I've had a ton of ideas for this story in my head for quite some time now, and it'll be nice to get them all out and onto the internet for others to hopefully enjoy. I really like this concept and I hope I am able to pull it off in a way that's really entertaining. Leave a comment and let me know what you think, I am always interested in hearing your thoughts.


The clearing was silent. They had come here on orders from YoRHa, to a little groove trapped between the dilapidated buildings and giant archtrees. Very little room for fighting, and no room for escape. 2B walked slowly beside 9S, dragging behind only a little as her heels brushed overgrown grass and kicked up dirt. She felt like a prison guard, taking the man in handcuffs down to the electric chair.

A fool's errand is what it was. Take the dog out behind the shed and then shoot him. 9S had made a terrible mistake, the same one he'd made what felt like a hundred times before. His curiosity, that damned curiosity, had gotten the best of him yet again. This one had survived for so long, gone for such a wonderful period of months without a single hitch.

She had no idea how he found out and she didn't care to know. She barely even knew WHAT he had found out. All she knew was that her time with this one was at an end, and she was almost proud of him for keeping it together so well in the short time since he'd learned the truth.

And yet, she was almost nervous. Normally when he learned the secret history of Project YoRHa, he immediately lost his mind with fury and rage and disappointment. This time, he hadn't. Some part of him must've hoped that nobody knew. That he'd been untraceable.

Of course, he wasn't. They knew immediately, and 2B got the kill order mere moments later. She just needed the right time to take him out. To take him apart. And now she had her chance.

As he realized there were no machines for the slaughter to be found here as the command center's orders originally stated, 9S too became aware of this. His eyes narrowed just slightly as he noticed that 2B was no longer standing beside him... but behind him.

"I'm so sorry, 9S." She whispered as she drew her arm back, poised like a cobra ready to strike.

In that instant, he became astoundingly aware of what was happening. Inside, he knew this was coming. It was her job. It was just orders. 2B was cold and clinical and that was just her personality at work, and this was an extension of it. There was no way she was going to let him simply walk away with what he now knew.

But he'd hoped she would have given him the dignity of at least facing him first.

As her sword jerked toward his spine, he spun. He drew his own in that instant, swiveling on one heel to face her. 9S' blade clashed with hers edge-first, knocking her stab off-kilter. It went wide of his body as he followed the swing through, and he stumbled back a few steps to put some distance between them.

9S' voice was incredulous. "So, that's it, then? You were gonna stab me in the back? Really?"

"You don't understand," 2B said, her arm still tensed, "it's not like that."

"I can't believe you'd do something like that." He grunted, suddenly full of a feeling akin to anger. "If you're gonna try and kill me, then face me."

To his surprise, 2B nodded. And to his chagrin, she rushed forward, unwilling to spend any more valuable time on words. As she dashed forward on a single footstep, she sheathed her sword like a samurai. 9S took his best guarding stance but she still broke his block when she whipped it over her head as hard as she could- harder than he thought possible. While he was reeling and only barely able to keep up, she got down to business.

2B's strikes were surgical, practiced, calculated. It sent a chill up 9S' spine. Whatever he thought he knew about her, it was wrong. This was not 2B, this was 2E. The cold, unfeeling robot designed to exploit every weakness necessary to get the job done. Watching her fight while destroying machines with her was intriguing. Watching her try to destroy 9S himself was frightening.

He held his blade with the flat end out, one hand on the hilt and the other along the edge. 2B cried out as her own swing clashed against it, sparks flying everywhere with a loud 'clang'. 9S held steady, his heels digging into the dirt as she pushed and pushed in an attempt to knock him over.

When he didn't give, she took advantage of his locked-up joints, retracting her sword and doing a lofty pirouette. He lowered his to chest-level and blocked again, parrying the move before it could come his way. His fists shook from the force of the blow but he still stood unmoved.

However, this was exactly what 2B planned for. When she finished her spin, so quickly he almost could not react, she drew her elbow back and then jousted the edge of her sword straight at him like a fencer. He leapt to the side, curling in his stomach and narrowly avoiding being skewered. She pulled back and struck again, and again, forcing him to back up as she crowded him. He deflected her piercing strikes, but then he held up his sword to block and nothing came his way.

