Broken Moons Chapter 1: Blank Slates, a Borderlands + Kantai Collection Crossover fanfic

DISCLAIMER: The Borderlands franchise is property of Gearbox Software and 2K Games, and Kantai Collection is the property of Kensuke Tanaka and Kadokawa Games. I own none of the intellectual properties comprising this fictional story. This story is made by fans for fans, and doesn't intend to make any form of profit or income, being that it is only meant to entertain.

Broken Moons
Chapter 1: Blank Slates

The sound of music had long since become his partner to his otherwise silent, lone trip. It wasn't that he hated the silence, it was more on the side that the monotony of it made him feel numb long ago, and numbness wasn't one of the things he particularly liked. So when he turned up the music, he let himself drift with it.

He stretched his neck by tilting his head, thankfully, he still didn't feel any sort of fatigue, only numbness on his legs.

The keys of the piano resounded in his ears. He had been unable to update his playlist, and thanks to the meddling with the internal memory of the music player, a lot of the tracks had become corrupted, and he had been forced to delete the majority of them, leaving him with an otherwise short and lacking repertoire of songs to choose from. He hadn't liked the sudden bursts which blasted his senses through ungodly static, those had been a nasty surprise. Thankfully, this soothing song's piano and relaxed beat had been a soothing nurture. Not that he couldn't do anything about it.

The clock on the corner of his vision marks 2:41 a.m., and on top of the watch was the song's title highlighted with ghastly white letters, "Lost Impact", with the rest showing the scenery through a soft blue light, along with a bright, angry red line glowing in front of him; said line was stretching out to the distance as far as his current vision allowed. There were some numbers flashing alongside the line, which decreased as time passed. Said numbers obviously indicated distance, which now read 21.4 Km and counting.

He was getting closer, and couldn't help but feel excited about it. Pulling down the accelerator even harder than he already was, the speed at which the Hydro-bike sailed increased.

Minutes passed by, and the counter still decreased, eventually changing from Kilometers to meters. The song ended, and the player moved on to the next one.

"Scanner: Switch to Thermal" Grey muttered, feeling cautious. His vision pulses with a very soft wave of light as a circle appears on the upper right corner of his vision, said circle also pulses with outward ripples of light, indicating any thermal signatures in the general vicinity. Handy tools to have around, this whole set of "thingamajigs", Grey's thankful for them. Not only was he capable of taking his music with him, he's also able to use various functions and devices just with a few voice commands.

There were no responses to the thermal radar. However, he wants to cover all bases.

"Scanner: Switch to Echo" Grey mutters again. However, this time, his vision starts flicking erratically at the same time the music playing in his ears starts looping the same seconds in a cacophonic disarray. Almost immediately, a message displaying all manners of numbers appears on the left side of his vision. He's quite familiar with these numbers by now, even if he doesn't know that they mean in the least. "Ah dammit".

He lets go of the handlebar of the bike only with his right hand and begins smacking the metal band which covers his nape. The blue light which makes his vision flicks again a few times before finally subsiding and stabilizing once again. However, the red line which previously indicated his course, as well as the radar and music, are gone, only leaving him with in Visor Mode again. He sighs, defeated.

At least, he has reached his destination.

"Goddammit, the echo isn't functioning yet… and he told me it was already working…" He grumbles under his breath. "Serves me right for taking his word for granted…"

Grey reaches into the shore. Thankfully, there's a small beach, so Grey rides right into it, over the sand. The Hydro-bike's rotor roars angrily as it leaves the water and reaches into solid ground, although it eventually silences down as Grey turns off the motor, drops from the bike and starts dragging it along as he walks into the land. He eventually moves deep enough as so the waves don't reach the bike.

He reaches into the handlebar, where he strikes a few keys into the small numerical keyboard embedded on the accelerator, and with it, locks down the bike. With it secured, no one but him may take it.

Grey separates from the vehicle absent-mindedly, as he now reaches into his left ear and holds his index and middle fingertips against the sleek and round metallic piece over his hear.

"Reboot: Course navigator" He says. He waits for a few seconds, but nothing happens again. "Ah dammit".

He smacks the device's left side a few more times, thankfully, this time it does work, and the red line which had been on his vision minutes ago reappears. He makes no effort to restore the music, though.

