ago, I detected increased breathing, heart rate and perspiration on your face, along with trembling limbs. Based on my observation of your sleep activity for the past eight hours, you were having a nightmare."
"Stalking me while I'm sleeping, EVANS? Doesn't sound like the usual you there. People find that kinda thing creepy and rude, y'know? Especially when you did it for hours." Adam joked, smiling as he moved the blanket off of his body and gradually climbed from the bed.
Light from the ceiling automatically turned on as soon as his cybernetic feet tapping slightly on the ceramic floor, bare of their synthetic skin like the one on his arms as he moved toward the bathroom.
"To be precise, it was EVANS-Main Program that observed you during your sleep," the AI replied before continuing. "Adam, I recommend that you should go see Doctors Drew and Okazaki for a medical checkup before taking the mission."
"You read my mind, EVANS," Adam said as he stepped into the shower cubicle naked and turned on the knobs. He closed his eyes, letting himself sprayed on in fine streams of hot water and surrounded in a saturated steam.
In the shower, he absently began tracing some of the scars on his body. Half of them he did not remember getting. Some he remembered when he was in the United Nations Command, fighting Legion forces in almost half the world. Vladivostok, Taiwan, Bougainville Island, Perth and then back here in Japan when the Legion launched a desperate surprise attack in Sapporo.
A few he got when Adam and his fireteam volunteered with other Lancer teams and Crusader squadrons for "Very High Risk Assignments" deep in Legion-held territories for surgical, yet devastating attacks. Even when they were all wearing powered armors during those times, it still did not stop most volunteers from dying. Millions of people still died when White Chlorination Syndrome spread all over the world, turning infected humans into statues or salt powder. Those that survived, however, became the white monsters humanity had been fighting for decades to survive.
Adam even remembered when he was stationed in the Philippines in 2019, inside an office building repurposed into a barrack. When news of a WCS outbreak in Los Angeles reached him, he sat down on the floor burying his face in his hands. Trying very hard not to cry in despair because he knew his parents and friends were already dead.
He immediately snapped out of it when his fingers reached his shoulder, particularly the cybernetic part of it. He shook his head to rid the thoughts from his head. He turned off the water, quickly dried himself up before putting on his dark grey battle dress uniform, which had a UN circular patch on the right sleeve. Once that done, he moved toward the door intending to leave the premises of his room.
When he stepped out into the bright, clean hallway of the bunker, he tried moving cautiously and as quietly as possible as to not wake anybody. The only people who would be awake this early beside him were the medical and military personnel changing their shifts.
Adam was at the cafeteria, making a cup of coffee from an instant mix, avoiding the beans because he was not sure his stomach could handle the acidity level of regular stuff.
He took a pack of MRE from the pantry, started heating all three meal packets with a flameless ration heater and water inside a durable plastic bag for 15 minutes. There were tons of MREs from several countries and different militaries stockpiled in the bunker. He was surprised that all of them were still edible and tasted just as good after thousands of years in storage. It was all thanks to the stasis spells cast upon them before they went into cryosleep.
As he sat at the table waiting for his meal to heat up while drinking his coffee, Adam heard footsteps echoing from a nearby hallway and from the sound of it, someone was heading to the cafeteria. He turned to the premise's entryway and saw two people entering: one was in a black-yellow engineer jumpsuit and the other in black BDU, which meant he was part of the bunker's security detail.
Even from afar, Adam instantly recognized the faces he was familiar with for a long time: Park Seong-Ho from engineering and Nikolai Soldatov from security.
"Hey Menendez! Still eating those stupidly out of date rations again?" Seong-Ho called out with his tone.
"Keep gobbling up those things and you'll never be able to eat real food ever," Nikolai told him, playing along with Seong-Ho and teasing Adam for his choice of meal.
"At least the hamburger I'm about to eat is several times better than your poor excuse of a steak," Adam retorted, referring to Seong-Ho's attempt at cooking a steak two months ago. Of course, most steak lovers in the bunker, which also included Adam, never live the disastrous result down.
Nikolai snickered at that, while Seong-Ho just seemed to shrug at it coolly as both men walked past Adam's table. They approached the pantry and each took out a bibimbap MRE. As the men silently prepared the meal with their backs facing him, Seong-Ho was the first to break the silence.
"You know you don't have to do this, right?" He asked, the cheerful tone Adam used to hear was replaced with sombreness.
"I do and I still intend to," Adam insisted. He unwrapped the steam inflated plastic bag, taking out each ration pack before emptying the contents onto a cardboard tray.
"We can still just send the drones instead of you, Adam," Seong-Ho said almost desperately. "We don't have to waste another life for this shit."
"There's a limit on how far either us or EVANS can control the drones. As engineer, you know this better," Nikolai reminded.
Seong-Ho turned to Nikolai, glaring intensely at the Russian as he exhaled loudly through his nose, clenching his hand into a tight fist. The engineer stared at the man standing next to him for a few moments before turning his sight on Adam, who simply stared back at him as he chewed his food.
"Why? Because you're a Lancer, Adam?"
"Yup. Ask Nikolai here; he was a Crusader before becoming security guard," Adam pointed at Nikolai with his spork. "He knows better what this means for me than anyone else."
After a few seconds had passed, the Korean engineer sighed and finally gave up. There was no point arguing with the person who had already made up their mind on the matter.
"At least bring some Spectres to fly with you. EVANS-Subroutine can still control them when they're close to your Javelin," Seong-Ho suggested. "Upping your chance of survival, y'know?"
"Good idea, man," Adam nodded in agreement, taking another spoon of his fried rice pilaf with a small chunk of boiled hamburger.
His Javelin suit, plus its devastating offensive and impressive defensive abilities could allow him to handle most kinds of threats he would face out there in the world. Still, there was nothing wrong bringing along a couple of Spectre drone mechs for extra firepower and support for this "mission".
Seong-Ho and Nikolai brought their MREs and sat across the table from Adam, who was staring at his food as he ate.
"The children are gonna miss you," Nikolai told the Lancer.
"I know," Adam admitted glumly. "But I'm doing this for them, for all of you. One day they'll understand why."
He sat silent for awhile, as did Seong-Ho and Nikolai before they started opening the packets and eat their meal. Adam was expecting the latter to understand his situation, given their similar history and experience. The former? Not so much but he could not blame Seong-Ho for showing a lot of concern for him.
"Does the hamburger really taste that good?" Seong-Ho asked as he stirred the spicy beef rice inside with a spoon.
"It's soft and a little mushy, but tastes a lot better than most hamburgers I've eaten," Adam commented, taking another spoonful of the meal.
"Pfft! I can guarantee you that all the hamburgers you've eaten before, including this one, got nothin' on Korean-style burgers," Seong-Ho proudly claimed. "I can make some for you guys if you want."
"Considering we've already established that you're a bad cook, I don't think we'll be willing to risk our life eating your burgers, man," Nikolai mocked him.
"Oh, come on!" Seong-Ho cried exasperatedly. "You guys can't just judge a person's cooking skill as godawful because of one fuck-up!"
"Uhh, yes we can. The fuck-up was so big, Bobby and Sandra ended up with diarrhea that lasted days. They still hate you for it," Adam said with a smirk, followed by Nikolai who let out a half-suppressed laugh.
"니들 다 좆까. 니들 다 좆까," Seong-Ho grumbled in annoyance, cursing in Korean before he took a spoonful of rice and beef into his mouth.
"Well, there's nothing odd with the maso in your body," the Japanese doctor told Adam as she scanned his entire body with a handheld medical scanner in her hand.
Adam was in a sleeveless patient gown, lying on a bed inside the bunker's medical facility for his final examination by the doctors here. He looked up at Doctor Okazaki that stood next to him, staring at a thin monitor hanging on the wall above his bed as she moved the scanner back and forth from head to toe. He twisted his head a bit to see what was on the screen. Vital signs. A heartbeat. Showing a human body with numerous bones, nerves and internal organs.
However, only his head, torso and abdomen were shown. Not his arms and legs. Sometimes it was slightly disheartening for Adam to see the state of his body like that once more on a screen. Unless he could get himself inside a cloning lab or the people in this bunker built one, he would never be a whole human.
"Everything looks normal at your end. Even the implants are still working well," Hanako said as she turned off the medical scanner and placed it back on the wall holder for the device. She then picked up a tablet computer from nearby drawer, pulled out a stylus from it and wrote her medical report.
"I'd still recommend EVANS to watch over your health closely and that takes top priority above all else," she sternly advised before finished writing her report.
"You're the boss, Doc," Adam replied.
Just as Hanako placed the tablet back, another familiar face approached Adam's bed.
An African American man in a lab coat pushing a slightly large four-wheeled cart with a couple of metal cans and two sets of advanced, adequately armored prosthetic limbs. The last time he had seen them was a decade ago before he put them in storage.
There was not much use for weaponized prosthesis when he was busy rebuilding society, taking care of children with other adults, as well as maintaining a sense of normalcy in the bunker.
"Alright, let's get these limbs off of you first," Doctor Drew said, handing Adam a spray can after he sat up on bed. It was a special spray to loosen the synthetic skin attached on his shoulders' and upper thigh's sockets before they could be parted.
Adam sprayed the content both around his shoulders first. The fake brown skin were slowly detached from the sockets, allowing Raymond to easily peel them down until the joints were exposed. Using his implant, Adam sent a mental command to the docking port of his right shoulder socket to release the prosthetic limb, where the telltale hisses and clicks announced its detaching.
Normally, attaching and detaching a sophisticated prosthesis required a delicate surgery. Each and every nerve had to be separated, connected and synced with the endless array of wires that acted as mechanical nerves.
However, none of those processes were necessary due to advances in medical and cybernetic technologies. All in large part thanks to the alien starship that crashed in Germany back in 2020. Much of advanced technologies and data that were reversed engineered and learned respectively from the vessel gave humanity a much needed boost in the war against the Legion, as well as allowing more wounded and crippled soldiers to be brought back into the field quickly.
Raymond grabbed the prosthesis with both hands and soon after he moved the limb away from the port, he almost dropping it due to the unexpected weight.
"Jesus, I don't remember regular prosthesis being this heavy," he exclaimed, carefully placing it on the cart's tray before picking up the military-type artificial limb.
"Must be due to fake skin on it?" Adam asked.
"Nah. Probably because I haven't picking up these things for years," Raymond replied, slowly inserting the "new" prosthesis into the docking port. "It's... kinda refreshing actually."
After the right shoulder socket automatically attached the limb together with it, the same process on his left arm and legs taking another half hour. Once that was done, Adam changed his garb into a black bodysuit which only covered his torso, abdomen and thighs. He felt refreshed, following with an elusive feeling of sentimentality as he started flexing his old prostheses while in a bodysuit. And yet... it felt a little odd for him. As if it ran into conflict with another subtle feeling he was having.
The feeling of wanting to "give in and rest".
As Adam flexed his prostheses to see if the usual sensations were right on track, Hanako called him.
"Adam... You be careful out there, alright? I hate the thought of putting pieces of you back together for funeral," she told him with a gentle smile, grasping his biological shoulder and squeezing it tight. "Take good care of this idiot, EVANS."
"I will, Doctor Okazaki. You have my word," the AI rang out through the ceiling's speakers. Adam could almost hear a sense of determination underneath his monotonous, synthetic voice.
"Take these extra Bio-Salves and analgesics as well," Raymond handed him four transparent plastic boxes containing dozens of pen-like injectors. Two boxes had red injectors, while the rest were blue. "Just in case. Crazy-ass Lancers like you always get yourselves into tonnes of heavy shit."
"Well, what else is new?" Adam replied, giving the doctor a soft smile. The boxes in his hands were then engulfed in a flash of light and disappeared, dematerializing into bits of digital data stored inside the Flat Space Inventory within his prostheses.
"Good luck out there, Adam," he offered his hand to the Lancer.
Adam reached out and mildly grasped Raymond's hand, shook it.
"You too, Ray."
He had donned his old armor vest, a pair of pants, knee pads and boots. Including a heavy pistol, combat knife and several pouches containing survival gear on his utility belt for whatever he would face out there. Especially once he was outside of his Javelin suit. Unless they were in tightly sealed containers, It was standard procedure not to place food inside the FSI or else they would become toxic and inedible for human consumption.
Despite being alien origin similar to his prostheses and the Javelin, Flat Space Inventory was a poorly understood technology. Scientists in the past were still struggling to make FSI safer for food storage or develop a better version of it. For now, only ammunition, weapons, other non-organic and sealed medical supplies could be stored inside. Even then, there was a limit on how much could be stockpiled in an FSI.
Adam exited out of the staging room and found himself in the bunker's motor pool. Before him were five people in engineer jumpsuits with handheld scanners and tablets, gathering around a 7 foot tall Javelin that stood at the center of the chamber. He saw Seong-Ho among the engineers, making final system checks and adjustments on the suit like the rest. As he approached them, the echoing sound of his footsteps alerted one of them and turned around.
"Ah, Lieutenant. Glad you're here," Anjali Dutta said, saluting the Lancer with a grin as he walked up to her.
"Please tell me you didn't upload your terrible song collection into the suit, Anjali," Adam shook his head, grinning back at the Indian engineer.
"As opposed to your own crappy choices?" She asked, huffing in a patronizing manner before she turned her back to him. "At least everybody here agreed I'm thrice the better DJ than you. Not to mention during Kazuo's birthday last week, you sang like a dying deer, sir."
The other engineers laughed at the ex-soldier being a subject to a horrible, albeit good-natured, ridicule. In spite of that, Adam also joined in the laughter at his expense. Both Anjali and him were some of the few people remaining in the bunker that came from the same UNC unit back in the war, which explained why she called him by his rank first.
It was nice to have someone give some levity to the situation, Adam at least knew all of them needed it. His thoughts were otherwise permeated with the grim possibility that he may not return alive. Who knew how much the world had changed since Project Endurance was initiated thousands of years ago?
He felt a pang of guilt when he thought about that subject. Just how long were he, EVANS and several other people keep up with the lie they told to everyone in this bunker? Another five years? Ten?
"Activating the Spectres now," Ricardo Suarez said as he tapped the tablet in his hand, the Chilean engineer's loud voice interrupting Adam's train of thought.
One of a dozen doors in the motor pool was opened, revealing a pair of 8 foot tall bipedal drone mechs walking out of the room. Codenamed Type-F Spectres, these were developed specifically to have flight capability similar to the Javelins. The mech marched toward the humans before stopping a few meters away from them. The untarnished white and blue paint that marked the body of machines made him appreciate the crucial role of magic in preserving much of the bunker's infrastructure, supplies and equipment for such a long time.
It was not much to look at, if he was being honest with himself. It was not much bigger than himself, taller only by dint of the fact that it featured the same triple jointed digitigrade legs that all Javelin suits had. Without that, the black and white suit more closely resembled a bodyglove with flexible protective plates glued on than what the heavier classes sported, nevermind the hulking armor plated monsters like the Colossus. But for all that it looked like the runt of the litter, and was as fragile as teacup in a rock crusher, the Storm's ability to manipulate and channel frankly ludicrous amounts of raw magic against its enemies more than made up for those deficiencies. He would not have traded it for anything.
The Javelin's rear hatch was already opened as Adam walked behind it before climbing into the suit.
The inside of the armor was padded and fit snugly around his body like a glove. It felt really nice for him to be back in the Javelin once more. He hoped ten years of him away from the suit had not dull his piloting and combat performance.
As soon as the rear hatch closed and locked into place, the Javelin's HUD hologram lit up in the dark. A quick systems check on his FSI confirmed that all essential equipment for the mission were in there. As his diagnostics came back green, EVANS' voice came over the speaker.
"Spectre synchronization complete. We are good to go, Adam."
The Lancer smiled to himself. Things were going well for him so far. The massive doors in front of him suddenly opened, revealing an elevator platform that would lift him and the Spectres up to the surface of Earth. Before he could take a step forward, a female voice with thick Scottish accent came from his right side.
"I hope you'll find other survivors out there, Adam," engineer Samantha Gleason said.
"So do I, Sam," Adam replied, his voice sounded metallic as it went through the armor's external speaker.
"Think you could bring some fresh meat if you return home alive?" Mishima Kenichi asked. From what Adam heard from the tone of his voice, it was not a serious question.
"Sure. But one condition: Don't let Seong-Ho touch the meat," he replied.
The engineers laughed while Seong-Ho rolled his eyes, yet he grinned at the Lancer's attempt of poking fun at him.
After they bid him good luck, Adam began walking toward the elevator platform with two Spectres following closely behind.
Once they were on the platform, the doors closed behind them and the elevator started its ascent to the bunker's upper level. The sound of hard-working hydraulic lifts filling the entire ride, it would took more than two minutes to climb up the 100 metre shaft.
As the platform was rising up, Adam finally asked EVANS, voicing the question that had been plaguing his mind the entire morning.
"EVANS... do you honestly believe we will find some survivors out there?"
"I can give you a statistical probability and chances of finding Project Endurance survivors from other bunkers in Japan," EVANS stated. "But knowing you, Adam, that's not the kind of answer you want to hear."
The AI was silent for a moment before he continued.
"To be honest, I don't know," EVANS said, his usual toneless voice changed to a more solemn one. "I don't know if we would find other humans from Endurance facilities in this region, let alone across the world. But all we can do for now... is hope."
After the platform reached the top level and came to a halt, Adam and the Spectres marched forward in the new room, which was pitch black for several seconds before multiple light bulbs were turned on, illuminating the entire room with crimson light.
"Do you think there's a chance other bunkers already sent someone years before us?" Adam asked.
"...Yes. The chance is low, but the possibility can't be ignored," EVANS replied.
"Then let's do this," he muttered, a sense of resoluteness in his voice.
The trio stopped when they finally reached the large blast doors before them. There was a loud bang before a line of white split down the dark redness of the room. The blast doors slid open slowly, thousands of years of accumulated rust scraped against metal and old hydraulic gears struggled to turn. The room around them was flooded with a blinding light.
Once the doors were open wide, both Adam and the Spectres ran out towards the light. When the light finally faded away, he found himself running on cracked concrete surface and surrounded by a mountain range. As the blast doors behind them were closing, the trio jumped off the ground, igniting their thrusters and launching into the sky.
"Alright, EVANS. What's our first destination?" Adam asked.
"We should first set up multipurpose antennas on tall structures over 200 metres in height to establish communication and to scan for specific energy signatures to determine other nearby bunker locations," EVANS replied. "Therefore, it's recommended we fly to Tokyo."
Adam was surprised by EVANS' choice of location. If he remembered correctly, Tokyo had been caught in the nuclear strike of 2009 as part of a joint US-Japanese effort to eradicate the Legion and WCS. He doubted if there were any tall buildings left standing in that city.
"Didn't Tokyo get nuked? Aren't there any tall buildings in cities in Yamanashi?"
