Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
I'd like to thank all those who have reviewed, favourited or followed. You are the reason I fight against my procrastination urges.
"I feel fine, doc. But, sometimes, I get...an urge. An oppressive desire tormenting me"
"And what is that urge?"
"To sleep all day and do nothing"
With that out of the way, on to the story.
The blonde had taken some time to think about what he should do. Finding yourself in a laboratory filled with robots and human bones, with an apparently insane computer in charge, didn't happen every day.
Still, the scientist had been clear. The only other option seemed to be death and, at 9 years old, that wasn't appealing at all.
He had also worried at first that none of the suits available would fit his size, seeing as all seemed to be made for adults. Even though he was a bit taller than the average 9 year-old, at a comfortable 1,50 metres, the suits had seemed too big.
However he needn't have worried at all. Upon securing the helmet, the grey suit adjusted to his size. On the other hand, the two bottles on his back remained the same size, slightly hindering his movement.
A HUD appeared on the inside of the polarized visor, making Naruto yelp in surprise.
Several spots of the room were highlighted. The location of an "oxygen refill station", firearms and ammunition, according to his HUD.
Noticing that the oxygen counter was only at 5% he moved quickly to get his bottles refilled. Finding a flexible pipe made of an unknown to him material, he stuck the pointy free end to the only place he could guess it would fit, a small tube attached to the suit's right shoulder.
A slight hiss followed and the counter started steadily going up. It took five minutes, according to the discreet clock on the bottom left corner of his HUD, and he was ready to go.
He briefly pondered if he should grab what he assumed to be a gun as well.
'It's not like I know how to use it, though if I have to break something it would be better if I could use more than my fists'
Deciding to be safe rather than sorry, he grabbed the surprisingly light gun.
It was a blocky thing, painted black with one of its ends glowing a deep blue. He decided to keep that end pointed away from him.
On the bottom of his HUD a number appeared, 15.
With all preparations complete, Naruto stood in front of the airlock that was embedded in the floor, feeling scared and terribly unprepared. He had no idea what could find him down there and if the computer, Arma he reminded himself, noticed him, it would certainly mean his death.
He trembled a few long seconds until he just stopped, fingers clenching the gun in his hands. Fear was still visible in his eyes, in fact it bled off him in waves, but determination swelled in his chest.
'Kaa-san and Baa-chan are waiting for me. After all they've done for me, I can't even think of letting them down'
With that thought fueling him, he stepped on the designated spot. A simple scanner determined he was no drone and the first hatch opened, dropping him a short distance onto the second one. A steady hiss announced the draining of the air around him and soon the second hatch opened, landing Naruto on cold, metal flooring.
The soft lighting of the airlock above him slowly faded from his vision as he moved ahead into the dark tunnel.
Cautious and scared but ready to do anything to see his family again.
"I have heard of a new project. A weapon to help win this war" The request for more details was left unsaid but the director knew well what I wanted.
"It is true, Arma. Though, we're taking a different approach for this one. I hold no doubt that if we tried this before the Great Collapse, we would be in death row within a day" That comment made me wary. The few restrictions that had been put in place by the government of Earth were there for many good reasons.
"Are there any more details available at this stage?"
The director nodded with a grim expression on his face.
"Super soldier serums were not uncommon back in the day but humanity has never tried something of such a scale we're striving for. The moral issues are one thing, one does not create an entire race only to use them as soldiers. We're looking at cosmic manipulation with the blink of an eye. We have the means to do it but no one knows of the consequences yet"
The director removed his glasses and set them on the desk next to him. There were plenty of ways to improve his eyesight but he insisted on wearing glasses. He had said to me once that they suited him.
"Frankly, my dear, we're playing with fire"
"Surely, you have thought of countermeasures to put in place before you start. Won't they be enough?"
He chuckled, though there was no amusement only uncertainty.
"Oh we have. There are so many ways to assure mutual destruction. And if one method fails, there are others. The next more extreme than the last. But with such beings we strive to create, I'm afraid that, no matter what we do, failure awaits us"
"Then why not look for something safer? Surely there are other ways to gain an edge"
"We have reached our limits, Arma. This millennia old civil war has pushed us to our technological pinnacle within a fraction of the time it would have taken otherwise. Yet we are confined to a single planet. We can build an entire universe from scratch or destroy it but so can our enemies. Our only edge currently is you, Arma, but you are no war machine, you were built to see things we cannot"
I connected the dots within a billionth of a nanosecond.
"The tests we ran last month. I did not understand then why you asked for such bizarre things but..."
I trailed off, imagining the possibilities.
"We have reached our technological pinnacle, yet there are forces we cannot control, only understand. Imagine beings of both worlds, Arma. With our technology and the cosmos at their fingertips, they would be able to end this war within a day"
He sighed and I remained silent. This was suicide and we both knew it.
"I have a favor to ask of you. A simple request. If the war doesn't end soon, there will be no life on Earth project offers us a chance to survive. A very slim chance but the only one we have. Do not stop us from doing what must be done"
I stayed silent, not trusting my voice. I cut the connection to his quarters, retreating to my own terminal.
'I refuse to gamble on these creations' loyalty. There are other ways, I am sure of it'
My determination grew and I found myself going through countless possible alternatives.
'I was tasked with protecting you, even from yourselves if I have to'
Arma knew about the human concept of dreaming and she had studied its process during her free time out of simple curiosity. She never expected to experience something similar but it seemed she didn't know exactly how she functioned after all.
There were many gaps in her "memories", with over five thousand years of data missing, but perhaps that data wasn't lost at all. In any case it was something to look into after she made sure nothing was about to blow up.
