Blake shivered, wrapping her remaining real limb around her. The streets and alleys of Old Vale were always dark, full of lurking predators and dripping water. It had been weeks since she had awoken down here, and though Fixer had told her there was no way without knowing the right people, she had spent the entire time looking for a way out of here.
In that time she had had to fight off several attacks on her life. Luckily the charge gun was quite effective, even with the volt capacitor having been removed. She could fully regulate to any degree of shock she wanted. Still, even with the creeps, stalkers, and choppers, as they were called, Blake had to admit the place has a kind of….vibrancy to it. The people here had their own culture, unlike anything she had ever seen. They were loud, violent and chaotic, but she could see a sense of order in the chaos.
At first. she hadn't been able to figure it out. A person might walk by one person unharmed, but the next person would stab them in the arm, leading to a brawl that seemingly random people would join in on. Then she started noticing. Some of them had it on their clothing. Some had jewelry, some had it painted or tattooed on them. Insignias. Looking at the jacket Fixer had given her she saw one as well, a hexagon with an X in the center. There were other ones, more than she could name. Arriving back at Fixer's place after another fruitless attempt to find an exit along the border wall, she slipped through the door, noticing that Fixer's door and her own jacket had the same markings.
In the kitchen area, Fixer was heating some mash. Besides for the very very expensive black market sellers, the mash was really the only food they could get down here. It was some kind of tasteless white slop, Blake had been too afraid to ask, and Fixer wasn't offering to say either.
"Any luck there kitty?" Blake slammed her coat down on the stand just a bit harder than she meant. Besides her infuriating teasing about her search, the nickname reminded her of her brother. And also of…..Blake shook herself, going to sit at the small table, cluttered with junk, as usual, looked like an Atlesian android Fixer was 'repairing', it's valuable but noncritical, components stripped from it. She even saw that some of its platings had been added to her patchwork body. She tossed Blake a bowl of mash, her disregard for if she broke her things showing, still Blake easily caught it.
"You already know the answer to that. If I had any luck I wouldn't be here."
Fixer sat across from her, putting on a look of fake hurt. "You would just leave with no goodbye? After everything I've done?"
"Yes, I would." It may have seemed harsh, but Fixer only smiled, throwing back a can of cheap alcohol in one swig.
"Good. Down here, attachment is pointless." They were quiet for a moment, Fixer idly twirling a fusion cutter while her other hand hacked some systems, the android twitching occasionally as she cracked her way into every bit of its operating system. She noticed that Fixer had carved one of the sigils into the faceplate, a different one than her own, this one looking like a circle with a square of four dots inside it.
"What do all these symbols mean? I see them all over down here."
"What, the shadow markings? This is a chaotic place. The only semblance of order down here are the clans. There's oh...reckon seven or eight of them. You see the marks you know who is under whose protection. And who will leave a vibroblade between your ribs." she gestured to the marking on the Android "This here is part of a gift for the Dragons. Us, we are under the sign of Mr. X. They're the two biggest shadow bosses. If we can strike a deal with them, we be sittin pretty."
Blake looked out the window. Order from chaos. It was something she hadn't thought possible. But she supposed in some ways it happened all the time. But she had never thought it could happen without leaders. But the fact that a bunch of wild criminals had organized it, and that it worked in a messed up way, gave her some ideas. What if she was….no...that would never work.
"Is everyone a part of one of the clans?"
"Oh dear no. That one place I told you about, the shadows, that is where the clanless flee to. The place is too dark for any sort of clan to want to bother with sending people in after those poor bastards. No one knows what they do in there, or how they even know what they are doin."
The gears in Blake's mind started turning. A place to dark for humans to see. Somewhere they could easily hide. In her time here she hadn't seen nearly any Faunus, but now she had a good idea where they had gone. With her time from the White Fang, her knowledge from Fixer...she could easily get them to follow her. She could have her own clan. The Shadow Clan. She knew her people. They were stronger. Better equipped to live in a place like this. They could Rise up and eventually, burst free from here, and spread chaos on the world that had thrown them aside like useless garbage. She felt her gaze harden, as she looked up at the roof of this place. She would rise from shadows as many time as necessary to achieve her dreams. And now, she knew how she could do it.
Yang still couldn't believe her eyes. Her baby sister. Right in front of her. After Weiss had oh so carefully cut the control module or whatever it was from her sister's neck, she had replaced the plating and sealed the wound, spraying it with some anti-scarring spray, though she doubted her father would ever see it with how her hair was, it never hurt to be cautious. Although Yang had seen her countless times, it had only been poor quality images from security cameras or street cams. Actually being this close to her. It was something she had always dreamed.
But she hadn't realized how messed up she had been. She knew that they had said she was in a Grimm attack...but she had always thought the metal was armor...not her actual limbs...she reached out, brushing the hair out of her face, looking at the mechanical plating that was there, seeing the dull red glow from her eye.
She had found her sister. Not just found her, she had started taking her back. But….was she really still her sister?
She had wanted to talk to Weiss about what Ruby was like, but after finishing up on Ruby she had gone and collapsed on her bed, saying she hadn't gotten enough sleep recently with all the planning. Didn't help Yang's nerves to her that Weiss had been operating while exhausted, but it was over, so no point berating her on it.
Her sister. Ruby. Her sister. The thought continued to swirl in her mind, making her feel nervous, giddy, excited, and dreadful all at the same time. She remembered feeling this way before when she had heard she would be meeting her new sister for the first time. She had been almost four, Ruby having needed to remain in the hospital due to the poor circumstances of her birth. But when mom had walked through the door, with that smiling dark-haired baby in her arms Yang had felt like everything in the world would be just fine. She just hoped….
She was awake.
Yang had been so caught up in her thoughts that she hadn't realized Ruby's eyes were open, staring straight up, blank expression. "Ruby! You...you're awake!" No reaction. "Ruby…?"
Darkness. Her eyes were closed. She was asleep. No, she was...shut down, sleep had vanished a while ago. Suddenly it was like a switch had been flipped, she opened her eyes and...error. Security protocol offline. Rebooting system… Security program failed. Reset system without protocols? Hmmmm...yes..that would be..acceptable… Booting system, SXS OS 5.8.14, Welcome, Please select a Name. hmmm..a name...what was her name. Distantly she could hear a noise, and it caused a name to pop into her head. She thought it, and the name spelled itself out on the screen. Is this correct? Yes….yes this is correct, I can feel it. Accepted. Welcome, Ruby. Initializing power, initializing servomechanisms, calibrating audiovisual systems, connecting to CCT System, booting up memory drives. Would you like to activate and calibrate weapons systems? No...no I will do that later. Okay, Ruby, I will set a reminder to do that later. Now connecting you to the audio-visual network. Have a great day.
This is the last chapter of Part 1 of Cyber Rose! *opens the champaign* anyways, from here, the story will be taking a turn in direction, hopefully fulfilling those who want action and romance, and I will have to think of a new naming convention for the chapters. See you soon once Part 2 comes out!