Monday, April 2nd, 11945 A.D. ~~ Mysterious Island

21:00

Days until Full Moon: 2


"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

The sirens blared throughout the island as an android yelled at the top of her artificial lungs to clear the blast zone. One might say they went a bit overboard with the warnings, but God knows the Resistance couldn't afford any more accidents after the last excavation. With the funds needed to make YoRHa materials, they could just barely scrape together the money needed to make parts for 50 androids, and that was only a week ago.

"Alright, let's get a move on! I only got 72 more hours before I gotta fly off and get to work in the desert!"

As much as Jackass would prefer otherwise, explosives have to be used very sparingly during excavation missions, lest she risk destroying valuable artifacts that might be buried in the dirt. So she savored the few moments where blowing stuff up was the only option, like in the mountains the other day, or this concrete ceiling that was way too thick to dig into using conventional methods.

This entire island has been an anomaly for a while. On March 10th, 11945, Anemone, the leader of the Resistance in Sector Aleph, had called for some valuable weapons that were too massive to be transported by any means except by ship. But during the trip, the cavalry of the ship confused the coordinates and accidentally landed on the wrong island-one that was invisible to satellite maps. Naturally this was a cause for alarm and Anemone wanted to cover this uncharted territory as soon as possible. Maybe someone was jamming the satellites on purpose to keep hidden. Rogue androids? Machines? Maybe the aliens that had been missing for so long? Or maybe it was just an area that just naturally couldn't appear on satellite images for some reason. Whatever the case, the Resistance agreed that it needed to be examined as soon as possible to ensure the safety of further missions.

It's been a month since then, and up until yesterday it seemed the possibility of anything on the island being remotely interesting was slim. Jackass and her excavation crew had scanned the island top to bottom. There were no signs of any form of intelligent life anywhere to be found; there weren't even any machine fish in the waters, indicating that the aliens and machine lifeforms had never even come near this place at any point. The past two weeks were spent digging up various point of the island, looking for any artifacts that might have been left behind by the old world to indicate what the hell was the point of this island, if there even was one. It seemed for the longest time there would be no such answers; this was just a weird remote island that nobody had ever cared about.

And then one of the Resistance members hit solid concrete.

As the rest of the crew consolidated their digging into one area, they were amazed to find the roof of some kind of gigantic building. There was no telling how old it was, but judging by how sturdy it was against jackhammers and lasers, Jackass figured whatever was in here was clearly important at some point in the past. Her biggest hope was that it was housing some secret weapons humans buried to be forgotten. Even if they were likely horrendously outdated by modern standards, she couldn't help but feel enthralled at the idea of more ideas to experiment with. She had to see this out before she got to her next assignment for the YoRHa Commander. Hopefully it wouldn't take too long.

"Alright, status report," Jackass said to her radio.

"No immediate dangers detected," the radio responded. "Apart from the blast we made, the building is completely intact. I think you should come and see for yourself."

"Don't have to tell me twice." Jackass set a ladder on the edge of the rubble from the blast, then slid down as quickly as she could.

For a building that has been buried underground for who knows how long, the inside remarkably still held together. The hallway Jackass came into was massive, easily covering the size of her home camp and then some. On either end of the hall there were magnificent double-doors made of fine wood and solid gold door handles, with statues that resembled...something on either side. Chess pieces? Jackass mused to herself. A line of columns adorned one side of the hall, and on the wall behind them there were frames covered in dust. Jackass wiped one down to discover it was completely empty, faded away from age.

Wonder if White would like to put something here.

"Alright, Moose, you check out the doors on the right," said Jackass. "I'll scout out the area on the left."

"With all due respect, ma'am", Moose replied, "wouldn't it be better to explore as a pair? Never know what might come up."

"You know better than anyone that the two of us can handle things on our own." Jackass glanced around the rest of the hallway. "Plus this place is huge. We need to cover as much ground as possible and quickly."

"If that's the case, then I feel like having more of the crew down here would help that more than just two of us on our own."

"Fair point. I'll radio down a few more people, but I want everyone split up to explore every bit of this mansion."

Moose shrugged. "If you insist."

Jackass took out her radio and ordered three crew members to come down into the hallway, assigning them to each door out of the hall. The crew soon split up, and Jackass found herself going through the biggest door.

Finally, she thought as she turned on her lantern. The light shone and revealed a living room of sorts. Three couches surrounded a small table and faced a humongous monitor, and in the back of the room another frame hung up against the wall. Underneath the frame there was soil running all along the wall held up by flat stone bricks.

Hmm...This looks like a setup for a kind of garden I've seen in the old world records, but there are no plants. Probably died from lack of sunlight. This place really has been underground for a while.

