2003/11/04 22:53
Was debriefed on the project. It's a highly classified case. No room for rejection. Overall I'm extremely unwilling to accept this project. In the first place, what the hell do they want a particle physics specialist like me to do?
2003/11/09 23:06
Saw the object assumed to be the cause for the incident. It must be some kind of bad joke. Who would believe that a 'dragon' and 'giant' fell on Shinjuku? However, it's true that the substance's energy characteristics are abnormal. The plan was to begin detailed investigations tomorrow. Now I understand why I've been called to this project.
2003/12/04 22:45
The food here is really bad. It's like they were trying to make do by stuffing tons of MSG into it.
Well, it's free, so I can't really complain that much. But I really wish they'd improve, if only for the sake of keeping the researchers motivated.
2004/02/08 23:17
Another victim of the rare disease appeared in the department. I've heard some bad rumors about this. Something about the researched particle being the cause. It's true that the substance is shrouded in mysteries. I'm sure some people would buy that.
I'm worried that the research will be delayed.
2004/02/22/ 23:43
Contacted by Watanabe today. There's a high possibility that the particle is the cause of the rare disease after all. Direct contact with the particle or patients exhibiting the rare disease is forbidden. Research is only going to get harder from now on. However, it's pretty much been confirmed that the particles which make up the giant change their energy levels according to the state of the observer. But what on earth are they reacting to?
Variations in heat and brainwaves? Changes in the water amount in the atmosphere due to sweat? Some of them are saying that it's reacting to changes in a person's mental state, but that's just occult talk, not science.
2004/02/25 23:07
To investigate the relationship between the mysterious disease and the particle, the corpse was moved into the research room. My first impression was that of a white statue. Similar to recordings of the giant that I've been shown. I thought it was turning white due to denatured proteins, but it was composed of purely NaCl – in other words, it's turning into salt. It's much higher than the amount in a human body. Where is it absorbing the sodium from? The victims are said to suffer from auditory hallucinations, so maybe the grey matter is getting destroyed first, but that doesn't explain the high concentration of salt produced by the corpse. Oh well, I'll leave that part to the neuroscientists.
2004/07/04 02:18
Tired today. Won't they lessen the amount of useless report sessions and meetings? They're a waste of time.
2005/02/24 01:15
Contacted by Kobayashi. Succeeded in cultivating tissue D from the sea of origin. The density of particle G seems to be important after all. Now research on tissue D could proceed smoothly. But the vitality of tissue D is quite surprising. It's rather resistant to heat and impact. Planning to perform experiments on its resistance on a grander scale.
2005/03/08 00:45
No matter how much I look into it, the energy change accompanying the cultivation of tissue D defies the law of conservation of energy. It's not even on a micro level like quantum physics – how could you explain the energy failure on such a macro level? I guess the remaining energy came from unknown particle G after all.
2005/11/15 02:11
Seems like there was some sort of accident during the experiment on tissue D's resistance. Are we being blocked off or what? I don't get that much information these days. I feel like we're doing too many rash experiments just to get some results.
Wonder what got the higher up's knickers in a twist.
2005/12/24 01:45
Christmas Eve. Ever since the accident, security level has been bumped up to red, so I can't even leave. I told my husband to get a present for my daughter, so let's hope he didn't forget. However, a teddy bear might've been a bit too childish for her. Statistics dictate that girls in her age group like stuffed toys, but standard deviation for preferences is simply too big, so I can't really put too much trust in that. I'll ask her what she wants next time.
2006/01/08 01:33
Rumors about black monsters are spreading. Mass hysteria due to stress from the recent state of affairs? Not only are absurd experiments being continued, security is abnormally tight. What exactly is going on? Is it related to how investigation reports on tissue D aren't coming this way anymore?
2006/04/15 02:22
Recently I haven't really been feeling well. I guess I'm pretty tired.
The recent mainstream law of conservation of energy expansion theory that sprung from the parallel dimension explanation works perfectly fine with calculations, but I can't help but think it's forcibly tacked on. Moreover, saying that the giant and dragon are from parallel worlds is sci-fi territory. As a scientist, I can't accept this.
My ears are ringing.
2006/04/19 03:11
I'm in really bad shape. There's some buzzing in my ears that sounds like bells. It's a hindrance to sleep.
2006/04/22 06:24
I
ca n
he
ar
so n ds
-Last known journal entry of Investigation Report Beta
Assessment: After an accident involving a tissue sample extracted from a cadaver suffering from White Chlorination Syndrome, Section Charlie of the Investigation Team was shut down and placed into a state of quarantine. The doctors and scientists examining the corpse were directly exposed to WCS in what is likely an airborne form, and it is probable that this led to the spread of WCS throughout the quarantined section. Victims afflicted by WCS began exhibiting signs of fatigue and auditory hallucinations, with additional reports recounting individuals hearing a 'voice' that spoke to them. Patients exhibiting later signs of WCS began to display signs of mental deterioration, some of which clawed at their eyes and began shouting nonsense. 98.56 percent of victims in the final stages of WCS were witnessed via video feed falling into a comatose state before their bodies began to chlorinate and dissolve.
1.44 percent of individuals involved were seen exhibiting highly aggressive behavior, appearing to lose all manners of higher thought and devolving to an almost animal-like base. These strange…anomalies were seen viciously attacking other patients in the earlier stages of WCS. They eventually expired when those who'd yet to be affected banded together and killed the anomalies through use of chemical acids, broken glass, and makeshift weapons made from cleaning supplies.
At this time, it is unknown what caused the change between the anomalies and those in the latest stages of WCS. What was noted was:
The anomalies showed no signs of chlorinization.
The anomalies moved with an almost 'pack-minded' intent.
We can gather no samples due to the high-level of contamination within section Charlie.
2010
Skuld looked up from the report before her and rubbed her eyes. This was the fifth such article she'd read in the past five hours, and with no breaks in-between her vision was beginning to swim. Frowning, the young woman leaned back in her chair. It squeaked, much to her irritation, yet there was nothing to be done about that, and took a moment to focus on the ceiling. The tiles above her head were a pristine, smooth, white, similar to the walls and the floor and just about every other damned room in the cursed facility she was working in, each of which reeked heavily of antiseptic like that of a hospital room.
It was giving her a headache.
"Right, time for a break." She took a moment to spin her chair in childlike glee, causing it to squeak even more obscenely than before. The woman stopped it suddenly, and took a moment to enjoy the dizzying effect of watching the surrounding walls spin and contort around her as her eyes played catch-up. When the moment passed she rose and stretched her arms over her head, before letting them drop lackluster to her side.
The office was a sparsely decorated. A computer terminal off in one corner with an over-arching computer desk rested behind the door. Papers and signs depicting reminders and phone numbers hung from sticky notes and lay taped to walls, with a single picture depicting Mount Fuji resting on the adjacent wall. It was a nice picture, one of Mount Fuji from before the anomalies. One of the previous occupants had hung it up and had never bothered to take it with them, and Skuld left it where it was; a relic of a time that no longer existed, from when the world was hopeful and full of life and joy.
Not anymore.
With a sigh she leaned over her desk, locking her computer before quickly retreating from the room. As she left a coworker looked up from the computer he was diligently typing away at. "Caught up?"
Skuld smiled. It felt forced. "Only about half way." She admitted. "These reports are so monotonous. I feel I'll go mad if I read another page."
The man snickered. He was an older gentleman, one of her 'seniors' who'd taken her under her wing when she'd first arrived in the office. That had been years ago though, and she'd long since worked her way past him. It was weird, supervising one of the very people who'd shown her the ropes of the Lab, but the awkwardness that had initially come with it had long since faded.
The man, Takashi, chuckled. "Agreed. They read like stereo instructions, am I right?"
Skuld scoffed good-naturedly. "I think even stereo instructions would be simpler that these reports." She shook her head. "Anyways, I'm heading out for a coffee break. You want anything?"
Takashi shook his head. "Tea is all I need, and I've already got myself a cup." He gestured to a silver thermos resting on his desk.
He smirked when Skuld made a face. "You enjoy that. I'm off in pursuit of some real caffeine." Nodding her farewell, the woman headed out, leaving the main office and venturing down glaringly-white hallways towards the break room. She passed coworkers and additional staff who worked in other sections, some of which nodded to her, more who ignored her, others so nose-deep in clipboards lined with charts of data that they didn't even see her.