Grey's face is hidden behind a visor, with his eyes under a thick layer of darkened glass, dark enough to not show his features, said glass is polarized in that way, to not allow to see the face of the wearer, while making the opposite perfectly possible. The lower front half of his face, meaning his nose and mouth, are covered behind a hard plastic mask, while his ears are covered with two matching pieces of dull and scratched metal, pieces which resemble headphones. The whole mask is supported by a metal band which runs across the back side of his head… and is somewhat attached to him. This visor allows Grey to use multiple contextual forms of vision which include radars and various other functions… when the darned thing feels like working. Only his forehead and hair are visible, which clearly show a short mane of dirty brown hair sleeked backwards, although the darkness of the night doesn't allow to really see it with detail.

Grey stands at around 1.80 meters high, with about 92 kilos of weight, most of those courtesy of the various pieces of gear and equipment he carries with him. He sports a tattered brown poncho around his neck, which reaches just below his waist. Not only does the poncho keep the cold, rain and so away and serve to cover his head with its hood, it also hides (albeit not that spectacularly) the various pouches and fanny on his belt which contains most of his important goods as well as digistructed weapons… and looks slick as hell, at least according to him. Underneath the poncho he wears a simple olive-green cotton shirt, shirt which already shows its use through multiple holes here and there, various patches of mismatched colors as well as makeshift bandages, and an incomplete right sleeve where otherwise both should reach for his wrists; there's a shoulder holster under his left arm, holster which keeps a loaded Dahl Blitz Repeater ready to be picked at any time should he not have the time to call for a weapon from his fanny. His hands are covered in fingerless leather gloves, faded and blackened from continuous use. The modified combat pants he's wearing have many ammo and utility pouches fitted along the large belt, which contain a few magazines, maps, and a plethora of junk only he knows what's supposed to be doing there as well as a quality Tediore Instant Shield, as most of the space of his digistructing fanny is reserved for weapons, resources and food. His slim figure is well built, result of years of "misspending his youth", as he puts it. Barely over 21 years old, his face remains hidden thanks to the gadget. His worn shoes have only stayed together thanks to the metal plates and makeshift patches he has put into the soles and vamps to increase their lifespan just a little bit longer. On his elbows and knees he wears Dahl military guards to allow him to maneuver harshly without the risk of scratching them and becoming a nuisance with it.

Grey makes use of the reactivated cursor to leave the beach and walk into the jungle, following the red marker's directions. Instinctively, he reaches for the fanny on his rear, presses one of the buttons, and calls forth his trusted Practicable Thinking (Shock-flavored), his favorite Shotgun and partner, manufactured by Hyperion and customized by none other than himself, which allows him 8 pellets per trigger squeeze with a reasonable amount of shots in the magazine and a respectable (albeit not incredible) firepower. His other quick choices are a burning Dahl Deft Falcon SMG for standard use, and finally, a slagging Gentleman's Corinthian, a powerful rifle which Grey favors to pick out enemies from afar. He has more weapons to choose from, but these three along with the Repeater under his shoulder are his to-go options. To him, it's all about being ready for everything, and these have saved him numerous times. Granted, none of these weapons are spectacular outside of his custom Thinking, which he armed by himself after… borrowing the high-quality barrel from a dead bandit, followed by getting the parts which he preferred. Said process took a lot longer than he had expected, but never before had he ever had a gun which he could feel he could call "his own", even if the barrel had been taken from a corpse… The black and red casing of the gun had lost lots of its true shine, and the gold accents were opaque and scratched all around, but his constant maintenance to the workings of the gun had kept it very functional.

He didn't really care about the visuals, so it worked for him.

That, and Grey's making a much better use of it that that corpse would ever do out of it, so he likes to think it's a fair trade. The one he had taken the barrel from had been a bandit in the first place, so finders? Keepers. He keeps the gun's stock near his shoulder, holding firmly both grips, ready for anything…

Well, anything may sound pretentious.

Since in the planet of Chariot, losing your life to something otherwise stupid isn't uncommon.

Born and raised on the aquatic planet of Chariot never was something to brag about. Covered roughly 95% in water, Chariot's surface is a harsh one to survive. One may think that with such large amounts of water, becoming a fisherman would be a genius movement.

Except that it isn't.

Chariot has a stable climate to live in when compared to most inhabitable planets. It has high quantities of oxygen compared to the usual colonies, which has let the raising of various forms of floral life in the form of controlled greenhouses, and in return, create many jobs as gardeners.

Not a job that many consider glamorous, but hey, when it comes to money, only the money itself is important when the job pays well. That, and the fact that fruits and vegetables are hard to come by nowadays.

That's not to say that there aren't other jobs to do. Even if by today's standards fossil oil is obsolete, there are still ways to make use of it, not only as a fuel as humans did thousands of years ago, but as a primary resource to manufacture other products.

