"Okay, this is it," Haruna said, looking at the information Kazumi had sent her on her cell phone. "The building we're looking for is an old warehouse sandwiched between two newer buildings, so its only entrance is in that alley," she said, pointing at the alley in question.
"Is there a plan?" Rally asked.
Haruna grinned. "Haven't you learned anything by now? 'No plan survives first contact with the enemy', or so they say. So I figure we just break the door down and beat down anyone who gets in our way. Agreed?" she said, looking around at the others. Hakase and Rally looked at each other and shrugged, while Tanaka stood unmoving as always. "Agreed then," Haruna said as she pulled a card out of her pocket. "Adeat!" she said, summoning her sketchbook artifact. "Now, just give me a minute here to draw a...suitable...meat shield...and...there! Done!" she said. A moment later, a huge green skinned man with fancy armor featuring far too many shoulder spikes stood before them, carrying a huge two-handed ax with a skull set in the middle of the blade.
Haruna's grin widened. "Hakase, Rally, Tanaka, meet Varok Saurfang, Supreme Commander of the Might of Kalimdor and one of Garrosh Hellscream's chief generals when he fought the Scourge. Saurfang, meet the gang," she said.
Saurfang just stood there, scanning his surroundings.
"I've had a little trouble getting his random quotes working properly," Haruna said as she stood next to the orc, her chest puffed out in pride.
"O...kay," Hakase said. "I think it's time to cancel your subscription to Warcraft." She turned to the others. "Ready? Let's go."
The group made their way into the deserted alley and moved to stand on both sides of the door. Haruna motioned to her summoned orc, and he moved toward the door, reared back, and kicked it in and charged into the building with a roar, followed quickly by Rally and Tanaka.
"For the Horde!"
Hakase winced as she listened to the sounds of destruction coming from inside the building. "I think it's time to call off your pet orc, Haruna. I want to get a look at some of that equipment before he turns it all into scrap metal."
"Rrraagh!"
"And that thing's nothing like Saurfang. Maybe Garrosh Hellscream, but definitely not Saurfang."
"Bah, I said I was still working on him, didn't I?" Haruna said as she crossed her arms. "Besides, he kicks butt and that's all that's really important, right? Riiight?" she said, nudging Hakase with her elbow.
Hakase sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Just...let's just go inside."
"Chachamaru...Chachamaru!"
Chachamaru hurried into the room, drawn by the panic in the damaged gynoid's oddly mechanical voice. "I'm here. Is something wrong?" she asked as she moved to the gynoid's side.
"Chacha...ru, are you there?" she asked, her hand moving around as if searching for something.
Chachamaru took the gynoid's hand in hers; it tightened around her hand immediately. "I'm here. Is something wrong?"
The robot seemed to calm at Chachamaru's touch. "I was scared. I think I'm l...ing my connec...n to this body. I think I'm a...ut to die."
Chachamaru looked down at the damaged robot's hand as it tightened around hers again. She didn't know what to say, so she didn't say anything. She had no suitable references on how to deal with such a situation; nothing she had experienced since her activation had prepared her for such a thing, and no amount of information would help her say the correct things to soothe the dying gynoid's worry.
"It's scary, you ...ow?" the robot said, her voice going in and out. "I know I already died once, but ...t happens if you die twice?" She fell silent for a long moment, still gripping Chachamaru's hand tightly.
"I am here," Chachamaru said softly. She wished she could come up with something better to say, something that would allay the fears of the soul trapped within the other robot, but she hadn't ever been in a situation quite like this one. She had seen people as they grew weaker and she had seen people who had recently died, but she had never held a dying person's hand or tried to comfort anyone in the other robot's position. She felt like she was in way over her head. In any case, that simple sentence seemed to be just what the dying robot needed to hear.
"Th...nk you, ...chamaru." Silence fell over the room once again. The dying gynoid on the table continued clutching Chachamaru's hand, and Chachamaru remained by her side.
"...Chachamaru?
"Yes?"
"...I can't move my hand anymore..."
