Fighting for Illusions

by Humida

9s tracks A2, entering into final combat with her to avenge the death of 2b even as the logic virus courses through his body. has spoilers for those who have not played the game.

He reaches it, climbing the many levels of the main tower, reaching its peak even as dizziness wears on him, even as the logic sensors within his being tell him to turn back. Turn back. Preserve yourself. But for what? What does it matter anymore? With 2b gone there's nothing to go back to. There's no longer any value to his being. Everything he's ever wanted or needed... everything that made him value his core... they're all gone now.
He stares at the small hand, one that matches his own in size that looks so similar to that of 2b but is all wrong. It doesn't belong to her. It never did. It belonged to a copy, a fraud that bore 2b's face and model. So he terminated it, terminated each and every inferior unit that was on the floor below. Though embarrassingly, not without taking some damage himself. His own left arm had been taken because of his lack of caution. Not that it matters, he thinks, squeezing his left hand, taken from a fallen model. They were just copies, after all. Fakes. Illusions with her face and form! The real 2b, he thinks, she is gone and she is never coming back! And it's all that woman's fault! It's...
"Unit 9s seems to be suffering a leak. Maintenance is suggested to address the problem," he hears his pod say. He turns to regard the pod, giving it a small smile. Pod 153 is the pod unit assigned to assist him during missions but it is still a very practical unit who does not understand divergence of regular system standards. So 9s explains.
"It's not a leak, 153. I'm simply crying."
"Querry," says the machine as he begins to walk anew. "Why does unit 9s cry?"
He is quiet for a moment before he answers, regarding the pod from behind his blindfold, sword held in twitching hand.
"Because I feel pain."
"Querry. What is causing unit 9s pain?" says the machine floating above him.
He regards the pod for a moment before ignoring the question and heading upwards through the stairs, hearing the rumble from the generator below that shakes the floors above. The sound is very loud and he can feel that the building itself will give way as the stairs and walls begin to crack around him. The flat box like pod flies before him which he waves aside.
"Unit 9s should retreat. Grounds upon which he walks have become very unstable. Likely hood of collapse within the next ten minutes eminent."
"It doesn't matter," says 9s, his scanners picking up the figure on the floor above, seeming motionless, waiting. For him, no doubt. His hand tightens on the hilt of his blade as he withdraws it in a quick arc. "I won't be here long," he hisses under his breath. One way or another, everything will end now. After he terminates unit A2.