The break room at least had a bit of color. Someone, possibly a bored employee, had taken the time to paint the walls an off-tan, breaking the strain of white and giving the room a needed bit of warmth. Another person, possibly two, had dragged in one of the older executive couches into the break room, its fabric since torn and stained from years of abuse and neglect. A vending machine stood off in one corner lined with canned coffee, tea, and soda, while in another corner a large refrigerator sat, it's shelves lined with the heaven's only knew what sort of science experiments. Between them both was a stained marble sink and on its shelf rested a coffee pot and an electronic water boiler.
Reaching into one of the cupboards above the sink, the woman withdrew one of several mugs. Mickey Mouse, faded and yellow with age, smiled up at her from where he rested beside other iconic figures such as Rei Ayanami, Betty Boop, and the mustachioed plumber Mario. Listlessly she grabbed Micky, placing the mug off to one side as she checked the coffee pot. It was close to two in the afternoon now, and the remaining coffee had turned to a cold sludge. Making a face, she dumped it and rinsed it out in the old stained sink, then began preparing a new pot.
As the machine began to gurgle and grumble, Skuld moved to the couch, sinking into the worn cushions with a content sigh. Despite its age and abuse, there was still life yet in the old thing; a peaceful, soothing whisper that she could hear just at the edge of her mind, singing sweet lullabies that enticed the mind to sleep. It worked, too. Many a time she'd caught a coworker napping on the old thing, and she herself was guilty of the crime on long nights where the next work day was mere hours away.
Those nights, she didn't have the stamina she'd once had.
Ice cream was a novelty now, and certainly not something she could easily stock up on. She sighed wistfully. I miss those days. More and more I miss those days…when I could work on a project for days at a time without rest, only leaving for mochi ice cream or to bug Urd for TV rights or tell off Keiichi…
She frowned at the thought. Those days were always accompanied by the gentle scent of Belldandy's tea. That had been years ago. And you're no longer the little goddess you once were. How does it feel, finally being an adult? She rubbed her eyes, recalling the many documents still resting in her computer awaiting her review. It felt pretty fucking shitty, to be perfectly honest. None of us really want to be an adult. It only seems appealing in childhood because we lacked the understanding of what came with adulthood. We want the independence, the freedom, and the respect that comes with adulthood. No one ever bothers to mention the burdens that accompany it or the responsibilities that fall on our shoulders.
How long had it been? Since the Abominations? Since Keiichi and Belldandy? It was hard for her to keep up. The days, the months, the years all seemed to mesh into each other with every use of the Gate between Earth and Asgard. Time became meaningless in such travels; one day, there were trees and birds and people were simply investigating the white ash that had begun to rain down from Shinjuku. A couple of days back home, and she'd return to find a strange new disease, this 'White Chlorination Syndrome' or WCS, afflicting Shinjuku residents and turning them to salt. Another trip, and suddenly Shinjuku was in lock-down, no longer a city but a quarantine zone lined with barbwire fences and JSDF control points, where the guards wore radiation suits and those trapped inside risked their lives at gunpoint in the hopes of escape.
And now it's come to this. She thought. Where they've nuked Shinjuku and spread WCS all across the planet.
It was a despairing thought, one made all the more so with the revelation that in that time, there'd been no progress on finding a cure, of even finding a cause for WCS, even as new horrors rose from the ashes of the city now labeled as Point Zero.
Yet though the Red Eye and Legion were a problem, no, a threat to Japan, they were not her problem.
Not right now at least.
The dragon is here.
And that was why she was here. For the dragon, which had been felled by JSDF fighters so many years before. Unlike the Giant (Scarface, they'd labeled it) this one hadn't dissolved into a cloud of ash. In fact, from the reports she'd read, its body had remained remarkably intact for having been assaulted by missiles, and had quickly been retrieved by the Japanese Government, hidden away from prying eyes even as those who'd borne witness to its flight littered online forums with questions and pictures.
Yet a body preserved still housed the remains of a spirit, though it'd be little more than afterimages and feelings, final thoughts and sights and smells. Like the couch she sat on now, it was little more than a relic of the past, yet one that could still be used by those around it.
Which was what the Japanese government had signed her up for, after all. In their books, Skuld Tyrdottor specialized in cellular diversity and contagions and was being paid by the United Nations as a foreign consultant. That made her valuable to the Japanese government, as someone else signed her paychecks while they got to harvest her skills.
And she got to examine the dragon.
But first came the paperwork. Always the goddamned paperwork. Yggdrasil, mortals were more uptight with policies and paperwork than even the most stringent of gods. It made her wonder if demons fared any better.
The coffee pot hissed and gurgled in completion, and with a sigh Skuld rose once more. Mickey was waiting, after all.
Year 3361
Klaxons were blaring.
Deep within the bowels of the earth, sirens wailed and screeched, dancing with red light as inactive terminals suddenly flared to life. Green text of gibberish words, numbers, symbols, flew across the screen in a rain of activity as dim, yellow lights unwillingly sputtered to life. A network of biomechanical roots connected to long, proboscis tubes churned and twitched with the first activity in centuries as a black pod was illuminated with an unearthly green glow. The pod released a hiss, and then a thick stream erupted from the capsule, releasing a heavy mist that blanketed the grid floor upon which the pod rested. From farther within the room, loud beeps and cries mingled with the howling klaxons, and with it several creatures emerged, mechanical in natures as they sputtered forth on rusted axels and tiny wheels. They twirled and danced mindlessly to the sirens around them, releasing their own mechanical cries as they circled each other, the pod, and the large computer terminal that continued to transcribe its long wall of endless text of prattle.
One of them, a robot that looked like a series of boxes on wheels, lurched towards the pod, a steel tentacle ending in a clamp rising from its top and snapping helplessly at the pod. It was quickly overtaken by something that looked a bit more advanced; a slimmer, sleeker model with a noticeable head shaped like a long-nosed bullet. This one had something closer to arms, and with a series of beeps and squeaks it directed it's primitive partner to the computer mainframe, withdrawing a long cable from the box's 'head' and plugging it into a USB port. The screen flickered, and then the wall of text vanished, replaced by a white screen that began displaying a series of ones and zeros. Another robot, this one bearing the resemblance of an old Poo-Chi toy the size of a mastiff, continued to circle the pod, the wheels that comprised of its feet screaming from long years of disuse. It released a mechanical bark, and then wheeled over to the bullet-headed robot, smashing into it repeatedly and gaining the bullet-bot's attention. It stared at the large mecha-hound, which proceeded to yip at it…and promptly kicked it on its side.
The dog yipped and whined with its electronic voice, its gears buzzing and churning and wheels spinning as it tried to right itself. It guttered a plume of black diesel smoke in desperation, and the bullet robot almost seemed to moan at its actions, bringing a three-pronged hand to its long nose as it shook its head in something that could have almost passed as disdain. The dog continued to yap haplessly, however the bullet ignored it in favor of the pod. The black lid of its surface flared to life, and across its dark screen, bright white text surged into being, displaying charts and graphs and the vitals of whatever lay within. The bullet examined them all through a series of sensor orbs lined along the center of its massive head, and then removed a cable of its own from its broad neck. The metallic creature removed a panel near the pod's screen, revealing the multiple ports within, and plugged the cable into a USB port. A high whine emerged from the bullet's head as gears and fans that hadn't been used in centuries spun up to speed once more, and then new text began to flit across the pod's screen, mingling with the information provided as the screen began to flash.
There came a large exhale of air from the pod that blew dust from its vents, and after a minute a green light began to flash across the pod's screen accompanied by an approving chime. Its sensors flashed a bright yellow, and in response, the information upon the screen faded, revealing the contents kept within. Something within the pod began to whir, and with it large warning bweep, bweep bweeps drowned out the howling klaxons and mechanical dog's yappings. A hiss of white steam filled the compound, and then the pod's screen began to rise up, releasing its sole occupant from its chambers.