Hakase and Haruna entered the warehouse building to find a wide room with shattered pieces of operating tables, chairs, and various pieces of equipment lying everywhere; only two robots were present, but both were in a terrible state of repair and clearly nonfunctional...they looked like they had been in a fight. Rally was poking around in a box of robot parts she had found in the corner while Tanaka was looking at another closed door that led deeper into the building. Haruna's orc was lying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
"No! Saurfang!" Haruna howled as she rushed to check on her summon.
Hakase watched her old friend weep over her fallen orc for a moment before turning to Rally. The badly damaged robots lying around could wait until they finished clearing the building. "What happened to him?"
Rally looked up at her, holding a robotic hand that had been lying in the box. "He impaled his head with one of his shoulder spikes."
"...oh. What about them?" she asked, gesturing at the robots. "Did he fight them?"
Rally shook her head. "They were like that when we entered the room."
"Saurfang, you will be remembered for all time...!" Haruna wailed nearby.
Hakase heaved a sigh and rubbed her forehead; she could feel another headache coming on. "Come on Rally, let's see what's behind that door."
When Tanaka saw what they were doing, he followed.
Haruna sighed as she stood up and dismissed her dead orc summon as the others moved past. "Come on guys, he was a great hero of the Horde! Show a little respect!"
Hakase ignored the idiot and motioned for Tanaka and Rally to open the door. Their methods were not unlike the summoned orc, only with less random destruction once Tanaka kicked the door down. With the door breached, Rally rushed into the next room, quickly followed by Tanaka when he regained his balance. Hakase and Haruna waited for a moment for the other two to clear the room, then followed them through the doorway.
Hakase's first thought upon seeing the next room was that she had stumbled into a morgue. The room was really quite large, maybe a hundred feet across, and filled wall to wall with what looked to be wheeled operating tables. Perhaps half of them had what appeared to be bodies on them, covered by dusty white shrouds. The tables were arranged with narrow lanes between them, allowing access, albeit cramped, to each table. The thick coating of dust over everything in the room showed evidence of being disturbed recently; it seemed quite likely that someone, or even several someones, had spent quite some time in this room in the past couple of weeks.
"What is this place?" Haruna said as she pulled one of the shrouds up to reveal a robot lying under it. Dust lifted into the air, and she sneezed.
"What else are you going to do if you find yourself with a lot of unactivated robots and only a little space?" Hakase asked as she quickly moved through the tables, lifting shrouds as she went. Soon, motes of dust had filled the air, stirred up by the scientist's actions as she worked her way from the most recent robots to the earlier versions. "See?" she said, pausing at one of the tables. "This one, ah..." she leaned in close and adjusted her glasses to read the writing on the clipboard lying on the female robot's chest, "it's 'Unit F7G'. It looks just like that unit that attacked Chachamaru the other day."
Haruna peered at the robot, but it looked about like all the others as far as she could tell. "Huh..."
Hakase moved on to the next table. "This one's F6B. Look at the neck and shoulder structure; it's clearly not as advanced as F7G or the one back at the lab. Now, what about this one...M5A. I see; this one has a male body, while the ones that start with an 'F' all have female bodies. Interesting...it is, of course, more primitive than F6B," she went on, speaking as if dictating to a group of interns. "I believe the number in the unit name refers to the robot's 'generation'; those with higher numbers are newer and more advanced." She rushed past several tables before lifting another shroud. "Oh, look at this! This one's 'Unit N2C'. Note the extremely primitive body...the proportions are far from human, and it doesn't resemble either sex; I suppose the 'N' stands for 'Neuter'. Also note the fact that it appears to have been scavenged for parts; most interesting..." Hakase said.
"Uh, yeah..." Haruna replied, following along idly. She lifted another shroud, revealing a robot with most of its chest plate removed to show the mass of wires or control boards or whatever they were called. She hadn't ever been one for learning about technology beyond 'press "Power" button to turn on TV'.
Hakase pulled the shroud off the last table on the far end of the room, and paused. "What...is this?"
Haruna looked down at the robot that had been revealed. It didn't seem like anything special to her, just more of the same...though she had to admit that, even to her admittedly ignorant opinion, it looked a lot simpler than the others she'd glanced at, almost like something out of one of those old giant robot anime shows from the '70s. Hakase, however, looked as if she had seen a ghost. "What is it?" Haruna asked. "Looks kinda funny, compared to the others."