Hey, even plastic has its uses on this day and age.

Also, there are those who like to live dangerously and test their guts (or ignorance, Grey thinks personally) by challenging the creatures of the sea.

The sea creatures is where Chariot gets most of its disrepute. Sure, there have been several hundreds of ships that've been sunk thanks to them on all these past decades, but that's mainly because humans still didn't understand how these creatures worked. It's become a whole field of research by itself, to learn how the sea creatures of Chariot work. Thankfully, most of the (humanly) covered terrain and seas of Chariot have been explored, investigated and documented for the public use, so right now, unless you really go daredevil and get into sectors that haven't been explored (Or the Blackwaters), you can pretty much navigate to anywhere without much trouble. There are designated areas which changed according to the season/time, becoming either freely passable or dangerous to traverse, which makes moving around Chariot easy.

Sadly, the main problem isn't the creatures. It's the goddamned pirates.

Chariot is a planet which has a lot of water, and there is a lot of it, so much that even to this day the little land that is there to explore has had some sort of human touch to some degree with little exceptions. That is, if said islands or archipelagos had anything to offer in the first place, they were prone to get occupied by groups of people and settle there… until bandits and criminals started grouping together and started a whole business of good ol' piracy. No one wants to go to a literal backwater planet to search for criminals, after all. Coupled with the infamous Leviathans and bizarre marine creatures, there are not too many good reasons to move into Chariot.

Unless of course, you've heeded the call of the "Empty Braver".

Grey was born in Chariot, and has lived in there since. And living in Chariot is tough. Not much due to the marine creatures or pirates, or even the corporates which have also recently been stepping their ground thanks to the aforementioned call.

Apparently, rumor's come that there is an Eridian Vault hidden in Chariot. After the fiasco that befell Pandora some years ago, those who were involved with the incident were reluctant to do it all again. Atlas and Hyperion had been more than enough for those soughing the alien vault to understand that there was a lot that could go wrong should they follow through. The giants fall the hardest, and with nothing ventured, nothing was lost.

The "Empty Braver" heeded a call all around Chariot to seek those who wished to search for the Vault. A worldwide announcement which piqued the curiosity of many, but only a few decided to follow through. No one knows why or how, but this "Empty Braver", as it itself calls it, has hijacked the ECHOnet of Chariot, and has embedded itself deeply into most forms of ordinary communications, allowing it to reach anyone who's linked to the net. That was how Grey was reached by this entity. It's not clear whether this is some form of A.I., or if there's actually someone behind that name, the only thing known for real is that this Braver is leading people into the Vault, or at least apparently. With what happened a few years ago in Pandora, many are skeptical.

Is this Vault real? Can this Empty Braver even be trusted? No one knows. But Grey has decided to follow through anyways.

The Empty Braver has given missions to those who have taken upon the challenge. At first, they were senseless missions with little profit. However, each time a mission was turned in to the Empty Braver, a new mission would be immediately given. They started with menial tasks, going in and out from places, shooting pirates and simple stuff, and as the missions progressed, the rewards started getting better. With just his last mission, Grey had scored a couple thousand bucks just for cleaning some trash out of a hijacked ship.

And eventually, one day, one mission was handed to Grey.

The mission details were vague at best. Grey was just given the directions of where to go, and just a strange directives to follow a strange sign he had never seen before.

電.

That was the symbol which Grey found within the directives. He was only told to follow that symbol, and was given a GPS coordinate of somewhere in Chariot.

Following said coordinates had now led him here, into a small forsaken island somewhere around the eastern seas.

The seas were divided in four main quadrants, if they could even be called that. Named after each cardinal direction, with "Midgar" being the point of origin, the central point of Chariot were apparently the first inhabitants of Chariot settled in, all the seas were split accordingly. All the seas reached back and forth with a few sparse islands and archipelagos scattered around the planet. The only real unexplored parts of Chariot lies in what's called the Blackwaters, places infested with the biggest marine creatures, and where only one looking for death would go. The Blackwaters are a sector in the north-eastern seas which all inhabitants of Chariot avoid. Thankfully, the Blackwaters seem to be static, and for reasons still researched, the creatures which reside there don't really leave the place.

So, after a few days of nonstop sailing on his Hydro-bike, Grey reached the place where he was supposed to be at.

The scenery, now that he had reached the depths of the island, had become a heavy jungle brimming with greenery. Grey didn't have the time nor desire to stop and marvel at his surroundings, instead following the marker, leading him deep into the tropical jungle.

