Prologue
This AU has been in the works for a while now. It is basically an AU that diverges from canon from about halfway through Cinder. Many changes so, yeah. I have tried to diversify the Eastern Commonwealth and its cultures and maybe I'll do that for the rest of the universe as well? A lot of OCs and many familiar faces. I tend to mix up my tenses a bit so sorry in advance for any grammar mistakes. I hope you enjoy my story and please do leave a review. If you have any questions or comments or a burning need to talk about kaider, my tumblr hrhseleneblackburn is always open. Oh and walkers are basically giant robots. Next update is tomorrow.
The wind hit Cinder's bare skin like a thousand needles at once.
The bitter cold seeped into her bones as she looked down on the valley. Even this far into the night it glowed a faint gold. Fires kept the townsfolk warm and safe from the mountain air but far up here there was nothing of the sort. Just her, a flashlight and coil of rope.
She climbed the walker's side, clinging onto the ugly spikes lining its flanks. For once she didn't curse Joy's love for all things dark and dreary. She sure as hell appreciated them when they were all that kept her from falling to certain death.
There was absolutely no reason to do this now. None. Even waking up at the crack of dawn would be better than this dark, freezing hell.
But orders were orders, and orders were not to be broken when it came to the Professor. Even the idiotic ones.
Hauling herself up the ledge, she settled onto the walker's broad shoulder.
From there, she could see the golden glow of the mountain town reflected on the walker's smooth metal head. Well, head being a fairly relative term, she thought, considering the giant sphere in front of her.
She set to work quickly, prying open a little catch in the otherwise smooth sphere to reveal a control panel. The walker's head had disconnected from the main control system following the evening's downpour. While the walker wasn't even in commission and waiting until morning wouldn't hurt, she had been sent up for the reconnection.
Still grumbling about the uselessness of sending her up, she worked on slowly reconnecting the head. Her flesh hand was numb and her metal one aching when she saw a broken wire. It probably short-circuited and stole me from my bed.
Frowning, she held it up in the light. The plastic insulator hadn't melted and the copper wire looked frayed. If she didn't know better, she would have said the wire looked torn. Making a note to talk to Superintendent later, she gingerly replaced it. A quick, cautionary check later, she began to climb down, mind drifting between her warm bed and the frayed wire.
The way down was always worse, a fact that held more merit than ever before when she was hanging from a tasteless spike over a small ledge. She let go, landing with a dull thud. She stood up and took a deep breath. Six feet down. Thirty more to go.