9S drew in a breath, realizing at the last second that she'd gotten him into a rhythm and then held back to intentionally throw him off. Her teeth were gritted as she put her palm flat against the end of the hilt, readying a straight thrust right for his black box. In the split second he had to analyze the situation, 9S was only barely able to react. He threw his sword outward to stop the attack but he was too late. Sparks shot out again as her weapon glanced off the side of his but continued uninhibited.

He barely had time to gasp.

Her sword blasted straight through his midsection and came right out the other side, stumbling him onto his heels. 9S cried out in agony as he tipped forward into the blade, his own sword dropping as his hand went limp instantly. 2B took a step toward him, further entrenching the sword in his stomach. She'd landed just below the chest at a slightly diagonal angle, obviously having aimed her blow directly at his black box... perhaps out of some pitiful attempt at mercy.

2B put her hand on his shoulder and gripped it tight, and for a moment he thought she was about to embrace him. He decided he'd have liked that more than anything right at this moment.

With absolute misery lining her harrowed features, 2B just mumbled, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry this happened again."

"2... B..." 9S gurgled, blood spilling up his throat and out of his mouth in little dark red trickles. He was clutching gently for her hand, clasped so tight around her sword's handle that her knuckles must have been shock white under the gloves. When he found it, she did not stop him from wrapping his trembling palms around it.

"Just fall, 9S. Please." Her lower lip was equally trembling. "Please just fall."

It was so strange, he considered in his hazy fog, to see her this way. The sword going through his guts no longer hurt- his mind had buried itself in defenses to keep out the pain as adrenaline coursed through him. He was so focused on her expression, her posture, her defenselessness, to see her this way.

He cared for her dearly, even now, even with what he knew about her and YoRHa and all of it. To see her so broken looking would've made his heart jump out of his chest if he could still feel it. She was just shivering, mortified that she had been forced to slay him yet again. And he felt terrible for causing her such misery.

And then... he realized her words hadn't been a figure of speech, she literally was asking him to fall over. To drop dead. This beautiful creature that he cared about so much more deeply than partnership was asking him to just lie down and die for both their sakes. He felt his legs wobble and give out, and though he tried to fight it with every single ounce of strength left in him, it just wasn't enough.

9S landed on one knee, and after a single attempt to get back on his feet, fell over to one side and impacted with the ground softly. His breathing ceased and so did his movement, and then the only sign he'd ever been alive came from the blood still seeping out of the wound and down 2B's blade.

It took a moment before 2B let her shaking hands drop. She had to look away- even in death his mortified expression did not settle. He looked like he had died in screaming agony, and for all she knew, he probably had. If anything, she was glad he couldn't have expressed it, as it would have made her feel even more horrible.

"2B to Bunker. It's done." She said, and found her voice wavering. She stared at the ground as she awaited further orders, watching the pooling blood around 9S' body slowly eclipse the dirt and swallow up the pointed toes of her boots.

'It's just orders', she told herself. 'It really is just orders'.

Her frown became a grimace.

Did she really expect herself to believe such a lie?

() () ()

Eventually, she walked away. From his static-filled, barely functional point of view he watched her go. She simply left her sword in his stomach, obviously too wracked with pain to bother trying to yank it out. She could get another one, presumably from the same place she could get another 9S. Somewhere far above them sat the Bunker, and 9S could almost hear the whole command center laughing at him.

He watched 2B slowly disappear into a tiny dot on the horizon, her body hunched, defeated. She'd won the meager fight he put up, and yet he was still the victor. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her that it was just what she needed to do. She was a slave to YoRHa, he knew it now, and he felt so sorry for her. He probably would've said so, given the chance.

Maybe some other 9S had and it just made her feel worse. A whole legacy of former versions of himself, probably having said anything and everything to keep themselves from death by her hand.

He wondered if she would've even hesitated if he'd begged instead of defending himself.