He kept an eye on his surroundings still, keeping a close eye on the various nocturnal creatures that had become curious and aware of the human's presence. Trotting with light steps, Grey soon reached a clearing. The navigator cursor indicated roughly the opposite end of the clearing with a pulsing diamond.

The air was hot with humidity, and it was beginning to dig in Grey's face. The visor, for all intents a purposes, was a chore to keep on when the temperatures were too high or too low. However, he wasn't sure what he would find, so decided against his comfort and kept his headgear on.

Grey soon reached the point which was indicated by the map.

…

"Now wha- WHOA! ".

*Bleep Bleep Bleep!*

His ECHO had blasted the air with a notification, surprising him. He had been moments away from shooting the whole place.

Collecting himself, Grey called for the ECHO display after making sure there were no signatures coming for him, and a blue hologram screen appeared at his command.

"Huh… weird" Grey thought. The screen which would normally show his inventory was blank, completely blank, just a blue screen. He blinked a few times in confusion.

He reached for the screen with his right index, and suddenly, the ECHO flashed once again and finally showed its contents.

The screen consisted of several divisions divided by tabs: One for GPS and map indicated by a compass and map icon, another for the inventory of the linked fanny at his waist indicated by an icon consisting of a gun and a dollar sign, a third one displaying his missions with an icon of a diamond, a fourth one with a "V", which was reserved for connecting with the visor…

"Wait, WHAT!?" Grey exclaimed as he examined further his ECHO.

Alongside usual tabs now laid another two he had never seen before. One tab had a bizarre icon which consisted of mangled code, it was an ineligible blur of lines and numbers which even reached outside the icon itself, and Grey couldn't access the contents of said tab. The other one had a tab with two unfamiliar symbols which he couldn't understand: 編成, although said symbols were similar to the one he had been told to follow in his latest mission from the Empty Braver. Unlike the other new tab, Grey could indeed access this one, however, he was only greeted with a blank sheet over the usual blue background; said sheet indicated that it could be filled with some sort of information, but at the moment it was blank.

But before he could inspect in detail, his Missions tab beeped, indicating an update. Grey decided to leave the strange new content in his ECHO aside for the moment.

After touching the diamond icon on top of the hologram, the screen slid to a list comprised of various text lines. After inspecting closely the list, Grey found that his current mission's contents had changed.

"Look out for電, your objective is just ahead of you. Check the surroundings."

Always vague and always unhelpful. Like this were all the missions the Empty Braver had handed to Grey.

"Just 'check the surroundings?' Can't you be more specific?" Grey spoke aloud.

He creeped out when the text updated once again, as if it was responding to him.

"Use your brain".

"O…kay?" Grey closed the ECHO, as if that would solve the fact that he was being stalked, and quite closely at that.

Taking a deep breath, Grey took the time to inspect his surroundings as told. The clock in his visor now marked 3:56 a.m., roughly an hour had passed since Grey had set foot on the island.

"Full Vision: Switch to Thermal" Grey spoke, and his vision was engulfed in a world of purple. All his surroundings had turned to a deep violet shade, while anything of a higher or lower temperature would turn to either red and yellow, or blue and black according to its temperature. The reason why everything was a vibrant purple was to the high ambient temperature, although solid objects such as the ground and trees had a shade which moved closer to blue. Since it was nighttime, no matter how hot the ambient was, there was no sun to heat things up.

However, there was nothing. Grey turned his way on every direction around the clearing, but there was nothing in any direction.

Thermal vision was not going to cut it.

"Full Vision: Switch to Echo" Grey spoke once again.

Thankfully, Full Echo (Not to be confused with the ECHO) was working. The Echo Radar wasn't, but in this situation, he only required the whole of it. Why did a lesser form of the feature didn't work was beyond him, but he'd just roll with it.

His vision became almost pitch-black. The point of the Echo vision was that it exchanged full visibility for that of a sonar-based one, similar to that of some blind animals. While Echo was active, a sonic wave would constantly bounce back from objects, creating a sound-based image. It wasn't convenient to use all around, however, it had a particular use, which Grey was using now. The wave produced by the Echo would detect any other sound waves, and in return, allow Grey to "see" if there were any other signatures emitting waves, which was particularly useful for finding signals, mainly communication ones. With it, Grey could detect if there were hidden bandits or pirates using communications for searching for help or such.

And lo and behold, there was a signal, albeit a very weak one, detected by the Echo. Following the visor, Grey found out that the signal was coming from below the ground.

"Full Vision: Switch to X-Ray" Grey said clearly now.