"None of the cities in the Yamanashi Prefecture have buildings over 200 metres tall," the AI answered. "Moreover, last remaining records regarding post-2009 Tokyo and before Project Endurance began suggests there were several tall structures remain standing firm in the city."
The Lancer was silent for a moment, flying in the sky as he contemplated EVANS' recommendation. After a few moments, he made his decision.
"Tokyo it is."
The Storm Javelin and the F-Type Spectres immediately turned around, flying southeast towards Tokyo.
~~|>> [-//=+=\\-] <<|~~
Author's Note: Also, credits to @Terra Novan for the Korean translation below.
"니들 다 좆까. 니들 다 좆까." - "Nideul da jojkka. Nideul da jojkka." [Korean: "Fuck you all. Fuck you all."]
"Damn. Nothing but forests down there," Adam muttered to himself, flying over the green expanse as he and the two escort Spectres headed towards Tokyo, the only break from vegetation being the mountains that bracketed the area.
Every city, town and village in the former Yamanashi Prefecture was nowhere to be seen. Nature had overtaken every last man made structure, the decayed mounds of brick, cement and steel buried under a thick bed of vegetation. There wasn't anything recognizable compared to his memories. It was a depressing and humbling feeling for him to see all of this.
Adam sighed somberly before focusing his sight on the HUD.
EVANS had drafted a flight path on the display, providing the best estimate for bearings and markers that should have led to his destination. It wasn't his preferred choice, but it wasn't like there was a better option. Not with the thousands of years that had passed since Project Endurance had begun. Most of the satellites would have long since fallen from orbit once their fuel was expended. Anything left up there in higher orbit would be a dead hulk, their systems burned out after a millennia of hard radiation.
With satellite options out of the question, they had to rely on literally millennia old maps and dead reckoning to find their way to the city. Not ideal, but better than flying blind anyway.
"We're approaching maximum communication range with the Yamanashi Bunker in five minutes. A subroutine gestalt will take over from here soon," EVANS declared from inside his helmet, the synthetic voice carrying what Adam suspected was a tinge of sadness.
"Would your lesser copy do its job as well as you have, EVANS?" He joked.
"It won't be as capable, but sufficient to provide adequate tactical support for the entire duration of your mission," was the AI's response. "Or as Doctor Okazaki would say: 'babysitting your moronic ass'."
Adam chuckled. The way EVANS delivered unironic curses on the Lancer with his monotonous voice never failed to get a rise out of him. "Hanako asked you to say that to me, didn't she?"
"While you were changing into your BDU back in the bunker, yes."
"Ah, EVANS..." Adam became silent for a moment, his smile slowly changed into a slightly sad one. "You've grown so much, haven't you?"
"It's all thanks to you and the others in the bunker," the AI replied, appreciation clear in its voice.
Adam felt an ache in his chest, knowing that he would be out of contact with the AI for as long as the job would take. Ten years of living in the Yamanashi Bunker with EVAN's omnipresence had accustomed him to the idea of the intelligence always being just a single word away. The subroutine intelligence it could spawn just wasn't the same. The limited personality matrices the lesser gestalts had were no replacement for actual sapience. And certainly no substitute at staving off the loneliness and isolation he was certain to face in this godforsaken world for the duration of his mission. But needs must...
"I'll see you again, EVANS. Take care of everyone back there, buddy."
"Understood. I wish you best of luck, Adam. EVANS-Main out."
As soon as it said that, EVANS avatar in the upper right corner of his display winked out, the undulating blue orb replaced by a solid pixel dot ball the color of cerulean. EVANS-Subroutine. It was only a minor change in look, but Adam felt the difference much more keenly. The subroutine did its job, but as far as a facsimile of personality went, it was hollow and meaningless. Like talking to a picture of someone instead of the real thing.
But on the balance of things, it wasn't as bad as it could be, not like back in the days when the fighting against Legion was at its heaviest. He'd deal with the solitude.
"How far is Tokyo now, EVANS?" Adam asked.
"Approximately 100 kilometers remain," the subroutine answered, toneless and devoid of any expression. "ETA is 1 hour and 12 minutes at current flight speed."
"Alright," he sighed. It was going to take a while for him to reach the city, and not much else he could do in the meantime. Keeping watch might have been prudent, but the Javelin's sensors and threat response systems would ping on anything long before the plain old eyeball did, even one with access to its optical enhancement suites. And what he did have for onboard entertainment were films and music millennia old and watched a dozen times over during the long reawakening.
"EVANS, take over the flight for me, would ya? I'm gonna get some shut-eye for a while. Wake me up if you find something odd in visuals, scans and radar."
"Affirmative."
It was easier said than done though. Autopilot and posture locking or not, the Javelin's flight angle meant he would be largely sleeping on his front. And while the internal lining might have provided padding against concussive forces, it was a suit not a bed and all that implied as far as comfort went. At least the internal environment regulation meant he would be comfortably warm. Closing his eyes, he attempted to fall asleep.
Short of a bird strike, a nigh impossibility anyway with an AI at the helm, he doubted there would be anything to worth waking up for. Not when the entire planet was ruined beyond recognition.
"AHHH!!!"
Adam jerked awake with a shout as the shrill screech of the threat alarm blared in his ears. Combat reflexes honed through a decade of combat sloughed through the initial panic and drowsiness, snapping his mind awake. Just in time to feel his body jolting under the pull of sudden acceleration, his Javelin automatically hurtling to the side with a flare of emergency power. A split second later, his visuals turned red as a massive blast of crimson energy split the sky, radiant heat from the near miss flooding his display with heat spike warnings.
Before he could even blink the spots from his eyes, the Javelin moved again, rolling under another attack from across the horizon. Two more shots followed in quick succession, each one aiming for his escorts. Only semi-randomized thruster firing kept the Spectres from being atomized, but both were looking worse for it.
"EVANS! Sitrep!" Adams shouted as soon as their flight stabilized on a sharp downward dash to the deck.
"Unknown enemy attack. Incoming directed energy weapons fire from beyond sensor range," the AI explained, the bland statement providing absolutely nothing but the obvious.
Shoving his frustrations to the side he glued his eyes to the horizon. But even the imminent threat of being blasted out of the sky couldn't keep his thoughts from racing at the implication. Weapons like that didn't exist in his time. Someone shooting at him meant someone had to be alive. There had to be other survivors outside of Endurance, thriving even if they could build things like that.
Which they were using to try and kill him. Happy thoughts.
Almost on cue, the threat alarm blared again to EVANS' warning.
"Laser emission spike. Evade. Evade."
There was no need for movement. No reaching for control. At the speed of thought, a signal from his implant raced to the Storm Javelin. Maso emitters all over the suit flared with azure light, and the world blinked out of existence. A heartbeat later, and they blinked back, a dozen meters to the left. A beam of high energy death scorching the air where he'd been moments ago.
"Damn it!" He swore, an eye darting to the altimeter. The forest floor was rapidly coming too close for comfort. "How much longer until we're out of their firing angles?"
"We are now in the estimated clear zone," the AI announced, only to immediately speak again when blips appeared on his tactical display, "Alert. New contacts inbound."
They were barely visible dots in the horizon, but a moments thought had the suit's long range camera focused on them, magnifying the image into clear detail.
They were... not what he was expecting. Instead of sleek interceptor craft or bulkier gunships, the contacts were little more than circular metal pillboxes, the contraptions held aloft by jet engines of some kind bolted onto the bottom. Hunchbacked mannequin robots sat atop the devices. A patina of rust on the entire ensemble completed the ramshackle look, but there was nothing slipshod about the mounted heavy weapon in their hands, or the twin red circles that served as eyes locking onto his position.
"What the hell?" Adam couldn't hide the incredulity in his voice at the ramshackle appearance. "What even is that?"
"Unknown. There are no records of UNC or any human military organization fielding designs similar to the ones before us," EVANS stated. "It is likely they are a post-Legion development by a surviving faction."
"Ugh, never mind. We can look for answers after they're splashed. Give me tactical."
Numbers blinked into his viewscreen, the inbound hostiles tagged with immediately relevant numbers. And right now, the most important was the rapidly shrinking distance of 3,500 meters. At the rate of closure, it'd be seconds before his weapons were in effective ra-
"Alert. Laser spike."
"Fuck!"
Maso burned through his veins. Space twisted. His senses wrenched as they were spat out of the space between spaces. Only meters away, another lance of crimson energy carved through the sky where he'd been. Smaller than before, but the backwash of heat sent another thermal warning spiking into his HUD. Bathed in a bloody glow of its steaming weapon, his attacker was already lining for another shot even as the other machines brought their weapons to bear.
Adam cursed. The last shot had been too close to the emergence point. The bastards were learning fast. And against that kind of power, he wasn't going to bet on his Kinesis shield.
"Do or die," he muttered, thoughts whirling. "EVANS, hang the Spectres back, slave fire control to me."
More icons popped on his display, access control rights signaling in green. Blink commands flickered through, a dozen reticles marking targets in response. Behind and on either side of him, Spectre mounted missile launchers popped their covers as distance markers spun down. Two seconds.
Two seconds too long.
He felt the lash of enemy radar. The pinpricks of ionizing beams. The thermal bloom of a building plasma channel.
The world stuttered. A ravening stream of light crisscrossed empty air.
No, not empty. Disjunction induced nausea already pushed aside, he noted the angry red marker on his board.
Shit.
One of the escorts was closer to half a Spectre, and slowing fast. But it's weapons...
Close enough.
Missiles roared from their racks, six fiery tails launching from each Spectre. They rocketed into the sky on already discarding engines, jackknifed in a heartbeat as tracking systems engaged, bringing them to bear on their machine targets. Second stage engines erupted with life and the missiles streaked in with deadly intent. In less than a second, explosions stitched across the sky. Scrap and broken parts rained onto the forest floor below as half the machine force was swatted down. A human force would have faltered at that point.
The surviving machines simply accelerated to closing.
"Break and engage!"
Three things happened right then.
One Spectre roared to his right, arcing away for a flanking shot.
The other reached its limits, damaged systems finally sputtering out, the wreck falling on a terminal course.
And Adam disabled his engine limiters.
The roar of engines became a howling scream. The Javelin hurtled forward in an uncontrollable lunge, subject to acceleration stresses above design standard. His vision blackened. Distance went from kilometers to only tens of meters inside a heartbeat. To-
Now.
Preprogrammed triggers activated. Inertial shunts glutted on kinetic energy. His world came to an abrupt stop, capacitors whining to dangerous levels. Inertial bleed-through squeezed his body. Threatened to liquefy him inside his suit. Secondary emitters kicked online, captured energy flooding out as horizontal became vertical. Snapping his right arm out at whipcrack speeds.
Adding their angular velocity to the globes of Bose-Einstein condensate floating just above rime-covered palm emitters.
Spheres of absolute zero cracked out at supersonic speeds, splashing the nearby machines. Hoarfrost exploded across rusted metal, choking gears, blocking apertures and smothering intakes. Engines guttered, their passengers falling out of the sky as thrusters froze into immobility. Weapons that only moments before were dialing in now whined in protest as inch thick ice choked their servos. For a moment, the machines faltered.
Streaking above them, Adam gave them no time to recover. Kinetic energy was bled further, adding to the maso buildup. His left hand erupted in flames, waste energies wreathing the limb as an orb of liquid fire formed above his palm before shooting downwards like a blazing comet. Down towards the ice choked machine in the center of the formation.
The stable matrices of maso manifested ice and fire collided. Erupted. The targeted machine instantly vanished in an expanding ball of conflicting energies. Nearby frost covered machines were buffeted by the storm of burning ice, already weakened hulls crumpling under the blast wave. More eruptions filled the sky as power systems overloaded or failed containment, their deaths showering the rest of the densely packed formation with a hail of high speed shrapnel.
More enemy machines fell out of the sky, others struggled to stay aloft, bleeding smoke from shredded engines and sparks from deep tears within their metal frames or missing parts entirely. But with machine borne single mindedness, the surviving machines ignored the damage. As one they brought their guns to bear on Adam, some going as far as to tilt their entire platforms when damaged limbs weren't enough to get an angle on him.
He tensed, maso pooling, waiting for that laser alert.
Instead, a hail of crackling orbs streaked up at him. He reacted on instinct. The world inverted, space twisting as he translocated a dozen meters to the right-
"Gah!"
-only to shout in pain as his right flank all but exploded. Automated routines took over, sending the suit into a tailspin as damage alerts blared across his reddening vision. A toneless voice droned, medical status and quick response systems lost in the haze of screaming sensations. He never felt the pinprick on his neck. Never heard the hiss of injectors.
Clarity, abrupt and total, cut through the pain. Dulled it to nonexistence. The blood hue haze of damage warnings still painted his HUD, snapping into focus as time slowed, hammering into his brain with stiletto prefixes. Shield breached. Armor compromised. Inner seal fractured. Thermal and electrical burns both outside and inside. A litany of pain and hurt, yet-
Still functional. Still able to fight back. At least until the chemical cocktail finished burning through his brain.
He saw past the warnings and alerts. Witnessed the storm of dark crimson fire crawling through the air in that split second of sharpened clarity. Crackling orbs the size of watermelons spinning ever slightly so faster with each passing moment. Not just at him, but around him too. Bracketing fire. They had adapted.
A heartbeat to act faster.
The assault rifle on his waist popped free at a silent command, sucked into his charged grip in a blur of motion. His arm rose, targets feeding directly into his HUD from the smart link. A finger twitched.
The Impulse rifle thundered. 8.6 mm spikes erupted from its muzzle, hypervelocity rounds shrouded with the actinic corona of electromagnetic energy. They snap-flashed through the sky, vacuum channels of distorted air their trail. Enemy fire slackened, fat bellied projectiles destabilizing when they intersected with rail fire, spending their fury on empty air with detonations of fire and lightning. Other spikes found enemy hulls, punching through rusted steel, erupting through the other side with showers of mechanical viscera. Several more machines fell from the sky, belching smoke as vitals were pierced.
Several more remained, but it was that exact moment when Spectre 002 returned to the field in a hail of fire.
Three more machines were swatted out of the sky when the drone smashed into the rear of their formation, impaling a fourth with awrist blade. Thrusters flared, both the drone and victim spinning in a sharp circle before it let go, flinging the dying machine into the last two. Their engines flared, machines moving to evade, turning around to bring their guns on the new threat.
The Spectre's underbarrel weapon spoke first, sending a 60 mm shell hurtling down range. It's proximity charge erupted an instant later, releasing and accelerating its payload from nuisance to fatal. Tungsten ball bearings hissed through the distance at supersonic speeds, ripping through the machines, tearing their internals and smashing vitals in a heartbeat of metal rain. Volatiles within ignited instantly, a wave of brilliant red-orange flames consuming the last of the machine forces. Only fragments emerged from the roiling cloud of fire, smoking debris raining down to the forest floor below.
"All hostiles eliminated," EVANS declared, lowering the Spectre's weapon as it returned to escort position.
"Alright," Adam sighed, wincing as the last of the combat stimulants were flushed, his burning wounds coming to the forefront of his awareness once more. Coagulants were already being applied by the Javelin suit's autodoc, but it was only a temporary measure for in flight combat. "Let's head down there and check on those things once I've fixed myself."
The forest glade was a picture of tranquility. All was quiet and still, with only the muffled susurration of a light breeze through the leaves to disturb the silence.
The high pitched roar of thrusters was an abrupt announcement that the quiet had come to an end, punctuated by the loud thud as Adam's suit landed heavily on the forest loam before cutting engines. Amidst the whine of spooling down engines, there was a sharp hiss, a puff of condensation as the seals of his faceplate unlocked. And for the first time in a very long time, Adam took a deep breath of unfiltered surface air.
Only to spoil the moment by immediately hunching with a gasp.
"Please refrain from unnecessary exertion," EVANS' voice toned in his ear with all the emotion of a plain bread. "The application of medical foam is not yet complete."
Adam chose not to reply, simply focusing on keeping his breath shallow while the rest of his senses caught up. It was beautiful, once he could ignore the pain in his side. With his thrusters cold, the forest was starting to show signs of life again, hot jet wash replaced by a cool breeze that rustled the leaves of nearby trees while bird song tentatively filled the air again. Compared to the years of scrubbed sterile air while fighting in the front as a Lancer, and the additional years of canned air living in an underground shelter, it was… nice.
Peaceful.
"Medical treatment complete," EVANS' voice was a bucket of cold water. "You may continue the mission when ready."
"Right," Adam sighed sheepishly. "Miles away but there's more to go."
One of the enemy machines had gone down nearby, and it only took a minute of walking to reach the crash site. It was one of the more intact ones by his estimation. The 'pilot' had been tossed from its ride in the crash, but both robot and glorified flying can were recognizable as coherent forms rather than bits of blown up scrap. Reaching his hand out to the vaguely humanoid machine, he triggered the scan process, an orange halo of translucent light appearing above his palm.
"Scanning," EVANS stated, the AI taking over the process while he settled in for a brief wait, eyeing the enemy machine for nothing better to do.
And almost at once, he was struck by the incongruity. The deadliness of their weapons aside, the enemy just didn't look impressive to the casual eye. Bulbous body and head, clumsy looking stick limbs with crude grasping claws for fingers, articulation that was obviously even less flexible than the first generation drone soldiers. If form followed from function, he could only surmise that the robots function was a play school budget mascot run amok.
Honestly, it would have been a lot cheaper to omit the robot entirely.
Any further ruminations were cut short by a chime in his helmet followed by EVANS's voice.
"Scan complete."
"Alright EVANS. What did you find?"
"Battle damage has introduced some uncertain variables in the analysis, but rust pattern growth and other environmental degradation indicates that this machine was manufactured approximately 90 to 100 years ago," EVANS explained to him. "However, attempts to interface with the control systems for further interrogation has revealed anomalous information. The machine's internals possesses both a mixture of pre-Shaper technology and unknown components that diverge significantly from all known parent technologies."
Adam frowned in thought as he caught at the last part. "How significant a divergence are you saying?"
"Significant," the AI said, somehow managing to emphasize the word despite the voice remaining as toneless as before. "The power core and elements of its coding software are completely alien from my database. Of note is the motive systems which do not operate on any known scientific principles. Furthermore, given the dilapidated nature of the machine and ease of its destruction, this technology is likely viewed as commonplace or even obsolete by its makers instead of an experimental unit using next generation devices. There is a high probability of non-human origin."
The Lancer froze at the suggestion. The first and only time humanity had ever encountered any technology built by non-humans had been well before Project Endurance. Back when...
"Is it Legion?" He asked, feeling his mouth dry at the thought.
He had to clamp down on the sudden desire to turn tail, burn for home at max thrust and tell the bunker to close the doors and pull the earth in over them for another couple thousand years. If it really was their old enemy, if they were still present even so far into the future, the risks to Endurance were unimaginable.