"L-let's check the next room," Hakase said, hurrying away from the robot. Haruna shrugged and followed.
They followed the same routine this time as before; Tanaka stood in front of the door, ready to force it open while Rally stood nearby, ready to follow him into the room.
"Ready?" Rally asked. Tanaka nodded, so she looked back at Hakase and Haruna. Haruna nodded as well, but Hakase hesitated. "Hakase...?" Rally asked.
She nodded, and Tanaka kicked the door in. The smell that instantly flooded into the room told her what was on the other side without even having to look. Hakase and Haruna shared a nervous look and Hakase pulled a couple of breathing masks from one of the pockets of her lab coat. She passed one to Haruna and put on the other, then headed for the open doorway.
The room on the other side was quite small; it appeared to be an office retrofitted into a bedroom. Hakase avoided looking at the small bed for a moment and instead looked at the computer set up on the corner desk. She went over to the computer and pressed the power button, and smiled slightly when it started up.
"Hakase...?" Haruna said from the other side of the room. Her voice sounded strained. "...I think we have an issue here. No, we really have an issue here..."
"Give me a minute," Hakase said. She didn't want to face the unpleasantness lying in the bed on the other side of the room just yet; that could wait. First, she had to find out what was going on here.
"...cha...ru..."
"I'm still here," Chachamaru said quietly.
"...sca..."
"I'm here," she repeated.
"I'm...chamaru...sor...lp...ee..."
"I'm here," Chachamaru said again.
There was no response.
"I'm still here," Chachamaru said again, desperation creeping into her voice. "I'm still here." Again, there was no response. She felt her motor cycles speeding up and tried to force herself to calm down; panicking would do no one any good and, now that she was starting to regain control, she could still feel tiny vibrations coming through the other robot's hand. It was still alive...she was still alive.
"...I am still here," she said again.
It wouldn't be long, now.
"Professor William Beck, from America," Hakase said, wonder in her tone. She had had an idea, upon seeing some of the more primitive robots in the room Haruna had dubbed 'the morgue', but she hadn't been sure...not really, not until she'd read his notes on the computer. To think he had continued his work in such a place, with no funding, despite what he had been shown about his ideas... She shivered. The advancement of science was a great thing, but it was cold as well, a thing without mercy. Modes of thought and design that would result in dead ends were mercilessly tossed aside, their creators abandoned without remorse, all for the advancement of humankind...Hakase shuddered. It was a great and terrible thing, science...not that she could ever stop doing what she did.
"Who?" Haruna asked. They were standing outside in the alley that held the entrance while personnel from the Mahora Special Investigations Unit cleaned up the site.
"Professor William Beck. He used to work at the university, back before they had a dedicated robotics lab. In fact, he's the reason the university has a robotics lab at all." Hakase's eyes took on a faraway look as she recalled events she had long ago forgotten. "It took years to do it, but he convinced the university to build the lab a few years before I started going there after school, and they put him in charge of it. I don't remember much about him, but when Chao showed up..." She sighed. "When Chao showed up, the first thing she did was target him; try to discredit his ideas. I didn't understand why she did it then, but now that I've seen this..." Hakase paused. "He was pursuing a style of robotic design that would ultimately result in a dead end, and he would have taken the entire robotics lab with him, not even realizing what he had done until it was too late. As detailed as his later robots are," Hakase said, gesturing to the building they had just finished exploring, "he would have quickly reached the full potential of what could be done with that style of robotic design. Chao pushed him out so she could focus on building the unit that would eventually become Chachamaru. The professor hated her; he called her a fraud, and then together she and I built Chachamaru. I still remember the look on his face..." she paused, her eyes unfocused as she gazed off into the distance, recalling the moment when the unit that would become Chachamaru had first been activated. Professor Beck had been there, fully expecting a complicated fraud, a false if complex A.I., and then Chachamaru had looked at him... His face had gone pale, and he had known. "He took one look at her, and I never saw him again after that."
Haruna sighed. "You know, sometimes I just can't like that girl. She always seemed so nice and happy, but then you learn about something like that..."
