Two Asshats and a Crab (Nier:Automata)

[Ellimist system]

The mechanized horseshoe crab scuttled along the rocky edge of the cliff. It paused over a rusted screw and nipped at it.

"PSSSSSSST. Hey Buddy, wanna buy some drugsss?"

18B pressed her nose into the sand, watching as the crab ate the screw and moved on. She squinted through her mask and giggled.

"The first one's free. After that you gotta paaaaay."

Her voice was muffled as she talked into the wet sand. The grit on her tongue sent sparks flying over her vision and left after trials of tart sound. She pushed her hand towards her prey, making a wave of upended pebbles and mud.

Far below the cliff, something made a wet plop sound in the oil lake. 18B shifted her perspective, swiveling on her chin and making the world spin with her.

"Hey. Hatch. What you doing?"

"Fishing." Said the other android.

"Oh." Said 18B

The other woman's red hair glinted in the sunlight. Her calves disappeared over the rim of the cliff edge, following the line of her makeshift rod and bobbing as she kicked them. The world shimmered green and an aura of pixels leaked from Hatch's skin.

"Hey Haaatch? I have a question."

"Shoot."

18B lifted the mask from her wide open eyes and then tracked another sand wave out of the corner of her eye. As her hand plowed through the soft earth, she watched the pebbles grow to boulders and then crest in static.

"How do I know if you're seeing what I'm seeing?"

The android took her mask off completely and let the cloth fold over the hill her hand had created. She drew a line in the sand where the black cloth stopped.

"Because we have the same eyes."

"Oh."

The line was joined by two divots above it. She poked at the face she'd made. The wind whistled through the canyon that was their home and 18B shivered. She stretched out and buried her face in the sand, letting the dark earth cover her closed eyes.

"Okay. What do you mean?" Said Hatch.

18B burst from the sand and swallowed the air like a surfacing beetlefish.

"I think I just died. It was dark and all I could hear was my heartbeat."

"You don't have a heartbeat Eights. Seriously, what did you mean about that different seeing thing."

"Oh."

The world was bright again. Sun spires filtered through the green and gold pixels. She sat back, with her legs under her, and felt her eyes open wider on their own.

"I just meant that, like, how do you know if what you're seeing is the same as me? How do I know if the world isn't normally this screwed up but I just can't see it without the E stuff."

The crab stood on top of her sand android and nibbled on a frayed edge of her mask.

"If we have the same eyes, same feet, same brain, then why do we act so differently? Why do I see this," She waggled her hand at Hatch,"Thing as mine when it serves the same function and is made of identical material as yours."

The other woman stopped swinging her legs for a moment. Eights could see the sparks threading through her friend's brain, lighting up each neuron contained in the box in her chest. Her legs started bobbing again.

"Because its yours."

18B looked at the crab, it looked at her and chewed. She reached out and quickly patted its smooth top, just as quickly shrinking back after. The crab waved at her with a cartoon hand.

"But how do I know it's mine? Like, if all I see and feel and hear is input for the core, my brain, then what is me? How do I know that I'm not you? How do I not know that I am the world in a fever dream, creating this illusion so that I don't go mad with loneliness? How do I know you even exist?"

"I exis- Hell yeah!"

Hatch grabbed the rod and pulled. Splashes echoed from below them, the lake turning into a frothing, brown pool. Eights stood and ran to help her friend reel in her catch.

*BOOOM*

The world shifted under both of them and the air was filled with a harsh grinding. The pixels swirled around 18B and then flew away, toward the desert beyond the canyon. She dove toward her friend, putting her body in between whatever had exploded and what was most precious.

They both fell from the cliff in slow motion. The sky was filled with grey dust spiraling from the direction of the city, each shaft left a pixelated and sparkling trail. The sun fought against the incoming wave, sending out its own shafts and turning the sky into a multicoloured static.

Eights gasped and hit the oil.

"Hey, Haaatch?"

"Yeah?"

"Were we supposed to be somewhere?"

Dust and ash fell around them, mixing with the already dark crude.

"Maybe?"

A dot grew in the static sky and Eights tracked it. She blew bubbles in the slick solution. The dot hit her square in the forehead. It was a fish.

"Hey. I caught something." 18B said.

 

[Ellimist system]

*Thuwumph*

The iron pipe hit the lock and sparks of blue vapor flew into void.

"I'm so excited Hatch. Is it books? Tell me it's books."

Eights hopped from foot to foot, her knees pivoting in an exaggerated march. She held her hands clenched at her side around the hem of her skirt.

"If you don't stop asking then I'm going to keep it closed."