The bullet bowed, peering inside the small pod and illuminating a small light within its nose. The beam was broad but bright, highlighting the face of the human within and revealing feminine features cast within a European face. Long, black waves of hair cascaded down either side of her face, and as the beam met her closed eyes they scrunched up. The face turned away with a soft groan, and the bullet tilted its long head to one side. "Mother, you need to wake up. Yggdrasil is malfunctioning and we do not have the expertise necessary to repair him." The voice that emerged from the robot, though mechanical, was that of a young girl. It paused to look at the ceiling as something large and heavy shuddered above it. The dog whined pitifully. "Please Mother!" The automaton tried again. "His roots are spreading through the forest and killing the trees! He's deluded himself into believing he can merge mechanical components with vegetation, and it's ruining everything! Please wake up, Mother!"
Within the pod the woman slowly roused, grimacing somewhat as she opened dark eyes on an even darker world. For a moment she stared at the robot without recognition. Above their heads a woman's voice announced, "Automatons P-33 designators A-12 through C-01, report to surface. Intruder detected, assessed Replicant-level Sigma. Gestalt unstable and displaying violent behaviors towards Hologram Yggdrasil. Assessed threat level Red towards Gestalt Monitor Yggdrasil. Repeat, Automatons P-33 designators A-12 through C-01…the message replayed, and scowling the woman clutched her head. Her mouth felt dry, her tongue like sandpaper that scratched the inside of her mouth. She made an attempt at speech, but failed, the only sound emerging being that of her jaw creaking noisily. The woman designated as 'Mother' coughed and tried again. Above their heads the feminine voice continued, "Automaton Yggdrasil requesting access to humanoid battle drones P-33 designator H01. Access denied."
"How long was I out?" Her voice was a replicate of the one from above, though hoarse and cracked from years of disuse.
"Automaton Yggdrasil requesting access to humanoid battle drones P-33 designator H02. Access denied."
"You've been asleep for the past one thousand three hundred and twelve years." The bullet announced, and the woman known as Mother paled, gaping helplessly at the android. "However you are failing to see what is truly at stake here! The Gestalt Project is failing! Gestalt (ERROR CODE) has vanished and all the Gestalts are starting to relapse and I can't contact Devola or Popola at all! I think they might have been destroyed!"
"Automaton Yggdrasil requesting access to humanoid battle drones P-33 designator H03. Access denied. Automaton Yggdrasil activating user override passcode, 'But Mo~om!' Access approved."
Mother looked up sharply, then scowled. "Gestalt what?" She muttered, then shook her head. "No, never mind. Get a lock on to Devola's and Popola's last transmission." She croaked, running a hand through her hair with a deep sigh. "I'll go topside and deal with Yggdrasil." Carefully the woman climbed out of the pod, her legs protesting their sudden use with an onslaught of pins and needles. She froze, glaring at the two limbs, and after a moment took a step forward. A fresh burst of tingles worked their way through her nerve endings, and the dark-haired woman grit her teeth. "Trust the Hamelin Organization to make your sleep pleasant , leaving you refreshed and revitalized when you are safely reanimated!" She sang. Her voice dipped into a low growl. "Cocksucking shitheads wouldn't know their eyes from their assholes if they ever slept in their own pods. Refreshed my butt." Grumbling to herself, the woman slowly made her way past the bullet 'droid, pausing only a minute to take mercy on the yapping robotic hound that still lay baying pitifully on its side. "And stop knocking Poochi over!" She snapped, sending a baleful look to the automaton that had awakened her. "You know he doesn't like it!"
The woman shook out her legs once more, this time using the up righted Poochi as a post. The mecha-dog remained motionless save for its ears, which rose and fell like the wings of a sparrow. This time when she walked, it was with the canine's aid. It rolled forward as she made her way to an elevator in the center of the room, its panels red with rust and surrounded by long metal cables and wires whose copper insides had become exposed through long years of disrepair. When she looked closely, Mother spied tiny drones the size of beetles crawling within the wiring, pausing occasionally at worn sections to do spot repairs; the last valiant efforts to preserve a system that was three hundred and twelve years past its intended life cycle. She watched them as the woman pressed the button that would activate the elevator, this final line of defense against time, and watched with sadness as even these tiny droids displayed the onset of age; one with its once-glossy dome crusted and lumpy with rust, like a mechanical tumor. Another that was missing its shell, exposing the tiny fibers and alloys that comprised its body. And more that bumped and crawled over each other mindlessly, their circuits fried beyond repair as they sought to recall their purpose.
It was a disheartening sight that left a lump of depression in her chest. My children are dying and there's nothing I can do. The elevator doors groaned as they made to open, sliding back on deteriorated gears working their last breath. They stopped midway, giving up the ghost and displaying a small chamber whose insides looked like the bloody remains of a murder scene. The woman stared at the walls, examining the eroded metal before looking to the floor. "Will this thing even hold my weight?" She wondered aloud, and at her side Poochi whimpered, pressing itself against her leg like a nervous dog. She looked down at it, and the robot stared back, its eyes a pair of digital gold rings that shown in the room's poor lighting. "…Your right." She admitted. "Stairs might be safer."
The ground trembled with an earthquake's tremor, and the woman called Mother near-lost her balance, bracing herself against the jammed elevator doors. The elevator moaned loud and lowly as though in pain, and as the woman leaned back she heard a mechanical twang, one that was followed by the high whine of ricocheting wires bouncing off walls. The elevator compartment lurched to the left at an angle, and the woman fell backwards with a shout, her legs giving way to the ground as the elevator's final wires snapped and released the compartment to free fall. Metal cables shot through the shoot like a nest of vipers, only for their vicious assault to be blocked by the sudden actions of the mecha-hound. On gears that screeched it rolled itself in front of its creator, where one of the frayed metal cables whipped through the jammed doors and collided with its steel frame. A crater impacted across the base of its body, and then came the crash of the rusted cart colliding with the ground several floors below.
Her heart beating like a jackhammer in her throat, Mother straightened, staring at the black hole that remained before finally gathering her wits and picking herself up. "They say if you see your family's face flash before your eyes, it's the Angel of Death dropping by to give you a kiss." She said in a broken, wavering voice. "Thankfully I'm not one for kisses." The woman looked down at her savior and winced. The cable had come down across the robot's back like a five ton steel whip, all but tearing through the poor creature's metal hide. If Poochi had moved any slower, my head would have been caved in by that cable. She rested a hand on the dog's head. Its ears flapped weakly, and a small bark rose from its soundboard. "You're a good boy, Poochi." She murmured. "Now stay here with the others and rest. I can walk from here on my own. Besides, you can't follow me up the stairs with those wheels."
Poochi whined in protest and distaste, its head looking past the woman and towards the elevator shaft. Through the black slit that remained, the robot's sensors could make out a fluid running down the insides of the chute; a black tar that stank of motor oil and tree sap.
But Mother didn't notice.
Instead Mother smiled at the hound, rubbing the sensor modules hidden behind its ears, causing them to flap in an imitation of a real dog's tail wag. "Don't worry." She said reassuringly. "I'll take care of whatever nonsense Yggdrasil is up to and then be back down here. I'll get an update on Project Gestalt and then I'll start repairing you and the others and this base, okay? Everything will be fine."
Except it wasn't going to be fine. Had the robot called Poochi held a vocabulary system, it would have relayed this message to its mother. "It's not going to be fine," It would have told her, trailing along behind Mother Skuld as a squeaky shadow. "It's not going to be okay, because you'll go up there, and you won't come back." It would have cried, and had it arms it would have wrapped them around its mother, holding her tight and begging her not to go, not to climb those rusty stairs that looked stained with blood in the afterglow of the room. It would have pleaded with her to ignore Yggdrasil, for Yggdrasil had lost its purpose, lost its reason to live, and was slowly moving towards its own self-termination program by whatever means available.
"You're not coming back, are you?" It would have finalized, but without a vocabulary card, it could do nothing.
Nothing but wait at the steps of a rusted staircase for a woman who would never return.
Dreams.
The dreams were getting worse.
Every time she closed her eyes, they assaulted her. Dreams of that fight at the shrine. Of the Shadowlord, the Ruler of Shades, and Grimoire Noir, the living tomb that served him. Of the companions she'd gain in her travels, Grimoire Weiss, the long-winded White Book which stood in opposition to Grimoire Noir. Of the young boy who could kill with a glance, Emil, and who eventually bore the likeliness of death as a living skeleton, only to be consumed by death in the battle between Devola and Popola, the twins acting as the vanguard to the Shadow Lord. Of Yohna, the young girl she'd saved; a child trapped within a teenager's body and slowly dying from the Black Scrawl Illness, and…and…
A voice.