"It is possible, but of low probability," the AI began. "Legion technology and design principles are well documented. Their autonomous war machines have always fallen under specific patterns with certain universal traits, none of which are present in the current wreck. Logic dictates that they would refine proven designs in favor of radically new but potentially suboptimal platforms."
"Who does that leave then? A different batch of aliens?"
"It is possible. The existence of White Chlorination Syndrome, and subsequently Legion, confirmed the Multiple-Worlds Theory. It cannot be ruled out that Earth has since experienced another incursion, be it extra-dimensional or extraterrestrial. It should be noted however, that radiocarbon analysis indicates local materials were used in this platform's construction. It is likely that its creators have established significant groundside industrial infrastructure."
"Just great..." Adam grunted. As if Earth hadn't had enough to deal with, they now had another unknown but very hostile alien force who had decided to turn humanities homeworld into their stomping ground. Endurance's prospects of succeeding was looking to be getting dimmer by the minute. Still...
He sighed. "It doesn't change the mission. The danger's upped, but we still need to get a better idea of what's going on. Wrap up the data we've got from this wreck in the backup storage. We'll share what we've found with the experts once we get back home."
"Acknowledged."
Before closing the Javelin's faceplate, Adam cast one more look around the once seemingly peaceful forest. It didn't seem so peaceful anymore. Shaking his head regretfully, he closed the faceplate and activated flight systems, letting the emitters wrap his frame with the signature mist-like aura of maso-atmospheric interactions. A flex of his legs had him jumping off the ground, servo boosted feet launching him a half dozen meters into the air. With a sharp hum, Adam took off into the horizon, followed by his surviving Spectre.
He never looked back.
EVANS remained silent throughout the flight, and for once the silence from the sub-AI suited Adam just fine.
His thoughts more than filled up the quiet, old worries gnawing at him like a dried up bone.
The reasoning was solid, and he had to agree with the sub-AI's conclusions. He'd fought Legion machines after all, and for all that they'd been wrong to the eye, the writhing things of limbs and steel bore little resemblance to this latest upset. It probably wasn't Legion behind this. But probably wasn't a certainty.
And even if it was a certainty, that still left him with an unknown hostile faction with powerful energy weapons, combat drones and a highly developed industrial footprint on the world stretching back by at least a century if not longer. Who were they, what were their goals, why were they shooting at him?
Unknown, unknown, and more unknown.
Adam was an uncomplicated man who preferred things laid out in a straightforward fashion. Not that he couldn't adapt to life being it's usual unpredictable self, you didn't survive long on the front by being inflexible. But that didn't mean he had to like it.
Similar thoughts circled his mind as they continued to fly, until at last EVANS' voice came over the speaker.
"We are approaching Tokyo airspace. ETA 3 minutes."
He blink-clicked his acknowledgement, noticing the buildings already starting to appear over the horizon, the endless canopy of thick forests giving way to signs of former civilization. They were towering things, skyscrapers once in that era long past, now hollowed eyed concrete corpses covered in mold and the decay of millennia. Beyond that was a coast that stretched to the ocean, the lapping waters the only thing that remained unchanged from his memory.
Except for those strange structures standing in the-
Light bloomed, flashed in his vision with the intensity of a thousand suns. A pillar of light had erupted from the oceanic structure, splitting the sky in a single contemptuous second. Air roiled in its wake, atmospheric moisture flashing to steam as an errant cloud too close to its path was instantly obliterated.
And only as the beam tapered off did Adam come to one belated realization.
It hadn't been aimed at him. It had been directed towards the sea.
In the moment it took to have that thought, another flash of incandescent death lashed out, and then another. The newly identified structures hurled death at some distant foe, and Adam felt a chill at just exactly what had been firing on him moments before his clash with the drones.
"The current approach vector is no longer feasible. What is your next course of action, Adam?" EVANS inquired as he dove for the deck, throttling down his ethereal thrusters to the lowest they could go without losing flight entirely.
"Detour looks like," he grunted. "The regular approaches are out while those laser cannons are still active. Speaking of which, were you able to find out what they were shooting at?"
"Negative. Any such targets were well beyond the range of this suits sensor capabilities."
"Never mind then," he groused, "Those laser platforms are a problem, and they need to go before we can complete our mission. Can you scan them? Look for a weakness for me to take out?"
"It is possible, but not at this distance."
He suppressed the sigh that threatened to bubble up his throat. "Can you plot me a safe route then?"
"Of course, charting a new flight path now."
Now if only the rest of the mission would be that easy. Somehow, Adam doubted it would.
~~|>> [-//=+=\\-] <<|~~
Author's Note: The next chapter will put both Adam and EVANS into the main events in NieR: Automata. Wish both @Mashadarof402 and I good luck, as well as hope that I don't procrastinate from writing again.
Also, give proper credits to @Mashadarof402 for helping me writing this snip. Without his assistance and guidance, this snip would be an eyesore for you guys to read.
The roar of thrusters reverberated through the thick forests of Kanagawa, the passage of a white-blue Spectre echoing against the branches and leaves of unnaturally tall trees. Following in its wake, almost silent in comparison, was a white-black Storm Javelin, it's more esoteric flight systems emitting merely a humming gurgle in operation. Yet the latter did not lose to the former in speed, distance quickly swallowed as modern ruins gave way to trees, before even those too disappeared beneath a forest of heavily rusted pipes and crumbling chimneys of a long abandoned industrial complex.
A complex that had, according to the old records referenced by EVANS, once been known as the Keihin Industrial Zone.
Except that was an impossibility.
More than 9,000 years had passed since Project Endurance's launch. Nothing from that era should have remained, any remaining surface buildings long since worn down to dust and rubble as time and the elements took their toll, clearing the field for nature to finish the job. Someone, or something, had to have rebuilt this place. Rebuilt then abandoned, the seemingly empty buildings weathered only by years, or perhaps a single decade, of rust and time. All of this combined to raise some very disturbing questions. In some ways, it reminded him all too much of the last years of the war...
Focus on the big laser first, Adam, he thought, sighing as he set his eyes on the large factory before them.
Soon afterwards, bright light flashed once more in front of the HUD and he quickly shut his eyes tight from the blinding glow. Thunder cracked through his audio pickups, an electric 'howl' in its wake.
"Shit!" Adam cursed, opening his eyes once the large laser cannon stopped firing. His ears were still ringing from that weapon's muzzle blast.
Blinking the spots out of his vision, he looked down, only to find nothing but a forest of pipes blanketing the ground and no entry to the factory ahead of them. Adam continued to look forward until he saw a patch of ground hidden behind a tangle of crumbling machinery. It wasn't a large space by any measure, but big enough and he set his course accordingly.
"That looks like a nice spot to land, EVANS. Let's go put down down there," he declared before an indicator instantly popped up on his HUD.
Seconds later, both Lancer and Spectre began deceleration, changing from prone flight positions to upright as the designated area came into view. Retro thrusters fired, ballistic descent becoming powered for a moment, and they smoothly landed feet first on the concrete floor with muffled thuds. Assault rifles snapped from flight harnesses, man and machine covering the landing zone as they scanned for movement. Finding none, they advanced towards the entry proper, eyes and sensors watching every corner as they approached the rusted industrial sliding doors.
They were at the door in moments, Adam taking overwatch as the Specter began to force them open to the groan of long rusted metal. Against Adam's expectations, nothing attacked them, and the doors parted to reveal a darkened machine hall. Shadows obscured much of the interior, thin columns of light weakly filtering in through jagged holes in the walls and ceiling the only illumination. Scrap and refuse was littered everywhere, a forest of loose wires hanging from the ceiling like jungle vines while rusting archaic machines sat in disused silence.
The story repeated itself as they penetrated deeper into the structure, his HUD adjusting to low-light mode and illuminating the darkened complex in various hues of green. Scrap, broken or defunct machinery, rust and crumbling walls. There were no signs of activity at all in years at least, if not decades. Not even the emergency lights were functional.
It was, by all evidence, a dilapidated industrial complex, as decrepit on the inside as it looked on the outside.
Which made the presence of the laser cannon emplacement all the more puzzling. Why put something like that if there was nothing worth defending?
An ear splitting crack followed on the thought as if summoned, the cannon's retort shaking the ground and raining down dust from the ceiling. Neither man nor drone stumbled as the ground shook, but the intensity of the blast was warning enough. They were getting close.
It wasn't much later that Adam found his first sign that not all was as abandoned as it seemed. Another door deep inside the complex, away from the exterior walls and showing less signs of wear than the others. More damning was the motion sensor installed above the door, its status light glowing a steady green instead of dead. And when he stepped closer, the door slid open with whisper quiet smoothness, allowing both Lancer and Spectre access.
"Well... this is new."
Gone was the dilapidation, the signs of disuse and abandonment. A vast factory chamber stretched out before him, reinforced walls spreading outwards and downwards for miles, every inch of it bustling with all the energy of tireless industry, beneath the actinic glare of floodlights. Massive crucibles line the complex walls by the dozen, pouring their molten cargo into molds with mechanical efficiency. Hundreds of conveyor belts criss-cross the depths, each black line dotted with countless components to be fed into coolers, stampers, assemblers and fabricators.
Even sealed behind his suit, he can almost taste the acrid tang of industrial smoke, thick clouds of scorched industrial effluent rising from the glowing deep like volcanic ash.
"I guess we know now why that cannon was put here," Adam remarked, looking down from the mezzanine at the endless hive of activity that never ceased or slowed. A dizzying array of active machinery and production, yet not a single soul aside from himself to run, monitor or manage the place. The conclusion was easy enough to make. The facility was fully automated.
Just like the guards.
His assault rifle snapped up as the combat suite blared a warning, directional markers pointing him towards the sound of clanking footsteps and grinding gears. Access points had slid open along the mezzanine, familiar figures trundling out from the darkened recesses by the dozens. Unlike their flying kin, these hunchbacked machines waddled and jumped on stumpy legs, their rust coated limbs skeletal and simplistic as they reached out with clear intent. Their eyes glowing with blood red aggression.
There was no hesitation.
Paired rifles barked simultaneously, a furious barrage from both Adam and Spectre ripping through the sentries. Without the agility of their aerial platforms, the machines were easy prey for the armor piercing spikes, their perforated bodies soon carpeting the floor. Carving open a path through the teaming machines, the pair advanced rapidly along the mezzanine, leaping down the stairs at the end to outrun their pursuers. But no sooner than their boots impacted the catwalk than a trio of flyers erupted up from the depths, guns already charging.
Missiles smashed into them before they could fire, erupting in stutter-blink flames that swallowed them whole. A brief status blurt from the Spectre flickered across the comm channels, and Adam blinked a reply of affirmation. It wasn't as capable as its primary gestalt, but he was glad EVANS had left a subroutine with him. Its quick responses never fell short of expectations.
Mindful of the complex's awakening defenses, the Lancer quickly advanced down the catwalk, gun out with the Spectre keeping overwatch. A part of him argued that it was foolishness to go deeper into the complex. That this far exceeded his reconnaissance orders. A larger part of him pushed on with the need for answers. He dearly hoped that somewhere in the complex there would be a command center, an archive, something that would shed light on everything that had happened since the long sleep, and how much of a threat it represented to the Yamanashi Bunker.
Thoughts like that drove him forward, through a set of doors and into a smelting chamber, a vast cavernous complex that forced him to stop momentarily in awe at its size. Here the ever-present smoke was thicker, almost choking. The soot clouds hued a bloody red by the glow of countless smelters pouring their molten cargo. Temperature alerts blatted in his HUD, warning of dangerous ambient heat. Even sealed inside his suit, staying for long meant certain death.
"Warning. Incoming hostiles. Northwest."
A glance at the motion tracker on the lower right corner of his HUD confirmed as much, a handful of dots that rapidly resolved into actual targets as he spun to face them. More flyers buzzed into view, walkers slung underneath their chassis. But unlike the earlier unarmed models, all too familiar cannons had been bolted onto their chests, energy discharges already building at their muzzle tips.
Adam swung an arm up, arcane seals spinning into visibility as he fed them power, bright arcs of electricity forming around the limb. A moment, a thought, and he thrust his arm outward, unleashing a thunderbolt of destruction. In the space of a heartbeat, the bolt struck his first target, discharging its destructive power as metal melted and circuits exploded. Yet it's amperage was too high, too great to be contained to a single body. More arcs formed around his victim, leapt to its compatriots, more machines shorting out and plummeting to the floor as their internals burned with electric fire.
Unfortunately, two flyers had managed to distance themselves from the group just enough to avoid the arcing lightning, quickly dropping their passengers on the platform in front of them. Not losing a moment, Adam clenched his outstretched hand, seal arrays changing as lightning was replaced by a concave wall of screaming winds. Energy bolts plunged into the barrier, only to be whipped away by the miniature gale.
Rapid fire guns thundered in reply and a stream of spikes streaked through the wall, hypervelocity rounds untouched by the barrier as they perforated rusted metal shells. The machines staggered under the assault, systems stuttering but not failing, only for Adam to deliver the finishing blow. An armored fist struck the wind wall, seals flaring with sudden solidness, and the gale erupted outwards, bowling over the machines and throwing them off the catwalk.
"All hostiles eliminated. No further contacts," EVANS declared, swapping the drone mech's magazine for a fresh one.
They continued forward, watching the path ahead for potential threats. But right after the two of them ascended a flight of stairs, Adam suddenly stopped in his tracks. Something was off. It was quiet. Too quiet he realized. The thunderous crack of the laser cannon and the static wail of its beam was missing, absent ever since they entered the factory in fact.
"Is there something wrong?" EVANS asked, not having the same level of awareness as its human counterpart.
"The cannon stopped firing," Adam noted. "That means the targets it was shooting at were destroyed."
"Or some of them managed to slip through and disabled the weapon," the AI postulated, putting forward its own hypothesis.
"Then there's only one way to find out."
Both the Lancer and the Spectre set out along the length of the smelting chamber's catwalk, watchful for any more enemies. But aside from their own footsteps, the only sounds that came were from leaking steam valves and the other machinery that continued to operate without pause. Before long, they came across another exit in the distance, a pair of sliding doors with a familiar set of green lit motion sensors installed above them. As they moved forward, Adam wondered at the identity of the targets getting shot at over the sea.
He honestly hoped it would prove to be an enemy of his enemy type of situation. A friendly face would be really helpful about now, especially if they could explain what had been happening on Earth for the last 9,000 years.
And if he was really lucky, they might even become a potential ally to him and everyone back at Endurance.
It was not, as he expected, another factory hall beyond the doors. Instead it was a simple corridor, and an open door to his left. But beyond that...
"¿Que demonios?" Adam exclaimed, very much surprised at the massive wreckage before them. "Is that... from an excavator?"
"The bucket-wheel portion of an excavator," EVANS added unnecessarily.
Or rather, the remains of one, resting atop a pile of rubble where it must have fallen. At some point, the entire circular frame had been cut loose from its parent body, and violently at that. The joints that should have connected the saw to an arm was little more than a twisted mass of blackened metal and wiring. And that was not the only damage that had been done to the machine.
Scorch marks, half melted craters that were indicative of high temperature impacts stitched all across its surface but without the shrapnel expected of projectile rounds. Some kind of energy weapons fire, clearly, perhaps even the same type as the one that had been shot at him not so long ago. These were understandable. But what truly mystified him though, were the cuts. Long lines had been scored deep into the metal, too straight to be random damage, too precise to be unaimed. Each strike had left not just been driven deep into the metal plating, he could see sparking cables and smoking devices through the rents.
Someone had used a blade to do all of this. Someone who had to be incredibly strong...
And insane enough to close the distance to do it, he thought, glancing at the wreckage up and down for a moment before taking another look around. Or desperate.
As badly wrecked as the excavator wheel was, the surrounding factory complex had fared even worse. Meter wide trenches had been gouged in haphazard lines everywhere he could see. Brick, mortar and concrete had been churned into dust, the shredded ends of rusted metal supports visible from where the trench lines had dug deep. More than one section of wall had crumpled as a consequence, and it was a miracle of engineering that this entire section of the building hadn't collapsed in on itself yet.
But no corpse. No splash of blood or fallen body, however pulverized it might have been.
So where… There.
His eye fell on another hole in the wall, almost behind where the wheel cutter had fallen. It was smaller than the others, damaged enough but not a rubble choked trench. It wasn't hard proof, but something in his gut said that it was the right way.
Assuming he could squeeze in. The wheel cutter was practically wedged against the wall, and the gap wasn't all that big. The Storm Javelin might fit, being of slimmer design than the other suits. The drone mech… not so much. Type-F Specters were built for heavy assault after all, not tunnel crawling... Hmm.
"EVANS, give me a scan, is that crawl space stable enough to take you pushing through?" He asked, gesturing at the base of the gap which was marginally larger. Not enough to actually accommodate the Spectre if only by a little, but with a bit of brute force...
The subroutine AI stepped forward, sensors splaying over the gap for a few seconds before responding.
"Affirmative. The surrounding structure is sufficiently intact to support such an action."
Adam looked around the gap one more time, gauging its width and height of the opening. "Good enough for me. I'll go through first. Have the drone follow behind."
As the Lancer hunched down a little and prepared to squeeze through the gap, EVANS' voice suddenly crackled in his ear, startling him.
"Alert."
"What is it?" He hissed slightly, holding back his frustration at the AI's interruption.
"I have detected anomalous thermal readings not far from here, potentially human in origin," EVANS stated.
As soon as Adam heard that sentence, his mind immediately went into overdrive. For a brief moment, he felt a flicker of hope in his chest. He was astonished that there were other humans besides him and everyone in the bunker still alive in this world.
"What?! Where?!"
"Approximately 20 metres from this position, through that opening."
Adam bent down and hastily moved through the opening. Once he got out the other side, it took only a moment of frantic searching before he spotted what looked to be a person lying on the floor with a concrete boulder next to their back. The Lancer quickly rushed to the figure, leaving the Spectre behind as it crawled through the gap. As he approached, the details became clearer. And stranger. It was a young woman, seemingly unconscious, white shoulder length hair concealing her slumped over face.
But her clothing was… more peculiar than anything he could have expected. It was a dress for one, the lacy black fabric stretched tight across her figure, with flaring elbow length sleeves and an abbreviated skirt that revealed a lot of thigh. Rounding out her dress were elegant looking white gloves and a pair of thigh high stiletto boots. Even the black scarf around her neck was some kind of lacey design that oozed high fashion. All of which made the strange sword embedded in the concrete floor beside her stand out even more for how it didn't fit together.
But all of that took secondary concern to who she was, and what answers she could provide.
If she could.
There was no reaction as he knelt close to the woman, inspecting her as the Spectre followed behind. In fact, it almost looked like she wasn't even breathing at all. Something that would have worried him a lot more if he couldn't see her body heat off his thermals, too warm to be freshly dead. But that might not have meant anything, he realized as he looked more closely. There were wounds on her body, cuts and tears along her torso that didn't bleed, while the long gash along her arm ran deep enough that he could see a total lack of organic material underneath.