Hatch slid the jagged end of the pipe into the gap between the box's lid and base. She wrenched it and smiled at the crack of nails separating from wood. She looked inside and her face fell, down to the dark opening beneath her.

"Hatch! Your face!"

Eights dove for the crate and dug around in the packing hey. Stacks of cases filled the bottom, each one with a hand painted cover. The android stopped and picked up a case with a smiling moon on it. The moon winked.

"My face what? Are you okay?"

She looked over her shoulder at her friend, noticing that the other woman's face was still attached to the front of her head. She went back to digging through the box, her shoulder's slumped.

"Just having another one of those weird days. Don't worry."

There was a machine under a stack of cases. It was silver and plastic with a lid on the side. Eights slid her finger along the side, feeling rods of green pain well up under the shoddy material. She lifted it above her head, letting the cases cascade back into the crate.

"Got something cool."

Hatch took the machine from her and poked at it. There was a click and a whirring noise.

"It's broken." Said Hatch

Eights flopped onto her back to stare into the sky, her feet against the crate and her arms splayed. It was still the same multi coloured static it had been since the blast, the weeks or days between seemingly nonexistent. She put her injector to her lips and pressed the button.

Her breath froze, the trails of ice flowing down her throat and coiling around her core. Her vision shifted, looking down at the oil oasis from above. She could see her companion fiddling with the strange device, her aura turning green to match the lit rods inside. She could see the broken scrub brush that surrounded their makeshift camp. She could see the crab, furiously waving at her with cartoon hands.

"The crab."

She jumped to her feet and ran. The crab was sitting next to the drink machine with its swirling fingers pressed to its shell. Eights slid down an embankment in the trail, the rocks glittering pixels as she passed, and stopped in front of the animal.

"Hello crab." She said

"Hello android." Said the crab.

Her eyes widened and she took a step away from the crustacean. It spoke in the voice of The Council, deep and smooth.

"Come. I have much to show you."

The crab turned and pressed a button on the vending machine. There was the sound of a machine lifeform screaming in terror and then the side of the canyon split open to a void of abyssal green.

Eights took another step back and fell into the pond, her bum sinking in the muck. She looked at the crab, then at the gash in the rock, then back to the crab, then finally to the cliff where Hatch was still messing with the plastic thing from earlier.

"Haaaatch. The crab can talk and is wanting me to go with it to space. Can I go?" She yelled.

"Just don't break anything." Her friend yelled back.

The oil started sinking into her stockings and she shivered. She scratched the back of her head and bit her bottom lip. The crab motioned to her to come. She got up and moved on from her lip to the meat of her pointer finger.

The crab reached out to her. "My name is Innen. If you want answers, come with me."

She took its hand and together they entered the shining crevasse.

-----

Hatch tapped the object with her fingers, the sound resonating through her as a solid tone. With the wind and the feeling of the sun on her skin the percussive sound filled her with a symphony of pleasure. She swayed to the sensation and tapped her foot.

Then she hit a hidden button and the hatch swung open with a click. She scrunched her lips together in a sour pucker and looked inside. A piece of paper was crammed into the small compartment. She took it out and read.

I just wanted to thank you assholes for being my guinea pigs. Just pop a tape in and go. Have fun.

Jackass.

"Eights? You still playing? I found something in the thing from Jackass."

Wind whipped at her skirt, snapping it. She looked up from the note and found the camp empty.

"Eights? You there?"

Hatch went to the edge of the cliff, note and gaget still in hand. The lake was placid, the sun reflected off its black surface in golden light and small mechanical animals milled around the edge. The woman took in the view for a moment before spotting her friend near the drink machine.

Eights was on her knees and pressing her face into the hulking device. Her back end was covered in mud and wiggling in time with some unseen music. Hatch shook her head and went back to the crate.

---

"This is the Universe."

The world around Eights opened and wavered, Scan lines splintered in a hazy, multicoloured light. Buildings, broken and dusty, slide around her. Innen held her hand as a miniature city swirled around them.

"You are but a small part of it."

Echoes of the two travelers split off and walked in different directions, after images drifting away in pixel paths.

"One of many."

Fire spread through the city and shadows of tiny people scurried from window to window. A tiny shadow person yelled and shook their fist as the pair passed by.

"Little of that matters."

They approached a screen, the sphere of distortion bending the edges in green lines. Innen slid their spiral hands across the dark glass and it awoke. It showed a familiar room, though it had been months since she'd last seen it.

The Bunker control room was beyond, the grayscale atmosphere leaking from the screen and mingling with the spastic colour of beyond. Inside YoRHa soldiers worked. Operators checked in with their charges, Defence mulled about, and Battle units fell into line before their superiors. In the middle of everything was The Commander, her pure white dress unwrinkled and stoic.