A voice that called to her on the edges of her consciousness.
"The Shades are acting up again." She noted, wandering from her small little hut outside of the Aerie, a cliff-staged village known for its xenophobia. A part of her expected a voice to answer back within her mind, 'Well that just means it's that Special Time of the day, don't it Sweetheart? That Special Killing Time you know we live for.' but instead she heard nothing. The creature that had once possessed her, the entity known as 'Tyrann', had mysteriously vanished with the defeat of the Shadowlord. She hadn't noticed it at first—not after the initial defeat of the Shadowlord, when she'd awakened to a girl's crying and a shrine on the verge of collapse, but after, when she and the girl called Yohna had escaped and returned to the village Yohna claimed to have hailed from. It was only there, handing the sickly child off to a group of locals that watched her with scared eyes, that she realized her mind had grown silent, the lustful desire to kill no longer quite as prevalent as it had been while possessed by a Shade.
Yet Tyrann's unexpected but welcomed departure did not slacken her bloodlust as much as she'd hoped. Though the magic that had so fueled her was absent, her strength was still great; years of hacking down trees and sawing wood for the Aerie had shown to that. And the villagers of the neighboring towns still feared her; she, the strange woman who wielded saws taller than herself like a pair of dual swords and who kept company with monsters and talking books, who was excessively violent and slaughtered the creatures that roamed the plains for as much sport as self-defense. "And all in your nighties, too." Tyrann's ghost whispered. "Careful now, don't want to get them dirty with blood, my little chickadee! Don't want to soil what your granny gave you before that lizard squashed her, am I right?"
She closed her eyes and sighed deeply. "Even when you're gone I still hear your voice." She growled, following the cave network that led from her neck of the woods to the Northern Plains. It was a small cave system, one that had been dug out and expanded centuries before hand by a people long since dead and for a purpose that had vanished with them. The ground was stained with bat shit and lined by a pair of parallel metal bars; some sort of ancient railway whose locomotives had been lost, probably shoved off the cliff face that proceeded the Aerie. Bet the bottom of that canyon is lined with old metal scrap heaps. That and the remains of the Aerie from Wendy's attack. She though absentmindedly. Too bad there's not a path leading down to the canyon. Bet there's some nice scrap metal that could be used for weapons upgrades, and I know that—the woman froze, her mind going blank as a feeling of mournful yearning overcame her. Her heart clenched for a reason she couldn't explain. "I have a pair of saws." Her voice came out a loud whisper, and her brows, a blonde so bright they almost looked white, furrowed together in confusion. "I…I've never needed to upgrade anything." She told herself, and with it the looming perplexity grew, a nagging feeling that gnawed at her brain far off in the back of her head. "I've always used my saws and magic. I've never touched a sword. Or a spear. Her mind added.
And yet…she could distinctly remember going to that area those kids called a 'military base', that place called the Junk Heap. She remembered her and Emil and the book going there together and entering the base and destroying the defensive drones within for their parts. "What the fuck is this?" She asked aloud. "Why do I fucking remember scouring the damned base for some electrical component or tearing up the Aerie for a shitty-ass Giant Eagle egg to upgrade some stupid sword?" And spear. Her mind reminded once more. "I don't use weapons! I don't know how to use them, and I sure as fuck don't have any funds to pay for that kind of garbage!"
Yet the knowledge was still there. She'd spend hours, days even, searching coastlines and slaughtering shades, destroying robots and completing some villager's stupid task all so that she could get the funds and the supplies needed for a weapon upgrade. A lump settled in her stomach. "But I don't enter the villages." She reminded herself. "All the villages keep their distance aside from Façade, and they don't count because their whole society ain't right in the head." So why could she remember bartering with merchants for medicine? Why could she remember receiving funds for some bit of mercenary work? What the fuck was this shit?
"The dreams are the key." She realized that Tyrann's voice was no longer as prominent as it used to be within her mind. It was like a memory, one she was slowly starting to lose as more time passed, fading into obscurity like those of the comrades she'd lost with the Shadowlord's fall. "The dreams are the key, and the weapons are the secret." His voice didn't even have a gender attributed to it anymore. It had become little more than a loud whisper, like that of the Shades that screeched at her before falling to her saw blades.
She no longer heard their voices either, she realized.
Somewhere behind her one of the more vicious bats nipped at her exposed elbow, and with a start she was roused from her thoughts, swinging her saw blade behind her in a manner that was second nature. The bat that had bitten her fell in two pieces, the larger half screaming as it tried to flutter away on one wing, blood oozing in a heavy stream from the stump that was once its left wing. She neither saw it nor heard it, instead rubbing her eyes with her left hand. Somehow she'd come to the edge of the cave, where the rail tracks ended to grass and sunshine; the expansive Northern Plains with its sheep and goats and boar. She pursed her lips, squinting up to the sky. "Sky's too clear for Shades." She muttered despondently, and with a tired sigh wandered off into the field, hands clenching her weapons angrily. "God fucking damn it. Is it too much to ask for some shitty clouds and some Shades?" She groaned. If she really wanted to, she could take on one of the local boars, but those things had grown too easy to kill long ago; there was no sport in their slaughter now.
Sighing with dismay, she wandered out into the field, wandering aimlessly amongst sheep that ran from her and goats that tried to run her down, her arms working through the masses as though possessed and butchering anything that grew to close. Yet her mind was elsewhere. To the dreams, to the memories that felt somehow incomplete. Inconsistent. "I hunted down the Shade that killed Granny Kali." She recalled. "It was destroying the Aerie, and the fools were too xenophobic of me to listen to my warnings to flee. And then I killed it on one of the highrising platforms above the canyon, where the merchants normally sell their wares." She pursed her lips in thought, passing an eroded bridge whose purpose had long since been lost; grass and vines had overtaken the cement and concrete that had once comprised it, and at its highest point of fifty feet it came to an abrupt end, leaving nothing but the metal bars that had once strengthened it in its wake. "And then I went to that village with the library…the one with Popola and Devola and that girl Yohna, who was sick…" She chewed her lip thoughtfully, once more feeling that nagging tingle at the back of her brain screaming that she'd forgotten something. "But why would I leave my home?"
She was a recluse; a hermit, self-sufficient and without need of other people. She'd secluded herself from the world because of the Shade that had come to possess her body, yet when she'd gone to that village, Tyrann was still present…"And then I decided to go to Façade."
But why?
"So I could search for a cure for the Black Scrawl, the disease that was killing that girl, Yohna, and was picking off villagers from other towns as well."
But what did she care? She had her own issues with Tyrann and his insatiable bloodlust and from what she knew the Black Scrawl was incurable; a mysterious illness that sentenced it's victims to inevitable death by the cryptic black marking that appeared on their skin like tattooed glyphs. Why should she care about some brat who was doomed to die like so many others in the neighboring villages? A girl she'd never even met up until she'd visited Popola and Devola's village?
She paused, finding herself engulfed in shadow and looked around hopefully. The field was gone. In its place was the eve of a forest, one steadily growling larger and thicker the further she walked, the trees engulfing the sky in their battle for a piece of the ever-constant sun. She looked behind her, where the trees emptied back out towards the plains. It was still as horrifically sunny as when she'd first started her walking and still without a Shade in sight. Her jaw clenched, and she turned back to the forest. "You'd think a nice dark forest would be a fucking breeding ground for these things," She growled through her teeth, "But no, the Shades avoid the damned Forest of Myth like the villagers avoid anyone with the Black Scrawl. And what the hell am I doing here of all places?" The last time she'd entered the Forest of Myth had been to… "Mother fucker!" She screamed. "It was so I could ask the goddamned villagers about a cure for the Black Scrawl! Just like every other shitty ass village I've gone to!" Except this village had been particularly useless. The folk that resided within had been suffering from some sort of sleeping sickness, and the Mayor had enlisted her and The Book's help to find the cause. Yet instead they'd found themselves victims of the sleeping sickness as well, where they'd run into the Mayor and all his sleeping villagers locked in some dreamscape and unable to escape.
And the tree. Tyrann's ghost was but a whisper. Don't forget that god-awful tree.
"Like I could." She growled. The overgrown bush had been the cause of the strange Sleeping Sickness; a huge, over towering tree the locals all called the Divine Tree. It had spoken to her in her dream, speaking of memories condensed and lost to time, its purpose gone until The Man and The Book arrived.