And his vision now left the almost-perpetual darkness and changed to a grey one. Pretty self-explanatory, the X-Ray allowed him to see through most things. There were various metals and objects Grey couldn't see through, because the X-Ray embedded on his helmet was very weak, but for a makeshift augmentation, it proved useful.

After observing around the ground, Grey finally picked something up. Buried not too deeply, was a large… box? Grey couldn't really pick anything conclusive about it, but he definitely managed to see something underground. The visor determined that this thing was buried just a few meters beneath the ground.

"So… How do I go on about this…?" Grey muttered aloud.

He hadn't brought any form of shovel or digging equipment with him. This was a bad joke. Why did the Empty Braver lead him here without any prior warning or even a hint?

Well, he was used to not being told stuff, but nonetheless, it left him with a sour mouth.

"Visor and mask: Off" He muttered under his breath, and the device responded by retracting its pieces out of Grey's face. The visor split and each symmetrical half slid outwards onto the ear pieces, and then was followed by the mask, which also opened and retracted inside the ear pieces.

Grey welcomed the fresh air with delight. He stretched his arms upwards, hearing a few cracks from his shoulders.

"What to do now?" Grey wondered. He had no equipment to dig this thing out, but he sure as hell wouldn't let that stop him.

Crouching just above the buried object's place, Grey reached out for the ground with his hand.

The soil is wet, result of multiple days of continuous rain, the ground is mushy, and most likely won't offer too much resistance. How deep does the filtered water reach, he doesn't know, so he could only hope the idea that then formed inside his head would work. Using his bare hands as shovels, Grey picked out a small amount of dirt, just enough to leave a somewhat deep and small hole, broad enough for almost his whole right arm to fit into.

Standing up and reaching for his pouches afterwards, Grey picked three small metallic spheres outlined with blue streaks and green lights at the same time he opened his ECHO once again.

These small objects in his hands were grenades.

"Hey, Braver, you might as well tell me since I already know you're stalking me" Grey spoke as he switched to his missions tab. "Would that thing survive a few blasts?"

He waited a few seconds.

"Just one".

Grinning from ear to ear at the response, Grey took one of the spheres and dug his finger inside it. The explosive's dark fumes indicated that it was primed and ready. Quickly, Grey dropped the grenade into the ground and jumped backwards with two big hops.

"Visor and mask: On!" Grey yells as his face is covered again and drops belly-first to the ground.

A small gust of air suddenly blows into the grenade, pulling stray leaves and small sticks into it, as well as pulling the shoveled dirt back into the hole. The crack is unevenly covered again as the dirt reaches for the center…

And then everything blew up into the sky with a loud bang, a whole bunch of mud flying everywhere, splatting the clearing. After also receiving himself a few spots of dirt, Grey stands up again to observe the result of his impromptu excavation.

To his delight, he finds that he indeed reached deep into the ground, partially revealing a metallic corner of something that seems to be a box. The crater from the blast is barely longer than a meter deep in radius, but all in all, the result was a success. Dropping from the border, Grey rushed into the treasure.

It was just the upper part of it, but it definitely was what he was looking for. The upper part of it was now out, which revealed what Grey guessed was a metallic, rectangular container of some sort. After taking the dirt off of the top, Grey found a symbol embedded on it.

電.

Once again, Grey had stumbled across this particular symbol. Taking off more dirt from the lid, Grey managed to uncover the whole upper portion of the box, revealing a streamlined container with various plates and numbers embedded on it, for some reason, there were two holes on the side of the box, which made Grey think that these were meant to grab this box. However, it still wasn't enough. More than half of the box was still buried beneath the dirt.

Scratching his forehead, Grey took a moment to consider how to proceed next. Putting another grenade in would surely be counterproductive, as he risked having the dirt collapsing into itself again and leaving him back in square one. He had no shovel, and it would take too much time to dig it all manually. He considered putting more grenades farther from the center, to blow the ground around the box and then put even more grenades to avoid the risk of burying the box again, basically creating one big crater… until he realized that he only had 2 more grenades left. That wouldn't cut it.

Sighing, Grey considered his last option. He wasn't sure if it would work, but it was his best shot. If the dirt had been any damaged and separated itself like this thanks to the grenade, it could be possible.

He started winding up his arms and legs for a full 10 minutes, making various stretches and exercises to heat himself up. After all, this could end very badly for him, and through this he reduced the consequences' gravity… albeit not eliminated them.