"They are not what they seem. You are not what you seem."

The YoRHa units melted, running along the floor and reforming into shapes. The stark aesthetic being infected by the other world's colour.

"You are from Mars."

----

"Little green men!" Eights shouted to the canyon.

She was neck deep in sludge and looking up at the static sky. She looked around, not moving her head incase the other world came back.

"You're back?" Hatch said.

The redheaded android was at the edge of the oil lake and sitting on a chair made from salvaged crate. Beside her sat the device, music coming from within it.

"You were crawling around the last couple hours. I was about to go get help."

Eights sat up and found that she was barely under the slick surface. Everything was covered with the sticky mud of the lakebed, from heel to nose. She shook her hands and started to clear off the worst of it.

"The crab could talk. Like, it took me to another world behind the vending machine and gave me a tour."

"Uh huh."

She stood and shook the silt from her legs.

"You had to have been there."

She waded out of the oil and sat beside her friend. They both took a deep breath.

"So, like, what happened while I was gone?" Eights asked.

Hatch tapped the top of the device beside her.

"I got it working. It's a music player."

"Oh."

She laid against the rocks behind her and closed her eyes. Her joints were sore, probably got some sand in them. She would have to make a trip to the resistance camp soon, get some maintenance.

She heard the sound of claws on sand and sat up. Innen was crawling in front of them, they winked at her. She got up and ran after the machine as it scuttled back into the oil pool.

"Get back here! What's a Mars?" Eights yelled after them.

 

[Ellimist system]

The war had been going on for thousands of years. Invaders from space sending forces to in a constant pressure, never pausing for drink or rest. And the defenders were never enough, never able to quite get the upper hand in the war of attrition.

Eights watched the unending battle rage and felt sorrow. The edge of light pressing in to the deep pool of shadow formed by the edge of a rock. She could see the death and the pain that formed in that line, each second creating a green shimmer across the abhorrent no man's land.

"Eights, you want to go into town today? We're out of water."

She could see the people fighting now, each person dying on grains of sand no bigger than a period. She watched battalions fall, watched each member scream out their last seconds in agony. She was a passive observer of genocide from two different sides.

"Are you there?"

This one was named Photon, this one The Void. Both plead and killed and died and were born again. She wept inside, for their senseless lives and her inability to form the closing balm of tears.

"Earth to Mars child. We need water. Hello?"

Just a little longer and she might just…

A hand clamped down on her shoulder and she jolted, whirling around and screaming along with the dying. He hand went to her sword, pulling the blade from the lives of the dead and the horror.

"Woah, stand down." Hatch said, hands raised palms up.

18B, caught mid swing, fell forward and into the sand. Pixels swirled around her, memories of the dream leaking from her forehead in waves. She twitched and foam started pooling around her mouth. The box in her breast felt hot and heavy as the spasms took her.

And then peace. 14H's hand on her back beating away the nightmare vision.

"It's okay. Concentrate on the sand, on the warmth of it."

Her friend rubbed her back and softly cooed words of focus. Yellow light, brighter than the sun, surrounded them both and Eights felt herself relax.

"Thank you. I'm so sorry, I almost kille-"

"It's okay. Just rest. I'll go get the water."

Hatch took her friend gently under the arm and lifted her up. They took halting steps back to camp, the warm yellow light continuing to swirl around them.

"I don't remember. What was I doing? Like, why was I so upset, Hatch? Why didn't I realize…"

They sat together with their backs to a crate and rested. Hatch slid her arm around the other android's shoulders and held her close. Eights rested her head on Hatch's chest.

"It's been good here. All we do is just watch this place. We don't have to fight, we don't have to worry about anything, and we just chill. I'm glad I have you Eights, I don't know what I'd do without you."

Eights hugged her, hard. She pressed her face into Hatch's chest and felt the beat of her heart. She wished she could cry.

"I have to go grab water from the camp. Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Stay here and rest."

Hatch left and Eights was alone. She stared up at the swirling static sky.

Two Asshats ending theme plays over a screen filled with multicoloured static, the credits begin to roll. The music dims and Innen walks on screen, their legs and arms made of swirling, monochrome lines.

"We have fun here on Two Asshats and a Crab. We take some very serious subject matter and put a fun spin on it."

A pure white moose walks into the other side of the frame, its red eyes looking directly at the camera.

"The truth is, drug addiction effects two androids a year and it's not a laughing matter for them."

Stage lights focus on the two animals and Innen lifts up an injector in a sealed up bag.