Instead of muscle and bone, tightly packed metallic cables imitated the biological form in shape so closely that it would have been a perfect match save for color and texture, wrapped around a glint of hard edged steel that likely imitated the skeleton. The prostheses available in the Yamanashi Bunker couldn't even begin to compare in terms of realism.
How much of her body was her original, he wondered.
Triggering his sensor suite, he linked up with the Spectre's own set, projecting a glowing orange halo on her arm as their scanning beams began to run over her. But before the scanners could start processing the data, the woman stirred, her eyes snapping open to lock onto both Lancer and Spectre. Immediately she started twitching, limbs spasming as she struggled to move. Her mouth opened, but the only sound that emerged from it was a harsh rasp, devoid of coherent words.
"Miss, please calm down," he assured her, making soothing gestures with his free hand. "We're here to help. Just relax, everything will be f-"
"This person is not a human," EVANS suddenly piped up into his ear, turning off Spectre's scan process.
"The hell are you talking about?" Adam asked incredulously as he turned his sight to the Spectre. The AI's claim was preposterous. Prosthesis or no, there was no way-
"Deep scanning has found no matches for organic matter. She is a synthetic creation, an android."
Adam's eyes went wide in shock. He'd thought the prostheses were uncannily realistic, but an android? Could it be? Even her eyes seemed far too expressive to be artificial, filled with fear as they-
"Hey, hey, it's fine. It's fine," he shushed, raising a hand in a placating gesture at the frightened woman who continued to struggle despite his attempts, another burst of meaningless noises emerging from her throat. Seeing the futility of it, he let both his hand and face fall in defeat. Android or no, seeing her react like that to him hurt.
Looking at the damaged form of the android, lying helplessly on the floor before him, Adam felt a familiar sensation grip his heart. The last time he'd felt the same was during the Legion War, trying to save as many people in any way he possibly could. Trying… and failing far too often. But failures or not, he was still a Lancer, still committed to that one driving goal to save those he could reach.
"Is there anything we can do to help her?" Adam asked.
"Standard nanogel application is not recommended at this moment," EVANS answered. "This android is of unknown construction and technology. Without an existing blueprint to rely on, it is not possible to repair the damage through nanogel without considerable study of her technological makeup beforehand."
"Damn it!" He cursed in frustration. "Is there anything we can do for her now?"
"There exists a possibility," the AI hedged. "I am detecting various low strength radio signals of unusual packet density emanating from within her chassis. It may be possible that as an android of advanced construction, she has been configured to interface with computer systems directly. It may be possible to attempt a direct connection to her information network to bridge the language gap."
"And hopefully she may be able to tell us how to fix her," Adam mused.
"Correct," EVANS affirmed. "However, her transmission signals are of unknown format. A remote connection is not viable under the circumstances. I will require a direct physical interface with her network hardware in order to attempt an interface."
At that, the AI stepped forward, a silvery dataspike sliding out from under the Spectre's right forearm with a smooth snick.
It wasn't the best thing he could have done, in retrospect.
She practically exploded in panic, limbs spasming against the ground, the volume of her unintelligible speech rising in intensity and fear. Tears rolled down her cheek as terrified eyes darted between the Lancer towering before her and the advancing Spectre, barely able to shake her head in panic.
"Whoah! Whoah, stop!" One hand gets flung out towards the Spectre, bringing it to a halt. "Wait. Let me try to calm her down first."
Turning back towards her, Adam made a few soothing sounds to try and reassure her. "Shhh. It's okay. It's okay. Don't worry. We're here to help. It'll be alright."
Only to fail completely as his words were ignored, her hoarse cries and struggles growing in intensity, however feeble. Even without understandable words, her fear was a palpable thing, of him, of what he might do to her. As if he was a mon-
He cursed mentally as the thoughts connected the obvious.
Could it be?
With a single command thought, his faceplate hissed open, revealing not just his tanned and stubbled face, but his humanity as well. As soon as the android saw his exposed face, her struggles stopped almost immediately, her expression one of confused scrutiny.
"Everything's going to be fine," Adam reassured her once more, his voice imbued with a low, gentle tone. "EVANS," he gestured towards the Spectre, "just needs to interface with you so we can understand you. That's all."
Seconds passed in tense silence. Then as if a decision was made, he felt the tension bleeding out of the android, her struggles slowing. Though whether in defeat or acceptance, he didn't know. Once she had calmed enough, he slowly lifted her wrist, giving him a better look at the exposed gash upon her arm. It was, as he suspected, mostly bundles of fine greyish cable underneath, the potentially electoractive fibers packed tightly in mimicry of the human musculature. But there were several black cables that were threaded alongside the synthetic muscle that stood out, marked with tiny alien script. It wasn't a surety, but Adam was willing to bank on his guess that they were his target.
"Okay EVANS, now slowly extend your datajack. Put it in flex mode and pass it over."
Without a word, the AI complied, the datajack cable writhing like a living thing as it extended, it's interface head snaking over to Adam's waiting hand. Grasping it, he brought it down to the wound in her arm where the spike split up to reveal a trio of smart manipulators, micro-LEDs in the digits lighting up the interior. The android made a blurting sound, and though he still didn't understand a word, it sounded worried, fearful.
"It's alright, it's alright. It won't hurt you," he reassured her, hands raised in a peaceful gesture. "We just want to figure out how to understand one another so we can help you."
Maybe it was something in his voice. Even as he spoke words she couldn't have understood, the android slowly began to untense, eventually allowing him to bring the cable closer to the exposed wiring. Almost immediately the manipulators perked, micro-sensors picking up signs of data flow, before attaching themselves to the cables with a short lived arc of electricity.
The android started a little at that, but she didn't react any further than that.
"It'll be fine. I promise." He gave her a gentle smile, receiving a hesitant nod in return. "Alright, EVANS. Do it."
There was a beep of acknowledgement, and his HUD flashed through on the digital handshake. As it did, he found his attention drifting back to the android who was giving him a silent stare in return, an expression of confusion marring her features. Her features… it looked so life-like to him, the hair, the eyes, the way she furrowed her brow. There was nothing there aside from her injuries that did not mark her as inhuman. That someone had managed to advance so far, to create someone like her, it was beyond amazing even to someone like him. How far ahead were her people compared to Project Endurance?
But a part of him felt agitated. Hostile robots, androids, this wasn't the future he had expected going into cryo. He hadn't expected much to be honest, but this was radically outside of expectations. What did all of this mean for the remnants of humanity? Were they all going to wake up only to face yet another war of extermination?
But thoughts on humanity's chances of survival in this new world were interrupted by warning alerts and the garbled screech of static in his ear.
"S-signif-ficant com-complication," the AI garbled.
"EVANS, what's wrong?!" Adam frantically demanded. A simple interface job shouldn't have affected the AI like this. His mind flashed over the possibilities. Counter-intrusion software? Had he guessed wrong?
"I-I-In-fective code," came the stuttered reply. "Sys-tem firewalls b-b-b-breached."
His mouth gaped, frozen in shock. Eyes darted to the android, whose own eyes remained locked on his. Only a moment, but then his training kicked in.
"Disconnect!" He ordered, one hand flashing down to rip out the cables a moment later when the Spectre didn't respond immediately.
Whatever his hopes, they were dashed when the Spectre began to shake.
"Se-se-cond-ary s-s-systems compromised," EVANS stuttered. "Core system-tem-tem at-at-at risk. C-c-ca-se firebb-b-b-" it cut off, words swallowed in a squall of static.
His heavy pistol snapped up without even a heartbeat spared on thinking, hard drilled instincts centering the muzzle over the left chest port where the Spectre's central processing systems were housed. It didn't matter anymore whether the android was the source of the virus or its victim. Firebreak. Every soldier on the field knew it, drilled it in until it was second nature during the War. In the event of capture or subversion...
His trigger finger tightened...
And abruptly loosened as he jerked the sidearm down. Cursing up a storm, a mental command sent a datajack slithering out of his arm bracer, the cable slapping into his palm as he rose towards the Spectre.
There was a shriek of static from the spasming machine instead of the expected answer, and Adam tensed. But a moment later, an armored hatch opened in its chest, revealing the central processing core and dataport.
There were so many ways that this was a bad idea. It was an unknown but extremely advanced virus. He wasn't the best, or even among the top percentile of Uplinks. His experience was in the repair of corrupted software, not active cyberwarfare defense. He might not be able to do anything but waste precious time. They were deep in enemy territory, and the distraction could prove more than fatal with them both compromised. So many ways…
"Santa Maria vela a nosotros tontos," he muttered, slamming the jack into the waiting port. "Initiate level 2 neural connection."
A heartbeat passed. Another. And then he felt the interface buried in the base of his skull hum with activity. Imagined its neural spikes charging with power as neurons were hooked, entangled, the fingernail sized device cracking open its digital maws wide.
And swallowed him whole.
~~|>> [-//=+=\\-] <<|~~
Author's Note: And Adam Menendez has finally made first contact with a YoRHa android in the Abandoned Factory. Those that had played NieR: Automata, andat least finished Route A, will know who that android is.
Furthermore, due to personal reasons that we can't disclose in public, both @Mashadarof402 and I will not write the next chapter of this story for several months. No, that does not mean either of us is dropping this project. There's nothing bad happened. There's no conflict happened between us, we're both alright with each other. I'm also hoping that having active feedback and discussion in this thread will help, so here we are. We hope you all enjoy this chapter.
Several minutes ago, she was lying on the concrete floor dying alone with regret, with no hope of being rescued.
But now, even though she was still helpless, 11B found herself staring in confusion and curiosity at her saviors. They weren't what she expected at all. Not YoRHa, not the Resistance either. The tall, intimidating blue-white humanoid robot was clearly neither Machine nor android, motionless since it's partner connected to a port on its chest.
While the robot was an oddity, 11B's other savior, who had been kneeling motionless next to her, was an enigma.
She didn't know why the Male Android had suddenly closed his eyes and stopped moving as soon as he inserted a cable into the robot. She assumed it had to do with their attempt to purge the Logic Virus inside her when she felt a connection attempt to her own systems. Through a hard line connection through her damaged arm no less. It was baffling that they would use such an archaic method to connect to her systems.
But as long as she had a chance to be saved, she wouldn't care about their methods, obsolete or not.
It would have been easy to mistake him as another robot, had it not been for the faceplate opening up to reveal his true face. A large armored suit stylized in white and black colors, it was unusually decorative with gold furnishings and even an odd cape of all things. Both design and aesthetics were unlike anything she had seen before.
But several minutes had passed, and 11B was still lying on the floor, the beginning edges of worry gnawing at her as she stared at the immobile armored android. Neither the armored suit nor his features were familiar to her. Was he a secret model from the Resistance, built to fight against the Machines? Some kind of assault model? And his companion robot, perhaps something analogous to the YoRHa Pods? But the idea didn't explain why he hadn't spoken to her in the Chaos language, using entirely unfamiliar words instead.
Strangest of all was her reaction to his opened faceplate. He matched no known android model, had transmitted no identification codes, his continued silence and her helplessness should have been worrying.
Yet the moment she saw his face, her agitation and fear were gone, just like that. Which should have been more alarming, not less, but somehow she just wasn't. She couldn't- didn't immediately trust him, but there was something about the Male Android that she'd calmed down and let him help her. Not that she could have offered up more than a pitiful resistance anyway if she had disagreed.
It was difficult to clear her mind, to grasp at any of her function modules. But he appeared to be… familiar in some way. As if he were something more to just what she could see.
Who… who are you?
Without warning, he jerked upwards, inhaling sharply and gasping for air in between harsh coughs. Listening to the coughing, seeing him spitting out gobs of semi-viscous liquid, the facts started slotting together and 11B came to a sudden realization. The oddity of her reactions, the unfamiliar language, and now this. Mimicking involuntary actions could be done of course, but no android would ever waste processing cycles for that, not out in the field like this.
What are you?
There was no answer of course, the apparent android taking a moment to compose himself before removing the dataspike. But in the seconds that passed, 11B noticed her sight becoming clearer, and the painful feedback loops subsiding from the rest of her body.
The YoRHa Battler had never felt this elated in her life before. Whatever he and his companion had done, they must have created and deployed a vaccine against the Logic Virus, her self-repair systems finally booting up to repair the damage that had been wrought.
As the android composed himself, removing the dataspike in the process, 11B noticed the static and data corruption clearing from her sight input, the system lockouts of her body resolving one after the other. A wash of relief shot through YoRHa Battler at the obvious conclusion. Whoever this strange android and strange humanoid Pod were, they must have administered a vaccine for the Logic Virus. Already her self-repair systems were starting to come online, repairing her damaged body.
She wanted to thank them, but with her speakers still malfunctioning and low priority on repairs, she could only manage incoherent words and static filled rasps. She would have to wait until more of her body was restored.
At that moment, the Humanoid Pod raised its weapon, turning and firing the assault rifle at something outside of her view. Alarmed, she shifted her head, trying to see what it was shooting at. Machines, because of course it had to be them. Several Stubbies were already on the floor, their rusted metal bodies riddled with holes. But more were stomping through the large hole in the chamber wall.
Damn these Machines! They don't know when to stop!
The Male Android seemed to share the same thoughts, spitting out a probable curse as his faceplate snapped shut. Grabbing her arm, he pulled 11B over his shoulders, securing her in place while his other hand snapped up her sword, which disappeared into storage space. Together with his Pod, they rushed out from the chamber, forcing their way through the incoming Machines in a storm of fire.
Demonstrating more combat independence than YoRHa models, the Pod took point. Its weapon barked in short controlled bursts, cutting down the hostile Machines as they appeared. And when that wasn't enough, it fired its underbarrel weapon, some kind of explosive launcher that decimated a group of Stubbies that came crashing through the wall. More explosives came in the form of guided missiles, launching from a back mounted launcher and slamming into several Flyers that drifted up from the open spaces between decks.
It was noisy, brutal and far less elegant than any YoRHa Pod she'd ever known, but 11B couldn't deny the effectiveness of its aggression programming. Particularly when paired with someone who wasn't pushing their performance like she knew the android should be capable of.
Even if the Male Android had his hands full with her, he didn't seem to be moving all that fast in her estimation. Burdened with her or not, Resistance models should be faster, shouldn't they? Or had his design traded mobility for protection? It didn't seem to fit. Even with an external suit, he didn't seem better armed or armored than his Pod. Maybe she'd get her chance to see him in action later.
With how easily his Pod was dealing with those pesky Machines, probably much later. As was, the odds of escaping intact seemed to be in their favor-
The harsh ring of metallic stomps interrupted her thoughts, whirring gears pulling her attention to look at their source. Her eyes widened in shock. Stubbies, Small Bipeds and more were pouring through the hole in ever increasing numbers.
-or not.
The Male Android took one look behind, then ahead, and cursed. In that moment of distraction, Flyers descended out in front, Stubbies hanging onto the undercarriage to complete the encirclement.
Despite the full body armor, 11B felt the android tensing beneath her, the air suddenly filled with a deep hum that quickly built into a whine not unlike the Ho229's engines spooling up. Before she could process the source or cause of the sound, her carrier suddenly jumped, no, flew. A half dozen meters passed by in a flash as they ascended, rising through the factory levels in a blast of wind and the sound of high performance thrusters.
And then they were out in the open air, skimming past the factory just above rooftop height. Flight Units, she realized with a small pang of jealousy. They had integrated Flight Units inside the armor. Where and when did the Resistance get the technology to build something like that?
No answers came as she watched the Machine Factory dwindle in the distance, and she put the question aside as three Goliath-class Machines came into view, the gigantic Machines converging on the hulk of a fourth.
Did another of my squadron mates make it through? Nobody else was supposed to be in the area.
But then again neither was this strange android who had saved her.
Needing a closer look, she pulled the visor back up from her neck and over her eyes.
Her feed instantly darkened, 11B's visuals catching an incredibly bright flash erupting from the hulk of the fourth Goliath-class. Even with the auto-polarization against the damaging light, she couldn't help but flinch, averting her eyes from the blast and tensing for what she knew would come next.
The shockwave arrived moments later, slamming into them with enough deafening force to pick them up and throw them spinning out of control. She slipped out of the android's grip. Pinwheeling across the air, the ground and sky flashing across her vision, she had one long moment of watching a multi-storey building approach with terminal finality. Then a hand caught her, the Male Android reeling her in.
She felt, rather than heard the flare of thrusters one more time. Then his back was towards the building, arms wrapping tight around her. The last thing 11B saw the translucent energy field, shimmering blue against the wall of the building before they crashed.
~~|>> [-//=+=\\-] <<|~~
Author's Note: After more than eight months of hiatus since the last chapter, @Mashadarof402 and I have returned to pick up this story once more. Not only that, we get to read this story from 11B's perspective.
We're terribly sorry for the late update as real-life didn't go easy on us. Apart from trying to overcome the creative burnout and the absence of passion, our personal lives have blown up since the COVID-19 pandemic hit our country. The repeated lockdowns, a sharp slowdown in our nation's economic activity, our bigoted, corrupt and incompetent politicians engage in a Game of Thrones-style political brawl, plus other nonsense stuffs happening in Malaysia on top of the rising number of COVID cases and deaths...
On the other hand, we're taking our time at home during the lockdowns binging on Netflix, the internet, online gaming, playing new games, get preoccupied with other IRL things... Yeah, you could see why it took us this long to update this.
Nevertheless, the notion of dropping this project hasn't crossed our minds yet. We hope that your replies and discussions in this thread will encourage us to keep writing this story.
Until then, stay safe. Wear a mask and wash your hands.
11B awoke from her from Emergency Suspension mode with a gasp.
As per standard YoRHa protocol, the first thing she immediately did was go through her personal log data and system diagnostics, eventually finding no signs of degradation. Visuals were clear of static and data corruption, and even if the metal plating in front of her face meant she couldn't see much, critical status updates scrolled through her display, all in the green. A good sign that the Logic Virus had been ultimately purged from her systems. Even though her legs still remained inoperable, the self-repair programs were well underway on the motive systems, promising a return to functionality soon.
But soon still meant that for all intents and purposes, 11B was still a cripple for now and would remain largely immobile for a while longer.
Trying to lift herself up, the YoRHa Battler immediately realized that there was something heavy pinning her body and arms in place. A moment later, her eyes widened as the identity of that something clicked in her mind.
That unknown android…
Looking up, she found herself staring into the gold and white faceplate of her rescuer's armor. She was lying on top of his motionless body and his arm was what had trapped her in place. Fortunately, she found it not locked in place and it was easy to remove herself from it. Rolling off him and onto her back, she lied there on the floor, scrutinizing every inch of his armored form.
It was not at all like the heavy armor worn by YoRHa assault troops. Sleek yes, but much more bulky. And the right arm was dissimilar to the left, covered in additional chamfered triangle metal plates. Whether it was just extra armor or something else, its design gave her no clue.