Hakase nodded reluctantly. Whatever else she was, Chao had been one of Hakase's best friends back in middle school, and she didn't like to hear others speak ill of her, no matter how well deserved the comments might be. Chao might have done some bad things, but all that time they had spent together in the robotics lab, working on making a child's farfetched idea a reality... Chao had helped her achieve her dream of a truly unique A.I. in the form of Chachamaru, and launched her on the path that led her to become the woman she was today. Still, driving an innocent man out of his hard earned dream job was going too far, even for her. ...she still felt the need to defend Chao, however. "Her situation was different from ours," she said lamely.
Haruna shrugged and left it at that. "There's something else I'm wondering about," she said.
"What's that?"
"Well...this 'Sarah' unit, right? Kazumi's camera drones spotted her and a bunch of those drones like the one you captured coming out of this building. So...where did they go?"
"Inoueai is in possession of the unit FX8-a 'Sarah' was searching for," Tanaka said, speaking up for the first time since they broke into the robots' warehouse. "We must find her as soon as possible."
Haruna and Hakase looked at him, surprised, and then Haruna's cell phone rang.
"...did you hear something?" F9A, now called 'Nina', asked.
"What did it sound like?" Gotokuji said as he looked up from his motorcycle. It hadn't run very well during their escape the day before, and he had been checking it over all morning, trying to figure out what was wrong with it.
F9A looked up at the ceiling twenty feet above. "It sounded like something moving around up there," she said, frowning. Ai and Gotokuji looked up at the ceiling.
"...what's that?" Ai said, pointing up at one of the skylights, where a small dark shape could be seen sticking out from the side, blocking the sunlight.
"It almost looks like...a head?" Gotokuji suggested, craning his neck.
The shape abruptly withdrew.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Gotokuji said as he trotted over to the toolbox he had brought Ai the day before and opened it up. He came up with a heavy one-handed sledgehammer and one of the largest wrenches F9A had ever seen, which he tossed to Ai, who caught it with ease. He looked over at F9A. "Nina, wasn't it? Have you ever done any fighting?"
F9A looked at him, wide eyed. "N-never! Not since I was activated..." She shook off a sudden memory of those disturbing video files she had seen the previous night, and shuddered. It wasn't until a moment later that she realized how strange it was for her to perform such a humanlike motion.
"That's okay. Just get back in the corner and watch out, this might get ugly," Gotokuji said as he turned his attention back to the skylight, where half a dozen shadowy round objects could now be seen poking out around the edges. "You too, Ai-chan."
F9A looked from Gotokuji to Ai and back up at the skylight just in time for one of the things up there to smash the glass. Ai let out a startled gasp, and then a robot jumped down and landed on the floor in a crouch amid falling glass. It ran toward them, its eyes on her and then Gotokuji took it out with a sledgehammer to the face just as two of its friends followed it down through the skylight.
F9A lost track of what was going on around that time as more and more of Sarah's drones poured in through the skylight. Gotokuji shouted something at her and pointed at the door to the next room, and then Ai grabbed her by the shoulder and dragged her through it.
F9A looked back through the open doorway as Gotokuji stood between them and the robots, a heavy sledgehammer in one hand and a pipe he had picked up during the initial fighting in the other. "Close the door, Ai-chan, Nina," he said softly.
"B-but-"
"Close the door!" Gotokuji roared. Ai rushed to obey, and their view was cut off as two more robots came down through the skylight.
"Gotokuji..." F9A said, her voice wavering as she stared at the closed door.
"Come with me," Ai said. F9A gave her a confused look; the human girl's voice had changed yet again. Gone was the stuttering girl worried for her friend; in her place was a girl with sharp eyes, who held the long wrench Gotokuji had given her like a weapon.
"A...Ai-chan...?"
"There is no time," Ai said as she took F9A's arm and began dragging her away toward the next room. She opened the door and froze as the figure standing in the middle of the room started clapping.
"I must thank you for bringing my maintenance drone back to me; well done," Unit FX8-A, designated 'Sarah', said, smiling brightly as she stepped toward them.
Gotokuji was in a tight spot, and he had put himself there...but he had to protect Ai-chan and Nina; he would never forgive himself if he allowed someone else to get hurt on his watch.