The Man and The Book…
The Man and The Book…
The words echoed through her brain. "I've been here before…" She began, "But…why do I feel like I've never entered this place before?" Grimly, she tried to recall the faces of the Mayor and the townsfolk. They existed. She knew this with absolute certainty that they existed, and yet the images that should have arisen with the locals were all absent; the faces displayed little more that blank slates void of any sort of identifiable features. The Man and The Book. The Book was Weiss, she knew. She'd discussed the events of the tree in passing with him, commenting on how strange the tree was and if it was possible that a Shade had possessed it. Weiss had been doubtful.
So why had the tree been happy to receive The Man and The Book? "I'm a woman." She told herself. "A woman. There's no way it could have—It must have been talking about something else. Someone else." But the tree had been the only thing inhabited by a Shade, if indeed the Divine Tree had been possessed as she herself. There had been no signs of the Shadowlord and its Grimoire Noir anywhere, or else surely the entire village would have been overrun by Shades when she and The Book had arrived. Right?
Right?
She ran a hand through her platinum-blonde hair, the strands curled into a tight, braided bun, thinking back to her dream again, of the male voice that had spoken to her in a land comprised of nothing but shadow and golden light.
"…ine…don't…"
"…go back…do not…come here..."
"…don't…"
The voice had been familiar to her, like someone she'd once known intimately long, long ago and had since lost to time. But who? Who was the voice that whispered to her in the depths of night, haunting her dreams like the Shade that had once possessed her body? Who?!
The dreams are the key. Tyrann repeated, Don't forget that god-awful tree.
She paused, meditating on the words of a ghostly apparition. "A tree that collects memories." She murmured. She scowled, looking one last time over her shoulder. The day wasn't seeing any clouds that might spawn prey anytime soon, regrettably. Not on a clear sky like today, where the wind was blowing from the desert of Façade, bringing with it the scent of heat and sand. She pursed her lips. "Guess it's time I paid a visit to the last great legend."
She walked forward, entering the forest and hearing the voices of comrade's who'd abandoned her for death bicker in the back of her mind.
The village was deserted.
In the silence of the forest, not a soul could be seen, the little huts made of wood and twigs empty of their prior residents. Frowning, the woman peered around, following the broad, beaten path of earth and pine needles towards the village center. The trees here were tall and overarching; large conifers of pine and ash that had grown massive in the years that had passed, untouched by time or man. Through the thick canopy above she could spy clips of blue sky, yet it was not enough to provide any sort of warmth or light in this area. The air was cool and crisp, but the air had an odd scent to it; an oily tang had invaded the normal scents of trees and saps. It brought to mind the machines within the Junk Heap, robots that spat out black plumes of smoke and dripped oil and grease that stained the floors around them.
Kainé wrinkled her nose at the scent, stopping near one dome-roofed house and peering at it intently. The wooden door had been torn off its hinges and lay discarded outside, its heavy pine frame cracked and splintered around the edges. The inside was dark; an empty hearth lay abandoned towards the back, and the windows that would have normally allowed light in had all been boarded shut from the inside, as though the previous occupants had been trying to keep something out. A table rested on its side towards the living room's center, where a discarded bowl had broken into three large ceramic pieces. Fruit lay scattered across the wooden floor, and the woman found that if she squinted, she could make out darker areas within the grain. Kainé frowned, her thumb rubbing the leather grip of her weapons restlessly. There'd been a struggle here, though the blood was too old for it to have been recent. "Looks like this place got raided by Shades." She murmured, lilac eyes darting to the darker corners of the room and straining to make out any signs of possible new denizens. A hint of gold perhaps, or maybe a shadow of a darker hue, moving restlessly as it awaited an opportunity to attack. She even strained her ears for the voices that accompanied the creatures, yet no words, no screeches, surged forth to meet her. The house was as empty and dead as the Shrine when she'd awoken free of her possession from Tyrann.
It wouldn't have been the first time such an act had happened; the Shades were well known and feared for their aggression towards humans, and if the smaller ones had allied themselves with one of the rarer larger shades, it would have been easy for them to invade a place like the Forest of Myth. This village in particular had always been one of the more peaceful areas on the wayside, the locals comprised more of traders and merchants over guards and warriors. There were no walls or fences to keep neither the creatures out nor any guards to aid in protecting the natives. Such a task would have been left to wandering mercenaries (like him, like the man who doesn't exist), slaying the local Shade population before they grew too emboldened by mass or size. She'd seen it happen before: The Aerie, the village Kainé was born in, had been attacked thrice. Twice by the lizard-like Shade that had killed her grandmother, and then again by an even larger Shade composed of nothing but a large eye, it's body a black, circular mass of energy. Yohna's village had been attacked by a shade of colossal size, the vanguard hailing the Shadowlord's coming, right before the humanoid-Shade had kidnapped the little girl who'd lived there. Even Façade, a Kingdom of Rules with its large, encroaching walls and many masked guards, had been victimized by the creatures; this one in the form of a great hound that lead the surrounding wolves of the desert against any man who dared cross it.
She left the house, nudging the broken door with her foot. And all those places had their own guards and were still overwhelmed. These fools didn't stand a chance. The thought left a deep pit in the center of her stomach. Kainé didn't like people. Having been victimized by the cruelties of humanity at an early age, she'd grown a strong dislike for other people early on, and it'd only grown when the Aerie had further alienated her and then exiled her from the village upon Tyrann's possession of her body. Yet the woman was not completely without compassion, and while she did not particularly care for other humans, neither did the warrior care to see them mowed down like sheep for a slaughter. There would have been children here too. She thought. Some of them younger then Emil. She grimaced, her heart clenching painfully as she thought of the young boy who'd sacrificed so much in their battle against the Shadowlord. First, his body, then his life in an effort to protect them from the devastating spell cast by Popola. He couldn't have been more than seven when she'd first laid eyes on him; a shy, withdrawn little boy who'd been blindfolded and dressed in the garb of a high-class merchant's son from Seafront. And he hadn't even hit puberty when he sacrificed his body for power. All so he could save you. So that he could help you. So that when the time came, and he was filled with utter loathing for the monstrosity he'd become, he could sacrifice his life for you so that you could take the Shadowlord out.
The woman grit her teeth, a knot of loathing locking in her throat. There were no tears, however; the time for tears had come and gone a long time ago. The only thing that was left was the anger, the pain, and the hate. Always the hate. What a pitiful creature you are, to have allowed yourself to be consumed by such a terrible emotion. That voice hadn't been Tyrann. Tyrann had always thrived on Kainé's hate, right up to the very end when he'd been about to fully possess her and leave her as a Shade like the other creatures she'd massacred, where he'd finally voiced his regret over what she was to become. No, this voice was that of her grandmother. Grandma Kali, who'd always been there for her and had taught her how to accept herself when no one else would. Grandma Kali, who'd taught her to chop wood and to survive in the wilds when life in the Aerie grew too harsh. Grandma Kali, who'd been slaughtered by the reptilian Shade that went by the name of 'Hook'. Stop beating yourself up over what you can't change. Kali's voice chided. What's done is done and there's no changing that fact. Do you think that poor boy would want you throwing a fit like a stupid toddler every time you thought of him? The woman closed her eyes, scowling. No, Emil wouldn't appreciate that. Despite the hard cards he'd been dealt, he'd always somehow managed to maintain a kind, peaceful bearing that always left her at ease. Lashing out in violence over his memory would have horrified him, had he still been alive, and she couldn't dishonor his memory in such a manner.
So instead you'll unleash your violence through your hatred for Shades? Is that your excuse now? Another voice, one she could not recall, sighed in the back of her mind. Oh Kainé…
"Shut up!" She screamed. "All of you, just shut up, alright? I never asked for you fuckers as my conscious, and I'll be damned before I let any of you govern my actions! Now all of you shut your mouths and let me think or take a hike off the Aerie's cliffs!" Huffing to herself, cheeks flush, she stomped onwards, her anger masking her eyes from the slow and gradual changes of the trees, where wires slowly began to crawl up tree trunks in black vines and where branches grew ribbed with rubber casings. Power cables took the place of tree roots as she grew closer to the Divine Tree, and with it the smell of motor oil became more prominent, drowning out the fresh scent of trees and clean air. She paused when she arrived at the great tree in question; a towering redwood who's branches broke through the surrounding canopy by a good five hundred feet, with a trunk larger than most of the houses in the village. Its bark, which her mind initially called 'red-brown', was instead a deep brown closer to black, the texture not so much rough wood as a smooth, almost oily shell. An acrid smell of diesel fuel permeated the area, choking her lungs and burning her eyes, and with a snarl she brought an arm up to her cover her face, for once wishing she'd chosen to wear something a little more conservative than the baby blue nightware her grandmother had left her. At least then she'd have something to protect her lungs. The dainty outfit she wore now did nothing to shield her from the poison in the air, and squinting, she glared at the massive tree, wondering what she'd need to do to convince it to spill its secrets.