When he considered he had done enough warming up, Grey placed himself next to the crate, and after crouching knee-first to the ground and planting himself firmly, he grabbed the holes on the sides with both hands and started pulling. Not surprisingly, his first pull had no effect whatsoever.

He sighed, and took a deep breath. He had only tried just like that to rule out the option.

"Overclock: ON!" He said clearly as he clenched tighter the corners of the metal casing.

His visor showed on the bottom left corner the word "OVERCLOCK" with capital letters along with a timer that started counting up from 0, the visor's overall color feed changed from a soft blue to a pale red as the Overclock activated.

Grey could immediately feel his strength increasing and all of his senses sharpening. All limitations were removed.

"Come ON!" He yelled angrily as he put more power to his pull.

And surely, the metal crate didn't resist the pull this time. Tightening his grip on the slots, Grey slowly, but surely continued his efforts. He couldn't outright pop it out of the ground, even with his increase in strength, so he did the next thing he could: pull it out. Inch by inch, the box left its tomb.

"Grrr!" Grey gritted his teeth, unyielding to the rules of physics.

Overclock forcefully removed the brain's limitations on Grey's body, meaning that he could get access to processing power and strength beyond human restrictions, allowing him to perform feats outside of normalcy. With Overclock active, Grey could muster the strength needed to pull this impossibly heavy piece of metal out, or run, jump and move faster than even the best athletes, or improve his reflexes and cerebral capabilities to that of a genius. That, and also force certain things onto the guns he used, making them capable of doing things they weren't supposed to do… although that was a whole other matter by itself.

Focusing all his strength, Grey pulled the box, eventually feeling that indeed, it was being shoved out of place. He struggled for almost a minute, a very extenuating minute.

But thankfully, the box yielded, and Grey managed to slowly pull it out. As he had expected, even with his increased strength it was too much to ask for lifting up the box into the air. He was able to start taking steps back as soon as half of the box was out, and as soon as he reached that point, the rest was a lot easier in comparison.

"Over…clock… o-off…" He muttered weakly with his task done, retiring his trembling hands from the slots of the box "V-visor and m-mask… off".

And with the deactivation of the Overclock, Grey immediately received a wave of pain, mainly on his shoulders and hands, although his spine also claimed its own share. His legs felt numb, and his feet were like stones. Grey plummeted down to the uneven, inclined dirt with heavy gasps, but quickly pulled himself to his knees. This was not the first time he had done something like this, nor it would be the last, but that didn't mean he enjoyed what resulted of it. The least he could do was make the consequences more bearable.

Overclock, while removing the brain's limitations on the body, didn't make his body any more durable, meaning that he would receive a backlash after doing something that his body couldn't support. Abusing the accelerated thought processing could potentially destroy his brain, abusing the strength would damage his muscles and/or break apart his bones… such were the consequences of using the Overclock without concern. Grey had learned the hard way not to overestimate himself. True, he had been using this "skill" for a long time now, and he had learned to control it to some degree, such as being capable of shutting off his pain receptors when the skill was activated. He had done so only to allow him to focus, since his other heightened senses would quickly become overloaded with the agony. Overclock was a powerful ability, but it could quickly end anyone who was stupid when using it, and Grey wouldn't follow the same steps of those before him.

So, with the extraction of the box with the help from Overclock, Grey was now feeling the misery of almost tearing his own limbs apart. He had been careful enough as to not overdo it and break any bones or dislocate nor tear out any muscle, but there was unescapable injury in the form of various internal wounds, nothing that was fatal, but that would ache until he fixed himself. Grey decided to take his time and let the pain subside.

Once a few minutes had passed, he managed to catch his breath and make the pain a second thought. Once he went back he could mend himself, but right now, his focus was centered on the treasure he had unburied.

Picking his body up from the ground, Grey climbed onto the crate, which now lied horizontally on the floor.

The box was about 2 meters high, 1 long and almost 80 centimeters wide, made from quite a durable bluish silver metal which survived with no scratches the explosion of a Singularity hand grenade. It had several streaks of black all around the casing, and what appeared to be a lid of some sorts on one of its larger faces, face which Grey supposed was the front, said lid had some sort of computer installed behind a layer of clear glass, and the symbol電 once again embedded on the center of it. The top and bottom parts of the crate were very thick, sticking out from the otherwise slim and smooth surface. There was no telling what was inside the crate.

Grey reached out for the terminal on the lid, and as soon as his hand reached the glass panel, it slid to the side, giving him access. As soon as the glass retired, a soft hum came from the crate, and the black screen inside the terminal began glowing with a dim green light. The terminal consisted only of said screen and a strange orifice no larger than a finger. Motioning towards the unknown device, Grey realized that he had no idea what he was doing.