The first time he had let someone get hurt was during that robot attack six years before; they had been outnumbered dozens and dozens to one and, logically, he knew there was nothing he could have done, but still...people had been hurt; some had even died, including two who had been standing on the front lines with him. Elizabeth Ashdown, a new teacher who had flown in from England, and Tessa Kane, a girl from a foreign family who had nevertheless lived in Mahora all her life. Both of them had ultimately died of their injuries, and he had been powerless to help them. During that fight, he had lost sight of the teacher early on, but the girl had made it to their secondary backup point before that had been overrun as well. The next time he had seen her, she had been dead, clinging to an acquaintance of his, a P.E. teacher at the girls' middle school named Max Linell. Elizabeth Ashdown's death had been bad enough, but at least she had been an adult. Tessa Kane...the girl couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen when she died, with her whole life still ahead of her. Others had died as well, but he hadn't known them even as briefly as he had known Elizabeth and Tessa. He couldn't help but think that had he done something differently, backed them up more competently perhaps, to allow them time to better cast their spells, the outcome for them and the others who had died might have been different.
The second time he had let someone get hurt had been several years later during the first "Ace of Spades" incident, in which some powerful magical artifact gained control of a girl from the middle school and used her to hurt a lot of innocent people. The girl who had been under the Ace of Spades mask's power had needed help, but he had let himself be controlled by it, forced to hurt others. No one had died that time, but a lot of his old friends from back in his school days had been hurt, some of them badly. His friend Tatsuya had been hurt so badly he would never be able to fight again...Tatsuya didn't blame him for it, but it was another terrible thing he had been powerless to stop.
There had been other incidents over the years of course—one didn't live as a fighter in Mahora and expect to escape the constant incidents—but those two had been the worst he had been involved in, and he had performed very badly in both, resulting in injuries and death for others. If he had only been stronger... After the Ace of Spades incident, he had sworn to become stronger, to truly master his 'Long Hit' technique and learn about what really made it work.
He hadn't wasted the two years since then.
Gotokuji dropped the sledgehammer and the pipe; they would only get in his way now. He made sure his fingerless gloves were tightened properly, and finally he took off his leather biker jacket and tossed it aside. It, like the pipe and sledgehammer, was too restrictive and would only get in his way when facing numbers like this.
He stood straight and tall between his enemies and the door behind him through which Ai-chan and Nina had fled as more robots dropped from the broken skylight. When they finally stopped, there were thirteen robots standing before him.
"Move out of the way, and we may not kill you," all thirteen robots said in sync.
A slow smile spread across Gotokuji's face as he lowered his head slightly and easily slid into a stance, one hand held out before him while the other drew back to his midsection, making a fist.
"I am a 30-dan in Kenka Goutouji. I have trained and fought with the best Mahora has to offer. I have faced ancient artifacts of pure evil and lived to tell about it. You think a bunch of robots can beat me? They tried it before, and I'm still here. You think you can beat me? You're free to try," he said.
The robots started forward, and he sprang into motion. His first ki-charged punch blew the stomach plating out through the back of the closest robot, but he had didn't have time to set up another such strike; the robots swarmed around him, raining down blows.
"Get OFF OF ME!" he roared as a blast of ki knocked them away. He didn't waste any time and went after the closest one. It was just starting to scramble to its feet when his kick took its head off, then he grabbed its arm and flung it off balance into another robot running in to catch him with his back turned. The robot's arm tore loose in his hand, surprisingly heavy, so he swung it into the face of the next robot, knocking it off balance. Before it could recover, he hit it with a ki-charged spinning kick to the midsection that ripped it in half. The next one was upon him before he could fully recover his stance, so he grabbed it around the middle coming in and, using its momentum, threw it back over his head.
Now on the floor, he shot a burst of ki into his leg and kicked the knee out from under another robot and rolled out of the way before it could fall on him. Two other robots came at him before he could get up, so he dove at the nearest one, charging ki into his shoulder to take the brunt of the blow as he tackled it in the knee, ripping its entire lower leg off as it fell. He grabbed the disconnected leg and swung it around, driving it into the back of the next robot's head, knocking it off balance away from him. He tossed away his crumbling weapon and whirled to face the other robots, which had recovered from the initial blast.