A strange, hollow squeak met her ears as rubber grinded against rubber, and before she could think her body was in motion, leaping away from her initial position as a massive coil of cords exploded from the earth. They knotted and writhed against each other, like a nest of snakes, rising into a form that was distinctly human in shape. Its features were holes where there should have been eyes and a mouth, and the cables that formed its lips twisted upwards in a mockery of a smile. "Hello, I—"
It's head rolled to the ground before disassembling once more into wires from where she lashed out, severing the creature's neck with a single strike. It hurt to breath still, but now adrenaline was filling her veins, her pulse roaring through her ears as she turned to face this strange new threat. She wheeled around, watching as the strange body collapsed upon itself, and then quickly darted to the left as she caught new motion from the corner of her eye. It was the thing again, forming up near the remains of the Mayor's house, now a decrepit ruin covered in an ugly black tar. "How violent." Its voice was masculine and synthetic, a strange combination that left the hair on the back of her neck stock straight. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am `/&6I)l24$!1, the overseer of this forest." What emerged from the hollow pit of its mouth was a jumble of noise and beeps, and baffled, she stared at it blankly, momentarily lowering her guard.
"You're what?" Kainé demanded. What was this? Some sort of magic left from the Old World? A creature like Weiss, both inanimate yet baring a soul at the same time?
Before her the strange creature continued. "You don't understand the language my name is in, so call me anything you like, whether it is the "Overseer" or "Young Man". You probably have a lot of things you don't understand right now. So what do you want to know?"
"One: About the forest
Two: About me
Three: About the future. Pick one."
The woman stared at the creature, mouth parted in confusion. Was this some kind of a joke? Yet before she could interrogate the stranger or even pick one of his choices, the cable-man launched into an explanation. "The forest you're standing in isn't actually a forest at all." He revealed. "It's a computer terminal, one used by an ancient people long lost to study the 'demonic element', what you refer to as 'magic', and quantum physics. It is also the terminal that oversees that creation of Replicants such as you and the status of Gestalts, documenting which Gestalts have relapsed and those Replicants dying because of their berserk state. Unfortunately, with the destruction of Self-Awareness Maintaining Gestalt, (\)!&1², the computer system has gone into its final termination stage, which is what you're seeing now." An arm comprised of hoses and cables swept across the area, and despite herself she followed it, taking in the decayed state of a forest that was steadily becoming more and more mechanical with each passing minute. "A shame really. I had so many good memories of this world, too. It's disappointing that I won't be able to record them anywhere."
Something emerged from one of the houses, lights flashing, and the woman turned, starting as a robot emerged. Rectangular and boxy in form, it strode forward on a tracked chassis, a klaxon flashing angry green lights as it rotated at the top of its body. Two pronged, hydraulic pumps served as primitive arms, and as it rolled forward the clasps at the ends flexed and sparked, igniting with electricity. The machine grated towards Kainé on its rusted chassis, and from more houses others emerged, identical to the first in make and model, rusted and scratched and covered in dents.
A wry smile twisted across Kainé's face. This was what she'd come here for. This was what made her blood sing and heart race with glee. "It's the Junk Heap all over again, isn't it?" The woman said aloud, before rushing towards the first of the robots. At the last moment the warrior dodged left, darting behind the first 'bot as it slowly tried to turn and follow her, and with a grin she brought the first of her weapons down upon its body. The serrated edge sawed through the brittle metal like so many trees before it, and sparks emerged from the machine as its internal power core was punctured and its movements came to a halt. By the time it exploded the woman was already upon the next robot, face alight with delight as her left blade swept through its chassis with a horizontal slice. Disabled, it reached for Kainé with its prongs, and she sliced through them with her right blade, severing the rusted metal from its body. A single thrust ended its life, and with a laugh she leapt forward, muscles singing as she soared a good five feet into the air before plunging down on her next target with both blades. The woman ripped them free of her latest corpse, and as the machine began to spark and short-circuit she back flipped, landing a good distance away from the gathering mass of droids as the machine exploded. Two others were in the automaton's blast radius, and they too fizzled and died, exploding like their brethren in a glorious display of black smoke and electricity. "Come on motherfuckers!" She roared at them, brandishing her weapon before her and sweeping it across the field at the encroaching robots. "I'll take you all on! You can't do shit, you expired tin cans!" The woman cackled, then launched herself towards her next target, continuing the onslaught of destruction.
The cable-man watched it all from a safe distance, a smile on its nonexistent lips as it watched her go. As such, lost in the heat of battle and the joys that came with mindless destruction as she was, his next words almost went unheard. "On to the second point, this being about myself." Kainé didn't so much as glance his way. "I am an entity which holds an existence similar to that of the Grimoires Noir and Weiss; I am a creature whose existence is possible only by way of a Gestalt, and as such have been granted mobility and thought by the soul resting within me. Like your deceased Grimoires, I also control the 'demonic element', which is what is allowing me to take the form you see. I am the recorder of the life and death of all Replicants and Gestalts such as you, ensuring that for each Gestalt, a Replicant might exist for which it could bond to upon the fusion of the two Grimoires." There was a frown in its voice, and an earthquake rocked the area, almost causing Kainé to lose her footing. She paid for it as one of the bots she'd been about to dismantle suddenly shocked her. The woman screamed. "Unfortunately, both of those books have been destroyed along with the two Gestalts held within their pages." Another quake rocked the area, followed by the sound of splintering wood.
Kainé rolled out of the way as one of the 'bots pylons lurched forward, her body screaming from the electricity frying her nerves. "Without them, without the Sealed Verses held within their pages, there's no way to reunite the Gestalts and the Replicants! No way to unite the souls to the bodies! And without the Self-Awareness Maintaining Gestalt's Maso, the remaining Gestalts are all doomed! Doomed to live out their remaining lives as mere shadows of their former selves, only to relapse and go berserk against the very bodies that would have granted them a renewed life! And it's your fault, you goddamned Replicant!"
Another quake transpired, and as she rolled to her feet Kaine finally saw the source of the quakes. It was another robot, this one twice the size of a man and humanoid in shape, its body the long and heavy metal of an overgrown robotic toy. It stared down at her with eyes that glowed like yellow stars, and a plume of exhaust emerged from a tailpipe near the back of its head.
She froze.
"I've fought that thing before." Her voice emerged a whisper. "In the Junk Heap, I fought that thing. That thing with the tiny Shade on its head. With Emil and Weiss and, and…" She almost had it, a form in her head, large and muscular but with a kind, if hard, baring. "With…" The form vanished before her mind's eye, and with a scream the woman's left arm swept out and back, the blunt of her blade smashing into a robot approaching behind her and crushing the lights and antenna on its head. It burped a cluster of smoke and fell still, unable to receive instruction with its destroyed receiver. "Who the hell is he?!" She screamed, and as the P-33 android stomped towards her, the cable-man laughed.
"Who? The person most important to you?" It taunted. "Are you saying you forgot the face of the Replicant that scarified its very existence for you?" The creature laughed again. It was a cruel sound that grated on the ears, one composed entirely of the grinding screeches of rubber against rubber. "I'll tell you what, if you can defeat these kids, I'll tell you why you are here, and that person you can't remember."
Something came flying towards her, and instinctively the woman dodged, springing back and baring her weapons at this latest threat to join the machines. Lilac eyes widened, and for a moment she stared at the creature approaching her in shock. "Is that…is that supposed to be me?" It was a robot, like but unlike the others. Its form was humanoid, yet its body was still the same grey steel that comprised all the other machines Kainé had torn through. Its bearing was feminine, with metal sheets soldered together in such a manner as to depict clothing against its lithe frame. It bore a face like her own, mechanical though it was, and stared at her with golden rings for eyes, walking towards her in an expressly sensual manner that reminded the warrior of her lessons with Grandma Kali. The weapons it bore were a mockery of her own; two rotating saw blades that had been welded onto its wrists.