After getting distracted by her own musings for a bit, Jackass looked up at the frame and started to wipe away the dust on this one as well. But as she moved her hand she felt a slight indent near the top of the portrait. Doing a bit of tracing revealed that there was a small square panel that was separate from the rest of the canvas that was invisible to the naked eye.

Or at least it would've been, for humans.

Curiosity taking the better of her, Jackass attempted to push the panel, and as she suspected, it moved into the wall and started a mechanism. More specifically, the wall on the other side of the room opened up like a doorway, revealing a tunnel that seemed to go a fair distance away.

Wonder if the others found similar hidden passageways...whatever, we'll talk about it later, Jackass said to herself as she started walking into the tunnel. The hidden door closed the minute she walked in, but Jackass could see with the help of her lantern that there was a button on the back of the door labeled "Open".

In Japanese.

A language that humans stopped using by the fourth millennium.

Well, guess I got a time period to work with. We're exploring ancient history right now.


Goddamn, this tunnel is a long walk. Whatever's at the end of this thing better be worth it.

As if the world was listening to her thoughts, Jackass finally came across a metal door at the end of the tunnel. There was no handle, but next to the door was a keyboard and small LED screen, presumably for inputting a password.

Jackass groaned. Fantastic, no way I'm gonna find any password hints around here with the state of this building. Oh well, let's see if I can't make a lucky guess.

She started typing on the keyboard.

Nothing appeared on the screen.

Fuck! Of course this thing wouldn't have power after almost ten thousand years. Although...if that's true…

She dug her hands under the bottom of the door. Jackass might not have been built for combat, but she figured all androids had strength that far surpassed humans by design. And she was proven right when her arm strength was more than enough to lift the metal door when it didn't have its electronic locks active.

Perfect.

And as if some god somewhere was answering her prayers, Jackass was greeted by the remains of an old laboratory. There were computer monitors everywhere, control panels all across the room, and scattered notes all across the floor. Jackass picked one page up out of curiosity. It was written in Japanese, just like the button for the hidden passageway.

'7th Generation Anti-Shadow Weapons destroyed in battle. The sole surviving weapon will be kept in the Kirijo labs indefinitely.' Well then, looks like I hit the jackpot, Jackass thought with a smirk on her face.

In the back of the room was a set of containment pods all lined up in a semicircle. As Jackass looked over each one she discovered that they were completely empty save for a few wires that dangled from the top. The same was true when she looked in the rest of the pods, until…

Wait a minute...is that an android?!

Sitting in the final pod was, indeed, a somewhat human-looking robot modeled after a girl. She had no artificial skin anywhere but on her face; the rest of her body was completely metallic and painted white with some gold to match the color of her hair. The rotating joints on her shoulders and hips were completely exposed revealing the mechanisms within her body. And on top of all that, for some reason she wore a red bowtie on her neck.

Jackass' thoughts began to race. This model looks too primitive to be any use to us...She'd definitely stand out while she doesn't have anything covering up her body, and if she has any combat capabilities I don't think she'll be able to take down any more than a few stubby machines. On top of that, I doubt humans were able to completely figure out proper artificial intelligence at the time she was made; she might just be an emotionless husk who just follows her orders…

...so no different from most of us, I guess, Jackass thought with a sigh.

Wait, Jackass thought as an idea came to mind. If she's as old as I think she is, she might have been around during the Great Calamity...and maybe she could provide us with some new intel on whatever the fuck happened that day.

Jackass started to chuckle as she ripped open the pod. "Alright, let's see if I can get you active."

She unplugged the android from the now defunct wires that were hooked up to her body, then laid her out on the floor as Jackass took out some of her medical supplies. More specifically, her defibrillator. She turned it on and started raising the voltage to slightly dangerous levels.

"A little power overload should be enough to get you back on your feet," Jackass said as she started rubbing the electrodes, then placed them on the parts of the android she felt would conduct the most electricity.

"CLEAR!"

And it was in that exact moment that she shocked the android, that Jackass suddenly and unwittingly transformed into a coffin.


A/N: Welp, this is my first attempt at a fanfiction I guess. I've really wanted to write something involving NieR Automata as it was my favorite game of 2017, and I figured I'd have the most fun writing a fusion of some kind. Trying to think of which second franchise would work best with it was a bit tricky, but eventually Persona 3 popped into my head because of the general melancholy tone of that game and that there's already an android with the potential of the Wild Card to work with from that game (let's just ignore, uh, everything else about the answer). The story is basically going to follow Automata's timeline for the most part, so don't worry about the game being spoiled in the opening chapters. That said, key details of both games will eventually come up sooner or later, so I highly recommend playing both games before reading this.

Edit: Cross-posted on Archive of Our Own