He stood still for a few seconds over the camera, before the box produced another hum, this one louder than the last one. Grey was mildly surprised when the screen flashed the icon of a hand in it.

Doing as prompted, Grey reached for the screen and placed his right hand on it. The screen blinked and produced yet another sound as if accepting something. After that, Grey retired his hand from the screen, and was now receiving another command. This time, the screen had the icon of an eye and an arrow, and the arrow pointed towards the orifice next to the screen.

"Okay, what is all this about?" Grey wondered in his mind.

Doing as told, grey moved his head right onto the terminal, which resulted somewhat awkward as the box was lying on the ground. The slot was made somewhat ergonomically, allowing Grey to place his head in a cushion while still fitting his eye on the orifice. Grey's peripheral vision was greeted by a line of light that swayed up and down multiple times over his eye. Grey didn't move an inch as the light moved back and forth, realizing that this thing was some sort of eye scanner.

However, he didn't expect something to deliberately poke his eye.

"GAH!" Grey yelped in pain, jumping and falling from the box down to the dirt. He didn't realize when, but there had been a freaking needle inside the scanner. Said needle pneumatically pierced his retina without warning before retracting in less than a fraction of a second. It had been a nasty surprise. "Son of a bitch!"

If there was one thing Grey absolutely hated, it was when his eyes were meddled with. And now, he had a headache to accompany his injured eye. Just great…

There was nothing he could have done nor do now about it, though, except close his eye and swallow the pain.

He'd still complain, nonetheless.

"From all the things that could have…!" Grey started, but was interrupted by a loud noise. He turned to the crate again, the origin of the sounds.

The crate produced yet more sounds and beeps. With a closed right eye, Grey picked himself up from the floor and walked again upon the terminal, to find that there were numbers and text rapidly flashing across the screen, Grey spotted a percentage in particular on the top of the screen which was increasing.

Admiralty Protocol… Established… 45%

Security Protocols… Engaged… 52%

Establishing Thresholds… Done… 64%

Booting memory files…

Error, memory files found: 0

Rebooting memory system… ERROR…

Grey's eyes widened at this.

Exception occurred.

Memory files missing.

Attempting to restore sysTrRENCMBVBDK89y6-$/)!

010011010100010101001101010011110101001001011001

0101000001001100010001010100000101010011010001010010000001000110010011110101001001000111010010010101011001000101001000000100110101000101

01001001001000000100010001001111010011100010011101010100001000000101011101000001010011100101010000100000010101000100111100100000010001100100111101010010010001110100010101010100

010010010010000001000100010011110100111000100111010101000010000001010111010000010100111001010100001000000101010001001111001000000100011001001111010100100100011101000101010101000010000001000001010011100101100101001101010011110101001001000101001000010010000100100001

0100100100100000010001000100111101001110001111110101010000100000010101110100000101001110010101000010000001010100010011110010000001000100010010010101001101000001010100000101000001000101010000010101001000100001

010010000100010101001100010100000010000001001101010001010010000001010000010011000100010101000001010100110100010100100001

…

The screen that Grey had been seeing froze completely after dumping all those numbers. However, his surprise was short lived as the screen turned off and flicked on once again, having eliminated all those ones and zeroes from the small terminal.

…

Backing System… Done… 80%

Mainframe… Online… 88%

91%

96%

Deactivating Hibernation…

97%

98%

99%

…Done

All Systems Online

Grey felt honestly creeped after the machine's freak-out. Whatever had happened on that terminal, it had been clearly grave.

However, he was unable to think of it any further as a pneumatic whoosh buzzed from the crate. Hot wind blew from the lid outwards with an angry wheezing. The machine continued blowing steam out for a few seconds before letting up as abruptly as it had begun.

Grey instinctively took a step back and held his shotgun up, at the same time his helmet primed and covered his face. With a pounding heart, he kept his functioning eye glued to the box.

After a brief stop, the crate gave one final gust of vapor out as the lid skid upwards, opening the case.

…

One second…

Three seconds…

Ten seconds…

Grey's heartbeat resounded within his ears.

"What the hell is going on!?" Grey screamed bloody murder inside his head.

However, nothing happened. Grey waited for almost a minute, and nothing happened.

Deciding against all common sense, Grey took slow cautious steps towards the opened box. Keeping his gun to the front, he aimed the gun inside along with his vision.

He was unable to keep his damaged eye closed.

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?"