"What the fuck?" Her mouth dropped open. "What the flying fuck?!" She almost dropped her weapons in her shock. "When did you-why the hell would you use me as a model, you glistering shitfaced garbage heaps?!" She screamed. "The hell did you do, eat an image of me and a bucket of bolts and shit this thing out?" Of all the people it could have chosen to imitate, why create a robot in her image? What made her so special that they thought making a robot based off her was a good idea? "Oh…." She shook her head, backing away from the bot, which dipped into a pose much like her own before she'd launch herself into an attack. "Oh…I hope you only gave this thing my looks, Rustbucket, because if you gave that thing my personality too…"
A conversation arose in her mind, one she'd overhead between Emil and (Him) someone else. "Kainé's so unstable, and Weiss can't stop arguing with people. I hope they can hold it together once I'm gone…" Unstable. That was how Emil had called it, and goddamned if he wasn't on the money, too. If this thing really was like her, unstable, then there was no telling what it might do. Which means he plans on not only killing you, but everything else in this forest, too. Emil's voice was so fresh in her mind that it was almost as if he'd never died. "Kainé, you need to defeat this thing before it goes out of control."
"Kainé."
"Kainé!"
She blinked and looked up, certain her ears were deceiving her. The woman's eyes boggled, and for the third time that day she found herself taken aback. A form dropped through the canopy, its body covered in an ancient, dirty cloak that might have once been a drape. It covered the body of an animated skeleton, one that came to hover mere inches off the ground as the creature turned its leering head towards her. "What are you doing, Kainé?" It demanded in a voice of a youthful boy. "Can't you see it's just trying to distract you? We have to beat it before it destroys the whole forest!"
"Emil?" The robot with her face launched itself at Kainé, and quickly she brought her blades up, parrying the horrid reflection's strike. "You're alive?" The last time she'd seen him, one of the twins from Yohna's village, Popola, had been trying to destroy them all with an alien magical spell. It'd created a black ball of darkness that seemed to consume everything it'd touched, and Emil had been the one to save them with his magic, casting a levitation spell that sent her small group floating to safety. Yet Popola had been vengeful. So vengeful. They'd accidently killed Devola, the other twin when the two redheads had tried to stop them from interfering with The Shadowlord's plans, and Devola had taken the blunt of most of their attack. Popola had been overcome with grief then, and had lashed out against Emil's magic even as the boy was guiding them all to safety. And then Emil…Emil had—
Emil had been consumed by the black hole.
The robot bore down on her with a strength comparable to when she'd been possessed by Tyrann, and her arms buckled. "How…the hell…are you alive?" She demanded, gritting her teeth as she broke contact, lashing out with a quick counter that was just as effectively blocked by her counterpart. The P-33 robot was growing closer now, and the ground trembled with its approach, further increasing her difficulties against the droid that bore her figure.
"I guess I'm stronger than I look." Emil confessed, and not two, but four arms shot out from beneath his shoddy cloak, the skeletal fingers tracing patterns in the air as the young mage prepared a spell. "But we can talk more about that later. First we need to stop this thing before it destroys everything!" Bright, violet-white magic shot from the mutated youth's hands, striking the P-33 hard enough to send it stumbling backwards. It fell, landing on top of two of the smaller box-machines that had surged around it. Explosions followed its fall, and slowly, its gears grinding nosily, it picked itself up once more. "At least these are just machines." The skeletal youth murmured. "I…I don't think I could fight another creature that bleeds again, and at least machines can't feel pain. Not…not like Devola and Popola…"
"Emil! Send some of that magic over my way!" Kainé's scream brought the creature's attention to the feminine warrior. "It's not that I don't enjoy beating myself up, but this bitch is a real pain in the ass! Are you planning on blasting her into a tin can anytime soon or what?!" With a roar the woman planted a high-heeled boot in the bot's chest, shoving off it with enough force to send her flying up and back and the automaton stumbling backwards. The woman landed a good fifteen feet away, and as the bot recovered she rushed it with a snarl. "Imma teach your sorry ass to make a mockery of me!" First the right, then the left blade came down upon the 'droid's head, only for the metal doppelganger to slip through her guard, moving at an angle so unnatural that the woman had no time to react to its next attack. The flat of its left sword came down on her head, sending Kainé sprawling to the ground with a pained yell, and Emil looked on in horror, a frightened scream emerging from a throat that didn't exist.
"No! Leave Kainé alone!" He screamed and lurched forward, releasing a plume of bright, violet magic that surged forth wildly, colliding hard and fast with the metal double. It threw the robot backwards, where it landed hard against the trunk of the Divine Tree. A hollow gong rang throughout the area upon the creature's impact, leaving an unnatural dent in the trunk's dark wood. The robot rose to its feet undamaged, and then its focus centered on the skeleton boy. In a manner that lent itself more to Shades than a human's movement, it darted towards the young mage, slinking through shadows and leaping through specks of daylight as though it too could be victimized by sunlight. However Emil paid it no mind. No, his attention was drawn elsewhere, and as the real Kainé tackled the robot to the ground with a roar, Emil's blank, white orbs remained centered on the dented trunk. The cabel-man had tensed when the robot had collided with it, and now the wire-creature hung further back, not so much away from the fight as safeguarding the tree by placing itself between the trunk and the battle. "That tree…"
"Emil, what the hell are you doing?!" Kainé snarled. "Now's not the time to get lost in thought! You said yourself this thing's going to destroy the whole forest if we don't destroy her! Get your head out of your ass and help me!"
"Oh gosh, I hope I'm right." The boy whispered, before proclaiming in a louder voice, "Ignore her Kainé! She's just a distraction! We need to attack that huge tree! It's got to be the thing powering it!
Kainé looked at the youth sharply, then glanced towards the tree. She smirked. "Got it!" With a cry the woman sent a roundhouse kick into her opponent's head. The metal creaked wildly where the warrior's foot met metal, yet even as the machine lurched forward to counter, Kainé was up and off, ducking under the twin blades of her opponent in favor of the Divine Tree's trunk. "You picked the wrong woman to fuck with, asshole!" She roared as the cable-man darted in front of her. A single vertical slash ended the creature's second body before it could launch even a single attack, and with a laugh that bordered on hysterical the woman leapt towards the trunk.
Before Kainé had met Emil, before she'd met a loud-mouth book of magic and been possessed by a Shade, Kainé had spent much of her life as, of all thing, a lumberjack. Her grandmother had seen the anger that so consumed her from the way the Aerie treated her, and so instead had decided to put that rage to some use, fashioning a pair of blades with serrated edges that could easily saw into wood and mow down branches and trunks. Though the elderly woman's back was bent with age, she'd showed Kainé how to lop of branches as thick as her arm with a single blow and how to fell tree trunks with the most minimal of effort. Those trees, left to thrive with humanity's ever decreasing population, could reach almost mythic sizes at times, and it were these trees that Kainé took her anger out on, sharping her skill with her weapons an her physical strength to the point where even these trees would fall to her strikes. The Divine Tree, whose trunk was comparable to those trees of old, proved to be no different. Her blades sawed easily into the trunk's bark, revealing it to be not wood but metal, as old and brittle and rusted as the robots of the Junk Heap, of the machines that sought to kill her even now in this clearing that was once a village, but had since become a battlefield.
Oil leaked from the wounds she inflicted, and as a woman who thrived on violence she smiled. "Emil!" She cried, darting away from the tree, "Send the magic to that black tar! We're going to light this fucker up like a torch!"
The mage nodded. "Got it!" His four arms rose at once, each hand forming strange patterns in the air as a spell wove itself into being. There came a discharge of violet magic, and as it rushed towards the Divine Tree Kainé ran forwards, ignoring her robotic counterpart and paying for it as something slashed into her back. Yet pain was something she'd grown accustomed to long ago, and though her back erupted in a red haze of fiery pain, she pressed onwards. The magic collided with the tree and it's oil-sap, and what followed next was an explosion of such intensity that it through the woman forward. Her ears rang with a high-pitched din, and a fresh spasm of pain tore into her back as she rolled to a stop on the ground. Emil was at her side in an instant, and the warrior was dimly aware of bony hands sliding under her arms and dragging her further from the Divine Tree. Spots clouded her vision, forcing the woman to squint as she looked first towards the Tree, which had become a Divine Wreckage of Hellfire, then to Emil, whose jaw moved with words she couldn't hear. The youth pointed with one of his newer hands, and Kainé attempted to follow it, her spine screaming at the motion of her head.