"This is E-Drug. It isn't fun, it isn't healthy, and it isn't YoRHa stuff. Every time you take it, you might be sucked into a black hole filled with gibbering clowns."

The white stag-moose nods sagely.

Together they say, "E-Drug, not even once."

Eights blinked and the images disappeared. She waited for her friend to get back.

 

[Ellimist system]

Stepping out of the story to actually do a PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT! A lot of what I put in here is either from personal experience or second hand from people I've known. In the past two years I've personally had to deal with several of my friends having drug overdoses, dealing with friends being on multiple different mind altering substances(With very bad results), and seen first hand how drug addiction affects people.

I've also had my own addiction problems, thankfully I managed to get the help to deal with them before it ruined my life completely. Please, if you need help then reach out, if you're thinking of taking then have a long hard look at why. Stay safe and use responsibly.

Love you all,

Tiny.

 

[Ellimist system]

 

[Ellimist system]

 

[Ellimist system]

Hatch looked out at the horizon, at the reflection of the sun from grey clouds, and the dark water beneath them both. She stood over it all on a silver sliver and raised her hands to feel the breeze. She sighed and let the music of reality flow over her, fill her up to the brim with tones she did not deserve.

She swayed as the salt tinged wind took her hair and added it to the symphony of input. She spun, sliding her mask onto her neck to see the world uncontrolled. She noticed Eights staring at her from the blacktop shore and winked.

"Toss me the rod!."

Eights dug in the duffle bag they'd brought and came out with the makeshift rod. She tossed it and Hatch saw the arc as golden fire shimmering in the air. She caught it at the last second and with a practiced movement unspooled the fiberwire reel. She stood for a moment, poised with the rod held in the air like a sword, and then sent the hook far out to sea.

"Hey. Haaaatch. I have a question."

"Shoot."

"Do you have an Operator?"

The fishing android sat and let her feet dangle over the dark fathoms. She watched the black water and sighed, feeling the sun warm her face.

"Yeah Eights, I do."

"Oh."

Hatch looked back at her partner and saw her petting the Horseshoe crab she'd insisted on carrying out of the Oilasis. She smiled and turned back to wait for the fish.

"Do I have one?"

"You should. Wasn't 32O watching you?"

"Like, I don't know."

"What do you-"

The rod jerked in her hand. She grabbed the reel and spun it, the wire squealing as she pulled it in. It was a boot, some old and forgotten memory of the past. She scrunched her mouth and tossed it back.

"Damn." She said.

"Is that weird, Hatch? Like, am I weird?"

"We're both weird. Can you turn on the music?"

"Yeah."

Hatch could feel the click deep inside her core, the flair of the sounds to come and the meaning behind them spreading through her. Notes in violet and pink obscured her peripheral, she tapped her heel in time with them.

"Somewhere…" She sang.

She felt Eights' hand on her shoulder. She followed the feeling and clasped her friend's hand, squeezing it.

"Beyond the sea."

She twisted the rod around an angled piece of rebar and, still holding Eights' hand, twirled up in time with the music.

"Somewhere, waiting for me." They sang in unison.

Together they let the music take them. They danced as the cassette whined and the wind embraced them.

"My lover stands on golden sands and watches the ships that go sailing."

Eights leaned in to Hatch and rested her head on the android's shoulder.

I'm so lonely mommy.

Eights stiffened and looked out towards the ocean, for the source of the voice echoing around her head. The dancing stopped and Hatch squeezed her friend's hand again.

The sky was a tangle of lights, constantly tearing each other apart and merging as Eights watched it met the dull gray of the sea. The voice still called and Eights took a step toward it. She took another step, straining against her friend's grip as the longing pushed her.

Please don't go…

She looked back toward Hatch, her breath already forming a question, but Hatch's face was wrong. The texture was morphin and translucent, she could see her friend's eyes through her mask, see her core beating through the flesh of her chest. Eights trembled.

Out of the other android's mouth came the sound of a foghorn, a deep tone that overwhelmed the squealing of the tape and the music in the air. She pulled at her friend's hand, urging her to follow.

"We need to go, like, something is really wrong."

She could hear the battle of Photon and Void ramping up. The sound of machines calling for blood, the sound of androids entering cockpits. She pulled and tugged at her changing friend, the android's hand turning to triangles as they moved.

Innen scuttled beside them as they ran, the still playing radio on its back.

"It is coming. It is coming. It is coming." The little crab squealed in it's too deep voice.

An explosion went off behind them, the buildings they ran through ripping apart from the shockwave. Eights pulled her sword from the eather and batted away debris as they hurried into the pipe they had come through to get to the shoreside.

I AM HERE MOMMY.