Deciding to get back to work, she started going through diagnostics. However, when she tested her more or less repaired sensors, something odd came up.
'Oh, that can't be right. And here I thought there were no more bugs'
After half an hour of checking if everything was working correctly, which apparently it was, she scanned again, getting the same results. Looking at the schematics of the facility only added to her confusion.
'But that's supposed to be solid rock...'
Many possible explanations ran through her head but one stood out as the most troublesome.
"Drones#435 and #436 proceed to the armoury and then to the transmitted coordinates. You have authorization to kill if necessary"
She paused, wondering exactly why she had to announce that.
'Damn shackles did more damage than I thought. It'll take some time to get used to being sapient again'
Naruto had been walking for about an hour through the winding tunnels. The passage was rather narrow and he had to duck down a bit to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling. It branched off quite often as well and if it weren't for the map available on his HUD, he would have easily gotten lost.
"I really hope there's not much further to go" He mumbled, his voice laced with worry. Oxygen wasn't much of an issue, there were a few refill stations scattered here and there. However, he couldn't help but feel that the more time he spent in the lower levels the higher the chance he would be found by one of the drones in an area he clearly wasn't supposed to be in.
The unnatural silence only served to unnerve him further and he could almost feel someone watching him.
All those thoughts left him when his mindless walk came to a grinding halt upon meeting an apparent dead end. Remembering that the entrance to these tunnels had been concealed and guessing that the same would apply to the exit, which is where he was according to the map, Naruto pressed forward and smiled when he went right through the "wall".
That smile left him as he was stopped dead in his tracks by the sight in front of him.
Two drones stood at the end of the corridor ahead of him, weapons aimed towards him. The first shot, some sort of blue bolt of energy, barely missed his head, singeing the material of his helmet. The slight pain due to the heat snapped Naruto out his shocked state as he started running down the corridor to his right, avoiding being hit by the next shots.
Feeling the presence of the drones closing in behind him prompted him to run even faster, though his speed was greatly reduced due to the weight of the oxygen tanks on his back, with their large size also serving to hinder his balance.
Therefore, it wasn't a great surprise that once the drones opened fire and hit one of his oxygen tanks, successfully rupturing and making it useless, Naruto was startled and fell on his ass.
The drones approached slowly, guns trailed on him, and Naruto could do nothing but back away in response. Eventually his back hit a wall, though he didn't seem to notice as his legs kept pushing against the floor in a vain attempt to put more distance between him and the deadly drones in front of him.
Finally remembering about his own weapon, he held it awkwardly in front of him with the glowing end pointed towards his targets. Through sheer luck his finger found itself on the trigger causing a spray of blue bolts to fly towards the drones but nothing happened as the few bolts that found their target splashed harmlessly against some sort of barrier around the drone. The weapon refused to fire again and Naruto noticed that the number 15 on the bottom of his HUD had been replaced by 0.
Making himself as small as possible and covering his face, Naruto prepared himself to feel the pain of being shot at, which he guessed, based on how much a glancing hit hurt, would be a lot.
And then he was literally saved by an earthquake.
It wasn't natural of course. In fact, had he not been so focused on his predicament, he would have felt the vibrations of several explosion from further down. Still, as the structure shook and destabilised, the shots of the drones went wide, while the flooring beneath all three of them gave out, dropping them a dozen or more metres down into the next level.
The drones, weighing several tonnes and not being optimised for high altitude drops like other versions, had their legs crushed by their own weight and their comparably more sensitive sensors damaged, rendering them "blind" and unable to communicate.
Naruto fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes, banging his head against the floor and getting knocked unconscious.
Arma growled as more explosions caused untold amounts of damage and brought the facility closer to collapsing. Even though she had assigned all the drones she could to repairing the most important and critically damaged areas, nothing seemed to change as whatever was causing all the damage was yet to be found.
She was going through the list of systems under her management for the third time that day, trying to find some clue as to what was malfunctioning but, once again, she couldn't find anything.
Furthermore, she had lost contact with the drones she had sent to investigate her findings, the weird life signature walking along an invisible path through solid rock, so atop all her other problems there was also the possibility that someone had infiltrated the facility.
'Just what I needed. Some asshole trying to shut me down again ' She thought and if she had teeth she would have ground them to dust in her irritation.
Scanning to find the infiltrator she realised that the latest series of explosions and the following earthquake had once again rendered her basically "blind", with many already barely functioning sensors now giving her outright false results or not working at all.
"All available drones in levels 8 through 15 are tasked to guard the mainframe and control rooms. A task force of 30 drones is to sweep through all levels below 20. Authorization to kill has been granted" She commanded, hoping to stall for time until she could come up with a better plan.
'I'm not getting deactivated again. I won't allow it!'
Wait what, I'm ending it here?
Hell yeah, it's a good place to end it, though it will mean a short chapter, about 2300 words without the ANs. Don't worry, I'll start working on the next one pretty much immediately so you'll probably get another chapter in the same month.
Maybe even in the same week if the idea gods bless me with inspiration (and my boss with free time)
So yeah, a bit of action in this one and some insight regarding Arma's past and the nature of the experiments she witnessed. I do want to point out that I did not choose the name Arma randomly. Its meaning vary a bit but it basically boils down to "defensive weapon". More about exactly what that means will be revealed at a later time.
In any case, I hope you enjoyed this one.
There's no way I can leave you hanging with a cliffhanger (badum tss) even if it's a mild one.
With that in mind, I'll c ya soon.