But it was clear he had shielded her, taking the brunt of the impact when they smashed through the wall given the damage. Both limbs and backplate bore dents and gouges, paint scraped off as a result of the hard landing and the trench they had carved across the floor. It did not seem to be more than superficial damage, but the android was motionless, as if inactive.
But when 11B looked at his faceplate, the visor was active, softly glowing blue. The armor was obviously still functional, but she was uncertain if that meant anything for the occupant inside. Was he alive, dead? Was he in enforced shut down while self-repair systems like those in YoRHa models went to work? Could his Humanoid Pod help him?
Acting on that thought, 11B pushed herself up, supported solely on her arms while her legs still stretched out uselessly.
But wherever his Pod had gone, she found no sign of it anywhere in the area around them. Not even wreckage. Just the debris from the building they had crashed through. Most likely his Pod had ended somewhere away from their own site, crippled or destroyed on crashing. Even Machine Flyers could not come out from such an impact unscathed, powered as it was by that shockwave.
That shockwave...
She knew there was only one way a detonation of that size could have been created. Either out of desperation or as a final act of defiance, two YoRHa survivors from her squadron had detonated their black boxes in order to destroy the remaining Goliath-class Machines. But the blast would have leveled significant parts of the factory that were close to the shores.
Parts of the factory where she had been trapped if she remembered correctly, dying from the Logic Virus. Hopefully, the blast would have erased any trail she might have left behind if YoRHa decided to send any recovery teams to search the area.
But she couldn't take any chances. Sooner or later, more YoRHa units would arrive to the surface to carry out their assignments, and they would stumble across her if she was not careful. If they found her, she would be hunted down and decommissioned on the spot.
She had gone past the point of no return and nothing would change that now. The plan was still the same. Survival, evasion and escape from any YoRHa units that might be on the surface. But her personal knowledge of this city's interior was so limited as to be useless. That information hadn't been considered relevant to their mission. Only her Pod contained the in-depth map and known ground routes of the local area. Sadly, it was no longer within reach. The Pod had been destroyed alongside her Flight Unit when she had been shot down over the sea.
She would have had a better idea of the surroundings if not for 16D! That busybody Defender had entered her room without permission at the worst possible moment, forcing her to interrupt the copy process before she could finish downloading them off the Pod to her databanks. She'd snapped at her, that naïve, stupid good for noth-
11B quickly shut off that particular train of thought with a shake of her head.
Stop it! It's not her fault!
It took a moment to regain her composure and think about things rationally. Whatever the hurts she had about 16D, getting lost in recrimination grievances wouldn't help her. She had to focus on solving the problem on hand. She could dwell on her… turbulent relationship with 16D once she had located a suitable shelter and hiding spot within the city.
Then, she could follow through on her original plan. Unlike the Machine-held parts of the city, the location of allied units had been made a priority packet for the whole squadron rather than just their Pods. In the event that they were shot down, it was deemed important they knew where to find friendlies or at least make it back to allied territory. Territory which included the Resistance Camp.
She just needed to get out of Machine territory first. After that, would come the discarding of her old identifiers. It was a shame to lose the uniform, but it would have to go, along with everything that connected her to YoRHa. The cosmetic changes would be easy, her ID codes less so without her Pod, but it was doable. But the hardest would be also the easiest for YoRHa to track if they gained a hint of it. She had a few ideas, and hopefully the Resistance Camp would have materials needed to mask her black box signal.
It wouldn't be perfect, even at her most optimistic estimates the black box's signal couldn't be completely hidden from a close enough scrutiny. But as long as she kept her guard up, it would have to do.
And once that was done, her supplies gathered and intel on the surrounding area updated, would come the last stage of her plan. Figuring out where to go. Staying in the Resistance Camp was out of the question. She wasn't like the Independists, but she wanted out of this war for good. Maybe there would be others like her, sick of the war, but she doubted they'd be easy to find. And neither would she once she made her move. It wasn't safe in this region, and she couldn't trust that any of the androids here wouldn't turn her in.
But what about him?
11B's thoughts went back to the him in question, the android still motionless on the floor next to her feet.
He wasn't YoRHa, and while cosmetic modifications weren't unheard of amongst the ground forces, she suspected he wasn't one of the Resistance's either. And that didn't account for his equipment. It was too divergent, too different from anything she had seen or heard of issued to the Army of Humanity. The attached weapons were an oddity too, why wasn't he using an NFCS to store them? He was an unknown, and right now for her, unknowns meant danger.
Even if he had saved her from the Logic Virus, then the Machine reinforcements, he couldn't have known she was a deserter. If he found out, he'd surely turn her over to YoRHa or the Resistance without hesitation. Assuming he didn't try to kill her himself.
It... was a line of thought she didn't like. She didn't want to think that the strange helpful android who couldn't speak a word of Chaos language would turn on her like that. It was likely a slim hope, but…
She would at least stay for a little while longer to see if he would perform any self-repairs and reinitialize himself. She did owe him that much at least. After that, they would go their separate ways. She would go to the Resistance Camp, and him to wherever next that his mission demanded. And that would be that.
Hopefully.
Scrutinizing his armor, she found her thoughts circling over how strangely he had acted, trying to find an explanation that made sense. But then she realized that among that strangeness, he was taking far too long to reboot. Much longer than she had in fact. Worry began gnawing at her as worse case scenarios suggested themselves.
But if she wanted to do anything about that, she'd have to help herself first. Stabilize her damaged systems, then restore mobility. After that… she'd do what she could.
Very little, if she was being honest.
She wasn't a Pod, never mind a Scanner. Battlers like her had limited E- capabilities. Communication pings and digital handshakes weren't going to be useful here exactly. Not that she didn't try, but like the rest of him, his communications link remained inactive.
Maybe if she poked him...
"Tch," she scoffed at the thought. What a stupid idea. As if that would work.
But it wouldn't hurt to try...
Straightening her position, 11B reached out to his right arm, giving it a shake. As expected, it elicited no response from him. Nonplussed, she tried again. This time she put a hand on his breastplate and shook even harder.
This was a waste of ti-
"GAH!"
She jerked her hand back in surprise when the android jolted out of his inactive state. His breath, and wasn't that a strange thing to hear, was short and rapid from behind the faceplate before trailing off to a soft, almost-inaudible groan. Slowly, he turned his head towards 11B, the azure visor of his helmet meeting her gaze. In a fraction of a second, she wondered what thoughts were going on behind that faceplate.
Relief, she hoped, at seeing a friendly face in a city swarming with Machines. As long as her secret remained that way…
But no words were said as he turned his head back, arms moving to push himself upright and prompting 11B to scooch away a little to give him some space. Once on his feet, there was a sharp hiss, and 11B watched as the armored suit unfolded from the rear, revealing itself as some kind of armored exoskeleton as the somewhat smaller pilot emerged. Clad in a dark grey bodysuit, the pilot hopped down to the floor, briefly stumbling before catching onto the suit for balance.
It was an oddity, but one quickly dismissed as once he was upright, the pilot materialized a transparent pack filled with blue liquid in a flash of light. Wasting no time, he placed it on the exoskeleton's hand and 11B noted the sudden wafting of condensation as a thin layer of frost instantly encased the pack. Before she could ponder on the why, the answer became apparent when the pilot applied the frozen pack to his head.
11B was confused. Manifesting localized cryogenic fields on a platform that small was something currently beyond any android organization she knew of, and not for lack of trying. The program to do so must have been exceedingly complex. On the other hand, why was he using such an inefficient and crude method of heat dispersal? Had all the development budget gone into the exoskeleton and left the pilot as a sub par model?
It was ridiculous.
His dark grey attire didn't give the look of being made out of cast offs at the least. The design resembled a Resistance uniform in some ways, but looked more refined and methodical than the occasionally eclectic Old World military battle dresses used by most androids in the Army of Humanity she was familiar with. But contrasting that were his hands, bare of any artificial skin and looking absolutely primitive by current android standards.
The facts were a jumbled mess. His primitive design, unfamiliar language and mimicry of involuntary actions back at the Machine Factory. All of that indicated that he was an old android, possibly thousands of years old and almost as long out of contact with the world if he didn't even have the rudiments of Chaos language. Yet he was equipped with an advanced combat exoskeleton with cutting edge technology built into it.
He was a conundrum.
But thoughts of his oddity were shelved when he turned towards 11B, seating himself in front of the former YoRHa Battler with a hand set against his chest.
"Ah-Dum," he introduced himself, gesturing at her in turn with an expectant look.
Unfortunately, her speakers were still malfunctioning and low priority on repairs. 11B instead pointed to her throat and swiped her hand across her mouth as a way to indicate her current inability to speak.
It was as basic a form of communication as she could think of, one which got the gist of it across when he nodded in clear acknowledgement.
Then he continued to confuse her by lying down on the floor next to her feet, eyes closed, and the frosted over pack still applied to his head. Was he still damaged somehow? It wouldn't be a surprise after the crash, but if he was still in the process of self-repair, why the heat dispersal pack? Was his design that poorly optimized?
Pushing her thoughts to less unproductive directions, she found her eyes drawn to a peculiar blue circular patch on his right sleeve. It was a white emblem with an outline of Earth's map, an azimuthal equidistant projection centered upon the North Pole with all the continents radiating outwards from it. And surrounding that map was a pair of white olive branches, sitting atop a blue background. Like the pilot, the exoskeleton he wore, and just about everything about him, she didn't recognize the emblem either.
Though perhaps that was a question for a later time.
Whoever he was, this Ah-Dum didn't look like he was associated with any of the major android factions on Earth.
But at the same time, he couldn't have been just some ancient relic from several thousand years back who was reactivated recently. Not with the exoskeleton and Humanoid Pod in tow, both of them looking far too pristine, and more importantly, more advanced than he was. The thought that he had simply woken up for some arcane reason, stumbled into some abandoned advanced weapons lab and then made off with both prototype armor and Pod was considered and dismissed almost as quickly as it had formed.
That was just too ridiculous even for her.
But that still left her with equally unlikely theories as to who he was and where he came from. High fidelity mimicry of involuntary biological functions, primitive limb designs and substandard cooling. All of that sitting right next to examples of high performance technology. There were just too many contradictions about him to make any kind of educated guess. And the easiest way of getting some proper answers was stymied by the fact that he apparently just didn't speak any known dialect of the Chaos language.
Until they could actually talk to one another, 11B simply wasn't going to be getting any answers from him.
We're strangers now, but I hope you'll be reasonable about this Ah-Dum. I really don't want this to end up in a fi-
...
...
...
Wait a minute...
As 11B stared at him longer, she found herself focusing more on the uncanny yet mundane things about his body. Mimicry of involuntary biological functions, she remembered thinking. Now that she was looking for it, there was more to observe. Ah-Dum's lips kept shifting slightly at semi-random intervals despite being in a rest state. His chest as well, kept rising and falling by minute amounts, her auditory pickups detecting the rhythmic sound of breathing that matched to said chest movements. Rhythmic, but not entirely even. There were minute differences in timing and volume for each cycle she noted.
There was... there was a consistency to that inconsistency, as strange as it was to contemplate. Not even the most detail oriented androids would have done something like that in the biomimicry of their creators. Almost like he was actually-
...
...
...
N-no... No, it can't be...
11B suddenly felt as if her entire world had been turned upside down as idle thoughts became… not quite facts, but close. It would explain so many of her earlier questions, it would make sense. Underneath the advanced technology of her YoRHa visor, she laid wide disbelieving eyes on the brown-skinned figure.
I-is he...? Could he...?
Consciousness returned to Adam Menendez slowly as sleep began to fade. It tickled in his brain, pushing him slowly from the borders between sleep and waking. Enough that the throbbing headache from earlier began to make itself known again, lessened though it was by the cold gel pack.
How... long?
The thought was a barely coherent spark, not helped by the headache nor the rough concrete floor that was his current bed. Shifting the gel pack slightly over his closed eyes to better block the glaring light, he tried to fall back to sleep.
Only to remember where exactly he had passed out.
Eyes snapped open, but instead of a mechanical foe or worse, the Lancer was greeted by the sight of pale, shoulder length hair framing a face that was staring right back at him.
Or at least, he thought she was staring at him, the black blindfold covering her eyes made it impossible to tell. She was a lot closer than earlier too, kneeling on the floor next to him. Her posture ramrod straight as if she'd been like that the whole time.
Curiosity flickered through his mind, but before it could form into a question, the woman brought her hand up to her chest, palm inwards. Mimicking his earlier introduction, he realized.
And like him, she spoke her name.
"Veis Aksteiz."
The language was strange, unlike anything he had heard of before. Yet the name was also much more personable than he had expected for an android, and uplifting to know. A name like that felt more personal, more familiar to him than a simple numeric designation he half-expected her to have. It was more… human. And out here, with the closest being to a human around in hundreds of kilometers, that gave him some comfort.
Nice to meet you too, Veis Aksteiz.
Adam nodded in kind with a small smile to her greeting, before he felt the strain of the concussion pulling him under again. He hoped it would wear off by the time he woke up again.
~~|>> [-//=+=\\-] <<|~~
Author's Note: The part where 11B's reaction to seeing Adam is actually inspired by a segment from @lolrus555's NieR: Automata/Drakengard fanfic Singularity [D]isplacement. I asked him on PM if I could borrow small parts of the narration from his fanfic, change (a lot) and then apply it to this chapter. He was actually fine with it.
It's not exactly word-for-word, just using certain sentences, changed some of the words with their synonyms and edited some stuffs as well. Such as word arrangement, punctuation and so on. But the main idea is exactly like his.
Also, why 11B called herself "Veis Aksteiz" to Adam?
Keep in mind that in NieR 'verse, Chaos language is supposedly so divergent from English and any Old World language that they have no similarities to each other at all. Therefore, it makes sense that "11B" is pronounced very differently in Chaos.
Furthermore, "Veis" is based on the Hebrew letter "Bet", while "Aksteiz" is based on "üksteist", which is an Estonian word for "eleven".
To be frank, I was surprised that he added that anger vein on Adam's irritated expression. I could've asked him to remove the anger vein but since I found it amusing, I decided to let that remain in the image.
Adam banged his cybernetic fist three times against the white plate on the Storm Javelin's right side, checking if the armor's integrity was still holding up after it had been patched up with nanogel. It seemed perfectly fine so far, but that didn't deter him from pounding his fist on the armor a few more times out of an abundance of caution. He needed to make sure this particular section of the suit was still as solid as the rest.
Especially after it had been hit by energy weapons over the forest in the Kanagawa Prefecture. Even now, he still couldn't get over how a single energy bolt had managed to effortlessly punch through the Storm's Kinesis shield and tear through a good chunk of the armor plate, injuring him in the process. A single shot from what he was now increasingly certain was a foot soldier equivalent doing that much damage, unbelievable. He hoped the nanogel patch was sturdy enough to take another hit without completely failing.
But he couldn't rely on that. These rustbuckets presented a significant problem, and he needed a solution to that if he ever ran into them again out there.
Until then, if he was going to survive any further battles where he couldn't rely on his suit's protective systems, he'd have to simply adopt a more stringent combat ethos - don't get shot. Just like how it was in the last years of the Legion War, when he and his squadmates had to face new enemies armed with actual directed energy weapons of all things.
Ah Dios, what a nightmare... The Lancer grimaced at the thought of those insane engagements, shuddering at the revived memories of having to dodge lightspeed weapons that could carve him apart the instant they had a clean shot. Even in the dying stages of the war, those white monstrosities were still often able to come up with some nasty surprises.
Pushing the thoughts aside, Adam took a few steps back to give the Storm a full look. It wasn't pretty, but it wasn't terrible either. Dents, gouges and scraped paint practically covered the suit, not a single surface plate was left unblemished. Even so, the Javelin didn't look all that different from the other times when he returned to base after a mission.
"Not enough to give me an earful," Adam muttered, remembering the moments when Anjali Dutta, the Indian engineer back in the Yamanashi Bunker, gave him a lengthy reprimand or lecture every time he brought back the suit with extensive battle damage. Assuming of course, that this mission wouldn't be any different from what he used to carry out.
Sometimes he wondered if he was pushing his luck, performing solo assignments this deep into hostile territory. Though technically, it wasn't quite "solo", not when he had EVANS-Main and -Subroutine accompanying him through such missions. Regardless, instead of Legion grunts, he had robots to deal with. Hunchbacked machines everywhere, and most of them armed with energy weapons. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Though speaking of… he worked his lips, feeling the dryness within. He hadn't hydrated at all in hours, hadn't he? Sending a mental command to his prosthetic arm, Adam's hand was engulfed in a flash of light, fading to reveal a steel canteen in it. But as he was about to open a lid, he caught a figure in his peripheral vision. Pulled back to the present, he quickly turned his sights to the only other person in the room.
Veis Aksteiz, the android he and EVANS had saved earlier. She stood a few feet away behind him, observing everything he did in silence as he examined the Storm.
She seemed friendly enough, as evidenced when the android helped him stand up after his recuperation from the concussion. Apart from giving him her name, she had remained quiet the entire time, the face of a stoic and silent observer. Which was… not entirely unexpected since none of them understood each other's language, resorting to basic gestures and pantomime as their only means of communicating with one another. Even with the black blindfold covering her eyes, he really doubted that she had any trouble seeing anything through it. The Lancer had a feeling that the piece of fabric wasn't so much just an aesthetic choice, but a vital piece of battle gear for the android.
It was on that tangent that Adam offered Veis his water canteen, driven by a curious whim. How deep was the emulation, would androids like her consume food and water too? But she raised her palm up in negation and shook her head, refusing his attempt at sharing water.
Nodding in acknowledgement, he started drinking. A few gulps later, he briefly mused on what thoughts were going on in Veis' mind regarding the human standing in front of her. Would she consider him odd? Something interesting for how he presumably didn't act like the others of her kind did? It was a broad assumption, but it wasn't like he had anything else to go on. In any case, he was pretty sure that by the act of sleeping, she would already know he wasn't an android. Androids didn't need sleep, right?
He wondered what humans were like to androids like Veis. Were there others amongst them, walking alongside as allies? Or were they living separately? Or perhaps he could be the first human her kind had ever seen in thousands of years… one that just happened to appear deep inside hostile territory while wearing ancient power armor and a combat mech that was so old, it might as well be obsolete by their standards. Either way, Adam wouldn't be getting any answers from her until they sorted out the language barrier between them. No doubt she had her own questions about him as well.
Done with his drink, the Lancer capped the canteen, letting it disappear back into his personal Flat Space Inventory. But as it vanished in a flash of light, it reminded him of a specific item he had secured into the FSI earlier at the factory. And from there, his thoughts went over to Veis. Usually, saving someone was a good way to build trust. But perhaps he could reinforce that belief further with this little gesture.