They ran through the tunnel as the water behind them rose and the current reversed. In front of them Eights saw the albino moose flitting around corners, showing them the way out. She followed as the water went from ankle to knee to waist.

The foghorn burst from Hatch's mouth again and static fills the air.

"All YoRHa units EMP incoming. Find shelt-"

Eights could see the sky above them. The colour flexed and a force tore through the noise to leave a single golden blanket. The static around them filled the pipe and Eights screamed.

 

[Ellimist system]

 

[Ellimist system]

I am fish i am fish i am fish. I am fish, i am fish i am fish i am fish i am fish. I am fish.

"I am fish i am fish i am fish?" I am fish

I am fish i am fish i am fish i am fish, i an fish. I am fish. I am fiah i an fish i am fish. I am fish i am fish i am fish i am fish. I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish, I am fish I am fish I am fish.

"I am fish I am fish. I am fish I am fish I am fish." I am fish.

I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish, I am fish, I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fis I am fish I am fish. I am fish. I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish, I am fish I am fish.

I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish. I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish. I am fish. I AM FISH. I am fish.

I am fish.

"I AM FISH!" I am fish.

I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish, I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish. I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish.

"I am fish. I am fish I am fish I am fish, I am fish."

I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish.

I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish, I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish I am fish. I am fish. IAMFISH.

I am fish.

I
am

fish

 

[Ellimist system]

"Hatch, I think we may be, like, seriously fucked."

The light radiating from Hatch's hand sparkled in pixelated beauty. Green and gold flitted between the alien language that ringed the stump of Eight's leg. The android could feel her friend working against the grey liquid running from her broken part, nitting the servos and staunching her life flowing from her. Eight's stroked Hatch's aura and hummed to herself.

"Yep." Hatch said.

Eights giggled. Everything that had happened and this was how it was going to end, she wouldn't even get to apologise properly.

"What do you think death is like?"

"I uploaded a few minutes ago." Hatch looked to the ceiling, he eyes shifting under her mask. "Temporary black and then I wake up in the bunker? That's what happened last time."

"Oh."

The android traced the line that flowed from her friend to join up with the other's in the sky. The lattice was both thicker and less dense since the explosion on the beach, the YoRHa colours drifting away to dissipate as she watched. The dripping stopped and Hatch put a hand to her partner's chest.

"Welcome to my beloved city." A voice from below spoke, among the clattering of white cubes and city streets.

"Does that mean you, like, have a soul?" Eights said, propping herself up on the white wall that rose to the sky and ignoring their host below. Her friend wiped the grey smudges off the floor with the hem of her skirt and shifted to put her head in Eights' lap. Eights started stroking the red hair of the other droid.

"Maybe? Does it matter?"

She froze at that. Her hand no longer running through Hatch's hair, her eyes closed and leaking like her leg. She bit her lip and sagged,

"I don't think I have a soul." She said.

They both sat together, as the sounds of talking, poetry, and shrieking metal went on below them. Eights watched a red ribbon sever and float away into the sky.

"I think I lost it a long time ago. I think I'm just some, like, hollow puppet, dancing because my brain tells it. I think that if I die, I'm gone for good."

She felt her friend stiffen at the words, could hear the grinding of of her teeth as they sat together.

"I'm sorry, Hatch."

"Why do you always do this." Hatch stripped her blindfold off and threw it off the roof. She pressed her finger in to Eight's chest and screamed.

"Every fucking time we have a good moment, you start saying things that make me worry. I just have to grin through it and pretend like nothing's wrong, that I'm totally fine with you going insane. That's not fair Eights, I don't want you to f-fucking die!"

Below, the fighting stopped and a male voice drifted up, "Are you okay up there?"

"Shut the fuck up, you self obsessed asshole." Hatch yelled back. She took her friend's face in her hand and stared into the woman's pink eyes. She kissed Eights, her lips soft and her cheeks wet.

"Do you need to have a soul? Do you need to be an individual? Do you need to go to fucking mars? I'm here. You need to stop."

Eights looked away from those piercing black eyes and down at her ruined leg. Her eye twitcheed. She feelt her heart heat and wanted to staunch it. She pulled her inhaler from her dress and put it to her lips. Hatch slapped it away and shook the woman.

"I need you here. I need you on this planet, on this universe."

Her inhaler teetered on the edge of the roof shingles, rocking as she rocked. She closed her eyes and the world slowed.

She saw Innen, floating in a black pool with their arms spread out around them. She giggled again and sighed. Innen spoke, their voice booming in the darkness.

"So dark, So cold. So comes the foretold."

------

For Cait and Skylar, I'm sorry I couldn't do more.