Inside the metal casing was an either unconscious or sleeping girl. This girl could barely be 13 or 15 years old, or so Grey thought at the moment. She had chestnut brown hair tied behind her nape with a plastic brooch, barely reaching her neck, and porcelain white skin. Her clothes resulted unfamiliar to Grey, which included some form of large-sleeved white blouse decorated with a dark grey neck with white accents and an opaque red ribbon on her chest, a matching dark gray skirt and socks, and a pair of simple leather shoes to complete her attire. Her attire was simple, and unlike anything Grey had seen before in Chariot. Maybe she was from another planet or somewhere?

The girl in question had her eyes closed, and through a closer observation, Grey realized that she was in fact, breathing. Grey hesitated at first, but in the end retired his shotgun back into the fanny and reached inside for the girl.

She was light, very light. Grey was reminded of his sister when he picked her up. Upon closer inspection, he realized that she in fact was much younger than he was, maybe a bit older than his sister. Her face was round and cute, befitting her short height and apparent youth.

After he taking her out of the box, Grey knelt with the girl still in his arms.

"Hey, are you alright?" He asked, placing his middle and ring fingers on her neck to check her pulse, to find that she indeed was alive. However, she still wasn't waking up.

"Goddammit. What now?" Grey wondered aloud, followed by calling for the ECHO and moving onto the mission tabs, but finding that no changes at all. "This must be some kind of sick joke…"

"Wait, this is freaking Chariot" Grey completed his own thoughts, sighing in defeat. "Murder, cannibalism and robbery happens every Tuesday, and that's not counting the rest of it…".

After staring for a few seconds at his unchanged log, Grey realized that one of the new tabs of his ECHO, the one with the weird symbols was indicating an update.

Curious, he switched to that tab to find something new on the previously blank screen.

There's that symbol once again: "電".

And also, there's a button with a prompt just at the right of that symbol: "確認".

He didn't understand a thing, but decided to press it nonetheless, to be greeted with a window:

"確認？"

The title read, and there were two options for it: "はい" indicated with a green font, and"否", indicated with red font.

"Uh… what? What the hell am I looking at here?"

And, as if responding, the ECHO forcefully closed itself, only to reboot again and show the same screen he had been seeing just a few moments ago, only that this time, the previous window now showed a message in letters he could understand.

"Accept?"

With the options below "Yes" with green font, and "No" in red.

"Accept what?" Grey muttered aloud, but something inside him told him that it's obvious.

He looks down to the girl in his arms, of course the prompt is referring to her. If there's anything to go by, the symbol he'd been following this whole time refers to this girl, and now the Empty Braver, through the hacked ECHO, was asking Grey if he'd accept this girl. In which manner he didn't understand, there was nothing clear about all this, there never was anything clear about anything since the beginning.

He didn't understand why or how, but this girl had been shoved onto him, and it was upon him to either take her or leave her.

Grey sighed. He wasn't keen on surprises, even if his line of job was full of them at every twist and corner, but this was taking it on another whole level.

"This is for real, right?" Grey muttered in defeat. The silence seemed to confirm it.

What were the options? What was at stake? He was still unsure of all the details that entailed this mad quest for the Vault, the only lead being the Empty Braver, and yet still, Grey had nothing to go from. The Empty Braver claimed to know where the Vault was, but there were no hard facts or evidence to prove it… although there also wasn't anything to do the opposite neither.

It all came down to the question: "Will you go through or not?"

Sighing in frustration, Grey decided to go through. By now, he has enough reasons and bullets to go through with this. Clicking on the green "Yes", the screen flickers in confirmation before returning once again.

Grey's greeted by a big notification.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You've accepted ownership of your first Ship Girl, and thus, become an official Admiral!

Think of this as a friendly welcome from the Empty Braver! As of the moment you accepted, you've become an official candidate for finding the Vault! But hey, don't think that this is all about the Vault, because you're going to need to take care of your Ship Girl!

Grey had no idea what all this was about, and his face was enough to convey the feeling. He kept reading forward.

For those of you who've been following through with the missions that have been handled up to this point, your journey is just beginning! You're going to need your Ship Girls in your quest for glory and fame! They WILL be needed to find the Vault, so you'd better keep them around at all moments!

The moment you turn this quest in, you'll be prompted the location of your next Ship Girl, but hurry, because someone may beat you to it!

Godspeed, new Admiral! May you find your way!

The Empty Braver

Grey had only one thought after reading this. Turning back to the girl in his arms, he gave a deep sigh.

"This is gonna suck…"