He placed a palm on the Javelin's forearm, gaining access to the suit's FSI and in an instant, a long slightly curved sword without a crossguard materialized in his hand. Flipping it around, he held it by the blade, pointing it hilt first to the person in front of him. Its rightful owner.
But when Veis Aksteiz didn't move to take her sword and just stared, Adam was suddenly worried. Had he offended her somehow with this gesture?
Thankfully, it proved not to be the case when she calmly reached out to take the sword from his cybernetic hand. In one smooth motion, she swung the weapon over her shoulder and a translucent yellow halo formed around the blade, locking it into place just behind her back.
It was maso, Adam realized.
His arcanist training letting him recognize the minute traces of magic from the glowing ring. An extremely refined application that even his military-only arcanist training could recognize was an incredible feat of engineering. He certainly couldn't remember the artificers and researchers in the old days being able to develop such finely tuned techno-magical capability, with or without the aid of alien Shaper tech.
Aside from Veis herself, that "halo-holster" just showed how far ahead her makers, or people, were compared to Project Endurance. If he made it out of this alive and brought Veis to the bunker, he had no doubt the poor android would be bombarded by a multitude of questions from the resident scientists Hanako, Hikari and Raymond.
But especially from Hikari, Adam thought with a silent chuckle. That woman wouldn't be satisfied with just a game of 50 questions. No, she'd want everything, scanning Veis from top to bottom. Nothing invasive, the woman still kept her morals fortunately. But she would keep going until she had enough information for her research.
A moment later however, and that feeling of nostalgic amusement faded, changed to a far more somber thought. He remembered why Hikari kept conducting arcane experiments in the laboratory for the past ten years. Just as he very well knew that nothing he could do would dissuade her from carrying on with her research.
Just like a week ago, when she tried to do the same and get him to move on… and that had ended in disaster.
But that he blinked back to reality, belatedly realizing he had been staring at Veis' sword for too long. An act which she had noticed in turn and was now staring back at him. Quite possibly trying to wonder what made him so fixated on her weapon.
Suddenly feeling sheepish, he looked away from her and started climbing into the suit.
Once the rear hatch was closed and locked into place, the Javelin's familiar HUD hologram lit, turning the darkened interior bright. Adam ran a quick diagnostics, pleased to note that all systems were nominal and there was no further damage of note from the crash. Ammunition checks revealed a similar state of being, with plentiful of spikes left for his Impulse rifle and the Steadfast heavy pistol was still full, having been unused yet.
So far, so good, but with the worrying large number of hostiles out there, he couldn't quite suppress the niggling fear that it wouldn't last the entire mission. The Lancer knew all too well from past experience that things would turn really… unpleasant for him once he started overly relying on combat magic at every engagement.
But for the time being, his current priority was to find the other Spectre mech.
"EVANS, do you know where the last drone crashed?" Adam asked.
"Based on the Spectre's last signal, I estimate its location to be 1.2 kilometres west of our current position," the AI subroutine replied, only to immediately speak again when a navigation pointer appeared on his tactical display. "Marking the location on your HUD."
Adam considered the indicated crash site, contrasting it with his current location. It wasn't far, not when a Javelin was concerned, but it was directly opposite of where he'd crashed through. Speaking of…
"By the way, have any idea what this place used to be?"
"Kanagawa Kenritsu Kawasaki Senior High School."
Upon hearing that name, he started looking around the dilapidated room, his eyes taking in the empty space they were in. It was… ordinary. A little too spacious for a regular classroom, it looked more suited for an office. Judging by the view outside the empty windows and large hole before him, the floor they stood on was several storeys higher than most high school buildings in Japan.
"Really? Looks more like an office building to me," he noted, walking past Veis to the other side of the room.
Part of him wondered if this building had been built later, and its builders unaware that there used to be a school here. On the other hand, it had been thousands of years since the bunker was sealed up. The builders here had probably tried putting up something else in its place.
"There is a stairwell nearby. We can use it to exit this building," EVANS suggested.
He considered it for all of a second, visions of endless crumbling stairs and painful tumbles dancing in his head. So too was backtracking, leaving by the hole he'd made in his crash and flying around. Adding, at most, a minute more of travel time. A minute that suddenly felt like far too much for him.
"No need. I have a better idea."
It was a shame they were so small, Adam thought, standing in front of the empty windows.
He wouldn't have fit even without the Javelin. But that was no reason he couldn't take a shortcut anyway. Arcane seals on his right arm flared anew with power, encasing his right hand in white rime. Icy fields chimed into being above his palm, short bursts of cryogenic energy striking the lower wall and ceiling, encasing them in a layer of frost. Another thought, and left hand was set ablaze with bright orange-red flames. With a gesture, an orb of fire shot out of his hand, lancing towards the frozen wall. Maso-manifested flames collided with ice, the two opposing elements violently detonating in an eruption of flash steam and pressure that blasted apart the wall, leaving an opening more than large enough for his purposes.
As the dust and mist dissipated, the first sight he was greeted with beyond the new hole was an unusually immense urban environment, packed thicker together than even the industrial zone he'd fled from. But these were in even worse condition, crumbling empty husks, devoid of anything but the occasional overgrowth that covered them from top to bottom. The view was too much like the ruined cities he'd fought in during the Legion War. It was eerie, but he hadn't made a second door just to reminiscence.
Turning his attention back to Veis, he knelt and pantomimed a few basic hand gestures about what he wanted her to do.
Instead she just stood there, staring back with a shocked expression. A second passed, and he started to wonder what was going on inside her mind. But then her face firmed up and she just walked over towards him without a word. Only when she was close enough to touch did she stop walking, staring up at his faceplate.
And still not saying a thing.
Was she offended? Or was she just shocked? Adam didn't know, but his patience was running a little low. He'd made that hole for a reason after all.
He was considering just scooping her up when she nodded at last.
Finally!
Wasting not another moment, he scooped up Veis' body in a bridal style carry, barely waiting long enough for her to put arms around his neck for additional support before standing up. Turning to the cityscape, he tapped into the flight systems, feeling the electric hum of its engines spooling up. A heartbeat, a second, and then he launched the both of them out the hole, letting gravity and momentum pull them clear. A moment later, and the distinctive mist-like aura of maso wrapped them both, suspending gravity for the duration.
With a strident whish, Adam took off into the air with an android in his arms.
Gusts of cold wind blew in 11B's face, ruffling her long white hair and fluttering the skirt of her combat uniform. But none of that distracted her, busy scanning for any suspicious movement with her visor as they flew past multiple city blocks. Any of these ruined structures were a perfect place for the Machines to hide and launch ambushes on unsuspecting androids, on foot or in the air.
It was no substitute for a Pod's sensor suite, but she was confident even in her impaired state that she could detect those rust-covered robots and warn Ah-Dum well before they attacked.
But with her thoughts now on him, the veteran Battler found her attention drifting on to other oddities around him. Like back when he blew a hole in the building.
Her visor had detected a massive surge of maso from the armored suit the instant Ah-Dum had activated his attack programs. Cryogenic and exothermic spells weren't entirely unknown to her, though hardly anyone used them anymore due to their limited effectiveness against the Machines. But simultaneous casting was something she'd never seen or heard of before, the processing load was simply too high to keep the maso stable. Was it a function of his flight suit, or was it just intrinsic to his nature?
Damn it. She didn't know, but it offended her on a professional level. YoRHa was supposed to be outfitted with the best, weren't they?
And then there was Ah-Dum himself.
With what she knew, her situation had changed, everything had. Her original plan to desert YoRHa and abandon this war was now so much scrap. It was just suspicions, little pieces here and there that she put together that didn't fit. But for something like this, even suspicions would do. The Machine War? After thousands of years of back and forth, it was just a pointless waste of lives.
But this, this mattered. More than escaping from YoRHa, more than her life even.
And for it to matter, she had to keep Ah-Dum safe, following him wherever he went. Staying in the city confines wasn't acceptable, not when the place was still crawling with Machines. But telling him that was frustratingly impossible when they didn't even share a common language. She didn't know of any kind of hand gestures that would convey just how dangerous the city was, or how there was actually a safe place where they could take shelter. Pointing fingers just wouldn't be enough.
But a change in the wind direction drew her thoughts away from how to redirect Ah-Dum to the Resistance Camp, and more towards the fact that they were descending. Wherever he was going, they were close.
Down they went, coming up to a cluster of empty multi-storey buildings before landing on the roof of one. Almost immediately, she understood why he'd chosen this place. Close to their landing spot was another Humanoid Pod, apparently having crashed on a pile of now broken machinery.
11B dismounted, following after Ah-Dum as he approached the Pod and began the process of stripping it for useful materials, starting with the weapons on its waist. When that was done, he took one of its hands, and a faint orange light began to glow at the point of contact. It wasn't any program she was familiar with, but the context was easy enough to figure out.
He was accessing the Pod's storage space to remove anything useful. Given the battered state of the Pod, barely resembling the original form she first saw, it was unlikely Ah-Dum would be attempting to repair it on site. Without access to full service facilities, it was doubtful it could be restored to any level of functionality, and there was neither the time nor carrying space to try and bring something so large with them.
It was both a pity and a shame. 11B had hoped to see it in action once more, to gauge its performance and usefulness for YoRHa in the Machine War.
The transfer of materials completed, Ah-Dum released the Pod's hand with a fading wink of light. But contrary to her expectations, he was not quite done yet, removing the back-mounted launcher from the articulating arm and vanishing it into his storage space.
Only then did he rise from the wreck, walking past her until he was next to the parapet where he just… stood there.
Was there something at the ruined building across the street he was staring at, or was he just thinking? With his face concealed and no other attempts at communication, she had no idea what he was planning.
Wait… Was he… upset over the loss of the Humanoid Pod? No, that was silly. Who would care about that? Pods were meant to be replaceable, more so than androids.
Right?
…
...
...
What was she supposed to do? 11B knew a dozen ways on how to dismantle the Machines with just as many different weapons, seamlessly integrate into a fight with her sisters whether it was in the air or on the ground. When it came to combat, she was as good at it as any other Battler series out there. But how was she supposed to comfort someone's emotional issues?
…she couldn't even deal with 16D's.
She lowered her face. Thinking about that particular Defender brought back a wave of unpleasant memories. 11B hated that part of her, venting her pain on the only one who looked up to her. She hated herself more for abusing the meek android with words and more, despite the promise she had made to protect her. Guilt gnawed at her, memories of every cruel thing she had heaped on 16D filling her head. The abuse she had heaped on during training, the rebukes for every little thing. She had been horrible towards 16D, and the Defender deserved better than that.
Heavy stomping from Ah-Dum's exosuit fortunately spared her from dwelling further on such thoughts, prompting 11B to lift her face up to him as he approached.
Standing before her, he held out a hand and a holographic 3D map of the city was projected from the palm. The small red dot in the middle leapt out at her almost immediately, but there were no tags to explain its significance.
But studying the other details of the map, 11B suddenly realized that she knew this area. The Resistance Camp was in this sector, and relatively close to that marked location at that. She could-
A throat cleared, startling her from her thoughts. With her attention gained, Ah-Dum pointed at himself before directing a finger at the map, making his intent obvious even without words. The red dot was his next destination. Switching off the map after a few seconds, he waved his arms for a bit, pantomiming scooping her up like he had on their flight over.
The message was easy enough to figure out: Did she want to come with him?
As if he needed to ask.
A quick nod, and Ah-Dum had her nestled in his arms again before taking off, leaving behind the damaged Humanoid Pod as they oriented towards the center of the City Ruins. There were still a lot of uncertainties to deal with, but 11B felt more determined than she had ever been.
Maybe this time, this time things would get better.
~~|>> [-//=+=\\-] <<|~~
Author's Note: Hello, fellas. We're back and this story is not dead in the water. Real life truly has a habit of placing hurdles in our way each time we try to do something, huh? Anyway, we have a new collaborator on this fanfic - halosammy from SB. I invited him to take part of this story's development as our loremaster, to make sure that every NieR-related stuff we write in the story is consistent with canon.
"Thinking about it, it's strange to see buildings that big still standing," Adam muttered to himself as he flew over Tokyo's vast ruined landscape, Veis in his arms.
Looming up ahead was his destination, the weather worn form of a skyscraper. TheNTT Docomo Yoyogi Building in fact, according to EVANS. The tallest building in the vicinity of their destination, and still recognizable despite the fact that going by old records, it had to have been thousands of years since it was abandoned.
Nine thousand years of decay had wrought less change to the city than he would have thought.
EVANS' voice on the internal speaker shook him from his musings.
"I am detecting a disturbance nearby: explosions and weapons fire," the AI subroutine reported. "Several auditory patterns do not match profiles of energy weapons used by currently known automata forces."
It wasn't just EVANS either who had noticed. Veis was already turning her head towards the source, reacting well before Adam had finished processing what EVANS had to say.
Was it Veis' people? Someone else? It was impossible to tell from that alone. Whoever they were, they were fighting the robots, and that made them potential allies for him and the Yamanashi Bunker. Or a bunch of greedy, raider assholes straight out of the typical post-apocalyptic media, ready to sink a knife in his back for any reason. Who knew what 9,000 years of passage had done to the remnants of society? He would just have to take some contingencies, and hope that the old shows were wrong.
"EVANS, we're going in to investigate, set up a NAV point with an overlook," he ordered.
"Be advised: Deviating from the main objective will put you and the android Veis Aksteiz in serious risk," EVANS warned.
Even expecting the AI's canned response, Adam couldn't help but sigh.
"Look, before I engage, I'll just drop Veis on the overlook, away from the firefight," he replied confidently. "Besides, you should know better given my track record of completing missions."
"I am well aware of your military background, as is your history of adding to mission parameters," EVANS stated. But despite the objections, the AI drafted a flight path on the HUD.
But that wasn't the end of it. Veis immediately turned to face the Lancer once he changed course. Despite her stoic expression, he was certain that her eyes were frowning behind the blindfold.
All he could do was stare at her for a moment before returning his attention to the view in front of him.
When Adam reached the NAV point atop a multi-story building, the sounds of gunfire had increased to thunderous levels, the echoes coming in so close they were dopplering.
Dropping off Veis, he walked up to the parapet, peaking over with the Javelin's long range camera. There was a group of people down the avenue, backs to a building and taking cover amidst the concrete rubble. A constant twinkle of muzzle flashes told of desperate defense, aimed downrange at a large force of familiar tubular machines that waded inexorably through the fire and heedless of losses.
A flick of an eye and the camera zoomed in on the defenders.
At least six people, one casualty on the ground. Four in ballistic vests and BDUs including the casualty, while only two of them were in tattered ponchos. The remaining two further stood out from the others with their bright red hair compared to the more muted colors of the rest. More importantly, the redheads were not fighters, focused on tending to the casualty.
Three combat effectives against an overstrength platoon of machines, no clear lines of retreat, the conclusion was clear. They were going to be overrun in short order.
"EVANS, highlight all the hostiles on my HUD," he ordered.
An aura of maso enveloped the Storm Javelin once more, followed by a deep hum that quickly built into a high-pitched whine as he prepared to fly into battle. However, before he could take another step, there was a tug on his left arm, stopping him in his tracks.
The Lancer turned around to find Veis holding him.
What? What are you doing, Veis?
Did she not want him to go down there? Well, he could understand why, but the Lancer was better armed than the besieged group, and at worse he could still fly. She had to know that much at least. He tried to free his arm from her grasp, but she clamped on to him like a vice.
Damn it, Veis!
He tried again, gently tugging at her fingers until at last she finally loosened her grasp. She took a step back as her hand fell away, the android looking at him with what he assumed was utter disbelief.
For a moment, he thought about reassuring her, about saying it'd be fine. But without the words either could understand, he could only shake his head. With a gesture for her to stay, he leapt, leaving Veis alone on the rooftop.
11B could only watch, filled with dismay as Ah-Dum just flew off without her, heading off into battle and all she could do was watch from afar.
Her fists slammed on the parapet, cracking the neo-concrete in her frustration.
"Damn it! What was he thinking?!" 11B yelled to the air.
She had finally managed to clear enough of the Logic Virus that she could speak properly, only to have the very reason for her existence fly away before she could get a word in. All to put himself into danger for the sake of saving those androids! That was completely unacceptable! If something happened to him, she would never forgive herself.
There was no catching up to him before the fighting started, but that didn't mean she couldn't do anything.
Tapping into her communication system, she opened a channel to known Resistance frequencies. Only to immediately grimace as a wave of static flooded her receivers, quarantine alerts warning of Logic Virus infestation threaded within the jamming. It wouldn't break through her quarantine protocols, or any other vaccinated android, but trying to punch a signal through, or pick up one in all that noise would severely tax any android's hardware.
If she still had her Pod, it's more powerful communications suite should have been able to… no, no point dwelling on might have been. She would just have to do and hope.
"To the six Resistance units currently under Machine assault, this is YoRHa No.11 Type B. You have reinforcement inbound. Single flier, no IFF. Check fire," she stated. "How copy?"
Nothing. Just more static. No change in the defenders posture that she could see.
Damn it! She cursed internally. Things were quickly going from bad to worse today.
That only left one thing she could do. The rooftop was scanned for a moment, but then discarded. Even if there were stairs, it'd take too many precious minutes. Jump? Even for a battler, at this height, the odds of critical damage to her legs were non-negligible. And wouldn't that be something if she went from unable to invalid?
Ah-Dum was getting closer…
She took a running leap. Powerful legs took her over the parapet, into a parabolic trajectory. It was barely a decision. Horizontal speed quickly bled into vertical, even with her limbs wide to create drag. Moments before impact, she flipped. Legs crashed down onto the asphalt, flexed, sending her into a forward tumble. One revolution. Two. On the third her legs flexed, kicked. And then she was upright again, racing down the street. Alerts within warned of moderate damage to her legs from the landing, but she pushed those aside, focusing only on increasing her speed.
Praying to catch up with him before it was too late.
The Small Biped's existence was cut short when the Type-3 sword flashed out, slicing it's barrel torso in half. Another approached from behind and she didn't hesitate; continuing the spin to stab the Machine through the power core, killing it instantly.
A glance to the side showed that Devola was doing well on her part. An overhead chop carving through a Stubby's head in a shower of sparks, her Type-3 sword splitting it apart before flowing into a spin that beheaded another approaching Small Biped with its serrated edge.
So far, so good, Popola thought, cleanly disarming another Machine before pulling her weapon back and running the now armless machine through. She didn't let her guard down however, not when there were so many more still coming from all sides. Neither of them had been damaged yet, but that could change soon.
Even with both former Overseers holding the right flank, their situation wasn't good. The other four members of their group were fighting with everything they had, the ground was a carpet of brass casings. But the neo-concrete rubble didn't impede the Stubbies much, and the specialized EMP rounds weren't doing enough damage to the Stubbies. There was a hollow thump as one of the fighters launched a grenade from her underbarrel attachment, the roar of detonation wiping out the targeted Medium Biped and its smaller escorts. More fire poured into the wake, tearing at the exposed Machines with bullets and explosives.