9S could no longer feel 2B's sword in his stomach. He could no longer feel much of anything, really. His motor functions had completely shut down, and even simple thought was becoming more and more difficult. But something was bothering him as he tried desperately to do so much as writhe from his place there in the dirt. Some feeling at the back of his mind that he couldn't place. He involuntarily choked up more blood as he tried to squirm, to sit up, to do anything but just sit there and bleed out.

As his automatic system analysis concluded, however, he knew.

She missed.

By a fraction of an inch, she missed. The diagonal slant of her blade, having glanced off of his own, had cracked his ribcage, pierced a lung, the muscles in his stomach, and torn a hole straight through the flesh on both sides... but not his black box.

His eyes fluttered a few times. The signal was weak, so very weak, but it was there. Disconnected from the Bunker, from any help he could call for. Not like they would assist him anyway. He suddenly felt very alone, even moreso than usual.

Immediately he went to work, desperately searching his own mind for anything he could reroute to muscle strength. The adrenaline was still coursing through him even now as he laid limp as a ragdoll. Self-preservation suddenly mattered more to him than any feelings he could have had for 2B. His affection for her had dried up the moment her sword had skewered his body.

There was no time to think of that now, however, as he shut down every system available to him to divert the power to his arms. His sight went pitch black and his hearing cut to an abrupt whining static. His thoughts became noticeably slower and more sluggish. His body began searing with white-hot agony as he deactivated the tiny but powerful pain suppressing chip. He couldn't even scream, though he suddenly very much felt like it.

The latter gave him enough leftover energy to spare for his motor functions. Still blind, he groped around his midsection weakly for 2B's sword. His hands caught the blade and he slid them up and up what felt like miles until they wrapped around the handle. With a choking cough, he tensed his core, the muscles in his stomach becoming painfully taut. He doubted he'd have strength for a second attempt.

With an almost frantic sawing motion, his mind grew hot with fire and agony as he wrenched the thing out of his guts inch by inch. He could feel every little bit of the curved steel as it moved backward through his pierced meat and bone. It finally came out of him with a horrible wet sucking sound and clattered to the dirt beside his tired body.

9S rolled onto his back, hands pressed tight over the gaping wound. He was screaming now, though silently. His legs writhed and bent as he struggled for enough purchase to sit up. The ground was slicked wet with his blood, as was his lower body. Eventually, though, he managed. His back felt like it weighed a thousand pounds as he lifted it from the ground, and immediately one hand left his stomach to cover the hole in his jacket.

"Nnngghh..." He groaned, reactivating his pain suppressing chip as soon as he could be sure his body had enough strength in it to keep moving. He sat, hunched over, shuddering with aching lopsided breaths for what felt like hours. In reality it was less than a minute.

He blinked a few times as his sight returned, a thousand warning symbols and tiny readouts flashing in front of his eyeballs. He tried his best to ignore them, to glance between the lines of text to see the blood and the wound and 2B's discarded sword. Immediately his hands were scrambling for his satchel, which had thankfully landed just within reach. With a grunt he wrenched it open and began to dig inside for anything that could possibly help.

His fingers curled around a syringe full of staunching gel, which he yanked from the bag and drove into his stomach at full force. As soon as it was empty he threw it aside and grabbed another, and then another. The blood started to bubble over, slowing from a gush to a trickle as the wound began to seal itself.

As the bleeding came to a stop, the pain slowly did too, and 9S let his arms fall to his sides. His body was devastated on the inside in many ways, but the immediate threat was over. He couldn't go back to the resistance, nor to YoRHa, but this was fixable. He could make it through this. Though he currently felt like screaming for multiple reasons, he was going to survive. He'd make sure of it.

He gazed at 2B's weapon, still slick and bright red with his bodily fluids, and wondered what to do now.

() () ()

Atop a hill, 9S sat, occasionally weakly grunting as the pain in his side thrummed. He was doubled over still, trying his best to ignore the firey sensation. He needed medical attention- though not that urgently anymore, and he was currently scraping his mind for any ideas on how to get it.