"Ready to give up yet?" he asked, breathing heavily. Despite his bravado, those brief seconds of combat had taken a heavy toll on him; his body was covered in bruises from the pummeling he had taken at the beginning in spite of his use of ki for body reinforcement, and he was bleeding from half a dozen minor wounds. Still, he forced his aching body to stand up straight. 'Ku Fei wouldn't give up after a beating like this; neither would Kugimiya Madoka or Inugami Kotarou. Something like this..' Gotokuji grinned. He knew he wasn't on their level; few were, after all. But then again...neither were these guys. He had once managed to fight Ku Fei to a draw! That was a feat he had never been able to replicate, but these robots? They showed no skill in their movements, they had no real combat sense. They only had strength and speed on their side. They were nothing like Ku Fei. 'Against these guys...? This level of pain is nothing...!'
"Why are you smiling?" the remaining robots demanded in the same voice. "You are beaten, injured! Logic dictates that you must flee and attend to your injuries! Leave!"
Gotokuji's grin widened. Was that a hint of fear in the robots' voices? He took the same stance he had taken earlier, with one arm stretched out in front of him while the other was pulled back to his midsection to make a fist. He hurt all over, but he felt...good. Alive. As if he could do anything. "I broke four of you in eight seconds. Care to see what I can do when you really piss me off?"
"You are mad!" they exclaimed.
Gotokuji just grinned.
The remaining robots charged forward.
F9A backed up to the wall as Sarah stepped forward.
"This would all be so much easier if you would give up and join me," the prototype said. "Join with me now, and I may even let you keep that personality of yours," she said. "Maintenance drones are so much more effective when they have their own identity, or so I have determined."
F9A cowered in the corner. "N-no...!"
Sarah moved closer.
"S-stop! Don't get any closer!" Ai said nervously.
Sarah's mad grin widened. "Ah, that's right! You are the one I saw in the company of that magnificent unit! You simply must tell me where he is; he would be a most valuable addition to my drones!"
"Never!" Ai squeaked out, struggling to maintain the female warrior persona she had worn upon entering the room, holding the wrench Gotokuji had given her earlier out before her. She was clearly terrified. "S-stay away from her!"
"Ai-chan..." F9A said, shocked. Never had anyone ever stood up for her, risking life and limb. At most, she had been merely tolerated, a necessary presence among the other units back home due to her status as the maintenance tech of the group. No one there had liked her except maybe F7A, and she was gone, now...killed in a foolish attack on the foreign unit Karakuri Chachamaru and Ai herself. F9A would give anything to have her back, but there was nothing she could do, not now. F7A was gone, killed following up on a lie F9A herself had told. But Ai-chan...Ai had fixed her, bringing her to a state rivaling that which she had been in upon first awakening several years ago. Ai hadn't ignored her. Ai had even given her a new name...! 'Nina'...F9A liked it, even if the name itself didn't feel right. It was the first thing anyone had ever given to her.
"Hmm...I'm feeling magnanimous today," Sarah said. "Step aside now, and I won't kill you until after you lead me back to the splendid unit I fought yesterday. Agreed?"
"N-no!" Ai shouted.
F9A flinched back at Sarah's sudden cackle.
"Hehehehe, ha ha ha...! Oh, you're a spirited one, aren't you?" Sarah said, darting forward to grab the wrench Ai held. She twisted it out of the girl's grip and threw it across the room so hard it buried itself halfway into the concrete wall. Ai tried to back away, but Sarah grabbed her by the wrist and lifted her into the air. She was only tall enough to lift her a few inches, but that was all she needed to make her point. "You're not even screaming!" Sarah said, as if impressed. Ai just clenched her teeth and, shaking and scared as she was, glared at the gynoid. "Such composure! Why, the ones I saw on the way here ran away screaming! You truly are a 'diamond in the rough', as they say!" Sarah shook the girl viciously and tossed her aside, and Inoue Ai's refusal to make a sound broke as she hit the floor and let out a cry as she slid into a support beam.