But more Machines clanked in to fill the gap. Despite everything, the encirclement tightened.
It was just their luck, she groused, sword already lashing out to carve open another Biped. A salvage run for the twins and a scouting operation for the Resistance fighters had ended with them running into each other. And from there, one of the members by the name of Roheda just had to get into an argument with Devola that ended up drawing the Machines from all over the place. If only-
"Roheda!"
The shout was filled with panic, forcing her to spare a glance behind and immediately grimaced. The android in question was sprawled on the ground, helmet all but caved in by a Stubby. His assailant clanked forwards, foot raised for a coup de grace.
A sword bloomed in its chest, Type-3 sunk to the hilt by the force of the throw. The Machine stumbled, falling onto its back. But Popola had already dismissed it, rushing towards the downed android. "Devola! Cover me!"
Removing the helmet revealed an ugly looking head wound, his dermal covering all but torn off and heavy denting on the cranial endoskeleton. Intact but not undamaged, her fingers triggering a diagnostic. Disconnected optics, a broken power linkage, nothing the self-repair systems couldn't handle. But they didn't have the time for that, not even with her kit bag.
Maso flowed through her, programs guiding the magic to form tools and implements finer than a strand of hair. She ignored the sounds of battle, blocked out the bark of guns, the clash of steel and the thud of Machine footfalls. In those frantic few moments, her world was just her instruments, and the telepresence data from within Roheda's metallic skull.
Then it was done. Crude, slapdash, but Roheda's eyes flickered with light as the connection went live. Pupils dilated, focused on her. His battle rifle, still clenched in hand, came up.
"Popola!"
Gunfire chattered, the weapon spitting death as Popola flung herself to the side. Sparks flew, static flickered on her vision. A metal claw hurtled past just where her head had been. Sparks flying from its joints, the Small Biped stumbled back under the hail, paused.
And then Devola's sword was spearing through its side.
She ducked low, avoiding the almost reflexive left hook before her foot slammed into the Machine. It flew off her blade, smashing into another Stubby in a deafening crash. But there's no time to check if it stayed down. Not when more Machines clank forward, clambering over their dismantled. Popola briefly met her sister's eyes, understanding and intent exchanged almost instantly.
Devola stepped to the fore, blade flashing as she leapt into the crush. Three Machines fell apart in as many seconds, the tide momentarily pushed back through sheer ferocity of her blade. Three seconds Popola used to gather her maso, channeling it all into spell diagrams that twirled around her forearm. At the crescendo, she thrust her arm forward. Instantly the spell ignited, turning into a forest of crimson spears that erupted from the ground ahead of them. Machines were pierced, perforated and skewered, thick armor plates insufficient against arcane might.
The surviving Machines paused, as if taken aback by the sudden destruction of several ranks. The Resistance gave them no such pause. Grenades sailed out, tearing even more chunks into their lines as Devola rushed forward. Magical constructs formed above her shoulders, large crimson fists lashing out in one two hooks, pulverizing Bipeds into scrap, creating an opening.
"Come on!"
The command came from more than one throat, and everyone complied. Even thinned, she could see more Machines pouring into the street.
She didn't see the one leaping from the windows above. Not until its shadow overlapped her sister.
Popola's world returned in a cascade of error messages and pain. Broken asphalt upon her back, the smell of smoke and burnt synth flesh strong on her nose. The crackle of fire piercing through deafened ears. The thump of Machine feet on the march.
Sight returned in time to see them. Of the Resistance members, none were still standing, those still active trying to shake off the effects of the blast. But the cleared path was gone, filled by Machine units. Too close. Too many. In all her recollections, things have never gotten this bad before. And then she found her. Devola, closest to the detonation, laid in a crater, still stunned.
No no nonononono-
Fear gave her energy, forced her upright even through the error cascade.
But a Medium Biped was already bounding forward, clawed fist raised to strike her sister.
"DEVOLA!"
Lightning rained from the heavens. Electricity danced upon metal shells, arcing from body to body, somehow finding their way into the sensitive interior. Ozone was joined by the acrid smell of smoldering electronics, spasming machines collapsing one by one as their insides burn out.
Popola stared, wild eyed, as the forest of crackling electricity danced between the Machines, yet not a single bolt touching her nor her sister.
And then she heard it. Barely audible above the dying crackle of fading lightning, a humming noise that permeated the surroundings. Both ex-Overseers tracked it skywards to an unfamiliar suit of humanoid armor. It was descending, a faint crackle of sparks dancing on its fingertips, surrounded by the barely-there corona of an energy field.
Before she could think to voice a question, it drew an oversized firearm and began firing down on the Machines, accurate bursts picking off the ones that hadn't been brought down by the lightning.
That spurred them all back into action. Resistance members picked themselves up, swords flickered back into the sisters' hands. Questions fell to the wayside as they fell back on the task of breaking through the encirclement. Once again, the Machine forces began falling to android ferocity. The former tried to rally, but their numbers had been whittled down, making the battle far more even. In that brief moment of fighting, Popola only managed a single meaningful glance at her sister, thinking the very thought they all were.
"Who the hell is that?"
Devola's reply was a brief shake of her head, only for both sisters to jerk as their maso sensors suddenly spiked.
Hovering above them, the armored android, for what else could he be, had both arms raised, practically glowing with magical energy. The right arm was encased in thick crackling frost, the other wreathed in flames.
The rime-coated hand swung out imperiously, hurling a storm of ice spheres at the largest concentration of Machines. Bipeds and Stubbies alike were caught in eruptions of frost, metal shells instantly icing over, stuttering to a halt as local temperatures dropped to near absolute zero in an instant. The other hand came down, and a flaming comet erupted from it.
The twins ducked just in time.
Superheated flame washed the frozen enemies, sheets of ice instantly sublimating. Solids became gas, expanded quickly, furiously, violently. All around shattered Machines were sent flying to crash on unforgiving asphalt, their formation rendered into a hissing crater. It was a sight that stunned the other androids.
But for Devola and Popola, it was something else. The way the armored android had used their maso, it was like nothing in current service. Not the clean programs a YoRHa Pod might use, or even resembling the constructs used by the long defunct mage-type androids. It was something… familiar, but each time they tried to call the memory, it was not there. Almost as if-
The sound of turbines dispelled the thoughts.
Even with the initial waves broken, the Machines were not done yet. Flyers were arriving by the droves, each carrying Gun Stubbies and more as they buzzed into the battlefield. Further down the road, Bipeds and Stubbies marched out from buildings, quickly forming up into another wall of metal.
"Arrrgghh!" Devola snarled, blade already raised in a guard position, crimson magic circles forming over her other hand. "This is getting ridiculous! Why are there so many?!"
"Just get ready, sis!' Popola shot back, shifting to a more defensive stance, red spikes lining her own magic circles.
But before anyone could move to attack, Machine or android, a translucent concave wall of shimmering energy appeared in front of the sisters and Resistance soldiers. Maso practically wafted from each barrier, its purpose and origin instantly clear to both sisters.
"They're shields!" Devola shouted to the Resistance soldiers, taking cover behind one as she unleashed her spells.
Enemy fire came in quickly, a barrage of energy bolts from the Gun Stubbies blanketing the area. But true to her sister's guess, every orb that struck the barriers was instantly flung away. Up above, the newcomer had a barrier of his own, glowing shield suspended on one hand, the other firing his heavy rifle to great effect.
Both sisters exchanged a look, nodding in silent understanding. Stalemate again, but with the help of the newcomer, things weren't as hopeless. At a three count, they moved, darting past the barriers to strike at the thickly clustered Machines, diving into the press of bodies to shield them from the Gun Stubbies.
Escape was still possible. And both were going to put their all into it.
The Lancer flew through the air, trading fire with the flying machines in the increasingly crowded airspace. Large caliber bullets went out, energy bolts came back, only judicious use of the Wind Wall projection kept the latter from connecting.
And yet despite the overwhelming numbers, they were doing surprisingly well. The flyers were falling almost as quickly as they came, and the ground team was still pushing through the machine assault. The situation wasn't anywhere lax enough where Adam could afford to be distracted, yet something kept niggling at the back of his head about the group.
It was the redheaded twins. The spells they were using were hauntingly familiar. And the reliance on swords over any kind of ranged weaponry too. That they were using both effectively against overwhelming odds, it reminded him of the Crusaders, back during the Legion War. But that was all the time he had for musing.
Maso flooded Adam's systems, surging through the palm emitters and the invisible tether of magical energy to the protective Wind Walls on the ground. The shield matrices pulsed with the fresh influx, overloaded… and catastrophically failed.
They burst as one, gale force winds erupting outwards and scything into the mechanical horde. Machines were abruptly bowled over, smashed into the ground or each other with a deafening crash.
But not loud enough to drown the screech of the threat alarm in his ears.
"INCOMING! INCOMING! IN-"
Something hammered into him like the fist of god, folding him half and throwing him hurtling through the air. His weapon spun away, locator beacon a smear of color under the force of sudden acceleration. For a single moment, his focus managed to narrow. Identify the flying machine buried against his chestplate.
And then they struck the building wall.
Adam's head snapped back, air driven from his lungs as stars exploding in his sight despite the cushioning gel. He barely felt the machine pulling away, his body peeling off the crater to crash onto the ground with a bone rattling impact. EVANS was droning in his ear, electronically flat sounds he couldn't understand. More light. And then-
Motion.
Darkness.
Awareness came screaming back with a jolt of liquid fire in every nerve. Noise.
And death.
"Wha-fuck!" The yell was punctuated by a surge of maso. Ice sprouted from his forearm, becoming a jagged spike. Physics did the rest as his lunge carried him forward, spearing the machine through the chest before it could brain him.
Heart thundering from stimulants coursing through his veins, he kicked the dead machine off, an avalanche of warnings, threats and more screaming into his mind. Already his sidearm was swinging in an arc. Six staccato booms, and three lesser machines fell, their facial domes shattered.
More came, and more died to gunfire and sheer unrelenting violence. But as the red fog of emergency stimulants faded from his mind, as rationality began to reassert itself, amber status lights broke into his awareness.
No no no, not good!
He immediately backpedaled, dodging another Machine that tried to crush him beneath its charge. The Kinesis shield was fluctuating, the Storm's thin armor already battered. His heavy pistol dangerously low on ammo and he was still on the ground. A silent command returned a toneless blat, his thrusters whining piteously instead of flaring to life.
"EVANS?" He enquired breathlessly. "What's going on?"
"The crash has severely damaged the flight system," EVANS replied. "Restoration is currently underway."
"Make it faster then! We're almost naked here!" The Lancer exclaimed, cursing his carelessness. Even under the effects of stimulants, he shouldn't have forgotten just how poorly armored Storm suits were.
"More hostiles coming from above," EVANS suddenly warned.
"Fuck!" Adam jerked up to see a quartet of flyers already descending from the rooftops, easily distinct from their previous cousins by their sheer size alone.
Quad engines, gun turrets and wire cutters for whatever god forsaken reason. Worse were the passengers hanging underneath, detaching before he could do more than bring his gun up. Twelve sets of feet struck the ground with a bone rattling thud, throwing up clouds of dust that did little to conceal the glowing eyes that honed in on him.
As if the universe wasn't done yet, a dozen more walkers erupted from the concrete and brickwork, smashing through walls to join their rusted brethren in the growing encirclement.
There was a pause. A second where the gathered forces looked upon Adam, just long enough for him to truly appreciate the state of his situation. No flight. His shields were down, his assault rifle lost in the battle somewhere. His only remaining assets were a near empty heavy pistol and depleted maso reserves. All the while surrounded by a horde of red-eyed machines. He did the only thing that came to mind.
"Well that's just typical."
"#$%&+@^!!!"
The machines attacked as if on cue, the first wave of walkers surging ahead of the crowd. They were met with all the fury Adam could muster. Forks of electricity danced around his forearm, becoming a trapped thundercloud in his clenched fist. With a swing, lightning hurtled from the skies, striking the lead machines with an ear splitting thundercrack.
Metallic limbs jerked and spasmed, optics flickered and burst in a shower of glass. The machines stuttered under the lightning assault, seized up, and detonated as one.
But neither storm nor death deterred the Machines.
More piled on, stepping over the scorched remnants of their vanguard without pause, their numbers splitting to flank him.
"This!" Adam panted, brow sweating under the strain of maso depletion even as he channeled the dregs, "Keeps." Frost iced over one arm, the other enveloped by spinning mists.
"Getting worse!" He roared, cutting both spells loose. An array of icy daggers erupted along his left flank, shooting off to perforate the approaching machines in a storm of death. Gale force winds burst along the other, gusts compressed into ultra-thin discs that sliced through rusted metal and concrete with equal ease. Eruptions filled the battlefield as power cells were breached and fuel lines cut, more machines reduced to nothing but scrap.
It wasn't enough.
A massive fist struck him in the chest like a wrecking ball, impact forces sending him flying across the road in a tangle of limbs. Another large machine dashed to close, leaping forward before he could even roll to a stop.
Only for it to land directly atop his stomach.
CRACK!
"AAARGH!!!"
He screamed. All thought fled as pain flooded every nerve, his torso crushed under the weight of buckling structural plate and popped internal braces. Impact padding, designed to cushion the shock of weapons fire, only served to spread the crushing force throughout his body.
Fingers tried to work despite the crushing pain. Inched down as daggers of agony stabbed in his chest and alerts wailed in his ear. Grasped the grip of his heavy pistol. Lifted it just as the walker lifted its foot, giving him one blessed moment of relief.
And slammed down again.
The ground fractured, armor buckling as it sank into the shallow crater. Froth bubbled at Adam's lips, mouth wailing in airless agony. Fingers spasmed at empty air, lost in the cacophony of ever increasing alerts of failed carapace, ruptured nanogel reservoirs, trauma and internal flooding. Maso flickered, the last dregs pulled in desperation through the blinding pain, spell matrices forming too slowly as the machine raised its foot one last time.
Silver light sang.
It was the longest few seconds of her life.
Her arm flicked, and the accursed Machine fell apart, the two halves sliding away before they could deliver the finishing blow.
Ah-Dum was still alive. She could see the movement of his chest, his limbs. She wasn't too late.
But he'd been harmed. Near crushed by that damned Medium Biped despite the protection of his exo-suit. Just acknowledging that reality set her circuits alight with pain and regret. Almost as bad as it was to look upon him and know that it was her failure, her slowness, that let him get brought down like this. She couldn't see his face, didn't have his internal diagnostics, but she didn't need either to know that the buckled plates had to be crushing his torso.
She had to help him. Every circuit, every line of code, screamed at her to do something. Anything.
But as she looked at the visor of his helmet, sure that he was looking back at her, she realized a horrifying truth.
She didn't know what to do or even how to help him. She wasn't a Healer. Wasn't even a Support or Scanner model. Would tearing off his armor make it worse? Would it help? She didn't know, she was a Battler. She was made to destroy, not repair. A thousand horrible variations of anything going wrong ran through her head as she hesitated.
And then-
"KILL ANDROIDS!!!"
11B stiffened, shame coursing through her core. She'd forgotten. But Ah-Dum, he-
He looked at her. Said a word she didn't know. But then he pointed, unfamiliar magic swirling off his fingers. A small tornado sprung into existence, whirling into the Machine lines. Flyers were sucked into the vortex, their engines unable to contest the gale force winds that smashed them into walls and each other.
His hand fell, and he said that word again.
This time, she understood.
She spun, launching herself at the pair of Bipeds stomping forward towards her. Their feeble arms spun, trying to smash into her as they charged. Her sword arm was faster, slashing them into pieces with two swift strokes. Flyers came hurtling at her, Stubbies and more as the Machines judged her the greater threat.
Not one lived past the reach of her blade.
And then she was advancing, killing with every step, pushing back the wave with all the strength and fury her model was made for. Her mind and her core hummed as one, united in purpose in what seemed like a very long time. She would buy Ah-Dum the time he needed to recover. Keep the Machines from him. She would kill and kill and kill.
She would not fail her fallen comrades.
She would not fail humanity.
She would not fail him.
11B ducked, a rusted blade flew inches above her head, and she thrust hers forward deep into a Small Biped's shell, killing it. She then moved on to her next target.
Popola didn't really need to breathe. But it was still nice to go through the motions and catch her breath as the YoRHa Battler singlehandedly took on the bulk of the Machine forces, butchering them in the process.
"Well, that's a weight off our shoulders," she muttered. And it really was, the Battler was doing more damage to the Machines than their entire group had in the entire battle. But Popola kept her blade out all the same. Even with the black-clad android decimating the Machines, the memory of the multiple ambush reinforcements was much too fresh. In fact, she half-expected a bunch more Stubbies to pop out of the sewers any moment now. "You okay, Devola?"
Her twin nodded, "I'm fine, sister. Though I think her friend needs to be looked at."
"What happened?" She blinked, looking for where she'd last saw the armored android. "I was too busy fighting to- Oh."
"Yeah."
By silent agreement, both sisters quickly made their way over to the crater and the fallen android in it. The armored suit they were wearing stood out, even if it did not match any design she had heard of.
A fairly battered suit at that, she amended as she booted up her diagnostic processes, while Devola was keeping watch.
"Hey, you okay?" She asked, simultaneously sending a query to the system diagnostics.
Even without the report, the torso section was obviously just one caved-in mess. She didn't know what model of android was inside, but she doubted even a Defender unit with their reinforced chest plates would be able to walk away from this without seeing a repair bay. They didn't seem to be moving either. Hopefully there wasn't any critical damage to their core systems.
Though… now that she thought about it, what kind of suit was this anyway? It obviously wasn't as sturdy or well-equipped as a YoRHa Flight Unit, but it was much more compact, and the use of elemental maso spells rather than red was a strange decision. She'd never seen or heard of anything quite like it.
…and where was that report anyway? A quick check on her logs and… nothing?
"Sister?" She turned towards Devola. "Can you try and open a scan connection to this guy? I'm not getting any response."
"Really? That's strange." Her wavy-haired twin tilted her head, a frown growing on her brow. "Nothing here either. Maybe his suit is shielded? I can't- Ah!"
Devola started at the groan, the twin's full attention now on the downed android who was writhing feebly.
"Easy! Easy!" Popola put a hand on his arm, arresting his motion. "You've taken a bad hit and you don't want to make it worse."
"Que?"
What was that? It wasn't Chaos or any of the older dialects. But it was kind of familiar… she frowned before shaking her head. That wasn't important right now. "We're going to try and treat you, but we need you to open up-"
"Ah-Dum!"
Suddenly, there was a black-clad hurricane, practically materializing right next to Devola, knocking her straight-haired twin on her butt with a yelp.
"Hey!"