He was completely cut off from the Bunker's servers. Hitting the call button met with no response. Most of his visual interface was locked down, throwing big flashing permission errors upon his attempted access. It didn't seem like they could remotely interact with him any longer either, however. He counted his blessings there, at least.

But that meant he was totally alone. Surely YoRHa would warn the resistance that he'd gone rogue. No resistance android could possibly fight him and win- especially not now that he had 2B's sword -but he hated the thought of having to harm them. After all, it wasn't their fault they were caught up in this pointless fight. Not like anyone would believe the truth if he told them anyway.

The truth... it still made him shudder involuntarily. It was all just pointless. The continuation of the human condition. Fighting for nothing in particular because there was nothing else to do. And 2B... Even in spite of the revelation, he still had feelings for her. They sickened him, made the hole in his gut ache, but he couldn't let it go.

"Damn it..." He chuckled to himself for feeling so weak.

What did it matter anyway? His life as he thought he knew it was over now. He and 2B had encountered other rogue androids on their journey together, and they fought for their lives till the last breath. Until now, he thought he would never understand why.

YoRHa was the ideal. A bastion of hope, peace, and order. A sword of Damocles dangling over the heads of all android-kind. Wandering samurais who solve problems. Holy templars who smite the forces of injustice against the graces of God: Humans.

It was all bullshit. Just a sham.

Maybe it was time for the sword to fall.

Of course, that was a pipe dream. They had forces beyond his comprehension, and he was just a lone boy currently struggling to keep his lunch down. Not that he'd eaten anything recently, but the phrase was still apt. He stood up slowly, hand still clutching his stomach, and leaned against the tree he sought respite under with his opposite arm. YoRHa wouldn't help him... the resistance COULDN'T help him... so what was left? Other deserters? A slow, painful demise?

"Machines," he murmured to himself. Of course. Now that he knew androids were made of machine parts in the first place, it made a lot more sense to him to just scrap them for whatever he needed. He could repair himself with the crap he yanked out of them. It wasn't like there was a drought of the things. Their technology couldn't compare to the standard-issue YoRHa android kit, but it was certainly better than dying.

9S could barely walk, but he still had his hacking and that mattered much more. Over the next couple hours he stumbled through the modern jungle looking for a fight to pick, winding through crumbled buildings and overgrown streets. Along the way he tried to assess what he'd do if he ran into another android, as that did happen semi-frequently during his exploits with 2B. The first thing they'd probably ask would be why he was out alone, followed by asking why he was walking so funny. He didn't have a good answer to either question yet.

Eventually, after a couple of close calls with big groups, he found a few machines just milling about by themselves. They were of the lowly stubby variety, doing nothing in particular as they wandered here and there. Easy prey.

His hacking module took a few seconds to kick in, first giving him fuzzy static before bringing the picture into focus. Even so, the chroma was out of alignment and that made it a bit hard to see what he was doing. He supposed it was a side effect of YoRHa pulling the plug on him.

Despite the harsh noise clouding his vision, he wormed his way inside the trio of machines' minds and took control of their systems, shutting them down with a snap of his fingers. Easy.

"Got 'em." He muttered, and then slid down the ridge to meet their lifeless bodies.

Wedging 2B's sword between their plates like a crowbar, he pried them open, piece by piece. Pitch black oil dampened his sleeves as he tried not to sever anything important. Only after he took the main body piece off of one of them did it occur how gruesome this business really was. Beyond the cylindrical body were metal organs, bones, blood and guts. Their metal was so old and rusty, poorly refined and made of dirty steel. Maybe aluminum. They really did look like they'd come straight from a production line, churning out knockoffs without any regard for consistency.

Then again, for all he knew, he was the same way.

Groaning, he realized he'd have to cut himself open again to actually get at the damaged parts of his body. The plates YoRHa units were comprised of weren't supposed to come off. No prying himself open as he had done to these things. He shivered then at two prospects: First, that of having to basically dissect himself in order to get at his inner parts, and second...