It was weeks prior, when Yorja had been infiltrated with a virus leak from Eve, the machine life form taking on human identity. A destructive program that would make those infected lash out at those not infected with the virus, those who had separated from the core program. But even these could be infected. It infected 2b earlier, though he'd been able to hack into her systems and remove it, or so he'd thought. Apparently... driving into 2b's systems had undesired effects, namely; exposing him to the virus.
Slowly... it seems to be affecting his programing, making his vision fuzz, systems blaring as they try to retain normal functions. It doesn't matter though, because of the woman above. Because of what she did, and even as he walks closer towards her, his steps resounding on the stone floor, his arm shakes with anger, teeth grinding against one another as tears stream down his cheeks. It's her fault! All of this is her fault! And she'll pay for what she did to 2b!
"This unit is monitoring a continuance of said leak "crying." says the pod, hovering before him. "It is suggested to move away from functions that cause unit 9s pain."
He ignores the pod, pushing past it, gripping the handle of the door to the next room, opening it with a boom as he throws it open. The woman... the cause for his pain, stands almost motionless only fifty feet away from him, wind blowing through synthetic white hair as she turns slowly to regard him with sad eyes.
"9s," she whispers in a disheartened tone as if the word itself weighs upon her conscious. 9s can only grit his teeth as he regards the tall woman before him, thinking back on that moment when he'd landed back on earth and chased after 2b, looking to find her, only just seeing her when the being before him cut her down, taking her away from him!
"Shut up!" he barks at her. "You have no right to address me by my name! Only 2b had that right... and you killed her!"
The woman sighs, her body tensing only slightly as she turns towards him, eyes cool but weighted with a pain he imagines 2b herself carried. She points her blade towards him, regarding him.
"I wouldn't think a scanner model like yourself would be so foolish," she says, "coming after me like this."
Slowly the blade is lowered and she sighs, letting out a long breath.
"This isn't what she wanted for you, you know? She wanted you to live a full, long life."
"Shut up!" he yells, glaring at the woman before him. "What would you know about 2b?! Don't talk about her like you knew her! You knew nothing about her!"
The woman presses her lips together in a frown before she responds.
"It appears it is you who knows nothing about the being you call "2b." The truth of the matter you should now be aware of. 2b was an alias she was using to get close to you and monitor your being. Her real identification class was unit 2e. A yorha elimination unit, meant to watch over and eliminate rogue elements within the yorha program who began to step out of line from the objective. Units... like yourself."
He begins to shiver, a giggle escaping his lips that turns into a full throated laugh. He'd already known about 2b's identity. It wasn't like she was very good at hiding that type of thing. Still... just to be around her was... pleasurable. It made life worth living for and gave him something worth fighting for... even if in the end she was meant to kill him. Still... to have her taken away from him like this... because of this trash objective, an objective he'd also found out about which made all these missions down to earth redundant without meaning. And this causes so much pain that he can only hide behind a breaking madness that pushes to the surface. All this pain... it was caused... for nothing!
"So what?! What does that objective matter when humans are already dead?"
The words catch the woman off guard, a slight flinching to her eyes as she realizes he's caught on to the truth, so he pushes on with his words.
"We were all just expendable units for Yorha. All of us.. Fighting for a lie without meaning! Me... 2b... thrown away for something that doesn't exist anymore!"
"You're wrong, 9s," says the woman. "This tower contains the last of the data regarding humans. Unless we protect and stop its destruction, then..."
"So what?" he says, cutting her off. "Weren't you listening to what I said? None of that matters anymore! Yorha is gone. Humanity is gone. 2b... is..."
He shivers, the tears he'd tried to deny before his enemy flowing freely. His pod floats before him, waving its arms as it speaks.
"Current actions are unsuitable for unit 9s. Unit A2 outclasses unit 9s' combat ability and is causing unit 9s pain. It is suggested to retreat away from the cause of such pain and formulate a new strategy."
"Sometimes..." says the young man, gripping his blindfold and pulling it away from his eyes which stare with a blinking red glare, threatening to shut off as the logic virus corrodes his systems. There is no salvation any longer. He will soon cease to exist as he is, he thinks. So there is no reason not to fight.
"Sometimes..." he says, "sometimes you just have to fight through that pain. Pod 153, until this fight is over and either unit A2 or myself are terminated, cease output of logic speak. That's an order!"
He raises his blade, pointing it at the woman who simply regards him with sadness as she watches his pod unit float away.
"Is this what you really want?" she ask.
"You murdered 2b!" he growls. "There's nothing else I want."
He charges at the woman with a violence and ferocity normally unknown to the scanner units of his model, normally... but he has been around 2b too long, picking up combat strategies and knowledge coupled with the rage he has felt since her death, the desire to terminate A2 has grown to such a level that he attacks with strength he should not have, pushing past boundaries in his system parameters.
Even so, it seems that A2 holds back in her own combat objective, pushing aside his sword repeatedly, not a one swipe or strike seeming to come any nearer to removing her head from her shoulders than the last. This seems to only enrage him further. Is he so pathetic, so beneath her notice she need not put her full focus on him? Is he so weak he can't even attempt to avenge 2b, to correct the wrongs that have been done her? No! This can't be! He won't let it end like this!
He strikes hard then, with a far harder blow that leaves him open briefly and for a moment he sees A2 raise her blade, considering putting it through his heart, but there is a pause, a desire to step away from such an action that he takes advantage of, thrusting his blade forward, through A2's hated black box, piercing it through her chest. She stares back at him, wide eyed, the briefest of surprise and sadness in her eyes before she falls forward, slumping to the floor, the light in her eyes fading as her systems shut down. He's succeeded... He thinks, looking upon her even as he struggles to move his legs, coughing blood and other fluids from his lips.
Shit, he thinks, raising a hand covered in viscous fluid. I wasn't careful, he thinks, letting his forehead fall back against the floor even as the blade inside his flesh scrapes against the box inside his chest, digging deeper into the frame, making cough in more pain. But this is his fault anyways. In running A2 through with his own sword she'd instinctively brought her sword forward in a protective measure, inadvertently running him through as well.
Hands squeeze the hilt of the blade, teeth grit as he looks upon it, a light giggle escaping his lips. 2b's sword. Of course it'd be her sword. Even when she isn't here to kill him, she's still the one to end his life. It's so... Pathetic, to die this way... Again.
He lays his head against the floor, trying to push through the pain that is killing him, his eyes already fluctuating more severely further compromised by the virus.
"Well... 2b... I did it. I avenged your death. I'm sorry... I couldn't live as you wanted me to."
Tears form at the edges of his eyes as he looks out towards the empty terrain of the tower, the building rumbling, cracks running along fissures of the surface as the floor begins to tear to allow the weapon beneath them to fire at what remains of the data of the humans. Humans. Fighting for a illusion that no longer exist... It's just like him to fight for something like that even when it no longer exist. Like 2b...Who perished months ago. Who no longer exist. The irony of the situation is not lost to him. It's just so... Pathetic, he thinks as a warm tear runs down his cheek. How is it he let it come to this... With his systems shutting down as the floor beneath him cracks and crumbles away?
He lays his head down on the floor, feeling it ripping apart even as his vision blinks between red and normal, flashing between blackness at spurts of increasing increments. It is just so... Pathetic.
I wish... He thinks, I wish I could have seen her one more time...
There is an echo in the distance, one that grows pronounced and louder as it seems to near, despite the rumbling of the earth beneath him, his vision only catching a figure in black with a flock of white hair.
"2b?" he whispers, even knowing it can not be the case. How can it, after all? Such is just fanciful thinking on his part as the 2b he knows died months ago. The only thing this could be... Is a fake. One of the models from the floor below probably come to investigate the disturbance on the floor above... And finish the work. He grimaces as this thought crosses his mind, thinking it such a cruel thing to have set upon him in his last moments.
The figure seems ignorant of such thoughts as she nears, her boots suddenly filling his vision as they stop before him. He grits his teeth in anger, fingers curling as he wishes to punch the being who bears her semblance.
"You're not 2..." he whispers when his words are cut off by the android's own voice.
"9s?" she says in question.
He hears his name, a name the models below could not know, and slowly lifts his pained head, vision still blinking between active and fading, to focus on a face with lips that curl into a worried frown and soft vibrant blue eyes that look upon him with concern.
"2b..." he says, extending a hand towards, trembling as he struggles to make his body function when it wishes to give out, but wishing, that if this were a dream... Or illusion, that he can at least grasp it and not let go.
2b smiles down upon him, kneeling down and extending her own hand, grasping his between strong and powerful fingers.
"Let's go home, 9s," she says.
"yeah..." he whispers, even as his vision now clouds fully, seeming to shut down. "Let's do that."
Even if it is an illusion, he thinks. He'd rather hold this than embrace the emptiness that is reality. Anything is better than that, even lies of something... That does not exist.