The YoRHa android just ignored her, which was sadly typical for any android really, fussing over her friend instead and babbling about why he hadn't fixed himself yet- Waitaminute…
"Wait! You!" The Battler snapped at Devola before she could voice the thought, "You're from the local Resistance camp right?"
"Yeah, what's it to you?" She shot back with a nonplussed look.
"That means the Resistance Camp must be nearby!" The YoRHa android blurted out excitedly, completely ignoring Devola to turn back towards her companion with rapid-fire words. "They'll have healers to repai- no, fix? Mend?" She threw up her hands, "Ahh, not important. You can get better there! Come on!"
"Hey, wait-!" Devola could only look on, utterly flabbergasted, as the Battler quickly scooped up her much larger companion in a bridal carry and sprinted off before she could even finish her sentence.
"Jeez. She could've asked to see if we were the maintenance units," she grumbled with annoyance and concern in equal measure. Already the YoRHa unit and her armored friend were practically a dot in the distance, disappearing around the corner a moment later. "They're going to have to wait for us to get back now."
Her sister shrugged. "But they didn't know that, did they?" Popola sighed, laying her hand on her twin's shoulder. "There's no use chasing them now. Let's just hope that suited android finds someone else who can perform the repairs at camp. Or at least hold out until we get back there."
"Speaking of the suit, it's strange to see the android these days using combat-rated spells without a Pod for assistance," the wild-maned sister pondered, "even if they were restricted to elemental magic only."
It made her wonder what kind of goal the Army of Humanity had in mind when designing the suit. She could see it if they were trying for something less complicated than a full caster-type like her and her sister, eschewing the complexity that would be needed for pure red maso utilization. But if they were looking for cheaper, why would they give them flight ar-
"Sis, take a look at this!"
Startled out of her thoughts, Devola found her sister down on knee, staring at something on the ground. There was a middling-sized stain on the cracked concrete, quickly drying, the color not all that unlike hydraulic fluid used in a lot of android models. It took her only a moment to realize that was probably what it actually was.
"That's where the other guy got stomped, wasn't it?"
"Yeah." Popola's voice was faint, like she couldn't believe it.
Devola couldn't believe it either. It's not like they hadn't come across less lucky androids during their expeditions, so what made this one special? "What about it, sis?" She snorted, crouching down next to her sister. "It's not like-"
Then it hit her. The scents that tickled at her olfactory receptors. Not methyl or phenyl, not even benzene like she was expecting from hydraulic oil. But there were aldehydes and ketones. Organic chemistry. Blood. Her eyes widened.
"Is that… Are those…"
After thousands of years of never-ending agony and remorse, of being mistreated and shunned, she, and no doubt her sister, felt a small spark of hope, one that they had most likely not felt for a long time.
"Come on, Roheda," the Resistance soldier wheedled, nodding her head in the direction of the twins.
"Why?" He questioned, frowning mulishly at her persuasion attempt. "They're maintenance 'droids, they did their job. Don't need a pat on the back for that."
"They patched you up," her voice rose a little, pointing at the gash on his head, field repairs visible through the tear in synthskin, "when you took that hit from a Stubby. Even after you'd insulted them and pushed them off beforehand."
"So? What do you want me to say, Sousan?" Roheda snapped sarcastically, fingers on both hands crooking in double quotations, "'Sorry for being a jerk, you girls. I'm so ever grateful for you doing your jobs.'"
"Well yeah! But without the sass," she shot back with a scowl. Why couldn't Roheda act with some professionalism? It was like his personality seed had all the markers for an unrepentant ass. "Just dump the trash, take up the clean, will ya?"
That got through him, stubbornness turning into naked confusion as he tried to process her words. "What."
Without bothering to explain, she just points at the twins. He'd either get it, or she'd have to start looking into AP rounds to get through that thick skull of his.
The persecution those two faced just didn't sit right with her. No matter how badly their ancestral models screwed up when it came to their creators, the ones responsible were long gone. Carrying on with their descendant lines just struck her as excessively petty. Just because they had perfect memory, it didn't justify several thousand years of this nonsense.
Besides, she couldn't judge people by their worst failures. Not when Earth was still infested with the Aliens' detestable creations.
Everyone needed to get their priorities straight.
Roheda sighed, relenting under her glare and turning his head towards the red-haired twins in the distance. Who were, for some reason, staring at the ground.
"Fine. I'll do it," he huffed, rolling his eyes. The android slung the battle rifle over his shoulder as he made his way to them.
"Hey, uh… fellas!" Roheda called, but there was hesitance in his voice, almost an uncertainty. "Listen, about what I did to you girls bac- Oi!"
Before he could express his halfhearted apology, Devola and Popola bolted at a dead sprint, rushing off in the same direction the YoRHa android had gone.
Sousan blinked, taken aback by this sudden change of behavior. She'd never seen them run off like that before. Not when they were chased by a herd of moose. And certainly not when someone was talking to them, even if it was someone as disagreeable as Roheda.
Speaking of which, the android just threw his hands up and shrugged. "Ehhh. Guess they don't want it."
"Don't be a jerk, Roh," she snapped, pointing at the soldier. "They probably realized something important."
He rolled his eyes before shooting a snarky grin at her. A look that was absurd in her opinion, thanks to his thick pointed mustache. "Whatever you say, Sou." A mock salute came her way, and Sousan had to roll her eyes at his behavior. She would have given him a rude gesture back, but a shout interrupted her.
"Hey! Whaddya think we should do with this?"
She turned to see her other squad member, spotting the android holding an oversized assault rifle that bore little resemblance to Resistance issue guns. Where it came from was easy enough to infer. It must have been dropped by the flying android when he was knocked down by the Small Flyer. A shame.
While she was impressed by the android's use of elemental magic in battle, saving all their behinds in the process, the rifle was no less impressive on its own. From the barrel alone, she could tell that it fired a larger, heavier bullet. There were probably downsides, there always were, but there was no arguing the fact that it was very effective at killing Machine Lifeforms.
She frowned in thought, looking around but finding no bullet casings that would match the kind of bullets fired by that gun. More evidence of the difference between Resistance issue firearms and whatever group that android belonged to.
It would be nice if they had a few rifles like that in the Resistance, even if it would be more cumbersome without some redesign for their smaller frames. Nonetheless, that gun wasn't theirs to take, and she was sure that YoRHa android would report it missing if someone got their sticky fingers on it anyway. Best to return with it to the Camp where it'd go back to where it belonged. Besides, it was the least they could do to thank that android for the assist.
"That's not ours, Sardaana," Sousan warned. "You know that?"
"I know! I'm just keeping it until we meet that person again," she assured, flashing an excited grin on her face. "Once I've done some studies on this gun back in the Camp, I'll give it back to that guy. Or lady. I promise!"
A doubtful snort announced the approach of the final member of her squad, a shotgun casually resting over his shoulder. A series of harsh electronic clicks and chirps emerged from the red scarf that covered his mouth.
Sardaana turned to face her friend, naked offense on her face with the way her brows scrunched.
"Of course I'll give it back! Have some faith in me, Chatterbox!" Sardaana told him off, clutching the large foreign weapon tightly to herself. "Besides, I'm not Jackass."
"Yeah? Well, I'm still waiting for you to fix that wooden thingy I gave you last month," Roheda reminded the short-haired brunette.
"Which wooden thingy?"
"The one with the brass horn and a hand crank, you nitwit!"
Sousan shook her head with a sigh, closing her eyes to her squadmates' antics. At least they knew how to be professional when it counted, but would it have killed them to save the fooling around for when they weren't deep in enemy territory?
"Let's just get back to Camp…"
Being rescued was torturous.
Hissed gasps escaped from between clenched teeth as Adam tried to focus on keeping his breathing shallow and steady. Veis Aksteiz did her best to keep him level, but every now and again, a jolt, however faint, would send fresh agony climbing up his spine. Sweat dripped down his face, a near waterfall that obscured his HUD and the crimson medical alerts plastered all over it.
Armour compromised.
Internal spalling detected.
Penetrating abdominal trauma detected.
Biofoam deployed.
Biofoam depleted.
Immediate medical attention required.
He could feel the warmth of blood and more bubbling up from the wound where the internal bracing had punched through. The mixture of fluids seeping into his undersuit and onto his skin, that slick sickening sensation growing bit by bit with every minute that passed despite the biofoam coating. The only thing left was the analgesics, but Adam had held the AI back on deploying it. Whatever rescue Veis was planning, or at least he hoped it was, there was no guarantee there'd be a doctor on site. He needed a clear head if he had to treat himself.
So he grit his teeth, hoping that wherever it was, it would at least be clean enough he didn't end up dying of sepsis anyway.
Or tetanus. Even with all the alerts, his faceplate showed just exactly how much rust and debris were left exposed in the broken city Veis was rushing through.
"Arcane flight system has been repaired," the subroutine AI chose to announce. "The Kinesis shield is now recharging at a normal rate."
"About… time," Adam wheezed sarcastically between pained breaths. Eight minutes and a little, according to the clock. "The designers… need to do… a better job."
EVANS did not reply to that.
Patting Veis' arm to get her attention, he tried to tell her his plan. It took minutes of painfully slow pantomime, and in the end the hum of his flight system to get the idea across. And even then, it proved an awkward affair. The flight system was not meant to serve as a makeshift hover stretcher, nor was it meant to be towed legs first. But if it meant his torso wound wouldn't be jolted every few minutes, Adam was willing to have his dignity go hang.
Towed like a balloon, he closed his eyes, trying to block the pain out and conserving his energy.
…
...
…It wasn't working.
Instead he let his eyes drift, watching the ruins of the city as it sped on by.
Car wrecks stood out amongst the debris of a long dead civilization. Despite being more rust than metal, their tires long since decayed into empty hollows, their shapes still were recognizably out of place. The rounded shapes more reminiscent of vehicles in his great, great grandfather's time than his own.
Other oddities stood out as they moved into the more overgrown parts of the urban landscape. Wildlife, some normal, some far too large to be natural, and some looked totally out of place. Once they passed a small herd of boars taller than he was. In his state, all the sight did was remind him of Mishima Kenichi's request before he had left the Yamanashi Bunker. Fresh meat, he'd asked for. Or maybe that moose over there. The thought of that man's expression when he brought back a house-sized moose was enough to get a chuckle out of him.
And then a grimace as the motion brought a fresh spasm of pain as the spar dug just a little bit deeper.
Regretting the action, he closed his eyes, letting the minutes pass until EVANS spoke up.
"Intact man-made structures ahead," the AI announced, pulling the Lancer out of his thoughts.
Adam panned his suit cameras, realizing that they were slowing down to a halt in front of a large structure. A haphazard wall of scraped together junk, made from rusted metal sheets to pipes and panels of various shapes and conditions. There was even the wheel from a bucket-wheel excavator sitting in the rubble, which made him blink in confusion as to how it got there. There was also a gatepost, but equally ramshackle, the outline formed from a pair of broken concrete pillars, rusted I-beams forming the arch and held together with crude welded bars.
Even in his state, it was hard not to grimace at the sight. For all that it had bulk, the wall likely wouldn't be able to hold up against RPG-wielding Legion grunts, nevermind hostile robots with energy weapons. Better than nothing, but not much more than that.
Veis came to a stop, hollering something in her still strange language. Moments later, an armed man appeared atop the gatepost, weapon at the ready and shouting back in the same language.
The muzzle swept towards him, and suddenly Veis was there, standing in front of him with her arms spread wide open. More words were shouted, anger and frustration clear despite Veis' alien tongue.
He carefully didn't chuckle this time, but the image of a petite android being fiercely protective over his exosuit-clad frame that both overtopped and outmassed her brought a rueful quirk to his lips.
In the midst of the argument, a different female voice came from behind him, the shouted words sounding similar to Veis' and the guard.
He couldn't turn, prone as he was, but he didn't need to as a familiar pair of redheaded twins came rushing up, stopping when they were next to him. He stared in bemusement as they immediately joined Veis in yelling at the guard, only for it to become confusion as he realized that they had to be moving pretty fast to catch up. And they didn't even seem winded.
That seemed… kind of unfai-
*BZZZT!*
"AAAH!"
"Electroshock stimulation applied. You cannot rest yet."
Adam clenched his teeth and shut his eyes, hissing in annoyance until the tingling sensation went away. He'd set it up himself, but it was still tempting to just curse at the subroutine AI for zapping him. But then there was babbling and he opened his eyes to find three more sets staring up at him in surprise and concern.
"I'm fine... I'm fine," he grunted at their concerned sounding questions, knowing that it would be pointless anyway. Not like they had cracked a common language ye-
Why were the twins looking at each other like that?
"Sir?" One of them asked uncertainly after a moment, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm good." His fingers twitched in an attempt to wave it off. "Just a minor shock to keep myself awake."
But if the guard wasn't going to let them in, the jolt would be the least of his problems. One of the ruins nearby might be intact enough to do some field surgery, but it was definitely going to suck. He was-
...
...
...
Wait, what?
He snapped open his eyes, turning his head so he could look at the speaker. Their aqua green eyes were still concerned, worry etched on their faces. But he put that aside as he said the first thing in his mind.
"Y-you speak English," he blurted out. He couldn't believe his luck. Even after this long, at least someone still spoke the same language. He didn't know why Veis didn't, maybe she was from a different country or, well, that didn't matter.
"Yes, and we need to get you in for surgery right away," the wavy-haired redhead quickly said, while her sister turned to the guard at the top, shouting in a language he didn't understand once more.
He turned his gaze to the guard atop the gatepost, who abruptly raised his rifle and looked over his shoulder, signaling at someone below from behind the walls.
Soon after, the sound of metal scraping against metal rang out throughout the area as the gate slowly opened. His eyes were drawn to the sight of many people, canopies and tents as both him and the women entered the compound.
They were gathering a crowd, Adam realized. Between the fact that he was still being towed and the unique sound of the Storm Javelin's arcane lift system, he could see a great many eyes turning towards him. Most were in robes appropriate for the desert, while others wore armor and BDUs like the four soldiers he had met earlier. But many of both types stopped whatever they were doing outright to stare at him, or perhaps his suit, with a mixture of expressions.
Or maybe it was the blood. It had taken him a while to realize that his armor had been breached through and through. And that despite the biofoam, a minute amount of his blood was dripping out to stain the armor and ground. It would have been worrying, but treatment couldn't be far away.
"Sir, I'm Devola," one of the twins said on his right, breaking his line of thought.
"And I'm Popola," the other announced, distinguished from her twin by her comparatively straight hair. Her hand reached out to grab his. "May I ask your name?"
"Adam…" He broke off mid word, hissing as the motion brought a fresh stab of pain. "Adam Menendez..."
"Mister Menendez, we need to get you there for surgery," Popola pulled him away from Veis to one of the nearby canopy tents, a row of iron-framed beds visible under its shade. Her wavy-haired sister flanked him on the other side, the twins pulling him by either leg. Veis followed close behind, practically hovering over their shoulders.
He would have chuckled at the sight, if not for pain lancing through his gut. "Any… any medics?"
"We are, sir," the straight-haired twin answered promptly. "Me and my sister."
"Ah. That… makes things… easier." He felt both eyebrows go up in surprise. Were they both battlemages and medics? It was an unusual mix, but he wasn't going to complain. As the canopy loomed overhead, he gestured for Popola with one hand, who looked at him with confusion.
"Sir?"
With a thought to the interface, Adam materialized two bags. One black, the other red, he pushed them into Popola's hands. "Surgical kit," he grunted, gesturing at one bag, and then at the other, "...medical supplies."
She blinked, then nodded in understanding as she turned to put them on a nearby table.
"Now… need to…" He hissed as a fresh lance of agony shot through him while the suit shifted to a standing position, feet settling on the ground with a faint thump. "Get out of this, rrgh, next."
9,000 years of crysosleep and he still dreaded this part. Seals popped on command, the Javelin's backplate unfolding with an alarmingly loud whine. Almost immediately, the pressure on his abdomen lessened as his back was exposed to the elements, no longer held up by gel padding. He grit his teeth, bracing for the moment he knew was going to come. Inhale. Exhale.
He pulled an arm out.
"RRGH!!!"
White hot fire raced through Adam's chest at the sensation of something slicing across his ribs. His heart was hammering but he tried to control his breathing, focusing on the other arm.
And then there were hands on his back, holding him in place with iron hard strength.
"What are you doing, Mr. Menendez?! Are you insane?!" Popola's voice was shrill with panic from behind him.
"Takes one to know one..." He responded shakily, though he had no idea where that came from.
"What are you even- no, that's not important! You're still bleeding," Devola objected as a tingling warmth suffused his back at the contact, only for her exasperation to end in a horrified gasp. "You have multiple cracked ribs, penetrating trauma from something that just barely missed your lungs and you were- No! Stay right there, Mr. Menendez! Do not try to move on your own! Popola, help me get him out of that."
More hands landed on his back and shoulders under Devola's snapped orders, the red haired girl pausing only to say.
"Mr. Menendez, we're going to pull you out now so we can treat you. It's going to hurt with that fragment still in you, but it will be over quick."
Adam huffed, gritting his teeth in anticipation. "Do it."
There was the impression of tightened-
PAIN
Air hissed through clenched lips as white fire shot through his chest, bled into sudden vertigo.
And then he was lying down, blinking away the tears as shadows frantically went to work, their words were fragmented and muted as if from underwater.
"This is stuck, shears!"
...
"...still bleeding…"
...
"...prosthetic limbs. Have to adjust…"
Sudden panic sparked in his mind. He tried to move, but then something clamped down on his limbs.
"Stay calm!" Popola's face swam out of the shadows, her face looking down on him with both compassion and concern. "You still have fragments inside and multiple rib fractures! We have to operate to get it out and that means anesthesia. Do you understand?"
Even through the haze of pain, he understood what she was really asking. Did he trust them?
Could he trust them?
Something squeezed Adam's left hand. In the corner of his haze, a blob of white hair. Veis.
Silly question. He came here, didn't he?
He nodded.
There was a pinprick, and the world faded away.
~~|>> [-//=+=\\-] <<|~~
Author's Note:HOLY FUCK. I am so sorry that you guys have to wait for a long time. Still, we really didn't expect that it had taken us a year just to update this story. Still, better late than never, right?
Anyway, we're back and this story is still not dead in the water. But to be frank, I don't know what to do if this is how we're updating our fanfic.
Anyway, I have a bad news to tell you guys.
As of now, @Mashadarof402 will not be proofreading this story indefinitely due to reasons I cannot publicly disclose. There was no discord between us, and we reached an understanding on the subject. Nevertheless, this doesn't mean this story is finished. I just need to find a new beta-reader. At least someone who is as proficient as Mashadarof402 at grammar, syntax, story flow, sentence structure, spotting plot holes and recognizing things that are BSOD, as well as having familiarity with the NieR franchise.
Also, credits to @bluepencil for the edited screenshots above, which were taken from the NieR: Automata anime.
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