He stared at the machine's corpse with a sigh. These rusty, unrefined parts were going to go inside him. Become a part of him. His body's standard automatic repair system would absorb them and make them a true part of his anatomy. Where his cracked rib ended, a machine rib would take its place. Where his pierced lung lay deflated and unusable, a machine lung would bring it back to life.

9S shivered again.

He took occasional nervous glances at his surroundings to make sure he was truly alone. His scanning module was partially busted just as his hacking now was, but it sent out pulse wave after pulse wave and returned no movement and for the moment that was all he cared about.

2B's sword felt like it weighed a thousand pounds in his hand. They had the parts he needed, alright. Hell, the androids and machines had remarkably similar innards save for the big bulbous head. With chagrin, however, he noted that they only had the bare essentials. Raw bits and pieces to replace the ones he'd damaged. In order to repair himself to full functionality, not just restore his basic movement and ability to continue living in this hell-on-Earth, he'd need real YoRHa parts.

The only way to get YoRHa parts... would be to take them from YoRHa androids.

Thankfully, not every one of their numbers was as careful as 2B. There wre bound to be corpses of his fallen brethren strewn in the strangest of places, unable to be touched by machines who sought to take them apart and harvest them. For the first time, he was happy that YoRHa devoted precisely none of its budget to corpse retrieval. He'd stood over his own body and plucked chips from his own brain several times in the past and it never got less creepy to see, but at least now it served some purpose.

For now, though, he had more important matters to attend to. He dragged the machine bodies out of the clearing, into a nearby alley where he could shield himself from prying eyes. He shed his jacket and the shirt underneath, leaving his gloves on to prevent his hands from becoming slick with blood and oil. The wound was a red, gnarled mess, covered in orange seeping gunk. He deactivated his pain receptors with a sigh.

"Well, this is gonna suck." He said.

() () ()

When 9S resurfaced from his stupor, after his impromptu surgery concluded, he was unsure how much time had passed. He couldn't be sure of much other than the fact he had at some point reactivated his pain receptors, and that he was very, very sore. He stared down his nose at the Y-shaped incision on his front, passing between his pecs and down his stomach nearly to his bellybutton. 2B's sword was once again drenched in red, propped up against one wall of the alley.

He pushed into a sitting position and drew in a sharp breath as the soreness grew red hot. At least it was just hitting him with a dull hammer now instead of stabbing him with a butcher knife.

Then, he raised his head up just a little.

He breathed in again. Exhale. Again. Exhale.

"Huh," he murmured. The lung he'd patched up with the machine parts was working perfectly. He no longer felt the loose rib shuffling around inside him either. The only pain he really felt came from the initial wound- still scarring over -and the incision he'd made on himself.

He carefully stood, then traced the surgical cut with one finger. Thankfully he'd had the good sense to jam more staunching gel into himself, this one was going to heal much more evenly. It might not even leave a scar on his flesh. His next goal was to find some YoRHa scanner parts to replace his broken hacking and scanning modules, but that could wait until he'd recuperated just a little. His motor functions were still lacking, to say the least.

As he put his shirt and jacket back on, scooping up 2B's weapon, he wondered how long it would be before YoRHa came after him. Surely they already knew he was still living- and if not now, they would be able to detect his black box soon. After he finished goring up the local corpses he decided he'd have to find some way to mask the signal, but how he could accomplish that was currently beyond him.

He thought again of the YoRHa androids he'd fought alongside 2B. They were desperate, frantic. They made mistakes and were killed for them. At the time, he thought it was justified. Now he knew otherwise. YoRHa's hit squads were terrifying, black-cloaked monsters vaguely modeled after humans. Designed for death and murder and cleansing the weak with brutal fire. Soon he'd be staring down the edge of their blades, the barrels of their guns. He could fight them no problem- as long as he didn't have to see their screaming faces -but 2B... he desperately hoped he'd never see her again.

Would YoRHa dare to send her to reclaim her sword?

Would he have to kill her with it, this time?

Would he have the strength to even try?

Right now... he couldn't say.