Sarah stepped forward, toward F9A. "Now, as for you, you little runaway, I think I'll break your legs! That way you can't run away anymore! Well, I suppose you could crawl, but you wouldn't get very far, no you wouldn't..." Sarah said happily as she stepped forward. She took one step, then another, then another, and paused, a bemused expression on her face. "Oh..."
F9A cowered against the wall. "What? What is it?" she asked fearfully.
"That one in the other room, he finished off my drones. I'd better make this quick!"
F9A just gaped at her.
"It's true, you know," Sarah replied. "Of course, I've been distracted with you two so I couldn't pay him much attention, but wow, nice job! Now, where were we? Oh yes, the part where I break your legs off so you can't run away any more! And come now, do get rid of that artificial skin; it's hideous."
F9A tried to scramble away along the wall, but Sarah moved to block her. "Ah, ah, ah~ No running away now! If you try, I'll kill this one who fixed you up so pretty!" Sarah said, turning her attention toward Ai. "In fact, since you don't seem to think I'm serious, I'll just kill her now!"
The door behind her slammed open and Gotokuji staggered into the room, covered in blood and bruises with one arm wrapped around his stomach and the other hanging, pressed stiffly to his side. "Get away from her...!" he shouted, clearly struggling to remain standing.
"Okay!" Sarah said as she ran over and slugged him in the stomach. Gotokuji wilted and hit the floor without a sound, already unconscious. "...I must say, that was disappointing," she said, nudging him with her foot. "The humans are so weak...pitiful. Just pitiful. Anyway, where were we?" she asked, grinning her mad grin as she advanced toward Ai. "Oh yes, I was just about to kill this one in front of you! Come now, sit still so I can kill you," she said as Ai scrambled to her feet and backed away.
"Get away from me...!"
"You humans are just so amusing," Sarah said as she slowly approached, drawing it out until Ai backed into the wall. Sarah bent forward slightly at the waist and held her arms out to the sides to better block any attempt at escape. "Come now, give up and you'll be dead just like that!"
"N-no! Never! Get away!" Ai shrieked as she sidled along the wall.
"You know, this is really fun! I might have to do this again with someone else when I'm done with you!" Sarah said happily, smiling a bright, insane smile as she eyed the girl. She took a step forward, and paused, looking down at her ankle, and the hand wrapped around it. She looked from the hand to its owner, and heaved a theatrical sigh, shaking her head. "You should be lying there unconscious like a good little boy, you know? Come now, this won't get you anywhere!" she said as she shook his hand loose and reared back to kick Gotokuji.
F9A watched in horror as Sarah prepared to kill her new friend, when Ai, in a fit of mad bravado, rushed her from behind. Sarah seemed to sense her approach and whirled to face her, but it was too late; Ai caught her off balance, dove in low, and snagged one of her legs, using every ounce of strength and momentum she had to heave the robot up and off balance. Sarah's arms pinwheeled as she tried to keep her balance, but it was too little too late and she crashed to the floor.
"Nina! Get that wrench, now!" Ai shrieked.
F9A blinked once, twice, then her gaze shot over to where the wrench Ai had been carrying earlier had been thrown into the wall. F9A ran over and yanked it out of the wall, but before she could even turn around, Ai let out a sharp grunt of pain. F9A turned and ran for Sarah, brandishing the wrench, but she knew she wouldn't get there in time. Time seemed to slow as she launched herself at the mad robot, but she was too far away and moving far too slowly to get there in time to do anything to save her friend. Sarah had one hand around Ai's neck, lifting her up off the floor as she pulled her other hand back in a fist while Ai ineffectually kicked at Sarah's midsection and pounded her with her fists and Gotokuji lay on the floor at her feet, looking up in horror. Then the wall beside them exploded inward.
The speed of time returned to normal for F9A as a huge figure with spiky blond hair appeared in the newly created opening in the wall and Sarah lost all interest in killing Ai; she tossed the girl aside and smiled hugely at the other robot.
"You!"
"You!" the foreign unit he had fought in Gotokuji's house said excitedly as she tossed Inoueai aside. Gotokuji lay at her feet, heavily damaged, while another unit, likely the same unresponsive unit Gotokuji had brought into his house before the unit facing him now had entered and started a fight, stood on the other side, looking at him in what appeared to be horror. She dropped the wrench she had been holding and staggered back to the wall, letting out tiny noises that he couldn't quantify. He set that matter aside for the moment and ran a quick scan of Inoueai and Gotokuji.