The world was collapsing. The trees, the robots, the ground, everything. The forest was beginning to melt, with forest canopies dripping like green rain and brown bark running down tree trunks like wax in the sun. The ground began to bubble and boil, revealing the cables and wires that comprised the whole of the Forest of Myth. Even the robots were falling victim, their metal bodies blistering and expanding with red-hot sores that quickly melted into puddles of lava, only to be drawn towards the center of the destroyed Divine Tree. Kainé watched with wide eyes as her robotic duplicate tried to escape, first on two legs growing hot and molten, then on arms and legs when its feet could no longer bare its weight. It stared at the warrior and mage with a look that almost mimicked fear, until even that melted, leaving nothing but a heated lump of slate in its wake. The forest was growing uncomfortably hot now, and the smell of oil and gas was near-overwhelming. We need to get out of here. If we don't, the fumes alone will kill us, if not the gathering heat. Yet she didn't move. Neither did Emil. Instead both of them remained as they were, one standing, the other sitting, entranced by the chaotic melding pot of plant and machine. It swirled and danced, writhed and roiled, until finally a face could be seen within the boiling mass.
"Using the power of magic to fuse machines, human and plants together, this is the truth behind this world!" It was the voice of the cable-man that arose from the face's lips. "Amazing! Amazing!" It rabbled, "To think that a Replicant like you could reach this level! Amazing!" The face vanished in the wake of power cables. They rose from the ground en mass, writhing like dying snakes. The pool of creation began to glow with a bright light, and grimacing Kainé forced herself to her feet.
"We need to stop that light!" She cried over the din in her ears. "Come on, let's go!" She didn't so much as see Emil nod as sense him at her back, a familiar presence that gave her warmth and inspired her to press onwards. A gentle glow befell her vision, and the woman smiled when one of the wild power lines bounced off a translucent shield three feet above her head. More cables bounced and danced over her head the closer she came to the light source, and ignoring them, she lashed out; slashing into the white light and feeling her blades meet an invisible wall. Gritting her teeth the woman growled, striking at the barrier once more and feeling them bounce once more off something she couldn't see. "This is pissing me off!" She screamed, striking again and again at the light source, each strike causing her bones to hum and her shoulders to burn. She'd long past the point of noticing her own injuries, however, and it showed with every weakened strike and every sluggish cut. "Come on!" She screamed at it. Her mind was growing hazy with white noise, and her sight was starting to gray around the edges. "Fucking break already, you piece of shit! Why won't you fucking—"
The world suddenly grew quiet.
She froze, staring through a vision that pulsed and throbbed to the pain in her back and shoulders and arms and sensing that she was not alone. Something had changed; somewhere a barrier had broken down, leaving her on the edge between the reality she knew and something…else. The woman squinted, peering into the mass of light and seeing something; a figure, a person, their stature large and muscular. Her heart began to pound with emotions she barely recognized: fear, excitement, and anticipation filled her head and coiled in her chest. It's him. She thought to herself. The person I keep dreaming of. That person who means so much to me.
"…..ine…. don't…."
Moisture trailed down her cheeks, and with shock Kainé' realized she'd started to cry. The last time she'd cried was when her grandmother had passed away.
"….go back….. do not…. come here…."
A sense of desperation filled her being as she reached for it, filled with the knowledge that this was her one and only chance to retrieve that person. Yet already it was slipping away, and she strained for it with both hands, her blades falling to lay discarded at her feet. Something gave in her shoulders, and a fresh fire of pain rushed through her arms and down her spine. The woman screamed. "This is pissing me off! This is my life! I decide how I'll live! I don't need anyone telling me what to do! It's my decision to die for you as your sword!" She was rambling and hysteric and didn't care. The only thing that mattered was the person before her, the person who was fading in a light that was dying, and goddamned if she was going to let that fucker get away from her again! "I'll get it back no matter what price I have to pay!" She howled.
"…don't….."
Someone, something pushed her forwards from behind. It wasn't much, but it provided her a little extra reach, a little extra leverage to allow her to move forward towards that dimming person. "Stop screwing around. How can you just disappear all by yourself! I am the one who will decide what the meaning of my life is! I get to do whatever I want with my own life!"
The woman took a deep breath, and with all her heart and soul reached out for the vanishing individual in the white.
"GET BACK HERE YOU MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD!"
The white light had dissipated by the time Kainé came to. Above her head rested a clear blue sky, absent of clouds and trees and wires. It was a blue so bright it hurt to look at, and grimacing the woman looked away, instead choosing to look around her at her new surroundings. The Forest of Myth, with its trees and cables and wires and decimated village, was gone. In its place was nothing but an empty field, barren of even the grass the so covered the Northern Plains. Yet it wasn't completely empty. The woman looked around her. She was lying in the stamen of a large, white flower. It looks like a Lunar Tear. She marveled. A Lunar Tear made of machines and vegetation. Dazed, she looked around some more, finding Emil slowly floating towards her, his eyes resting not so much on the warrior but at something resting at her side.
"Is that…?" He started, then trailed off as Kainé looked down.
A man was resting beside her. His head lay in her lap, and his breath holding the deep rhythm of sleep. He was a massive man, one whose muscular body spoke of a hard life of combat and toils, the lines in his face those of a worried and fretful father. Absentmindedly she nodded, hesitantly running her fingers through the man's hair, as though fearful he might vanish at her sudden touch. "I remember now." She muttered in a daze. "It's—it's him. But how…?" Grimacing the woman scrunched her eyes shut, thinking back to whatever had so pushed her towards the man now resting in her lap. She'd heard a voice in that moment. A voice she knew. "I'll leave this one to you, lingerie woman-"
"Weiss…" She murmured, and cast her gaze once more around the landscape. Yet the book was nowhere to be seen, and despite her dislike for the arrogant grimoire, her heart sank a bit.
Emil floated closer. "I can't believe it's him." He murmured. "He looks so much younger though…like he did when I still had my body, Kainé. I can't believe—I forgot about him." The skeleton looked up, his tone confused and alarmed. "I forgot about him! How could I forget about him though?! It's because of him that I even met you all! If not for him, I'd have never met you and Weiss, nor would I have had the chance to travel and meet so many people!" The youth's voice trembled with emotion, and Kainé bit her lip, not trusting her own voice to comfort him. "How could I…How could I forget someone who means so much to us, Kainé?"
The woman shook her head. Emil's words were a reflection of her own inner thoughts, cast into a tumulus storm at the man's appearance. "I—" She swallowed. "The Shade—Tyrann was possessing me." Fuck, how had she forgotten this? "He was with his daug—Yohna. I—I couldn't fight it. I told him to kill me. He'd killed the Shadowlord and I needed him to kill me before I hurt him or, or Yohna." She grit her teeth. "But he didn't. He didn't."
"Of course not." Emil's voice held a strange amount of pride to it. "Because that's not him." He said. "He could never kill us. We mean too much to him. We mean too much to—"
"Nier?"
The duo froze. The name that had been at the tip of their tongues had finally been thrown out into the open, but it had emerged from neither the Warrior Kainé nor the Mage Emil. They looked to the source, and there, on a single white pedal stood a woman, her hair long and overflowing behind her like a black cloak, her clothing strange and outlandish even by Façade's standards. She looked them over with sharp, intelligent brown eyes, observing first Emil, with his four arms and skeletal body, then Kainé in her grandmother's lingerie, stained red with her own blood. Finally they came to rest on the sleeping form of Nier, the kind-hearted mercenary who'd sold his blade purely for his dying daughter's sake and had slain a demon in the hopes of curing her strange illness.
She cast her gaze upon them all with growing recognition, and then horror.
"What hell have you three done?" Skuld whispered.
Comments of a Madwoman: This chapter is a direct retelling of 'Ending E' of Nier, what some might call the 'true ending' of the series based on the events that happened. As such, I've also stolen some direct pieces of a fan translation for Kainé's section of this chapter, adding my own flourish to ensure it made sense to anyone reading it.