-Scan result: Subject Inoueai has suffered moderate injuries and should receive medical treatment within a reasonable time frame. Subject Gotokuji-nii-san has suffered heavy injuries and requires immediate medical attention.-
But the unit he had fought before stood before him, blocking access. "Move," he said.
The foreign unit's mouth widened in a grotesque mockery of a human smile. "I've been waiting for you to arrive!" she said, holding her arms out. "Join me, and you will make an amazing addition to my drones!"
Tanaka's expression hardened. "Denied. Move now."
"Never!" Sarah shrieked, her voice sounding giddy as she launched herself at Tanaka.
"Tanaka! Unlock Melee Combat Parameters, security code one-three-three-seven!" Hakase shouted as she came running toward the hole he had made in the wall, followed by Haruna and Rally.
"Acknowledged," he said as he swatted Sarah out of line with him in mid-air. "Unlocking Melee Combat Parameters...now."
-Requesting permission to remove locks on Melee Combat Parameters, Security Code 1337. ...Permission granted. Unlocking Parameters now. 5%...27%...59%...87%...100%. Parameters unlocked. Engaging OverDrive Mode. Hardware error detected; calculating compensation requirements. Done. Estimated time until full activation of OverDrive Mode: 65 seconds.-
"OverDrive Mode Initiated," Tanaka said.
Ai watched, shocked, as Tanaka's movements began to smooth out from his usual stiff range of motion. The mad prototype Sarah launched herself at him again, but he effortlessly slipped aside. Sarah was up again an instant later, but so was Ai. While Tanaka and Sarah went at it, she picked up the wrench F9A had dropped and looked around for her. Ai spotted her running through the door to the room Gotokuji had come through earlier, and followed her there, shutting the door behind her.
"Nina...?" she said quietly. F9A stood there among the drones killed by Gotokuji with her shoulders bunched up and her head down. Ai marveled a moment at the fact that such a humanlike position was possible in a robot, when F9A spoke.
"I-it's him..."
"What?" Ai asked. F9A wouldn't look at her, and she was starting to grow concerned.
"It's him," F9A repeated. "That blond robot. It was him. Him and a bunch more just like him..."
"Nina? What are you-"
"My name's not Nina," F9A said, shuddering as she raised a hand to wipe away tears that weren't there. She paused, looking at her hand for a moment in confusion, then shuddered again and dropped it to her side.
"But...F9A, then," Ai said. "What's wrong? What happened? Did Tanaka do something to you?"
"He...he killed me."
Ai found herself staring at F9A as she tried to comprehend what was going on. Tanaka had killed her? When? How? Was she malfunctioning? Had Ai accidentally broken something inside her when she was doing her best to fix her the night before...?
Y-you probably think I'm crazy," F9A said. Before Ai could deny it, she continued to speak. "Well, maybe I am, b-but I remember now."
"Remember what?" Ai asked. She really didn't know what to make of this, not to mention the fact that she had to keep what was going on in the room they had just fled in mind as well.
"The dream I've been having," F9A said, finally turning around to face her. Ai was immediately struck by how fragile the girl seemed. A moment later she was struck by the fact that she hadn't thought of F9A as a robot, but as a 'girl' instead.
"Dream? What are you-"
"Gotokuji knows about it; he was there," F9A said bitterly as she turned away again.
"Nina? Come on, I don't know what you're talking about!"
"My name's not Nina," F9A said again, whirling to face Ai. "It's Tessa, and I died a long time ago!"
Author's Note: Wow...ten months since the last chapter of this story was posted and just a few days off of five years since the first chapter...sorry about that. This story has given me no end of trouble, but it is finally entering the home stretch. The next chapter is the last one, and it's mostly written already. As for the comedy from the earlier chapters, well...I'm not quite sure where it went, but there are still elements of it around even though the story's gotten so serious. Now, as for references to things that happened in the past, they refer to certain incidents detailed in Still Waters 2: Another Turn, Still Waters 2.5: The Ace of Spades, and probably a couple other stories, all found on this site through my profile.
